Suicide Archives - Widowhood Real Talk with Dr. Tina

From Despair To Summit: Following The Trail To Healing And Transformation With Keith McNally

Podcast / May 30, 2024

Widowhood Real Talk with Tina | Keith McNally | Healing And Transformation

Have you ever felt completely lost after a major life event? Tune in to this powerful episode, where Tina Fornwald welcomes Dr. Keith McNally to share his profound journey of overcoming personal grief and health challenges. From surviving a heart attack to rebuilding his life after loss and unemployment, Dr. Keith offers heartfelt advice on coping with life’s adversities. He opens up about his passion for walking and hiking, which played a crucial role in his healing process. The conversation also explores the importance of community, finding purpose, and staying grounded through practices like journaling and meditation. Whether you’re facing your own trials or looking for inspiration, this episode provides a safe space for exploring resilience and embracing life’s journey. I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others. Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/suicide/suicide-prevention-hotlines-resources-worldwide — Listen to the podcast here From Despair To Summit: Following The Trail To Healing And Transformation With Keith McNally It is the month of May 2024 and the show is celebrating our founder’s birthday. Yes, that’s me. We invite you to help us celebrate. How? It’s by donating $5 in the month of May 2024. See what we’re doing there with that? How do you do that? Text Hopeful Hearts to 53555. Thanks for helping us celebrate and support a worthy cause. Let’s get into this episode. — We are doing things a little differently. I am heading out to meet Dr. Keith McNally at a park and we’re going to go for a walk. He’s going to share his story and give you some helpful tips on when you are in a crisis on how to manage that crisis. We’re going to talk about how to deal with when life implodes and some healthy coping skills. He is going to share his experience, not particularly with death, as most of the time our conversations are related to the death of a loved one, but his grief has been personal. There is a trigger warning, suicide attempt, loss of job, and other different things that took him to the end of his self, which he had to rebuild himself. These conversations will help you because when our loved one dies, we find ourselves having to rebuild ourselves. Let’s get into the conversation and meet at the park with Dr. Keith. Our conversation is with Dr. Keith McNally. We are out at First Landing in Virginia going for a walk. I have pictures of this gentleman all backpacked up and your girl is not doing that. Let’s get into the conversation. Hello, Dr. Keith. Tina, how are you doing? This is going to be a good day because it’s beautiful. We’re near the ocean. There are not too many hills here or anywhere. That was intentional. I am taking my first trip to the mountains, Grandfather Mountain, in North Carolina in May 2024. I’ve got to get acclimated to the ups and downs. I’m going to go back in July 2024 and then later on in September and October 2024, I’m going to make three trips in different parts of the Appalachian Trail. In my day-to-day, I typically hike a lot in Suffolk. There’s a trail. My neighborhood is pretty cool too so I could walk over my neighborhood. Hiking And Walking We met on LinkedIn and I saw your training. Why are you doing all this? The hiking and mountain walking, what is the inspiration for this? There’s probably a lot of inspiration for it. One, I like to walk. I do, too. That’s why this was a good idea for me to be able to be someplace out of Zoom, in person but something different. I’ve been a Marine back in the day. I started exercising when I was fourteen. Getting into it, I had an asthma attack. I was born an asthmatic. That one asthma attack changed everything for me. I wanted to manage my health better. I could easily take medication and do all the stuff the doctor wanted me to do but I never did that. It’s like most people. We say we’re going to and then not. I never said I was going to but I wanted to find a way to manage my health where I didn’t have to use the emergency inhaler or take a daily medication. I started running and jogging. We’re going to need to get onto the trail. This is the drive area. I did. I started running that day and never stopped. Let me ask you a question. Did you have to use medication to manage the asthma or did that get you off of it? I never started any kind of medication. I do have an emergency inhaler. I use it as needed when I simply cannot breathe. That may depend on how far we go. My goal was to be able to manage my health. I thought I was mastering that up until 2022 when I had a heart attack. That’s when I learned that diet and food are what you have to do. The equation there. This is pretty cool because if you’ve not been here, there are different cabins all the way around this area. We’re eventually going to have to go that way. Let’s go that way. We have to get onto the trail. We’re on this pavement. We haven’t hit it yet. Let’s back up a little bit. You talked about the health benefits but from our conversations, there’s a real mission that you’re on with this walking and what you’re working towards accomplishing. I have attempted suicide twice in the past several years. My mission, if we can call it that, and I always like to use the hashtag #ChangeTheConversation, if we could

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My Twelfth Rose: A Story Of Love, Bipolar And Suicide With Pastor James Ford Jr. – Part 3

Podcast / September 10, 2023

Leave a well in the valley. Pastor James Ford Jr. believes it is his mission to help others who have lost someone they love through his own experience of losing his wife to suicide. In this final episode of a three-part conversation, he talks to Tina Fornwald about the importance of talking about the pink elephant in the room: mental illness. Through his story, he has helped lighten the load of others. Join him as he shares his grief journey, the role of faith in the process, and where he is finding joy now. Thank you for viewing this post. I am not a licensed therapist or professional life coach. I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others. Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/suicide/suicide-prevention-hotlines-resources-worldwide How To Contact Pastor James Ford, Jr.: Pastor Ford: https://www.facebook.com/pastorjamesfordjr/ Christ Bible Church of Chicago: https://www.christbiblechurchofchicago.org/pastor-ford-s-bio#:~:text=Pastor%20James%20Ford%20Jr.%20has,at%20Trinity%20Evangelical%20Divinity%20School Pastor James Ford Jr. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PastorJamesFord — Watch the episode here Listen to the podcast here My Twelfth Rose: A Story Of Love, Bipolar And Suicide With Pastor James Ford Jr. – Part 3 This is part three of our final conversation with Pastor James Ford regarding the conversation of the death of his late wife, his love of many years. I want you to know that you are not alone. Let’s get into the discussion now. You mentioned something important. Thank you again for having this conversation. I know this is not easy. Not even being a year, why would you want to talk about this and share this? Why is that important to you? It’s the pink elephant in most Black communities, especially in Black churches. Even while I was going through this separation, I was still speaking. People were coming to me, asking me questions, and looking for answers for the situations they were going through with primarily bipolar. For example, I had a marriage conference. There were about 200 couples in 4 days. In those 4 days, I had 4 different pastors approach me saying, “I’m going through the same thing with my wife.” I had one pastor’s wife who said, “The church drove my husband crazy. I don’t know who he is. Can you talk to me?” I talked to all those people, and God seemed to be saying to me, “This is going to open up a new avenue. Now you know what the pain is when someone loses their spouse through suicide, and you’re able to leave a well in the valley. You can’t totally alleviate, but you can make an effort to lighten somebody’s load.” That one pastor’s wife was still amenable to him getting guardianship. He called me up, “My guardianship went through. It took a couple of months, but I got guardianship now.” If she gets to the third or fourth stage, he’s able to say, “My wife needs to be in here. She does not want to come, but I have the paperwork. I need her.” You helped somebody. Even in my congregation, people were coming to me and saying, “I never told anybody, but my son, my daughter, my husband, and my wife committed suicide.” They’re coming to me, and I meet with them and share. I’m not a “professional.” I always encourage them to find themselves a good Christian counselor who knows about these mental illnesses. It helped me with my seatbelt. There’s a thing called DARVO when you deal with people who are bipolar. They go through Denial, Anger, Retribution, Victim, and Offender. My wife went right through it. He told me, “I was struggling. I don’t want to do this. I made the slip earlier because everybody was trying to get me to do an order of protection because my wife said she wanted to kill me.” I said to him, “What does an order of protection mean?” “She can’t come within 500 feet of you. How is that going to work? How am I going to take care of her then? That means I can’t go within 500 feet of her. I’m not doing that,” but then when he explained it to me, I was struggling. He said, “This is what will happen. I’m not the one that’s sick. You need to get up off of me. You have some issues you need to deal with. You’re trying to take it out on me because it’s you who had the problem.” Seeing a psychiatrist helped because I learned some things like DARVO where they will go through a phase, and you will hear it. First, there’s denial, anger, and then retribution. They become the victim and then the offender. It all fell into place. I said, “That’s what she said. I’m not sick.” The anger part or the venomous spurred out, and then the retribution, “You are this, that, and the other.” She becomes the victim now, “You are the one that’s doing this to me.” She’s then the offender, “You need to do this. You need to do that. You are the one that has the problem.” When he shared that with me, he said, “You’re mighty quiet, Pastor Ford.” I said, “This happened. This has been happening, and I didn’t know it. You’re telling me this. I wish I had known the things that you were telling me early on. I should have done my homework early on.” That’s what I would say to anybody who’s dealing with anyone that you even suspect that they have mental illness. If they’re amenable to it, get them evaluated and checked. You learn as much as you can about that illness. When we were taking care of her mom, I learned everything I could about Alzheimer’s. I learned that there are seven stages to it. All of this stuff made a difference. I said, “If I would

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My Twelfth Rose: A Story Of Love, Bipolar And Suicide With Pastor James Ford Jr. – Part 2

Podcast / September 9, 2023

Losing a loved one from suicide is a profoundly painful and complex experience that leaves those who are left behind grappling for answers. Pastor James Ford Jr. lost his wife to suicide after a long battle with bipolar. In this second part of a three-part conversation, he talks to Tina Fornwald about the experience of loving someone who is fighting unknown battles within themselves. Tune in and listen as Pastor James shares those difficult moments of persevering in love through it all with faith. Thank you for viewing this post. I am not a licensed therapist or professional life coach. I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others. Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/suicide/suicide-prevention-hotlines-resources-worldwide How To Contact Pastor James Ford, Jr.: Pastor Ford: https://www.facebook.com/pastorjamesfordjr/ Christ Bible Church of Chicago: https://www.christbiblechurchofchicago.org/pastor-ford-s-bio#:~:text=Pastor%20James%20Ford%20Jr.%20has,at%20Trinity%20Evangelical%20Divinity%20School Pastor James Ford Jr. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PastorJamesFord — Watch the episode here Listen to the podcast here My Twelfth Rose: A Story Of Love, Bipolar And Suicide With Pastor James Ford Jr. – Part 2 We’re going into part two of our conversation with Pastor James Ford regarding the unfortunate loss of his wife. I know this conversation will be helpful for you. Let’s get into a discussion now. What are some things that people don’t know about Pudgy that drove you to want to have this conversation? A lot of people didn’t know that she was bipolar, that she was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic, and that prior to her successful attempt at suicide, she had made seven other previous attempts. I’ll tell you about the first one because here I am. I was raised by my mama and my grandma. I was raised by women. There were a lot of things missing because there wasn’t a man but you get things when you’re raised by women that you can never get from a man. That is what I call a sensitivity. They call it empathy now. I don’t like empathy. Let me tell you why. Empathy means to fill in. Sympathy means to fill with. I like compassion because it means to be surrounded by. In other words, if you have an issue, I’m surrounded by your issue. Compassion is your pain in my heart. That’s why I like that word. God set the tone. As a pastor, one time, I saw a man jumping on a woman. I didn’t care whether he had a knife or a gun. I ran to protect that woman because that’s what you learn when you’re raised by women. You learn to connect not first to what a woman says, even though you have to listen, but how a woman feels. I do things for my Sugarbabe. For example, every third year in the first 100 days, I would do 100 ways and 100 days. I would get seven greeting cards and write original poems on them because that’s what she loved. I would make the poem up and stuff like, “I’m arrested by your godly personality and locked up in the prison of your love. The governor tried to give me a pardon but I turned it down. The parole board wanted to give me early release but I am forever a prisoner of your love.” She loved it. I’ve got hundreds of them because I would try to write her once a week or once every two weeks. That’s because she was my caramel mocha latte, hot, yellow, sweet, and smoking. How long have you been together for the first time? We were here in Chicago. We had been married for 24 years before she made that first effort. She slashed her wrists. I had come home, and she was sitting in bed. She put her hands down. I said, “What’s wrong?” She did that. I grabbed her, threw her in the car, and took her to Trinity Hospital. They got her sewed up and everything. They said, “We have to report this.” Once she was released and we got home, I was like, “What’s going on? Why would you want to leave me? Am I not loving you the way you need to be loved? I don’t understand it.” She said something so very profound. I know it had to be God giving her those words because it set me free. One of the things I found now that this has happened is as I’m dealing with individuals, most people look first at themselves, “What did I do that would cause them to want to take their life?” It’s the guilt and the idea, “I could have changed it.” Is there something I could have done? No. Let me tell you what she told me. Without missing a beat, she said, “Why are you making this about you?” That arrested my attention, “What do you mean? This is about me. This is something on the inside of me that’s eating me up.” At this point, did you know she was bipolar or suffered from this? Not until after this incident that we found out she was bipolar. She didn’t even know that. She just knew that this aching was happening. She said that cutting herself and watching the blood flow made her feel better. She said to me, “Why do you want to make this about you? There’s something on the inside. If Jesus can’t fix it, what makes you think you can?” It freed me up. I was more attentive after that. I’m going to be honest. My whole family knows. If you talk to Jerry, she will tell you. Her sister was spoiled rotten. We already figured that out with the roses, poems, and everything else. I could probably count on one hand how many times I told this woman no. If she wanted

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My Twelfth Rose: A Story Of Love, Bipolar And Suicide With Pastor James Ford Jr. – Part 1

Podcast / September 8, 2023

Psalm 86 says, “When walking through the Valley of Baca, leave a well in the valley.” We have all gone through those tough, dark moments in our lives. In finding a way to make it through, we have the power to share our stories to help others do the same. Pastor James Ford Jr. from Christ Bible Church has gone through the unimaginable loss of a loved one from suicide. In this first episode of a three-part conversation with Tina Fornwald, he tells us the beautiful love story between him and his wife—from the moment they met to overcoming divorce and finding Jesus Christ in their marriage. Pastor James then shares the transformative moment that took him from Pittsburgh to Chicago, from a drug dealer to a pastor. Thank you for viewing this post. I am not a licensed therapist or professional life coach. I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others. Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/suicide/suicide-prevention-hotlines-resources-worldwide How To Contact Pastor James Ford, Jr.: Pastor Ford: https://www.facebook.com/pastorjamesfordjr/ Christ Bible Church of Chicago: https://www.christbiblechurchofchicago.org/pastor-ford-s-bio#:~:text=Pastor%20James%20Ford%20Jr.%20has,at%20Trinity%20Evangelical%20Divinity%20School Pastor James Ford Jr. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PastorJamesFord — Watch the episode here Listen to the podcast here My Twelfth Rose: A Story Of Love, Bipolar And Suicide With Pastor James Ford Jr. – Part 1 We are in my hometown, Chicago, Illinois. Oftentimes, I tell you that the word hood means family. I am here in my hood and having this conversation with Pastor James Ford at his church here in Chicago. I want to warn you that this conversation can be heavy. This is a conversation about suicide. If this is a trigger or something you feel like you should not take part in, I ask you to refrain from reading this. If this is something that you feel will help you and will be welcoming and something that you can learn from, I encourage you to read this three-part conversation with Pastor James Ford. This information is impactful and informative, and I believe that you will find information to help you heal from the suicide loss of a family member or something that you are struggling with. Let’s get into the conversation’s part one now. Our guest is Pastor James Ford from Christ Bible Church. We are in my hometown, Chicago. Hello, sir. I’m well. You? I’m doing good. Thank you for allowing us to have this conversation. I appreciate your willingness to bring your voice to this conversation. We’re all going through the vicissitudes of life. It’s a part of life. When we talk about the gospel, the old preacher used to say that the gospel is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. For those of us who have experienced the loss of loved ones, especially our spouses, Psalm 86 says, “When walking through the Valley of Baca, leave a well in the valley.” The idea was that you’re in a desert place, and people would find water but then they would hide it. He said, “Don’t hide it. Put a sign up.” Baca means weeping. When going through the valley of weeping, leave a well. In other words, you came through and found a way to make it through. Put a sign up so that others can follow that and get their thirst quenched too. I believe that’s what we’re doing. We’re saying we have gone through some things. We have experienced some things. We want to as much as possible help others who are going to go through the same thing that we have gone through. You have defined the entire premise of the show from my personal loss of my husband, connecting with other people, and seeing the suffering, the loneliness, the inability to connect with other people, and the inability to be able to outright honestly share that weeping, discomfort, and the desire to connect with other people to understand what I’ve experienced, not to be a crutch that I don’t learn how to walk this walk on my own but every now and then, I want to tap into someone else who understands to have had that great love. Before we jump right into that, who is this great love? Let’s talk about how you met. I met my wife, Leslie Ann Ford AKA Sugarbabe, my twelfth rose, or my caramel mocha latte. I want to hear a breakdown of all these. Let’s go. She’s my twelfth rose. She loved roses. She got roses every week, sometimes twice a week. Fifty-two weeks in the year, she got at least 52 roses, not a dozen sometimes 2 or 3 times a week because she loved roses. I came up with this. He knew she liked flowers and he gave them to her. I want to make sure that they get an educated moment. The first time I did this, I don’t know where I stumbled on it but I said, “I love that idea.” I took a rose out and brought her eleven roses. She said, “Preacher, they got you.” I said, “What do you mean they got me?” “There are only eleven roses here.” I said, “There are twelve.” “That’s not Greek or Hebrew. There are only eleven roses here.” I said, “I beg to differ with you. There are twelve.” She said, “Why don’t you count them?” I said, “Put them up and I’ll count them.” She put them up, and I said, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11.” I pointed at her face and said, “Twelve. You are my twelfth rose because your godly personality and your beautiful spirit are greater than the beauty of all of these eleven roses.” Long after they become potpourri, you’re going to continue to blossom in the bloom. You’re my twelfth rose. I called

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From Mistakes To Miracles: A Transformative Journey Of A Jewish Birth Mother With Lori Prashker-Thomas

Podcast / July 6, 2023

Lori Prashker-Thomas, the author of From Mistakes to Miracles, shares her story of redemption, hope, and healing. Her story is deeply personal and explores her experiences as a pregnant and alone woman who considered abortion but ultimately chose a different path as a Jewish birth mother. Lori’s journey, as outlined in the memoir, showcases her inner struggles and the difficult decisions she faced during that challenging period. While contemplating abortion, she found the strength to make a different choice, which set the stage for her transformative journey. Lori’s story likewise emphasizes her resilience, courage, and personal growth as she works to rebuild her life and heal from her past mistakes. It also sheds light on the support and resources she discovered within her Jewish faith community, which played a crucial role in her journey of redemption, hope, and healing. Tune in to this inspiring episode and find your path to redemption, hope, and healing. Thank you for viewing this post. I am not a licensed therapist or professional life coach. I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others. Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country. — Watch the episode here Listen to the podcast here From Mistakes To Miracles: A Transformative Journey Of A Jewish Birth Mother With Lori Prashker-Thomas Our conversations have different twists and turns. Our conversation is with Lori, someone I met when I was going through breast cancer. She is not a widow or a widower, but she has experienced grief and you will find some of the things that Lori shares very helpful. Let’s get into the conversation. My guest for this episode is Lori. We have known each other for a long time. I’m not glad that she’s here for the grief part, but I’m glad to have the opportunity to speak with Lori. I’ll let her say hello and introduce herself. My name is Lori Prashker-Thomas. As Tina said, we have known each other for a long time. I’m not quite sure how long. Am I allowed to say how we met? It can’t be called real talk if you don’t talk. I met Tina doing a Picture Hope photoshoot. I don’t even remember what year, honestly. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015-ish. It is somewhere between 2011 and 2015. That is the window. I was on the outside of treatment when we met. I feel like 2014 or 2015 because I’ve been doing I Picture Hope now since 2011 and 2012, somewhere in there. What gives you hope these days, Lori? One of the things that gives me hope is my grandbaby. Tell us about the baby. Seeing her, watching life through her eyes, the innocence, and going into things with innocence do give me hope for the future. That’s one of the big things that gives me hope in this time that we’re living in. When you’re not doing the I Hope photography, what keeps you busy? I am a paralegal by trade. I am also the owner of the photography studio, ShadowCatcher Photography. I’m a wedding officiate, lead officiant, and Owner of Ceremonies by Lori. I am also a brand new author. I’m also a speaker and advocate on many different levels. Any of these ventures do they include everything that is Lori? What is it? Yes, it does involve who is Lori. When it comes to photography, I went to FIT. I got my degree in Fashion. What is FIT? Fashion Institute of Technology. Where is that? In New York City. I used my artistic abilities. I went to FIT originally for fashion buying and merchandising and hated it but didn’t want to leave. I loved the fact that I could dress a window but didn’t like the business aspect of it, which come to now, it’s all business for me, which is funny. Everything that I do does encompass a bit of me or a lot of me. I became a wedding officiant because friends couldn’t find a rabbi to marry them because they are a same-sex couple. I am a firm believer in love is love. I became originally ordained online and married them. This was before same-sex marriage was legal in all states. When I came back to Pennsylvania, it had just become legal and I’m one of the first wedding officiants to marry a same-sex couple in Pennsylvania. I am a romantic at heart. It does not matter to me what that looks like. I am just a sucker for love. That is a big part of it. I also did it because when my husband and I got married, I did not like our ceremony. We were married to a magistrate who was a friend of our families. We wanted to include my daughter, and he wouldn’t do it. He was not moving from that script. Whatever the script was, he used that as how he was doing it. I was never very happy with that ceremony. I married my husband, my best friend, and that’s all great, but in the back of my head, first of all, it wasn’t done by a rabbi. That was something that was always in the back of my mind, too, but he wouldn’t change. I kept saying to my husband for years, “There has to be something better.” I could never find anything better, so I made something better. I like that. I want to go back to a couple of things. If I heard you correctly, you went to college with this idea of what you wanted to major in. As you were there, you realized that was not what you wanted but you persevered and stayed. If someone was in college now and realized, “I don’t like this major,” what advice

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You Make Your Path By Walking: Restore Your Shattered Life After Losing Your Spouse From Suicide With Suzanne Anderson

Podcast / June 1, 2023

The brutal terrain of trauma and loss from suicide can be a challenging path to take. In this episode, Suzanne Anderson, the Author of You Make Your Path by Walking, walks us through her journey to restoring her life from trauma and loss because of suicide. She also explores the different capacities of resilience and how to embody them. She draws from her experience of losing her husband to suicide to guide us through making our path through these challenging times of loss. Tune in to this episode to learn more about some tools to set us through this journey. Thank you for viewing this post. I am not a licensed therapist or professional life coach. I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others. Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country. — Watch the episode here Listen to the podcast here You Make Your Path By Walking: Restore Your Shattered Life After Losing Your Spouse From Suicide With Suzanne Anderson This conversation is with the author Suzanne Anderson. She is allowing us to look into her life and she doesn’t hold back anything. She talks about the death and suicide of her husband, David. She talked about how her life was shattered. She spoke about how difficult it is to rebuild and what that looks like, but she also shares helpful tools on how you can walk your path by taking what she has to offer. Let’s get into the conversation now. — Our guest is Ms. Suzanne Anderson, the Founder of the Mysterial Woman, a Psychologist, Author, Coach, Leadership Consultant, and Transformational Teacher. Her pioneering work is in guiding women to awaken their full feminine and masculine strength, insights and practices from ancient wisdom, depth psychology, and modern neuroscience. Combining her graduate studies in Women’s Developmental Psychology together with her decades as a leadership consultant, Suzanne wisely guides women to awaken to the next level of consciousness and leadership capacity, making the changes in themselves they want to shape in the world. She facilitates global online programs, workshops, and retreats, and is the author of You Make Your Path by Walking: A Transformational Field Guide Through Trauma and Loss. She is the co-author of the triple award-winning book, The Way of The Mysterious Woman: Upgrading How You Live, Love, and Lead. Originally from Canada, Suzanne now lives in Seattle, Washington. She also provided us with an advanced copy of the book and we’re going to have a good amount of conversation about that. Let’s get into the discussion now. Suzanne, welcome to the show. Thank you. I’m excited to have a deep conversation with you. I am excited to have you here. Widowhood, we have Ms. Suzanne Anderson and we have an advanced copy of her book, You Make Your Path by Walking, because it is about our individual journey. I’ll let her talk about her book instead of me getting into that because I have a couple of little places I’ve read into it and we can’t get into everything because there’ll be nothing to read. However, I want to pique your interest because Suzanne told me she just started getting the final copy and has some events. Before we get into the discussion, I’ll let her talk about where you can find some things that she has going on. Thank you. I’m in the birth canal. The book comes out on June 13th, 2023. There is that feeling of sliding toward coming out and launching, which is a very exciting energy. Right before the launch, I’m doing an in-person retreat for the first time in over ten years from June 8th to 11th. It’s for women only and it’s called You Make Your Path By Walking Retreat. It’s meant to be a deep nourishment for women right now for what it is to be in the world the way it is as we come out of this pandemic phase. Some of us have been through some quite substantial losses during that time. We’ll be talking about my particular loss here in the show if the retreat doesn’t work for you. Although, I highly encourage it. There is something about being in person again that feels so good, but I have an online book launch and webinar that one of the local bookstores is posting on June 22nd, 2023. All of these things are on my website but thank you for letting me let women and people know about that. I wanted to make sure you had that information upfront because sometimes you can get lost in the conversation. It’s like, “Hold on. How do I get in contact with her? I want that.” I want you to have this upfront. Suzanne, thank you for being willing to share your story with the world and be able to not only share your journey but put it in a way that helps other people going through something similar. Tell us a little bit about your life journey. This is not the only book that she’s written, but this is the book that is geared towards grief. Tell us a little bit about how you got here. Perhaps just how I got to this book or how far back do you want me to go? I want you to go back to the genesis and bring us to where we are now. When they finish this, I want them to say, “I know who Suzanne is. I want to read this book because I’ve got to know who she is and I know I can connect with her.” I had a very circuitous life path. I had gone in many different directions, but I’d say a thread that I tugged on early in my life and followed was a desire to

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