Part Three: Broken-Hearted Courage
A word from Susan
In this part…
Jill’s Story: Impossible Circumstances
One terrible step at a time. That’s how I learned that I’m brave.
At thirty-seven, I became the first-time mother of a baby son whom my husband and I named Russ, after his paternal grandfather. Ten nights later, as we climbed into bed, exhausted, my husband turned to me and said, “Wake me if you need anything. Promise?” I promised, not knowing those would be the last words I’d hear from his lips.
Anyone who has parented an infant knows how one tiny human can upend an entire life. Others may know the disorienting, rug-pulled-out-from-under-you feeling of losing a life partner in one sudden instant. I happen to know both. Birth and death both visited me and within the space of ten days—ten days—I became a mother and a widow.
Groundless
There’s a scene in the movie Gravity where George Clooney’s character floats off into space. That was how I felt—tumbling, groundless, adrift in the infinite black unknown. After my husband died, I was afraid of everything. Afraid of the dark, of being alone, of leaving my house and staying in it. I was shocked and offended by every sunrise because my world had stopped turning, and it was an affront seeing life carrying on. I felt jealous of people driving down the road in my neighborhood, imagining them on their way to work or the grocery store and wishing I could trade my nightmare for their mundane, everyday existence.
I thought about escape. I knew that no one would think badly of me if I took medicine that would make me sleep all day. If I took too much of it, maybe I could end things entirely. But I was unwilling to abdicate responsibility for my child, and my son had already lost one parent—he wouldn’t lose me, too.
The only way out was to go through it—one terrible step at a time.
People came to my house and sat with me, preparing meals, folding laundry, and sweeping up the endless dirt tracked in by visitors. They showed up in the worst, most uncomfortable kind of circumstances. Their presence was a gift of love. Even in the fog of my naked, raw grief, I could see and feel that.
One Galvanizing Moment
Then, there came a moment when I decided to show up for myself. It was early in my grief journey. I’d lost everything, and I was, quite frankly, pissed about it. I swore to myself and to God, the Universe, a Higher Power, or whoever was listening that since I was handed this crappy life, I would live every awful minute to the fullest.
My anger propelled me forward. I’d been living in paralyzing fear, which would have kept me frozen if not for my anger. As I came back to life, anger was a friend.
And it turned out that every minute wasn’t awful. In fact, by opening to the full spectrum of life, I found that by feeling such deep despair, I could, with time, more fully experience joy.
The clarity of hindsight reveals what I couldn’t see back then: to show up broken-hearted and scared, is brave as hell.
Big Brave Truth: We are more real and brave in our willingness to find a way through heartbreak.
Action Step: Think about a moment when you felt deep despair. How did you deal with it? Did you sit with your sadness and acknowledge it? Our author Jill says the only way out—to heal—is to go through it. Honor all your emotions today.
Jill is the Alumni Program Director for the Women’s Independence Scholarship Program (WISP), a program the late Doris Buffett began. Jill just published her first book.
Amy’s Story: A Mentor’s Voice
"You’re free now, free to take the journey of a lifetime. Free to experience life, in its newness, its freshness, its magic—in a way you never have before.”
On February 1, 2001, one of my dearest friends read this Melody Beattie passage to me as I sat in the passenger seat of her car. It was minus 10 degrees outside, and she had just finished helping me move from my home in the suburbs into my new apartment in downtown Chicago. I was now a renter, living alone with my daughter. My body was shaking from both the cold in the air and the fear that was wracking every bone in my body.
I had recently decided to leave my marriage. A crushing, hard decision. That day in February would be my first in my new apartment, and it was the beginning of my life as a single mother. What made this moment even harder was that two years earlier, at twenty-nine, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy.
And I had just started a new job. All the life-changing moments led to sitting in this car with my confidence shattered. I prayed, desperate for a new “journey of a lifetime.”
A Mentor’s Voice: “Just Imagine It”
After various jobs and trying to make ends meet, I began working for an organization comprised of top women CEOs. One day, when I was down to eight dollars in my checking account and had no idea how I would keep things afloat, a member I greatly admired whispered to me, “If you can imagine it, it can be yours.” Little did she know that her words would change my life. She validated something I knew, but I lacked the confidence to fully embrace.
She was one of the bravest women I had ever met, and if someone like her was telling someone like me that I could accomplish big goals, then I would do whatever it took to make them happen. From that day forward, “If you can imagine it, it can be yours “became my mantra. I knew then that if I wanted to change my life for the better, advance in my career, and dream of reaching impossible goals, I had to possess the courage to believe that I could.
Beyond Survival to Success
I wanted more for myself and my daughter than just to survive—I also wanted to instill in her that anything was possible if she believed in herself. Regardless of how much money I had in the bank or whatever obstacles I faced, I wanted to teach my daughter to be courageous, so I had to show up for both of us that way.
Twenty-plus years since I was told, “If you can imagine, it can be yours,” I have excelled in my career. I had the unique opportunity to work in a leadership role for the most successful women CEOs in the world for over fifteen years. After that, I held an executive leadership role for an organization that serves survivors of sexual violence throughout Chicago. I have written and published a book, became a professional commercial voiceover actor, and am a member of the Screen Actors Guild. I co-founded and have co-hosted an annual successful spiritual retreat for the past seven years. This year, I am thrilled to say that I co-founded and launched a company I have been dreaming about since I started my career twenty years ago!
None of this could have happened without my daughter, who inspires me to be brave every single day, my dear friends, and the mentor who urged me to believe in myself—and my dreams.
Big Brave Truth: Being brave doesn’t mean doing it all alone. Mentors can gently guide us.
Action Step: Think of mentors you’ve had in your life. Send one a note of thanks today.
Amy is co-founder of a company that produces large-scale events and retreats. She is also a fundraising leader for one of the largest family support organizations in the Chicagoland area.
Danni’s Story: From Valedictorian to Prison. Then…Belonging.
Growing Up
I believe I had a pretty typical middle-class upbringing. However, addiction is common on both sides of my family, with an uncle on each side that has gotten more DUIs than we can keep track of. Domestic violence is also common in my mom’s family.
Growing up, there was some verbal and emotional abuse, and none of us were allowed to raise our voices or show emotion in response to it. My father was never diagnosed with a substance use disorder, but his alcohol abuse caused many problems in my family—problems that apparently weren’t visible to outsiders. There were never any lost jobs or divorce.
Disconnected
As I grew up, I felt constantly disconnected from others. I tried to overcome that feeling by being perfect and pleasing people. Because my father was very critical, and much of his communication came in the form of lectures, I tried to avoid doing anything wrong, or that might be open to criticism.
I joined clubs and teams in school so I wouldn’t feel so disconnected—the marching band, color guard and winter guard, cross country, and theatre—and graduated high school tied for valedictorian.
A Rape, A Blackout, and Prison
Right before my high school graduation, I was drinking at a party and blacked out. During that time, someone raped me. I reached out for help from the local health department, and their response was shaming and humiliation. At another party almost a year later, I drank too much and blacked out again, didn’t remember driving home and caused a car crash.
When I came to, I had no memory of what happened. I was told I’d been airlifted to a hospital and woke with two broken legs, a head injury, and the news that I had killed someone. So, at nineteen, I was a felon and sent to prison.
I hated myself.
When I was released from prison, I returned to the community college I’d started before the accident. Given all that happened, I stopped drinking for good at nineteen. I eventually finished with an associate’s degree in human services—Addiction Studies. Then, I transferred to a four-year university to continue those studies and graduated when I was twenty-five.
Belonging
As a young person, I couldn’t find any place where I felt I could belong. I think that’s why I’ve made a career in the addiction field, so I might offer compassion and support to those who struggled like I did. I have had various jobs in this field, and today, I’m the coordinator for a university’s collegiate recovery community. I feel an incredibly tight bond with the students.
I have a happy marriage and a young son, and I am blessed to feel such love within my own family.
I have been looking for belonging all my life, and I’ve found that in my family, and the work I do. Each hard step along the way has gotten me to today, where I wake up feeling peace, purpose, and gratitude.
Big Brave Truth: A single moment can change a life. It’s courageous to stand up to those moments, to be accountable, and to press on.
Action Step: Danni practices gratitude daily. Make a list of five things you’re grateful for today.
Danni is on staff at a large university as Coordinator of their Collegiate Recovery Community.
Susan’s Story: Forgiveness
How can a company break your heart? Given the stories you’ve read from Jill, Amy, and Danni, it feels incredibly callous to even write those words. Yet, corporations are made up of people, and those people can break your heart.
The “breakup” was especially hard for a workaholic like me, who thought my work friends were my best friends. What emerged from it was an understanding that work/life balance is tough but necessary.
The Challenges of Separation
We don’t leave behind who we are when we walk into our office or start our first 8 AM Zoom call. Instead, we carry our longings and worries with us—why I’m an overwhelmed mother, why my husband spent too much time with the female neighbor at our friend’s party, how it seems the only thing I can do well is my job.
But ultimately, work can’t be life. You may know this, but I didn’t.
Running the Marathon
The guys on the start-up team of HGTV became my best friends as we built the business, which can happen when you spend so much time doing one thing together. I had no girlfriends, just them. We traveled together and watched our “baby” HGTV grow up. We were compatible, mostly all married with families, and we had a shared vision for creating a home and garden brand that would live on.
One day, three of the guys and I decided to run the New York City Marathon. It didn’t require qualifying times, so we all entered. I began training on weekends, which took precious personal time away from being a mom and wife. My husband, Bill, was angry. My son was confused. They hardly saw me as it was, but I trained anyway.
A month before the race, one of my work friends dropped out. Then another. Then the third. I realized I was running the race alone.
The hurt went so deep.
The Guy Who Got Me Through
The one man who got me to push through the race was not a work friend but Bill. He traveled with me to New York because, while still angry, he knew I was devastated by my teammates dropping out, and he wanted to support me. I began to see he was always there to support me.
We studied the routes I would run and decided he would cheer me on at Mile 19. And there he was, on the sidewalk in this goofy red cap, waving madly at me to keep going! Great job! Except I was spent. I stopped and started crying.
He came over.
“Sue, breathe. Let’s just start walking together on the route. No one will care.”
He walked by my side, his long strides matching my barely jogging motion, telling me jokes, sharing stories I didn’t know about our little son, and making sure I took—and drank—the water the helpers offered. Even then, I tried quitting again.
“I know you,” he whispered. “Tomorrow you will be so disappointed if you don’t cross that finish line. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
It was dusk by the time we finished, the race long over for most of the others. But I did finish. Not with work friends but with the kindest man I knew.
Forgiveness
If you have a strong work team, you can count on them to do their jobs. But you can’t rely on them to be more than they are. I had to forgive the guys on my work team and not hold resentments or grudges because they had their own lives, and big surprise, I was not the center of theirs. I learned that work, by its very nature, must contain firm guard rails, and it was unhealthy for me to believe otherwise.
I also learned that love, real love, is incredibly sturdy. And beautiful.
Big Brave Truth: For us workaholics, accepting that work can’t be life is brave.
Action Step: Take any resentment you have today and say a prayer for that person’s well-being. May sound crazy, but it will soften you toward them.
