July 10, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode, Mike and Angie open up about the heartbreaking and sudden loss of their beloved cat, Nova. With raw honesty, they share how this grief became a living, breathing application of the Drill Method™, offering listeners a deeply vulnerable example of emotional mastery in action. Through tears, stories, and soul-level truths, this episode explores how to process real loss, honor love, and release the pain that’s been waiting inside us all along.
Key Takeaways
- Grief Is Not the Enemy — It's a Portal
Allowing yourself to feel loss is how you release what’s been buried and move toward peace. - The Body Remembers Everything
Unprocessed emotions store in your nervous system until life gives you a chance to release them. - Emotional Mastery Isn’t Avoidance — It’s Intimacy
You don’t escape pain by ignoring it. You dissolve it by leaning all the way in. - The Drill Method™ Was Made for Moments Like This
Dropping in, feeling fully, and letting go is how grief becomes light again. - Love Leaves a Legacy
Grief is just love without a place to go… until we learn to transmute it back into presence and purpose.
Notable Quotes
- “Nova’s death didn’t create the grief we’re feeling. It just revealed it.”
- “You’re not creating it by getting into it… you’re exhuming it.”
- “Grief is like love that’s missing a piece.”
- “The emotion you’re feeling is the energy that’s been stored… waiting to be released.”
- “Fighting reality never wins — reality always wins. And resistance only causes suffering.”
Music Credit: "What's Left of Me" by Wes Hoffman & Friends
Call to Action
This episode isn’t just about saying goodbye to Nova — it’s about saying goodbye to the grief, fear, and pain we’ve all been holding onto.
If you're carrying emotional weight from past loss, trauma, or heartbreak…
The Drill Method™ gives you a way to feel it — and finally free it.
Start your process today with the Meditation Bundle at innerwealthglobal.com
And join us for the Choose Your Destiny Live Intensive on August 22–23.
We’ll go there together.
My Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikekitko
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mike_kitko
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mikekitko
Subscribe to my YouTube: / @mikekitko
Mike Kitko is an executive self-mastery coach, speaker and author. He found external success through powerful titles, incomes, and material possessions. He ultimately fell into depression, toxic abuse of alcohol, and the near collapse of his family before he began a journey of internal happiness and success.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Do you ever wake up feeling like there's something
missing in your life?
Do you ever feel the need toescape your business?
Are you running your life or isyour life running you?
I'm Mike Kitko, and I'll helpyou design and create a life so
authentic and aligned with whoyou really are that you'll get
excited just to wake up.
I'll help you create realwealth, success and freedom from
the inside out.
(00:24):
Welcome to the Inner WealthPodcast, where we learn and
choose to live inspired each andevery day.
This might be one of the statusepisodes that we're going to
have, and it's also hopefullygoing to be the most impactful,
(00:46):
and those two go hand in hand.
My wife is here.
There's Angie Kiko If you're onvideo, you can see her, and if
you're on audio, you just heardher say hi.
So we've been doing more andmore of these because, first of
all, we love doing these thingstogether.
Angie adds a fit ton of valueand people seem to enjoy them,
they like them, they seem toenjoy hearing somebody besides
(01:09):
me, and she just brings adifferent perspective.
And you know, I don't know.
I think we're a great partner,but I think, so that's biased
opinion this week.
Oh, you want to talk about whathappened?
Nope.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I don't want to start .
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I will start.
Nope, I will start.
So we have animals and we arewe're empty nesters.
Our daughters are at collegeand they basically, for all
intents and purposes, liveoutside the house they live.
One lives in Springfield,missouri, the other lives in
Kirksville, missouri, and ourolder daughter graduated college
(01:45):
this year.
She graduated what?
In April, she graduated in May.
She graduated in May.
And our younger daughterattends Truman State in
Kirksville, missouri.
So we are officially human,empty nesters and we have slash
had four animals and we'vealways been animal lovers, we've
(02:10):
always had pets and we'vealways loved them.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, calling them animals just seems like that's
such a disservice.
We have furry family members.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Fur babies, furry family members, whatever you
want to call them, but they'reour babies and they've always
been just such a big, big,valuable part of of our family
and and we kind of built a lifearound our, our fur pets and and
it's almost, it's almostdisgusting sometimes because we
talk like them and and we actlike them and we like talk to
(02:39):
each other through them.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
We talk as through them as them to each other.
Like, we'll make, we'll makesilly jokes I know I'm getting
hot already talking about thiswe'll make we'll be passive,
aggressive to each other throughthe animals.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
We have a silly little voice for the animals and
well, if you would have donethis, then this, and we'll get
passive, aggressive and then say, listen, like I didn't say, I
didn't say it like he did, shedid, like that was with me, that
was the animal and it's just afunny way to connect and, you
know, being empty nesters, we'retrying not to be bored and we
(03:14):
actually have some kind of apurpose and and have some fun in
the world.
But the point being is um,we've, we've had, we had two
dogs and two cats.
Our dogs are Wesson and Finley.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
They're Cavalier King Charles Spaniels Very regal.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
And we had two cats, and our older cat's name was
Nova.
Her actual name was Nova NeomaKitko.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Her government name was Super Nova Neoma Kitko.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, and our younger cat, and he wasn't't very much
younger than nova, but his nameis latte, latte alexander, and,
uh, he's not quite as regal.
He's.
He's very flumpy and he's fallin love but he's very flumpy and
nova was out.
Of all of them, nova was thehealthiest and our Cavalier King
(04:05):
Charles Spaniel dogs are bothin heart failure.
Latte has already had surgeryfor stones in his bladder
urinary tract and Nova hadalways gotten clean bills of
help.
We have insurance for our dogsand cats, so they get checkups
and all that good stuff, but wetake great care of them.
So they get checkups and allthat's good stuff, but we take
great care of them.
(04:25):
But on Sunday, sunday morning,I came down and Saturday night
we were playing.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Saturday night I had a whole hour and a half play
session with her.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I was watching a documentary on Netflix and Mike
was sitting out back and she andI had our routine at night,
their routine at night and theroutine in the morning kind of
looked very similar that angie,well, in the morning, would have
a cup of coffee and would haveher, her stick and her tail, and
nova would jump around and jump, walk through the walk through
the tunnel and and nova justknew when, instantially, when it
was, when it was playtime, andshe would look at angie and just
look directly and these two,nova and Nova and Angie, they
(05:06):
were like bonded, like nobody'sbusiness.
I've never seen a bond betweenan animal and a human that
powerful and it was like theywere the same person in
different forms.
But we went to bed andeverything was wonderful and I
woke up Sunday morning, july 6th.
I came downstairs like Inormally do, I grabbed my coffee
(05:29):
and walked out on the back deckand me and the boys me and my
boy dogs were out on the backdeck and that was around 5.30 am
and I usually feed the catsaround 7 am and it's not unusual
for me not to see the cats inthe morning, you know, until
it's feeding time.
But I walked in the kitchen tofeed them at 7 am and only Latte
(05:53):
was near the door and that wasvery unusual because they're
usually both by the door andthey're swirling.
But then I went and got the catbowls but Nova is a little
weirdo from time to time She'lljust do things differently.
So it wasn't like completelyatypical, just wasn't typical
Went and grabbed the cat bowlsout of the closet and that was
(06:15):
weird, that Nova wasn't comingthen and I went over to the
closet to fill up their bowlsand I filled up both of them and
I gave Latte his food and I wasstill looking around for Nova
and I saw her laying down by hercat tree where I normally feed
her.
So I started to walk towards thecat tree and as I got close I
got within three to five feet ofNova.
(06:35):
She tried to push up on herfront and I'm demonstrating on
video.
She tried to push up on herfront paws but she was
struggling and I reached down.
I immediately put the food downbecause I knew something was
wrong and I went to pick her upand when I picked her up she let
out a blood curdling scream andwhat I what I guess I realize
(06:57):
now is that you know she, shehad the and she was laying in
her feces and urine.
And we don't know how long.
We're figured she was there acouple hours.
But uh, when she saw me, theonly thing I can picture is that
when she.
The only thing I can imagine iswhen, when, when I walked over
to her and she started pickingherself up, it was like she had
a a new sense of hope andpossibility because her dad was
(07:20):
there.
Her dad was there Like finallysomebody.
She'd probably been layingthere by herself, scared and in
pain and alone for hours, andher dad was there and I went to
pick her up and she screamed themost blood curdling scream.
And I immediately went and Icould tell when I picked her up,
her back legs were just limp.
(07:41):
It's almost like they got runover by a car.
And I put my arm underneath ofher belly and she was still
screaming and meowing.
And that's when I reallysmelled and and I felt the feces
and the urine and and she wasstill peeing a little bit.
And that's when I yelled causeI could hear Angie starting to,
starting to walk around upstairs.
(08:02):
I yelled Angie, something'swrong with Nova.
And Angie came hauling assdownstairs.
I told her that her back legsweren't working well and I think
Angie knew immediately thatNova wasn't gonna be with us
very long yep, no, I I am.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I knew that I've I've volunteered at cat rescues and
shelters and stuff in the pastand I I knew, when her back legs
weren't working, that we weregoing to take her out of this
house and she wasn't coming backyeah, and so we we got in the
car and especially my smell thatshe had peed all over herself,
even pooped she.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So we got, got her in the car, took her to the vet
and, uh, got her as comfortablein the car as possible and,
angie I, I was holding her,because I didn't I already had
her firmly, like comfortable, inmy hand.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
I mean yeah, cause at that point, like I still had, I
was still holding out hope thatmaybe she broke something.
And if she broke something,that's different.
But I I knew because I'd seenthis before.
You know, I've seen paralyzedcats.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
And I thought, and Angie, angie kind of gave up.
Well, I don't know if shecompletely gave up hope, but on
the way she said, she said, mike, you don't, I don't think you
know what this means.
This means when a cat's backlegs aren't, aren't operative,
that's not good.
And I said, well, I'm holdingout hope until the vet tells me
that.
And so I was holding her and wegot there and angie was holding
nova's ears because we were inthe in a jeep with the roof off
(09:22):
and and she had her headsnuzzled in my arm and we're
just, it was about I don't knowa couple 20 minute drive to the
vet.
And we got there and theyimmediately took her back and
they told us it wasn't good,like immediately, so it's not
good.
I said, hey, she's alive.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And the woman and the nurse said well, if it's, if
we're back, so we're concernedthere's, we're concerned it's a
blood clot and that's not good.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
And that's not good.
And what they?
We got put in the room and we,the the vet came a few minutes
later and said hey, look it's.
She was in a heart failureduring the middle of the night.
Her heart failed and the areathat and this is kind of what
we've learned since the areathat pumps blood to her hind
parts it failed and the bloodwas a blood clot blocking, but
(10:14):
it was a blood clot blocking theflow to her back legs so that's
why her legs, her back legs,were basically paralyzed.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
They were dead yes, and the vet said that she
couldn't.
She said I've pinched her, shecan't.
She couldn't feel anything,which is yeah, which makes me
feel better that she could.
So the the crying was she wasscared, not in pain.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
And, uh, immediately, you know, I I guess I took
control and the vet said we cando, and I said nope, we're done.
Angie was, angie had alreadyset me up.
She, she kind of told me thatwhat it would be like to raise a
dog, a cat, that was paralyzedand whatever.
But the vet was like Irecommend, I highly recommend,
put her down.
So we did, and within an hourand a half of me finding Nova,
(10:58):
within an hour and a half wewere back home with our baby
girl.
We're home at 830.
And so let's talk a little bitabout Nova and why we're saying
this.
Nova was the uh, her faked cat.
Uh, she was beautiful, she wastender, she was kind, she was
(11:21):
loving, she was so sweet, shewas so soft.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
She was so well-behaved.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
She was so well-behaved.
She never got into anything.
She's not one of those catsthat climb the walls or climb
the tree, not like a grandkitten.
Never hurt anything from themoment we got her, when we we
went to the uh, we went to theshelter and we picked her out.
She's, she was just, she wasjust there and she just, you
(11:45):
know, she, she wasn't superaffectionate, she didn't
initiate.
She's a lot like Angie, whereshe doesn't initiate affection a
lot, but she received affectionwhen, when, when, you, uh, when
, when, you know you asked herfor it or invited it.
But but she was just theperfect cat and we thought we
were going to have her foranother 15 years and she was the
healthiest of all four of ouranimals.
(12:12):
And we feel an intense, intensesense of loss.
Right now.
There's part of our familythat's gone, that we went to bed
and woke up and our family wasdifferent.
There was a hole in our familyand we bond very deeply with our
animals.
So we're this week, and thatwas Sunday, and we're recording
this Wednesday and that's a daybefore it.
(12:34):
It it publishes tomorrow, it'llpublish tonight, actually
midnight tonight, so it's just afew hours, but it's been, it's
been a really tonight actuallymidnight tonight, so it's just a
few hours but it's been areally hard, tough, sad,
grief-filled, sometimes angryweek and we've cycled through a
(12:54):
lot of emotions and we sharedthis story.
I've shared it multiple timeson Facebook.
If you're not connected to meon Facebook, go connect to my
Facebook feed and you can do alot of work on my Facebook feed.
But I've also shared it, youknow, in our mastermind and in
our community call Everybody'sheard about Nova this week.
Everybody's heard about Nova,because she deserves that.
(13:14):
Yeah, yeah, we deserve.
We deserve to share our journeywith people and we share our
journey with people that we loveand and what we try to do.
We're not just trying to get I.
We don't want pity and sympathy.
That's not what we're lookingfor.
No, there's no pity andsympathy to be shared, but we do
want to talk about our processof grief and how we're kind of
(13:36):
working through it, and I thinkthat's the whole point of this.
Over the last few weeks, we'vebeen talking about over to hit.
Over the last few months, I'vebeen talking about the, the
emotional, uh, emotionalmanagement and how to uh, how to
cycle through emotions and howto be okay, and it's it's not a
coincidence or a mistake that,as I've gotten clearer and
(14:02):
clearer on sharing some sense ofhow to become internally
powerful and maintain some senseof of inner stability and of
inner balance in a world that'sthe circumstances are constantly
shifting and constantlychanging.
(14:23):
And, as I've talked aboutemotional mastery and not
needing things outside of you tobe, to look a certain way to be
okay, okay inside.
And last week I also shared thedrill method and what we talked
about on vacation when we werein in Cancun.
We talked about on vacation,when we were in Cancun.
We talked about our girls andtheir emotions were going up and
down, and we did a really nicejob of staying grounded and
(14:47):
staying centered.
And last week I shared the drillmethod which allows you to dive
into your emotions and feelthem and what to do with them.
It gives you something to dowith your emotions instead of
just run from them or escapethem or suppress them or repress
them.
It gives you something to doand action to take so that you
(15:11):
can become the master of youremotions, instead of allowing
your emotions to become themaster of you.
And not that this is easy, andnot that you don't feel emotion.
You feel it.
You feel it intensely becausethe people that are doing this
work are awake and aware.
And when you're spirituallyawake and aware, it doesn't mean
(15:33):
you don't experience pain.
It means the intensity of thatpain is probably increased
because you're not running fromit, you're running into it.
You're running into it, you'refeeling it and you're not doing
anything to make the feelings goaway.
You're just managing theemotion and allowing it to move
through you, right?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
So moving with it, not pushing it, not resisting it
.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, allowing the grief is going to come up and
maybe you can talk a little bitabout your process.
But you know the drill methodhad five parts and I shared this
in last week's episode.
The first step in the drillmethod and it's the acronym
drill, right?
The first step in the drillmethod is dropping into your
body.
Most people try to solve theirproblems in their head.
This isn't a mental exercise.
(16:16):
This is getting into your body.
It's somatic work.
Soma is the Greek word for body, so it's getting into your body
and feeling what's in your body.
The second is recognizingwhat's in there, whether it's
grief, anger, envy, jealousy,fear.
I said grief, whatever, shame,guilt, whatever this emotion is,
(16:39):
recognize what it is and allowit to amplify in your body.
Don't run from it.
Allow it to amplify the I isinquire within.
Why are you here?
What are you teaching me?
What are you telling me?
Allowing it, inviting it tospeak to you, and that's the
first L Let it speak to you, letit tell you, let it talk to you
, let it teach you.
(17:00):
When you inquire deeply intoyour emotion, when you're
feeling the power of youremotion and you inquire into it,
your subconscious mind and yourbody will start to give you the
answers and start to give youthe root of why these things are
there.
Maybe they're old experiences,or maybe it's unresolved grief
from past relationships, but ifyou inquire and let it speak to
(17:25):
you, it will.
I promise you that.
And the last L is to let it go,is to breathe into the emotion
and to exhale the emotion andallow it to flow through your
body.
Because that's all.
Emotion is Emotion is energy inmotion and the emotion that
(17:45):
you're feeling is the emotionthat's trapped in your body,
that's been stored.
It's kind of like I shared thislast week.
It's kind of like the orangeand the knife.
When you stick a knife into anorange and maybe you twirl it
around a little bit and you pullthe knife out, the orange juice
comes out of the orange.
The knife didn't create thejuice, the knife just revealed
(18:06):
it.
Nova's death did not create thegrief that we're feeling, it
just revealed the grief that'salready inside of us.
Now we can do a couple things.
We can push it back down anddeal with it the next time one
of our animals dies or maybeeven God forbid one of our
children die, or maybe eachother, and we can deal with even
higher levels of grief, or wecan deal with this grief right
(18:28):
now, allow it to move throughour body like it was always
intended to, and deal with lessgrief now, less grief tomorrow
and less grief in the future,because we're not releasing
emotion that was caused by thisevent.
We're releasing the emotionfrom prior events that we've
(18:49):
stored up and collected andwe've held on to it.
Now we get to release it.
So you want to talk a littlebit about your process and what
you've been doing and how you'vebeen experiencing the emotion.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
I mean you just walk through the whole process.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
You're sitting on the couch and you feel the emotion.
What do you do?
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I literally breathe into it.
I and I.
I feel all of my emotion in my,in my sacral, like that's just
where all my emotion is mystomach area Right around your
belly button.
Yeah, that's, that's where allof my emotion Well, a lot of it
releases there, and you justjust sitting with it and and
(19:26):
breathing into it and justbreathing it out, and each time
a little bit more escapes, andthen it comes back up and I do
it again.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
That's the.
That's the key is a little morecomes back when you all you're
doing is it's.
It's almost like peeling layersof an onion.
All right, just because youpeel a layer off doesn't mean
you're not going to find anotherlayer.
You're going to find anotherlayer and when that one pops up,
you're going to you're going topeel that one off too.
And if you do this every time,you can do this with any emotion
(19:53):
, any and all emotion, butyou've got to feel it.
You've got to drop into yourbody and you've got to feel it.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
You've got to recognize what's in there and
you've got to feel it andinquire into that and doing it
over and over again.
It's.
You know this happened Sundaymorning and it's Wednesday
afternoon right now and you knowI've only had a few breakdowns
today, whereas the first coupleof days I was just a mess all
day.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
And the memory.
Right now, the memory stilltriggered the emotion, which
shows you that there's moreemotion in there to be released
right.
But over time, with this work,what happens is you recall a
memory from Nova and you recallwhat one of the things, one of
the reasons that Angie and Novawere most bonded and I thought
this was absolutely precious isAngie loves.
(20:43):
We have a couple of plants upin the upstairs, in our entryway
, and when it was plant wateringtime or plant inspection time,
angie would say nose, hey, nova,come on, it's time to water the
plants.
And Nova would think, think,think, think, think and come up
and they would stand in front ofa plant and Angie, angie, would
(21:04):
water the plant and if therewas a, if there was a new leaf,
she'd say look, nose, it's a newleaf.
And, like Nova was so curious,she would like nose into the
plant and see what Angie wastalking about.
Or maybe there was a dying leafand Angie would talk to her
about the leaf and Nova wouldlook at the leaf with her and
then we'd say, okay, come on,come on, nose next plant.
And Nova would blink, blink,blink, blink.
(21:24):
And right now we think aboutthat and it creates a sense of
grief.
But over time, if we let go, aswe let go of the grief, instead
of thinking about the memoryand feeling the inner grief,
we'll think about the memory.
We'll get a smile on our face.
We'll also get an inner smiletoo, that that memory, the
(21:45):
emotion, will match a positivememory or will create more of a
positive memory instead of a,instead of a negative, and it's
just time, it's just allowingand understanding that it's part
of the process and, and I meanwe're all, gravity always wins
and everybody's gonna die.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Um, it's facts of life.
But I remember her uh, one ofthe things also that really made
our connection really cool wasI remember at one time she was
just staring at me and I saidshe wants cold water.
She loved cold water in herfountain and mike would be like
how do you know that?
And it's like she's telling meshe wants cold water and I would
(22:23):
go and I get her found and Iwent over, I filled up her her
cold, cold water fountain andsaid no one knows cold water,
and I would go and I get herfountain.
I went over, I filled up herher cold, cold water fountain
and said no, no, it's cold waterand blink, blink, blink, blink,
blink and start drinking.
I told you she wanted coldwater.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
And there were a bunch of these things and
Angie's like the animalwhisperer, right.
So Angie's got very intuitiveabilities with this to talk to
animals and and is it?
Is it woo, woo and weird?
Yeah, it is, but and and I usedto, I used to like I don't know
, I don't know, judge those andand make fun of them, but but
(22:56):
they're freaking real and overtime, as I've become more woo
woo and surrendered, I'm likeshe's always had intuitive
abilities to speak to animalsand and to feel what they're
trying to express andcommunicate with them through,
just through intuition, right.
But when we first got nova, shewas home and and we had her for
a few weeks, maybe a few months, and a year, we got her.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Was it a year and she got in?
Speaker 1 (23:20):
2019 and she had been here for a while and she she
was fine, she assimilated,started, I don't know, being a
little more lethargic and justkind of laying around a lot more
instead of being playful.
And Andy said Nova's bored.
Nova told me she's bored.
Nova told me she needs a friendand I I thought that was not
(23:43):
weird, but I was like is thattrue?
You just want another cat?
Oh, you just want another cat.
That was my first response.
But we went.
Angie was volunteering at a catshelter and this amazing cat
named Latte came in and Angieand Latte connected immediately
and Latte went through theadoption process, got moved
(24:06):
around a little bit, came backCOVID happened.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
We all thought we lost him because yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
And he came back to the shelter that Angie was in.
And as soon as he came back tothe shelter, she's like yep,
you're my cat, you're cominghome with me.
And when we brought Latte homewith Nova, both of them bonded
and right now Latte is the onegrieving.
He's kind of walking aroundupstairs looking for her and he
goes to her favorite corners andhe goes to where she used to
(24:34):
sit and he's looking for her.
You can see it, he's confused.
We're all a little confused.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Yeah, and our girls with them being away, this
happening while they were away.
It was even hard for them too,because this is the first pet
they've lost that they weren'there for.
But they said it was going totake three to four months for
Latte to assimilate.
It took three days.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah right, he was like oh and he, when we got cats
they'd never drink out of thecat's, or the cats would never
drink out of the dog's water.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
And that wasn't true and you know, it's just every,
every, there's myth, whatever,what's supposed to supposed to
be was broken with both of them.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
It was just, it was just an easy.
Now our, our, our cat lattechases everybody else around a
little bit for funsies, but andbut he's trying to play and he
wants to play with them, butthey, you know, he just goes
over max everybody.
But, uh, everybody's a littleconfused and everybody's a
little, you know, a little sad.
It's just sad, but to be honest, it's good to feel a little bit
(25:38):
of sadness.
I haven't felt sadness in awhile and, uh, I get to, I get
to dive into, I feel like I getto dive into the grief and and
grief is just like kind of lovethat's missing, a piece, some,
some sense of love that I havefor something or someone that's
missing.
But it's a missing piece thatthat I'm, I'm missing here.
(26:01):
So I get to drill into that andfind it and feel it and and
develop and bridge that gap, Iguess, and refine my love for
nova instead of my grief fornova.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
So yeah, and I think just not not having to to be
concerned with why did thishappen?
Why did this happen to me?
You know, okay, understand,that literally we're every
there's not a single personlistening to this right now.
That's not going to die, yep,or lose somebody.
Lose somebody, yeah, orsomething, or whatever, sure,
(26:32):
and and so many people get stuckin the why did my dad die?
Why did my cat die?
Why, why, why, why, why?
Instead of focus, because itwas going to happen, it was
regardless if it was july 6 2025or july 6 2035, it was going to
happen.
And taking away that piece ofwhy is I think that allows the
(26:55):
actual processing of theemotions to happen, versus
trying to control the why andhow, and it's the control piece,
right, so stepping back fromthe control and just dive
totally into the.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
I like to think that it was already encoded in the,
in the Nova's DNA, that on July6, 2025, she was going to perish
and her heart was set up to tostop working properly on that
day.
And there's and to me that'svery freeing and if there's a
belief that that feels free, I'mgoing to live up that belief.
(27:28):
It just feels it feels morefreeing, it feels more
empowering, and Angie and I werehaving a conversation where
Angie was talking aboutsomething to the effect of I
wish her heart would have, youknow, lasted a little longer or
something, something to thateffect, and I said the, the.
The perspective that I haveright now is Nova kind of knew
(27:49):
that she had six and a halfyears with us.
She was about seven years, alittle over seven years old,
when she died, but she knew shehad six and a half years with us
.
And when we brought her homeand she was in her house and she
was being bathed in love andhad toys everywhere, she's like,
oh my God, I can't believe myheart is going to be healthy
enough to experience this forsix and a half years, Like there
(28:12):
was so much love and so muchjoy in our house and so much
kindness towards our animals,and we don't have a small house.
We have a nice size house fromour perspective and there's lots
of places to explore.
And she was an exploring catman.
She would just exploreeverywhere and she always in
every room.
(28:32):
It's like she had her littlefavorite place.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
So she we'd find her in different places all over the
house and and uh, as we go fromroom to room, we're still
looking for Yep, and her lovefor us was so big that over 90%
of cats who suffered this typeof embolism die immediately,
(28:55):
like they don't even make it tothe vet.
But she laid there.
She knew that I couldn't handlethat, yeah.
So she laid there and let usshe's like I'm going to give my
mommy and daddy one more morebye and her sisters we were able
to get them on face 7, 15 inthe morning, 23 and 20 year
unusual.
They knew when I was facetimingthem at that time of day that
something was urgent and theyanswered.
So they got to see her one lasttime, so she got to hear and
(29:18):
see her sisters and then mom anddad.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
We'll get ready to get ready to wrap this up, and I
want to.
One of the first books that Iever read in this spiritual
journey that I've been on is abook by Byron Katie, and it's B?
Y R O N Katie, k A T I E, andByron Katie was a female author.
The book is called Loving whatIs, and it's about falling in
(29:50):
love with anything that happensin your life.
And when I I'm going to askthis from a Byron Katie
perspective, I know what yourbody is going to say, I guess,
should Nova have died?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Why.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Because she did.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Because she did.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
That's really hard to it's learning to say that,
learning to talk through that.
But my body's like, yeah, Idon't want my cats back.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Yeah but she should have died because she did.
There's literally nothing wecould have done to prevent it.
Her, her heart gave out and sheshould have died because she
did.
And that's reality.
And fighting with you, fightreality.
Reality wins every single timeand your resistance just causes
(30:36):
you suffering instead of changesthe outcome.
The resistance that Angie justfelt, saying that is what she
gets to drill into.
To let go of that resistance,because it's that resistance
that's fighting against reality,creating the suffering yeah and
that's what we can control.
When we can control what we cancontrol, which is what's
happening in our body, when weinfluence what we influence in
(30:57):
the world, that's when we're atour most powerful and when we
stop controlling what we onlyinfluence.
That's where.
That's where, yeah, and then weget to drill into any
resistance and let it go andbecome more and more free all
the time.
I think we'll wrap it up forhere.
I think you did a great job.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yeah, this, and I hated having to do an episode
like this, but I think it's.
It's cool to share our humanityand show that you know the work
applies to us too, when we dothe work and we don't just sit
here.
And you don't just sit here andyap about the work and not do
it.
That's right.
That's right.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Because this is real.
I cried on the mastermind, Iteared up on the mastermind.
I've cried a couple times thisweek.
Emotion's real.
You can pretend you don't haveit, but all you're doing is
fighting your humanity.
I will bring you to a close.
Great job, baby.
(31:53):
Great job.
I know it was hard for you.
I know it's been a hard weekfor you.
Right, nova's looking down andshe said she said to me the
other day.
She said I was sitting outsideand I was kind of diving into a
little bit of grief and she saidI'm right here, daddy, I'm
still here and I'm not in pain.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Well, and then today I went.
When I was saying bye to herthe other day I said you're
going to have to help mamathrough this from over there, so
make sure you show me sign.
But today I had to go and startour getting our cars registered
both of our vehicles,registrations this month.
That's down at the car shop andthere was this magazine.
(32:26):
Never before in my life have Iseen anything like that.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
I looked over and I said, oh, nova came to say hi so
so it's, there's a chevy,there's a vehicle called a chevy
nova oh yeah, I guess youshould and it, and it just
happens that angie took the carin to get uh, to get the
inspection or to get theemissions today, after she said
okay, nova, show me a sign.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yep and it says 1962 to 79.
Nova Chevy two parts, a big oldNova at the top of the catalog.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Things like that are not coincidences and they're not
mistakes.
They're on time and they're onpurpose.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Spirit lives on.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
And spirit is always trying to tell you it's got your
back and and everybody's okaybut still miss you nova
definitely still miss nova.
I just met all again.
Guys, thanks for sharing thiswith us.
Um, this is the first since Istarted this podcast.
This is the first catastrophicthing that's happened to our
(33:27):
family.
So it was good that we've hadups and downs, but it was good
to get on here and just jam from.
You know.
Hey, things aren't alwaysawesome, yeah, and the emotion's
intense.
Yep.
Thanks for sharing some time,thanks for sharing some space,
thanks for listening to ourjourney and story and it's just
(33:47):
a pleasure to serve you guys.
Hope the drill method, hope wetied it in in a way that really
helps you understand how we cantake pain and transmute it and
when there's darkness in yourbody and grief is darkness in
the body when there's darknessin the body, when we let it out,
it's replaced by light, andthat's how we change grief to
joy and love.
All right, until next time, no.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
And I was following us on socials.
Keep up with things that wehave going on.
Mike's got a new book comingout August 19th.
Inner World Outer World Kind ofstarts into this drill method
stuff, but doesn't go that heavyinto it, yeah, I finished up?
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, I finished up.
I finished inner world outerworld before the drill method
existed.
Right, and I was.
I was trying to figure out away to teach it and the drill
method was was born and uh,inner world, outer world talks
about shadow work and also talksabout, um, uh, release work and
some scars, and this emotionalpain is trapped inside, been
teaching this for a long timeand she didn't have an effective
(34:44):
way to teach it.
I'm excited that we have onenow.
All right, guys, love you,appreciate you, guys, and we'll
see you next week.
If you enjoyed what you heardand you want to learn more, go
(35:08):
to wwwinnerwealthglobalcom formore tools and resources.
You.
Do you ever wake up feeling like there's something
missing in your life?
Do you ever feel the need toescape your business?
Are you running your life or isyour life running you?
I'm Mike Kitko, and I'll helpyou design and create a life so
authentic and aligned with whoyou really are that you'll get
excited just to wake up.
I'll help you create realwealth, success and freedom from
the inside out.
(00:24):
Welcome to the Inner WealthPodcast, where we learn and
choose to live inspired each andevery day.
This might be one of the statusepisodes that we're going to
have, and it's also hopefullygoing to be the most impactful,
(00:46):
and those two go hand in hand.
My wife is here.
There's Angie Kiko If you're onvideo, you can see her, and if
you're on audio, you just heardher say hi.
So we've been doing more andmore of these because, first of
all, we love doing these thingstogether.
Angie adds a fit ton of valueand people seem to enjoy them,
they like them, they seem toenjoy hearing somebody besides
(01:09):
me, and she just brings adifferent perspective.
And you know, I don't know.
I think we're a great partner,but I think, so that's biased
opinion this week.
Oh, you want to talk about whathappened?
Nope.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I don't want to start .
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I will start.
Nope, I will start.
So we have animals and we arewe're empty nesters.
Our daughters are at collegeand they basically, for all
intents and purposes, liveoutside the house they live.
One lives in Springfield,missouri, the other lives in
Kirksville, missouri, and ourolder daughter graduated college
(01:45):
this year.
She graduated what?
In April, she graduated in May.
She graduated in May.
And our younger daughterattends Truman State in
Kirksville, missouri.
So we are officially human,empty nesters and we have slash
had four animals and we'vealways been animal lovers, we've
(02:10):
always had pets and we'vealways loved them.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, calling them animals just seems like that's
such a disservice.
We have furry family members.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Fur babies, furry family members, whatever you
want to call them, but they'reour babies and they've always
been just such a big, big,valuable part of of our family
and and we kind of built a lifearound our, our fur pets and and
it's almost, it's almostdisgusting sometimes because we
talk like them and and we actlike them and we like talk to
(02:39):
each other through them.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
We talk as through them as them to each other.
Like, we'll make, we'll makesilly jokes I know I'm getting
hot already talking about thiswe'll make we'll be passive,
aggressive to each other throughthe animals.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
We have a silly little voice for the animals and
well, if you would have donethis, then this, and we'll get
passive, aggressive and then say, listen, like I didn't say, I
didn't say it like he did, shedid, like that was with me, that
was the animal and it's just afunny way to connect and, you
know, being empty nesters, we'retrying not to be bored and we
(03:14):
actually have some kind of apurpose and and have some fun in
the world.
But the point being is um,we've, we've had, we had two
dogs and two cats.
Our dogs are Wesson and Finley.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
They're Cavalier King Charles Spaniels Very regal.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
And we had two cats, and our older cat's name was
Nova.
Her actual name was Nova NeomaKitko.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Her government name was Super Nova Neoma Kitko.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, and our younger cat, and he wasn't't very much
younger than nova, but his nameis latte, latte alexander, and,
uh, he's not quite as regal.
He's.
He's very flumpy and he's fallin love but he's very flumpy and
nova was out.
Of all of them, nova was thehealthiest and our Cavalier King
(04:05):
Charles Spaniel dogs are bothin heart failure.
Latte has already had surgeryfor stones in his bladder
urinary tract and Nova hadalways gotten clean bills of
help.
We have insurance for our dogsand cats, so they get checkups
and all that good stuff, but wetake great care of them.
So they get checkups and allthat's good stuff, but we take
great care of them.
(04:25):
But on Sunday, sunday morning,I came down and Saturday night
we were playing.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Saturday night I had a whole hour and a half play
session with her.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I was watching a documentary on Netflix and Mike
was sitting out back and she andI had our routine at night,
their routine at night and theroutine in the morning kind of
looked very similar that angie,well, in the morning, would have
a cup of coffee and would haveher, her stick and her tail, and
nova would jump around and jump, walk through the walk through
the tunnel and and nova justknew when, instantially, when it
was, when it was playtime, andshe would look at angie and just
look directly and these two,nova and Nova and Angie, they
(05:06):
were like bonded, like nobody'sbusiness.
I've never seen a bond betweenan animal and a human that
powerful and it was like theywere the same person in
different forms.
But we went to bed andeverything was wonderful and I
woke up Sunday morning, july 6th.
I came downstairs like Inormally do, I grabbed my coffee
(05:29):
and walked out on the back deckand me and the boys me and my
boy dogs were out on the backdeck and that was around 5.30 am
and I usually feed the catsaround 7 am and it's not unusual
for me not to see the cats inthe morning, you know, until
it's feeding time.
But I walked in the kitchen tofeed them at 7 am and only Latte
(05:53):
was near the door and that wasvery unusual because they're
usually both by the door andthey're swirling.
But then I went and got the catbowls but Nova is a little
weirdo from time to time She'lljust do things differently.
So it wasn't like completelyatypical, just wasn't typical
Went and grabbed the cat bowlsout of the closet and that was
(06:15):
weird, that Nova wasn't comingthen and I went over to the
closet to fill up their bowlsand I filled up both of them and
I gave Latte his food and I wasstill looking around for Nova
and I saw her laying down by hercat tree where I normally feed
her.
So I started to walk towards thecat tree and as I got close I
got within three to five feet ofNova.
(06:35):
She tried to push up on herfront and I'm demonstrating on
video.
She tried to push up on herfront paws but she was
struggling and I reached down.
I immediately put the food downbecause I knew something was
wrong and I went to pick her upand when I picked her up she let
out a blood curdling scream andwhat I what I guess I realize
(06:57):
now is that you know she, shehad the and she was laying in
her feces and urine.
And we don't know how long.
We're figured she was there acouple hours.
But uh, when she saw me, theonly thing I can picture is that
when she.
The only thing I can imagine iswhen, when, when I walked over
to her and she started pickingherself up, it was like she had
a a new sense of hope andpossibility because her dad was
(07:20):
there.
Her dad was there Like finallysomebody.
She'd probably been layingthere by herself, scared and in
pain and alone for hours, andher dad was there and I went to
pick her up and she screamed themost blood curdling scream.
And I immediately went and Icould tell when I picked her up,
her back legs were just limp.
(07:41):
It's almost like they got runover by a car.
And I put my arm underneath ofher belly and she was still
screaming and meowing.
And that's when I reallysmelled and and I felt the feces
and the urine and and she wasstill peeing a little bit.
And that's when I yelled causeI could hear Angie starting to,
starting to walk around upstairs.
(08:02):
I yelled Angie, something'swrong with Nova.
And Angie came hauling assdownstairs.
I told her that her back legsweren't working well and I think
Angie knew immediately thatNova wasn't gonna be with us
very long yep, no, I I am.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
I knew that I've I've volunteered at cat rescues and
shelters and stuff in the pastand I I knew, when her back legs
weren't working, that we weregoing to take her out of this
house and she wasn't coming backyeah, and so we we got in the
car and especially my smell thatshe had peed all over herself,
even pooped she.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So we got, got her in the car, took her to the vet
and, uh, got her as comfortablein the car as possible and,
angie I, I was holding her,because I didn't I already had
her firmly, like comfortable, inmy hand.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
I mean yeah, cause at that point, like I still had, I
was still holding out hope thatmaybe she broke something.
And if she broke something,that's different.
But I I knew because I'd seenthis before.
You know, I've seen paralyzedcats.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
And I thought, and Angie, angie kind of gave up.
Well, I don't know if shecompletely gave up hope, but on
the way she said, she said, mike, you don't, I don't think you
know what this means.
This means when a cat's backlegs aren't, aren't operative,
that's not good.
And I said, well, I'm holdingout hope until the vet tells me
that.
And so I was holding her and wegot there and angie was holding
nova's ears because we were inthe in a jeep with the roof off
(09:22):
and and she had her headsnuzzled in my arm and we're
just, it was about I don't knowa couple 20 minute drive to the
vet.
And we got there and theyimmediately took her back and
they told us it wasn't good,like immediately, so it's not
good.
I said, hey, she's alive.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And the woman and the nurse said well, if it's, if
we're back, so we're concernedthere's, we're concerned it's a
blood clot and that's not good.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
And that's not good.
And what they?
We got put in the room and we,the the vet came a few minutes
later and said hey, look it's.
She was in a heart failureduring the middle of the night.
Her heart failed and the areathat and this is kind of what
we've learned since the areathat pumps blood to her hind
parts it failed and the bloodwas a blood clot blocking, but
(10:14):
it was a blood clot blocking theflow to her back legs so that's
why her legs, her back legs,were basically paralyzed.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
They were dead yes, and the vet said that she
couldn't.
She said I've pinched her, shecan't.
She couldn't feel anything,which is yeah, which makes me
feel better that she could.
So the the crying was she wasscared, not in pain.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
And, uh, immediately, you know, I I guess I took
control and the vet said we cando, and I said nope, we're done.
Angie was, angie had alreadyset me up.
She, she kind of told me thatwhat it would be like to raise a
dog, a cat, that was paralyzedand whatever.
But the vet was like Irecommend, I highly recommend,
put her down.
So we did, and within an hourand a half of me finding Nova,
(10:58):
within an hour and a half wewere back home with our baby
girl.
We're home at 830.
And so let's talk a little bitabout Nova and why we're saying
this.
Nova was the uh, her faked cat.
Uh, she was beautiful, she wastender, she was kind, she was
(11:21):
loving, she was so sweet, shewas so soft.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
She was so well-behaved.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
She was so well-behaved.
She never got into anything.
She's not one of those catsthat climb the walls or climb
the tree, not like a grandkitten.
Never hurt anything from themoment we got her, when we we
went to the uh, we went to theshelter and we picked her out.
She's, she was just, she wasjust there and she just, you
(11:45):
know, she, she wasn't superaffectionate, she didn't
initiate.
She's a lot like Angie, whereshe doesn't initiate affection a
lot, but she received affectionwhen, when, when, you, uh, when
, when, you know you asked herfor it or invited it.
But but she was just theperfect cat and we thought we
were going to have her foranother 15 years and she was the
healthiest of all four of ouranimals.
(12:12):
And we feel an intense, intensesense of loss.
Right now.
There's part of our familythat's gone, that we went to bed
and woke up and our family wasdifferent.
There was a hole in our familyand we bond very deeply with our
animals.
So we're this week, and thatwas Sunday, and we're recording
this Wednesday and that's a daybefore it.
(12:34):
It it publishes tomorrow, it'llpublish tonight, actually
midnight tonight, so it's just afew hours, but it's been, it's
been a really tonight actuallymidnight tonight, so it's just a
few hours but it's been areally hard, tough, sad,
grief-filled, sometimes angryweek and we've cycled through a
(12:54):
lot of emotions and we sharedthis story.
I've shared it multiple timeson Facebook.
If you're not connected to meon Facebook, go connect to my
Facebook feed and you can do alot of work on my Facebook feed.
But I've also shared it, youknow, in our mastermind and in
our community call Everybody'sheard about Nova this week.
Everybody's heard about Nova,because she deserves that.
(13:14):
Yeah, yeah, we deserve.
We deserve to share our journeywith people and we share our
journey with people that we loveand and what we try to do.
We're not just trying to get I.
We don't want pity and sympathy.
That's not what we're lookingfor.
No, there's no pity andsympathy to be shared, but we do
want to talk about our processof grief and how we're kind of
(13:36):
working through it, and I thinkthat's the whole point of this.
Over the last few weeks, we'vebeen talking about over to hit.
Over the last few months, I'vebeen talking about the, the
emotional, uh, emotionalmanagement and how to uh, how to
cycle through emotions and howto be okay, and it's it's not a
coincidence or a mistake that,as I've gotten clearer and
(14:02):
clearer on sharing some sense ofhow to become internally
powerful and maintain some senseof of inner stability and of
inner balance in a world that'sthe circumstances are constantly
shifting and constantlychanging.
(14:23):
And, as I've talked aboutemotional mastery and not
needing things outside of you tobe, to look a certain way to be
okay, okay inside.
And last week I also shared thedrill method and what we talked
about on vacation when we werein in Cancun.
We talked about on vacation,when we were in Cancun.
We talked about our girls andtheir emotions were going up and
down, and we did a really nicejob of staying grounded and
(14:47):
staying centered.
And last week I shared the drillmethod which allows you to dive
into your emotions and feelthem and what to do with them.
It gives you something to dowith your emotions instead of
just run from them or escapethem or suppress them or repress
them.
It gives you something to doand action to take so that you
(15:11):
can become the master of youremotions, instead of allowing
your emotions to become themaster of you.
And not that this is easy, andnot that you don't feel emotion.
You feel it.
You feel it intensely becausethe people that are doing this
work are awake and aware.
And when you're spirituallyawake and aware, it doesn't mean
(15:33):
you don't experience pain.
It means the intensity of thatpain is probably increased
because you're not running fromit, you're running into it.
You're running into it, you'refeeling it and you're not doing
anything to make the feelings goaway.
You're just managing theemotion and allowing it to move
through you, right?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
So moving with it, not pushing it, not resisting it
.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, allowing the grief is going to come up and
maybe you can talk a little bitabout your process.
But you know the drill methodhad five parts and I shared this
in last week's episode.
The first step in the drillmethod and it's the acronym
drill, right?
The first step in the drillmethod is dropping into your
body.
Most people try to solve theirproblems in their head.
This isn't a mental exercise.
(16:16):
This is getting into your body.
It's somatic work.
Soma is the Greek word for body, so it's getting into your body
and feeling what's in your body.
The second is recognizingwhat's in there, whether it's
grief, anger, envy, jealousy,fear.
I said grief, whatever, shame,guilt, whatever this emotion is,
(16:39):
recognize what it is and allowit to amplify in your body.
Don't run from it.
Allow it to amplify the I isinquire within.
Why are you here?
What are you teaching me?
What are you telling me?
Allowing it, inviting it tospeak to you, and that's the
first L Let it speak to you, letit tell you, let it talk to you
, let it teach you.
(17:00):
When you inquire deeply intoyour emotion, when you're
feeling the power of youremotion and you inquire into it,
your subconscious mind and yourbody will start to give you the
answers and start to give youthe root of why these things are
there.
Maybe they're old experiences,or maybe it's unresolved grief
from past relationships, but ifyou inquire and let it speak to
(17:25):
you, it will.
I promise you that.
And the last L is to let it go,is to breathe into the emotion
and to exhale the emotion andallow it to flow through your
body.
Because that's all.
Emotion is Emotion is energy inmotion and the emotion that
(17:45):
you're feeling is the emotionthat's trapped in your body,
that's been stored.
It's kind of like I shared thislast week.
It's kind of like the orangeand the knife.
When you stick a knife into anorange and maybe you twirl it
around a little bit and you pullthe knife out, the orange juice
comes out of the orange.
The knife didn't create thejuice, the knife just revealed
(18:06):
it.
Nova's death did not create thegrief that we're feeling, it
just revealed the grief that'salready inside of us.
Now we can do a couple things.
We can push it back down anddeal with it the next time one
of our animals dies or maybeeven God forbid one of our
children die, or maybe eachother, and we can deal with even
higher levels of grief, or wecan deal with this grief right
(18:28):
now, allow it to move throughour body like it was always
intended to, and deal with lessgrief now, less grief tomorrow
and less grief in the future,because we're not releasing
emotion that was caused by thisevent.
We're releasing the emotionfrom prior events that we've
(18:49):
stored up and collected andwe've held on to it.
Now we get to release it.
So you want to talk a littlebit about your process and what
you've been doing and how you'vebeen experiencing the emotion.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
I mean you just walk through the whole process.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
You're sitting on the couch and you feel the emotion.
What do you do?
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I literally breathe into it.
I and I.
I feel all of my emotion in my,in my sacral, like that's just
where all my emotion is mystomach area Right around your
belly button.
Yeah, that's, that's where allof my emotion Well, a lot of it
releases there, and you justjust sitting with it and and
(19:26):
breathing into it and justbreathing it out, and each time
a little bit more escapes, andthen it comes back up and I do
it again.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
That's the.
That's the key is a little morecomes back when you all you're
doing is it's.
It's almost like peeling layersof an onion.
All right, just because youpeel a layer off doesn't mean
you're not going to find anotherlayer.
You're going to find anotherlayer and when that one pops up,
you're going to you're going topeel that one off too.
And if you do this every time,you can do this with any emotion
(19:53):
, any and all emotion, butyou've got to feel it.
You've got to drop into yourbody and you've got to feel it.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
You've got to recognize what's in there and
you've got to feel it andinquire into that and doing it
over and over again.
It's.
You know this happened Sundaymorning and it's Wednesday
afternoon right now and you knowI've only had a few breakdowns
today, whereas the first coupleof days I was just a mess all
day.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
And the memory.
Right now, the memory stilltriggered the emotion, which
shows you that there's moreemotion in there to be released
right.
But over time, with this work,what happens is you recall a
memory from Nova and you recallwhat one of the things, one of
the reasons that Angie and Novawere most bonded and I thought
this was absolutely precious isAngie loves.
(20:43):
We have a couple of plants upin the upstairs, in our entryway
, and when it was plant wateringtime or plant inspection time,
angie would say nose, hey, nova,come on, it's time to water the
plants.
And Nova would think, think,think, think, think and come up
and they would stand in front ofa plant and Angie, angie, would
(21:04):
water the plant and if therewas a, if there was a new leaf,
she'd say look, nose, it's a newleaf.
And, like Nova was so curious,she would like nose into the
plant and see what Angie wastalking about.
Or maybe there was a dying leafand Angie would talk to her
about the leaf and Nova wouldlook at the leaf with her and
then we'd say, okay, come on,come on, nose next plant.
And Nova would blink, blink,blink, blink.
(21:24):
And right now we think aboutthat and it creates a sense of
grief.
But over time, if we let go, aswe let go of the grief, instead
of thinking about the memoryand feeling the inner grief,
we'll think about the memory.
We'll get a smile on our face.
We'll also get an inner smiletoo, that that memory, the
(21:45):
emotion, will match a positivememory or will create more of a
positive memory instead of a,instead of a negative, and it's
just time, it's just allowingand understanding that it's part
of the process and, and I meanwe're all, gravity always wins
and everybody's gonna die.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Um, it's facts of life.
But I remember her uh, one ofthe things also that really made
our connection really cool wasI remember at one time she was
just staring at me and I saidshe wants cold water.
She loved cold water in herfountain and mike would be like
how do you know that?
And it's like she's telling meshe wants cold water and I would
(22:23):
go and I get her found and Iwent over, I filled up her her
cold, cold water fountain andsaid no one knows cold water,
and I would go and I get herfountain.
I went over, I filled up herher cold, cold water fountain
and said no, no, it's cold waterand blink, blink, blink, blink,
blink and start drinking.
I told you she wanted coldwater.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
And there were a bunch of these things and
Angie's like the animalwhisperer, right.
So Angie's got very intuitiveabilities with this to talk to
animals and and is it?
Is it woo, woo and weird?
Yeah, it is, but and and I usedto, I used to like I don't know
, I don't know, judge those andand make fun of them, but but
(22:56):
they're freaking real and overtime, as I've become more woo
woo and surrendered, I'm likeshe's always had intuitive
abilities to speak to animalsand and to feel what they're
trying to express andcommunicate with them through,
just through intuition, right.
But when we first got nova, shewas home and and we had her for
a few weeks, maybe a few months, and a year, we got her.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Was it a year and she got in?
Speaker 1 (23:20):
2019 and she had been here for a while and she she
was fine, she assimilated,started, I don't know, being a
little more lethargic and justkind of laying around a lot more
instead of being playful.
And Andy said Nova's bored.
Nova told me she's bored.
Nova told me she needs a friendand I I thought that was not
(23:43):
weird, but I was like is thattrue?
You just want another cat?
Oh, you just want another cat.
That was my first response.
But we went.
Angie was volunteering at a catshelter and this amazing cat
named Latte came in and Angieand Latte connected immediately
and Latte went through theadoption process, got moved
(24:06):
around a little bit, came backCOVID happened.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
We all thought we lost him because yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
And he came back to the shelter that Angie was in.
And as soon as he came back tothe shelter, she's like yep,
you're my cat, you're cominghome with me.
And when we brought Latte homewith Nova, both of them bonded
and right now Latte is the onegrieving.
He's kind of walking aroundupstairs looking for her and he
goes to her favorite corners andhe goes to where she used to
(24:34):
sit and he's looking for her.
You can see it, he's confused.
We're all a little confused.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Yeah, and our girls with them being away, this
happening while they were away.
It was even hard for them too,because this is the first pet
they've lost that they weren'there for.
But they said it was going totake three to four months for
Latte to assimilate.
It took three days.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah right, he was like oh and he, when we got cats
they'd never drink out of thecat's, or the cats would never
drink out of the dog's water.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
And that wasn't true and you know, it's just every,
every, there's myth, whatever,what's supposed to supposed to
be was broken with both of them.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
It was just, it was just an easy.
Now our, our, our cat lattechases everybody else around a
little bit for funsies, but andbut he's trying to play and he
wants to play with them, butthey, you know, he just goes
over max everybody.
But, uh, everybody's a littleconfused and everybody's a
little, you know, a little sad.
It's just sad, but to be honest, it's good to feel a little bit
(25:38):
of sadness.
I haven't felt sadness in awhile and, uh, I get to, I get
to dive into, I feel like I getto dive into the grief and and
grief is just like kind of lovethat's missing, a piece, some,
some sense of love that I havefor something or someone that's
missing.
But it's a missing piece thatthat I'm, I'm missing here.
(26:01):
So I get to drill into that andfind it and feel it and and
develop and bridge that gap, Iguess, and refine my love for
nova instead of my grief fornova.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
So yeah, and I think just not not having to to be
concerned with why did thishappen?
Why did this happen to me?
You know, okay, understand,that literally we're every
there's not a single personlistening to this right now.
That's not going to die, yep,or lose somebody.
Lose somebody, yeah, orsomething, or whatever, sure,
(26:32):
and and so many people get stuckin the why did my dad die?
Why did my cat die?
Why, why, why, why, why?
Instead of focus, because itwas going to happen, it was
regardless if it was july 6 2025or july 6 2035, it was going to
happen.
And taking away that piece ofwhy is I think that allows the
(26:55):
actual processing of theemotions to happen, versus
trying to control the why andhow, and it's the control piece,
right, so stepping back fromthe control and just dive
totally into the.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
I like to think that it was already encoded in the,
in the Nova's DNA, that on July6, 2025, she was going to perish
and her heart was set up to tostop working properly on that
day.
And there's and to me that'svery freeing and if there's a
belief that that feels free, I'mgoing to live up that belief.
(27:28):
It just feels it feels morefreeing, it feels more
empowering, and Angie and I werehaving a conversation where
Angie was talking aboutsomething to the effect of I
wish her heart would have, youknow, lasted a little longer or
something, something to thateffect, and I said the, the.
The perspective that I haveright now is Nova kind of knew
(27:49):
that she had six and a halfyears with us.
She was about seven years, alittle over seven years old,
when she died, but she knew shehad six and a half years with us
.
And when we brought her homeand she was in her house and she
was being bathed in love andhad toys everywhere, she's like,
oh my God, I can't believe myheart is going to be healthy
enough to experience this forsix and a half years, Like there
(28:12):
was so much love and so muchjoy in our house and so much
kindness towards our animals,and we don't have a small house.
We have a nice size house fromour perspective and there's lots
of places to explore.
And she was an exploring catman.
She would just exploreeverywhere and she always in
every room.
(28:32):
It's like she had her littlefavorite place.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
So she we'd find her in different places all over the
house and and uh, as we go fromroom to room, we're still
looking for Yep, and her lovefor us was so big that over 90%
of cats who suffered this typeof embolism die immediately,
(28:55):
like they don't even make it tothe vet.
But she laid there.
She knew that I couldn't handlethat, yeah.
So she laid there and let usshe's like I'm going to give my
mommy and daddy one more morebye and her sisters we were able
to get them on face 7, 15 inthe morning, 23 and 20 year
unusual.
They knew when I was facetimingthem at that time of day that
something was urgent and theyanswered.
So they got to see her one lasttime, so she got to hear and
(29:18):
see her sisters and then mom anddad.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
We'll get ready to get ready to wrap this up, and I
want to.
One of the first books that Iever read in this spiritual
journey that I've been on is abook by Byron Katie, and it's B?
Y R O N Katie, k A T I E, andByron Katie was a female author.
The book is called Loving whatIs, and it's about falling in
(29:50):
love with anything that happensin your life.
And when I I'm going to askthis from a Byron Katie
perspective, I know what yourbody is going to say, I guess,
should Nova have died?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Why.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Because she did.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Because she did.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
That's really hard to it's learning to say that,
learning to talk through that.
But my body's like, yeah, Idon't want my cats back.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Yeah but she should have died because she did.
There's literally nothing wecould have done to prevent it.
Her, her heart gave out and sheshould have died because she
did.
And that's reality.
And fighting with you, fightreality.
Reality wins every single timeand your resistance just causes
(30:36):
you suffering instead of changesthe outcome.
The resistance that Angie justfelt, saying that is what she
gets to drill into.
To let go of that resistance,because it's that resistance
that's fighting against reality,creating the suffering yeah and
that's what we can control.
When we can control what we cancontrol, which is what's
happening in our body, when weinfluence what we influence in
(30:57):
the world, that's when we're atour most powerful and when we
stop controlling what we onlyinfluence.
That's where.
That's where, yeah, and then weget to drill into any
resistance and let it go andbecome more and more free all
the time.
I think we'll wrap it up forhere.
I think you did a great job.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yeah, this, and I hated having to do an episode
like this, but I think it's.
It's cool to share our humanityand show that you know the work
applies to us too, when we dothe work and we don't just sit
here.
And you don't just sit here andyap about the work and not do
it.
That's right.
That's right.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Because this is real.
I cried on the mastermind, Iteared up on the mastermind.
I've cried a couple times thisweek.
Emotion's real.
You can pretend you don't haveit, but all you're doing is
fighting your humanity.
I will bring you to a close.
Great job, baby.
(31:53):
Great job.
I know it was hard for you.
I know it's been a hard weekfor you.
Right, nova's looking down andshe said she said to me the
other day.
She said I was sitting outsideand I was kind of diving into a
little bit of grief and she saidI'm right here, daddy, I'm
still here and I'm not in pain.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Well, and then today I went.
When I was saying bye to herthe other day I said you're
going to have to help mamathrough this from over there, so
make sure you show me sign.
But today I had to go and startour getting our cars registered
both of our vehicles,registrations this month.
That's down at the car shop andthere was this magazine.
(32:26):
Never before in my life have Iseen anything like that.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
I looked over and I said, oh, nova came to say hi so
so it's, there's a chevy,there's a vehicle called a chevy
nova oh yeah, I guess youshould and it, and it just
happens that angie took the carin to get uh, to get the
inspection or to get theemissions today, after she said
okay, nova, show me a sign.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yep and it says 1962 to 79.
Nova Chevy two parts, a big oldNova at the top of the catalog.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Things like that are not coincidences and they're not
mistakes.
They're on time and they're onpurpose.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Spirit lives on.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
And spirit is always trying to tell you it's got your
back and and everybody's okaybut still miss you nova
definitely still miss nova.
I just met all again.
Guys, thanks for sharing thiswith us.
Um, this is the first since Istarted this podcast.
This is the first catastrophicthing that's happened to our
(33:27):
family.
So it was good that we've hadups and downs, but it was good
to get on here and just jam from.
You know.
Hey, things aren't alwaysawesome, yeah, and the emotion's
intense.
Yep.
Thanks for sharing some time,thanks for sharing some space,
thanks for listening to ourjourney and story and it's just
(33:47):
a pleasure to serve you guys.
Hope the drill method, hope wetied it in in a way that really
helps you understand how we cantake pain and transmute it and
when there's darkness in yourbody and grief is darkness in
the body when there's darknessin the body, when we let it out,
it's replaced by light, andthat's how we change grief to
joy and love.
All right, until next time, no.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
And I was following us on socials.
Keep up with things that wehave going on.
Mike's got a new book comingout August 19th.
Inner World Outer World Kind ofstarts into this drill method
stuff, but doesn't go that heavyinto it, yeah, I finished up?
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, I finished up.
I finished inner world outerworld before the drill method
existed.
Right, and I was.
I was trying to figure out away to teach it and the drill
method was was born and uh,inner world, outer world talks
about shadow work and also talksabout, um, uh, release work and
some scars, and this emotionalpain is trapped inside, been
teaching this for a long timeand she didn't have an effective
(34:44):
way to teach it.
I'm excited that we have onenow.
All right, guys, love you,appreciate you, guys, and we'll
see you next week.
If you enjoyed what you heardand you want to learn more, go
(35:08):
to wwwinnerwealthglobalcom formore tools and resources.
You.
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