In this bonus episode, I reflect on a powerful conversation with Barb Higgins, who has faced numerous life challenges, including the tragic loss of her daughter.

Barb's journey is a testament to resilience and finding meaning in grief. She emphasizes that while our experiences shape us, they do not solely define us. She shares how she maintains her joyful spirit despite the hardships, even describing herself as a "wrinkly kid" at heart.

This is my little episode to convince you to listen to Barb's full story on The Life Shift - https://www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/s3e159.

Takeaways:

• Life experiences, even traumatic ones, can shape us without solely defining our identities.
• Barb's story illustrates the power of authentic storytelling in connecting with others.
• Embracing both joy and sorrow allows us to live more fully despite past traumas.
• The significance of community and support in overcoming life's toughest moments is paramount.

I'm Matt Gilhooly, and this is the Life Shift. Candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever.

Hello, my friends. This is going to be a bonus episode. I'm trying something new.

So I thought, how can I add a little bit more of myself, A little bit more value to the listeners, maybe, I don't know. And I decided that perhaps I can reflect on some of the episodes after they've come out.

And if you don't know, I usually record these episodes with my guests anywhere from, like, six to 10 weeks before they come out. And so we have a really great, deep conversation.

I try to be really in the moment, so sometimes I forget after the fact of, like, what we talked about or the things I've said in those episodes. And. But in any case, when they come out after I edit, obviously I listen to them, but I do that way ahead of time.

And then they come out and I listen to them again. And I thought, well, maybe I can reflect on that conversation.

So this week, earlier this week, an episode with Barb Higgins came out, and it was really just such an interesting conversation because this conversation came in, like, as a pitch, essentially. You know, I've had many life shifts. Obviously, this is what she said, but one was when her daughter died at 13 years old.

And so you come into this conversation and you think, I need to hold the space. It needs to be appropriate. I need to really lean into the sympathy that I can have in these moments. And what was so wonderful about Barb?

And if you've listened to the episode, you understand this.

She showed up fully herself, fully authentic, realizing and recognizing that as much as these moments in our lives define us, they also don't define us because there are lots of other aspects of us that we can bring to the table. And what I mean by that is we can show up as a happy person, even though sad things have happened in our lives.

And maybe it takes us a little bit longer to get there, but it is what it is. So Barb showed up, and she just, like, right off, from the beginning, was very kind, but also was joking. And she described herself as a wrinkly kid.

And, you know, she's in her 60s and says that she still feels like a kid at heart. And there's a lot of things that she does to. To stay that way, including CrossFit, which we talked a little bit about.

My experience with CrossFit and how much she loves it and how much I don't really love it, but this conversation was just. It went in so many directions.

And at the end of it, you feel like all of these traumatic experiences in Barb's life, one would be like enough to knock someone off their feet for a good while. But she had so many of them, including sexual abuse as a child and then an alcohol addiction and then losing a child and then getting a.

Like finding out she had a brain tumor and then doing drugs and then deciding to have a kid later in life. And now she has like a three or four or five year old. I don't know how old he is. Sorry.

But, you know, and so all these things that happened in her life could have knocked her off and it didn't. It seems like she's taken these moments and she's found meaning in those moments. And I say found meaning because she. I believe she did.

And it might have been Nina Rodriguez on a different episode, but she recommended Finding Meaning by David Kessler. And I just finished that book and it's. It's like the sixth stage of grief. And it was really impactful for me.

I'm still struggling with Mikey's loss, but then I found myself ping ponging from my mom, losing my mom, and then losing my grandmother, and then losing Mikey and all these pieces. So she recommended that, but I say that because it feels like she's gone through that. She's not necessarily.

It's not about like finding meaning, like why something happened, but what can we do with that grief? Can we funnel it into something so that we can still celebrate the life or the legacy that these people left behind?

And so, you know, Barb, in her instance, beyond all the other things she's doing, she started a foundation in her daughter's name. And she's able to kind of help other people in. In ways that maybe she would never have done had she not had this really tragic experience.

So what I would say about this is I highly recommend listening to this episode because I think what it will give you is a sense of how someone can move through these moments and become a different version of themselves, but in a way that is trying to live life to the fullest with meaning. You'll also see the value of her sharing her story you can see what storytelling does for people.

She has her own podcast, so she's able to kind of share that information. She has a blog that she. She said she doesn't tell anyone about, but she still loves doing it, so make sure you check that out.

But really, it's a transformative episode because her early life started out with tragedy and she ran away from that. But then she got into this addiction cycle, which she even says now that, like, she's really good at quitting things, but it's that long term piece.

It's easy to, like, quit something for 75 days or however long she needs to, whether she's pregnant or whatever those things are. But it's still part of our personality, and it's still the things that kind of, like, get into our psyche and, like, stick there.

You know, for me, it's a lot of it.

I've talked about, like, food, and that obsessiveness about food really plays a lot into my life even still, even though I'm not maybe in the shape that I was when I first developed those particular issues. So I just loved how Barb was just so open about how she was feeling.

We named this episode Straddling the Picket Fence because at the beginning she talks about how her life's always kind of in this juxtaposition and how she always feels like she's straddling this picket fence.

And sometimes the fence is low enough that she can just stand over it with no issue, and sometimes it's a little too high, which is not something that anyone would like to be straddling. So, you know, I think that Barb is really someone that I found inspiration from and I found this connection with.

And I've said this before, and maybe my guests think I'm crazy, but because they come on the show and they share such deep stories and all of their emotions and answer my particular curious questions that I might have for them.

I feel this connection that maybe they don't feel on the other side because I haven't shared so much of myself, but I really felt this connection to Barb. And I hope that when I go visit my family up in Massachusetts, that I can kind of jump over to New Hampshire and visit with Barb.

So if you're thinking about listening to the episode from this week, which came out on December 3rd, then I think you should go back and you should listen to it. I didn't give too much away here. I told you a lot of the things that occurred in her life, but you need to hear it.

Unfold in the way that only Barb can tell that story. So this is the first version of me reflecting on these episodes and hopefully it gets a little bit better. Thank you for sticking with me.

And I will try to do this for each of the episodes that comes out so that I can share a little bit more about me and why I'm so weird and why I do the things that I'm doing. I'm not really weird. Well, maybe I am. I think we all are. Right? So in any case, go listen to Barb Higgins episode of the Life Shift podcast.

Let me know what you think. Send me a message on social media, whatever you need to do, Matthew. LifeShift Podcast.com is my email address.

And with that, I will say goodbye and I will be back in your ears for next week's episode with Betsy Pepin.

And then hopefully I will have the opportunity to sit down and record a little reflection on that episode about breaking boxes and how we kind of bend towards society expectations and how we should probably not do that. So in any case, I will see you next week.

For more information, please visit www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com.