Fire Horse: Going Through Fire to Become Pure Gold | Ingrid Hu Dahl | Grit Diaries

⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses grief & loss, which some listeners may find distressing.

If you need support, you're not alone — help is available:

• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au

• GriefLine: 1300 845 745 · griefline.org.au

Ingrid grew up as a mixed-race child in New Jersey, retreating into horses and later punk rock music to survive feeling othered by adults and society. She came out as a lesbian in her mid-20s, facing rejection from her mother. Years later, after moving apart and her mother's battle with cancer, they reconciled through open-heartedness and forgiveness. In her mother's final years, despite COVID restrictions limiting visits, they rebuilt their relationship from soul to soul. After her mother's passing, Ingrid wrote her memoir and became a grief coach, learning that walking through fire refines us into gold.

Ingrid Hu Dahl is an American TEDx speaker, author, ICF-certified leadership and grief coach, and lifelong musician who has toured internationally with multiple bands. She wrote Sun Shining on Morning Snow, a memoir exploring identity, grief, and reconciliation with her mother, and has directed short films on mixed-race representation and experience.

In this Grit Diaries conversation with Mon & Mazz, Ingrid shares the story behind the moments below.

🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION:

• Being othered as a child for your identity teaches you to read subtlety and energy, skills that later become invaluable in coaching and human connection.

• Coming out authentically, even when facing rejection, creates the possibility for deeper reconciliation later because you refuse to diminish yourself.

• Grief and identity loss can catalyze profound growth, especially when you're willing to write your story and integrate what you've learned.

• Forgiveness and reconciliation often require the person who rejected you to choose openness first, but you can still hold the door…

🕒 CHAPTERS:

00:00 Introduction and Ingrid's Background

04:35 Growing Up Mixed-Race on the East Coast

06:44 Horses as Refuge and Nonverbal Communication

10:13 Finding Voice Through Punk, Grunge and Riot Grrrl

13:40 Coming Out and Complex Family Dynamics

17:33 Mother's Rejection and the Long Separation

22:33 The Reconciliation Begins: Mother Reaches Out

24:35 Cancer, COVID, and Final Moments Together

26:30 The Book and Its Symbolism

28:22 Fire, Gold and the Year of the Fire Horse

31:13 Leadership Lessons and Writing Through Grief

36:34 Closing Thoughts on Authenticity and Hope

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Welcome to The Grit Diaries with Mon and Maz, a place where we show real stories meets real transformation. Each episode, we share the journeys of everyday people who's faced life's hardest moments and found their way to hope, healing and purpose. May their courage inspire you and in the world around you. Let's get inspired.

On today's episode of The Grit Diaries, we have another amazing speaker, Ingrid Duhal. Now, this woman is a TEDx speaker. She is from the US. She's an author. She, again, wears many hats. And Mona and I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down in conversation with her. And a lot of that work that we talked about was around her book, The Sun Shining on Morning Snow. And this actually has a lot to do with her name,

out. So for those of you that have been dealing with family relationships and the beauty of mending those relationships, this is one for you. Enjoy.

Well, hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Grit Diaries with Mon and Maz. Hello, Mon. Hello, Maz. Lovely to see you. Always, always. And don't we have just a most beautiful, warm, wonderful guest today. Welcome to the show, Ingrid. Thank you. It's lovely to be here, Maz and Mon.

We're just meeting some just most beautiful human beings and just with incredible stories to share and this is no exception. So let's just give Ingrid a little bit of an introduction and we're really looking forward to hearing more from Ingrid today. So Ingrid is an author which she's just actually released her book. We'll talk about that a bit more in a moment. She's a TEDx speaker, an ICF leadership consultant

coach who empowers the next generation of leaders. She is an executive coach and has added in grief coaching after her experience with losing her beautiful mum four years ago. She's a founding member of the Willie May Rock Camp, which has probably just given away that she's an American. She lives in America and has a lifelong passion for amplifying

underrepresented voices. If this isn't enough, as I said, she's written a book. She's also written, filmed and directed two short films exploring identity representation and mixed race

experience one that she can speak into on a personal level and for me the most surprising thing that I came across with Ingrid is she's a muso on steroids what doesn't she play you know it's not just one single instrument she's on the bass she's on the guitar she's on the synthesizer she's on the drums and has toured all around the world with many many bands so she's an eclectic human being and so interesting and really just can't wait to hear more from you so welcome Ingrid.

Thank you so much. Thank you. It's such an honor. Eclectic. I like that word. And wow, how talented are you too with all the instruments? I appreciate that. It's been a while since I've been touring, but yeah, it's a happy vignette of mine. Amazing. Amazing.

We want to just kind of kick off Ingrid with just finding out a little bit more about Ingrid, who she is and why you are the way you are and wondering what, you know, what your story was growing up and, you know, things that were significant before you experienced, you know, the deep grief in and around losing your mum. But yeah, just kind of walk us back what life was like and what's got you on your journey that you're on today.

Sure. Yeah. So for listeners and viewers, I was born in 1980 in the United States on the East Coast, a state called New Jersey, where both of my parents were studying. My mom was a graduate student. My father was an undergraduate.

1980 is 13 years after interracial marriage is legalized in the States. And on the East Coast where I was born, there were not as many Asian folk in that state. And so I grew up with a lot of people as young as five and up asking me the question, what are you? And where are your people from? From neighbors, from mostly adults who are asking this of a child.

And what I remember is it wasn't necessarily curiosity. It was more like I need to fit you in a category and you don't quite fit in a box. So you should tell me, you know, you owe me to tell me what that ethnic box are that I can check. And it was really confusing as a child. Did you sense something?

At that time, at that tender young age. Yes, I did. But you could sense that the way that the question, it's interesting and it's good for us adults. Yes, I could, because if I kind of played around with it or belabored the answer, adults would get angry.

It was, you know, they didn't want to be embarrassed that they were asking such kind of a rude question. So the anger kind of let me know that something was wrong, that I was supposed to tell them a very specific answer and get to the point, and then they'd walk away. There was no other follow-up question besides maybe something even more personal like, oh, was your father in the service, which I wouldn't have understood at the age of five.

My mother was studying computer science and artificial intelligence in the late 70s. She was a tech pioneer and a fashionista. And I think people were struck by the very big difference in gender, some of the stereotypes you can imagine around an Asian woman.

Oh, she must be a gold digger looking for a white knight. It couldn't have been farther from the truth. And same with my father, who happens to come from, or Scandinavian, a European background. He fell in love with my mom, and he sings and dances and cooks. Very different than a lot of the other kids growing up and their parents and their dynamics.

So just to give you going back a little bit to that sense, it was so uncomfortable that adults would ask me these questions and get angry if I didn't tell them the answer that I ended up retreating into the world of horses for many years of my life. And perhaps because horses are fantastic, magical, big hearted beasts, they're very dangerous. And I love them the second that I met them at similar the age of five, and I worked on

all throughout the year to be able to ride. And I became quite a successful equestrian up until the age of 13 and kind of realized my love of horses was turning into a pretty intense performance. I was being trained very hard. I was potentially going to move to Italy to do championship riding. And that love and joy and liberation that horses represent for me and a young teen rebellious girl was shifting. So I got out of it.

I'm wondering what being involved with the horses gave you as an outlet. A lot. Because they're obviously very sort of connected because you talk about it on the back end of, you know, just having to deal with these, you know, insecurities of other people around you and you knew your truth. But it started to get mixed up because, you know, what's up, what's down.

And so the horses, what did it actually give you? Was it just freedom to be in a different kind of place or what was that for you? I'd say part of that for sure. Naz was giving me that freedom, that space, some boundaries maybe. But a lot of it actually was around learning nonverbal communication. So I was having a hard time communicating with adults verbally.

But yet with this incredible being a horse, I was able to communicate non-verbally. So what's fascinating now, like, you know, 20 years later as a coach or, oh my gosh, 40 years later, what am I saying? Since I was five, wow. Time flies, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. I realized that a lot of that

intuition a lot of that kind of rhythm and slowing down and connecting in this deeper way or reading somebody from what they're not saying you know subtle shifts in their energy or they look down to the left like what are they thinking about has given me a tremendous amount of curiosity and into it as a coach so horses really taught me actually how to connect back to myself

back to people in a beautiful way that I don't know if I would have gotten that same kind of exposure and training elsewhere. And I can't speak to having sort of the experience of, you know, the horses around me, but the times that I have, they have such a majestical, strong presence. And you sort of

in awe of their energy and just their size and just such deep respect for that. But I think it really leads into, doesn't it? And mine be all over this too, just having that nonverbal communication

you know, not dealing with judgments, you know, with animals. Mon, you're an incredible dog lover and have some really special relationships with your pets as well as we do with our little kitty cats. But just what it offers, and especially in those growing up years,

I don't know if you know this but apparently vet nurses often come from domestic violence backgrounds and that's why they love the animals so much so there's a really high percentage of vet nurses who've witnessed as children domestic abuse so wow

I love that, that they're vet nurses. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of empathy. Yeah. So I'd love to hear a bit about your music. How do you stepped into the music world? Cause you've been in three wonderful bands. We're going to think you'll talk about, but yeah, just tell us a bit about that. Thank you. Yeah. Gosh, I,

I've been in like five or six, to be honest. It's been a lot. And when I was a teenager and it's coming out of the horse world, I really was drawn to music that was rebellious, like more punk rock or grunge was happening at the time. And what I wasn't really aware of until later was In Parallel,

on the other coast of the States was the Riot Grrrl movement. And the Riot Grrrl movement was kind of following third wave feminism. And you had bands like Bikini Kill and La Tigra, which were just so wonderful once I finally was exposed to them. But before having that beautiful kind of community and access, to me, music was a way where you could convey

your emotions, your frustrations, your rebellious nature, feeling misunderstood, or having the music go through your body where it felt like it could be with you, empower you, motivate you, or be there next to you if you're feeling depressed or sad and going through, you know, the feelings that a lot of teen girls go through, which make them feel insecure or misunderstood or not seen.

So what I recognized in music, also wanting to kind of delve into expressing my own stories and expressing myself in music, similar to skateboarding and snowboarding, which I was also interested in at this time, it was so male dominated. And as a young person,

That would really tick me off. It was very frustrating to see that men were like, no, this is our domain, our sport. This is, you know, we're the ones who play music and sing. You watch, you observe. And I just was like, I'm not going to just do that. It was hard, you know, scary. It was putting yourself out there. Tremendous amount of, you know, imposter syndrome on a stage. But I learned the hard way and said, no.

I absolutely have every right to be on the stage to have this mic at my mouth. And if anything, all of us women probably have even more of a reason to get on that stage and amplify our stories. So that set me off on a course where in

The age of about 23, I was in graduate school at Rutgers, and the band at that time was called the 303s, and we got signed to Cult Hero Records. And soon after that, I joined this amazing band, Lismore, to play bass for them with Australian native Penelope Trapps. Then it kind of went through, you know, being in an all-female feminist band, which was based in California called Boy Scout, and then ended up in Brooklyn, New York with Rag Pony. So I

There was quite a beautiful vignette that followed mostly my coming out journey as a queer feminist musician. And it really went from this kind of like, you know, you're inferior to the stage to the stages. It's where you belong. It was really beautiful. A lesson to learn. You've talked about a space where you were wanting to come out and talk a little bit about that and a lead into, you know, what life was like in and around that. And I know that you had

you know, your mom that was not well and how that all kind of tied in for you. Yeah. You know, my mom and I had a complex relationship, you know, my mom being a pioneer in her field, but still being treated as other. She had an accent. It was, you know, kind of brought up that otherness. People seem to feel threatened by her very powerful and effective leadership. People loved my mother.

At one point, she had 100 software engineers and they just all loved her. I know this because on the bring your daughter to work day, you know, I'd be stopped multiple times by people saying, you know, thank goodness for your mom. She's always looking out for me and my family. So I had a lot of respect for my mom in that.

in the lens of all these men saying, wow, your mom's the best leader I've ever had. And yet people always seem to, her bosses would always find, you know, another white man to be between her and him constantly. Every single opportunity to promote my mother that kept happening. And it was somebody who wasn't as competent, capable. At one point, I think she transitioned to a role that was acquired by Google and

and they needed to replace her single job with three executives. So you can imagine what an incredible force this woman is, but the amount of heaviness and expectation on the weight of her shoulders. So in the home life, I didn't always see my mother. She was traveling for work, and she'd forget what the latest rules were around curfew, and we would argue a lot about it. I'd see her sometimes in bed, crying, broken, but not conveying what was really going on.

she started getting more and more into Christianity and religion, which kept pushing us apart. You know, I think you as a young person want to get closer to your parents and be more understood. And we were getting further apart. So by the time I am coming out, which to me felt pretty late in, you know, my early mid 20s. And I document that journey. It's fun. A lot of, you know, women who are

who, you know, consider themselves straight will be like, gosh, I was really trying to, you know, I was so frustrated. I was like, come on, Ingrid, just kiss the girl, just kiss her. And I just love that. I'm like, oh yeah, you wanted me to kiss her that bad. And they're like, yes. I'm like, I guess me too. It just took me so long. So- Was it something that you felt, Ingrid, from a very young age that you were aware of? No. Something that later as you, you know- Later, yeah. Definitely my, you know, there's folks like my wife who knew when they were four.

Like, oh, I'm attracted to women. Maybe it didn't always feel safe to make that known until later. But I didn't. I had crushes on boys. I thought women were beautiful. Certainly their bodies are much more beautiful if you ask me than men. But it really was this kind of chrysalis happening in that 22, 23 where I'm like...

Something just doesn't feel right. You know, this gentleman I've been with who's wonderful drummer, musician, very handsome, wants to get married. And my reaction is, no, I don't want that. I don't want that life. And he was like, look at, you know, this kind of heteronormative other musicians who have a kid. And I was like, I don't want that. And that was really important for me to listen to that whisper, listen to that gut reaction.

Yes, the intuition of like something's not not quite right. It's not bad, but something I need to figure this out. And it took a long time. And finally, when I was feeling like, yes, what I had to go through was internalized homophobia.

You know, I didn't know that that's what I was experiencing, but for sure, I had a lot of it. And I was just so terrified by being othered even more than I already had been as an androgynous kind of, you know, at the time, right? Mixed Asian people always kind of having a spotlight on my difference. And now here's another spotlight. It felt overwhelming. But when I finally got to the great place of being like, no, I'm a lesbian, I've

Of course I wanted to tell my parents in good faith and confidence, and my mother was very rejection-oriented around it. She was so disappointed. She very much was like, you know, if you are about to tell me what I think you are, is the words that she said, you'll be disowned from the family.

And, you know, I'm in my mid-20s at this point. Oh, wow. Yeah, she knew. She knew. Because she could hear you. She gave you a, you cannot tell. A warning. Yeah. But if you're about to, yeah. Wow. There'll be consequences. Yeah. Wow. Did you have any brothers or sisters, Ingrid?

I have a younger brother who's six years younger and he is the rock and support of my life. Yeah. He's always been there. My parents didn't come to my wedding because of my gayness and he did. And he was just, you know, he constantly this rock for me.

Yeah. So how old were you Ingrid when you chose to talk to your parents? 25 was quite a journey. My parents went through some things where it led them to move to Taipei, Taiwan, which is where my mother's from. So they lived there for about 10 years. We didn't really talk that much or see each other. And then my mother has cancer and it's about a seven year end to end journey where she has a stage one endometrial and she's

not good. She's kind of in a headspace where she's blaming me for having cancer, my sexuality. There's things happening for her maybe in menopause where she's depressed or not wondering like her own identity crisis around career is happening. And what's amazing is my mother does kind of come out on the other side. She gets her third master's degree while she has cancer in social work. I know she's

She's a powerhouse. She's quite the warrior. Yeah. Yeah. She's a warrior for sure. And we have a lineage of warriors, I find out, in our lineage. So, yes, she's a warrior. And in this time, she doesn't come to the wedding. She is sick. She gets to a place where it sounds like they've been able to resolve most of the cancer cells as stage one. And COVID hits and she has a cough.

And they realized that actually she has a horrible metastasis of her cancer that has now entered her lungs in this very rapid, rapid way. So the last few years of my mother's life,

She is fighting for her life. She is studying social work. And it is very hard to visit her because of COVID. Taiwan was one of the most strict countries to allow visitors. You needed a special entry visa, which you never needed before. So for two years, I only had one shot at visiting my mother.

And I document this in my book because a lot of things happen in that short amount of time. That's beautiful. Where my mother and I reconcile and we reclaim this like it's beyond mother daughter. It's like soul to soul respect, love, energy, memory that continues beyond her passing, frankly. But I'll kind of get to this place where, you know, there are scenes where my mother is wearing pride shirts. You know, she's being served.

in the States by a drag queen and just flirting with a gay man. You know, she comes around both of my parents in this beautiful, magnificent way that I share wholeheartedly. And what I realize is, you know, we stand in our truth and maybe not everybody's ready for that and they need their space and their journey. But ultimately, the more that we hold love and forgiveness and empathy and a willingness to say, hey,

If you want to join me and my family, I would love that. But that's your journey. And that kind of shift when my mom let a lot of that stuff go and join me back, we kind of charted a new pathway for entire family. It's as if the

line of the linear generational just shifted. It just shifted into this new way. And as much as we miss my mother and I wish I had more time with her and learn from her and connect with her and grow old with her, I'm so grateful that we had that reconciliation. And it's a story worth sharing because it's one of hope and uplift in being bold, in being full heart opener on saying, you know what?

you could come around because this really is some powerful truth. Ingrid, I have to say that it's such a positive for many viewers and listeners out there today thinking about if they've got a bit of a not-so-happy relationship with their parents. We want to hear how you did that to get some reconciliation because I've got people I know that lost parents and they never made amends and they have to do it spiritually but not emotionally.

with the person physically. And so I'd love to hear how you got to that beautiful point. You know, actually, I want to give a lot of the honor and credit to my mom. Something happened where she probably realized the choice was up to her.

Did she want to have a life with her daughter or a life without? And she reached out to me and my wife about a year after we got married and said she'd love to spend the holidays, Christmas with us coming from Taiwan. And would that be okay? And I was, of course, of course, you're always welcome. So my parents came from Taiwan. My brother came from New York. We hosted the family and

It was a bit right away. She wanted to toast. It was a brunch at our house and she wanted to toast, which was kind of, you know, not common. And she apologized. She said, you know, I think we were short sighted and.

we love you and we want to be part of this family and you are our daughter. And it was so beautiful. And before she could finish, I was running to her and wrapped her in my arms. And, you know, from that trip, there's this beautiful scene where she's by the fireplace with my wife and kind of touching her face. And they're like in front of us on a walk, you know, in nature and they're kind of holding hands. And it was just like,

the most incredible feeling to have my mom back and my family reunited but in this new way and it wasn't angry or there's nothing in there but just full embodied love and of course of course like yes this is where we move forward together no resistance just a lot of love and

It ended up giving us this moment where my mother was having an internship for her social work. And she announced that it was going to be, this is a while later, would be in San Francisco and she would be spending the summer with us. And

I remember my wife being like, what? I'm like, it's mom. She's got cancer. We got, you know, we got a letter. And I chart out like, it's a humorous dynamic where suddenly me and my wife kind of have a teenager because she was eating so much. It was amazing. And it was the last time we saw her healthy. And so it's so precious that we got this like kind of funny.

intimate moment with my mother for a couple months and then you know that's where things just changed and she was never healthy again so we got we were really grateful for what we received

Ingrid, thank you for sharing all of this too. And thank you, Mon, for even asking the question, how did it actually, because that's what we wonder, like how do you actually from sort of polar aparts, how does it ever, where does that string actually meet? And for you to actually be in a space and your own personal growth, that you are receptive to it, there will be resistance to it, that you embrace that with open arms. And again, I just get chills all through my body. Yeah.

And it's testament to having that open heartedness now that you've seen it go that full circle. And sadly, you know, you have lost your mom, but even you can see the beauty even in that. If you had have been closed, what if you could almost see it on a movie screen? That's what I would have missed out on. Yeah, totally.

For the viewers and the listeners, it's being aware that's potentially on the table for you as well. So when you're dealing with a relationship of whatever that is, you're still able to be fully expressed as you. You didn't have to. And so it was that deeper acceptance of you as a human being, your choices, what was right for you and not having to shrink to fit sort of reentering your life. But it was fully accepted, loved.

and just soul to soul. How beautiful. Yeah, it was. I love your imagery on the cover of your book. Sunshining on Morning Snow. Tell us about the imagery of that. It was just so powerful. First of all, for those of you who might be like, oh, what's up with the title? It's actually my name. My Chinese name is Tao Shui Ching and it means sunshining.

on Morning Snow. So you'll see two images here. This is me and my mom with the white lip in signaling her passing. And there's a big kind of like tear that keeps us apart all throughout our journey. But at the very end, we come together in the way that our hair is connecting right at the bottom. So it's very poetic. And, you know, the illustrator, Hannah Bartschak, did a phenomenal job on this to convey the power of this relationship.

Thank you so much for sharing that. That is very much mirrors a lot of my experience with my mum. And we talked about we lost our both our mums pretty much same year, and both through cancer and just that coming together. My goodness, you just wouldn't change it for the world to have that beautiful. It's the most powerful experience for me today. So

And to your point too, it's the relationship continues even though they're gone. That's true. Yeah. I hope they're hanging out, Maz. Oh, well, I think we've just introduced them. So there you go. Yeah, I know. They're like, hey, our daughters are talking about us. So as mum was saying, you know, what would you like to share with the audience now that you've sort of traversed this and, you know, as you lead into, you know, the next chapters of your life?

What do you feel if you could share with us your nuggets of wisdom, the gold that's come out of all of this that the listeners and the viewers could benefit from?

Yeah, you know, it's funny you mentioned gold. Is that what you said, gold? Gold nuggets. Yeah, so I definitely think my mom and your mom are hanging out because that is a little too closely tied to this idiom my mother would say, which is you have to go through fire many times to become pure gold. Hmm.

So that's an idiom that's also really, really important and powerful in the year of the Chinese zodiac, especially the fire horse year, which comes only every 60 years. So for me, this is my only fire horse year. And it symbolizes tremendous power.

empowerment and boldness especially for women to reclaim what in the past wasn't actually suspicious that if you had a daughter born in a year of a fire horse nobody would want to marry her because she was too bold in that spirit in her entering the world so i think this is a powerful moment for us to reclaim it and going back to that idiom yeah we need to go through challenges in life

not just because they make us more strong or get us towards self-actualization, but it's also part of the story. Our stories are not just linear and they have a lot of pain and they have a lot of tribulations and trials that we go through, but they can, if we choose, if we keep the heart open, if we keep learning and growing and having desire to connect and heal, we become the purest of gold, which my mother did before she passed.

Wow. Yeah. Right. I just looked up because I was born in 1966 was the year of the fire horse. Yes. Oh, because I turned 60 this year. So there you go. That's huge. You get two. Wow. You're born in one and then you hit. Wow. That's powerful. Good for you. What a year. Wow. That's incredible. Yeah. That's outstanding. Thank you for sharing that. Marry them.

I think that my husband would relate to that. I love it. I love it. Well, that might give me a new perspective on my husband now too, because he's not in 66. So you're both hitting 60. Wow, ladies. You look fantastic. Sorry to interrupt this. I learned what I love about these podcasts. I learned so much. I'm just listening to everything you say with so much hunger.

Keep going, keep going. Okay, thanks, Mon. So, Ingrid, you know, the lesson from your mum, you know, you're having to walk through fire to really refine that into gold. What other lessons have been really important to you about being true to yourself and just being bold enough and authentic enough to be who you are? What's been really the key lessons for you? I'd say that...

Being leaders, whether it's of others in a job or role, your life, your family, requires a lot of reflection and introspection and slowing down and really listening to understand and asking,

exploratory questions that start with what, which is what we have as coaches. But I find a lot of people are leading with assumptions and narratives that they've gained as opposed to challenging them and asking their family or their team or the loved one's chosen community questions.

You know, for example, I never asked my mother truly what her experience was like coming to the U.S. and what that must have been like, you know, her experiences crying. But I found parts of them after her death in journals. And they're so descriptive. And, you know, I realized my mother probably would have written a memoir and a book. So while I was kind of grieving,

I was struck by, I need to write my story and weave her, what I knew of her, and our complicated but beautiful relationship into a book that could be a gift to others and be a bit of my own leadership origin story. I gained so much healing from writing this book and with the phenomenal team that I kind of handpicked. A lot of this was women of color, queer women, and they were part of this journey with me.

narrating, being taught how to narrate a book, which is actually so hard, you know, by also women of color and hearing the story and having to say it was also so emotional. It was hard to do. I think the more that we take on new things and allow ourselves to be beginners, it's amazing how much lightheartedness and even playful joy can come out of it. I think as we get older, we kind of forget how to be bad at it.

something or to be new and to be a infant or beginner at something. But man, I've learned very much that this is a bit of our own playground that we can participate in and why not continue to learn and to be humble. My realization too is that my identity at times was really kind of caught up

Maybe for a moment it was being, you know, on stage and having to rectify what that spotlight was. Because at times it wasn't, you know, a very positive spotlight. Sometimes it could be very objectifying or somebody is crafting a character that you are that they want to behold, but it's not you. I think a lot...

Musicians can struggle with that because suddenly there's so much from the audience of what they are desiring and there's no curiosity or questions around you. Ingrid, to your point, I heard, I don't know if it was Bon Jovi or it's someone the interview and it's like the exact point that you just made. It's too heavy.

for me to hold that image that you have of me because I know something to that effect I'm ad-libbing a little bit and to put that on me is just you know it's I can't hold it it's just oh it's I can't imagine for somebody famous oh yeah I had a tiny bit of it and was like oh

Yeah, yeah. It's a it's a big tool. And you know, society does that. Our families do that. The expectations, you know, come at us like that, too. But oh, yeah, when it's in that funnel can be challenging. And you know, for me, I also had it a bit in my career, there's a point in my career, whereas, you know, strangely, suddenly very attached to my title and my role and the company and,

Not that that was, you know, entirely sour or negative. But when I didn't have that title, that role, that paycheck, it was a crumbling. It was almost what some people call ego death. And that identity crisis, you know, I went through my early 40s was really important because it also was happening at the time of my grief, my anticipatory grief, then grief actualized.

And it's when I started my own coaching and consulting business. It's when I was writing my book. It was now, you know, having a grief coaching certification. It's around seeing that there's all of this larger than life beauty of integration, integration in grief, integration in life.

really actualizing who we are and not being seduced by attaching it to things that are actually not meant to hang everything on. We're so dynamic and shifting and evolving. And again, hopefully choosing to learn and grow and stretch out that comfort zone, not let it get too tight, like straight jacket. I think all of those lessons helped me remember every choice I make could be very tiny.

But the rebellious choice, the bold choice, the anger truth choice is always going to feel a little bit playful, a little bit more me. And so why not go that route?

I love it. Mix of putting all that together. And what I'm taking with me, Ingrid, is that inner need. It's almost like a cork just bobbing up. Didn't matter how many times it sort of got suppressed, that authenticity to live into your truth and to make that mark for who you are as a human being, to feel free, to live fully, you know, your beautiful creative space that you've had your outlets that began with the horses that moved into me.

to creating film you know having that creative expression and the space to do it and the freedom to do it and not be contained by other people's expectations or judgments testament and I'm so glad that you know we have this platform to share your story because it's thank you many people are going to really benefit from hearing from you today yeah I can feel your freedom

Just wonderful. The torment that people sit in when they can't be authentic and can't be themselves. Your story, Ingrid, is one of great hope for many. Thank you both. I'm going to look forward to reading your book. Thanks, Mum. Please do. And listening to some of the bands that you've been in. Yeah, exciting. I know my daughter, one of my twin daughters, we went and saw Lodge last week. Oh, cool. Wow.

Her favourite part of the whole concert, her and her buddy, was actually the little sort of, you know, pep talk that she gave the whole audience. I love that she used her platform for, you know, really pouring into, you know, the young, you know, there would have been, you know, nine-year-old girls, you know, and a sprinkling of chaps in the audience, but mostly female. And it was don't be afraid of the bigger feelings to invite them in and they were valid.

And that they're all important. And basically they're all of you. And that was the most out of all the songs, all the lights, everything that was the most important. It's from the young age. They already know that, you know, she's 50, you know, just to be authentic, to live and embrace all of life. And that's right.

That message is so important. I'm so glad she shared that. Ingrid, you know, it's just you have such a beautiful, warm, gentle nature. I feel calmer. I'm just going to just slide on into my day and have energy. And yeah, so thank you for being here. And tell us the name of your book again. No doubt they can find it on Amazon.

Sure. It's sun shining on morning snow. Yes. It's on every book platform. It's on audible as well for the audio book that I narrated. So yes, please do. I did. So please get a copy or listen to one. I'd love to hear what you all think. I've been hearing such wonderful responses from the global community of readers and it's been so touching.

Ingrid, Hildal, thank you so much for being with us. It's just been an absolute pleasure to be in your presence. And with that, we'll see you all next time. It's an honour. Bye, ladies. Thank you, Ingrid. Thank you, Ingrid. It's an honour. Bye, ladies. Thank you, Ingrid.

Thank you for joining us on The Grit Diaries from Grit to Grace. If today's story has moved you, share it with someone who needs a little hope. Remember from grit, we can find grace and from grace, we can find inspiration. Until next time, look for the joy, keep safe, stay grounded and never forget that there is a strength within your own story. Take care.