January 11, 2025 • 48 mins
As founder and designer for Jordan Alexander Jewelry, Theresa Bruno designed pieces for Oprah, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Hudson, Pink, and Michelle Obama, who named her a favorite designer. She is now host of The Soul Talks Podcast. Theresa Bruno’s life reads like a fairy tale in many ways. Like life, though, fairy tales are often darkened with tragedy, and Theresa’s life is no exception. She has suffered more than her share of pain. However, she is still writing her story, and in this chapter she is vanquishing the fear and shame that gutted her after her husband’s death and the sudden collapse of her business by bringing it into the light and talking about it- fearlessly. About The Soul Talks Podcast: Soul Talks Podcast with Theresa Bruno launched on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2024 in honor of Theresa’s late husband, James, the love of her life. Born of tragedy, Soul Talks is a testament to the abiding power of gratitude, acceptance, self-compassion, honesty, connection, and love in overcoming adversity. Filmed at the Spots Films studios in Atlanta, GA, Soul Talks airs weekly every Wednesday on Youtube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everybody, and welcome to the best ever You show.
I'm your host, Elizabeth Hamilton Garno and I am here
with the fabulous Teresa Bruno. How are you, Teresa?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Oh hey Elizabeth, and a happy new Year.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I am doing great and just so excited about this
new year and always honored to talk to you. You know,
I just sit in a huge admiration for you, the platform
you've built, all the books you've written, and just so
excited to have this morning with you.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Oh, thank you, And you know you are doing great
things yourself. I think that you know, we came across
each other and we're like, Okay, this is meant to be.
I appreciate you having me on your podcast, and so
we're gonna do a little podcast with you and celebrate
all the amazing things you do and celebrate your life
and you just you know you you are out there
(00:52):
finding people and sharing their stories and really helping the
world be more peaceful. So I love it. So everybody,
go to Soul Talks with Teresa dot com and Teresa's
t H e r e. S a dot com. While
you're listening. You can find her on YouTube, also Instagram,
TikTok and I'll put all of those links with the
(01:14):
radio show. Uh, so you have them. I don't know
the fate of TikTok so much as of today, but
so maybe Instagram, YouTube and website for now might be better.
But Teresa is the host of the Soul Talks podcast,
which I've had the privilege and honor being on. And
I think that one of the things that is that
(01:35):
you focus on a lot with your own messaging is
repurposing grief into hope. And I want to go there
with people because the world aches right now and so
many levels in so many ways. And grief isn't just
the loss of someone it can be. It's so multifaceted
(01:57):
with the various losses that we may have have. So
grief is a part of us, and I think more
and more add to this, I think more and more
we're all learning how to process grief, hopefully better. It
doesn't seem like it's such a taboo topic.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Right what do you think?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
I agree one hundred percent of Elizabeth, And you know,
so many things that you hit on really fast there
that we can kind of unpack this morning. I think
we all have I would say survival We're all on
a survival journey of some sort, and in that survival,
we're surviving a grief. And it can be you know,
(02:38):
a loss of a person, a parent, a partner, a child,
you know it give me the loss of a pet.
I had to put my fourteen year old Maltisese to
sleep the day after Christmas. And you talk about triggering
a bit of grief I had from the loss of
the suicide of my husband five years ago. I mean,
there are so many things and I you know, I
(02:59):
have this also a story of having to shudder a
beloved business. And there's so much grief that comes with
loss of a job. There's so much grief that comes
when we think or we define ourselves as having failed
at something. So so you know, to put a period
right there. Everybody has grief. And one several things I've
(03:23):
noticed in my journey my journey now is I'm five
years in since the death of my husband and about
five and a half years since I lost a business
that was just a beloved, you know, heartfelt you know,
pulled up from my bootstraps creative business and learned a
(03:44):
lot along the way. Some of the first things I
would say to your listeners are, you know, do what
you gotta do, if that means you need to cry, cry,
if that means you need to sleep, sleep, if it
means you need to eat, eat, But everybody seems to
(04:05):
tell us what we're supposed to do in grief, and
my theory is that our bodies and our spirits tell
us individually how to help ourselves when we grieve, if
we can get quiet enough to listen to it. Probably
the most profound thing I learned early on in my
grief journey was that it's not a shorthaul. Our American
(04:29):
culture doesn't give us a lot of time space to grief.
There are other cultures who I think do that, whom
I think do that better than us. But you know,
we don't really have a lot of verbiage around it.
But as you said, it's getting less less taboo, and
we do talk about it more. You know, every time
I do talk about my survival journey and I talk
(04:49):
about grief and sorrow, what it feels like, what it
looks like, there's nobody in that audience who doesn't nod
or cry or raise a hand, you know. So yeah,
I think it's less taboo. But that said, I don't
think we have a we have a real language in
our culture for death and grief. So I guess that's
(05:11):
part of my platform is to open it up, open
that up as much as I possibly can as a
vessel on this earth. And then the most powerful thing
I learned early on, because I kept saying, and this
is what everybody asks me, They say, when will it end?
How long is this going to last? How long am
I going to be in this kind of pain? Because
you know we want quick fixes. The truth of it is,
(05:35):
I learned that you have to learn to live with grief.
You learn to eat with it, and sleep with it
and bathe with it, and you learn to walk alongside
the grief. It's almost like you've got a cup in
each hand and you're trying so hard to survive and
to recover, and you've got this cup of grief that's,
(05:57):
let's say, in your right hand, but you learned a
whole that while in the other hand you've got this
cup that's about survival and recovery and learning to find
whatever it is that gives you a rope to tether
to hold on to keep going. You know, I would
still say five years in yes, my grief is lighter
(06:18):
and I have tools to help.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Me with it.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
But is it gone? No, it's not. So you know,
I just kind of stopped there for a moment.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Well, you know, I want to bring in doctor Katie
Eastman into this discussion. So she's my co All Things
Best Ever you and co author on Percolate and we
just signed for a new book due out in twenty
twenty six about peace, and she's one of the you
just keep.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Rolling in grace.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Well, well, where I want to go with this is
so she's one of the foremost experts on grief and
loss in the whole world. Like she studied under Zabeth
Kobler Ross and she would be such a great guest
for your show and just yeah, oh my gosh, and
just for you to know her as a human. But
she she specializes in helping people recreate their life after
(07:14):
loss and and and growth, grief with with growth, and
so that you know exactly what you're saying. You know,
you walk alongside it, and you learn how to maneuver
with it, and you and you continue to move forward
as a human being in different directions, and you turn
that that pain that you're feeling into some purpose like
(07:34):
you have you are doing.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
So.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
She's a marvelous human being. And we did a we
did a pretty cool workshop last night on peace, passion
and prosperity. And one of the first questions we asked
of our participants was, you know, what's something going on
in their life causing them you know, stress or grief
or feelings of loss and things like that. And you
(07:59):
know your draw when you when you really stop pause
and hear other people and what's actually going on in
their lives?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Oh my gosh, and you know right now, just may
I say sending so much love, prayers, energy, help, financial
support to all of our friends in la. Oh yeah,
there are a number of avenues everybody can give to
help support. But the loss, the you know, the collective
loss and the individual loss that's happening has happened in
(08:34):
the last four days and continuing today. I just want
to put our arms and prayers around all of l A.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, I'm loving it when I'm seeing send angels angels
are what them? Oh yeah, yes, yes, and and things
like that. Yeah, it's it's it's hard to comprehend what's
happening out there. I don't think we've even scratched the
surface of what's happening out there, and it's you know,
(09:02):
it's unfolding on TV and all of these things, and
I think we just really need to hold space for
everyone affected. I couldn't agree with you more. So I'm
going to I'm going to bring this conversation back to
you and go back to you as a young kiddo. Okay, yeah,
And and keep in mind we have we're probably going
to do thirty minutes or so on the show. So
(09:25):
but I want to and and I've got so many
things I want to ask you. I've got like ten
questions I want to talk to you about, so uh.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I think answers. So just I'm happy for you to
stop so you can get every everything you want.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
So, so take us back to Juilliard because you you know,
oh my goodness, gracious you are so you're such an artist.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
I am, I am, But not because I did anything
to get that. That was really a gift that came
so early in childhood. And I don't think I certainly
didn't understand it. My my family didn't understand it. It was
just there and as a little girl, you know, I
came from late sixties rock and roller parents. I had
(10:11):
heard of classical music, and you know, I probably about
three or four years old. I just heard classical music
in my head. And then you know, it was begging
my mom for a piano, was begging to play, and they,
you know, they just weren't we weren't that family. We
weren't cultured at all, really, and so I learned to
play very very quickly. And it was a real fast
(10:33):
matriculation into you know, just about a teacher a year
until I got to be about twelve years old when
we found somebody who could take me all the way
through to graduate school. And it was a god given talent. Yes,
I was very disciplined, but I was disciplined because I
loved it. It drove me. You know, nobody ever had
to say practice. I think by the time I was
(10:54):
about ten, I was practicing three hours a day. I
only went to high school for four hours every morning,
and then I practiced all afternoon, five hours a day
in high school. And I was just I just it
was me. It consumed me. I was one of the
lucky ones who got right connections. I had amazing teachers.
(11:15):
Teachers shaped me, teachers healed me. Can't say enough about that.
And I was lucky enough to be walked in to
study with a Deel Marcus at Jullilliard and that was
one of the highlights of my life.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, you know, so what is it safe to say
you were like a prodigy?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
That's a great question, and I asked myself that all
the time. You know, I will back up on this
one thing, and I don't want it to be too
dark a topic. But I didn't come from happy home
at all. There was It was a very very unhappy home,
and so I've often asked the question, you know, was
I really a prodigy or was my need to escape
(11:58):
the turmoil and chaos of my home so great that
the gift I was given from God at to be
an artist, to be creative, to explore beauty? Did I
just run at it so hard so I didn't have
to face the other parts? So I've always asked myself
that question, But others would have said product she was.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Do you have you ever seen on TikTok where they
have a three year old playing the piano and they're like,
it must be so and so reincarnated, you know kind
of I have you seen that?
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (12:29):
I kind of'm asking you, do you feel like you're,
you know, Beethoven reincarnated or I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
I don't know about Beethoven. You know, I'm a fairly
small woman. But who I most would like to have
been was Rock money Off with hands that spanned you know,
almost two octaves and played the biggest, most beautiful repertoire
in the world. So yeah, I think I would have
wanted to be Rock money Off.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Okay, all right, we'll take it.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
So so maybe, right, you don't know for sure. We
all of us are like, oh okay, yeah, so okay,
So in all seriousness, though, tell us what happened to you,
because it's your first bout of you know, oh my,
what am I going to do with my life?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
The first place where you know, everything seemed like it
was always on an upward trajectory and then it was
an absolute fall to the earth and crash. I was practicing.
I was in graduate school. Everything was shiny and no warning.
I was practicing and this anybody who hears this will
(13:33):
go well, that was dumb. Yes, now we would say
it was dumb. But I was practicing about ten hours
a day. And again, I'm a small person. I was
trying to make great, big sounds on the stage and
play a big romantic repertoire, and all of a sudden,
just it was a morning, I was practicing Chopin's forth Blood,
I was practicing the coda. It's quite hard, and my
(13:56):
left wrist just in one second was so excrushating, painful.
I can't explain it. And it just froze. It stopped working.
I couldn't move it, I couldn't do anything. So over
the course of the year, it was determined that you know,
I had just stressed my body so much that the
body responded, as doctor Bessel vander Kolch would say, the
(14:19):
body keeps the score. And had placed a synovule cyst
right on the wristbone, right where the wrist goes up
and down to play, and takes all the force that
your body puts into those great big strings on a
ten foot grand And it took a year in a
cast of determining whether I needed surgery or not. Surgery,
(14:40):
of course, had to drop out of graduate school. All
the shininess of my life was absolutely not shiny, and
then ultimately I had surgery. It was not a successful surgery.
The cyst was removed, but they also had to take
out a piece of the wristbone, and my concert career
was absolutely unequivocally over.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
That sucks.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, And you know, I was a kid, you know,
I think I was twenty four and no tools, no psychological,
spiritual tools to deal at all. And I had done
absolutely nothing since I was tiny, but studying music I had.
I didn't have anything that qualified me for any kind
of job. I had no dream. I had no dream
(15:28):
for anything else. And I think it's one of the
biggest things is when you don't dream, you don't create.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Yeah, when you say no tools, you know, I think
about today's kids and the vast array of tools they have,
and it feels like they're starting to use them. I
know when our son had our son's a profess, was
a professional baseball player and he got injured when he
was at Georgetown. Pitching line drive came back at his
(15:58):
head and he put his pitching hand up, and so
he's got a pin in his left hand, and he
drew upon every tool in the book to get through that.
But you know, oh, you know those moments when we're
really great at something and then it ends in injury
(16:19):
or whatever it is, or just got wrenching and heart
wrenching and wondering with hanging. I'm gonna keep going for
one second with no tools available to you. How did
you cope with that? Like? What did you do?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I didn't do very well. Yeah, I cried. Probably, I
mean like probably he had a nervous breakdown but wasn't
being treated, you know, didn't go to therapy. I mean
I went to physical therapy, but not emotional therapy. I
went to a little place in the mountains in North Carolina,
right outside of Asheville, and I walked and I cried,
(16:57):
and I walked and cried and I walked and cried.
That that was I did breathing tools. I have always
been a person of prayer, not a prayer that's driven
by doctrine or a certain kind of religion, but truly,
just from the time I've been a child, I prayer
has been easy, and so prayer was and a belief
(17:22):
in something greater than me, a belief in the divine.
Even in the worst of it, Elizabeth, with no dream
and no idea what life would be next for me,
there was this little, teeny tiny voice that went, this
is divine. This is for a reason. This is a
there's a bigger place in your life you don't you
can't see, you don't know it, but there is something
(17:43):
good on the other side of this. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, I think the world put us together for a reason.
We you and I have definitely met for a reason.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
I don't quite exactly know what.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Yeah, I don't exactly know what it is yet. But
when when you say angels or prayer or anything like that,
I get like little goosebumps, and I'm not cold, I'm
actually warm, and I'm like, okay, because I so thoroughly
believe in angels. I think they're just around us for
various reasons.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
And sometimes every day.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah, sometimes it doesn't feel like it, though, and you
have to really work through that.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I'll tell you a quick little story. When it was
about three, I had twin beds in my room and
my little sister had not been born yet, and hanging
over my bed with my little pink bedspread was this
painting of a guardian angel. I think my grandmother put
it there. And my favorite color to this day is
a light pink, and there was this guardian angel was
(18:44):
bathed in pink and in light, and like I said,
outside of my door, my bedroom door often was a
lot of turmoil and chaos. And as a little girl,
I would pray to that an angel and I would
just say, you know, help me, show me how to
get out of this. Music became way out, but I
had that was my first kind of pathway into prayer divinity.
(19:08):
And I hold that angel close all these years later
and still pray to her.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Yep, I love it. Yeah, I got the same thing.
I've got certain little things where I'm like, yep, that's
my angel right there. So yeah, and yeah, one of
them is I'm looking as you said that. One of
them is actually this little yellow angel. It's a little
angel ornament. The Selvaski's here in Maine. Their daughter passed
(19:33):
away from cancer. And and again I'm summarizing here a
little bit, but the mom keeps her memory so alive
through books and these angels and things like that. And
I have one of the angels.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Oh and it's just beautiful.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah would you yeah, I will, I will. Actually, I
just I have it right here. Yeah, it's it's it's
really beautiful.
Speaker 5 (19:58):
So anyway, yeah, I love my little things that I
have hanging around that remind me of people and their
and their their journeys, and it's just a don't you
think it's just so powerful to be mindful when you're
in the presence of another human being and like pause
for the power of like what in the world might
actually be going on in their actual life.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I think I love the word pause because I do
believe it's a powerful word if you if you see
it as an action word, and it seems to connote
the opposite, But so much happens in the pause.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yeah, yeah, so much when you like hold space for
other people to you know, don't don't brush by people without.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Thought exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah, I just right.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I love to have a number of exercises I do
with this as I coach and mentor others. But also
you know, holding other people in the light. Yeah, you know,
so often we find the little things that annoy us
about others or that poke at us. And if you can,
you know, just put a complete sort of pillar of
light or uh, you know, coming down on the person
(21:13):
you're looking at, and all you see them in is
bathed in light. Then what you see is all their
greatness as well as its equal parts greatness and pain.
But in your spirit up to see their spirit, I
think in a very different way.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, well, put all right, take us into the what
you segue into from from piano to the next part
of your life, like because you've had you're quite an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yes, I am an entrepreneur. I love creating businesses. I
just love it, the raw, messy parts of creating a business.
I don't create perfect businesses, but I love the in between.
I love the in the middle.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
That's what you think.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
It's my heart racing, and you know, I just love
the creation of the messy business, which I'm absolutely in
the middle of right now.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah. I keep wanting to drag you over into best
ever you and and help it fly.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I take it.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I need you on the way.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Well, I think one of the I think one of
the biggest mistakes we're making. I love all the you know,
the appearance of all the different brands. So we've got
a lot of individual brands out there, and I keep
looking at people going, you know, if you three would
team up, and you three would team up, and you
(22:33):
find would team up and everything, imagine the magazine industry
might come back, you know, a little bit stronger. We've
just got all these people trying to launch these individual
magazines and these individual memberships and all these things. And
I think if we, if we could, you know, team
up and support each other a little bit better as women,
(22:53):
we'd have some brands that emerge bigger than they could
be versus me, for example, sitting here in my office
since two thousand and eight, you know, chugging along, yeah,
but not really breaking through.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
I was. I was in my pre meditation space this morning.
And it's so bizarre you said that, because that dropped
into me about a couple of different people. Go on,
why aren't we doing like a monthly together? So I
support you and you support me? You know, why are
we doing these one off things together as women? So
you know, I couldn't be more honored than to be
(23:28):
on the team with Elizabeth and doctor Katie.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah, and you know, and it's funny because it changes
because people The best ever you change is because people
don't really understand or have the stomach for being an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I always find that interesting, but it's true because I mean, gosh,
I've it all and lost it all. You know, being
an entrepreneur is a scary place. I've also had extraordinary successes,
but they aren't all successes. You know, one success out
of five businesses started kind of is my is where
I've been.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, I go one out of ten, like you do
ten things and one of them works.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Yeah, exactly, But I agree with you. It's something I'd
like to put some paws time into.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
All right, So tell us more about you as an
entrepreneur and some of the businesses that you've had. It's
pretty cool. I mean, if you're out there and you're listening,
and you are a female entrepreneur, this is a human
being that you can engage to reesa Bruno as a
resource because she's seen it, done it, been there, all
of it up, down, good, bad, whatever. So yeah, all right,
(24:31):
I'm being quiet, let's listen.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Well, first of all, I would say to that end.
I also, I don't publicize it at all, but I
constantly have women come to me as a business coach.
It's one of them. It's one of the things I
do that gives me the most happiness and pleasure is
to coach women in business, women entrepreneurs in business. It's
just pure delight to me. But my first business I
(24:55):
ran out of the music business, taught for a minute,
knew I wasn't a teacher, cried every time every student left,
and just just was like, God, what do I do?
And I landed in the advertising and marketing business, and
I worked for two firms. Then I was a marketing
director for Regions Bank, which is now I think P
(25:18):
and C Bank nationally or internationally. Very young, you know,
that was I was twenty seven years old and I
was in this huge job and I immediately it taught
me that I did not want to be in the
corporate world.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
I loved.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I loved, you know, at twenty seven seeing a huge
business run, but I I and you know, they were thin,
was amazing me. You know. They were like, you could
be our first female bank president. I was like, yeah, no,
that's not what I want. And so when I quit
to create my first business, I was twenty eight and
a half when I when I when I first incorporated
(25:56):
that LLC, and it was an advertising mark marketing firm
and it was full service. I was partner creative director.
I had two partners. It was again I've had some
fairy tales happen in my life. It grew so fast,
I mean, I think in three or four years we
were billing twenty million dollars, which at that time was
a whole lot of money. And I was early married
(26:17):
and had a little baby. I took to the office
all the time and worked, you know, tons of hours,
and it was just so much fun. Probably ten years later,
I broke off from that partnership and created my own agency,
and I was creating sign of kind of small businesses
underneath my big business, small businesses of doing writing in
(26:41):
LA for small and large you know, kinds of projects
like your dad, but not as successful as your dad.
And so that was a business. You know, there were
just always small businesses happening underneath the big business. I
kept my marketing firm that I started, I guess at
thirty nine until two years ago, and I have to say,
(27:05):
interestingly enough, I never had one penny of debt on
the business, and that made me very proud because I
didn't go into business with an MBA. I went into business,
you know, really as a musician basically and three jobs,
you know, three jobs and three years before I started
a business. But I had no debt on the business.
It was always successful. It morphed as the world morphed,
(27:27):
you know, going into social media and you know, very
different kind of way of marketing. My expertise became in filmmaking,
commercial filmmaking, and I got to travel the world and
I had office in Toronto, office in La you know,
making commercials for large, large companies. So that was a blast.
(27:48):
And somehow in the middle of all that, I got
bored and creatively bored, and I was working in La
a lot and started just I loved jewelry. I loved fashion,
so it's just started. LA has this huge jewelry district.
And so for about two years, every weekend I drag
my youngest son and he would say, oh my god, Mom,
(28:09):
are you kidding? We have to look at pearls again.
I just was asking, how do you I didn't at
that point have an intent to start a business. I
just wanted to make amazing pieces for myself. And so
it took two years of just asking and learning and
how do you source things? And then finally finding a
craftsman who could create my designs. And I'll just stop
(28:32):
right there and let you ask questions.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Well, no, you know, I think it's I think it's
pretty amazing. But I was giggling back in the financial
services part of it because I think, you know, you
know a lot of me is in the financial services
industry still to this day, and it's such a there
are few and fewer females than there should be, so
it's a it's an interesting industry. So I love the
(28:56):
fact that you, you know, you were like, I love
the fact that you define things by I hope. I
don't want to do that, and that's sometimes why we
have to find what we truly love. So that's a
teaching point right there. And you know, commercial TV, filmmaking business,
all of these things, and then the jewelry making business
where you've I mean, I'm guessing I think we've talked before,
(29:16):
so I kind of know. Actually I'm not guessing it.
You know, you've put jewelry on really famous people and
things like that. Tell me something, why are you still going?
Why not just stop there? Go, been there, done it.
You don't need a podcast, really, maybe you know that
kind of thing. Tell me your purpose for continuing on
(29:39):
with helping people and turning it around and flipping it
around so that you are dedicating your life to lifting
other people up.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Where I think you just said it for me, Elizabeth,
when I lost that jewelry business that was again in
a fairy tale in my world, just crazy successful, became
global fast, and twelve years o I had been on
every major fashion mag I dressed million, you know, a
lot of major celebrities, and that that business really fed
(30:09):
the ego a lot, I have to say, but it
really fed my my need to create. And I lost
that business. It was a face plant in all kinds
of ways, and I lost it to internal fraud that
was happening underneath my notes for about two years. Then
my husband died tragically. He took his life just a
(30:32):
few months after I had to shutter that business. So
it was a double whammy of nothing pared to the
loss of James. But I was walking into that loss
caring a pile of shame over losing my business. So
I kept my marketing business somehow, going by the grace
of God, for three years after James died, you know,
(30:53):
And and then I decided to close a healthy, thriving,
successful business. And that's not an easy thing to do,
right That's that's a choice. That's a life choice. And
so to answer your question, as soon as I as
(31:13):
soon as James died and I began walking out of
just abject grief and sorrow. Every every step I made
forward in my survival, I felt more and more aligned
with my truest self spiritually. And my truest self spiritually
(31:33):
wasn't that crazy, driving driven person to create businesses, to
create success, to create wealth, to create materialism. That just
was gone. And I kept saying, Okay, God, you know what,
what do you want from me? And at the three
year mark, you know, I sold and closed that business
(31:58):
set real still for a year, but I was writing constantly,
I was asking questions. I had at that point a
really good mental spiritual practice of prayer, meditation tools I
was using to be quiet, to listen. My life was
in the pause, and I realized that I couldn't put
(32:21):
a period behind James death, and I couldn't put a
period behind what it felt like as a woman to close,
to have to close, to shutter a business that was
so much of my heart, and that every time I
talk to people they needed to hear what I was learning.
And it wasn't because I was so great, and I
(32:42):
don't think it was necessarily because I had answers what
I've learned in grief. And I think you and I've
talked about this is that they really just needed somebody
who had the bravery to sit alongside them and their grief. Yeah,
so today, why am I still doing it? I'm doing
it because I want to create a space for others
to talk about this really hard stuff and to get
(33:05):
in the mess and the raw and the junk of it.
I didn't have that five years ago, and maybe it
was there and I couldn't find it. But I'm driven
right now to be of service.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Yeah, thank you for sharing all of this. By the way,
I don't know if I think too properly along the
waiters we've been talking, but yeah, it's so it's it's
if somebody's listening to you right now, chances you know
needs you. You've you know, you've had an impact on them.
I'm near certain. So I think that's so important.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Thank you for giving me the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yeah, you know, when my dad died in twenty eighteen,
I came back here and I'm like, I mean, for
two I had to get picked up by my bootstraps
somebody actually kind of because I just wasn't doing very
well and I wanted to close best ever.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
You and.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
You know, I just was like, Oh, this sucks kind
of thing. And when you see somebody take their last breath,
as I did with my dad, it was like a
movie played backing everything up like like a tornado, almost going.
Nothing matters. None of this material stuff matters. Like I
(34:28):
came home from that and for like, I didn't even
care if I had two different shoes on. I know,
I know, or my socks didn't match. I'm like, none
of this matched. All the things that we think about
the mattering, like what kind of car you drive or
house do you live in, or what schools your kids
go to or all this stuff. It just was so
(34:50):
oddly not important. And I still can't quite explain it.
I was maybe a little depression in there, I don't.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Know, but still is it right there?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Everything I ever defined is success, oh j just completely
fell away and none of it mattered.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yeah. It made me. I mean I just released the
success guide Book and it made me write a book
on it. Like, hey, folks, wake up, call here. Everything
that you're defining a success.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Just like.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
People want to hug. They don't care how much money
you make, they care if you're nice to them. They
don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
It's a way.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
It looks like they need somebody to walk alongside them
stumbling through their grief.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yep, or even in happy moment, you know, happier joy
or what life just life in general, we need pals
and people who truly understand what we've gone through, rather
than superficial you know stuff and faky stuff put on,
faky stuff put all over social media and things like that,
(35:55):
where you're just seeing somebody's you know, excellent moments twenty
four to seven and none of the real. So I
don't know, I just I don't even know how to
explain it or articulate it. But do you have any
more words for it? Keeping in mind, it's ten we
were on here for We got to go in about
maybe like five minutes or so.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
It's not too long, Elizabeth. You and I have talked
about the story of your dad. I remember the first
time we did a pre interview together. I mostly live
in South Florida, and I was taking this walk, beautiful walk,
and you were telling me, you know, in detail, the
story of being with your dad, the things he said,
how those moments felt. And I was just tears running
(36:40):
down my face as I walked, you know, this beautiful
street and I think those are moments that are absolutely
covered and intended by the divine. Whatever your understanding of
God is as a listener, whoever the God of your
understanding is, your God, Elizabeth was so present with you
(37:03):
and your father in that moment. I think you are
so blessed to be with him as he crossed over.
But in those moments, you opened yourself and he opened
himself up, and the universe opened up for you to
experience something spiritually that was so profound for you that
it shifted your life.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
I don't think that was an accident that you You're
one of eleven kids, right, No.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Yeah, right, it's back in the middle. I gotta ask
you something, though. I'm going to put this a little bit,
and this is gonna be a really gross question. I'm
going to just be okay that brace yourself. Okay, So
I saw my father pass away and things like that.
You have a different situation here with the suicide. Yeah,
tell me what's what you really think? Say that again,
(37:55):
tell me what you really think? You know, like you're
you're you're telling me, you know, it was blessing and
I got to hold space and things like that with
my dad and things like you didn't have that.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Well, for what I'm saying, and that is it forever
shifted your life as to what your life's purpose is.
James suicide, And I'll go back to the hard part.
Speaker 5 (38:12):
Go back.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yeah, forever shifted my life, My life's purpose, my definitions
of success, who I am, my spiritual drive, that all
shifted in that moment. And a big piece of my
What happened to me was that I did find him.
And this is uh, you know, listeners, if children are.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Nearby place, I'll put a warning on this. Yeah, but.
Speaker 5 (38:38):
He was.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
He was missing for a number of hours on a
morning we were supposed to go to our lake house
together and plants sunflowers. So I went looking for him
and he was in his office and he had shot
himself in the head. And I found him. So there's
so much that happens as a result of seeing that
(39:00):
kind of horror and even the knowing that there was
so much betrayal in that he knew I would find him. Yeah,
like he you know, that's that's a horrible thing to
do to a person. And this was a marriage I
thought was pretty idyllic. We didn't we weren't screaming and
(39:22):
fighting and having problems. I'm about to get a divorced.
He was depressed. He was a very depressed man. But
did you know that only marginally? Okay? He really important
that part of his life off. We had been in
therapy for a year. The therapist didn't have a clue
that he could be suicidal, got it?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
You know? And then I want to ask you, and
and this might help people who have had this happen
and things like that. You know, how just pissed were you?
I was really pissed. I picture you being pissed what
I was.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
I was. I was just a non person. I was
broken everything. What it did is it stripped me of
my core belief system and what I built my life on. Yeah,
and to rebuild that is.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
You're one tough girl, boy.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
But I'll tell you what I was pissed off about
was James was an incredible dad. I had two boys
in their early twenties, and he was so close to them,
especially the younger one who was just finished undergraduate school.
They talked, they text, they went to football games. They
were in constant contact. And I wanted to punch him
in the face for leaving those boys and for leading
(40:37):
me with what those boys had to work through.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
There's yeah. And let me just ask you, you know,
how trained are you at this point to deal with that?
You know, like, how do you make sure that you
know you don't have moving forward to twenty year olds
going into their thirties and forties and fifties pissed irad
and angry at the old and you know, you could
(41:01):
really have a like plummet into every kind of grief
known to mankind and worse. And as I see it,
you've very beautifully and gracefully guided your children into air
quotes here beautiful success, you know, beautiful lives.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
That's a nice rhythmon on it. But it didn't look
like that.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
No, I'm sure it didn't.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
It was.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
It's been, it doesn't now even some.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Days it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
You know.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
I have a son going through something right now and
I had to say to him the other night, Hey, Boddy,
I know you feel like the world is falling down
around you. I need to ask the question, are you
having suicidal thoughts because their dad opened that door yep,
to quit on life when things get hard?
Speaker 1 (41:50):
And now do you sit and just worry twenty four
to seven about your boys I mean, as a mom
of four boys, even without this happening to us, I
just worry anyway all the time.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Yeah, just part of it. You know.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
I drive them crazy. I drive them absolutely crazy because
if I can't find them.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Yeah, you know, worried.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
If eight hours go and I can't get a collar,
a text, I have PTSD. I am still the woman
driving around Birmingham, Alabama looking for my husband in grocery stores.
You know, I will always have. I've worked and I've worked,
and I've worked on it, I know, but I'm not done.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yeah, there's that's that's forever healing right there, And it's
that's it. And I bet too that you don't. Again,
if Katie were on here, she could probably articulate this
way better than me. I'm just this is raw for me,
from my heart to yours kind of questions. You know,
I can't imagine either too. What could unpredictably like trigger
(42:51):
those feelings either, which feelings just whatever, whatever feelings.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
It's just like when I have put my little dog
to sleep too.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Oh, I'm going to go back there with you too,
because let me ask you something, is that not the
worst thing?
Speaker 3 (43:09):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (43:09):
My god, our dog died right before COVID and I
can't even handle it still.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Yeah, Well, the thing too was he was kind of
my He was definitely a part of my James journey.
You know, I'll tell you a sweet little story. The
morning that James took his life, I was sleeping so
hard I didn't hear him get up. He got the dog,
he took the dog out, he fed the dog, and
(43:38):
left the dog outside the bedroom door. And then James,
James was gone before I was out of the bed,
and my sweet little Jewels was still there for probably
more than weeks, probably the months afterwards, Jewels would go
over to the place where James sat on the sofa
and with his little he's only seven pound Maltese, and
(43:59):
he would paw and paul pauw at the throw that
I would very neatly, you know, fold every morning and
put in place. He would paw at the throw that
James had used until he had it in a circle,
and he would sit on top of it and he
would not move for hours. That was you know, Jeles
grieved James too. Yeah, but Jules was a really big
(44:20):
part of my survival journey animals and pets. You know,
he helped me be resilient, and that was also God's way.
I had to get up and let the dog out.
I had to feed the dog, even when I didn't
want to feed myself.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Yeah did you Yeah, exactly did you get a new dog? Yet?
Speaker 2 (44:37):
It was so funny. I thought. I thought it would
help Jules if I got another dog. He loved being
around other dogs. So I had contacted a breeder in
Indiana about a little toy mini golden doodle and had
decided to get this little female puppy at the end
of January. She'll be about three months old, and so
(44:58):
I thought I was getting hurt. I helped Jewels with
his end of life and he didn't make it for that.
But yes, I'm supposed to get a puppy. I've already
named her Honey God. Okay, good, and I get her
at the last week of January.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Good because I don't know about you, but I don't
do well without dogs.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
I'm a person. I will have an everything person. But too, Yeah,
I have a dog around me all the time.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah, me too. I have three rescued cats and two dogs.
And when our dog passed away in January twenty twenty,
it took us a while to get a dog. But
then there are two of us in the household who
must have dogs, me and Quinn. And so we went
with Quinn first, and he picked out Harley, and so
it's Harlequinn.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I love the name.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Yeah, And then yeah, yeah, so her name's her name's Harley,
and so Harley and Quinn and then I was like, well.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
I need one kind of thing that's your dog.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
So I have Bahama. And but you know what is trippy,
here's more angels.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
Then we're gonna go.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
So I used to have a dog. It was a
the same dog as Bahama. As the story is where
the story's going. And when I was a kid, about
six or eight, we moved and the dog. I don't
know where the dog is still to this day. You know,
my mom and dad are like, yeah, the dog, she
ran away or whatever. I can't even remember what. I
always felt like they were making stuff up, like the
(46:24):
dog ran away, they gave the dog away, the dog died.
I have no idea what it was, but something was something.
I never saw my dog chance again. Right. I have
prayed my whole entire life and not done too much
action toward praying just prayed for Chance to come back, right,
just kind of missed that dog. Love the dog, best
dog ever kind of thing. And so the place called
(46:44):
and they're like, we have a dog that isn't getting adopted,
and Kent, would you like the dog. We'll give the
dog to you for free. And I kid you not.
The dog looks exactly like Chance.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Oh I actually talk about age.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Oh my god, I'm my dog back. And I swear
to God my dad died. My dad died.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
And it was like, okay, I hear her.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
God, here's the dog back already that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
I love that the dog is having sent I swear
to God.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
But Bahammad does oh yeah, Bahamma doesn't leave my side nothing,
you know, kind of thing. And it is just amazing.
So anyway, all right, Teresa, we've got to go actually
have I actually have a hair appointment.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
I have not seen you.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
I mean, you need to have a show on hair.
Speaker 4 (47:41):
Bieolage people, Biolage. It's the secret to hair at fifty five. Anyway,
all right, I love you very much. Thank you for
being here with us, Honor, thank you, thank you for
sharing your story and to everybody listening. Teresa Bruno Teresa's
your website One more Time.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
Talks with Teresa.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Dot Com perfect. All right, everybody, thanks for listening. Thank
you Teresa for being here.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
Thank you, Elizabeth, you are amazing. Such a gift.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Thank you.
Hello everybody, and welcome to the best ever You show.
I'm your host, Elizabeth Hamilton Garno and I am here
with the fabulous Teresa Bruno. How are you, Teresa?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Oh hey Elizabeth, and a happy new Year.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I am doing great and just so excited about this
new year and always honored to talk to you. You know,
I just sit in a huge admiration for you, the platform
you've built, all the books you've written, and just so
excited to have this morning with you.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Oh, thank you, And you know you are doing great
things yourself. I think that you know, we came across
each other and we're like, Okay, this is meant to be.
I appreciate you having me on your podcast, and so
we're gonna do a little podcast with you and celebrate
all the amazing things you do and celebrate your life
and you just you know you you are out there
(00:52):
finding people and sharing their stories and really helping the
world be more peaceful. So I love it. So everybody,
go to Soul Talks with Teresa dot com and Teresa's
t H e r e. S a dot com. While
you're listening. You can find her on YouTube, also Instagram,
TikTok and I'll put all of those links with the
(01:14):
radio show. Uh, so you have them. I don't know
the fate of TikTok so much as of today, but
so maybe Instagram, YouTube and website for now might be better.
But Teresa is the host of the Soul Talks podcast,
which I've had the privilege and honor being on. And
I think that one of the things that is that
(01:35):
you focus on a lot with your own messaging is
repurposing grief into hope. And I want to go there
with people because the world aches right now and so
many levels in so many ways. And grief isn't just
the loss of someone it can be. It's so multifaceted
(01:57):
with the various losses that we may have have. So
grief is a part of us, and I think more
and more add to this, I think more and more
we're all learning how to process grief, hopefully better. It
doesn't seem like it's such a taboo topic.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Right what do you think?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
I agree one hundred percent of Elizabeth, And you know,
so many things that you hit on really fast there
that we can kind of unpack this morning. I think
we all have I would say survival We're all on
a survival journey of some sort, and in that survival,
we're surviving a grief. And it can be you know,
(02:38):
a loss of a person, a parent, a partner, a child,
you know it give me the loss of a pet.
I had to put my fourteen year old Maltisese to
sleep the day after Christmas. And you talk about triggering
a bit of grief I had from the loss of
the suicide of my husband five years ago. I mean,
there are so many things and I you know, I
(02:59):
have this also a story of having to shudder a
beloved business. And there's so much grief that comes with
loss of a job. There's so much grief that comes
when we think or we define ourselves as having failed
at something. So so you know, to put a period
right there. Everybody has grief. And one several things I've
(03:23):
noticed in my journey my journey now is I'm five
years in since the death of my husband and about
five and a half years since I lost a business
that was just a beloved, you know, heartfelt you know,
pulled up from my bootstraps creative business and learned a
(03:44):
lot along the way. Some of the first things I
would say to your listeners are, you know, do what
you gotta do, if that means you need to cry, cry,
if that means you need to sleep, sleep, if it
means you need to eat, eat, But everybody seems to
(04:05):
tell us what we're supposed to do in grief, and
my theory is that our bodies and our spirits tell
us individually how to help ourselves when we grieve, if
we can get quiet enough to listen to it. Probably
the most profound thing I learned early on in my
grief journey was that it's not a shorthaul. Our American
(04:29):
culture doesn't give us a lot of time space to grief.
There are other cultures who I think do that, whom
I think do that better than us. But you know,
we don't really have a lot of verbiage around it.
But as you said, it's getting less less taboo, and
we do talk about it more. You know, every time
I do talk about my survival journey and I talk
(04:49):
about grief and sorrow, what it feels like, what it
looks like, there's nobody in that audience who doesn't nod
or cry or raise a hand, you know. So yeah,
I think it's less taboo. But that said, I don't
think we have a we have a real language in
our culture for death and grief. So I guess that's
(05:11):
part of my platform is to open it up, open
that up as much as I possibly can as a
vessel on this earth. And then the most powerful thing
I learned early on, because I kept saying, and this
is what everybody asks me, They say, when will it end?
How long is this going to last? How long am
I going to be in this kind of pain? Because
you know we want quick fixes. The truth of it is,
(05:35):
I learned that you have to learn to live with grief.
You learn to eat with it, and sleep with it
and bathe with it, and you learn to walk alongside
the grief. It's almost like you've got a cup in
each hand and you're trying so hard to survive and
to recover, and you've got this cup of grief that's,
(05:57):
let's say, in your right hand, but you learned a
whole that while in the other hand you've got this
cup that's about survival and recovery and learning to find
whatever it is that gives you a rope to tether
to hold on to keep going. You know, I would
still say five years in yes, my grief is lighter
(06:18):
and I have tools to help.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Me with it.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
But is it gone? No, it's not. So you know,
I just kind of stopped there for a moment.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Well, you know, I want to bring in doctor Katie
Eastman into this discussion. So she's my co All Things
Best Ever you and co author on Percolate and we
just signed for a new book due out in twenty
twenty six about peace, and she's one of the you
just keep.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Rolling in grace.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Well, well, where I want to go with this is
so she's one of the foremost experts on grief and
loss in the whole world. Like she studied under Zabeth
Kobler Ross and she would be such a great guest
for your show and just yeah, oh my gosh, and
just for you to know her as a human. But
she she specializes in helping people recreate their life after
(07:14):
loss and and and growth, grief with with growth, and
so that you know exactly what you're saying. You know,
you walk alongside it, and you learn how to maneuver
with it, and you and you continue to move forward
as a human being in different directions, and you turn
that that pain that you're feeling into some purpose like
(07:34):
you have you are doing.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
So.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
She's a marvelous human being. And we did a we
did a pretty cool workshop last night on peace, passion
and prosperity. And one of the first questions we asked
of our participants was, you know, what's something going on
in their life causing them you know, stress or grief
or feelings of loss and things like that. And you
(07:59):
know your draw when you when you really stop pause
and hear other people and what's actually going on in
their lives?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Oh my gosh, and you know right now, just may
I say sending so much love, prayers, energy, help, financial
support to all of our friends in la. Oh yeah,
there are a number of avenues everybody can give to
help support. But the loss, the you know, the collective
loss and the individual loss that's happening has happened in
(08:34):
the last four days and continuing today. I just want
to put our arms and prayers around all of l A.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, I'm loving it when I'm seeing send angels angels
are what them? Oh yeah, yes, yes, and and things
like that. Yeah, it's it's it's hard to comprehend what's
happening out there. I don't think we've even scratched the
surface of what's happening out there, and it's you know,
(09:02):
it's unfolding on TV and all of these things, and
I think we just really need to hold space for
everyone affected. I couldn't agree with you more. So I'm
going to I'm going to bring this conversation back to
you and go back to you as a young kiddo. Okay, yeah,
And and keep in mind we have we're probably going
to do thirty minutes or so on the show. So
(09:25):
but I want to and and I've got so many
things I want to ask you. I've got like ten
questions I want to talk to you about, so uh.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I think answers. So just I'm happy for you to
stop so you can get every everything you want.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
So, so take us back to Juilliard because you you know,
oh my goodness, gracious you are so you're such an artist.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
I am, I am, But not because I did anything
to get that. That was really a gift that came
so early in childhood. And I don't think I certainly
didn't understand it. My my family didn't understand it. It was
just there and as a little girl, you know, I
came from late sixties rock and roller parents. I had
(10:11):
heard of classical music, and you know, I probably about
three or four years old. I just heard classical music
in my head. And then you know, it was begging
my mom for a piano, was begging to play, and they,
you know, they just weren't we weren't that family. We
weren't cultured at all, really, and so I learned to
play very very quickly. And it was a real fast
(10:33):
matriculation into you know, just about a teacher a year
until I got to be about twelve years old when
we found somebody who could take me all the way
through to graduate school. And it was a god given talent. Yes,
I was very disciplined, but I was disciplined because I
loved it. It drove me. You know, nobody ever had
to say practice. I think by the time I was
(10:54):
about ten, I was practicing three hours a day. I
only went to high school for four hours every morning,
and then I practiced all afternoon, five hours a day
in high school. And I was just I just it
was me. It consumed me. I was one of the
lucky ones who got right connections. I had amazing teachers.
(11:15):
Teachers shaped me, teachers healed me. Can't say enough about that.
And I was lucky enough to be walked in to
study with a Deel Marcus at Jullilliard and that was
one of the highlights of my life.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, you know, so what is it safe to say
you were like a prodigy?
Speaker 2 (11:35):
That's a great question, and I asked myself that all
the time. You know, I will back up on this
one thing, and I don't want it to be too
dark a topic. But I didn't come from happy home
at all. There was It was a very very unhappy home,
and so I've often asked the question, you know, was
I really a prodigy or was my need to escape
(11:58):
the turmoil and chaos of my home so great that
the gift I was given from God at to be
an artist, to be creative, to explore beauty? Did I
just run at it so hard so I didn't have
to face the other parts? So I've always asked myself
that question, But others would have said product she was.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Do you have you ever seen on TikTok where they
have a three year old playing the piano and they're like,
it must be so and so reincarnated, you know kind
of I have you seen that?
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (12:29):
I kind of'm asking you, do you feel like you're,
you know, Beethoven reincarnated or I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
I don't know about Beethoven. You know, I'm a fairly
small woman. But who I most would like to have
been was Rock money Off with hands that spanned you know,
almost two octaves and played the biggest, most beautiful repertoire
in the world. So yeah, I think I would have
wanted to be Rock money Off.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Okay, all right, we'll take it.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
So so maybe, right, you don't know for sure. We
all of us are like, oh okay, yeah, so okay,
So in all seriousness, though, tell us what happened to you,
because it's your first bout of you know, oh my,
what am I going to do with my life?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
The first place where you know, everything seemed like it
was always on an upward trajectory and then it was
an absolute fall to the earth and crash. I was practicing.
I was in graduate school. Everything was shiny and no warning.
I was practicing and this anybody who hears this will
(13:33):
go well, that was dumb. Yes, now we would say
it was dumb. But I was practicing about ten hours
a day. And again, I'm a small person. I was
trying to make great, big sounds on the stage and
play a big romantic repertoire, and all of a sudden,
just it was a morning, I was practicing Chopin's forth Blood,
I was practicing the coda. It's quite hard, and my
(13:56):
left wrist just in one second was so excrushating, painful.
I can't explain it. And it just froze. It stopped working.
I couldn't move it, I couldn't do anything. So over
the course of the year, it was determined that you know,
I had just stressed my body so much that the
body responded, as doctor Bessel vander Kolch would say, the
(14:19):
body keeps the score. And had placed a synovule cyst
right on the wristbone, right where the wrist goes up
and down to play, and takes all the force that
your body puts into those great big strings on a
ten foot grand And it took a year in a
cast of determining whether I needed surgery or not. Surgery,
(14:40):
of course, had to drop out of graduate school. All
the shininess of my life was absolutely not shiny, and
then ultimately I had surgery. It was not a successful surgery.
The cyst was removed, but they also had to take
out a piece of the wristbone, and my concert career
was absolutely unequivocally over.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
That sucks.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, And you know, I was a kid, you know,
I think I was twenty four and no tools, no psychological,
spiritual tools to deal at all. And I had done
absolutely nothing since I was tiny, but studying music I had.
I didn't have anything that qualified me for any kind
of job. I had no dream. I had no dream
(15:28):
for anything else. And I think it's one of the
biggest things is when you don't dream, you don't create.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Yeah, when you say no tools, you know, I think
about today's kids and the vast array of tools they have,
and it feels like they're starting to use them. I
know when our son had our son's a profess, was
a professional baseball player and he got injured when he
was at Georgetown. Pitching line drive came back at his
(15:58):
head and he put his pitching hand up, and so
he's got a pin in his left hand, and he
drew upon every tool in the book to get through that.
But you know, oh, you know those moments when we're
really great at something and then it ends in injury
(16:19):
or whatever it is, or just got wrenching and heart
wrenching and wondering with hanging. I'm gonna keep going for
one second with no tools available to you. How did
you cope with that? Like? What did you do?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I didn't do very well. Yeah, I cried. Probably, I
mean like probably he had a nervous breakdown but wasn't
being treated, you know, didn't go to therapy. I mean
I went to physical therapy, but not emotional therapy. I
went to a little place in the mountains in North Carolina,
right outside of Asheville, and I walked and I cried,
(16:57):
and I walked and cried and I walked and cried.
That that was I did breathing tools. I have always
been a person of prayer, not a prayer that's driven
by doctrine or a certain kind of religion, but truly,
just from the time I've been a child, I prayer
has been easy, and so prayer was and a belief
(17:22):
in something greater than me, a belief in the divine.
Even in the worst of it, Elizabeth, with no dream
and no idea what life would be next for me,
there was this little, teeny tiny voice that went, this
is divine. This is for a reason. This is a
there's a bigger place in your life you don't you
can't see, you don't know it, but there is something
(17:43):
good on the other side of this. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, I think the world put us together for a reason.
We you and I have definitely met for a reason.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
I don't quite exactly know what.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Yeah, I don't exactly know what it is yet. But
when when you say angels or prayer or anything like that,
I get like little goosebumps, and I'm not cold, I'm
actually warm, and I'm like, okay, because I so thoroughly
believe in angels. I think they're just around us for
various reasons.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
And sometimes every day.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah, sometimes it doesn't feel like it, though, and you
have to really work through that.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I'll tell you a quick little story. When it was
about three, I had twin beds in my room and
my little sister had not been born yet, and hanging
over my bed with my little pink bedspread was this
painting of a guardian angel. I think my grandmother put
it there. And my favorite color to this day is
a light pink, and there was this guardian angel was
(18:44):
bathed in pink and in light, and like I said,
outside of my door, my bedroom door often was a
lot of turmoil and chaos. And as a little girl,
I would pray to that an angel and I would
just say, you know, help me, show me how to
get out of this. Music became way out, but I
had that was my first kind of pathway into prayer divinity.
(19:08):
And I hold that angel close all these years later
and still pray to her.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Yep, I love it. Yeah, I got the same thing.
I've got certain little things where I'm like, yep, that's
my angel right there. So yeah, and yeah, one of
them is I'm looking as you said that. One of
them is actually this little yellow angel. It's a little
angel ornament. The Selvaski's here in Maine. Their daughter passed
(19:33):
away from cancer. And and again I'm summarizing here a
little bit, but the mom keeps her memory so alive
through books and these angels and things like that. And
I have one of the angels.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Oh and it's just beautiful.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Yeah would you yeah, I will, I will. Actually, I
just I have it right here. Yeah, it's it's it's
really beautiful.
Speaker 5 (19:58):
So anyway, yeah, I love my little things that I
have hanging around that remind me of people and their
and their their journeys, and it's just a don't you
think it's just so powerful to be mindful when you're
in the presence of another human being and like pause
for the power of like what in the world might
actually be going on in their actual life.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
I think I love the word pause because I do
believe it's a powerful word if you if you see
it as an action word, and it seems to connote
the opposite, But so much happens in the pause.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yeah, yeah, so much when you like hold space for
other people to you know, don't don't brush by people without.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Thought exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah, I just right.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
I love to have a number of exercises I do
with this as I coach and mentor others. But also
you know, holding other people in the light. Yeah, you know,
so often we find the little things that annoy us
about others or that poke at us. And if you can,
you know, just put a complete sort of pillar of
light or uh, you know, coming down on the person
(21:13):
you're looking at, and all you see them in is
bathed in light. Then what you see is all their
greatness as well as its equal parts greatness and pain.
But in your spirit up to see their spirit, I
think in a very different way.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, well, put all right, take us into the what
you segue into from from piano to the next part
of your life, like because you've had you're quite an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Yes, I am an entrepreneur. I love creating businesses. I
just love it, the raw, messy parts of creating a business.
I don't create perfect businesses, but I love the in between.
I love the in the middle.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
That's what you think.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
It's my heart racing, and you know, I just love
the creation of the messy business, which I'm absolutely in
the middle of right now.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah. I keep wanting to drag you over into best
ever you and and help it fly.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I take it.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I need you on the way.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Well, I think one of the I think one of
the biggest mistakes we're making. I love all the you know,
the appearance of all the different brands. So we've got
a lot of individual brands out there, and I keep
looking at people going, you know, if you three would
team up, and you three would team up, and you
(22:33):
find would team up and everything, imagine the magazine industry
might come back, you know, a little bit stronger. We've
just got all these people trying to launch these individual
magazines and these individual memberships and all these things. And
I think if we, if we could, you know, team
up and support each other a little bit better as women,
(22:53):
we'd have some brands that emerge bigger than they could
be versus me, for example, sitting here in my office
since two thousand and eight, you know, chugging along, yeah,
but not really breaking through.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
I was. I was in my pre meditation space this morning.
And it's so bizarre you said that, because that dropped
into me about a couple of different people. Go on,
why aren't we doing like a monthly together? So I
support you and you support me? You know, why are
we doing these one off things together as women? So
you know, I couldn't be more honored than to be
(23:28):
on the team with Elizabeth and doctor Katie.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah, and you know, and it's funny because it changes
because people The best ever you change is because people
don't really understand or have the stomach for being an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I always find that interesting, but it's true because I mean, gosh,
I've it all and lost it all. You know, being
an entrepreneur is a scary place. I've also had extraordinary successes,
but they aren't all successes. You know, one success out
of five businesses started kind of is my is where
I've been.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, I go one out of ten, like you do
ten things and one of them works.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Yeah, exactly, But I agree with you. It's something I'd
like to put some paws time into.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
All right, So tell us more about you as an
entrepreneur and some of the businesses that you've had. It's
pretty cool. I mean, if you're out there and you're listening,
and you are a female entrepreneur, this is a human
being that you can engage to reesa Bruno as a
resource because she's seen it, done it, been there, all
of it up, down, good, bad, whatever. So yeah, all right,
(24:31):
I'm being quiet, let's listen.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Well, first of all, I would say to that end.
I also, I don't publicize it at all, but I
constantly have women come to me as a business coach.
It's one of them. It's one of the things I
do that gives me the most happiness and pleasure is
to coach women in business, women entrepreneurs in business. It's
just pure delight to me. But my first business I
(24:55):
ran out of the music business, taught for a minute,
knew I wasn't a teacher, cried every time every student left,
and just just was like, God, what do I do?
And I landed in the advertising and marketing business, and
I worked for two firms. Then I was a marketing
director for Regions Bank, which is now I think P
(25:18):
and C Bank nationally or internationally. Very young, you know,
that was I was twenty seven years old and I
was in this huge job and I immediately it taught
me that I did not want to be in the
corporate world.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
I loved.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I loved, you know, at twenty seven seeing a huge
business run, but I I and you know, they were thin,
was amazing me. You know. They were like, you could
be our first female bank president. I was like, yeah, no,
that's not what I want. And so when I quit
to create my first business, I was twenty eight and
a half when I when I when I first incorporated
(25:56):
that LLC, and it was an advertising mark marketing firm
and it was full service. I was partner creative director.
I had two partners. It was again I've had some
fairy tales happen in my life. It grew so fast,
I mean, I think in three or four years we
were billing twenty million dollars, which at that time was
a whole lot of money. And I was early married
(26:17):
and had a little baby. I took to the office
all the time and worked, you know, tons of hours,
and it was just so much fun. Probably ten years later,
I broke off from that partnership and created my own agency,
and I was creating sign of kind of small businesses
underneath my big business, small businesses of doing writing in
(26:41):
LA for small and large you know, kinds of projects
like your dad, but not as successful as your dad.
And so that was a business. You know, there were
just always small businesses happening underneath the big business. I
kept my marketing firm that I started, I guess at
thirty nine until two years ago, and I have to say,
(27:05):
interestingly enough, I never had one penny of debt on
the business, and that made me very proud because I
didn't go into business with an MBA. I went into business,
you know, really as a musician basically and three jobs,
you know, three jobs and three years before I started
a business. But I had no debt on the business.
It was always successful. It morphed as the world morphed,
(27:27):
you know, going into social media and you know, very
different kind of way of marketing. My expertise became in filmmaking,
commercial filmmaking, and I got to travel the world and
I had office in Toronto, office in La you know,
making commercials for large, large companies. So that was a blast.
(27:48):
And somehow in the middle of all that, I got
bored and creatively bored, and I was working in La
a lot and started just I loved jewelry. I loved fashion,
so it's just started. LA has this huge jewelry district.
And so for about two years, every weekend I drag
my youngest son and he would say, oh my god, Mom,
(28:09):
are you kidding? We have to look at pearls again.
I just was asking, how do you I didn't at
that point have an intent to start a business. I
just wanted to make amazing pieces for myself. And so
it took two years of just asking and learning and
how do you source things? And then finally finding a
craftsman who could create my designs. And I'll just stop
(28:32):
right there and let you ask questions.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Well, no, you know, I think it's I think it's
pretty amazing. But I was giggling back in the financial
services part of it because I think, you know, you
know a lot of me is in the financial services
industry still to this day, and it's such a there
are few and fewer females than there should be, so
it's a it's an interesting industry. So I love the
(28:56):
fact that you, you know, you were like, I love
the fact that you define things by I hope. I
don't want to do that, and that's sometimes why we
have to find what we truly love. So that's a
teaching point right there. And you know, commercial TV, filmmaking business,
all of these things, and then the jewelry making business
where you've I mean, I'm guessing I think we've talked before,
(29:16):
so I kind of know. Actually I'm not guessing it.
You know, you've put jewelry on really famous people and
things like that. Tell me something, why are you still going?
Why not just stop there? Go, been there, done it.
You don't need a podcast, really, maybe you know that
kind of thing. Tell me your purpose for continuing on
(29:39):
with helping people and turning it around and flipping it
around so that you are dedicating your life to lifting
other people up.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Where I think you just said it for me, Elizabeth,
when I lost that jewelry business that was again in
a fairy tale in my world, just crazy successful, became
global fast, and twelve years o I had been on
every major fashion mag I dressed million, you know, a
lot of major celebrities, and that that business really fed
(30:09):
the ego a lot, I have to say, but it
really fed my my need to create. And I lost
that business. It was a face plant in all kinds
of ways, and I lost it to internal fraud that
was happening underneath my notes for about two years. Then
my husband died tragically. He took his life just a
(30:32):
few months after I had to shutter that business. So
it was a double whammy of nothing pared to the
loss of James. But I was walking into that loss
caring a pile of shame over losing my business. So
I kept my marketing business somehow, going by the grace
of God, for three years after James died, you know,
(30:53):
And and then I decided to close a healthy, thriving,
successful business. And that's not an easy thing to do,
right That's that's a choice. That's a life choice. And
so to answer your question, as soon as I as
(31:13):
soon as James died and I began walking out of
just abject grief and sorrow. Every every step I made
forward in my survival, I felt more and more aligned
with my truest self spiritually. And my truest self spiritually
(31:33):
wasn't that crazy, driving driven person to create businesses, to
create success, to create wealth, to create materialism. That just
was gone. And I kept saying, Okay, God, you know what,
what do you want from me? And at the three
year mark, you know, I sold and closed that business
(31:58):
set real still for a year, but I was writing constantly,
I was asking questions. I had at that point a
really good mental spiritual practice of prayer, meditation tools I
was using to be quiet, to listen. My life was
in the pause, and I realized that I couldn't put
(32:21):
a period behind James death, and I couldn't put a
period behind what it felt like as a woman to close,
to have to close, to shutter a business that was
so much of my heart, and that every time I
talk to people they needed to hear what I was learning.
And it wasn't because I was so great, and I
(32:42):
don't think it was necessarily because I had answers what
I've learned in grief. And I think you and I've
talked about this is that they really just needed somebody
who had the bravery to sit alongside them and their grief. Yeah,
so today, why am I still doing it? I'm doing
it because I want to create a space for others
to talk about this really hard stuff and to get
(33:05):
in the mess and the raw and the junk of it.
I didn't have that five years ago, and maybe it
was there and I couldn't find it. But I'm driven
right now to be of service.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Yeah, thank you for sharing all of this. By the way,
I don't know if I think too properly along the
waiters we've been talking, but yeah, it's so it's it's
if somebody's listening to you right now, chances you know
needs you. You've you know, you've had an impact on them.
I'm near certain. So I think that's so important.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Thank you for giving me the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yeah, you know, when my dad died in twenty eighteen,
I came back here and I'm like, I mean, for
two I had to get picked up by my bootstraps
somebody actually kind of because I just wasn't doing very
well and I wanted to close best ever.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
You and.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
You know, I just was like, Oh, this sucks kind
of thing. And when you see somebody take their last breath,
as I did with my dad, it was like a
movie played backing everything up like like a tornado, almost going.
Nothing matters. None of this material stuff matters. Like I
(34:28):
came home from that and for like, I didn't even
care if I had two different shoes on. I know,
I know, or my socks didn't match. I'm like, none
of this matched. All the things that we think about
the mattering, like what kind of car you drive or
house do you live in, or what schools your kids
go to or all this stuff. It just was so
(34:50):
oddly not important. And I still can't quite explain it.
I was maybe a little depression in there, I don't.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Know, but still is it right there?
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Everything I ever defined is success, oh j just completely
fell away and none of it mattered.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yeah. It made me. I mean I just released the
success guide Book and it made me write a book
on it. Like, hey, folks, wake up, call here. Everything
that you're defining a success.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Just like.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
People want to hug. They don't care how much money
you make, they care if you're nice to them. They
don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
It's a way.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
It looks like they need somebody to walk alongside them
stumbling through their grief.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yep, or even in happy moment, you know, happier joy
or what life just life in general, we need pals
and people who truly understand what we've gone through, rather
than superficial you know stuff and faky stuff put on,
faky stuff put all over social media and things like that,
(35:55):
where you're just seeing somebody's you know, excellent moments twenty
four to seven and none of the real. So I
don't know, I just I don't even know how to
explain it or articulate it. But do you have any
more words for it? Keeping in mind, it's ten we
were on here for We got to go in about
maybe like five minutes or so.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
It's not too long, Elizabeth. You and I have talked
about the story of your dad. I remember the first
time we did a pre interview together. I mostly live
in South Florida, and I was taking this walk, beautiful walk,
and you were telling me, you know, in detail, the
story of being with your dad, the things he said,
how those moments felt. And I was just tears running
(36:40):
down my face as I walked, you know, this beautiful
street and I think those are moments that are absolutely
covered and intended by the divine. Whatever your understanding of
God is as a listener, whoever the God of your
understanding is, your God, Elizabeth was so present with you
(37:03):
and your father in that moment. I think you are
so blessed to be with him as he crossed over.
But in those moments, you opened yourself and he opened
himself up, and the universe opened up for you to
experience something spiritually that was so profound for you that
it shifted your life.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
I don't think that was an accident that you You're
one of eleven kids, right, No.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Yeah, right, it's back in the middle. I gotta ask
you something, though. I'm going to put this a little bit,
and this is gonna be a really gross question. I'm
going to just be okay that brace yourself. Okay, So
I saw my father pass away and things like that.
You have a different situation here with the suicide. Yeah,
tell me what's what you really think? Say that again,
(37:55):
tell me what you really think? You know, like you're
you're you're telling me, you know, it was blessing and
I got to hold space and things like that with
my dad and things like you didn't have that.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Well, for what I'm saying, and that is it forever
shifted your life as to what your life's purpose is.
James suicide, And I'll go back to the hard part.
Speaker 5 (38:12):
Go back.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yeah, forever shifted my life, My life's purpose, my definitions
of success, who I am, my spiritual drive, that all
shifted in that moment. And a big piece of my
What happened to me was that I did find him.
And this is uh, you know, listeners, if children are.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Nearby place, I'll put a warning on this. Yeah, but.
Speaker 5 (38:38):
He was.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
He was missing for a number of hours on a
morning we were supposed to go to our lake house
together and plants sunflowers. So I went looking for him
and he was in his office and he had shot
himself in the head. And I found him. So there's
so much that happens as a result of seeing that
(39:00):
kind of horror and even the knowing that there was
so much betrayal in that he knew I would find him. Yeah,
like he you know, that's that's a horrible thing to
do to a person. And this was a marriage I
thought was pretty idyllic. We didn't we weren't screaming and
(39:22):
fighting and having problems. I'm about to get a divorced.
He was depressed. He was a very depressed man. But
did you know that only marginally? Okay? He really important
that part of his life off. We had been in
therapy for a year. The therapist didn't have a clue
that he could be suicidal, got it?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
You know? And then I want to ask you, and
and this might help people who have had this happen
and things like that. You know, how just pissed were you?
I was really pissed. I picture you being pissed what
I was.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
I was. I was just a non person. I was
broken everything. What it did is it stripped me of
my core belief system and what I built my life on. Yeah,
and to rebuild that is.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
You're one tough girl, boy.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
But I'll tell you what I was pissed off about
was James was an incredible dad. I had two boys
in their early twenties, and he was so close to them,
especially the younger one who was just finished undergraduate school.
They talked, they text, they went to football games. They
were in constant contact. And I wanted to punch him
in the face for leaving those boys and for leading
(40:37):
me with what those boys had to work through.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
There's yeah. And let me just ask you, you know,
how trained are you at this point to deal with that?
You know, like, how do you make sure that you
know you don't have moving forward to twenty year olds
going into their thirties and forties and fifties pissed irad
and angry at the old and you know, you could
(41:01):
really have a like plummet into every kind of grief
known to mankind and worse. And as I see it,
you've very beautifully and gracefully guided your children into air
quotes here beautiful success, you know, beautiful lives.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
That's a nice rhythmon on it. But it didn't look
like that.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
No, I'm sure it didn't.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
It was.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
It's been, it doesn't now even some.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Days it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
You know.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
I have a son going through something right now and
I had to say to him the other night, Hey, Boddy,
I know you feel like the world is falling down
around you. I need to ask the question, are you
having suicidal thoughts because their dad opened that door yep,
to quit on life when things get hard?
Speaker 1 (41:50):
And now do you sit and just worry twenty four
to seven about your boys I mean, as a mom
of four boys, even without this happening to us, I
just worry anyway all the time.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Yeah, just part of it. You know.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
I drive them crazy. I drive them absolutely crazy because
if I can't find them.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
Yeah, you know, worried.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
If eight hours go and I can't get a collar,
a text, I have PTSD. I am still the woman
driving around Birmingham, Alabama looking for my husband in grocery stores.
You know, I will always have. I've worked and I've worked,
and I've worked on it, I know, but I'm not done.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yeah, there's that's that's forever healing right there, And it's
that's it. And I bet too that you don't. Again,
if Katie were on here, she could probably articulate this
way better than me. I'm just this is raw for me,
from my heart to yours kind of questions. You know,
I can't imagine either too. What could unpredictably like trigger
(42:51):
those feelings either, which feelings just whatever, whatever feelings.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
It's just like when I have put my little dog
to sleep too.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Oh, I'm going to go back there with you too,
because let me ask you something, is that not the
worst thing?
Speaker 3 (43:09):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (43:09):
My god, our dog died right before COVID and I
can't even handle it still.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Yeah, Well, the thing too was he was kind of
my He was definitely a part of my James journey.
You know, I'll tell you a sweet little story. The
morning that James took his life, I was sleeping so
hard I didn't hear him get up. He got the dog,
he took the dog out, he fed the dog, and
(43:38):
left the dog outside the bedroom door. And then James,
James was gone before I was out of the bed,
and my sweet little Jewels was still there for probably
more than weeks, probably the months afterwards, Jewels would go
over to the place where James sat on the sofa
and with his little he's only seven pound Maltese, and
(43:59):
he would paw and paul pauw at the throw that
I would very neatly, you know, fold every morning and
put in place. He would paw at the throw that
James had used until he had it in a circle,
and he would sit on top of it and he
would not move for hours. That was you know, Jeles
grieved James too. Yeah, but Jules was a really big
(44:20):
part of my survival journey animals and pets. You know,
he helped me be resilient, and that was also God's way.
I had to get up and let the dog out.
I had to feed the dog, even when I didn't
want to feed myself.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Yeah did you Yeah, exactly did you get a new dog? Yet?
Speaker 2 (44:37):
It was so funny. I thought. I thought it would
help Jules if I got another dog. He loved being
around other dogs. So I had contacted a breeder in
Indiana about a little toy mini golden doodle and had
decided to get this little female puppy at the end
of January. She'll be about three months old, and so
(44:58):
I thought I was getting hurt. I helped Jewels with
his end of life and he didn't make it for that.
But yes, I'm supposed to get a puppy. I've already
named her Honey God. Okay, good, and I get her
at the last week of January.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Good because I don't know about you, but I don't
do well without dogs.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
I'm a person. I will have an everything person. But too, Yeah,
I have a dog around me all the time.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah, me too. I have three rescued cats and two dogs.
And when our dog passed away in January twenty twenty,
it took us a while to get a dog. But
then there are two of us in the household who
must have dogs, me and Quinn. And so we went
with Quinn first, and he picked out Harley, and so
it's Harlequinn.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
I love the name.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Yeah, And then yeah, yeah, so her name's her name's Harley,
and so Harley and Quinn and then I was like, well.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
I need one kind of thing that's your dog.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
So I have Bahama. And but you know what is trippy,
here's more angels.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
Then we're gonna go.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
So I used to have a dog. It was a
the same dog as Bahama. As the story is where
the story's going. And when I was a kid, about
six or eight, we moved and the dog. I don't
know where the dog is still to this day. You know,
my mom and dad are like, yeah, the dog, she
ran away or whatever. I can't even remember what. I
always felt like they were making stuff up, like the
(46:24):
dog ran away, they gave the dog away, the dog died.
I have no idea what it was, but something was something.
I never saw my dog chance again. Right. I have
prayed my whole entire life and not done too much
action toward praying just prayed for Chance to come back, right,
just kind of missed that dog. Love the dog, best
dog ever kind of thing. And so the place called
(46:44):
and they're like, we have a dog that isn't getting adopted,
and Kent, would you like the dog. We'll give the
dog to you for free. And I kid you not.
The dog looks exactly like Chance.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Oh I actually talk about age.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Oh my god, I'm my dog back. And I swear
to God my dad died. My dad died.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
And it was like, okay, I hear her.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
God, here's the dog back already that kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
I love that the dog is having sent I swear
to God.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
But Bahammad does oh yeah, Bahamma doesn't leave my side nothing,
you know, kind of thing. And it is just amazing.
So anyway, all right, Teresa, we've got to go actually
have I actually have a hair appointment.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
I have not seen you.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
I mean, you need to have a show on hair.
Speaker 4 (47:41):
Bieolage people, Biolage. It's the secret to hair at fifty five. Anyway,
all right, I love you very much. Thank you for
being here with us, Honor, thank you, thank you for
sharing your story and to everybody listening. Teresa Bruno Teresa's
your website One more Time.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
Talks with Teresa.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Dot Com perfect. All right, everybody, thanks for listening. Thank
you Teresa for being here.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
Thank you, Elizabeth, you are amazing. Such a gift.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Thank you.
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