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121. What's the Next Logical Step?- with Kat Wells
70 Plays3 years ago
Best Selling Author, Certified Hypnotherapist, and Master Life Coach, Kat Wells graduated summa cum laude from Texas A & M University and trained under Dr. Sue Morter, founder of Morter Institute for BioEnergetics. Kat is a certified Energy Codes Master Trainer and founder of Kat Wells International. She provides coaching, seminars, and workshops worldwide, using her knowledge and skills to empower individuals and organizations to realize their full potential.
Kat Wells life changed forever with her husband’s diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis, a disease with no cure. In the blink of an eye, she lost her love of 28 years, friendships and the life she had known. Trapped on the “widow’s bridge”, Kat was caught between the life she knew and the life that awaited. Through a series of “mourning miracles”, she crossed over into a new life where she found wholeness, peace and even a new love.
Get in touch with Kat Wells: https://www.katwellsinternational.com/
Get in touch with Kendra Rinaldi: https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com
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Transcript
Embracing the Present Moment
00:00:01
Speaker
If we can stay focused in the moment, in the present moment and just work with what's right in front of us and that allow our mind to go in the past and the what ifs or in the future, what ifs and just think of what in this moment, what's the next logical step?
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:23
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Grief, Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast.
00:00:31
Speaker
This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief.
00:00:47
Speaker
I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys. I'm Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now, let's dive right in to today's episode.
Meet Cat Wells
00:01:08
Speaker
Welcome to today's podcast. Today we have Cat Wells. Cat is a bestselling author, certified hypnotherapist, and a master life coach. And today we will be talking about a lot of things, primarily the topic of grief and becoming a widow not long ago.
00:01:32
Speaker
Welcome, Kat, to the show. Kat, Kathy, we were trying to decide. Kat Wells with us. So welcome. I mean, thank you. I love this format. So I'm really excited to help others who are going through this grieving because it's not something you can talk to anybody about. They have to understand and have been through it themselves to really be supportive. So I'm happy to be here.
00:02:01
Speaker
I'm happy you are. So let's talk a little bit about you. Where do you live? And let's go into your life because there was quite a bit of things that happened.
00:02:10
Speaker
Prior to experiencing grief in terms of death of a loved one or transition of a loved one, there were other life transitions that also caused grief in your life. So let's talk about your life and don't worry, I'll ask you all these little nuggets throughout. So just tell me where you live. Okay, right now I'm living in Texas, in the Texas Hill Country.
00:02:32
Speaker
Did you know that I'm also in Texas, Kat? No. I am. Where are you? I'm not in Hill Country, but I'm in Dallas. I'm in the Dallas area. That's awesome.
Life Transitions and Military Upbringing
00:02:44
Speaker
I'm getting ready to go there over Labor Day to see my sister. Well, we'll talk about it after we record it. We'll make sure to see if you have time over Labor Day. If I'm here, we'll get to meet. I loved when I get to meet my guests in person. That would be awesome.
00:03:02
Speaker
So Kat, so you live in Texas. Did you grow up here? Were you born and raised here? Actually, no. I lived here for a short time when I was young. My father was in the military. So we traveled. We moved constantly.
00:03:17
Speaker
What other places did you live in? What other places? All kinds of states around the US and also overseas in Europe and Germany a couple of times. Sometimes we moved once a year, sometimes three times a year. It was really back before people were used to moving about a lot.
00:03:38
Speaker
had its challenges, but it was also very, it helped me gain skills I couldn't have done otherwise, so. The aspect of having lived around the world, for example, gives you a whole other perspective about life, correct? Yes. It's amazing. I wish kids or young people had the opportunity to do that in their young life because we learned so much about how we're all connected and we're all basically the same.
00:04:07
Speaker
And our life might look different, like even from one neighborhood to the other in Texas, right?
Navigating Personal and Familial Challenges
00:04:14
Speaker
Every city has its own culture and its own vibe. And so when we realize we're all really in this together, it just makes life so much easier. And so, yes, I just think it was the hardest and the best thing.
00:04:28
Speaker
You're right about the hardest because every single time you move, that is also a transition. You're also grieving what you're leaving behind as you're then starting a new chapter in a new city, sometimes new language, right? New culture, everything. As a kid and as an adult, both, you know, it's hard to transition like that and moving. But at the same time, what you gained from those experiences
00:04:54
Speaker
Maybe most likely were tools that now equipped you for all these other things that maybe not in your life. Would that be the case, you think?
00:05:03
Speaker
Oh, sure. Um, every challenge we have just makes us stronger. And I know people say that all the time, but all the challenges I had in my upbringing with my father being a war veteran and alcoholic and, you know, just a lot of other issues at the time, I didn't understand that. But when we come from our higher view, we realize that each of those challenges just makes us more compassionate, more loving, more strong. And we know that.
00:05:32
Speaker
things are always working out for us, even if we can't see it in the moment. And so with every change I had, even as a child, I went, okay, an opportunity to begin again, let's see. And I actually kind of look at it like I always got a chance to try on a new persona to kind of just, you know, see who I was. Not really realizing that I didn't need to do that, but at least it gave me an opportunity to start over each time. And so I've been really good at starting over all my life with all my challenges.
00:05:59
Speaker
That is so interesting. So every time you moved, you're like, well, you know, it didn't work that well when I was like this in that last school. How about in this time, I pretend I am like the the jock, as they say, or the Atlantic one or whatever. Is that the type of personas you would kind of take on?
Exploring Identity and Self-discovery
00:06:19
Speaker
Exactly. You know, the thing about it in my coaching, that's what I help people with. Like we get to decide in every moment who we're going to be.
00:06:26
Speaker
There's nothing's fixed. If we understand how the conscious and subconscious work, we realize that, oh, wait a second. That's not me. In fact, I was just told that's what I was. What if that's not true? What do I want to be? And so that just makes it more exciting because you get to try on these different aspects. And moving just made it easier because I was starting in a whole new community where nobody had a story about me, right? It's the stories that people have about us that kind of create who we become or think we are.
00:06:55
Speaker
That is so key, what you just said, it's the stories others have about us, but also the stories we've created about ourselves that we then make it be our reality. And a lot of times we then struggle, like really, who am I with all these labels? Who am I if I were to remove this, this, this, that? And it just comes down to the core and essence of who we truly are.
00:07:20
Speaker
Right. Right. And that's love. That's who we truly are. Is love. That's our essence. Yes. It's our essence. Okay. So you came back. So after having lived abroad, you came back to Texas where you had grown up a little bit. How long ago have you, how long have you been in Texas? I call this my home. I've been here since high school. So many years. And I've traveled all over the world since I've traveled. I traveled for eight years.
00:07:49
Speaker
And that's all I did all over the world. And I still came back here. So, you know, it's, I'm not attached to anything, but I'm just really, it's, it's funny how, um, we have stories about where we should live or what we should or shouldn't do. And what I realized was what feels good. This feels good. There's no analyzing it.
Impact of Early Life on Relationships
00:08:13
Speaker
And someday maybe it won't, maybe there'll be another opportunity or something more exciting.
00:08:17
Speaker
But yeah. And that's okay. And that's okay. And you can move then. And you, that's a thing. You already know you can pick up and move cause you did that all your childhood. So you've done that. So let's talk about the other transitions that ended up occurring through your life. Um, that then got you then to the point of being married for 28 years after, but tell us about these other major life transitions that occurred in your life and how you navigated those. Oh, wow.
00:08:47
Speaker
Um, okay. Good question. Let's go to your childhood. You mentioned your father. So let's ask, let's ask Kat, little Kat, how did Kat cope with the aspects of, I don't know how old you were when your dad was already kind of dealing with alcoholism. What were some of the tools you used at that moment to be able to navigate the grief as a child or as a teen? I'm not sure how old you were, uh, living with an alcoholic parent.
00:09:17
Speaker
Well, unfortunately, my dad was very young when he went to war.
00:09:22
Speaker
And he was a POW, as I said. And so that'll happen before I was born. Can you say, what is POW? I'm so not literate in any of the war. Prisoner, prisoner of war. Thank you so much for that. I'm like, I'm not literate in the, in the, in those terminal, in the, but what do you call those when you say those were acronyms? Acronyms. Acronyms, yeah. I'm not, LOL is about as much as I go. Well, that's the best one.
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah, so he was a prisoner of war in Korea. And he was only 17 at the time. Oh, wow. And as you know, the more you know about how our brain works and how our development works, it was really, it's detrimental. But that's another whole story. And so I was born into that situation. They did a lot of things to try to help him, you know, like shock therapy and things like that. But what he went through was so traumatic. And of course, as a child, I had no clue.
00:10:17
Speaker
So I grew up walking around like it was a minefield because the simplest little thing would trigger something. And as a child, I felt like I was the cause of it. And so I tried to be perfect. So you mentioned minefield. So like, what, what did that look like that, that you felt like you were walking into a minefield, like not knowing what you were going to wake up to each morning, what mood he was going to be in. Is that kind of how it was for you every, every day, pretty much of your life? Yes. And that,
00:10:47
Speaker
And ironically, as children, we don't realize that's not normal. So I just thought that's how everybody was. And so I was the oldest of four kids. And so I actually, my parents were supposed to get divorced until my mom found out she was pregnant with me because she was having a hard time dealing with the issue as well, but they ended up staying married.
00:11:11
Speaker
for 35 years. Yeah. So, but anyway, um, yeah, so every day was a minefield and I got very hypervigilant and also the skills, I always like to look at what did I gain from that? And for me, I'm able to tap into people's energy. They can be a room away. I can be on the phone with them. I'm very sensitive to, and everything's vibration and I won't go into a lot of that now, but I could tap into it and I,
00:11:41
Speaker
I really am able to connect really easily with people because I'm so sensitive. So it actually serves me and what I do with my clients now, but at the time I was just trying to survive because it was a very violent reaction that he would have. And so it wasn't, it was just a minefield.
00:12:02
Speaker
And then as more siblings were born, there's four of us, he started going on tour of duty a lot, which was probably what saved us because he was a great military man. He saved a lot of lives. What he did in the military, he got all kinds of medals, two Purple Hearts. I mean, he was a great military man, but the damage that was created because of that.
00:12:27
Speaker
made it a real challenge to live around him. So anyway, that on top of moving from school to school. So I was having to manage a lot of stressful situations, but in the long run,
00:12:41
Speaker
At this point in my life, I know I can handle anything, so it served me through all the other transitions I've had to go through. All the other life. Now, did you feel as the oldest of four? I'm also the oldest of four. As the oldest of four, and because you had already kind of learned how to then walk into the minefield and sense the room, did you then feel like the caretaker of your siblings?
00:13:04
Speaker
Yes, and the fact that job was given to me by my mother in a nonverbal way, like you're responsible. In fact, my father would punish me if my siblings did something wrong. I was responsible for their behavior. And yes, and so I felt, I could see it coming. And I would say, get out of here, be quiet, do not say that, don't push his buttons. And as we got to be older, it was even more important.
00:13:33
Speaker
And so I became the protector in a way and I just realized that makes me really compassionate with people and I'm able to just really be in the space with them and help them move through their through their traumas that they've had because
00:13:52
Speaker
I've been in the minefield, you know, myself. And so anyway, yes. I love it. I love it when people, there's been several times in which I've had a conversation with a guest and just like you had like, wait, I just realized or it's like, oh, I had never thought of it that way. And isn't it so awesome how just how you said that nothing is
00:14:13
Speaker
like finite per se in our life. It's even that aspect of the self discovery that we're constantly even learning things about ourselves as we go along by the interactions that we have are like, Oh, that's why I am that, you know, it's, I love it's like,
00:14:32
Speaker
It's such a journey for sure. Now let's, let's then talk about, um, after then you're, you grew up, you, you came here then 18, you went to college or did you go straight to getting married? What was then after you turned 18, what was your life? Okay. So, um, at 18, I was, got married. So I went, I was working while I was in high school. And when I got out of high school, I had, uh, I immediately got married.
00:15:02
Speaker
And ironically, but not surprisingly, I married someone just like my dad. So I went through another four years of really struggling because he joined the military, but did not make it through because he got in boot camp.
00:15:19
Speaker
He ended up in a mental ward because he totally had, uh, there was a lot of issues going on that I was not aware of at 18 years old. I thought what I was getting into in this relationship felt familiar. So I thought I can handle this. I can handle this. I've already done it all my life. I can handle this. Yeah. So, um, it was a long four years. He was in, you know, in the military hospital for almost a year.
00:15:48
Speaker
And...
00:15:50
Speaker
And then when he got out, like my father, he became abusive. Because when we don't feel we have control of our life, we sometimes act out physically to feel like we have control. The frustration just has to come out. And if you don't know how to handle it, it comes out in ways you don't necessarily wouldn't choose, but it has to come out. And so at a certain point, I feared for my life. So I had to make the decision to divorce.
00:16:20
Speaker
This was how many years, four years? Four, yeah. 2022. The first years when he went into the military. So I worked for four years trying, like my mother, you know, I was just imitating what I saw growing up.
00:16:33
Speaker
make the best of a bad situation. That's not a good philosophy. Uh, not in that respect. There's other times that that does work, but, but, um, not in one in which your life is actually on the line to some extent. There's a point where you have to make a decision for yourself. And, um, and so I actually have a book coming out that tells a lot of the stories about all of this. It's coming out in March.
00:17:00
Speaker
Okay, that we're going to have to interview you again before then, because that would be awesome. Do you already have the title? Oh, yes. There's got to be something more. There's got to be something. Yeah. And we're working on the subtitle still, but the book is done. It's an editing, so it should be coming out in March. And it talks about, you know, how do you move through these types of things? And why do we do what we do? Not understanding how our personalities form, how our
00:17:27
Speaker
subconscious holds all these memories. There's so much to it that we don't understand. And so we beat ourselves up a lot of times because of the choices we make or the choices we don't make. And we're all doing the best we can with what we understand.
00:17:44
Speaker
So now let's talk about that. So we do the best we can with what we've got. We gather tools in order to know how to navigate through life. So let's talk about the tools you then started to gather then. Here you are at 22. You divorced your first husband.
00:18:05
Speaker
Did you at that point say, okay, now I've got these tools. You already knew the sensitivity component of it. You had gotten into this type of a relationship that you thought, okay, I can handle this. I've already lived with this type of dynamic. Of course, sometimes it's like, what is it?
00:18:21
Speaker
What's that saying of like repeating the same? What is a definition of insanity? Yeah, there we go. Repeating the same thing over and over. And sometimes that cycle continues for more than one time, right? Which, let's go into that.
00:18:40
Speaker
So, you know, here's one thing a lot of people don't understand our prefrontal cortex that really is not developed until we're almost 24 years old. And that's a part of our brain that helps us understand cause and effect consequences down the road. Well, I was only 22. So what does my 22 year old mind say? Oh, okay. Well, I know what that I don't want that again. So let's look at the opposite. Let's see. What was that?
00:19:09
Speaker
So that was an eight year marriage with someone who had, I did not know at the time, but later on found out that he had organic brain disorder, which.
00:19:18
Speaker
was caused by some trauma that he had when he was younger. And an interesting thing was, he seemed like a really kind person and all of that, but he was so withdrawn and he had so many other issues that he could not really be there in a relationship. He was just, he had his own challenges. And I went to get counseling, marriage counseling to try to figure out how do I resolve this? And finally, at that point I realized
00:19:48
Speaker
It wasn't them that was the problem. It was my lack of understanding. And so because I didn't understand how energy works, how our thoughts create and all of that, I kept attracting people that were into my life that were a match to who I was being in that moment. But my identity wasn't even mine. I was living the identity of my mother and my father without even realizing it.
Healing and Growth Through Therapy
00:20:17
Speaker
But because I didn't know any different, you know, we wonder why, why do people keep doing those things that they know aren't healthy, that their family is, you know, their family dynamic isn't healthy, but yet they repeat it because it's all we know. And we think it's normal. And so then,
00:20:35
Speaker
So I made a decision after that divorce. I thought, OK, it's got to be me. So what can I do? And so I got help. You know, I went to psychotherapy. I went and.
00:20:49
Speaker
One thing I did do, and I want to make sure I make this clear, I'm not saying never to get any kind of pharmaceutical help when you need it, because sometimes you do. But I was so determined because my dad was an alcoholic and my uncles were alcoholics. And I just didn't want to get attached to something if I could do it on my own. And so I told my therapist, listen, I want to do this without any drugs if it's possible. She said, OK, then this is what you have to do. You've got to be here this many times a week. You got to do this and this and this. And I said, OK, I will do it.
00:21:19
Speaker
And so I'm happy to say I was able to do that. And I didn't really have a reason for it except I wanted to figure out what I wanted to be really clear, coherent and understand what's my thought process that keeps putting me in these positions that I don't want. And of course, I didn't learn it at that time, but I was starting to get a glimpse of why.
00:21:42
Speaker
And I started to stop beating myself up at that point. And so I gave myself space and I said, okay, I'm going to live on my own. No, no relationships, no roommates, no anything. I need to have this space because I got married at 18. And then I went right into the second marriage, like within six months.
00:22:06
Speaker
And we all know how that usually goes. Well, you know, too, though, if you had been the caretaker, quote unquote, of your of your siblings, that's a role, you know, an identity identified with. So it does not seem too crazy that you went straight into leaving your home to then caring for someone else.
00:22:28
Speaker
to then ending that, to then care for someone else, right? Because that is the role you had identified with all your life as well. It's very common that people jump right into another relationship. It's not about not wanting to be by themselves necessarily. It's the fact of that's part of my identity is caring for someone else. Right. And so when I finally got someone else's perspective that
00:22:56
Speaker
I started to realize that what was happening for me wasn't unique to me. I went to one Al-Anon meeting just because it was suggested for me to try it. And I realized, wow, there's a lot of people that have these challenges. And they talk about codependency and all that. And I thought, OK. And here's something interesting. It's really very helpful for a lot of people. But what I noticed about myself
00:23:25
Speaker
was that I didn't want to keep talking about what was going on. I wanted to move on. I wanted to move forward. I didn't want to blame anybody. I know I kind of intuitively knew everyone was doing the best they can, but man, this is not good enough for me. That's what I was thinking to myself. It's like, how can I step outside of this paradigm and create something different? Like, is that possible?
00:23:51
Speaker
And so I stayed on my own for quite a while. And then I met my husband that I was married to for 28 years. We were together almost 30. So I took a lot of work. Okay. So I want to, before we dive into that relationship, I want to ask you, did you, cause you jumped into your marriage right after high school. Did you go to college during while those first four years that you were married for your first husband and then afterwards, or were you mainly,
00:24:21
Speaker
the role of wife during that time. I was, I was working sometimes three jobs, but I did not go to college till after my second divorce. Okay. That's when I started realizing what really mattered to me and taking care of myself instead of trying to take care of everybody else. I just thought, what do I want? Okay.
Transition to Hypnotherapy and Coaching
00:24:43
Speaker
So as you then are feeding cat,
00:24:46
Speaker
You're feeding yourself, feeding, that sounded like feeding a cat, not feeding a cat, feeding a cat, Kathy, feeding yourself, that you discovered then more of who you are. And then you found your now late husband, but tell us then about how you met and the shift now of the spouse you did end up marrying.
00:25:14
Speaker
Well it's kind of funny because I was out with some friends we were planning our class reunion and I met these two guys came in and they were together and one of them asked me to dance and then and I didn't realize at the time but my husband wasn't the guy it was it was his friend and later on Mark my my late husband asked me well they asked me to both asked me to dance so I danced with both of them
00:25:41
Speaker
And even though his friend was the one that I danced with to begin with, we went to eat something afterward and the other guy fell asleep at the table. And so Mark and I just started talking and we clicked. So that's how it kind of got started. But we weren't living in the same city. You know how Texas is, it's huge. It's so big, yeah. So we started dating long distance for about a year back and forth every weekend. And that's just kind of, it was just,
00:26:12
Speaker
He was a totally different kind of personality, came from a very stable home environment. And so it threw such a thing, I don't know. But compared to mine, it was very stable and a really big family. And so kind of how we met. And so when I ended up moving out of San Antonio, that's where I was living at the time to where he is. And that's where I started going to college.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yeah, so I moved down to Corpus and went to A&M and got my degree in education and became a teacher and taught there for many years.
00:26:46
Speaker
That's kind of how we got started. Now, how did you transition from being a teacher to then becoming a hypnotherapist and a master life coach? Did that come after Mark's passing or this transition or still this is while you're married in the 28 years? Well, while we were married in the 28 years. Well, interestingly, when I first started college, my intention was to be a child psychologist.
00:27:13
Speaker
and to be an art therapist, to work with children. But back before, quote unquote, the internet, we had to actually be physically in the classroom. So if a college didn't offer a particular program, you had to go to that college that did. And when that was Colorado and I was just newly married, so that wasn't going to happen. But regardless, that first two years I took psychology courses because I really wanted to understand how our conscious and subconscious works.
00:27:40
Speaker
Well, once I decided to go into education because I had a lot of miscarriages, so there's other losses that I had and I couldn't have children, I love kids. And I, and I wanted to be, I thought, well, I'll just be a teacher and I'll help children that way because a lot of those kids don't have the resources to get the support they need. And so, so anyway, so I studied the psychology for the first two years and got my, you know, a degree, my fine arts degree in that. And then I went on to get my,
00:28:08
Speaker
bachelor's in education and I am so grateful that I made that decision that my own challenges made me want to understand because when I took that into the classroom I was called the they called me the last chance motel for the kids that had lots of issues with behavior because they knew that if they because of my intention and my and my compassion for where they were because I totally understand it and
00:28:37
Speaker
Um, I was able to help a lot of kids who would otherwise be in juvenile, go to, they call it Judy. They actually go there, live there. It's like a mini prison. And I thought, Oh no, they just don't have what they need. And so it was awesome. Cause it feels like, Oh, you got so-and-so in your class and you got, I said, awesome. I love the challenge because I know what's going on with them. And so I'm so grateful that I made that decision to take care of myself because it allowed me to take courses.
00:29:07
Speaker
And rather than getting in my head say, okay, a teacher needs these courses, I just said, I want to understand why we do the things we do. Let me ask you regarding that part of being an educator and knowing that you could really be that turning point for a child's life. Now,
00:29:28
Speaker
some years later after having educated some of these kids, are any of these people in your life or have come to your life in some shape or form that you know where their life is like? Because I'm one of those that I'd be so curious to know how their life turned out. Has there been that? Yes, please, share, please. So there were, there's been several actually, and I'm gonna cry probably because that part of how much someone's
00:29:56
Speaker
someone's kindness can, and this is anybody's like, you just had that particular role as energy, but how it could just completely shift. And again, be that pivotal moments. It's just like movie. So yeah, sorry. I've been really fortunate because you know, as a teacher, you don't ever know if you make a difference necessarily right away, but down the road, because I taught fifth and sixth grade, which is kind of really hard time for a lot of kids. They're making that transition from being a kid that can do no wrong to their parent size too.
00:30:25
Speaker
a teenager that can't get anything right. And so that transition period is really important in the child development. And that's why I'm so grateful I took the psychology courses because I understood that. And I talked to them as if they were many adults, because at that point, that's what they were step and they think they are anyway, you know,
00:30:45
Speaker
oh yeah we all are at the age of two we already think we know more than our parents right exactly and in some ways we do that's the irony of it if you study the science behind that but anyway um yes i've had several students that will find me on facebook thank goodness for facebook and um i've met with one of them is actually a professor here now in san antonio at two different universities heading up women's studies and she is you know they've reached out to me and let me know how much what i did
00:31:15
Speaker
determine what they chose to do in their life. And that's the best gift ever, to see that you made a difference in a kid's life that was struggling. I had one young man, and it really surprised me. I had been out of teaching for a while, and I was having dinner at a country club in Corpus.
00:31:37
Speaker
When the kids grow up, I still recognize them, but it's mostly their eyes that I recognize. They say the eyes don't change. That's what I heard. The eyes don't change. They don't. They are the window to our soul. Is it not? Exactly. And it's truth. It's truth, really. And so I'm sitting there having dinner with some friends and my husband, and this young man walks up, and he's our waiter, and he's grinning at me. And he goes, hi, Ms. Wells. I go, OK. Fifth grade.
00:32:05
Speaker
I can't remember what year it's been too long. And so he told me his name and he goes, and this was a child who had bad experiences with school before he came to my classroom. He wasn't a bad, you know, labeled bad and I hate labels. He wasn't labeled bad, but he was not wanting to be in school. He refused to do his work and all of that.
00:32:27
Speaker
And so one of the things I did at the beginning of every school year is I would send homework home for the parents on the first day of school, which the kids love because their parents had to answer all these questions. And, and so one of the questions that I asked, which was so powerful because it told me so much about their family dynamic, their family home, what their parent, whether their parents were supportive of them or not, whether they were overprotective, whether they really didn't give them enough attention. And it was simply.
00:32:57
Speaker
If I were to call you in two weeks, what do you think I would be saying about your son or your daughter? That told me so much. And this is one child where the mom had said, you'll say you won't cooperate. He won't participate. Yeah. We're going to be struggling all year with homework and all that kind of thing. And I thought, okay. And they were parents were honest, which I love because they didn't know how much support that would give their child by answering that question. Honestly.
00:33:28
Speaker
And so I thought, okay, we are, this is, and I use those answers to really connect with the kids and see why, you know, find out what's, because there's an underlying cause, right? So we discussed it and we didn't discuss it. He didn't know what I was doing. I was just had a conversation with each of my students. So he started participating in class. He was having fun.
00:33:54
Speaker
He was feeling successful, and I never had any issues with him at all. He was a perfect student. And I didn't think that much about it, because he was pretty easy. I thought, OK, I don't know what the problem was, but this kid's awesome. And so I just kind of, but I remember his name, because he was just one of those lovable kids. But for some reason, something happened in his early years, which happens to all of us. Our personalities formed before we were six years old.
00:34:20
Speaker
So whatever's happened in our life with our family or whatever has really affected who we believe we are. And I'm not saying it's to blame anybody. It's just we don't know that that's how we form our personality. And then other people start, like we talked about earlier, adding the labels to it or the story. Yes, yes, especially. Yes, labels. That's another whole call we could do. But anyway, he had a great year. So I never thought that much more about it.
00:34:46
Speaker
Well, then when I showed up at the country club and I don't know what that was, 12 years later, 15 years later. It must have been much later because he was only 10 or 11 when he was in my class and he was 20. So it had to be at least 10, 10 or 11 years. And he's waiting on us and all of a sudden I remember, Sergio, you remember my name? I said,
00:35:07
Speaker
Don't ask me what your last name is. And I said, how are you doing? He goes, I'm great. I said, so what are you up to? And he goes, well, I'm graduating from college this week. So he stayed in school, right? We all know how college is, it's a commitment. And so what are you going to be doing? He goes, thanks to you, I'm going to be a teacher.
00:35:29
Speaker
Oh my god and I'm gonna cry right now seriously I said I didn't do anything he goes yes you did you still know and I thought oh my gosh thank you well not only that was everybody at the table was looking at me I was crying I was like
00:35:45
Speaker
Well, when I left the restaurant, I pick up my coat and when I got home, I put my hand in my pocket and there was, you know how when your kids, I don't remember if you did this, I don't know if you did this, but you make a note for your friend and you form it in a triangle. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:36:01
Speaker
Well, I found one of those in my pocket. Because that was a joke with, in my classroom, they were allowed to do it. They were allowed to do it, but they had to put it in their mailbox. And they couldn't read it until the mailman came in an appropriate time in class. And so they could write notes and stick it in everybody's mailboxes. So he did that. He made a note and stuck it. I can't believe he remembered that. Put it in my pocket. And it had written me a nice long letter about how much he appreciated
00:36:30
Speaker
that I saw him for who he was, that I didn't allow labels in my classroom. So beautiful, because you know, a lot of times, again, we do not know the impact we have on someone's life. Sometimes people
00:36:44
Speaker
probably not hear it because it will be in their eulogy. Exactly. Exactly. So how amazing to be able to hear it while you're living, not just as you're like observing your funeral and everybody's saying all these
Challenges of Mark's Illness
00:37:00
Speaker
wonderful things of how it is that you impacted, right? And we all have that opportunity of creating that change. So thank you for sharing that. Now,
00:37:09
Speaker
Let's jump now into your marriage and Mark and his diagnosis, and how long was he sick before he passed away? Before he transitioned, we already had... Oh, okay. Kat and I were talking about like, what word would you like me to search? Because I'd like to ask that to my guests sometimes, because sometimes some words may be triggers,
00:37:35
Speaker
And so I try not to use a word that may trigger someone else in that expression of someone passing. So that's why I'm like passing, in this case, transition. So let's talk about that. So I had, in two years' time, my father passed away young. He had been exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam. And so he was only 15.
00:38:04
Speaker
when he passed and my mom lived to be almost 80. But the year my mom passed away before she passed, she got cancer. And so I had lost my best friend. Was it your uncle or also, or your sibling? It was my, I lost my best friend, two other close friends, my brother-in-law who was only 51.
00:38:34
Speaker
And then my mother, all within a very short, like less than three year time span. So it was like one loss after another, after another. It felt like I barely got moved through the grief of one. And then, so at one point when my mom passed, I just felt like, wow, like I had just lost, like my whole world was gone. Like I just, you know, growing up moving. Okay.
00:39:00
Speaker
I have no friends. I don't have this. I don't have that. I don't have any, you know, I'm not on any sports teams. I don't know anybody. That's what it felt like. It felt like starting again, like starting all over again. And the aspect of people that have known you all your life, not being around anymore also is very daunting as well. Right? Like, yeah. Yeah. Okay.
00:39:26
Speaker
Yeah, because I didn't have a lot of continuity in my life. So those relationships were the few that I had. Were those common threads throughout all your life? Okay, sorry, continue. Well, what happened was my mom wasn't feeling good before she got before we knew she was really sick. She wasn't feeling good. So I was going to take her to the doctor. Well, then my husband said he had a doctor appointment too. And it was just the one building over.
00:39:50
Speaker
just a regular checkup. He didn't tell me he wasn't feeling great. He just said he was going for, you know, a physical. So he dropped me off with my mom and then he went to his appointment. When he came back to pick us up, we dropped my mom off and I told him my mom has cancer and it's lymphoma and it's really in the, it's, it's gonna, it's gonna move fast. And so
00:40:20
Speaker
At that same moment, he goes, well, I just found out I have pulmonary fibrosis. So on the same day, my mom and my husband got diagnosed. And again, I, I felt already kind of like I wasn't tied to anything. And then my, the floor just totally fell out. I think I was in shock for a while. Like, are you kidding me? The only two people left both got diagnosed today.
00:40:48
Speaker
So being the caretaker that I was, I just started making, okay, what do we need to do? And so for my mom was sick for about a year and then passed. My husband stayed pretty stable. They were surprised, but I said, okay, well, what can we do? And so I found some people that because his disease was not curable, they don't even didn't even know what causes it. They don't even know what causes it for sure yet.
00:41:16
Speaker
And basically it's your lungs start to harden and you can't breathe. And it usually, it can go on, you can, we had a neighbor across the street that was diagnosed and two days later he passed. So there's this thing where, well, you could live up to five years, but not likely. That was a diagnosis. How long, how long did Mark live with his diagnosis? About a little over three years.
00:41:39
Speaker
So, um, oxygen, then was he an oxygen towards the end? What was weird was he was fine. He was out playing golf and doing all those normal things. And I was sending him to friends of mine that do all kinds of different modalities of health, um, healing, right.
00:41:58
Speaker
And, and we won't go into it because it's a longer discussion, but there's a lot that we can do with our own mindset that can heal our bodies. In fact, we could heal ourselves completely if we understood how to do it. And we believed it was possible, but, um, so I helped him with that. And I think that's what gave him the quality of life for like almost three years. And then one day he went to go play golf and when he came home, he had a stomachache. And I said, what's going on? And he was not one to complain. Like he was very stoic.
00:42:27
Speaker
He goes, I'm just not feeling good. I said, OK, well, I had a client call. So I went and did that. When I came back, he was still sitting in the same spot. I went, uh-oh, something's wrong. And he goes, it just seems to be getting worse. And I said, where is it? And he goes on the side. And I said, well, it might be your appendix. So I took him to the hospital. This is at 11 o'clock at night. He finally agreed to go because it was getting worse. And took him to the hospital. They said, yes, he has a ruptured appendix.
00:42:55
Speaker
And so I didn't really know that that was dangerous or how dangerous it was. So they took him in like 11 o'clock at night, but they didn't operate till the next day at 11 o'clock. They held him there at this little, because we live out in the country, kind of out in the country. We're not right in San Antonio. We're on the outskirts. They kept him there at the emergency area.
00:43:19
Speaker
They said they were trying to stabilize him, but then they took him to the hospital and they didn't do anything until almost 12 hours later. Well, they finally did the surgery, but because they waited so long, it infected his whole body. He got sepsis. Well, they couldn't do anything for him. They put him on antibiotics. Well, first they sent him home. And when I got home, I could tell something is not right. I said, he's still in pain. Something is wrong. So they had me bring him back.
00:43:47
Speaker
And knowing that this is an hour drive from my house to the hospital. So this isn't like it's just, you know, and he's in pain the whole time. And so I took him back in and said, Oh, well, he's got sepsis. He's infected. It's, you know, the appendix infected his body. So they kept in there for several days with on IVs and doing all the things they do for that. And then they just sent him home. Well, then he started having problems breathing and they didn't,
00:44:17
Speaker
Um, there's a lot of things that now I know better, but I don't know, you don't know what questions to ask or what things you should be looking for. I was just looking at, Oh, appendix. I didn't think anything about its lungs. Cause I don't know. And at this point too, with the sepsis, because I actually had someone on the podcast talk about that, her late husband, uh, passed from sepsis.
00:44:38
Speaker
is that here he is with pulmonary fibrosis, right? Am I saying it right? Pulmonary fibrosis, that he also has a burst appendix and then at the same time steps as like, which one of the three do you ask about? If there are three houses on fire, which one do you tend to? Exactly. When you don't know anything about the houses. I'm not a medical person. I don't know any of that.
00:45:01
Speaker
And so I didn't know that I should be, and truthfully, that's something in our system that needs to change. They need to be offering information, not making us have to figure out what we need to ask because that's what they were trained to do. But that's another whole story again. But anyway, so then they send him home again, and then he started having breathing problems. And so that just kind of started the whole, what had happened is the sepsis triggered the pulmonary fibrosis and it just started filling up his lungs.
00:45:31
Speaker
And so then it was getting bad really fast. He was in a wheelchair. He was on oxygen all the time. He couldn't walk anymore. I had, he was bedridden. So I was full on full care, waiting, because the only thing that he could do to survive was have a lung transplant. Then once I realized that I went immediately, when the doctor said that, I thought, okay,
00:45:59
Speaker
I'm going to make some phone calls and see what I need to do. And before we left that doctor's hospital, I got... So this is how the universe works. When you're really tuned in and tapped in and really are in a place of... Receiving. Yes.
00:46:16
Speaker
Opportunities will show up if you're in that mode. If I would have spent all my energy being ticked off at the way things were handled, which I could have been, there's a lot of things that should have been handled differently in the bigger picture. But if I had spent all my energy focused on that, I wouldn't have been able to open and receive the solution, any kind of solution.
00:46:36
Speaker
So I make some phone calls and how often do you get a doctor that has somebody that canceled and you get right in. But I went right from one hospital to the University of Texas Hospital, Medical Hospital, where they train all these doctors, all these specialists. So they've got like the best of the best there.
00:46:53
Speaker
and I went in and the guy said yes he qualifies they did a bunch of tests they said normally it takes them you know weeks or months to do all these tests they did it in a matter of days they kept in there because he couldn't live on the oxygen issue it was just really accelerating and so they said well let's just keep him here and we'll just start doing all the tests he had 14 doctors 45 tests
00:47:19
Speaker
And finally they said, yes, he's in such a state. He qualifies for a lung transplant. We're putting him on the list. So, you know, in my story in the turning point moments, it's called widow's bridge because, um, in, in everything that was happening, I lost my train of thought. You're saying, and turning moments, which is the book that featured different authors and their stories.
00:47:49
Speaker
widow's bridge is yours. So you're saying in that, is that what you're kind of trying to, is that where your train of thought would be? Like what was it about your life at that moment that became that bridging point?
00:48:03
Speaker
It was really, actually I lost my train of thought because the widow's bridge was actually a part of after my husband passed. But what I wanted to share was that if we can stay focused in the moment, in the present moment and just work with what's right in front of us and that allow our mind to go in the past in the what ifs or in the future what ifs and just think of
00:48:28
Speaker
What, in this moment, what's the next logical step? So anyway, so little miracles started happening here and there. First of all, that I got in with the doctor. That's what I was going to talk about because there's a lot of miracles on the bridge as well. But before that, you know, the doctor that said, OK, come in right now. OK, let's keep do all the tests. OK, let's put them on the list. This all happened in a matter of days. And then it was just to wait, wait for a match. Well,
00:48:58
Speaker
We tried to bring him back home, Mark back home, but he only lasted a day or two and we'd have to go back in. He couldn't breathe again. And so I was calling the ambulance, you know, because he was a big guy. I'm six feet tall, but he was a big guy.
00:49:14
Speaker
And there's no way I could do that on my own. So I would call the ambulance, we'd go back up there. And then a friend of mine's brother was a respiratory specialist and he happened to live just four miles from my house out in Timbuktu, right? Cause we lived out on acreage. And luckily he had just lived right there. So he started being my husband's respiratory specialist, which was another whole story. It was amazing. So he was always available. He would come help me and get him in the car or get him loaded on his wheelchair.
00:49:44
Speaker
He knew how to take care of his lungs and how to give him oxygen and what percentages and all of that. So it was a lifesaver for me and for Mark. So then there was a point where he was in the hospital again. And I said, he's not going home anymore. And they said, what? I said, he's not going home anymore. I'm making a decision. I'm his medical power of attorney. And I don't believe that taking him home is possible anymore because every time I take him home, he's back here within a day.
00:50:14
Speaker
his oxygen levels keep going down. So they bring in another specialist into the room and they bring this new machine. Oh, this is the newest, best, whatever. I said the only time he feels comfortable is when he's on 100% oxygen in the hospital.
00:50:27
Speaker
As soon as I take them home, it starts going down, down, down because this portable oxygen is different. It's not the same as what the hospitals use and it's not the same percentage, whatever that mixture is. And the only reason I'm mentioning this is that I finally had to take a stand and not allow
00:50:44
Speaker
what everyone else believed to just follow what they said. And I said, I know for certain this makes a difference. And he said, well, let me show it. Let me go. I said, if you want to hook him up to the machines, I'll show you what I'm talking about. So he took him off the hospital oxygen, put him on his machine, and he goes, OK, well, let's wait. You go have lunch. I'll sit here with him, and we'll wait 30 minutes, and I'll show you. And I said, OK. And I came back. He goes, you know what? I've never seen this before. You are absolutely right. He can't leave this hospital.
00:51:14
Speaker
Thank you. Will you please let the doctor know? So the fact of the intuition too, and like what you're saying, it's like not always thinking, like we have to be an advocate for the patient a lot of times and not just thinking that everybody else knows better.
Journey Through Widowhood to New Beginnings
00:51:31
Speaker
Like a lot of times following that intuition, because you've been the person that's been with the patient, in this case, your husband, that did take a lot to take a stand.
00:51:42
Speaker
Yeah, especially when the doctors are all, you know, because, you know, everybody's had that experience that I don't even have to explain, you know, what I'm talking about. And so he confirmed what I thought. The other miracle was he, they found a match. They got them all prepped for surgery. They had to turn off his immune system, you know, because of rejection issues and they had to do some other things. Unfortunately, right as they were ready to wheel him into the surgery, the lungs that they had were not viable, were no longer viable.
00:52:11
Speaker
And so two days later, he passed away. I did everything in your power to be everything in your power. And this happened when? Four months. When did this happen? When did his transition occur? February 17th, 2018. Okay.
00:52:29
Speaker
And so it's significant for a reason. I have to say, you know, the widow's bridge was basically the, after that, the, there are miracles always happening, but when we lose somebody like that, we think that's the end. And it was something I had never been, you know, losing parents and sibling, you know, a brother-in-law and friends. Those are all devastating, but this was very different.
00:52:50
Speaker
I won't say it's worse or not as bad, but it's very different. It totally changes your whole life, especially when you've been living as kind of one, you know, for 30 years. And I never knew what to expect. I was able to because of everything I've been through, and I know we're running out of time, but I just wanted to say that I am getting married in two months.
00:53:12
Speaker
And my fiance's wife passed. We didn't know this at the time. We met two, we started dating almost two and a half years after our spouses passed. My husband passed away on the 17th. His wife passed away a week before. Wow.
00:53:30
Speaker
and she had a brain cancer. And so we have common ground. We both know that this is a unique situation. And anyone that's going through it, just do your best to find people that understand what you've been through because no one else really can. If they haven't been through it, they can be supportive and they can be kind, but they can't really support you in the way that someone who's been through it before.
00:53:58
Speaker
It's been four, it'll be four years. We're getting married in November. February will be four years for both of us. But there's not a timeline either. That's the other thing. Everyone has to go through their process. It's unique. Like you're unique. Your process is unique. Your challenges are unique. And all I'm doing in my work, it's not just necessarily with those who lost someone. I work with all kinds of people for different issues.
00:54:24
Speaker
I don't like the word issues, but different situations or yeah, is that you're fully equipped to deal with it. You have everything you need within you. You may just need some guidance on how to access it. I first started out with a psychiatrist because I was in such a bad space that I wanted to take my life. You know, cause I had lost so much and lost children and you know, just so much stuff before I met my
00:54:49
Speaker
you know, my husband that's passed, but just trust that there's nothing wrong with you. You just need more information. It's not like you need to be fixed. I love what you just said. There's nothing wrong there. You just need more information. I had never heard it in that way. Um, thank you for wording it that way because it does change the perspective. You need more information as to how it is. You can kind of navigate these different emotions that are coming your way or that you're being confronted with.
00:55:19
Speaker
So again, Kat, I am so grateful. And again, we will definitely have you back on again, because we have to go dive deeper into the book that you're releasing in March. So we'll have you back. And then in that, we'll be able to talk more about then your new husband as well, and talk more about the book.
00:55:40
Speaker
to reach Kat, tell us your website, and again, your author, certified hypnotherapist, master life coach, and you also specialize in energy codes as well. So many different things that people can reach out to you for. So tell us the website, and I'll link it at the bottom. Okay, the website is Kat Wells, Kat with a K, mindset mentor, M-I-N-D-S-E-T-M-E-N-T-O-R.
00:56:09
Speaker
Catwellsmindsetmentor.com. Perfect. Thank you so much. And again, I feel like I had so many more questions, but it will be to be continued, to be continued. So beyond the lookout for our audience, beyond the lookout for part
Closing Thoughts on Grief and Gratitude
00:56:23
Speaker
two of this interview, probably before March of 2023, we will launch the next one before the launching of your book. So thank you once again. Thank you. Thank you.
00:56:41
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief. If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone who may need to hear this, please do so.
00:57:10
Speaker
Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me. And thanks once again for tuning into Grief Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.