February 5, 2024 • 52 mins
Today on Feminine Roadmap guest Val Brown shares strategies to help you turn your setbacks into stepping stones. Val firmly believes in the power of stories – change your story and you’ll change your life. After she lost her love of over 40 years, she found herself lost and the identity she had held was gone. Her grief journey was the catalyst for the passion to help others understand their own journey, to honor every part of it. She encourages listeners to pause and recognize where they find themselves today and understand what it is that they are carrying. We live our lives through the stories that we are telling to ourselves and those around us. Rewriting our stories is a key part of building those stepping stones to overcome our setbacks. We are so much more than what has happened to us and the stories we have told to survive. Once we realize that we are not alone then true healing can take place without shame or guilt. A key part of this is to be able to reconcile those things so we can move on. If this resonates with you, this episode will be a helpful tool for you. Please grab a cuppa something wonderful and join us. https://visualbridgecommunication.com
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Hi, hi'm Gina. For arewelcome to the Feminine Roadmap Podcast, a
global community of women in midlife.We gather here weekly over a cup of
something wonderful for real talk, lifechanging strategies and a big dose of sisterhood.
Now please sit back and enjoy.Hello, Feminine Roadmappers. Welcome back
(00:28):
to Feminine Roadmap Podcast, the podcastthat helps you navigate the challenges and the
changes of midlife and helps you tolive a more vibrant second half. Today.
If you find us on YouTube,please don't forget to subscribe and ring
that bell so you don't miss anymore conversations. If you're on a podcast
platform, I would appreciate your followand share and rate this episode. Today,
(00:50):
friends, we are going to betalking about the idea that we can
create change in our life. Ifwe change our story, we can change
our life. Guest wants us toreclaim our power and to turn our setbacks
into stepping stones. My guest todayis Val Brown. She is an Emmy
Award winning producer with over three anda half decades of experience in writing,
(01:14):
producing and directing stories. Val thankyou so much for being here today.
Thanks for having me GANA. It'sreally an honor to be here. Well,
we have a history and a friendshipthat's gone on for several years now,
and it's such a joy that wefinally come together to create this episode
together. And I would love tohave you share with people a little bit
about yourself and what led you tothis specific mission and message. You know,
(01:41):
we all have a variety of stories, and I am going to start
at a chapter in the book andshare that experience because I know that we've
all experienced some form of loss inour life at one time or another,
and whether it's not getting a job, promotion, or change in the way
of life, which really happened toall of us with the pandemic, the
(02:06):
rejection, or lost the loved one, and in my particular case, it
was the loss of the love ofmy life of more than forty years.
John and I were like peanut butterand jenty. We did everything together.
And what I realized when I losthim is that I lost a huge part
of myself. My narrative, mylife narrative was interwoven with everything that we
(02:30):
had done together, and so ontop of dealing with grief, which I
want to talk about a little bitbecause I learned a lot about grief.
I realized that my identity, theperson that I thought I was, it
was gone. And so learning aboutgrief and the physiological things that go on
(02:53):
with your body. And this iswhat I really want to share, is
that John wasn't the first major lossthat I'd had my life. My mom
died, my sister died, andI was working in corporate America and at
that time, and I guess thatthe story is, you know, take
your three days Greek, get yourstuff, to get in your work.
(03:15):
And I did, and I sawyour done. And really, what I
learned when I finally asked for helpwhen John passed, because I knew that
there was no way that three daysI was going to get back up.
And it took me almost three years. And so what I learned is that
when you have that kind of aloss, whether like I say, whether
(03:36):
it's a job loss, a wayof life, or a person, your
brain goes into overdrive working to rewirethe neural pathways that are saying, oh,
that doesn't exist anymore, we needto make a new reality. And
what it does is it sucks.Every bit is serotonin in your body can
make your dopamine and you get whatever'sleft over, so we want or why
(04:00):
after, you know, get yourstuff back to give and get back to
work. You still feel horrible,and you know, six months in people
are going are you're okay? Imean you should be okay by now,
and you punish yourself because it's like, yeah, I should be okay,
but what's going on? Is theresomething really physiological? And on top of
that, we don't like to talkabout brief in our society. So I
(04:23):
went through all of that, andthrough that I realized, oh, okay,
so this is you know, there'sa lot of stories that I'm holding
on to that aren't necessarily true anymore. And you know, our life narrative
really is nothing more than a collectionof stories, and the stories all come
(04:44):
through our viewpoint right when I canthe same thing exactly, and we are
going to tell the story differently,so because we have our own experiences,
right, And so I think whenyou started kind of unwinding this whole thing,
you know, it's like our narrative, it's like a rope, right,
with a different strands, and themore strands, the stronger it is,
(05:09):
the harder it is, you know, to cut through or wind it
it's more complex, and so thatwas just a big part of my healing
journey of getting to be able toget back on and get back out.
And I am really, I feelvery committed to sharing what I've learned to
(05:31):
help other people reclaim their power,get unstuck, see how those set back
to really stepping stones to their nextchapter. And I say, I'm pain
and some time. So that's that'swhy I'm just absolutely delighted to be here
today to have this conversation. Mhm. You know, stories are such
(05:53):
a powerful thing. As a coach, someone that has counseled so many people
over the years, I'm amazed athow our stories can be empowering and so
disempowering, how they really we liveour lives through the stories that we tell.
And so I think what you dois so important because I'm not even
(06:14):
sure how aware some people are oftheir own stories, would you agree one
thousand percent? And that's something thatI had to become aware of here.
I've been telling other people's stories myentire career, and you know, I
have developed the ability to listen forthemes and you know, pull them together,
and it's really helpful to be ableto reflect back to somebody what you
(06:38):
hear them saying a lot of timesat the first time, they go,
yeah, that's it. I neverthought of it that way. And what
that also surfaces is, you know, the opportunity to ask the question and
is it true? Is it stilltrue? Because we change, we keep
telling the story in the same wayand bring it along with us. There's
(06:58):
a dissonance between I mean that storythat we've accepted that's actually it's like an
app running in the background that guidesall of our decisions. And so when
we get frustrated that we're not makingprogress, when we're trying to get back
on our feet, we feel likethere's stagnation. We see other people going
you know, ahead, and feellike we're missing out on our opportunities,
(07:20):
a brain fog, lack of clarity, no doubt, can I do this?
And it also you know, youknow, especially being in the professional
world. I mean, I knowthat it affect my ability to lead.
I mean, I was like,am I doing this right? And we
see a lot of recurrent patterns thathappen in our lives. I was talking
(07:41):
to a friend the other day andthe story he was telling was that every
time I do this, it turnsout this way, But when I see
other people do it, it turnsout this way. We're a really rich
conversation around is that really true?Can you really never think of a time
that when you took that action thatit had a positive outcome? And so
(08:03):
I hate to say that that partof the luxury that I had being and
taking time in grief, because Iknow that doesn't sound somehow homogeneous. However,
I did make the commitment to takecare of myself was really being able
to reflect on the stories I wastelling myself and really asking myself why they
(08:26):
so true, and where did thiscome from? What was the origin of
this? And so starting to pullthat apart, realizing that, you know,
I have my own identity, andyes, a large part of my
narrative is tied to being in aloving relationship for more than four decades,
and there's more. And so asI started to unwind that, I realized
(08:50):
that there was a process that Iwas going through and it wasn't the five
stages of grief. It was trulyHonestly, one morning, I was doing
the dishes and I'm looking out thewindow and I just got this download,
and I was like, wait,wait, got out my hands running.
I got to write this down,and it really is a framework. It's
you know, five things that Ihad been through. I called the five
(09:13):
RS to help me start thinking ina different way to you have some some
things to push against as I wastrying to find my way again. And
it's simple yet, as we bothknow, simple does not mean easy.
But I found such a lack ofresources. I'm honestly, sometimes I'm kind
(09:37):
of embarrassed admit this, but onenight I was in so much pain,
do you know, I mean,I just like, how do I get
out of this pain? Because whenyou're in grief, right, there's nowhere
to go everywhere you go there,you are, right? I googled how
to get out of pain? Really, and you know, I did find
some resources that helped me, butit wasn't There weren't a lot of for
(10:01):
where I was, you know,And so part of I think the privilege
of what I'm doing now is reallyto share this process and to help people
see how they can turn that intosomething that propels them to an even greater
place than you were before. Yes, so when you said, you know,
(10:24):
it's simple, but it's not easy, and you use the analogy of
a thread and unraveling. I thinkof like embroidery thread. You know,
you've got your six strand, youreight strand, your ten strand, and
our stories are so much like that. You know, they bulk up over
the years, some of these storiesthat we love so much, some of
the stories that really define us asfar as we're concerned. And it's it
(10:50):
takes courage to face our stories,to ask if it's true and then to
deal with the answer that comes,because I think they become our shields sometimes
depending on the story, it canreally serve. The purpose that it serves
is not necessarily truth one thousand percentagain, and you know you took the
(11:11):
word out of my mouth. Thatwas the word I was going to use
as courage. It really does takecourage because you know, a lot of
times you don't know how many strandsare going to be there, right,
and the more strands there are,the stronger the world. And a lot
of times when we start on windingit, we find things that we didn't
know were there and that we didn'twant to look at. And so the
(11:33):
courage is to be willing to askthe question, is this still true?
And what am I willing to doto rewrite my story so I can start
putting the strands back together. Andone of the things I've learned in my
work when working with my clients isthat it's really important to create a distinction
between story and narrative. The storyis typically focusing on a beginning of the
(11:54):
middle and an end and one topic. And so you know, we have
a story about our intelligence, ora story about how we get along with
other people or how we handle conflict. The narrative is how we get together.
Right. That adds context and meaningfor us. And so it's happening
at two loves, right, Sodo you know, do we a have
(12:16):
the courage to rewrite the story andbe that narrative? And that's really where
the tough work is is because it'seasy on paper to rewrite the story to
have a different ending. The narrative, the glue that holds it together,
which is our unique stuff that webring, is really where the hard work
is. Where we have to makethe commitment to say I'm not going to
(12:41):
do that again. I'm not youknow, that's my default. That's that's
the easy way, right, that'sthe comfort thing. And that was another
thing I learned a lot about isthat you do so much of what we
do the stories that we keep tellingourselves to keep us safe. Right when
we have that frame of reference,you know, I always when I when
I teach, I'd love to teachstory listening too. It's a little story.
(13:07):
But you know when when we're listeningto stories in or if you need
to tell a story really quick onyour feet, I use this really quick
model it's called the car model,where you know, what is the context
of what was going on, whatwas the action, and what was the
resolution? Right? And so givethe context is the thing that because we
can be very easily become a victimthe context, like was I was wrong?
(13:31):
I took this action, this ishow it worked out, versus you
know, looking at that context andbeing willing to look at it differently and
saying, you know, somebody elsewas saying this from a completely different way
than I was. Is there roomfor a different story? Yeah? Am
I willing to make room to thinkabout this in a different way. And
(13:54):
so those are things that I wantto share and I have been sharing with
my clients. I had a clientwho came through a really difficult health issue
very low chances of survival, andthe story had focused really on all the
(14:16):
steps that they needed to go throughto get well. Well, when we
started digging back down into the story, the real, real story was things
he had done in childhood that hadmade him very, very strong, tough.
The nails was what allowed him toheal. And when those two pieces
(14:39):
come together in that bridge, whenyou can create that visual bridge for yourself
between I did this, I wasgood at this, and it's allowing me
to do this here, that's powerful. And that's when the setback becomes a
stepping stone because now something that happened, okay, so now that allowed me
to get from here. Now that'spart of this story. That's going to
(15:03):
allow me to get here. Andso you take that threat of your story
with you. The empowering is strong, and it's all too easy for social
media and all the noise out thereto continue compare ourselves to other people.
And we are the only person whocan write our own story. And when
(15:24):
we give away our power and letother people write our story, and so
when we reclaim our power and makethe decision to rewrite our story or to
write a new story and weave itinto a stronger narrative, we reclaim our
power and we become victorious. Andlike I say, well it seems simple,
(15:46):
it isn't easy. And I thinkthat's the reason that when we have
community and when we have other peoplewho have been through similar experiences and feel
like they're in a safe place wherethey can say, yeah, you don't
my job, I really can't talkabout I'm not okay. I'm still carrying
this great It still creates confusion forme every day, but I have all
(16:08):
these people relying on me, whetherit's at work or whether it's at home,
and we need to be able tocreate space for ourselves with tools to
say, Okay, you know,I might not be okay all the way
right now, but I can dothese little things every day to start getting
closer to being able to turn thatlight switch back on again. Another visual
(16:33):
that really helped me a lot isI was working to through my my five
hour process and re engage and reemerge and re engage into the world.
Again, you mentioned this let thatour stories serve us. The reason they
exist is because they do serve apurpose. But you also brought up the
(16:56):
point that does this still serve meis really a powerful question because if we've
changed our circumstances, we've grown,we've changed, we've experienced certain things.
What used to essentially be a littlebit of a cocoon for us can now
become our own prison because we're hangingon to something that does not allow us
(17:18):
a new narrative, you know,we have to keep conforming to that belief
and that story that we have.And I think that's what makes stories so
powerful is that they really do controlour decision making because if our narrative says
I can't do that, I don'thave that ability. No one will let
me or whatever the narrative, youknow, like if I believe that I'm
(17:41):
being held back, then I willonly see being held back. And you're
talking about the unraveling of it orthe facing it is is to take your
beliefs to court and be like,what is true about what I'm saying?
Was it ever true? Maybe?Maybe right? Because when we're children,
(18:02):
there are things we have control overand there are things we don't. Right,
well, we have very little controlwhen we're children, but as we
grow, we are controlled. Whenwe are children, and the reason a
lot of times that's where rebellion comesin because we know what our truth is
intrinsically, and you know, wehave somebody working you know, so many
(18:25):
times in you know, good goodfaith is where they're coming from. Not
realizing that one word can make adifference. I know. Friend Son tell
me one time I made a commentabout his manners and I didn't realize that
he was listening and in very verynice manners. I made it sort of
(18:45):
an aside about a sitcom, andI saw him at thanks Giving a few
years back and he said, youknow, Vow, I've always remembered what
you said, and it's kind ofmade me be really like extra cautious.
And I was like, oh mygosh. I apologize profusely, said oh
(19:06):
no, actually it was a goodthing. Yet it just made me so
much more aware. And I knowit happened to all of us when we're
kids, when somebody put a labelon you this, don't do that.
And so now that we are inthe driver's sea, now we are in
control. Now we have set apath and if I made this is the
(19:32):
next piece that I think is reallyimportant in this because well, we've had
a great loss in our life.There's a greeting process where we need to
let go. And when we don'thave the ability to do that, or
we support to do that, andwe keep thinking, well, I should
be moving on to something new,we're not giving ourselves that time in the
(19:55):
in between, in the you know, as they called it, the neutral
zone, to to heal and thento rewrite what is our new life for
me in my life. I mean, it's like you're being part of a
committed partnership for four decades plus allof a sudden became what I want when
(20:18):
I want to do the decisions Imake for me, not we, And
that was a whole process and beingin that neutral zone, giving yourself space
to say, you know, it'sokay that I don't know, and it's
okay that sometimes I'm going to goback to the letting go and to the
grieving because grief is not a straightline. And as they say, there
(20:42):
is no expiration date on grief.It is what it is, and that's
your story to write in your storyto heal your grief. To heal from
allowing ourselves to stay in that placeof neutrality and to say it's okay that
they don't know, we open upthe opportunity to start saying what if?
(21:07):
What could what could my new whybe? And I know so many times
I had people early on, Iworked with some amazing grief counselors, which
you know, at different stages andin my process that would ask really good
questions and a lot of times Iwould say I don't know, and they
never said it's not okay not toknow. However, the question was asked,
(21:30):
what what could that look like?And I had no idea, And
that's when I started drawing pictures.One of my grief counselors saying, you
know, get a notebook and drawpictures about what does it feel like?
And you know, my artwork isnot brilliant, however, it's it's a
very personal expression of you know,what I was feeling and what I wanted
(21:52):
to feel. You know, Iwanted to see the sun come up again,
and so by doing that, youknow, all kinds of good things
are happening in your brain possibility,and it's not in a pressure system,
and it's not in comparison anybody else. It's what do I want to feel
like? What does that new storyfeel like? You know, yeah,
there's light, you know, there'slightness, there's that you know, I
(22:15):
laugh again, and those little thingsstart then like opening up a greater possibility
to say why and why now issharing what I've been through with the hope
of saving somebody else some pain toget them they're quicker, to let them
(22:36):
know that they're not alone and thatit's okay to talk about your loss.
And I've had leaders tell me,you know about now that I can talk
about this, it's actually made amore leader because people find me more relatable
that they've had the same kind ofa herd. Yet, you know,
(22:56):
we have this this image of leadersas being strong and stoke and soldiering on,
which is what I did and whatended up happening as a result of
that, honestly, do you knowwas I developed a lot of coping behaviors
that were completely masked by the industrythat I was in, which is a
very high pressure industry. Where asa producer, you high need for control,
(23:18):
what's going on, what's going tohappen next, right load tolerance or
ambiguity. Always wanted to know what, you know, what could go wrong,
so I can make sure that I'mprepared for it. I had a
perfectionism. You know, this hasgot to be just so. And then
I also found that a lot oftimes I was avoidant when you know,
(23:41):
hard conflicts came up, it's easierfor me to withdraw or to always be
busy. And that happens in alot of businesses. So it's like,
oh, right, so we're coping, we're creating safety for ourselves. Yet
what that also creates is a lotof trigger points in relationships in how respond
to things because it's unresolved and it'ssitting there right underneath the surface. Yes,
(24:07):
yeah, we don't point at that. We pointed other things saying oh,
well, you know I was tiredor you know, they shouldn't have
done X y Z. However,it's how we're showing up our energy.
And so when we allow ourselves tosay, hey, you know what,
that really really hurt and I'm reallynot okay with it, and it really
(24:29):
doesn't jive with the way I seemyself. A lot of times some people
don't have you know, don't getthat job promotion. It's like, well
I always went I always get whatI go after. How you know,
how come it didn't happen this time? So we have to be nice to
ourselves, which is something we arenot very good at as a society,
and I certainly wasn't. I wasreally really hard on myself. And when
(24:53):
I finally gave myself the room tosay, you know, it's okay,
Well it's okay that you're just apile go right now and you know,
and work through it, because Ican honestly say without a doubt, I
am a much stronger person. Iam much clearer on those stories that have
(25:15):
helped to shape me and bring mewhere I am, the value that I
bring and the compassion I have forother people going through the same thing.
You know, you brought up grief, and I've had a couple of great
conversations on my show about grief,and I think it's one of those things
that taps into people's stories. Inother words, your grief is reflecting something
(25:40):
back to someone, and the peoplethat want you to rush through your grief
are actually asking you to make themcomfortable. That was such a huge learning
for me. You know, Ialways feel like because my mom died when
I was twenty one, I mean, you know, I mean that was
young to lose her. I washer caregiver for a couple of years before
she died, and I was workingand going to school, and that was
(26:03):
the narrative. And then eight yearslater my sister died there. It was
a really challenging situation that I couldn'ttalk about because back then, you know,
if you needed help, there usedto be this place on job interview
applications. I don't know if it'sstill there, but have you ever sought
any kind of counseling or help?And I couldn't lie, you know,
when I was early in my career, so maybe you don't get help,
(26:27):
right, And it really would havebeen helpful for me to talk to someone.
And so I think that, yeah, you're right, that that whole
narrative about grief and not wanting totalk about it. So I was in
a situation very very yeah maybe abouthim. Two or three months after John
died and an opportunity to go toan event, I'd bought a ticket for
(26:51):
it before he passed, and Ithought, okay, just test yourself,
see if you can go out andbe in a earm of people. And
one of the people that was therewe'd share to ride down to the event,
came up to me afterwards because she'dbeen really silent, and she said,
I'm sorry I just don't know whatto say, and so I don't
want you think you don't care.I just don't know what to say.
(27:15):
And I could see, I mean, she was visibly really uncomfortable, and
you know, just like, hey, you know what, I have no
expectation that you can understand what I'mgoing through, nor do I expect you
to bring me comfort. I'm sorrythat you are uncomfortable. But that was
exactly it. I could see.There was some very deep, unhealed,
(27:37):
open wounds that she had. Andso that level of understanding of your fellow
human we all all have these openplaces. It allows you to be curious
and ask those questions, you know, thoughtfully of course and respectfully, and
the healing it takes place when somebodyrealizes that I'm one alone are Oh,
(28:02):
there's it's not bad that I feelthis a way, no a tendency to
say, what's wrong with me?Why wou't I pop back when I read
about the fact that my body's usingall my serotonin and my deboimine and yeah,
I'm good luck out with that.Whatever's leftover is what you get.
All of a sudden it made perfectsense. It's like, of course I
didn't feel well for a very longtime after my mom died and after my
(28:25):
sister died because my body temidalle wasnot the same. It was trying to
adapt to an event that had happenedin my life that I'm processing completely psychologically
and judging myself that why am Inot like someone else? So could they
just got it and moved on withtheir life. My story was that they
were okay, and the reality wasI'm sure they weren't. Yeah, and
(28:48):
there we're back to the story again. The story was directing how you felt
you could deal with it one percent, you know what would other people think?
Strong? And that was always somethingfrom a very very young age.
(29:10):
I was an equestrian, but Iwas lucky to grow up riding horses,
and I will never forget the firsttime I had thrown off a horse.
It was we were in a corralacross the street from where we lived.
We had just moved to the country, and we had all taken turn sitting
on the back of this horse.My name was Nelly, and when it
was my turn or a laugh andI wasn't paying attention, she dropped her
(29:32):
head and I just went flying overand landed on the hard ground. We're
in a corral, and I'm justlike totally had the air knocked out of
me, and I'm thinking that oneof my sisters surely was going to reach
down and give me hand up,you know, and instead they all laughed
and it was like, get backup, you need to get right back
on that horse, you know,and I'm like, I can't breathe,
(29:52):
you know, the feeling, yes, I never kicked out of you,
right, And so I mean,from that moment on, I was like,
if you don't don't want to feelthat kind of humiliation to get back
up, you suck it up,you know, even though I couldn't breathe,
and you get back up. Andso, yes, that was a
story that I carried, you know, and to some extent still do I
(30:14):
think I always well, it's partof my DNA now. But that's just
a simple example of how we don'teven realize that that's that's the yeah running
in the background, and it's automatic. We just we just do it,
and you know, is it true? You know, I could have in
a completely different situation where it waslike, oh honey, are you okay?
(30:40):
Oh no, please, but getyour catch your breath yes, I'd
be a different person had that situation, you know, gone that way,
and I was the one who choseto see that that way. And then
you know what else happens? Andso I had one story that had that
lesson right when other things happen inmy life, I looked for the same
(31:03):
thread and it's like, oh,that's what you do back up? And
then oh, well that's what youdo about is you always get back up?
That must make you strong? Nevergetting myself time to really heal a
process that you know that really hurt, and coming to grips with Yeah,
those things did make you strong,But is that always the answer to every
(31:27):
situation? What does strength even looklike? Do you know what strength looks
like to me? Now? Istaking care of yourself, taking the time
to rest, to renew your soul, to renew your physical body, you
know, to take the time toreconcile with the fact that what was,
(31:48):
what is, and what can beis very different than what it was before.
And it's a choice to do that. It took me a while to
get to the place where I choseto reconcile the fact that whatever my dreams
were here are no longer and Ineed to reconcile those two pieces so that
I can reset my vision of whatI want my future to look like.
(32:14):
And you know, the big pieceof that is where you start looking and
developing your new why. And thenfrom there I thought, okay, well,
okay, so I reset my visionand now I can re emerge back
into the world. Well, thatis not a linear process. So I
would go out and do things andit's like out there, I'm coming back.
(32:36):
And so what I realized was therewas another stat beyond resetting your vision
and reemerging. It's the actual reengaging and where you actually are present,
where you actually show up without thewound being you know, entering the room
first. Yes, And I wasreally, really fortunate to have so many
(33:00):
beautiful people in my life that gaveme room to do that and didn't judge
me, and it allowed me tosay, hey, wait a minute,
that's not how I want people tosee me. I am so much more
than this this wound. And sothat's where rewriting your narrative and learning how
to turn your stories and your setbacksinto stepping stones to something even greater than
(33:25):
you could have even envisioned. Ilooked at my life now, and I
talk to John all the time.I mean, he's my best friend.
He was my best friend when hewas here on this side. And it's
a bit of a conflict because I'vemet so many amazing people and done so
many amazing things since he left,and I'm always saying, Gosh, I
(33:45):
wish you were here, John,And if John were here, I would
not have had those experiences. Mylife would be going in a completely different
direction, and so much to thinkabout, and that reflection piece. Truly,
without it, none of this happens. There's some reconciling to be done.
(34:06):
You know. It's like the revolvingdoors. You know, you think
about those movies that talk about how, oh you know, what's behind door
A, what's behind door B,what's behind door C. I think that's
true for all of us, dependingon who we choose to partner with in
life, in friendship, in business, all of those things take us somewhere.
And the thing that's so interesting ishow our stories bump up against each
(34:30):
other. You know, we're findingthose people. We're just it's like we're
a little we have this kinetic connectionwith people, and we naturally attract and
we naturally repel. And I thinkas our stories change, those energy shifts
(34:53):
take place, and it puts youin a different place in the world.
The way you think affects how youlive and present to your point, does
the wound show up first? Ordo you show up first? And the
wound is now alongside of you aspart of you who you are, but
not all of who you are?Right? And it's interesting because when we
(35:13):
talk about change, it impacts ourrelationships. So that courage piece we talked
about about ten minutes ago, there'scourage in it facing ourselves, and then
there's the courage and understanding who's goingto be willing to move forward with us,
and who is not going to beready, and who will maybe never
(35:37):
be ready. I think these allof these That's why I think all those
strands are so complex. It's becauseno man is an island. Any decision
that I make is impacting the peoplewithin my sphere. Right. And so
you were talking about the five rs. I'd like to hear them real quickly.
(35:58):
What are those five rs? Howdoes this idea of all of these
complexities, How do you use thosestrategies to streamline someone's journey? Streamline not
speed, but streamline in terms ofclarity and moving forward. First, I
want to acknowledge how beautiful you said. That is so true about our energy.
(36:20):
We're all energy and it is ourfrequency, and you're right, our
frequency changes. And there are peoplethat were part of my journey before well
John is here that are no longer, and you know, part of that
was hard for me to accept thatmoving forward, and then I realized,
(36:45):
you know, I've been writing storiesmy whole life, and stories have chapters
at the beginning, middle, andto be joyous that those people were part
of my journey and that I hadthe opportunity to have those people in my
life. The five hours are firstof all, that we really need to
(37:07):
allow ourselves to rest, and that'ssomething that I never did before. When
you take your three days to getstuff together, your body is exhausted.
It needs to rest and the restthat's different for everyone, you know.
For me, you know, restis reading the book, listening to the
(37:28):
music like candles, be still,be in nature, breathe. Renewal is
the second R, and once againit's different for everyone. For me,
walking to the beach every day,being in my garden, that's how I
renew myself. And I literally Iwas at the beach every day, rain
(37:52):
or shine. It was the onlyplace that I could really feel like I
was dealing and bringing new energy intomy body. So we spend some time
talking about the third hour, whichis reconciled. And it's kind of an
interesting word because you know when peoplea lot of times when I say that
word, a lot of people thinkabout, oh, well, getting back
(38:15):
together or my checkbook. It's alittle bit of both, because reconcile when
you choose to reconcile, like ifyou had been a strange from someone,
there's a choice saying that this mattersto me more than make the part,
or that I'm willing to make theeffort. So that's where the choice piece
(38:36):
comes in. The balance piece comesin when you're willing to say I can't
bring that forward with me, orI want to bring that forward with me,
and there's an unknown on the otherside, like how does that keep
me in stasis? And that reconciliationpiece is also it's nonlinear. It's none
(39:00):
of this is linear. You cango back to, hey, I need
to rest again because I'm pulling rundown again. I had an incident in
my life that triggered something I needto rest and take care of myself.
So the wonderful thing that ends uphappening after you've reconciled, because now kind
of in that neutral zone, youknow, where we've had the endings,
(39:22):
we're allowing ourselves to do this workis to say, all right now,
based on where I'm accepting where Iam, I've gone through this balancing how
to okay? What is a resetvision? Look like? I want to
reset my vision for the future soI feel like I have something pulling me
forward. I can tell you many, many, many dark days where there
(39:44):
was nothing pulling me forward other thanthe hope that one day I would turn
on the light switch again. Andso once I reset my vision and I
could start seeing, hey, theseare the possibilities that you know, there
is somewhat mo or that is inmy life in addition to this wonderful relationship
(40:05):
that I've lost, And so resettingthat vision takes time and care, and
it's a thoughtful thing, and it'sa roadmap for you so that you can
intentionally say, you know what,I'm ready to re emerge. Because now
when you're in conversations, it's notall about how are you or the loss,
(40:27):
You're re emerging with some new hope, right, it's hope that I
you know, I am moving toa new chapter. Don't know what it
is that when I move away.And then the re engagement piece. I
think I've actually the seven hours nowis the whole notion of all right,
this is who I am now andthe loss does not define me. I've
(40:54):
done the work it will it doesshape how I see things now. Yeah,
And so that re engaging piece andthen the last one that I'm really
realizing and I spoke to this alittle bit before. It's a constant cycle
(41:14):
of reflection, Yeah, looking atwhere you are and through reflection, I
think a reflection is a is areally kind, wonderful and safe place to
go because it's quiet time and it'sthe time to say, hey, what
really went on here? What's reallygoing on here? And what do you
(41:35):
really need? You know? Thisisn't just like, you know, my
need for always knowing where, youknow, low tolerance for ambiguity. What's
that really about? You know?And when I learned it's really about keeping
myself safe. It's like, okay, so what do you need to be
safe? Right now? You're notfeeling safe? What do you need to
be safe? And so we kindof have this dance, this interplay with
(41:58):
stories all the time and they canchange and that's the beauty. That's where
our power is, our personal poweris is that we can look at that
and gop, sorry, I'm writingyou out of this story. No longer
need you edit, edited, edit, edit, Your part has been written
(42:19):
out of display and you can chooseto bring new characters and it's into what
you want to create, and youknow, to go to what you were
talking about about energy. When westart seeking that, that's what shows up
for us. And that's the beauty, and that's the reclaiming your power,
and that's seeing that, Oh mygosh, this was really a stepping stone
(42:44):
for me to get to what wasnext, because had I not had this
experience, these next things would noteven be possible. It wouldn't even be
thinking about them. And so that'sthe whole piece around and realizing that you
you know, what is it thatsaying I am I am master, I
(43:07):
am master of my fate and captainof my ship. Yeah, understood what
that meant. And he also understoodthat my mom used to say this to
me a lot when I was akid, and I think that did probably
go a little bit too my alwayswanting to do things that perfectly. But
it really is if you don't havetime to do it right the first time,
(43:28):
though, when will you have timeto do it? And when I
reflect on the fact that when Ihad these major losses in my life that
I just put a band aid onit and kept going, I didn't really
do the work and really dive inand say what's really going on here?
I never made the time to doit over until I had no Yeah.
(43:51):
Yeah, I think a lot ofus tell ourselves that we cannot take the
time. I think that's another narrativein this process, right, Like we
tell ourselves, oh, well,you can't, you don't have time,
You're too busy. People are relyingon you. And so when you talk
about it not being linear, it'sbecause most of us don't have the luxury
of just disconnecting and taking all thetime we need, I suppose. But
(44:16):
I think the beauty of that dancethat you talked about is making time for
ourselves to go through that rest andthat reset and that rejuvenation. And you
know what, because if we donot there's other rs that pop up,
(44:36):
like resentment rejection. Right, weget rage when we are not cared for.
To your point, we might lookout, but we actually need to
start at home in our own bodies, listening to what our bodies and our
souls are saying to us so thatwe can we are the greatest advocate we
(44:59):
have and when we've learned to beeverybody else's advocate, which I would assume
if you're a strong person, it'san external like everybody else needs to be
okay. And in that, whileit has a beauty to it, there's
a cost. We often don't includeourselves in that safety net, if you
will, And so I feel likewhat you're sharing today is definitely a man
(45:24):
We just barely scratch the surface.If somebody has not started this journey,
I would be curious, how canpeople kind of get in contact with you?
What resources do you have that canhelp someone move forward in these processes.
The thing that I realized I needto acknowledge what you just said is
(45:46):
that making the time is if youare going to be affected in life,
is not making time is not anoption mm hm. And that is the
reason that I created this framework becausewhat I have learned and working with people,
is that this framework actually creates safetybecause it's like, you know what,
(46:08):
when I rest, I feel betterwhen I take time to say,
hey, you know what, Igot a name for a minute. I'm
not gonna I'm not going to haveso many triggers. I'm not going to
yell at my kids. I'm notgoing to feel upset by things at work.
I'm not going to say something Ididn't need because I took some time
(46:30):
to put back into me. AndI think that's one of the hardest things,
especially for women, because we areso socialized to look after everybody else's
needs be for our own. Ifwe want to really look after the people
we care we must take care ofourselves first. We must put ourselves first.
And so the two things that Ioffer. My website has got a
(46:52):
ton of free resources on and alot of them are around story. I
work one on one with people,and what I've faild works really well is
to move from the one on onewhere you really can get clear about some
of these things, and then movinginto a group where you're in a safe
group when you're working with other peoplewho are going through the same journey.
(47:14):
One of the hardest things for highachievers is to find safe places where you
can really talk about what's going on. Because we've learned to protect ourselves,
right, you know, I haveto be strong, So I would I
encourage you to go to my websiteand the resources that are there are a
lot about writing our stories, aboutthe things that we do, how we
(47:37):
show up. And then I amalways happy to hop on a call and
talk to people, and whether I'mthe right person or not, I'm a
good listener and I have a lotof compassion for people trying to find their
way and you know, giving thatglimmer of hope that you know what this
(47:57):
really is a stepping stone to somethingthey were And what's your website? Visual
Bridge Communication dot com excellent? Now, if you had three kind of key
takeaways, something that you would wantpeople to anchor into, what would those
three things be. The first thingis the power of our story and really
(48:22):
being aware of the stories that wehave on rewind, yeah, autopilot,
it's just playing in the background.And the thing about it is is that
we truly have a story about everythingwe do, and every single story is
(48:44):
of our own making. No oneelse created that story. And really really
being aware of how what a powerfulinfluence that is in your life. And
if you want to change your life, you have to change the stories that
you're telling. The second piece wouldbe a owned the ability to have a
transformation. I think you know alot of people. I mean, you
(49:07):
know, before we started looking atatomic habits and the fact that the brain,
you know there is neuroplasticity, it'slike, well, that's just the
way I am. And there area lot of people that feel like,
you know, I'm too old tochange, or I'm that I'm just that
way, and it's not true.You're that way as long as you hold
on to that story. And sotransformation through rewriting your narrative is actually an
(49:32):
exciting journey. It's because my thirdpoint is that it requires courage. It
requires courage to say I'm willing togo on this journey. I'm willing to
write a different story to get adifferent outcome, and I'm willing to do
work to get there. And soyeah, I would say it's seen in
the power, the power of yourstory, the power of transformation, the
(49:57):
willingness to transform, and courage todo it. Well, well, I
want to thank you so much forbeing on the show today and for sharing
your depth of wisdom and with suchcompassion. You know, I know you,
so it's easy for me to feelthat that love and that connection and
understanding where your heart is coming from. But I feel like the way you
(50:22):
communicated today clearly communicated that compassionate,generous heart that you have and the care
that you have for people to livea life that is more in alignment,
that is more life giving than theway we think and the way we act
on the things that we think.So thank you so much for bringing this
framework to my tribe today. Ireally appreciate you taking the time. Thank
(50:44):
you so much for having me pleasure'smine. Yes today. Friends, if
you find yourself on YouTube, justlook down below. I'll have the link
to Valve there so you can geta hold of her and her resources.
If you happen to be driving,when you stop, you can get a
head on over tod www dot Feminineroadmap dot com. Forward Slash episode three
(51:06):
five six. Friends. The storiesthat we tell, the things that we
say about ourselves are so impactful.They are driving the ship. They are
the rudder. They're the rudder that'sjust keeping our ship on whatever course it's
on. And as we choose tothink about what we're thinking about, challenge
(51:27):
the things we say too and aboutourselves, we begin to catch wind in
our sales for another direction, andit's an important part of the process.
It is powerful. I know Valhas done it. I know I have
done it, and this is whatI do with other people, this is
what she does with other people.So you're not alone. It's not that
something's wrong, it's just an evaluationof where you're at, what has brought
(51:52):
you to this point in your life. And these resources that VAL offer today
are tools and strategies that can helpyou check if you are not satisfied with
where you are now. Not thatwhere you've been has been bad, it's
just sometimes it's time for a change. So we encourage you to take some
time to question your thoughts, totake them to court, to really think
(52:15):
about it, and reach out forthese resources that VAL has for you and
find the person that can help youhear the words you say too and about
yourself, so that you can beginto move that rudder and direct your ship
the way that you really would liketo go. I want to thank you
so much for joining us today.For taking the time to listen. I
encourage you to share this resource witha friend. I look forward to sharing
(52:37):
more inspirational people, conversations, andstrategies with you in the weeks to come.
Take care of my friends. Byebye
Hi, hi'm Gina. For arewelcome to the Feminine Roadmap Podcast, a
global community of women in midlife.We gather here weekly over a cup of
something wonderful for real talk, lifechanging strategies and a big dose of sisterhood.
Now please sit back and enjoy.Hello, Feminine Roadmappers. Welcome back
(00:28):
to Feminine Roadmap Podcast, the podcastthat helps you navigate the challenges and the
changes of midlife and helps you tolive a more vibrant second half. Today.
If you find us on YouTube,please don't forget to subscribe and ring
that bell so you don't miss anymore conversations. If you're on a podcast
platform, I would appreciate your followand share and rate this episode. Today,
(00:50):
friends, we are going to betalking about the idea that we can
create change in our life. Ifwe change our story, we can change
our life. Guest wants us toreclaim our power and to turn our setbacks
into stepping stones. My guest todayis Val Brown. She is an Emmy
Award winning producer with over three anda half decades of experience in writing,
(01:14):
producing and directing stories. Val thankyou so much for being here today.
Thanks for having me GANA. It'sreally an honor to be here. Well,
we have a history and a friendshipthat's gone on for several years now,
and it's such a joy that wefinally come together to create this episode
together. And I would love tohave you share with people a little bit
about yourself and what led you tothis specific mission and message. You know,
(01:41):
we all have a variety of stories, and I am going to start
at a chapter in the book andshare that experience because I know that we've
all experienced some form of loss inour life at one time or another,
and whether it's not getting a job, promotion, or change in the way
of life, which really happened toall of us with the pandemic, the
(02:06):
rejection, or lost the loved one, and in my particular case, it
was the loss of the love ofmy life of more than forty years.
John and I were like peanut butterand jenty. We did everything together.
And what I realized when I losthim is that I lost a huge part
of myself. My narrative, mylife narrative was interwoven with everything that we
(02:30):
had done together, and so ontop of dealing with grief, which I
want to talk about a little bitbecause I learned a lot about grief.
I realized that my identity, theperson that I thought I was, it
was gone. And so learning aboutgrief and the physiological things that go on
(02:53):
with your body. And this iswhat I really want to share, is
that John wasn't the first major lossthat I'd had my life. My mom
died, my sister died, andI was working in corporate America and at
that time, and I guess thatthe story is, you know, take
your three days Greek, get yourstuff, to get in your work.
(03:15):
And I did, and I sawyour done. And really, what I
learned when I finally asked for helpwhen John passed, because I knew that
there was no way that three daysI was going to get back up.
And it took me almost three years. And so what I learned is that
when you have that kind of aloss, whether like I say, whether
(03:36):
it's a job loss, a wayof life, or a person, your
brain goes into overdrive working to rewirethe neural pathways that are saying, oh,
that doesn't exist anymore, we needto make a new reality. And
what it does is it sucks.Every bit is serotonin in your body can
make your dopamine and you get whatever'sleft over, so we want or why
(04:00):
after, you know, get yourstuff back to give and get back to
work. You still feel horrible,and you know, six months in people
are going are you're okay? Imean you should be okay by now,
and you punish yourself because it's like, yeah, I should be okay,
but what's going on? Is theresomething really physiological? And on top of
that, we don't like to talkabout brief in our society. So I
(04:23):
went through all of that, andthrough that I realized, oh, okay,
so this is you know, there'sa lot of stories that I'm holding
on to that aren't necessarily true anymore. And you know, our life narrative
really is nothing more than a collectionof stories, and the stories all come
(04:44):
through our viewpoint right when I canthe same thing exactly, and we are
going to tell the story differently,so because we have our own experiences,
right, And so I think whenyou started kind of unwinding this whole thing,
you know, it's like our narrative, it's like a rope, right,
with a different strands, and themore strands, the stronger it is,
(05:09):
the harder it is, you know, to cut through or wind it
it's more complex, and so thatwas just a big part of my healing
journey of getting to be able toget back on and get back out.
And I am really, I feelvery committed to sharing what I've learned to
(05:31):
help other people reclaim their power,get unstuck, see how those set back
to really stepping stones to their nextchapter. And I say, I'm pain
and some time. So that's that'swhy I'm just absolutely delighted to be here
today to have this conversation. Mhm. You know, stories are such
(05:53):
a powerful thing. As a coach, someone that has counseled so many people
over the years, I'm amazed athow our stories can be empowering and so
disempowering, how they really we liveour lives through the stories that we tell.
And so I think what you dois so important because I'm not even
(06:14):
sure how aware some people are oftheir own stories, would you agree one
thousand percent? And that's something thatI had to become aware of here.
I've been telling other people's stories myentire career, and you know, I
have developed the ability to listen forthemes and you know, pull them together,
and it's really helpful to be ableto reflect back to somebody what you
(06:38):
hear them saying a lot of timesat the first time, they go,
yeah, that's it. I neverthought of it that way. And what
that also surfaces is, you know, the opportunity to ask the question and
is it true? Is it stilltrue? Because we change, we keep
telling the story in the same wayand bring it along with us. There's
(06:58):
a dissonance between I mean that storythat we've accepted that's actually it's like an
app running in the background that guidesall of our decisions. And so when
we get frustrated that we're not makingprogress, when we're trying to get back
on our feet, we feel likethere's stagnation. We see other people going
you know, ahead, and feellike we're missing out on our opportunities,
(07:20):
a brain fog, lack of clarity, no doubt, can I do this?
And it also you know, youknow, especially being in the professional
world. I mean, I knowthat it affect my ability to lead.
I mean, I was like,am I doing this right? And we
see a lot of recurrent patterns thathappen in our lives. I was talking
(07:41):
to a friend the other day andthe story he was telling was that every
time I do this, it turnsout this way, But when I see
other people do it, it turnsout this way. We're a really rich
conversation around is that really true?Can you really never think of a time
that when you took that action thatit had a positive outcome? And so
(08:03):
I hate to say that that partof the luxury that I had being and
taking time in grief, because Iknow that doesn't sound somehow homogeneous. However,
I did make the commitment to takecare of myself was really being able
to reflect on the stories I wastelling myself and really asking myself why they
(08:26):
so true, and where did thiscome from? What was the origin of
this? And so starting to pullthat apart, realizing that, you know,
I have my own identity, andyes, a large part of my
narrative is tied to being in aloving relationship for more than four decades,
and there's more. And so asI started to unwind that, I realized
(08:50):
that there was a process that Iwas going through and it wasn't the five
stages of grief. It was trulyHonestly, one morning, I was doing
the dishes and I'm looking out thewindow and I just got this download,
and I was like, wait,wait, got out my hands running.
I got to write this down,and it really is a framework. It's
you know, five things that Ihad been through. I called the five
(09:13):
RS to help me start thinking ina different way to you have some some
things to push against as I wastrying to find my way again. And
it's simple yet, as we bothknow, simple does not mean easy.
But I found such a lack ofresources. I'm honestly, sometimes I'm kind
(09:37):
of embarrassed admit this, but onenight I was in so much pain,
do you know, I mean,I just like, how do I get
out of this pain? Because whenyou're in grief, right, there's nowhere
to go everywhere you go there,you are, right? I googled how
to get out of pain? Really, and you know, I did find
some resources that helped me, butit wasn't There weren't a lot of for
(10:01):
where I was, you know,And so part of I think the privilege
of what I'm doing now is reallyto share this process and to help people
see how they can turn that intosomething that propels them to an even greater
place than you were before. Yes, so when you said, you know,
(10:24):
it's simple, but it's not easy, and you use the analogy of
a thread and unraveling. I thinkof like embroidery thread. You know,
you've got your six strand, youreight strand, your ten strand, and
our stories are so much like that. You know, they bulk up over
the years, some of these storiesthat we love so much, some of
the stories that really define us asfar as we're concerned. And it's it
(10:50):
takes courage to face our stories,to ask if it's true and then to
deal with the answer that comes,because I think they become our shields sometimes
depending on the story, it canreally serve. The purpose that it serves
is not necessarily truth one thousand percentagain, and you know you took the
(11:11):
word out of my mouth. Thatwas the word I was going to use
as courage. It really does takecourage because you know, a lot of
times you don't know how many strandsare going to be there, right,
and the more strands there are,the stronger the world. And a lot
of times when we start on windingit, we find things that we didn't
know were there and that we didn'twant to look at. And so the
(11:33):
courage is to be willing to askthe question, is this still true?
And what am I willing to doto rewrite my story so I can start
putting the strands back together. Andone of the things I've learned in my
work when working with my clients isthat it's really important to create a distinction
between story and narrative. The storyis typically focusing on a beginning of the
(11:54):
middle and an end and one topic. And so you know, we have
a story about our intelligence, ora story about how we get along with
other people or how we handle conflict. The narrative is how we get together.
Right. That adds context and meaningfor us. And so it's happening
at two loves, right, Sodo you know, do we a have
(12:16):
the courage to rewrite the story andbe that narrative? And that's really where
the tough work is is because it'seasy on paper to rewrite the story to
have a different ending. The narrative, the glue that holds it together,
which is our unique stuff that webring, is really where the hard work
is. Where we have to makethe commitment to say I'm not going to
(12:41):
do that again. I'm not youknow, that's my default. That's that's
the easy way, right, that'sthe comfort thing. And that was another
thing I learned a lot about isthat you do so much of what we
do the stories that we keep tellingourselves to keep us safe. Right when
we have that frame of reference,you know, I always when I when
I teach, I'd love to teachstory listening too. It's a little story.
(13:07):
But you know when when we're listeningto stories in or if you need
to tell a story really quick onyour feet, I use this really quick
model it's called the car model,where you know, what is the context
of what was going on, whatwas the action, and what was the
resolution? Right? And so givethe context is the thing that because we
can be very easily become a victimthe context, like was I was wrong?
(13:31):
I took this action, this ishow it worked out, versus you
know, looking at that context andbeing willing to look at it differently and
saying, you know, somebody elsewas saying this from a completely different way
than I was. Is there roomfor a different story? Yeah? Am
I willing to make room to thinkabout this in a different way. And
(13:54):
so those are things that I wantto share and I have been sharing with
my clients. I had a clientwho came through a really difficult health issue
very low chances of survival, andthe story had focused really on all the
(14:16):
steps that they needed to go throughto get well. Well, when we
started digging back down into the story, the real, real story was things
he had done in childhood that hadmade him very, very strong, tough.
The nails was what allowed him toheal. And when those two pieces
(14:39):
come together in that bridge, whenyou can create that visual bridge for yourself
between I did this, I wasgood at this, and it's allowing me
to do this here, that's powerful. And that's when the setback becomes a
stepping stone because now something that happened, okay, so now that allowed me
to get from here. Now that'spart of this story. That's going to
(15:03):
allow me to get here. Andso you take that threat of your story
with you. The empowering is strong, and it's all too easy for social
media and all the noise out thereto continue compare ourselves to other people.
And we are the only person whocan write our own story. And when
(15:24):
we give away our power and letother people write our story, and so
when we reclaim our power and makethe decision to rewrite our story or to
write a new story and weave itinto a stronger narrative, we reclaim our
power and we become victorious. Andlike I say, well it seems simple,
(15:46):
it isn't easy. And I thinkthat's the reason that when we have
community and when we have other peoplewho have been through similar experiences and feel
like they're in a safe place wherethey can say, yeah, you don't
my job, I really can't talkabout I'm not okay. I'm still carrying
this great It still creates confusion forme every day, but I have all
(16:08):
these people relying on me, whetherit's at work or whether it's at home,
and we need to be able tocreate space for ourselves with tools to
say, Okay, you know,I might not be okay all the way
right now, but I can dothese little things every day to start getting
closer to being able to turn thatlight switch back on again. Another visual
(16:33):
that really helped me a lot isI was working to through my my five
hour process and re engage and reemerge and re engage into the world.
Again, you mentioned this let thatour stories serve us. The reason they
exist is because they do serve apurpose. But you also brought up the
(16:56):
point that does this still serve meis really a powerful question because if we've
changed our circumstances, we've grown,we've changed, we've experienced certain things.
What used to essentially be a littlebit of a cocoon for us can now
become our own prison because we're hangingon to something that does not allow us
(17:18):
a new narrative, you know,we have to keep conforming to that belief
and that story that we have.And I think that's what makes stories so
powerful is that they really do controlour decision making because if our narrative says
I can't do that, I don'thave that ability. No one will let
me or whatever the narrative, youknow, like if I believe that I'm
(17:41):
being held back, then I willonly see being held back. And you're
talking about the unraveling of it orthe facing it is is to take your
beliefs to court and be like,what is true about what I'm saying?
Was it ever true? Maybe?Maybe right? Because when we're children,
(18:02):
there are things we have control overand there are things we don't. Right,
well, we have very little controlwhen we're children, but as we
grow, we are controlled. Whenwe are children, and the reason a
lot of times that's where rebellion comesin because we know what our truth is
intrinsically, and you know, wehave somebody working you know, so many
(18:25):
times in you know, good goodfaith is where they're coming from. Not
realizing that one word can make adifference. I know. Friend Son tell
me one time I made a commentabout his manners and I didn't realize that
he was listening and in very verynice manners. I made it sort of
(18:45):
an aside about a sitcom, andI saw him at thanks Giving a few
years back and he said, youknow, Vow, I've always remembered what
you said, and it's kind ofmade me be really like extra cautious.
And I was like, oh mygosh. I apologize profusely, said oh
(19:06):
no, actually it was a goodthing. Yet it just made me so
much more aware. And I knowit happened to all of us when we're
kids, when somebody put a labelon you this, don't do that.
And so now that we are inthe driver's sea, now we are in
control. Now we have set apath and if I made this is the
(19:32):
next piece that I think is reallyimportant in this because well, we've had
a great loss in our life.There's a greeting process where we need to
let go. And when we don'thave the ability to do that, or
we support to do that, andwe keep thinking, well, I should
be moving on to something new,we're not giving ourselves that time in the
(19:55):
in between, in the you know, as they called it, the neutral
zone, to to heal and thento rewrite what is our new life for
me in my life. I mean, it's like you're being part of a
committed partnership for four decades plus allof a sudden became what I want when
(20:18):
I want to do the decisions Imake for me, not we, And
that was a whole process and beingin that neutral zone, giving yourself space
to say, you know, it'sokay that I don't know, and it's
okay that sometimes I'm going to goback to the letting go and to the
grieving because grief is not a straightline. And as they say, there
(20:42):
is no expiration date on grief.It is what it is, and that's
your story to write in your storyto heal your grief. To heal from
allowing ourselves to stay in that placeof neutrality and to say it's okay that
they don't know, we open upthe opportunity to start saying what if?
(21:07):
What could what could my new whybe? And I know so many times
I had people early on, Iworked with some amazing grief counselors, which
you know, at different stages andin my process that would ask really good
questions and a lot of times Iwould say I don't know, and they
never said it's not okay not toknow. However, the question was asked,
(21:30):
what what could that look like?And I had no idea, And
that's when I started drawing pictures.One of my grief counselors saying, you
know, get a notebook and drawpictures about what does it feel like?
And you know, my artwork isnot brilliant, however, it's it's a
very personal expression of you know,what I was feeling and what I wanted
(21:52):
to feel. You know, Iwanted to see the sun come up again,
and so by doing that, youknow, all kinds of good things
are happening in your brain possibility,and it's not in a pressure system,
and it's not in comparison anybody else. It's what do I want to feel
like? What does that new storyfeel like? You know, yeah,
there's light, you know, there'slightness, there's that you know, I
(22:15):
laugh again, and those little thingsstart then like opening up a greater possibility
to say why and why now issharing what I've been through with the hope
of saving somebody else some pain toget them they're quicker, to let them
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know that they're not alone and thatit's okay to talk about your loss.
And I've had leaders tell me,you know about now that I can talk
about this, it's actually made amore leader because people find me more relatable
that they've had the same kind ofa herd. Yet, you know,
(22:56):
we have this this image of leadersas being strong and stoke and soldiering on,
which is what I did and whatended up happening as a result of
that, honestly, do you knowwas I developed a lot of coping behaviors
that were completely masked by the industrythat I was in, which is a
very high pressure industry. Where asa producer, you high need for control,
(23:18):
what's going on, what's going tohappen next, right load tolerance or
ambiguity. Always wanted to know what, you know, what could go wrong,
so I can make sure that I'mprepared for it. I had a
perfectionism. You know, this hasgot to be just so. And then
I also found that a lot oftimes I was avoidant when you know,
(23:41):
hard conflicts came up, it's easierfor me to withdraw or to always be
busy. And that happens in alot of businesses. So it's like,
oh, right, so we're coping, we're creating safety for ourselves. Yet
what that also creates is a lotof trigger points in relationships in how respond
to things because it's unresolved and it'ssitting there right underneath the surface. Yes,
(24:07):
yeah, we don't point at that. We pointed other things saying oh,
well, you know I was tiredor you know, they shouldn't have
done X y Z. However,it's how we're showing up our energy.
And so when we allow ourselves tosay, hey, you know what,
that really really hurt and I'm reallynot okay with it, and it really
(24:29):
doesn't jive with the way I seemyself. A lot of times some people
don't have you know, don't getthat job promotion. It's like, well
I always went I always get whatI go after. How you know,
how come it didn't happen this time? So we have to be nice to
ourselves, which is something we arenot very good at as a society,
and I certainly wasn't. I wasreally really hard on myself. And when
(24:53):
I finally gave myself the room tosay, you know, it's okay,
Well it's okay that you're just apile go right now and you know,
and work through it, because Ican honestly say without a doubt, I
am a much stronger person. Iam much clearer on those stories that have
(25:15):
helped to shape me and bring mewhere I am, the value that I
bring and the compassion I have forother people going through the same thing.
You know, you brought up grief, and I've had a couple of great
conversations on my show about grief,and I think it's one of those things
that taps into people's stories. Inother words, your grief is reflecting something
(25:40):
back to someone, and the peoplethat want you to rush through your grief
are actually asking you to make themcomfortable. That was such a huge learning
for me. You know, Ialways feel like because my mom died when
I was twenty one, I mean, you know, I mean that was
young to lose her. I washer caregiver for a couple of years before
she died, and I was workingand going to school, and that was
(26:03):
the narrative. And then eight yearslater my sister died there. It was
a really challenging situation that I couldn'ttalk about because back then, you know,
if you needed help, there usedto be this place on job interview
applications. I don't know if it'sstill there, but have you ever sought
any kind of counseling or help?And I couldn't lie, you know,
when I was early in my career, so maybe you don't get help,
(26:27):
right, And it really would havebeen helpful for me to talk to someone.
And so I think that, yeah, you're right, that that whole
narrative about grief and not wanting totalk about it. So I was in
a situation very very yeah maybe abouthim. Two or three months after John
died and an opportunity to go toan event, I'd bought a ticket for
(26:51):
it before he passed, and Ithought, okay, just test yourself,
see if you can go out andbe in a earm of people. And
one of the people that was therewe'd share to ride down to the event,
came up to me afterwards because she'dbeen really silent, and she said,
I'm sorry I just don't know whatto say, and so I don't
want you think you don't care.I just don't know what to say.
(27:15):
And I could see, I mean, she was visibly really uncomfortable, and
you know, just like, hey, you know what, I have no
expectation that you can understand what I'mgoing through, nor do I expect you
to bring me comfort. I'm sorrythat you are uncomfortable. But that was
exactly it. I could see.There was some very deep, unhealed,
(27:37):
open wounds that she had. Andso that level of understanding of your fellow
human we all all have these openplaces. It allows you to be curious
and ask those questions, you know, thoughtfully of course and respectfully, and
the healing it takes place when somebodyrealizes that I'm one alone are Oh,
(28:02):
there's it's not bad that I feelthis a way, no a tendency to
say, what's wrong with me?Why wou't I pop back when I read
about the fact that my body's usingall my serotonin and my deboimine and yeah,
I'm good luck out with that.Whatever's leftover is what you get.
All of a sudden it made perfectsense. It's like, of course I
didn't feel well for a very longtime after my mom died and after my
(28:25):
sister died because my body temidalle wasnot the same. It was trying to
adapt to an event that had happenedin my life that I'm processing completely psychologically
and judging myself that why am Inot like someone else? So could they
just got it and moved on withtheir life. My story was that they
were okay, and the reality wasI'm sure they weren't. Yeah, and
(28:48):
there we're back to the story again. The story was directing how you felt
you could deal with it one percent, you know what would other people think?
Strong? And that was always somethingfrom a very very young age.
(29:10):
I was an equestrian, but Iwas lucky to grow up riding horses,
and I will never forget the firsttime I had thrown off a horse.
It was we were in a corralacross the street from where we lived.
We had just moved to the country, and we had all taken turn sitting
on the back of this horse.My name was Nelly, and when it
was my turn or a laugh andI wasn't paying attention, she dropped her
(29:32):
head and I just went flying overand landed on the hard ground. We're
in a corral, and I'm justlike totally had the air knocked out of
me, and I'm thinking that oneof my sisters surely was going to reach
down and give me hand up,you know, and instead they all laughed
and it was like, get backup, you need to get right back
on that horse, you know,and I'm like, I can't breathe,
(29:52):
you know, the feeling, yes, I never kicked out of you,
right, And so I mean,from that moment on, I was like,
if you don't don't want to feelthat kind of humiliation to get back
up, you suck it up,you know, even though I couldn't breathe,
and you get back up. Andso, yes, that was a
story that I carried, you know, and to some extent still do I
(30:14):
think I always well, it's partof my DNA now. But that's just
a simple example of how we don'teven realize that that's that's the yeah running
in the background, and it's automatic. We just we just do it,
and you know, is it true? You know, I could have in
a completely different situation where it waslike, oh honey, are you okay?
(30:40):
Oh no, please, but getyour catch your breath yes, I'd
be a different person had that situation, you know, gone that way,
and I was the one who choseto see that that way. And then
you know what else happens? Andso I had one story that had that
lesson right when other things happen inmy life, I looked for the same
(31:03):
thread and it's like, oh,that's what you do back up? And
then oh, well that's what youdo about is you always get back up?
That must make you strong? Nevergetting myself time to really heal a
process that you know that really hurt, and coming to grips with Yeah,
those things did make you strong,But is that always the answer to every
(31:27):
situation? What does strength even looklike? Do you know what strength looks
like to me? Now? Istaking care of yourself, taking the time
to rest, to renew your soul, to renew your physical body, you
know, to take the time toreconcile with the fact that what was,
(31:48):
what is, and what can beis very different than what it was before.
And it's a choice to do that. It took me a while to
get to the place where I choseto reconcile the fact that whatever my dreams
were here are no longer and Ineed to reconcile those two pieces so that
I can reset my vision of whatI want my future to look like.
(32:14):
And you know, the big pieceof that is where you start looking and
developing your new why. And thenfrom there I thought, okay, well,
okay, so I reset my visionand now I can re emerge back
into the world. Well, thatis not a linear process. So I
would go out and do things andit's like out there, I'm coming back.
(32:36):
And so what I realized was therewas another stat beyond resetting your vision
and reemerging. It's the actual reengaging and where you actually are present,
where you actually show up without thewound being you know, entering the room
first. Yes, And I wasreally, really fortunate to have so many
(33:00):
beautiful people in my life that gaveme room to do that and didn't judge
me, and it allowed me tosay, hey, wait a minute,
that's not how I want people tosee me. I am so much more
than this this wound. And sothat's where rewriting your narrative and learning how
to turn your stories and your setbacksinto stepping stones to something even greater than
(33:25):
you could have even envisioned. Ilooked at my life now, and I
talk to John all the time.I mean, he's my best friend.
He was my best friend when hewas here on this side. And it's
a bit of a conflict because I'vemet so many amazing people and done so
many amazing things since he left,and I'm always saying, Gosh, I
(33:45):
wish you were here, John,And if John were here, I would
not have had those experiences. Mylife would be going in a completely different
direction, and so much to thinkabout, and that reflection piece. Truly,
without it, none of this happens. There's some reconciling to be done.
(34:06):
You know. It's like the revolvingdoors. You know, you think
about those movies that talk about how, oh you know, what's behind door
A, what's behind door B,what's behind door C. I think that's
true for all of us, dependingon who we choose to partner with in
life, in friendship, in business, all of those things take us somewhere.
And the thing that's so interesting ishow our stories bump up against each
(34:30):
other. You know, we're findingthose people. We're just it's like we're
a little we have this kinetic connectionwith people, and we naturally attract and
we naturally repel. And I thinkas our stories change, those energy shifts
(34:53):
take place, and it puts youin a different place in the world.
The way you think affects how youlive and present to your point, does
the wound show up first? Ordo you show up first? And the
wound is now alongside of you aspart of you who you are, but
not all of who you are?Right? And it's interesting because when we
(35:13):
talk about change, it impacts ourrelationships. So that courage piece we talked
about about ten minutes ago, there'scourage in it facing ourselves, and then
there's the courage and understanding who's goingto be willing to move forward with us,
and who is not going to beready, and who will maybe never
(35:37):
be ready. I think these allof these That's why I think all those
strands are so complex. It's becauseno man is an island. Any decision
that I make is impacting the peoplewithin my sphere. Right. And so
you were talking about the five rs. I'd like to hear them real quickly.
(35:58):
What are those five rs? Howdoes this idea of all of these
complexities, How do you use thosestrategies to streamline someone's journey? Streamline not
speed, but streamline in terms ofclarity and moving forward. First, I
want to acknowledge how beautiful you said. That is so true about our energy.
(36:20):
We're all energy and it is ourfrequency, and you're right, our
frequency changes. And there are peoplethat were part of my journey before well
John is here that are no longer, and you know, part of that
was hard for me to accept thatmoving forward, and then I realized,
(36:45):
you know, I've been writing storiesmy whole life, and stories have chapters
at the beginning, middle, andto be joyous that those people were part
of my journey and that I hadthe opportunity to have those people in my
life. The five hours are firstof all, that we really need to
(37:07):
allow ourselves to rest, and that'ssomething that I never did before. When
you take your three days to getstuff together, your body is exhausted.
It needs to rest and the restthat's different for everyone, you know.
For me, you know, restis reading the book, listening to the
(37:28):
music like candles, be still,be in nature, breathe. Renewal is
the second R, and once againit's different for everyone. For me,
walking to the beach every day,being in my garden, that's how I
renew myself. And I literally Iwas at the beach every day, rain
(37:52):
or shine. It was the onlyplace that I could really feel like I
was dealing and bringing new energy intomy body. So we spend some time
talking about the third hour, whichis reconciled. And it's kind of an
interesting word because you know when peoplea lot of times when I say that
word, a lot of people thinkabout, oh, well, getting back
(38:15):
together or my checkbook. It's alittle bit of both, because reconcile when
you choose to reconcile, like ifyou had been a strange from someone,
there's a choice saying that this mattersto me more than make the part,
or that I'm willing to make theeffort. So that's where the choice piece
(38:36):
comes in. The balance piece comesin when you're willing to say I can't
bring that forward with me, orI want to bring that forward with me,
and there's an unknown on the otherside, like how does that keep
me in stasis? And that reconciliationpiece is also it's nonlinear. It's none
(39:00):
of this is linear. You cango back to, hey, I need
to rest again because I'm pulling rundown again. I had an incident in
my life that triggered something I needto rest and take care of myself.
So the wonderful thing that ends uphappening after you've reconciled, because now kind
of in that neutral zone, youknow, where we've had the endings,
(39:22):
we're allowing ourselves to do this workis to say, all right now,
based on where I'm accepting where Iam, I've gone through this balancing how
to okay? What is a resetvision? Look like? I want to
reset my vision for the future soI feel like I have something pulling me
forward. I can tell you many, many, many dark days where there
(39:44):
was nothing pulling me forward other thanthe hope that one day I would turn
on the light switch again. Andso once I reset my vision and I
could start seeing, hey, theseare the possibilities that you know, there
is somewhat mo or that is inmy life in addition to this wonderful relationship
(40:05):
that I've lost, And so resettingthat vision takes time and care, and
it's a thoughtful thing, and it'sa roadmap for you so that you can
intentionally say, you know what,I'm ready to re emerge. Because now
when you're in conversations, it's notall about how are you or the loss,
(40:27):
You're re emerging with some new hope, right, it's hope that I
you know, I am moving toa new chapter. Don't know what it
is that when I move away.And then the re engagement piece. I
think I've actually the seven hours nowis the whole notion of all right,
this is who I am now andthe loss does not define me. I've
(40:54):
done the work it will it doesshape how I see things now. Yeah,
And so that re engaging piece andthen the last one that I'm really
realizing and I spoke to this alittle bit before. It's a constant cycle
(41:14):
of reflection, Yeah, looking atwhere you are and through reflection, I
think a reflection is a is areally kind, wonderful and safe place to
go because it's quiet time and it'sthe time to say, hey, what
really went on here? What's reallygoing on here? And what do you
(41:35):
really need? You know? Thisisn't just like, you know, my
need for always knowing where, youknow, low tolerance for ambiguity. What's
that really about? You know?And when I learned it's really about keeping
myself safe. It's like, okay, so what do you need to be
safe? Right now? You're notfeeling safe? What do you need to
be safe? And so we kindof have this dance, this interplay with
(41:58):
stories all the time and they canchange and that's the beauty. That's where
our power is, our personal poweris is that we can look at that
and gop, sorry, I'm writingyou out of this story. No longer
need you edit, edited, edit, edit, Your part has been written
(42:19):
out of display and you can chooseto bring new characters and it's into what
you want to create, and youknow, to go to what you were
talking about about energy. When westart seeking that, that's what shows up
for us. And that's the beauty, and that's the reclaiming your power,
and that's seeing that, Oh mygosh, this was really a stepping stone
(42:44):
for me to get to what wasnext, because had I not had this
experience, these next things would noteven be possible. It wouldn't even be
thinking about them. And so that'sthe whole piece around and realizing that you
you know, what is it thatsaying I am I am master, I
(43:07):
am master of my fate and captainof my ship. Yeah, understood what
that meant. And he also understoodthat my mom used to say this to
me a lot when I was akid, and I think that did probably
go a little bit too my alwayswanting to do things that perfectly. But
it really is if you don't havetime to do it right the first time,
(43:28):
though, when will you have timeto do it? And when I
reflect on the fact that when Ihad these major losses in my life that
I just put a band aid onit and kept going, I didn't really
do the work and really dive inand say what's really going on here?
I never made the time to doit over until I had no Yeah.
(43:51):
Yeah, I think a lot ofus tell ourselves that we cannot take the
time. I think that's another narrativein this process, right, Like we
tell ourselves, oh, well,you can't, you don't have time,
You're too busy. People are relyingon you. And so when you talk
about it not being linear, it'sbecause most of us don't have the luxury
of just disconnecting and taking all thetime we need, I suppose. But
(44:16):
I think the beauty of that dancethat you talked about is making time for
ourselves to go through that rest andthat reset and that rejuvenation. And you
know what, because if we donot there's other rs that pop up,
(44:36):
like resentment rejection. Right, weget rage when we are not cared for.
To your point, we might lookout, but we actually need to
start at home in our own bodies, listening to what our bodies and our
souls are saying to us so thatwe can we are the greatest advocate we
(44:59):
have and when we've learned to beeverybody else's advocate, which I would assume
if you're a strong person, it'san external like everybody else needs to be
okay. And in that, whileit has a beauty to it, there's
a cost. We often don't includeourselves in that safety net, if you
will, And so I feel likewhat you're sharing today is definitely a man
(45:24):
We just barely scratch the surface.If somebody has not started this journey,
I would be curious, how canpeople kind of get in contact with you?
What resources do you have that canhelp someone move forward in these processes.
The thing that I realized I needto acknowledge what you just said is
(45:46):
that making the time is if youare going to be affected in life,
is not making time is not anoption mm hm. And that is the
reason that I created this framework becausewhat I have learned and working with people,
is that this framework actually creates safetybecause it's like, you know what,
(46:08):
when I rest, I feel betterwhen I take time to say,
hey, you know what, Igot a name for a minute. I'm
not gonna I'm not going to haveso many triggers. I'm not going to
yell at my kids. I'm notgoing to feel upset by things at work.
I'm not going to say something Ididn't need because I took some time
(46:30):
to put back into me. AndI think that's one of the hardest things,
especially for women, because we areso socialized to look after everybody else's
needs be for our own. Ifwe want to really look after the people
we care we must take care ofourselves first. We must put ourselves first.
And so the two things that Ioffer. My website has got a
(46:52):
ton of free resources on and alot of them are around story. I
work one on one with people,and what I've faild works really well is
to move from the one on onewhere you really can get clear about some
of these things, and then movinginto a group where you're in a safe
group when you're working with other peoplewho are going through the same journey.
(47:14):
One of the hardest things for highachievers is to find safe places where you
can really talk about what's going on. Because we've learned to protect ourselves,
right, you know, I haveto be strong, So I would I
encourage you to go to my websiteand the resources that are there are a
lot about writing our stories, aboutthe things that we do, how we
(47:37):
show up. And then I amalways happy to hop on a call and
talk to people, and whether I'mthe right person or not, I'm a
good listener and I have a lotof compassion for people trying to find their
way and you know, giving thatglimmer of hope that you know what this
(47:57):
really is a stepping stone to somethingthey were And what's your website? Visual
Bridge Communication dot com excellent? Now, if you had three kind of key
takeaways, something that you would wantpeople to anchor into, what would those
three things be. The first thingis the power of our story and really
(48:22):
being aware of the stories that wehave on rewind, yeah, autopilot,
it's just playing in the background.And the thing about it is is that
we truly have a story about everythingwe do, and every single story is
(48:44):
of our own making. No oneelse created that story. And really really
being aware of how what a powerfulinfluence that is in your life. And
if you want to change your life, you have to change the stories that
you're telling. The second piece wouldbe a owned the ability to have a
transformation. I think you know alot of people. I mean, you
(49:07):
know, before we started looking atatomic habits and the fact that the brain,
you know there is neuroplasticity, it'slike, well, that's just the
way I am. And there area lot of people that feel like,
you know, I'm too old tochange, or I'm that I'm just that
way, and it's not true.You're that way as long as you hold
on to that story. And sotransformation through rewriting your narrative is actually an
(49:32):
exciting journey. It's because my thirdpoint is that it requires courage. It
requires courage to say I'm willing togo on this journey. I'm willing to
write a different story to get adifferent outcome, and I'm willing to do
work to get there. And soyeah, I would say it's seen in
the power, the power of yourstory, the power of transformation, the
(49:57):
willingness to transform, and courage todo it. Well, well, I
want to thank you so much forbeing on the show today and for sharing
your depth of wisdom and with suchcompassion. You know, I know you,
so it's easy for me to feelthat that love and that connection and
understanding where your heart is coming from. But I feel like the way you
(50:22):
communicated today clearly communicated that compassionate,generous heart that you have and the care
that you have for people to livea life that is more in alignment,
that is more life giving than theway we think and the way we act
on the things that we think.So thank you so much for bringing this
framework to my tribe today. Ireally appreciate you taking the time. Thank
(50:44):
you so much for having me pleasure'smine. Yes today. Friends, if
you find yourself on YouTube, justlook down below. I'll have the link
to Valve there so you can geta hold of her and her resources.
If you happen to be driving,when you stop, you can get a
head on over tod www dot Feminineroadmap dot com. Forward Slash episode three
(51:06):
five six. Friends. The storiesthat we tell, the things that we
say about ourselves are so impactful.They are driving the ship. They are
the rudder. They're the rudder that'sjust keeping our ship on whatever course it's
on. And as we choose tothink about what we're thinking about, challenge
(51:27):
the things we say too and aboutourselves, we begin to catch wind in
our sales for another direction, andit's an important part of the process.
It is powerful. I know Valhas done it. I know I have
done it, and this is whatI do with other people, this is
what she does with other people.So you're not alone. It's not that
something's wrong, it's just an evaluationof where you're at, what has brought
(51:52):
you to this point in your life. And these resources that VAL offer today
are tools and strategies that can helpyou check if you are not satisfied with
where you are now. Not thatwhere you've been has been bad, it's
just sometimes it's time for a change. So we encourage you to take some
time to question your thoughts, totake them to court, to really think
(52:15):
about it, and reach out forthese resources that VAL has for you and
find the person that can help youhear the words you say too and about
yourself, so that you can beginto move that rudder and direct your ship
the way that you really would liketo go. I want to thank you
so much for joining us today.For taking the time to listen. I
encourage you to share this resource witha friend. I look forward to sharing
(52:37):
more inspirational people, conversations, andstrategies with you in the weeks to come.
Take care of my friends. Byebye
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