October 11, 2024 • 41 mins
🚀 Never Too Old, Never Too Late: Heidi Love’s Inspiring Journey of Chasing a 40-Year-Old Dream!
What happens when you decide it’s never too late to chase the dreams you had as a teenager? Heidi Love is proof that no matter your age, your past, or how wild your dreams may seem, it’s never too crazy to reignite your passion and go for it!
Join us in this powerful conversation as Heidi shares her remarkable journey of transformation, where a teenage dream to visit the Bay of Virgins in French Polynesia was pushed aside for decades—only to be reignited later in life.Â
🌟 After a career, a marriage, and motherhood, Heidi decided to follow the call of her youthful passion, setting sail on the adventure of a lifetime.
🎯 Key Moments from Heidi’s Story:
- ✨ Rekindling a Dream at Any Age: Heidi’s pursuit of her childhood dream proves that it's never too late to go after what truly excites you.
- 👩‍🎓 Balancing Life’s Challenges: Learn how Heidi balanced motherhood, a career, and a marine biology degree while pursuing her passion.
- ⚡ Facing Past Trauma on the High Seas: Feel the intensity as Heidi battles PTSD during extreme lightning storms, but refuses to let her past hold her back.
- 🌸 Learning from a Matrilineal Society: Discover the powerful lessons of gratitude, presence, and self-acceptance she learned from the Cunayala people, and how it shifted her worldview.
- 💦 Taking the Leap: Heidi’s life-changing dive into the Pacific Ocean was more than a swim—it was a plunge into healing, courage, and reclaiming her story.
No dream is too old or too wild to chase. Heidi’s journey reminds us that it’s never too late to reignite the spark inside and pursue the dreams that set our souls on fire. 🎧 Listen to her story and be inspired to chase your own dreams—no matter where you are in life.
🌍 Visit https://www.heidiloveauthor.com/ to connect with Heidi and learn more about her journey of resilience, healing, and adventure.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Audra (00:00):
Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for joining me
again this week.
This week I have a guest who isan adventurer, a chaser of
dreams and a survivor.
This week my guest is HeidiLove and she is the best-selling
author of Laughing at the Sky,wild Adventure, bold Dreams and
(00:22):
A Daring Search for a StolenChildhood.
It is a number one Amazon newrelease in four categories.
She's rising from poverty and achildhood of sexual assault.
Heidi is the co-founder andformer marketing strategist of
the $7 million strategicmarketing firm Ethos and Vaunt
and has received an MBA and aWoman of Achievement Award from
(00:45):
the University of New Hampshire.
She has served on the boards ofMaine's Women's Fund and the
NPR Safe Spaces Radio.
Heidi has sailed nearly halfwayaround the world, from Maine to
French Polynesia and beyond.
It has been her lifelong dream.
It is my pleasure and my honorto introduce to you Heidi.
(01:06):
Heidi, thank you so much forbeing here and welcome to the
show.
Thank you, it's great to be here.
It is so wonderful for you tobe here with me and I'm so
excited to talk to you aboutyour story of survival, of
adventure, of never giving up onyour dreams, and what you
(01:28):
discovered along the way Great.
So I want to talk to you aboutyour dream of sailing to French
Polynesia.
But let's begin with where andwhy that seed was planted.
Heidi (01:46):
I survived violent crime when I was 11 and attempted
murder, and I would run awayoccasionally.
One day I was hanging out inthe library I was actually 15
years old and I knew at thelibrary.
The police didn't hang out atthe library very often.
Often, when they found me, theywould bring me home, which
wasn't my ideal direction to go.
(02:07):
And so I was in the library andit was getting dark, it was
dreary, it was cold, they weregoing to shut down Somehow.
I found this magazine to keep meoccupied and it was a National
Geographic and it was aboutGauguin and French Polynesia and
had his gorgeous paintings andbeautiful photography.
(02:28):
And I was going through and Iwas pretty excited about it all
when I came across this pictureof a waterfall.
It was sparkling and I justfollowed my eyes down from the
top of the waterfall to thecaption below and the hair on my
arm and parts of my face juststarted to vibrate.
(02:49):
I never experienced anythinglike this before and I thought
something powerful is here.
And when I read the caption atthe bottom of the photograph, it
said Bay of Virgins.
Well, I just knew at that pointI was going to go to the Bay of
Virgins in French Polynesia.
I didn't know how I would getthere, but it was my dream to do
(03:11):
it.
I thought I could live there,right near the waterfall, there
would be clean water, the peoplelooked so happy and amazing and
the women looked celebrated.
The women looked celebrated.
I had come from inner cityPhilly northeast Philly it
wasn't my father worked withgangs and it wasn't really
(03:39):
didn't look at all like that inthe magazine, and so I just
decided I wanted to go and livethere.
So that was my dream, and so Ijust decided I wanted to go and
live there.
Audra (03:45):
So that was my dream.
So your dream was born as anescape from your reality and it
was the furthest point fromwhere you were at that moment
and it sparked something in you.
It sparked excitement andcreativity and hope.
Yes, it was probably somethingthat you didn't have very much
(04:07):
of at that moment, consideringwhat you were escaping from in
that dark, cold library yes,exactly, and it was a real
challenge because you can't flyor drive to fatahebo, where the
Bay of Virgins is.
Heidi (04:26):
So that was my first obstacle, it was your first
challenge to be able to go there.
Audra (04:34):
So you picked one of the hardest places on the planet to
get to, yes, but you found hope,you found purpose and you found
a focus Correct.
So you told me that you hadthis focus and you had decided,
okay, I need to figure out howto get there.
(04:56):
And you took some creativesteps on some investigation on
how you would get there.
So tell me a little bit andtell the audience what did you
do next on your investigation onhow to get to French Polynesia?
Heidi (05:10):
Well, there was actually a step before and that was the
first thing that I saw.
First place I wanted to go wasthe Galapagos, and before I even
saw this magazine.
So, just to take a step back, Iwrote to the Ecuadorian
government and asked how I couldcome and live in the Galapagos.
And they wrote back about ninemonths later and there were all
(05:32):
these brochures, sciencebrochures and tourist brochures
with penguins and blue-footedboobies and lizards and sea
lions, and they said in order tolive in the Galapagos, you have
to either be born Ecuadorianthat was out marry an Ecuadorian
(05:52):
I wasn't about to get marriedat that point or become a marine
biologist.
So I decided I would studymarine biologist.
I went to school, studiedmarine biologist, I met my first
husband, had a child and mychild became so much of my focus
.
He just was so amazing and thedream sort of was to go to
(06:14):
French Polynesia, sort of wentin the background a bit.
So there were quite a fewintervening years.
But later on I had left myhusband and I was on a date with
an amazing man and I startedgetting these chills again, like
I'd had years and years ago,all the way down my arm and my
(06:39):
face and I thought something isgoing on here.
I felt I was in this vortex ofenergy and I didn't know what it
was.
It sounds crazy.
But I was trying to get theconversation away from me
because I felt like I couldhardly talk.
And so I said to him so youlike to sail?
Is that right?
And he said they said yeah, doyou like to sail?
(06:59):
I said yes.
He said where would you go?
And it just came flooding outof me French Polynesia.
I want to go to Fatahiba.
His jaw dropped, his eyesdropped, he grabbed my arms and
he looked at me in the eye andsaid you have to go, you just
have to go.
And so we decided at that pointwe were going to get a boat.
(07:22):
It was our first date.
I don't think we decided to geta boat at that point, but we
were pretty excited about thelove that we shared, this love
of sailing and adventure.
So we had to get a boat, we hadto outfit it, we had to leave
our jobs.
We both were in companies atthe time.
We both had our own companies,were in companies at the time.
(07:48):
We were both had our owncompanies and we, finally, we
bought a boat.
We outfitted it, boughtlifeboats and bought a lifeboat
and all kinds of courses on howto sail safely.
We launched a lifeboat in thepool at MIT and had to do a lot
to get ready.
And we prepared and we scrapedthe paint off the boat and
(08:11):
rewired the boat and got a windvane and all kinds of things
that we worked on for a year totry to get it ready.
The one thing that we didn'tprepare for, however, was my
fear.
That was a whole new chapter inthe story, so that's how it
started out.
Audra (08:32):
So I'm going to pause here for a moment and just make
sure that I am clear on that.
You had a whole life betweenbeing a teenager having this
initial reaction to FrenchPolynesia.
You went to college, you had awhole different career.
(08:52):
You were a marine biologist.
You got married, you had achild, you had an entire career,
changed careers, left amarriage, went into a new
relationship and then this olddream came flooding back.
Heidi (09:17):
Yes, and there was one other little piece that I
probably should share here.
I was having in my 40s my sonwas getting to the age of that I
was when I experienced violentcrime and I was experiencing a
fair amount of PTSD.
So the urge to run away cameback, Even though I was separate
.
I wasn't in the Philadelphiaanymore.
(09:39):
I left my husband.
I was afraid to be alone.
I thought if I were alone Iwould come.
Well, the violent crime wasaround rape.
I thought if I was alone Iwould be raped again, and I was
afraid to be alone.
So I did a lot of therapy, andthat was a piece of why this
(10:04):
dream came back.
I was still running away.
I couldn't be in my job.
I was making million dollardecisions at home with my at
home.
I was not doing that, and so Ithink that was a big piece of it
too that was a big piece of ittoo.
Audra (10:30):
So you, so you were still .
You were very capable, in yourown company, making these big,
giant decisions, but you hadthis, this old fear gripping you
at home.
Yes, so you were.
As you had said prior, youprepped for a year to go on this
journey, with everything butyour fear, right?
So that was that's part of theanchor of this story.
(10:54):
So how old were you when youfinally set sail to go on a
dream that was first sparked andinspired you when you were 15.
Heidi (11:09):
55.
You were 55.
Audra (11:12):
Yes, so the reason why I want to say this out loud is
because it is never, ever toolate to chase an old dream, even
with old fears on board, andliterally on board, because you
were on board a boat, that'sright.
Never too late to chase an olddream, even when you're bringing
(11:37):
some old ghosts, some old fears, which we're going to talk
about, that you brought on boardwith you, correct?
Where did you?
Heidi (11:44):
leave from Left, from Maine, portland, maine, and we
sailed down to the Caribbean andon my husband and I sailed
together and on.
To start we decided we wouldmeet a group of boats in Hampton
Virginia.
We sailed down, had an amazingsail down to Hampton Virginia
(12:05):
and then a group of us weregoing to sail on our own boats
to the Caribbean and,unbeknownst to us, there was a
very unexpected storm that cameup and some boats actually had
knockdowns.
One woman was lost and thatwasn't exactly where we were.
(12:25):
However, the waves were reallychurned up and we had some very
difficult problems with crashingwaves and we ended up having to
go back into Hampton Virginiaagainst the wind and there was
another storm coming behind itand as we started going towards
(12:50):
the shore, the Coast Guard cameon and said Securite, securite.
All boats take immediateshelter.
Extreme lightning is coming atseven o'clock, at 1900 hours,
and we thought we would be backin time, but because we're going
against the wind, it was a lot,took a lot longer, and as the
(13:13):
flashes of the lightning cametowards our boat and our mast,
it was quite alarming to me andI actually had a PTSD attack,
dissociative attack, and thoughtI was 11 years old while I was
on the boat, so that when wecame back, so that was the
(13:35):
second big obstacle that Iencountered, of your fear from
being attacked at 11, cameroaring back in the middle of
that storm, correct.
Audra (13:56):
So you're battling a physical storm and you're
battling an emotional one,correct, simultaneously Correct.
And you made it inshore fromthat storm the boat down and
(14:28):
find different crew.
Heidi (14:29):
We can sell the boat whatever works, because he was
very, very supportive of it andunderstood what was happening to
me.
So it ended up that he saileddown with a crew and I flew down
and in the meantime I did a lotof therapy.
So that was how I tried toovercome that part of the fear.
Audra (14:51):
Where did you fly down to to meet your husband?
Heidi (14:53):
I flew down to the British Virgins and then we
sailed through the Caribbean.
Then in hurricane season, wecame back to Maine, went down
again at the end of and I wasable to spend the summer with my
son, which was wonderful, andthen we sailed, flew back, got
the boat sailed up and around toPanama, spent a season in
(15:14):
Panama, but through that wholetime when the weather would get
bad and I would get afraid, Iwould start to have flashbacks
and triggers from what happenedto me at 11 years old, and so I
had to really understand how tostop going from the flashback to
(15:38):
full-blown PTSD.
Audra (15:40):
I had to learn how to calm so you were learning to
calm in the middle of the storm.
So you were learning to calm inthe middle of the storm,
physical and emotional, but youkept pushing through.
You kept going I did you, youcould have, you could have quit
like just said, I'm done, I'mdone, I'm done and never get
back on that boat again.
You could have and nobody wouldhave said anything to you no
(16:03):
most of all husband.
My husband could have saidthat's it, we're done, we're
done.
You didn't.
You kept getting back on thatboat, I did, and you kept
pushing through, so tell me thestory of your amazing and lovely
(16:24):
trip and your visit in Cunayala.
Heidi (16:24):
Cunayala is a matrilineal society north of
Panama.
There's 360, some islands there, and one of the things that's
amazing is they have thisconcept of Paradiso, where they
really are present in the momentand grateful and appreciative
of the moment, instead ofthinking about someday I'll go
(16:45):
to heaven or someday there'll bea Shangri-La, or maybe tomorrow
it will be sunny and it won'train.
They really try to focus on thepresent and we're in paradise
right now, and that's a littlepiece of the whole.
Calming practice for me also is, regardless of where I am, I
(17:06):
can be grateful for something,even if it's only the breath
that I take.
If I'm triggered, I can begrateful that I'm aware of the
trigger, that I'm breathing inthe air that I'm breathing, that
I'm seeing colors that arearound me, and so that was
really an interesting learningexperience.
(17:28):
And the other piece that wasinteresting about this society
is there's a lot of genderfluidity and there's a lot of
valuing of female traits.
I guess they have what's calledthird gender.
They have what's called thirdgender, where some boys, some
(17:50):
people who are born male, aregiven the honor to grow up as
female and they're consideredthird gender.
And what I learned from one ofthe women, lisa, who was born
male and embraced being female,is that it's really important to
(18:13):
know who you are and embracewho you are.
So that was very interesting tome because I grew up feeling, at
11 years old, feeling thatwomen were weak.
At 11 years old, feeling thatwomen were weak and I didn't
really wasn't really sure Iwanted to be a girl anymore
because I didn't want to be weak.
And down there it seemed likewomen were not only respected
(18:37):
but they were honored for thetraits that they had and they
had leadership roles and theytook care of the commerce and
they were powerful and theystood in their power and
embraced their femininity.
They didn't try to be maleleaders, they really embraced
being female leaders and thatwas unbelievable to me to see
(19:01):
how strong they were.
Audra (19:03):
It's one of the only matriarchal societies in the
world and it's beautiful.
When you told me about thisamazing island, I went and did
some research and it's anunbelievable society.
It right in the fact that theyteach to be strong in who you
(19:29):
are and not try to be anybodyelse, and I think that is such a
beautiful, gorgeous lesson thatthey don't want you to
necessarily emulate anybody elseother than who you are.
Heidi (19:47):
Yes, exactly, and I found in traveling almost
halfway around the world.
There's a lot of remote islandsand they have very interesting
society and such wisdom thatthey've learned that that was
just unbelievable to me me.
Audra (20:12):
Yeah, these remote societies have such wisdom that
in these developed countrieshaven't caught up to yet, which
I think is remarkable.
Heidi (20:19):
Yeah, often their sense of time is very different than
us.
I find I can get stressed out alot because I have all of these
things that I'm doing.
You know, I found like on theseislands, often I could just
breathe and be and be in themoment and it was just.
It was just amazing A differentsense of time, a different
(20:43):
sense of gratitude.
I was walking down the beachwith a friend of mine in
Cuneyala and there was a manthere that was working on his
island and lived on the island,and my friend went up and said
thank you so much for being here.
This is like so gorgeous.
(21:03):
I've never been any place likethis.
I'm going back to the UnitedStates in a few days.
What can I send down to you?
What would you like?
What kind of gifts would youlike from the United States?
And he looks around and he saysthis in his own language that
he has bananas, he has plantains, he has crabs, he has lobsters,
he has fish, he has coconuts.
(21:26):
And he looks around and he putshis hand out and he says it's
paradise, I have all that I need.
I don't know too many people inmy community that feel like
they really have everything theyneed and what they have can fit
(21:46):
in their hands and around them.
In a way, Maybe that's not fair.
So many people have highgratitude.
It's just a different culture.
Audra (21:57):
What a beautiful thing to look around and say I have
everything I need.
There's nothing you can send methat I need, Right?
I wish we could all have that.
Heidi (22:09):
Well, we can, though.
I mean, we can feel moregratitude, we can feel more
presence.
I'm not saying it's easy, but Ithink the experience for me.
I like to stop and be grateful.
I have some flowers, cutflowers that a friend gave me,
that are just, you know, sittingnext to me on the computer and
(22:31):
I just look at them and they'reso beautiful and I can be
present and grateful for that.
Audra (22:38):
Anyway, when did you go next on your journey?
Heidi (22:43):
We went through the Panama Canal.
I've been through the canalfour times.
It was so amazing, sointeresting to go through the
canal.
And then we went to theGalapagos and that was the first
dream come true for me because,as I mentioned earlier before,
I had the dream to go to FrenchPolynesia.
I wanted to go to the Galapagosand so we spent a month in the
(23:05):
Galapagos swam with sea lions.
The Galapagos swam with sealions, snorkeled, with penguins
going by.
It was really amazing.
If you have an opportunity to gothere, I find it so amazing.
It's the really incredibleecology there.
The people were wonderful, andthen that took about 10 days
(23:29):
from Panama and then we had ahuge crossing from the Galapagos
towards French Polynesia.
And all of this time I waswanting to search for the
waterfall in the magazine and bynow it's been 40 some years and
I'm not even 100% sure thewaterfall exists, let alone it's
(23:52):
really at Batahiva, so Ibelieve it's most likely there
and I felt like I had to go andfind it.
I was a little bit obsessedaround it, yet I didn't really
know if it was there.
Audra (24:07):
So did you end up finding it?
I can't tell you, you have toread my book, oh oh, so we'll
have to go, and we'll have to goand read a little bit of a
mystery in a cliffhanger that'sright to go and lie that out
twists in this book.
oh, we'll have to go and findout.
You had said.
(24:28):
You had said to me, becausethis adventure, this was a
five-year adventure and itwasn't just a physical one, as
you have told us throughout thisstory.
It was most definitely anemotional one, you had told me,
as we met, before you had thisamazing healing incident in the
(24:49):
middle of the Pacific Ocean.
I did what did you experiencein the middle of the Pacific
Ocean that finally gave you thisfull circle healing moment
where you finally said, okay,I'm free, I'm free of this.
Heidi (25:23):
I'm free.
I'm free of this.
And when I had had a PTSDflashback and I thought my
assailant hurt me once and Iperpetuated that in my mind
(25:56):
every day of my life, and so itwas interesting to me to
actually recognize what I wasdoing.
And then it was even harder toknow what do I do about this?
And so at that point I had quitthe boat and I met a therapist
who had climbed to 24,000 feeton Mount Everest and she was
(26:20):
doing a study on breathing, andshe's the one that helped me
develop a calming practice.
And I wrote another book on howto calm it's a workbook on
calming and so it started there,by first understanding how I
perpetuated it in my mind andthen knowing what to do about it
, how to calm.
(26:52):
From coming from the amygdala inyour brain, the flashbacks can
come, but for me there was atime between an instant or two,
between when the flashbackswould come and when I would just
go into full blown PTSD.
I learned how to stop thatconnection.
I couldn't stop the initialtrigger flashback, but I could
stop going from there to havinga full-blown PTSD.
(27:16):
So when I was in the middle ofthe Pacific the incident you're
talking about waves werecolliding.
I had three-meter waves, sonine foot wave hitting a nine
foot wave and colliding andgoing up about 15 feet.
And basically, if a breakingwave hits the center of your
(27:37):
boat that's a third or more ofthe size of your boat you'll
likely get capsized.
And these breaking waves werecrashing and coming in towards
me.
I was on watch it was just myhusband and I so we were
exhausted.
One of us would be on watch,one of us would sleep.
He was sleeping below and I hadthe beginning of the trigger
(28:00):
and I was able to use thecalming practice and stop it.
And then I just started tobelieve it or not, rage at these
waves saying this is nothappening, you're not taking me
down again, and I just raged.
I had no idea I had any rageinside me.
I thought I was a.
Really I didn't even think Ihad any anger inside of me.
(28:21):
I was never allowed to haveanger as a child, so I didn't
think I had any anger, but boydid I release it at sea.
And I've heard since about.
I have a friend who works withthe Gestalt Institute in Sweden,
denmark.
She's actually in Copenhagenand she has a class where they
(28:42):
take the students that have beentraumatized out to the woods
and make them scream and yell,and it's all this part of
releasing rage that you mightnot even think you have.
So that's what happened to mein the boat.
Audra (28:57):
But you released 40 years of fear and anger and pain in
the middle of the ocean and itno longer held you captive,
right, and you wrote a book forthose to maybe give them a
(29:23):
pathway for release as well.
Heidi (29:26):
Right.
Yes, I wanted to inspire otherfolks because I believe we all,
or most of us, carry stories.
It could be from trauma that wehave, it could be from all
kinds of things.
Be some inspiration for othersto rise above the stories that
we carry and live bold dreams.
Audra (30:03):
So you were brave enough to live this big, full, big fat,
bold dream that was born out ofpain.
It also gave you release frompain and amazing experiences
along the way.
Was there a favorite part ofthis journey that you had that
(30:27):
took five years and halfwayaround the world?
Heidi (30:31):
Oh yes, but I don't know if I should tell it, because I
don't want to give away my book.
How about, if I tell you asecond favorite, give me a
second favorite.
There's a clear favorite, but Ireally I don't want to give
away the whole plot of my book.
Audra (30:52):
Oh yeah, Give us a nibble .
Heidi (30:54):
Okay, I loved being in Gunayala.
I felt such feminine energythere.
I felt so valued.
I felt that people seemed sohappy.
They gave me a nickname it'scalled, it was Ansu, which is
mermaid, and I learned um.
(31:19):
I learned about 50 words.
They a lot of some of themspoke English.
A lot of them spoke Spanish,but I tried to learn some of
their language and that reallyhelped me be not accepted by
their culture but embraced in away, and I loved to.
(31:40):
I loved just swimming and divingand snorkeling and meeting the
people.
And just one time, my friendLisa, who I mentioned is a third
gender leader in this society,she took us up a boat up a river
(32:02):
and then we hiked really deepinto the jungle and there was a
waterfall in a differentwaterfall and we could dive in
from the rocks and then swimdownstream and I felt like it
was a national geographic andshe had um, she had a friend of
hers that also came with us.
(32:22):
And another time we just wentto one of the islands.
They had a ceremony.
They have a ceremony when thegirls come of age and they let
us come to their ceremony andeat their food and drink the
famous coconut drinks that theyhave, and it was so they grabbed
(32:45):
.
My son came down at that pointand a little girl about three
years old grabs his hand andhe's.
It was just really wonderful.
Audra (32:54):
So so let me, let me read between the lines here when
girls come of age, so I'm goingto assume, when they start to
menstruate, or right, or orthey're going to soon start to
menstruate Right, or they'regoing to soon start to
menstruate Sure.
They celebrate it.
Oh, yes, wow, what a flippingthat on its head.
(33:19):
Whereas in Western civilizationwe hide that and we call it the
curse.
Right, or at least that's whatmy grandmother called.
It is the curse.
It is, and it's something thatwe hide and call it disgusting.
Here in Western civilizationand here on this amazing
(33:39):
beautiful island, it's acelebration.
Wow, what an amazing place.
Heidi (33:47):
Yes, yes, they also.
They do a embroidery work.
They make this art, artisticpieces, and they use them in
their dress and there are somany symbols and animals and
stories and they use thesestories to teach their children
and their grandchildren.
Often a grandmother will workwith the grandchild and teach
(34:11):
them about who they are andtheir culture and it's really
fascinating.
Audra (34:18):
This sounds like a magical place and I am so
inspired by you.
I was inspired by you by thefirst time I met you.
I'm even more inspired by younow, on so many different levels
, not just by your candor andyour bravery about being so
transparent, about the storiesof the things that have happened
to you, of the of the traumaticthings that have happened to
(34:42):
you, but that you had a dreamthat you didn't give up on, even
if it took you 40 years to getto and multiple tries to
complete, even though it wasdifficult, and that you had to
get off the boat and keepgetting on to complete.
I am just like I said, there'sso there's layer after layer,
(35:04):
that your life inspires me and II just am grateful that we were
introduced.
Heidi (35:11):
Well, thank you, and I really feel like we all have
dreams that we can.
We can focus on and and, andrise above whatever's holding us
back to do that.
It's not.
It's not.
I'm not special with this.
I am trying to inspire othersto live bold dreams.
Audra (35:34):
Well, once again, Heidi's book is laughing at the sky.
You can reach it.
You can find her book on Amazonand all of your favorite
booksellers.
Heidi, I'm going to give you anopportunity which is my
favorite part of the show thatwhen I get to step back from the
mic and give you a moment thatyou can speak directly and
(35:57):
intimately with the audience,for you, to give them a moment
of inspiration.
So the mic is yours.
Heidi (36:04):
Well, thank you, moment of inspiration.
So the mic is yours.
Well, thank you.
I think four takeaways.
For me in traveling halfwayaround the world was, first of
all, breaking the silence.
It's really important to breakthe silence, find compassionate
listeners, find your tribe andreally deeply, not just tell a
(36:26):
piece of your story, buteverything that's holding you
back.
And the more that we as a worldtell our stories and break the
silence that keeps us fromwhatever it is that holds us
back, that's really critical.
And then this whole idea aboutrising above the stories to live
(36:47):
bold dreams, managing yourfears, overcoming your obstacles
whatever that obstacle is, tosee if you can break it down and
manage it.
And then to understand ifyou're perpetuating something
that's holding you, eitherperpetuating a trauma or a
failure or whatever it is.
(37:09):
I think that if that's holdingyou back, it's good to be aware
of that.
And then, lastly, it's reallyto me all about loving well, if
you have rage or you have fear,or you have grief, deep grief,
(37:30):
to find ways through thatexperience to turn it to sorrow
and find and then love.
Well, so I have gratitude andlove well.
So that's, I think, what Ilearned in going halfway around
(37:52):
the world.
Audra (37:54):
Heidi, you have been a delight and a joy to get to know
.
Where can the audience reachyou if they'd like to reach out
to you and connect with you?
Heidi (38:02):
Well, my name's Heidi Love and I have a website,
HeidiLoveAuthorcom, and they canreach me through my website,
HeidiLoveAuthorcom.
Audra (38:13):
Thank you so much for being here.
I appreciate you spending yourtime with me and with the
audience and sharing a littlebit of your story and giving us
a few teasers about your journeyof the five years of Halfway
Around the World and a littleglimpse into your experiences of
(38:34):
on the boat and laughing at thesky.
Heidi (38:37):
Well, thank you, and thank you importantly, for the
work that you do, because it'sreally really important.
Audra (38:45):
I'm giving it my best shot.
I know you are, I really am,because, like you, I think that
silence gets us nowhere, and I'musing the tool I have, which is
my voice, and putting amicrophone on it, so and giving
everybody else access to it.
(39:05):
So we'll do it together.
We'll give everybody elseaccess and amplify their voices.
So thank you for lending meyours, thank you and thank you
all again for listening, andwe'll see you again next time.
Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for joining me
again this week.
This week I have a guest who isan adventurer, a chaser of
dreams and a survivor.
This week my guest is HeidiLove and she is the best-selling
author of Laughing at the Sky,wild Adventure, bold Dreams and
(00:22):
A Daring Search for a StolenChildhood.
It is a number one Amazon newrelease in four categories.
She's rising from poverty and achildhood of sexual assault.
Heidi is the co-founder andformer marketing strategist of
the $7 million strategicmarketing firm Ethos and Vaunt
and has received an MBA and aWoman of Achievement Award from
(00:45):
the University of New Hampshire.
She has served on the boards ofMaine's Women's Fund and the
NPR Safe Spaces Radio.
Heidi has sailed nearly halfwayaround the world, from Maine to
French Polynesia and beyond.
It has been her lifelong dream.
It is my pleasure and my honorto introduce to you Heidi.
(01:06):
Heidi, thank you so much forbeing here and welcome to the
show.
Thank you, it's great to be here.
It is so wonderful for you tobe here with me and I'm so
excited to talk to you aboutyour story of survival, of
adventure, of never giving up onyour dreams, and what you
(01:28):
discovered along the way Great.
So I want to talk to you aboutyour dream of sailing to French
Polynesia.
But let's begin with where andwhy that seed was planted.
Heidi (01:46):
I survived violent crime when I was 11 and attempted
murder, and I would run awayoccasionally.
One day I was hanging out inthe library I was actually 15
years old and I knew at thelibrary.
The police didn't hang out atthe library very often.
Often, when they found me, theywould bring me home, which
wasn't my ideal direction to go.
(02:07):
And so I was in the library andit was getting dark, it was
dreary, it was cold, they weregoing to shut down Somehow.
I found this magazine to keep meoccupied and it was a National
Geographic and it was aboutGauguin and French Polynesia and
had his gorgeous paintings andbeautiful photography.
(02:28):
And I was going through and Iwas pretty excited about it all
when I came across this pictureof a waterfall.
It was sparkling and I justfollowed my eyes down from the
top of the waterfall to thecaption below and the hair on my
arm and parts of my face juststarted to vibrate.
(02:49):
I never experienced anythinglike this before and I thought
something powerful is here.
And when I read the caption atthe bottom of the photograph, it
said Bay of Virgins.
Well, I just knew at that pointI was going to go to the Bay of
Virgins in French Polynesia.
I didn't know how I would getthere, but it was my dream to do
(03:11):
it.
I thought I could live there,right near the waterfall, there
would be clean water, the peoplelooked so happy and amazing and
the women looked celebrated.
The women looked celebrated.
I had come from inner cityPhilly northeast Philly it
wasn't my father worked withgangs and it wasn't really
(03:39):
didn't look at all like that inthe magazine, and so I just
decided I wanted to go and livethere.
So that was my dream, and so Ijust decided I wanted to go and
live there.
Audra (03:45):
So that was my dream.
So your dream was born as anescape from your reality and it
was the furthest point fromwhere you were at that moment
and it sparked something in you.
It sparked excitement andcreativity and hope.
Yes, it was probably somethingthat you didn't have very much
(04:07):
of at that moment, consideringwhat you were escaping from in
that dark, cold library yes,exactly, and it was a real
challenge because you can't flyor drive to fatahebo, where the
Bay of Virgins is.
Heidi (04:26):
So that was my first obstacle, it was your first
challenge to be able to go there.
Audra (04:34):
So you picked one of the hardest places on the planet to
get to, yes, but you found hope,you found purpose and you found
a focus Correct.
So you told me that you hadthis focus and you had decided,
okay, I need to figure out howto get there.
(04:56):
And you took some creativesteps on some investigation on
how you would get there.
So tell me a little bit andtell the audience what did you
do next on your investigation onhow to get to French Polynesia?
Heidi (05:10):
Well, there was actually a step before and that was the
first thing that I saw.
First place I wanted to go wasthe Galapagos, and before I even
saw this magazine.
So, just to take a step back, Iwrote to the Ecuadorian
government and asked how I couldcome and live in the Galapagos.
And they wrote back about ninemonths later and there were all
(05:32):
these brochures, sciencebrochures and tourist brochures
with penguins and blue-footedboobies and lizards and sea
lions, and they said in order tolive in the Galapagos, you have
to either be born Ecuadorianthat was out marry an Ecuadorian
(05:52):
I wasn't about to get marriedat that point or become a marine
biologist.
So I decided I would studymarine biologist.
I went to school, studiedmarine biologist, I met my first
husband, had a child and mychild became so much of my focus
.
He just was so amazing and thedream sort of was to go to
(06:14):
French Polynesia, sort of wentin the background a bit.
So there were quite a fewintervening years.
But later on I had left myhusband and I was on a date with
an amazing man and I startedgetting these chills again, like
I'd had years and years ago,all the way down my arm and my
(06:39):
face and I thought something isgoing on here.
I felt I was in this vortex ofenergy and I didn't know what it
was.
It sounds crazy.
But I was trying to get theconversation away from me
because I felt like I couldhardly talk.
And so I said to him so youlike to sail?
Is that right?
And he said they said yeah, doyou like to sail?
(06:59):
I said yes.
He said where would you go?
And it just came flooding outof me French Polynesia.
I want to go to Fatahiba.
His jaw dropped, his eyesdropped, he grabbed my arms and
he looked at me in the eye andsaid you have to go, you just
have to go.
And so we decided at that pointwe were going to get a boat.
(07:22):
It was our first date.
I don't think we decided to geta boat at that point, but we
were pretty excited about thelove that we shared, this love
of sailing and adventure.
So we had to get a boat, we hadto outfit it, we had to leave
our jobs.
We both were in companies atthe time.
We both had our own companies,were in companies at the time.
(07:48):
We were both had our owncompanies and we, finally, we
bought a boat.
We outfitted it, boughtlifeboats and bought a lifeboat
and all kinds of courses on howto sail safely.
We launched a lifeboat in thepool at MIT and had to do a lot
to get ready.
And we prepared and we scrapedthe paint off the boat and
(08:11):
rewired the boat and got a windvane and all kinds of things
that we worked on for a year totry to get it ready.
The one thing that we didn'tprepare for, however, was my
fear.
That was a whole new chapter inthe story, so that's how it
started out.
Audra (08:32):
So I'm going to pause here for a moment and just make
sure that I am clear on that.
You had a whole life betweenbeing a teenager having this
initial reaction to FrenchPolynesia.
You went to college, you had awhole different career.
(08:52):
You were a marine biologist.
You got married, you had achild, you had an entire career,
changed careers, left amarriage, went into a new
relationship and then this olddream came flooding back.
Heidi (09:17):
Yes, and there was one other little piece that I
probably should share here.
I was having in my 40s my sonwas getting to the age of that I
was when I experienced violentcrime and I was experiencing a
fair amount of PTSD.
So the urge to run away cameback, Even though I was separate
.
I wasn't in the Philadelphiaanymore.
(09:39):
I left my husband.
I was afraid to be alone.
I thought if I were alone Iwould come.
Well, the violent crime wasaround rape.
I thought if I was alone Iwould be raped again, and I was
afraid to be alone.
So I did a lot of therapy, andthat was a piece of why this
(10:04):
dream came back.
I was still running away.
I couldn't be in my job.
I was making million dollardecisions at home with my at
home.
I was not doing that, and so Ithink that was a big piece of it
too that was a big piece of ittoo.
Audra (10:30):
So you, so you were still .
You were very capable, in yourown company, making these big,
giant decisions, but you hadthis, this old fear gripping you
at home.
Yes, so you were.
As you had said prior, youprepped for a year to go on this
journey, with everything butyour fear, right?
So that was that's part of theanchor of this story.
(10:54):
So how old were you when youfinally set sail to go on a
dream that was first sparked andinspired you when you were 15.
Heidi (11:09):
55.
You were 55.
Audra (11:12):
Yes, so the reason why I want to say this out loud is
because it is never, ever toolate to chase an old dream, even
with old fears on board, andliterally on board, because you
were on board a boat, that'sright.
Never too late to chase an olddream, even when you're bringing
(11:37):
some old ghosts, some old fears, which we're going to talk
about, that you brought on boardwith you, correct?
Where did you?
Heidi (11:44):
leave from Left, from Maine, portland, maine, and we
sailed down to the Caribbean andon my husband and I sailed
together and on.
To start we decided we wouldmeet a group of boats in Hampton
Virginia.
We sailed down, had an amazingsail down to Hampton Virginia
(12:05):
and then a group of us weregoing to sail on our own boats
to the Caribbean and,unbeknownst to us, there was a
very unexpected storm that cameup and some boats actually had
knockdowns.
One woman was lost and thatwasn't exactly where we were.
(12:25):
However, the waves were reallychurned up and we had some very
difficult problems with crashingwaves and we ended up having to
go back into Hampton Virginiaagainst the wind and there was
another storm coming behind itand as we started going towards
(12:50):
the shore, the Coast Guard cameon and said Securite, securite.
All boats take immediateshelter.
Extreme lightning is coming atseven o'clock, at 1900 hours,
and we thought we would be backin time, but because we're going
against the wind, it was a lot,took a lot longer, and as the
(13:13):
flashes of the lightning cametowards our boat and our mast,
it was quite alarming to me andI actually had a PTSD attack,
dissociative attack, and thoughtI was 11 years old while I was
on the boat, so that when wecame back, so that was the
(13:35):
second big obstacle that Iencountered, of your fear from
being attacked at 11, cameroaring back in the middle of
that storm, correct.
Audra (13:56):
So you're battling a physical storm and you're
battling an emotional one,correct, simultaneously Correct.
And you made it inshore fromthat storm the boat down and
(14:28):
find different crew.
Heidi (14:29):
We can sell the boat whatever works, because he was
very, very supportive of it andunderstood what was happening to
me.
So it ended up that he saileddown with a crew and I flew down
and in the meantime I did a lotof therapy.
So that was how I tried toovercome that part of the fear.
Audra (14:51):
Where did you fly down to to meet your husband?
Heidi (14:53):
I flew down to the British Virgins and then we
sailed through the Caribbean.
Then in hurricane season, wecame back to Maine, went down
again at the end of and I wasable to spend the summer with my
son, which was wonderful, andthen we sailed, flew back, got
the boat sailed up and around toPanama, spent a season in
(15:14):
Panama, but through that wholetime when the weather would get
bad and I would get afraid, Iwould start to have flashbacks
and triggers from what happenedto me at 11 years old, and so I
had to really understand how tostop going from the flashback to
(15:38):
full-blown PTSD.
Audra (15:40):
I had to learn how to calm so you were learning to
calm in the middle of the storm.
So you were learning to calm inthe middle of the storm,
physical and emotional, but youkept pushing through.
You kept going I did you, youcould have, you could have quit
like just said, I'm done, I'mdone, I'm done and never get
back on that boat again.
You could have and nobody wouldhave said anything to you no
(16:03):
most of all husband.
My husband could have saidthat's it, we're done, we're
done.
You didn't.
You kept getting back on thatboat, I did, and you kept
pushing through, so tell me thestory of your amazing and lovely
(16:24):
trip and your visit in Cunayala.
Heidi (16:24):
Cunayala is a matrilineal society north of
Panama.
There's 360, some islands there, and one of the things that's
amazing is they have thisconcept of Paradiso, where they
really are present in the momentand grateful and appreciative
of the moment, instead ofthinking about someday I'll go
(16:45):
to heaven or someday there'll bea Shangri-La, or maybe tomorrow
it will be sunny and it won'train.
They really try to focus on thepresent and we're in paradise
right now, and that's a littlepiece of the whole.
Calming practice for me also is, regardless of where I am, I
(17:06):
can be grateful for something,even if it's only the breath
that I take.
If I'm triggered, I can begrateful that I'm aware of the
trigger, that I'm breathing inthe air that I'm breathing, that
I'm seeing colors that arearound me, and so that was
really an interesting learningexperience.
(17:28):
And the other piece that wasinteresting about this society
is there's a lot of genderfluidity and there's a lot of
valuing of female traits.
I guess they have what's calledthird gender.
They have what's called thirdgender, where some boys, some
(17:50):
people who are born male, aregiven the honor to grow up as
female and they're consideredthird gender.
And what I learned from one ofthe women, lisa, who was born
male and embraced being female,is that it's really important to
(18:13):
know who you are and embracewho you are.
So that was very interesting tome because I grew up feeling, at
11 years old, feeling thatwomen were weak.
At 11 years old, feeling thatwomen were weak and I didn't
really wasn't really sure Iwanted to be a girl anymore
because I didn't want to be weak.
And down there it seemed likewomen were not only respected
(18:37):
but they were honored for thetraits that they had and they
had leadership roles and theytook care of the commerce and
they were powerful and theystood in their power and
embraced their femininity.
They didn't try to be maleleaders, they really embraced
being female leaders and thatwas unbelievable to me to see
(19:01):
how strong they were.
Audra (19:03):
It's one of the only matriarchal societies in the
world and it's beautiful.
When you told me about thisamazing island, I went and did
some research and it's anunbelievable society.
It right in the fact that theyteach to be strong in who you
(19:29):
are and not try to be anybodyelse, and I think that is such a
beautiful, gorgeous lesson thatthey don't want you to
necessarily emulate anybody elseother than who you are.
Heidi (19:47):
Yes, exactly, and I found in traveling almost
halfway around the world.
There's a lot of remote islandsand they have very interesting
society and such wisdom thatthey've learned that that was
just unbelievable to me me.
Audra (20:12):
Yeah, these remote societies have such wisdom that
in these developed countrieshaven't caught up to yet, which
I think is remarkable.
Heidi (20:19):
Yeah, often their sense of time is very different than
us.
I find I can get stressed out alot because I have all of these
things that I'm doing.
You know, I found like on theseislands, often I could just
breathe and be and be in themoment and it was just.
It was just amazing A differentsense of time, a different
(20:43):
sense of gratitude.
I was walking down the beachwith a friend of mine in
Cuneyala and there was a manthere that was working on his
island and lived on the island,and my friend went up and said
thank you so much for being here.
This is like so gorgeous.
(21:03):
I've never been any place likethis.
I'm going back to the UnitedStates in a few days.
What can I send down to you?
What would you like?
What kind of gifts would youlike from the United States?
And he looks around and he saysthis in his own language that
he has bananas, he has plantains, he has crabs, he has lobsters,
he has fish, he has coconuts.
(21:26):
And he looks around and he putshis hand out and he says it's
paradise, I have all that I need.
I don't know too many people inmy community that feel like
they really have everything theyneed and what they have can fit
(21:46):
in their hands and around them.
In a way, Maybe that's not fair.
So many people have highgratitude.
It's just a different culture.
Audra (21:57):
What a beautiful thing to look around and say I have
everything I need.
There's nothing you can send methat I need, Right?
I wish we could all have that.
Heidi (22:09):
Well, we can, though.
I mean, we can feel moregratitude, we can feel more
presence.
I'm not saying it's easy, but Ithink the experience for me.
I like to stop and be grateful.
I have some flowers, cutflowers that a friend gave me,
that are just, you know, sittingnext to me on the computer and
(22:31):
I just look at them and they'reso beautiful and I can be
present and grateful for that.
Audra (22:38):
Anyway, when did you go next on your journey?
Heidi (22:43):
We went through the Panama Canal.
I've been through the canalfour times.
It was so amazing, sointeresting to go through the
canal.
And then we went to theGalapagos and that was the first
dream come true for me because,as I mentioned earlier before,
I had the dream to go to FrenchPolynesia.
I wanted to go to the Galapagosand so we spent a month in the
(23:05):
Galapagos swam with sea lions.
The Galapagos swam with sealions, snorkeled, with penguins
going by.
It was really amazing.
If you have an opportunity to gothere, I find it so amazing.
It's the really incredibleecology there.
The people were wonderful, andthen that took about 10 days
(23:29):
from Panama and then we had ahuge crossing from the Galapagos
towards French Polynesia.
And all of this time I waswanting to search for the
waterfall in the magazine and bynow it's been 40 some years and
I'm not even 100% sure thewaterfall exists, let alone it's
(23:52):
really at Batahiva, so Ibelieve it's most likely there
and I felt like I had to go andfind it.
I was a little bit obsessedaround it, yet I didn't really
know if it was there.
Audra (24:07):
So did you end up finding it?
I can't tell you, you have toread my book, oh oh, so we'll
have to go, and we'll have to goand read a little bit of a
mystery in a cliffhanger that'sright to go and lie that out
twists in this book.
oh, we'll have to go and findout.
You had said.
(24:28):
You had said to me, becausethis adventure, this was a
five-year adventure and itwasn't just a physical one, as
you have told us throughout thisstory.
It was most definitely anemotional one, you had told me,
as we met, before you had thisamazing healing incident in the
(24:49):
middle of the Pacific Ocean.
I did what did you experiencein the middle of the Pacific
Ocean that finally gave you thisfull circle healing moment
where you finally said, okay,I'm free, I'm free of this.
Heidi (25:23):
I'm free.
I'm free of this.
And when I had had a PTSDflashback and I thought my
assailant hurt me once and Iperpetuated that in my mind
(25:56):
every day of my life, and so itwas interesting to me to
actually recognize what I wasdoing.
And then it was even harder toknow what do I do about this?
And so at that point I had quitthe boat and I met a therapist
who had climbed to 24,000 feeton Mount Everest and she was
(26:20):
doing a study on breathing, andshe's the one that helped me
develop a calming practice.
And I wrote another book on howto calm it's a workbook on
calming and so it started there,by first understanding how I
perpetuated it in my mind andthen knowing what to do about it
, how to calm.
(26:52):
From coming from the amygdala inyour brain, the flashbacks can
come, but for me there was atime between an instant or two,
between when the flashbackswould come and when I would just
go into full blown PTSD.
I learned how to stop thatconnection.
I couldn't stop the initialtrigger flashback, but I could
stop going from there to havinga full-blown PTSD.
(27:16):
So when I was in the middle ofthe Pacific the incident you're
talking about waves werecolliding.
I had three-meter waves, sonine foot wave hitting a nine
foot wave and colliding andgoing up about 15 feet.
And basically, if a breakingwave hits the center of your
(27:37):
boat that's a third or more ofthe size of your boat you'll
likely get capsized.
And these breaking waves werecrashing and coming in towards
me.
I was on watch it was just myhusband and I so we were
exhausted.
One of us would be on watch,one of us would sleep.
He was sleeping below and I hadthe beginning of the trigger
(28:00):
and I was able to use thecalming practice and stop it.
And then I just started tobelieve it or not, rage at these
waves saying this is nothappening, you're not taking me
down again, and I just raged.
I had no idea I had any rageinside me.
I thought I was a.
Really I didn't even think Ihad any anger inside of me.
(28:21):
I was never allowed to haveanger as a child, so I didn't
think I had any anger, but boydid I release it at sea.
And I've heard since about.
I have a friend who works withthe Gestalt Institute in Sweden,
denmark.
She's actually in Copenhagenand she has a class where they
(28:42):
take the students that have beentraumatized out to the woods
and make them scream and yell,and it's all this part of
releasing rage that you mightnot even think you have.
So that's what happened to mein the boat.
Audra (28:57):
But you released 40 years of fear and anger and pain in
the middle of the ocean and itno longer held you captive,
right, and you wrote a book forthose to maybe give them a
(29:23):
pathway for release as well.
Heidi (29:26):
Right.
Yes, I wanted to inspire otherfolks because I believe we all,
or most of us, carry stories.
It could be from trauma that wehave, it could be from all
kinds of things.
Be some inspiration for othersto rise above the stories that
we carry and live bold dreams.
Audra (30:03):
So you were brave enough to live this big, full, big fat,
bold dream that was born out ofpain.
It also gave you release frompain and amazing experiences
along the way.
Was there a favorite part ofthis journey that you had that
(30:27):
took five years and halfwayaround the world?
Heidi (30:31):
Oh yes, but I don't know if I should tell it, because I
don't want to give away my book.
How about, if I tell you asecond favorite, give me a
second favorite.
There's a clear favorite, but Ireally I don't want to give
away the whole plot of my book.
Audra (30:52):
Oh yeah, Give us a nibble .
Heidi (30:54):
Okay, I loved being in Gunayala.
I felt such feminine energythere.
I felt so valued.
I felt that people seemed sohappy.
They gave me a nickname it'scalled, it was Ansu, which is
mermaid, and I learned um.
(31:19):
I learned about 50 words.
They a lot of some of themspoke English.
A lot of them spoke Spanish,but I tried to learn some of
their language and that reallyhelped me be not accepted by
their culture but embraced in away, and I loved to.
(31:40):
I loved just swimming and divingand snorkeling and meeting the
people.
And just one time, my friendLisa, who I mentioned is a third
gender leader in this society,she took us up a boat up a river
(32:02):
and then we hiked really deepinto the jungle and there was a
waterfall in a differentwaterfall and we could dive in
from the rocks and then swimdownstream and I felt like it
was a national geographic andshe had um, she had a friend of
hers that also came with us.
(32:22):
And another time we just wentto one of the islands.
They had a ceremony.
They have a ceremony when thegirls come of age and they let
us come to their ceremony andeat their food and drink the
famous coconut drinks that theyhave, and it was so they grabbed
(32:45):
.
My son came down at that pointand a little girl about three
years old grabs his hand andhe's.
It was just really wonderful.
Audra (32:54):
So so let me, let me read between the lines here when
girls come of age, so I'm goingto assume, when they start to
menstruate, or right, or orthey're going to soon start to
menstruate Right, or they'regoing to soon start to
menstruate Sure.
They celebrate it.
Oh, yes, wow, what a flippingthat on its head.
(33:19):
Whereas in Western civilizationwe hide that and we call it the
curse.
Right, or at least that's whatmy grandmother called.
It is the curse.
It is, and it's something thatwe hide and call it disgusting.
Here in Western civilizationand here on this amazing
(33:39):
beautiful island, it's acelebration.
Wow, what an amazing place.
Heidi (33:47):
Yes, yes, they also.
They do a embroidery work.
They make this art, artisticpieces, and they use them in
their dress and there are somany symbols and animals and
stories and they use thesestories to teach their children
and their grandchildren.
Often a grandmother will workwith the grandchild and teach
(34:11):
them about who they are andtheir culture and it's really
fascinating.
Audra (34:18):
This sounds like a magical place and I am so
inspired by you.
I was inspired by you by thefirst time I met you.
I'm even more inspired by younow, on so many different levels
, not just by your candor andyour bravery about being so
transparent, about the storiesof the things that have happened
to you, of the of the traumaticthings that have happened to
(34:42):
you, but that you had a dreamthat you didn't give up on, even
if it took you 40 years to getto and multiple tries to
complete, even though it wasdifficult, and that you had to
get off the boat and keepgetting on to complete.
I am just like I said, there'sso there's layer after layer,
(35:04):
that your life inspires me and II just am grateful that we were
introduced.
Heidi (35:11):
Well, thank you, and I really feel like we all have
dreams that we can.
We can focus on and and, andrise above whatever's holding us
back to do that.
It's not.
It's not.
I'm not special with this.
I am trying to inspire othersto live bold dreams.
Audra (35:34):
Well, once again, Heidi's book is laughing at the sky.
You can reach it.
You can find her book on Amazonand all of your favorite
booksellers.
Heidi, I'm going to give you anopportunity which is my
favorite part of the show thatwhen I get to step back from the
mic and give you a moment thatyou can speak directly and
(35:57):
intimately with the audience,for you, to give them a moment
of inspiration.
So the mic is yours.
Heidi (36:04):
Well, thank you, moment of inspiration.
So the mic is yours.
Well, thank you.
I think four takeaways.
For me in traveling halfwayaround the world was, first of
all, breaking the silence.
It's really important to breakthe silence, find compassionate
listeners, find your tribe andreally deeply, not just tell a
(36:26):
piece of your story, buteverything that's holding you
back.
And the more that we as a worldtell our stories and break the
silence that keeps us fromwhatever it is that holds us
back, that's really critical.
And then this whole idea aboutrising above the stories to live
(36:47):
bold dreams, managing yourfears, overcoming your obstacles
whatever that obstacle is, tosee if you can break it down and
manage it.
And then to understand ifyou're perpetuating something
that's holding you, eitherperpetuating a trauma or a
failure or whatever it is.
(37:09):
I think that if that's holdingyou back, it's good to be aware
of that.
And then, lastly, it's reallyto me all about loving well, if
you have rage or you have fear,or you have grief, deep grief,
(37:30):
to find ways through thatexperience to turn it to sorrow
and find and then love.
Well, so I have gratitude andlove well.
So that's, I think, what Ilearned in going halfway around
(37:52):
the world.
Audra (37:54):
Heidi, you have been a delight and a joy to get to know
.
Where can the audience reachyou if they'd like to reach out
to you and connect with you?
Heidi (38:02):
Well, my name's Heidi Love and I have a website,
HeidiLoveAuthorcom, and they canreach me through my website,
HeidiLoveAuthorcom.
Audra (38:13):
Thank you so much for being here.
I appreciate you spending yourtime with me and with the
audience and sharing a littlebit of your story and giving us
a few teasers about your journeyof the five years of Halfway
Around the World and a littleglimpse into your experiences of
(38:34):
on the boat and laughing at thesky.
Heidi (38:37):
Well, thank you, and thank you importantly, for the
work that you do, because it'sreally really important.
Audra (38:45):
I'm giving it my best shot.
I know you are, I really am,because, like you, I think that
silence gets us nowhere, and I'musing the tool I have, which is
my voice, and putting amicrophone on it, so and giving
everybody else access to it.
(39:05):
So we'll do it together.
We'll give everybody elseaccess and amplify their voices.
So thank you for lending meyours, thank you and thank you
all again for listening, andwe'll see you again next time.
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