The Unmistakable Creative Podcast

The Neuroscience of Loss with Christina Rasmussen

To say that Christina Rasmussen has dealt with loss in her life would be an understatement. She lost a newborn child and her husband in the span of a few years. What started was a journey that allowed her to look at loss and grief in a new way

What happens when you die without realizing it
Living in a place between two lives
How denying losses in our lives causes us to suffer
Why suffering is not our natural experience in life
How loss can help you to discover your superpowers
Why we must do things that are uncomfortable
Coping with the tremendous uncertainty of death
Learning to live fully after loss
Finding the opportunity to be present in your life
Learning to recognize that you're in the waiting room of your life
The part of you that keeps you safe, but doesn't help you
Practical applications for overcoming loss
Learning to find proof that you're worthy of change
Understanding the connection between your brain and identity map
How worthiness starts to grow over time

Christina Rasmussen is on a crusade to change the way we live after loss. As the founder of Second Firsts, an organization to help people create a pathway back to life after loss, Christina spends her time speaking, coaching, and helping thousands of people rebuild, reclaim, and relaunch their lives using the most powerful tool for personal reinvention: the human mind. She's the author of Second Firsts: Live, Laugh and Love Again

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Broadcast on:: 20 Jan 2014
Audio Format:: other

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Christina, welcome to The Unmistakable Creative. I am so excited to be here, sweetie. Thank you so much for having me. This is going to be so much fun. Yeah. I can tell. It's my absolute pleasure. So, well, let's start by finding out a little bit about you. Tell us a bit about yourself, your background, your story and how that has led you to doing the work that you do and the authorship of your book. Oh, my gosh, there's so much to cover. I always start by saying I'm just a normal human being with extraordinary experiences. When I was in my twenties, I lived in England and I was studying at university and something told me that I needed to find out how to help people get through a lot of pain. You see, I love people so much that whenever I lose them, I would get heartbroken. And I hadn't lost anyone at the time and I said to myself, how am I ever going to get through so much pain? So I had to write my thesis on a stage of the bereavement. And I remember in my twenties, my professor in England said to me, "Christina, you're so vibrant and so happy and so enthusiastic about life, you're going to write about grief." And I said, "Yes, I am." I said, "I just want to know how to get people to the other side of pain." And of course, at the time, I didn't know that my life was going to change so dramatically. When I graduated from that master's degree, I gave birth to my first daughter and she died and I was in shock. I couldn't believe it. I was so young. I was blown away by what just happened. Two or three years later, my husband was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer at age of 31. He died at age of 35. And I died with him, but I didn't know it, it's raining. I got to keep my body. I died with him that day. And I remained dead for years after. I went back to school so I could take care of my kids. I did not want to be a grief therapist after that because how was I going to take care of the people when I was suffering so much? But at the same time, I realized that nothing that I was taught prepared me for what happened. My life changed completely and nobody told me that this was going to happen. I had died and everyone kept having an amazing life right in front of my eyes. And I was gone, completely gone. So I went back to business school, I studied human resources postgraduate degree, I went back to the corporate world and I started to work really, really hard for years. And during that time, I didn't know it then, but I was in a place between two lives, the life that I left behind because of the loss of my husband and the life that I was yet to have. This is the life that I'm in today. And I called that place now the waiting room and in my time there in the waiting room, you don't live, you just wait for time to heal you. And I was so fed up with everyone telling me Christina, time heals all wounds. I wanted to kill people who told me that so many times because time wasn't healing me. In 2010, I decided to exit the waiting room. I resigned from my corporate job and it was one of the... I was born that day, I always tell people I'm three and a half years old. I am not 41. I'm three and a half years old. And I exited that corporate world and literally the universe realigned the stars for me in that moment. I found it second verse and in the last three and a half years, so many people have found me, so many lives have been changed, so many lives have re-entered life. So many people have gone through so many invisible losses and most people think that I work with death, but it's actually the people who suffer the most are people who have gone through losses and they have denied them. They don't talk about them. The world doesn't want to see them, doesn't want to hear about them and they're in the waiting room for years, decades. I have met people in that waiting room that have been there for years. There are millions of people stuck in a place between two lives and I'm here to get them all out, Trini. That's what I'm here to do. Well, I love that and that's why we have you here. I knew just from our chats back and forth on Facebook that this would be a very profound conversation. Oh, thank you. You know, it's interesting. One of the things that I was thinking about as you said that, and I remember having this conversation with a friend of mine, we were sitting at a bar and I said, "You know, at our age, living at home has given me a very interesting appreciation for the fact that I look at this and I look at my parents and I think, "Oh my God, there is going to be a day when you won't be here." What that made me think about is that as human beings, we must be built to tolerate this kind of laws and this kind of grief because it's just part of evolution. It happens. We are going to lose our parents and what I'm really curious about is developing, given that it's got to be built in there somewhere to us, but developing in such a way that it doesn't become catastrophic because, you know, we don't know when these losses are going to happen. I can tell you, probably the scariest thing to me in the world is the idea that they're going to be gone someday. Even on the mornings, you're like, "You guys are driving me absolutely insane." I'm like, "Wow, there's going to be a morning in which I will be grateful for the fact that you were here making me insane." Yes, and the loss is that one experience will share and the world and the society did not want to talk about it, didn't want to share it. And I remember before I got published, when I was telling people I was going to write a book about life after loss, they said to me, "You know, don't hold your breath. You're not going to get published." And I said, "Well, this is not going to be the kind of book that you think it's going to be. This is going to change the way we live life after loss. It's going to change because it's going to raise the bar of life after loss. I mean, I'm building a whole social network called the life starters, changing the way we view people who are divorced and widowed. I don't want to call them that. I hate the word widowhood and bereavement and grief and loss. These are not the words that we use to start over. So it is, I really think that we are built not to just survive but to thrive. And the world thinks that grief lasts forever. Haven't you heard that? Grief lasts forever. It doesn't. Memories lasts forever. And so of course, going out in the world and telling people that didn't really sound that great to people who have lost children and spouses. And I'm okay with that because I believe that I love people so much that I want them to feel alive again. I want them to live again and laugh again and love again because they're still here. We're not here to suffer. We're here to thrive and have adventures in life. And I'm so passionate about this that I am going to die saying these words really. Well, you know, you talk about this idea of life after loss and you know, we're going through such a sort of uncertain and traumatic time, you know, in our economy and in our society. I mean, the world is changing more rapidly than ever. And you know, the truth is that somebody asked me, you know, what's the common thread between your guests? And I can tell you, pain always seems to be the common thread. Pain seems to be a starting point. But this idea of life after loss is something I want to get into in a bit more depth because I think that to some degree, we are all experiencing loss and how do you live life after loss? I mean, especially, I mean, you of all people are qualified to talk about this because I mean, a husband and a child, I mean, that's like, that's imagining, you know, I think that most people can't even fathom that kind of pain, like, you know, to develop tolerance for that. You know, I always say to people, because you've been through the unthinkable, you can do the impossible. And I believe we become superheroes. We have superpowers when we go through loss. I have become someone. I'm afraid of myself and the things that I can do because of the things that I've been through and survived. And I got to reenter and get to the other side. It is, it is devastating is not the word that there are, there are no words to describe what happens when we lose the people would love in our lives, whether it's through divorce or death, I mean, divorce, talk about, you know, losing someone, you love so much, they're dead for you in a life for everyone else. And you don't only lose them, you lose time with your kids, you lose your house, you lose your identity, you lose so many things, breakups, teenagers, teenagers who get bullied, teenagers who get told they're not good enough and they go on the commit suicide, talk about grief there. Talk about grief when we lose a job after 15 years. I worked in the Human Resources Department and streaming, I had to let go hundreds of people personally one by one and I will never forget one day. I let go of someone and he turned around, he said, I just need to take the photograph of my family with me out because we would pack their stuff for them. They needed to just get out of the building. It was just such a dreadful experience and he grabbed this photograph for his family. He walked out and he said to me, please don't walk by my side, walk behind me, I'm embarrassed. I wanted to die in that moment in time. I was causing so much pain to someone even though this was not my decision, this was the manager's decision but I walked him out and that forever changed me. The shame, the loss of identity for this man, he was there for 10 years, he had given his life to this company and he's forever changed and he could easily go in a place between two lives, the waiting room where there's no job for him again. He doesn't know who he is and there's millions of people like that out there. I never re-enter, never. Well, I want to get into that, in fact I want to spend a large part of our time talking about the waiting room. But before we get to that, I want to talk about this idea. As you and I have both experienced, I've been fired from Damner every job I've been at. As I mentioned hundreds of times, even our interviews I've mentioned in the art of being unmistakable is that loss creates an opening in your life. The thing is that loss really pulls people like you and I out of our comfort zones because you're at a point where you have no choice but what I'm curious about is can we build this capacity, this resilience to really deal with things when we don't have losses, when we're comfortable and life is just humming along perfectly. To me, I will tell you, I think about people like that and I say, "Wow, you're so unprepared." It's kind of like you were saying earlier in your conversation, you're really unprepared for what life had to throw at you when it comes. Can we do anything if we're not experiencing trauma or difficulty or grief or loss? Can we prepare ourselves for it in any way? Prepare for loss? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I guess. That's one way to put it. I think it's a great question, I have to say. I think that it's hard to prepare for loss. If I go and visit Christina before the loss is, she was so innocent, sweetie, she lived in an amazing world, I had the perfect family, the perfect life circumstances, it was wonderful. It was amazing. Then one day, one day the doctor said he has stage four, colon cancer and it's everywhere and he's going to die in six months and the life force from inside of me went out. I think that if I didn't have that experience, I don't know, I could have been prepared. I don't think, and I thought about this, could we prepare people for the loss? We cannot prepare them for the loss and we can prepare them for what to do after the loss. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Because I think that what happens when we lose someone, it's unlike anything that we've ever experienced. It cannot be compared to anything. It's like childbirth, you know, women talk about giving childbirth, it doesn't compare to anything else. But what happens when we're stuck in that waiting room and we haven't had a loss and how do we get out? I think that's why I created the reentry process and we have to plug in to the life that we want at 5% of very small, small steps and the life that we want should not sound like I need a job with this job title, I need to make this amount of money, I need to live in this big house, I need to wear this kind of clothes and drive this car, plugging into the life that we want to be walking on the beach or surfing every day or, you know, eating the food that we like and hanging out with our friends, that's how we plug into the life that we want. And once we start doing that and getting more and more comfortable with our choices, someone last night in my book signing said, we talked about the waiting room and he said, what if I don't want anyone to call my name? What if I don't want to get out of the waiting room, I'm afraid? And I said to him, he said, how do I get out then? Because I am so comfortable inside there, even though I want things outside of that room, I'm also very happy to be in there because it's comfortable. And I said, I cornered myself and I said, you need to corner yourself. Do things that will have to push you out of the waiting room and push you out of your comfort zone that you can't turn around and go back there because there's nowhere to go. And that's creating loss, a different kind of loss, loss of your comfort. So then you have to get out. Awesome. Well, I want to get into that in a bit more depth, but you know, I wouldn't go back to something that you said earlier, you said, you know, you found out that your husband had colon cancer at six months to live. And you know, I think about periods like that, you know, where you know that your life is about to change in ways you can't possibly imagine and you have to build this tolerance for uncertainty. So I'm curious, you know, in that period, you know, one, what kinds of emotional changes that are causing you, like, how do, you know, what are our takeaways from something like that? Because, you know, I mean, I think that like you said, loss is an inevitable part of life. It's going to happen to all of us, but I'm wondering, you know, what do you learn in that period of time? I mean, six months is like just that sounds, you know, it's kind of like an uncertain torture almost. Actually, you know, someone said to me, if you could choose to know when you're going to die and choose not to know, absolutely hands down, choose not to know. When he found out it is, it truly is, it doesn't matter how many years go by talking about it always is very hard because I remember finding out that he had months to live and I looked at him and he looked white at the color of his face just. And he kept saying, I don't want to die, I don't want to die. It is, it is then thinkable, Shrini, it is, there are, it takes my breath away still and in that moment in time, first of all, you deny, you say, it can't be. How can it be? And it's the most weird feeling to know that you're going to, that this person is not going to be here. And you know, hope is such a difficult thing to find from the doctors in that moment in time, they don't, they're like, it's almost going to be like a miracle if that ever happens. And I remember, I used to call this doctor, Dr. Death, because you still, I mean, I have to have, we had to have some humor at the time. She used to say, he's, he's, there's no way he's going to make it. It doesn't matter how young he is. He's actually worse when you're young and you get a cancer. But I think the, the takeaways from that time was live life fully. I wish I didn't cry so many tears. I cried and cried and cried when he was diagnosed. Actually, the first, the first two weeks I cried nonstop all day, every day. I couldn't stop. I wish I didn't cry so much. I wish I, I lived more fully, but it's so hard to do. Just the short term lessons and the long term, the long term is, oh, you know, it, it changed me forever. I am, I am who I am today because of those tough days and tough years. I took him to the Philippines when he was very sick for an experimental American drug that was taking place there and we flew all the way to the other side of the world. And he nearly died there and talk about a venture. The doctors were telling me he's, he's having a bowel obstruction. He needs to be hospitalized right now. And I said, okay, we'll be right there. I hung up the phone screening and I called the airlines and I got him on a plane back and he could have died on a plane. And I brought him back straight to Dana Farber and you know, he had double blood infection. He lived, he survived that and he lived for another six months and died. And I remember those days in a third world country, you know, with a dying man and I mean, talk about the unthinkable. And they made me who I am today and if, would I have done anything differently? Probably not. We fought for life. We did everything we could to keep him alive. We bought a house during his dying years. And even though he was dying, we didn't know he could have been dead the next week. We went on adventures. We went overseas. We had an amazing time without two little girls. He fought for dear life every single day. All the way to the end, when in the ICU, the doctors took me and showed me his scan. And they said, we want to show you something. And once you understand what's going on, look at his lungs, we don't know how he's breathing. There is no space. Whoever is keeping him here is beyond human. And he fought for life. So whenever I have a hard day, when things are not going my way, I think about his resilience and I become more resilient. I think about that everything can be taken away from us and tomorrow. And I have an amazing day. The stress is such a, you know, I'm sure many people who are listening today have a lot of stress in their lives. This is such a thing that doesn't actually exist because we rush time, we go forward. I have actually managed to slow down time dramatically, like, I'm really present here with you. I don't even care what's going to happen the rest of my day. I have so many other things going on, but I don't even, my brain has rejected them. So I could be here right now in this present moment and experience this because that's all we have. This bubble that we are creating is really right now is our life. And we only have each other right this moment. We don't have anyone else. This is it. Our two voices. Yeah, I love this. I mean, like I said, this is why I wanted to have you on the show. So something came to me, you know, while you were talking about this, and I remember back to a conversation by business partner Greg Hartle and I have had on the air before about sort of, you know, we can always look back at a lot of our experiences that are lost and we can learn from them. We're wiser. We're off. But while they're happening, we have this tendency to kind of go into a tailspin almost. And it seems like you, despite what the circumstances you were in, still kind of, you know, managed to live fully. I mean, even, you know, telling me what you're telling me now. And I'm very curious how we can bring that into our lives. I mean, I think it's fitting that you talk about presence. Oh, I don't, and actually I didn't go out, you know, people always say be present. How many times have we heard this? You have to be present, be present. And I actually never tried to be present because I am such a hyperactive person that I never thought that would be me. So presence has arrived by itself. It is the weirdest thing. I am so present. When I'm sitting in front of the fireplace at home, I actually stop and look around. I write about my blog. I look around, I can literally slow down time and look at the fire, I look at the Christmas tree when it was up, look around me and say, this is where I am right now, I'm alive. And actually I feel alive in that moment in time. And nothing spectacular has to happen. Like I feel alive talking to you right now. I'm feeling it throughout my whole human being. And that is living life fully after loss. It is an amazing experience. And also my core experience is a happy experience. So many things are happening every single day. I have two daughters and Eric has two daughters. My husband today, so we have a dog, we have a crazy household, there's so many things going on, but they don't change how I feel. After loss, you actually appreciate so much, the small things. I mean, I appreciate the view that I have right now. I look out the window and I look at this beautiful view. I appreciate my new computer. I appreciate everything about my life and my parents. I mean, they just moved here from Greece. I've lived away from my parents all of my life. And they've been here for three months and I get to go for dinner with them, which is for me such a huge thing. I appreciate so many things and my life will last longer like this. I feel like I've been in life for 100 years. That's presence for me. And I didn't go out to get it because I didn't think it was for me. I used to shake my head every time everyone's saying, you know, be present. I'm like, how many books do we have to read about that? I don't want to talk about being present. And the only reason why I'm talking about it is because I think people have been trying to get present through meditation, which meditation is a wonderful thing. I wish I did it more often, right? But this is meditation from me right now. It's really talking to you. You know, it's funny because I'm listening to say that. I'm like, you know, I'm kind of with you on that whole be present thing and like new age psycho babble and mumbo jumbo and I am. It's weird because I told somebody, I said, I don't think I understood what it meant to be present until I surfed. Oh my God. I wrote away for the first time. I was like, okay, this is what it actually feels like and I think that it's one of those things where you could read all the books in the world. You could try all the techniques, but when you really feel it, you'll just know it. It's a really bizarre thing and it's very hard to put into words I feel like. And it's presence is something different for everyone. I think people are trying to be present the way it's supposed to be. And that's why they can't find it for you. It's surfing. You're a bet you're present. And even if you're thinking about writing while you're surfing, that's presence for you. Just being present, you know, and in my presence, I think about all the things that I have in my life and how grateful I am. And that's not just gratitude. Like I feel it in my chest, in my heart, I feel it, life needs to be filled and experienced. It's like people just think life, they don't feel life. We think it because it's so much easier to think about what we're going to do instead of feel what we're going to do. And like I said, I wasn't planning on talking about this today, you know, but I think you bring this out on my history. You really do, you know, and because you're so present. Oh, I've been known to do that to people from time to time. So let's do this. Let's shift gears a little bit. And let's start talking about this whole idea of the waiting room because I think that a lot of people who are listening to this are in that waiting room that you speak of. And you know what's even crazier? Some of them probably don't even know it. They don't know it. And what happened with people, so a lot of people saw my work and they said, oh yes, I know someone who needs this book, I'm going to buy it for them. They got divorced, they lost someone. And then they opened the book and they never gave the book to this person because they found, they started reading and they discovered the waiting room. And do you know, I have received hundreds of emails for people saying to me, you saved my life. You changed my life because of the waiting room, because I didn't know where I was. I thought this was my life. I thought that this is the way life is supposed to be hard, difficult, stark, boring, stressful, not getting where you need to get to, having dreams, but not really going after them. What's your reality degree, you know, having a big flat screen TV and sitting on your couch every day, that's life. And that is not life. That's just your waiting room. And it gets more and more comfortable and it's harder to get out. And the longer we wait there without opening a window or opening, and I use a lot of metaphor when I talk about that. And how I arrived at the concept of the waiting room was two ways. One way was everyone kept saying to me, I keep waiting for something to happen. And I kept hearing the world is waiting, waiting. And I said, so what are you right now? I don't know where I am, but I'm just waiting. And I don't like my life. And I said, would you say you're in the waiting room? I mean, this is something I've worked with with thousands of people who get to that. This is not just an idea and I started writing about it. This has been tried and this has been used over thousands of people and it's been an amazing process. And in that waiting room, there's someone who's there with you. Can I share that person with you? It's really, and I know it's going to sound really crazy and I hope that's okay with you. That's fine. There's someone who I call the survivor. And the survivor part of us has been there with us all during difficult times, whether it's losing a job or your girlfriend breaking up with you or being rejected for a big project or being ignored, being not acknowledged or validated. So your survivor has been there protecting you and keeping you in that waiting room, keeping you safe. And the survivor also tells you that you're not good enough. You don't have what it takes to be outside of the waiting room. You don't have what it takes not to be rejected again. Why do you even bother to go out there, stay inside? I discovered the survivor through brain science. The survivor is the automatic thoughts that we keep telling ourselves over and over again. At first we hear it after a while, we don't hear it anymore. We don't hear the thoughts that we say, the terrible things that we say to ourselves. Most of the times they happen first thing in the morning when we wake up. You're not good enough to have an amazing day. You're not worthy. You're number one loss and I'm one reason why people are in the waiting room, lack of worthiness. They're not worthy. So the survivor hands out there and convinces you every single day not to unblock the door and get out. This Halloween, Google All Out with Instacart. Whether you're hunting for the perfect costume, eyeing that giant bag of candy, or casting spells with eerie décor, we've got it all in one place. Download the Instacart app and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes, plus enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Offer valid for a limited time, minimum $10 per order service fees, other fees and additional terms apply. Instacart, bringing the store to your door, this Halloween. Let's talk about something that's not always top of mind, but still really important. Life insurance. Why? 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A lot of questions come from this, as you've probably learned by now, if I find something interesting, I want to get into it more. I love that you brought up the worthiness piece, I think I want to ask you about that. Two questions come from this. One is sort of unlocking that idea of not feeling worthy. Also, this is the part of the conversation that was very intriguing to me, it's a big part of why I wanted to have you here, is the practical application of all these concepts. Up until now, we've had sort of an esoteric conversation at some degree and could be written off between the two of us as New Age psychobabble, but there was a reason I wanted to have you. When I read the book description, it was like, "Oh, okay, this is actually a really important practical skill set," like the neuroscience of dealing with loss and neuroplasticity and all of that. One, how do you deal with this lack of worthiness issue? How do we take the concepts that you have learned and developed over the years to deal with that? Then how do you balance the practical needs of our day-to-day lives of, "Hey, I've got to pay the bills, I've got to make things happen, I've got kids to feed," with that just burning desire to exit the waiting room, because often staying in the waiting room can seem like a very practical thing to do, right? And it is very practical, but also exiting the waiting room is a practical experience. People in my re-entry programs, people always say to me, "It's amazing how you bring it down to action and practical things that we have to do," and all the people I work with at the end, the homework, it's a practical thing that they think, "Really? That's what you want me to do? That's right. That's what I'm paying you for." I said, "Yep, just do it. Don't ask why, just go and do it." And I'll tell you how it starts, and imagine, I've had many people say to me, when I first started working with people, people would say to me, "I don't believe what you see me. I don't believe that I can do it." And that's when it hit me, they needed to find their own proof. How do we find our own proof so we can exit the waiting room? And it will not happen by leaping and jumping. I mean, I have met people who jumped and left their job and went and chased their dreams and great things happened. But that's a minority. I'm more interested in the majority of the world. And the majority of the world are too afraid to do that. Even the thought of that makes them sick to their stomach, and there's not enough proof to convince them that they will make the jump unharmed. So finding the proof that you're worthy of coming out of the waiting room and that you will be able to support your family and have the mind that you need is vital. The proof will be found in a very specific way. It has, at first it has to be found in a very, very small way, very small way. You have to paint your wall a different color. You have to say something to someone you've been wanting to say, but you didn't have the guts to. You have to do a Google search on something you're interested in and not let your survivors yourself tell you're not going to find it. Go, go, look for it, because many times they'll say, "Oh, that's too expensive. That's impossible." We tell ourselves things are not going to happen before we try to even do them. And I have seen this over and over again. So I am there to prove to them that they will find what they've been looking for. It is possible, and it's up to them, and it's easier than the thing it is. So we say dream, act, repeat, dream, act, repeat, and the act, the action part is even more important than dreaming. So that's why I called it the plug-in, plugging into life, the life that you want. But at 5%, I mean, I nearly called my book the 5% plug-in. It is such an important step, and at 5%, every day you have to maybe make a hole in the waiting room and look out just a small hole. And that is metaphorical. But in real life, it would be a thing towards the right direction at 5%, and not more, because when we do more in the beginning, our actually identity is so weak, our new maps are so weak that we will actually not only come back the waiting room, we will go underneath the bed and stay there for longer. We will become prisoners because of how much we are afraid and how much rejected we will feel when we try to jump, when our identity and our new brain maps are not strong enough. Imagine most people in our life, they are in this huge highway, and they drive every single day. And I want you to think of the brain like this. And every day they go by this little exit that says sunrise at the bottom of the hill. And they go, oh, I would love to go down there, but tonight I have to pick up my kids earlier, so tomorrow I'm going to, I'm going to leave work 5 minutes earlier. Tomorrow comes and they had a late meeting, couldn't make it, 5 years ago, 5 years later, 10 years later. And then driving after a while, they don't see the exit with a sunset at the bottom. They don't see there's an exit sign, they're actually completely asleep. And how do you wake them up? And that is how do we wake those people up, is by really trying to not even hit the brakes. Just you get your eyesight to look left and right, move your head, it's small steps. Last night there was a woman in my book signing that she can't get out of bed every day. She wakes up and she stays in bed all day. She said, you don't understand what I'm going through. I said, will you do something for me? Tomorrow morning I want you to sit up, put your pillows instead of lying down, I want you to sit up. She said, how is that going to help me? I said, you're going to have to wait and find out. And there's a new thought that's going to take place when you change something very small in your life. And that new thought is a new brain map that's going to allow another thought to come in. That's going to allow you to one day exit the automatic highway and get out of the waiting room. I love it. It's a genius. That's exactly why I asked you a question. I really, really appreciate that you brought up the idea of something small and not making this gargantuan leap because I think that we've perpetuated this mantra. We really have. I mean, how often, how many times a day do you see on Facebook, hey, I just quit my job today. Oh, my God, I know. But they don't understand how this person got there. Facebook has become, for a lot of people, a place where they feel worse about themselves ever single. It's like, how did I get to, how did this person get to quitting his job, right? When I resigned from my job, that took years to get to that place, to do that. It didn't just happen. Oh, yeah. I mean, you've witnessed my entire writing process for a book. Yes. It's really a daily grind of little things, most of which don't work, and a handful that do. But you plug in. It's really, this is what you do. You plug into your writing every day. Yeah. I mean, I can't not do it at this point, but I think that it's really, it's so interesting because I think that we really underestimate the power of these small things. I mean, that's why I appreciate this because it's actually practical. It's not unrealistic for the average person, and that's what I feel like so much of the gospel of this sort of entrepreneurial world preaches, hey, quit your, you know, quit your job. Oh, my gosh. I know. And it's not realistic for most people. Don't quit your job. I tell people, say to me, should I quit, no, no, that's going to actually get you to a worse place than the waiting room, and there are worse places than being in the waiting room. Oh, yeah. Because we have to build this new identity slowly. We have to find the proof. We have to build our worthiness, our confidence, our self-esteem and who we are. And I remember the three years ago, the first like on my Facebook page, the first one, and I was blown away that someone, one person's reading, one person wanted to know what I was writing about, wanted to read me. That's where my worthiness was at the time. One person's, and then there was a second person and a third person, and then I started to write, and I started to write for others, and I started to believe in my words, and then I started to write the message in a bottle that was so, such a crazy thought at the time, like I write crazy things, and now all these people read it, and they always say, I wish I could write like you, and I always say, yes, you can't. All you have to do is start writing. That's all. That's simple. But the waiting room is a place where these things don't happen, where simple things don't happen. Yeah. Yeah, no, no. Let's talk about this concept of building identity with the proof that you find. I mean, this is something that's very intriguing to me because I think that, you know, one of the things that, you know, my business partner, Greg, and I have talked about extensively over the last few weeks as he's, you know, stayed at my house, and we've worked on sort of building the foundation for the unmistakable creator and all the things that we're talking about this year, is this notion that we, you know, circumstances become identity so often, and that is a damn near impossible trap to get out of, because once you do, once that becomes the case, then you're in real trouble. I love the way you just said that, your circumstances become your identity. I love the way you phrase that. Well, I know, because I lived it. My circumstances were my circumstances of living at my parents' house at an age where I shouldn't be, became my identity for a while. And when I finally said, you know what, screw it. I'm not going to let this be the excuse. I mean, you've seen what happened in the last six months. I mean, part of that was saying, okay, you know what, these are my circumstances, but they're not me. But I think that so many people are stuck there. So how do we build our identity through these little steps to get unstuck from there? And you know, what are the practical, you know, neuroscience and neuroplasticity ways to deal with this? Well, let me tell you that the easiest identity to have after my husband died was that I was a widow and I was a single mom with a full-time job in the corporate world and my life sucked and they had nothing to do with what I was doing. It was not my fault. And it wasn't, right? I mean, that's an easy thing to believe and my life was terrible. My life was so bad. I can't even tell you how bad it was. I mean, I threw the car in the pond, the frozen pond. I lived in Boston. And with the kids. It's just, I was rushing, I was trying to get home to be. I mean, my life was so bad. And something, and I tell this story in order to allow for people to create their new map and to create the proof of their new identity, it is not going to be found in a new job. It's not going to be found when the prince on the white horse comes knocking on your door. It's going to be found in the mundane things of life. When you stop looking at them as if there's nothing you can do about them. I lived, I don't know if you heard this story, you probably have it. But I lived in the Boston area and it was a lot of snow on Christmas, the week before Christmas. A year and a half after my husband died, you're going to laugh with this story, but it has changed the lives of many people. And the mailman would drive with his little car and would not stop delivering my mail. Now imagine the identity of myself. That said, Christina, poor thing, all by yourself for Christmas with children, old kids, and you can't even get your Christmas cards. So one day I took the kids down there driving us a girls, we're going to shovel so we can make space for the mailman to stop and deliver our Christmas cards. So we shoveled for two or three hours, shoveled in shoveling and we made enough space and we go back in the house, the kids are playing and I'm waiting. This is my life, right? I'm waiting for him to deliver my cards. He drives, stops, looks at the space and continues to drive. Let me tell you what happens next. I had two options. Option number one is to stay in that identity and say, I can't even get my Christmas cards and sit on the couch and burst into tears. I mean, I had lost everything. There was nothing left for me. I was alone. I had a job. I hated my husband that I adored was dead. My kids were orphaned. I mean, it was like everything was just so bad. An option number two was to put my snowboards and start to run like a mad woman going after the mailman five blocks down to get the cards. So I started running and I went after my life and every time I would approach the car, you know how he stops, delivers and drives off. I would get close but not close enough and then he would drive off and then about four or five blocks later, he stopped delivering a package and I caught up with him and I said to him, he looks at me as a crazy woman. I have seen you in my rear view window. Don't talk to me, who are you, right? I looked, I was crying. I mean, it was just my scar all over the place. It was terrible. And I said, give me my cards. Why didn't you stop? He said, that was not enough space for me to stop. I said, I shoveled for hours and he goes, you should have asked your husband to do it. This Halloween, goole all out with Instacart. Whether you're hunting for the perfect costume, eyeing that giant bag of candy or casting spells with eerie décor, we've got it all in one place. Download the Instacart app and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. Plus, enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Offer valid for a limited time, minimum $10 per order service fees, other fees and additional terms apply. Instacart, bringing the store to your door, this Halloween. How did you actually sleep last night? If it didn't feel like your very best rest, then you need to upgrade to the softest, most luxurious bedding from bowl and branch. Their signature sheets are made from the finest 100% organic cotton and get softer with every wash. Millions of sleepers love their sheets and right now, you can feel the difference for yourself during their biggest sales of the entire year. Hurry to bowlandbranch.com to shop their best offers, limited time only, exclusions apply. Happy Site for Details. To learn more, visit 1-800-FLOWERS.COM/AKAST, that's 1-800-FLOWERS.COM/AKAST. When it comes to weight loss, no two people are the same, that's why Noom builds personalized plans based on your unique psychology and biology. Take Brittany, after years of unsustainable diets, Noom helped her lose 20 pounds and keep it off. I was definitely in a yo-yo cycle for years of just losing weight, gaining weight and it was exhausting. And Stephanie, she's a former D-1 athlete who knew she couldn't out train her diet and she lost 38 pounds. My relationship to food before Noom was never consistent. And Evan, he can't stand salads, but he still lost 50 pounds with Noom. I never really was a salad guy, that's just not who I am. Even through the pickiness, Noom taught me that building better habits builds a healthier lifestyle. I'm not doing this to get to a number, I'm doing this to feel better. Get your personalized plan today at Noom.com. Feel Noom users compensated to provide their story. In four weeks, a typical Noom user can expect to lose one to two pounds per week. Individual results may vary. Hey there, it's Greenie and Humbero and we are back and better than ever. Got your answers is for sale. And if you are interested in winning every sports debate you have for the rest of your life, this is the book for you. We take the 100 biggest sports debates and answer them, settle them once and for all. Meanwhile, Humbero, what's your favorite part of the book? Andrew, sneaky head coach for your book. All that and a whole lot more, it's called Got Your Answers, it's available anywhere you get your books right now. Forging ahead together drives Colorado's pioneering spirit at Chevron. We donate funding and volunteer thousands of hours in support of the community's we call home. We also employ our neighbors to deliver the energy needed as the state's largest oil and natural gas producer. All to help improve lives in our shared backyard. That's energy and progress. Visit Colorado.chefron.com. And I said, you've got to be kidding me. Who says that? You know, I said my husband would do it but he's dead, now giving my cards. The man's face just literally was drained white. He gave my cards and I claimed my life back in that moment. My brain had a new connection. Go after for what is yours, no matter the circumstances of your life. This is not the identity you need to have in your life. Your life is here and it's yours. All you have to do is put some snow boots on and go after it. And that's how you create a portal out of the waiting room. Are the small, stupid things by telling your neighbor not to park in front of your house. By telling the person you don't like to stop bothering you. This is how you come back to life. This is how you reclaim the identity that has always been yours. By chasing down the mailman and going after what was always yours and someone took it away. I'm not even going to touch it, I don't know what to say. That's beautiful. I love it. It's so brilliant. So let's do this. Let's shift gears a little bit and let's start talking about the book, the writing process and some of those things. More interesting in the book marketing and the production and all that, I'm very interested in your creative process. Because when we were speaking off the record, you were saying a lot of publishers would look at this and say, "Well, you're going to write a book about life after loss, good luck." And of course, anybody who writes nonfiction that could be categorized as self-improvement were like, "Oh, great. The world doesn't need another self-improvement book." So I'm very curious about your creative process, your unique angles about this. Obviously, you have an amazing story to bring to all of this. But I'd love for you to walk us through kind of bringing this idea to life. You know, when I started writing, I knew it wasn't going to be a memoir. I knew this was not about my story. I had to put the story in there to have one chapter about my story. So people could identify that I wasn't just someone trying to help people because I felt like I was someone who's been through a lot of tough things and got to the other side. And I was afraid actually to write about to the survivor, and I write about someone called the watcher as well, the part of us that has been watching us since birth. And that part has been with us forever and ever and ever. And that part has all the answers, but we never ask that part for the answers. We keep looking for them externally. And activating the watcher for people in the book ultimately will get them to their thriver. The thriver is a dreamer. We're born with a thriver. The thriver is there in the beginning. And then sometime in childhood, and I discover all of this through talking to a lot of people and working with them, sometime in childhood and early teens, we actually lose our thriver through an unbelievable experience. And it's not a visible, you know, a father didn't die, our mother. It's not like that. It's something that has happened to us in our childhood that tells us to be afraid, that tells us that fun and games and dreams are not for us. This is real life. And we actually just connect for our thriver from that point on. The only time we question our life is when a big loss happens. So I said to myself, do I write about those people that we live with every day? People think I'm crazy. It's actually based on science, based on rewiring our brain. When everyone happens to our brain, when we change, when we start over, when we believe in ourselves again, I was afraid at first, I was really afraid to write it. But the message, the blog that I was writing actually was getting momentum and people were reading it. And that gave me the proof. Remember, you have to find the proof. So you can believe in your writing. When people come to me and say, how do I start? I tell them to start a blog, not because I want you to be a blogger, but because then the writing process becomes very interactive and it changes what you're going to write about. If I'm sitting over here writing for myself alone in a journal, it will not be what I'm writing externally. It will be something completely different. And I fell in love with interacting through my writing with the audience. I fell in love, Shrinay. If I could do this for the rest of my life, interact with my audience from morning to night. That's what I would do. But writing a book is not as romantic as that. So sorry to say this. Which you and I both know. Yeah. So writing a book is a little harder and actually a lot harder and it requires a lot of structure and it requires a, it's almost like a big puzzle and you have to put the pieces together and it's going to have to make a whole picture because the brain that's going to read it, it's going to have to flow through it and travel through the book. So my editors helped me a lot with that and I fought against that because I was so used to writing blogs and that wasn't the same thing. So I struggled with getting this book to be where it is today. Not in a, it wasn't so, because I love to write for the audience. There was no audience to write for when you're writing a book secretly. So that experience was gone, was taken away from me. So I couldn't have an immediate reaction. And trust me, that was really hard and didn't expect that. So I had to write in secret for a year and a half, it's really, imagine that. I don't know if I'd be that good at that. So that's the hard part, right? But I'll tell you, coming to the other side and seeing the book now in all these people's hands and getting this letter saying how the change in life was worth it, it's almost like being in a cave, being in a different kind of waiting room where you have to wait for these words to come out. And you don't know how they're going to have people are going to react, because they haven't seen any of it at all. The book is new materials, but there's nothing, nothing that was ever published anywhere else before, completely new and it was my process. And I never write about my process. So writing about a process was not, was not easy at all. Because it's almost mathematical, formula like, but it was worth it. Very hard to do as somebody, as two people who basically considered themselves artists, I can only imagine, that sounds like torture. And I remember my husband, Eric, saying to me, "How do you feel about writing the next book?" Because this was, this is a hard process and I said, "Yes, but I mean, so worth it. So worth it." Because of the amount of people that are getting help from it and are being helped every single day. The advice that I would always give to people is, first of all, know that this is not going to be easy. People idealize, the writers are like, "Oh, you're a best selling author." And wow, how do you write and I'm like, sweat, blood and tears. I mean, that's how I write a book. Now, how do I write every day of my blog and on Facebook is being in heaven? I love doing that. I love doing it completely. And then there's the marketing and the promotion of the book. And I have done it in a very un-traditional way. And though, I don't know if it's okay to talk about lists and email lists, I don't know how to go with that. Sure. Let's go there. Are you sure? Yeah, absolutely. You know, I have a great list, there's not a question about that. But I didn't rely on it. And people were very surprised to see that. I did not rely on my list. I mean, I shared, I told people about the book, but I'm actually very, I don't like to market to my audience on my list. They received the message in a ball every Friday. And that's what they signed up for, and this is what I'm going to give them. And maybe I put PS, the book is available now, but this is what I did. On my Facebook page, I started sharing segments of my book. And people were very surprised to see what's inside the book. They were blown away by what they saw. And I have engaged with my audience for years. This didn't just happen overnight. I talked to them every single day. They're part of my life. Definitely. They're real people. This is not social media for me, Sreena. These are my people, and I'm very passionate about that. And I don't believe in the classes that say here's how to build your list. That doesn't, the list gets built because you create good content just like you are. But the experience and the interactive process of selling a book and spreading the message is art. That's very artistic. You're speaking my language. I think to me, one of the things that really that you said is so, it's so hard to get your head around, but you said you don't see this as social media. These are real people. God. I mean, I wish, and that's, you know, that's, you know, people will ask, how do you select guests? I'm like, God, if you don't see that, then you don't belong here on the show. That's as simple as that. That is so core to how I've done things. And you know, it's so counterintuitive, but yeah, there's no question. I want to ask you a question about something else that you said earlier. And this is something we both probably have experienced to some degree is writing the thing you're afraid to write. Well, I can tell you, you know, bit by bit, that's why joking, like, call my book career suicide. Yes. You know, I mean, I found proof as I started a notice, so it's like, oh, people seem to really resonate with this honesty, but still, you know, I mean, the amount of time it took me to get over that, that took years. It didn't happen, you know, it didn't happen last year. It didn't, I mean, I think this year is the fifth year I've been writing stuff. And I still, I mean, there are days when I'm like, this is way too crazy. I shouldn't put this out there. Yes. It is going to be crazy. And the reason why we think it's crazy because everyone is copying everyone else. Everyone is trying to follow someone else. I mean, I have people tell me, I want to do what you do. Can you show me? And I said, you know, I want you to do what you do. And everything is going to happen because of it. So we have actually, I wrote a, my last, my message in a ball on Friday was called the vessel. And it's, it's the voice inside that we don't hear every single day that is hidden, that, that it becomes something that has to wait sometimes for another lifetime to be heard. Because we tell, we tell the voice to be quiet. You don't know what you're talking about. The only thing you've ever experienced voice is my life and my life is no worthy of, of, of talking about it. So we quiet that voice and we don't say anything at all. I love it. So, you know, a, well, we're getting close to our hour, hour, hour, hour, hour, hour. No, no. You never wanted to end. You know, we could talk for hours. I mean, it's pretty clear. Like when we meet in person, I'm sure we'll be sitting over a coffee talking about all this for hours. But, you know, I want to ask you my, my final question, and I, you know, I've asked this to a lot of people and I'm going to ask it to you in sort of a different way. You know, we talked about sort of the concept of the waiting room. And I even say, you know, a lot of the people that I have talked to over the years, you know, people like Jonathan Fields, people like Danielle Laport, almost everybody who's been on the show who achieves that sort of the highest level, I think that they have, you could, we could agree that all of these people have managed to escape the waiting room. They've left the waiting room. And yet, you know, I see this dichotomy in the world of the people who do escape the waiting room, get everything that they want. And then, you know, I feel that there's a certain subset of people who honestly probably won't leave the waiting room till the day they die. Yes. And it's really sad. And I'm wondering what you think it is that distinguishes those two groups of people. Well, that's a good question. Well, I have met those people and I know that I cannot help them. I have met them and you see, they need the identity of loss that they suffered so much more than the identity of the dreamer, the doer. And the identity of being abandoned, rejected, abused, I didn't have what you had. If I had what you had, I would do what you do, you know, you know, I wish I was so lucky. You know, you met those people, right? Yep. Um, that actually gets them more than the identity of the doer and the dreamer. And I really believe making our dreams come true, require a lot of responsibility and sacrifice. And, and actually it's not for everyone. It cannot be. It is too hard to make a dream come true. It's only for the minority actually, not because it's not possible for everyone else. It's actually possible. It's just that actually they choose not to make it come true by relying on that identity that they cannot do and they cannot have because of where they are in their life circumstances. And the differentiation is that core identity being the identity of loss and I'm not having and actually relying on that to survive. Wow, mind blowing. This was awesome. I knew it was going to be. Well, I mean, I kind of knew right from the subject battery or book that we were going to have an incredible conversation. I mean, Christina, I really truly it has been an honor to have you here in our first batch of guests in the unmistakable creative. I mean, you really, I think that people are going to learn so much from this conversation. It's been inspiring. It's been eye opening candid as we have, you know, as our new tagline says candid conversations with creative entrepreneurs and insanely interesting people, which I think you fit both both of those labels quite well. So I can't thank you enough for taking the time to come and join us and share some of your insights with our listeners here at the unmistakable creative. No, and thank you for having me and thank you for helping thousands and hopefully millions of people one day become unmistakably themselves. That's what's missing the voice. You're actually helping get that voice out. So thank you for that. Thanks. And for those of you guys listening, we will wrap the show with that. If you like what you heard, the greatest compliment you could give us is to share the show with a friend and let people know what you think by leaving a review on iTunes. 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We donate funding and volunteer thousands of hours in support of the communities we call home. We also employ our neighbors to deliver the energy needed as the state's largest oil and natural gas producer, all to help improve lives in our shared backyard. That's Energy in Progress. Visit Colorado.chefron.com. At Sprouts Farmers Market we're all about fresh, healthy and delicious. That's why you'll find the season's best local and organic produce handpicked and waiting for you in the center of our store. Visit your neighborhood Sprouts Farmers Market today where fresh produce is always in season. Have you ever felt a twinge of worry about AI taking over your job or diluting your creativity? What if you could turn that fear into creative fuel? We've just published an amazing new ebook called The Four Keys to Success in an AI world and this is more than just a guide. It's a deep exploration into the human skills that AI can't touch. 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What happens when you die without realizing it
Living in a place between two lives
How denying losses in our lives causes us to suffer
Why suffering is not our natural experience in life
How loss can help you to discover your superpowers
Why we must do things that are uncomfortable
Coping with the tremendous uncertainty of death
Learning to live fully after loss
Finding the opportunity to be present in your life
Learning to recognize that you're in the waiting room of your life
The part of you that keeps you safe, but doesn't help you
Practical applications for overcoming loss
Learning to find proof that you're worthy of change
Understanding the connection between your brain and identity map
How worthiness starts to grow over time

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