I’m not so cocky that I think I can change lives with my Life Saving Gratitude podcast conversations, so I’ll have to be satisfied that I’m changing my life. Because I am.
Every time I log in to record a podcast, I’m fortunate to talk with someone who’s even better at finding their way than I am.
I’m also surprised at the turns our visits can take.
On Tuesday this week, I visited with Jock Soto, the uber-famous New Mexico native who just happened to also be the youngest principal dancer for the New York City Ballet. And who also just happened to be a friend of mine, someone I met as part of my cancer clique. Never underestimate the hidden gifts your life can present you with when you least expect them.
Jock and I talked about his friends, Andy Warhol and Marc Jacobs, about his meeting Dolly Parton at a party, about dancing with Ballanchine.
More importantly he talked about how even though he hadn’t finished middle school, much less high school, he knew that journaling saved his life, especially when he was diagnosed with cancer and his life was turned inside out and upside down. Without prompting, he spoke my favorite line, the one about how Stories Save Us.
Talking to Jock was amazing. Life changing. A reminder of how cancer for me has been exactly what I think Mary Oliver meant when she said, “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.“
A couple of weeks ago, I talked with my old single-mom friend, Stephanie Richardson. Stephanie is a voluntary amputee, someone who finally found a doctor who would amputate her left leg after years of pain so excruciating it almost destroyed her heart.
No joke. Her heart failed in such a spectacular way that we almost lost her.
She had her left leg amputated above the knee. Did you get that detail?
And today Steph is thriving, advocating for other amputees, trying to figure out how to navigate life with a missing limb but a stronger heart in ways both metaphorical and physical. She started making wooden crosses and sending them to people she loves. They’re so popular she now sells them on her website . So many she was able to buy a new wheelchair. Here’s where you can find one.
This Tuesday, May 18, the podcast episode with Stephanie will drop. Don’t miss it.
I created the podcast because the book launch team thought it was a good promotional tool. What I didn’t know was that I’d be changing my life every time I talked with one of the life warriors who have agreed to visit with me.
On Friday I talked with my Keller Williams friend Brindley Tucker. I thought we were going to talk about her coaching clients and how business is better with gratitude.
Instead she told a life story that involved the murder of a beloved uncle, her bout with alcohol abuse, an almost vehicular homicide, her recovery. She shared details that had all of us crying.
Brindley kept apologizing for her emotions and I kept wiping my nose with the back of my sleeve and Johanna kept muting herself to sniff loudly. I can’t wait for you to hear it. Tears and all.
I never know where these conversations are going to take us, but it’s always somewhere unexpected and moving. Life changing.
Stick with me here. Take a listen when you have time. You just might also find a bit of life-changing wisdom in the conversations. Not from me – I just ask the questions. Luckily my life is populated with badasses. Survivors and Thrivers. All writing a brave new ending.
Thank you Brene Brown for that last phrase.
And thanks to the rest of you for checking in.
Bunny Terry is a native New Mexican who grew up on a farm in northeastern New Mexico. Her first writing job was typing stories on index cards on her family’s Underwood, stories that were uncannily like the ones she read over and over in O Ye’ Jigs and Julips, her favorite childhood book. No one thought to save those index cards for posterity, although there is the theory sarcastically circulated by her siblings that they will certainly be worth millions someday. 