PP 599: You Are Meant To Live An Epic Life with Nada Hogan
“We all have a choice to live a vision-driven life, regardless of what your circumstances are, so you can live an epic life.” –Nada Hogan
Don’t let the clouds storm up before your eyes. Whatever you’re going through right now, look for that silver lining and continue on with your journey. Today’s podcast is about a mother, a wife and an individual who grappled with life and became the heroine of her own epic ride. Her weapons? Forgiveness, hope and a vision-driven life. This is no fantasy nor empty words. This story is a proven anecdote that mirrors the real world. Listen in and discover how to win at life.
HIGHLIGHTS
02:07 Perfect’s Not So Perfect
09:55 Living an Epic Life From an Epic Loss
12:15 It’s How to Look Backwards
18:50 A Wave of Complete Forgiveness
27:08 Uncovering the Power of Acupuncture
35:50 Rediscovering Purpose
38:44 Take Care of You
44:32 You’re Meant to Live an Epic Life!
About Nada Hogan:
Living life is as hard as it can be. Yet, sometimes, life will meet you at crossroads. Nada Hogan chose to turn this contingency in her life into her own path to an epic life. Her failing marriage, the death of her daughter, the future of her son and the question of her purpose, were not stumbling blocks, rather a stepping-stone to where she is right now. Nada moves forward as a Dream Builder, Coach and a Life Mastery Consultant and an Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Practitioner. Had she given up on life, Nada wouldn’t have realized how great she can be. So today, she helps others realize that life is meant to be lived with forgiveness, hope and vision.
Website: https://www.nadahogan.com/
Email: nada@nadahogan.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nada-hogan-lifecoach
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nadacoaching/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NadaHoganLifeCoach/
Telephone: 651-245-8051
Inspirational Quotes:
“I’m not done with the grieving process. I don’t think we’re ever done with it. I think we …learn to live with it.” –Nada Hogan
“Joy is a birthright, living this beautiful life is a birthright.” –Nada Hogan
“If you can just share that simple smile or tell them something that makes them feel good… That is my purpose. That brings me more life than anything else I think that I have ever done.” –Nada Hogan
“It takes no more time to say something nice than it takes to stand there scowling when you can’t get through the line fast enough.” –Nada Hogan
“I think that was much more balance in the work, play and leisure…But it’s just work, work, work, work, work until you drop and … there’s nothing in nature that does that. If everything has to breathe and take a break, and we have to be able to take care of ourselves, we have to be so that whole thing, just push through that extra with it.” –Nada Hogan
“Whatever you are going through in this present moment, this is just what you’re going through now and there’s something better waiting for you tomorrow.” –Kim Sutton
“We all have a choice to live a vision-driven life, regardless of what your circumstances are, so you can live an epic life.” –Nada Hogan
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
“We all have a choice to live a vision driven life regardless of what the circumstances are. So you can live an epic life.”
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Kim Sutton: Welcome back to another episode of Positive Productivity. This is your host Kim Sutton, and I’m so happy to have you here today, and I am thrilled to introduce my friend Nada Hogan. Nada is an acupuncturist, transformational life coach, and host of Dare Ah New Belief Podcast. But Nada, I am so happy that you’re here to join me today. It’s taken me long enough to get you here. Not your fault mine, but I’m so happy to have you here.
Nada Hogan : It’s my honor to be here, Kim, I’m thrilled to spend this time with you.
Kim Sutton: One of the reasons why I love working with you is because I’ve seen it in myself and I don’t, that could come out really like stuffy and conceited, but I don’t mean it that way at all. That it’s our life experiences which get us to where we are today. I think growing up, and maybe you are the same way, I always thought I had a life plan. This is how it’s going to be, you know, I’m gonna do step A, then I’m going to do step B, in 30 years, this is what my life is going to be. Where you the same?
Nada Hogan : Absolutely, yeah, for sure, yes.
Kim Sutton: Within like, three years of graduating college, my whole plan was scrapped.
Nada Hogan : Yeah.
Kim Sutton: I mean we had a baby unexpectedly, and then living in New York City, I had no idea how much daycare costs, and I wasn’t prepared to find out that early. So everything just got turned upside down, and the most amazing way, but now here we are. What has your life journey been? And, I mean not the whole thing, you know what I mean? But how did you get here?
Nada Hogan : Well, you know, it’s interesting Kim, because as you are saying that how your whole life just got turned upside down. When I married my husband, 23 years ago, my second husband, I had two children from a previous relationship, married my second husband, we moved to the Midwest and it was that perfect relationship where people just hated to be around us because it was so wonderful. And then, when we moved out to the Midwest, I’m from Montana, they’re moving out to the Midwest was so different from me and I did not acclimate very well. And you could start to see our relationships start to deteriorate. I just slowly, slowly, slowly, things were just progressively getting a little bit more disconnected. But you’re busy raising kids and that’s your focus. So as life is going on, my relationship is falling apart. My 16 year old son had started to really go down a bad path with drugs and alcohol. And my 18 year old daughter was killed in a car accident that was no fault of her own, a man’s had ran a red light. And so everything in my world came to a screeching halt. I thought that I was at my rib end, with my husband and I having such a poor relationship and I knew that, I kind of assumed that we were going to get a divorce just because we were not doing well, and my son would be graduating high school, and two, well after my daughter’s car accident in one year so she could be graduate in high school, and then what would be my purpose? And my kids would be raised, they had talked about getting an apartment and moving out together, and I was going to stay in a place where I wasn’t really happy and race was just like, oh my God, I’m at a dead end and when am I going to do? And then my daughter’s car accidents happen, and they’re reaping, then really got flipped upside down. And amazingly things changed. I never knew that this was a thing, there’s post traumatic stress after an incident, and there’s post traumatic growth, and I just learned about this yesterday, and apparently that is what happened. I never knew a name for it, post traumatic growth, but things started shifting and changing in my life, in my husband’s life, and in my son’s life that you never could have predicted or anticipated, that came out of my daughter’s passing, which was incredibly curious to me.
Kim Sutton: I have goosebumps. I had never heard of post traumatic growth. But, it makes it, I mean it’s the beauty that comes out of the ashes,
Nada Hogan : Right, right, absolutely.
Kim Sutton: Yeah, okay. This is not related to dare his death, but you sort of got me curious when you said that the Midwest was so different from Montana, and I guess I had never thought about it before. I moved to the Midwest from New York City and that’s a stark difference. But, and I know this is just a random question to be asking, but what’s the difference? I mean, I think of Montana with being big open land and not very many people, but I have never been there. So it could be totally wrong, but what were the biggest differences that you saw?
Nada Hogan : Yeah, and it is, Montana is big and open land. But the biggest differences were, I really do think that the west is friendlier, and I don’t mean that bad towards people who live in the Midwest. And granted, I only live in Minnesota, so I only can speak for this area, but I could not make a friend, and I always made friends. I was friends with the daycare workers, I was friends with my coworkers, I was friends with my neighbors. And when we moved out here, we actually live out in the countries. I really don’t have any neighbors that are close, so that I understand, you know, why I didn’t get close to the neighbors, but I really had a hard time acclimating here. I just felt like I was always the outsider, and that was so hard for me to take because I love being with people, and I love sharing life events, and you know, just the day in and out struggles that, you know, raising kids and somebody bullying your child. And so you’re having another parent that you’re talking to, and you know, just the stuff, the day to day stuff and having that support system. So it’s colder than it was in Montana, if you can believe that. It’s just colder here to Montana, and it’s flat. So where we live, northern Minnesota is a little bit more filling, but this area is really flat, and I never realized how much I longed for the mountains, because I grew up right in the rocky mountains. So, that was a huge difference too. So, that part wasn’t good. And I think I really started taking that out on my husband because: “It’s your fault, you should’ve told me what I was getting into.” Well, it’s not his fault, it’s my fault, I could’ve researched, I could’ve learned a little bit more about the area before I decided to move over here, and yeah, but it was, it was a stark difference in the two places. So, yeah.
Kim Sutton: It’s crazy because there’s a lot of those stark differences are very much the same as what I experienced between New York and in Ohio. And it was really hard for me to acclimate in Ohio because a lot of the people, especially where I originally worked, it was my job that brought me out here. And where I live, a lot of these people have been together since elementary school.
Nada Hogan : Yes.
Kim Sutton: And they all know each other’s kid’s names, they all know all the teachers at school, they know the mayor personally. I mean, I don’t live in a huge town, but it’s not a small town either, it’s 40,000 people. But people knew the mayor, like the whole city council knew each other. So they’re all having conversations, talking about people that they’ve known since elementary school and I’m completely lost. And then they would be talking about tailgating at football games. And I’m assuming that they mean like NFL, but there’s no NFL team around here, and they’re talking about tailgating at the high school games.
Nada Hogan : (laughs).
Kim Sutton: That’s a thing that? I didn’t know that, people bring their grills and parents bring their beer to high school games. I mean, that was totally foreign to me. And they’re all talking about the players like their NFL stars. No, these are high school kids.
Nada Hogan : Oh, wow.
Kim Sutton: But I found it really hard to get even recognition at work because I was an outsider. I was the New York City designer in a community of small tab designers, and my opinions just weren’t accepted, and I’m not trying to play the blame game. That’s been a big realization for me in the last couple of years is, I can go ahead and I can blame everybody else, or I can look inside and see why things didn’t work out. And also in New York, I mean I was quite literally living on top of people, opened my door and there’s a door right next to it. Whereas here, Nada, I don’t know my neighbors names,
Nada Hogan : Oh, the heating on.
Kim Sutton: Somebody moves out of the neighborhood, a new family moves in. I mean, I can be in my office and they’re moving in to cross the street, and I never see it just because I’m not looking out the window. Whereas, in New York you hear every single bunk. I don’t miss that at all, by the way, just say, yeah, I can’t wait to get out into the country, but as entrepreneurs we have to make that decision to get out there. Following your daughter’s death, where did the changes begin?
Nada Hogan : Well. So, you know, I think the very first change, and it’s so funny because it’s 11 years, and I’m still coordinating all of these pieces together because I think, for the first year you’re just completely in shock when you don’t, this beautiful bond just knows what to do to protect it, and we just kind of go through the motion, and then the second year you kind of start coming out of it, and realizing what your new reality is. It still amazes me that after 11 years I’m still really putting these pieces together and really understanding how, what steps I took, and how I got where I am. And one of the biggest things is the day at the accident. That the more quick called and said: “No, you can come over and,” you know, “see your daughter. She was a donor so we”, you know, you can come over and see your daughter, you know, “before they do whatever they do for her to be the donor.” So, I don’t think they call it surgery. However they’re removing tissue and, the one’s driving over there was my husband and my brother in law, and you know, of course everybody is crying and were just stunned, and in a state of shock. But, I just kept looking up at this guy, this was in June, it was June 7th that the accident happened. And I kept saying, if you just popped your head out of the clouds right now, and told me you were okay, I will be okay. I can do this, but I need to see you just pop your head out in the cloud. And I didn’t even know the significance of that until Dara’s [inaudible], and I was speaking with a woman that I met from an exercise gym in the town I live in, and her son had passed away probably eight years prior to Dara’s passing, and they had come to the funeral, and I was saying to her, her name is Julie, and I was saying to Julie: “You know what? You’re gonna think I’m crazy, but I just know a Dara’s just would pop her head out of the clouds and say to me that she’s okay, that I will be okay.” And Julie look to her daughter who is now grown, you know, probably in her early twenties, and look to her and said: “No, you know, that’s exactly what happened after Brian’s funeral. When we walked outside, we looked up into the sky. It was a cloud that was shaped just like a fish. And that was Brian’s favorite animal is a fish, a fish was always representative for him.”
Kim Sutton: Oh, my gosh.
Nada Hogan : Yeah, yeah. So synchronicity, is that right? They’re just kept of these, these little synchronicities that added up to big synchronicities, then I didn’t know that at the time, cause you just don’t know. You really can’t connect the dots as you’re going forward, right? It’s always when you’re looking backwards and, so little things would happen. But the man that hit Dara, was 59 years old. And when Minnesota, when there is a death by vehicle, like that vehicular homicide, you have to go to court. You don’t have a choice, I mean, that’s just how it is. And so, the first time that I saw this man and, you just go to court, you stand in front of the judge, the judge says: “Do you understand the charges that are charged against you?” Then that person that’s being charged with whatever that charges said: “Yes, I understand.” And that’s it, and then you walk out the door. Well, I went there, and out to that court hearing, you know, as the very first thing that was going to happen, and now this is a year later, cause it took a long time, he had to do a blood toxicity report because he had toxic levels in his system, and so, it took a long time for all of those toxicity reports to come back. So, l caught he came out of the corner of my eye when he was walking by, and this was the part that was the most amazing to me, Kim. And now a year has gone by and I was well aware of what was happening. I wasn’t in that protected shocked shell anymore. And as wave of forgiveness just washed over me.
Kim Sutton: Wow.
Nada Hogan : Yeah. And it was not immediately, I knew that was Dara. I knew that was Dara. And then if I backtrack and go back to, I don’t know when I started saying it, you know, maybe a couple of weeks, maybe a month after the accident. But I would say why him? Because I knew he was 59, why him? And why Dara?. And I don’t even know where that question came from, but I always asked that question, why him? And why Dara? So when, when he walked by and this wave of forgiveness just washed over me immediately, I knew that was Dara. So there was this instant connection that physically she’s not here, but I have the strongest connection with her right now. So I know that energy of her is 100% absolutely here with me, with all of us. And then, oh, I just lost my train of thought, what I wanted to say on that shoot, I just lost my train of thought (laughs).
Kim Sutton: Positive Productivity, I have chronic brain floats.
Nada Hogan : So this was the thing, this is why I’m staying like 11 years and I’m still putting these pieces together because I was on another podcast and somebody was, you know, we were talking to, because this is my story, that epic life from epic loss that, you know, this my life that was just crap, that was falling apart, and you know, I felt like: “Oh, I’m the biggest victim in the world, in this place and they can’t make any friends. And my husband and I, and it’s all his fault, and my son is on a bad path, and if we lived in Montana, this wouldn’t be happening and blah, blah, blah.” Just all the crap that we say when we’re in that victim state. So that, to be able to turn all of that around from this beautiful blessing that my daughter gave, all of us, not just me, all of us, and her friends included also. But as I was saying all of that time, why him? His name is Bruce. Why Bruce? And why Dara? Why those two? I just don’t get it, because literally within, if she would not, the light was red for her, and the light had get an intersection. The light had just turned green. I mean just turned green. And we know this because there were witnesses, and it was 3:15 in the morning. So there’s, you know, very few people around that ton of traffic. But there was enough witnesses around, she just barely had gotten into the intersection. So had she waited one second, you know, or gone one second sooner, right, likely would not have happened. So it’s all of this craziness. So, as I’m talking to this other person on a podcast, it was like, oh my God, I just got it. I know exactly why it was him, and why it was her, because Dara was one of the most forgiving, passionate, loving, kind, considerate, let me love you underdog, and you are not alone, and it makes me want to cry. And people would say to me: “How did you raise such a beautiful girl? Because she’s so kind, and so love even still understanding all the time.” And I always said from the beginning, I can take no credit from that. This is her, this is her she came. So, you know whether that’s that old soul in her, I don’t know. But that was just her. And then Bruce, when I got to meet him, because after, you know, in the court, we got to talk to him and he got to talk to us a little bit, and you just knew like had beaten him up. We found out during court that he had Asperger’s, you know, and he was just so, he just reminded me of a whipped puppy, and I thought, and we got to forgive him, and we got to say to him: “We forgive you, and we never hated you.” But the way the court systems are, you can’t share that information with that person and that person can’t share any information to you. So, he couldn’t even say to his lawyer: “Would you please tell that family that I’m sorry.” Because then you’re admitting guilt, and the county attorney, or county prosecutor, I’m not that good with the law. Couldn’t tell his lawyer that we forgave him. So that poor man had to go an entire year carrying that heaviness of knowing that he took somebody’s life. And I don’t know if he was dead–
Kim Sutton: That was so wrong.
Nada Hogan : I know, yeah.
Kim Sutton: I mean, is there any say like, do you have any say, or is it just the government’s? Was it the government’s decision if he was going to face future consequences, like go to jail, or anything?
Nada Hogan : Yes, yes. Well, yep. So all of that is the government’s decision. Absolutely, there’s no communication. You cannot even communicate through the lawyers like that. At least, in a vehicular homicide, how this happened for us, no communication at all. And absolutely, you can suggest to the judge what you think shouldn’t have happened, but the judge ultimately has full control. And the thing that I love so much, I can’t remember this judge’s name as of now, she was a woman and we had asked her: “Please do not send him to jail.” Cause now he’s 16 years old. “Please do not send him to jail because it’s not about punishment, It was an accident, he didn’t mean to this thing to happen.” And is not going to serve anybody, would you, and I understand there has to be some kind of consequence. So, how about if he has to do community service, and he’s doing it, working in a soup kitchen, or doing something where he’s helping other people, and he can just do that in honor of Dara, instead of putting him in a jail cell and saying, you bad person because it wasn’t intentional. And the judge granted that, and she was so kind and I still remember her saying: “You have had no control in any of this, and this is the one piece of control that I can give you. And we will allow him to just do community service, and he has to follow certain guidelines. And if he breaks any of those guidelines, then there would have to be jail time.” And as it was, he followed everything that he needed to follow. So he never had to go to jail. But the saddest part is, a year later, he had committed suicide.
Kim Sutton: Oh my God.
Nada Hogan : And that was what we thought, when he had the toxic levels of Lorazepam in his system, he wasn’t taking that to get high. The suspicion is, that he had taken it in one town in Apple Valley, and he only had to drive like maybe 10 to 15 miles to his home. And that by the time he got home, that medication would kick in, and he could just peacefully fall asleep and end his life. But unfortunately, he had passed out at that stop light and ran that red light. So, and the only reason that we found out that he committed suicide is because somebody, and I want to protect the people who told me, it’s somebody who works in law enforcement called and said: “You know, I could lose my job for telling you this, but mother to mother, I think you need to know because otherwise you’re never gonna find out about this. But, that Bruce has committed suicide, and we do believe it’s because of the car accident.” Because his brother who was fully capacitated had talked to the police. Because the police call the brother when they found Bruce, and they said, you know: “Did he leave a suicide note? Was he suicidal?” You know, was there something, you know, “Do you have any idea why he would have taken his own life?” And the brother Larry had said: “A year ago, he had killed a young girl, and he just could not forgive himself.” So the beauty of Dara and us being able to forgive him, and Dara, I know Dara forgave him, but that’s what we always said, like: “We know Dara is standing at the pearly gates.” And when Bruce walks in, she’s like: “Come on in here and let me show you where everything’s at.” And you know: “Over here we have the vistas, and this is the lunch room.” And this is, you know, whatever it looks like in heaven. And it just made sense, it made such complete sense that Bruce really got to feel forgiveness and love in a place where he may not have felt it, you know, from somebody else. And so, what a beautiful blessing that Dara gave us to be able to forgive him because I didn’t, if you would’ve asked me, can you forgive him, the answer would be no, no, no, my God, no. You know, I’m going to yell at him, no. It was the absolute complete opposite of the moment I saw him in the same exact thing for my husband, the moment he saw him, it was an absolute complete forgiveness.
Kim Sutton: Nada, I have to say that I’d never, until this conversation, the whole thought of behavior killer, manslaughter had never crossed my mind. I mean, here in my area of Ohio, we get ice and we don’t have enough salt, right? So somebody could be going to work, hit that ice patch at a stoplight, and due to no fault of their own, hit somebody else. Like I’m not, I’m not trying to be a pessimist here, but if we have the same type of laws, that’s just like Bruce, I mean, but not the same but different, it’s no fault of their own. It’s not like a murderer who, you know, picks up a gun knowing that they’re going to go shoot somebody, this was completely just accidental. Coincidentally, I just want to share it with you that in 2008, that was also my major life changing experience, nothing like yours, but I lost my job, and I was really mad as I already shared with you, I was having trouble being accepted in the firm that I was working with, and it took me a good long while to forgive the people who fired me. Part of it, I had to put it out there, part of it was my fault, I was trying to do too much. As the listeners of the podcast know. And do you know Nada, chronic idea disorder, I was trying to build a business on the side, and I was only sleeping a couple hours at night, so I had made mistakes and my, I was married to my first husband, then we had also gone through a lot. So there was a lot going out that was impacting my job, and I ended up losing my job partially because of the economy, partially because I didn’t deserve that job any longer. But it took me years to forgive my boss, and I ran into her at the grocery one day, and it was after I had met my husband now. It was after I had started the business, and I realized in that moment that I had forgiven her because, had I not lost my job, I would not be where I am today. I would not be talking to you today.
Nada Hogan : Yeah. It’s amazing how that thing that builds so bad, and we’re thinking that just ruined my world, and my God, what am I going to do? Can be the one of the biggest blessings that ever shows up. So yeah, what a beautiful gift to be fired. And that’s not easy to say, but it’s the truth and you’re living proof of that.
Kim Sutton: I think my boss in the grocery were I ran into her, and we both broke down right in the grocery store crying. Like think, cause I told her: “If I hadn’t lost my job, I wouldn’t have met my husband, and I wouldn’t be doing what I did today. And I wouldn’t have my kids, my three extra kids.” That sounds sort of wrong, I didn’t mean three extra, my bonus children that we were not expecting ever (laughs).
Nada Hogan : (laughs) Yeah, yeah, aha.
Kim Sutton: Yeah, yeah. When she died, were you an acupuncturist then?
Nada Hogan : No, no. Actually, probably three years prior to her accident, my dad, who still lived in my town, I have this, you’re eating by your ears, had this chronic diarrhea that came on out of nowhere, just completely out of nowhere. And they ran every western medical test imaginable, and this went on from Thanksgiving all the way to Easter in April. All the medications, all the, you know, they tested for parasites, and prawns, and everything, there was nothing. So, finally somebody had suggested try acupuncture, and the God’s honest truth, and I didn’t know anything about acupuncture. That God’s honest truth, one treatment of acupuncture, and four days, five days, he was 100% back to functioning normal. Now my dad was older but super healthy, and he was 100% back to normal, no issues. And I thought, Oh my God, I love that, that’s magical. I want to be an acupuncturist like, call the school, there’s a school right here in Minnesota. I called to find out, and I have a background in occupational therapy, and so, I thought that there’ll be six months, one year at the most, no problem, I can handle that. No, it’s three years cause it’s a master’s program, have your undergraduate done, and then you have to go on and do this masters program. They thought there’s no way I’m going to school for an additional three years. I just forgot about it, I just let that go. Then after there is accidents, some time had gone by about nine months, and I kept thinking I need to do something to keep my mind completely focused and so occupies that I cannot fall off the deep end, and lose it, I mean like completely lose it mentally, and clean. Acupuncture just popped into my head, and it was probably two weeks before Dara’a passing when she had said to me: “Winning, you’re going to get a cool job again.” Because at that time I was doing behind the wheel driving instructor, as teaching kids how to drive, and I said: “I’m a driving instructor. You don’t think that’s cool?” She’s like: “No, that is not cool. Occupational therapy was cool. Driving instructor, not cool.” When acupuncture popped into my head, I immediately heard Dara say: “That’s cool.” So, I called the school, found out what I needed to do and then signed up, and put in my three years of time to get my acupuncture oriental medicine degree.
Kim Sutton: I had no idea that acupuncture required degrees.
Nada Hogan : Oh yeah.
Kim Sutton: Wow.
Nada Hogan : Yeah.
Kim Sutton: Had Dara not passed, do you think you would have still taken that path?
Nada Hogan : No.
Kim Sutton: Acupuncture?
Nada Hogan : Nope, absolutely not. Honest to God, my husband and I were just talking about this the other day because we’re still together. And like I said, we were in this really bad place, and I knew I was at a crossroads because Tommy only had one, Dara had graduated the year before, and Tommy had one year left to school, and he was, nobody knew if he was even going to graduate because he was in and out of school, in and out of trouble, in and out of living at home, moving over to a friend’s because he wouldn’t follow our rules. So, I was like, cool, I’ll just go and live with this guy who has a, you know, parents are real lenient, and I just knew that Dara and Tommy were going to move out, and I kept thinking, why? I’ll probably just move back to Montana, and that’s where their father is from too. So they’ll be, you know, they’ll probably follow and stay in Montana and that’s fine with me. That’s where my family is at, and what I was going to do? I have no idea. But I knew, I did not have to go to school and study for three solid years. Cause it’s also this summer, it’s not, you know, not just the nine month goal year, it’s also throughout the summer. And there was no way, and I knew it was intense. It’s a no, I don’t know where we would have ended up, but my suspicion would be, that I would be back in Montana, probably having some kind of low paying job, feeling like a victim and divorced, and my kids, you know, it’s hard to say what they would have chosen to do. But yeah, it was almost like that blessing from Dara. And I hope that doesn’t sound to your listeners, I hope that doesn’t sound like, Oh, I’m so glad that this happened to you because that means my marriage got better, and my son got better. That’s not how I mean that at all. I absolutely, if she was here, if I knew everything that I know now, and I could’ve been infusing that, and even into her life and my son’s life. Oh, what a beautiful blessing that would have been. But it’s being able to have that tragedy or that trauma, and to be able to harvest the good from that, because you can’t undo what happened. You can’t make that thing go away. So what is it that I can do that can make it better? How can I make it, how can I honor? For me, this isn’t how it came across. How can I honor my daughter, and carry her forward every day of my life? Because if I’m going to sit on the floor, and fall into this mush puddle of tears and snot, and because it’s the ugly cries, right? I mean it’s a nasty ugly cry. How am I honoring her? And I could hear her say that to me. I had walked by her picture. I just had family pictures on this one wall, and I would walk by that in one day. I just heard her say as I’m looking at her picture cryin, and I heard her say, if looking at your picture just causes you to cry and feel like this, then don’t look at me and tell you can look at me, and you can smile, and feel happy. And I heard that loud and clear, and I didn’t look at that at her pictures, oh, for at least a month. And maybe even longer than that because, I just couldn’t bring myself to not fall apart. And the message I got from her say: “That’s not what my life is about. Your focus is on my dad. It has nothing to do with my life, focused on my life, focused on what we did, focus on the joy that we had together and the wonderful stuff that happened while I was here on this planet.” And eventually, I was able to get to that point. And there’s times that, you know, I’m not done with the grieving process. I don’t think we’re ever done with it, I think we always, it’s not as raw, you learn to live with it. And there’s still moments where I will just break down and start crying, and I can hear her say: “Oh my God again, are you doing anything?”–
Kim Sutton: (laughs).
Nada Hogan : –And then I start laughing, and it’s like: “Oh, only for a minute.” She’s like: “Good, cause I got stuff to do lady. I got stuff that I’m doing up here in heaven.” So that was my really long answer to tell you, no, it would not be the same path at all Kim, I’m afraid to even think what that path would have been.
Kim Sutton: I launched this podcast in October 2016, and in July of 2016, oh, and I had been recording since June. By the time I launched I had about 40 episodes in the can, and a lot of those were launched before I had a complete meltdown in July of 2016, and I would have to say that I was recording in the blind, Positive Productivity didn’t, it sounded good to me, but I didn’t know what it meant. And then I crashed because I was sleep deprived, and I was giving yeses to everybody about myself, and I wanted to kill myself. And then I had my own big spiritual awakening, and it was out of those ashes that I figured out what my purpose is. But I had been giving myself yeses and passing out no’s like some of the big guru say to do, and I’ll come back to that in a second, then I wouldn’t have had that crash, and I wouldn’t know my purpose, or my purpose would have been entirely different. I had a podcast a couple of weeks ago, and again, I’ve said this before, forgive me to the awesome guest, I just can’t remember because there were a whole bunch of recorded, but the conversation was about harvesting purpose, and I had never thought about it that way before. Like we can think we know what our purpose is when we’re little kids, when we’re teenagers, when we’re fresh out of high school. But to me, there’s no way in heck that we know what our purposes until it hits a square in the face. What was your purpose before? And what would you say is your purpose now?
Nada Hogan : Oh boy. Well, honest to God, my purpose before was just raising my kids. That literally was like, cause I didn’t have, I didn’t know what my purpose was. So my purpose was just raising my kids, and right? And then I think sometimes as moms get ourselves into big trouble, cause less of those kids are grown up. Well, now I don’t have a purpose. So now, now my purpose is to share this message of how you can truly live an epic life from an epic loss. So, I specialize in working with people who have lost loved ones, they have come to terms with that loss. But now what’s my purpose? Now what do I do? But I also work with people who are just stuck, I’m just stuck in life, and that was me. That was me when Dara’s accident happened like, God, I wish it would’ve been somebody that fell out of the sky that said: “Oh my God, you can look at life so completely differently. You can do this differently, and with love, and joy, and enthusiasm.” Because, I heard that all my life, that joy is a birthright, living this beautiful life, there’s a birthright and it’s like, well, I don’t know where it’s at. I don’t see anybody doing it. It seems like it’s a huge struggle, and so that now is my purpose. Just to be able to help people realize, and I don’t care if it’s in the grocery store, if it’s just the clerk who’s having such a horrible day and you can just, at the grocery store who’s just sad, or mad, or whatever, if you can just share that simple smile, or tell them something that makes them feel good. Like you just, you look so beautiful today, you don’t look like very happy, but gosh, you’re so beautiful. Or I love your outfit, whatever. Just some you can help somebody to feel a little bit better. That is my purpose, and that brings me more life than anything else I think that I have ever done.
Kim Sutton: I love that and I love even just what you talked about with the grocery store clerk, because it takes no more time to say something nice than it takes to stand there scowling when you can’t get through the line fest enough.
Nada Hogan : Right, right, exactly, yeah.
Kim Sutton: Yeah, thank you. I don’t know what my purpose, I thought my purpose was to build marketing funnels and support my family, but I didn’t put the pieces together of how the automation could just help us get away from our business and back in the bed, and one of our mutual connections said: “I don’t know if you can use that expression, to be back in your business and back in the bed.”–
Nada Hogan : (laughs).
Kim Sutton: –She’s like: “People might take that, you know sexually.” Well, yeah, sure, you might have sex when you get back into bed. What I mean is, go to sleep. Listeners, I was sharing with Nada that yesterday, we were actually supposed to record yesterday, but there was a storm that went through. My Internet kept on shutting off, and I didn’t share with Nada yesterday that I was actually just exhausted, I couldn’t even put words together. I think I managed it for the five minutes that you and I were talking, but I really couldn’t put words together, and there’s no reason, and this is what I said I would get back to you. There are so many mentors out there who will say, just sacrifice an hour of sleep every night. Build your business, or you know, just put in the extra effort. But sometimes it’s not that way. I would have to say 99.9% of the time, you really just need to go take care of yourself. So, going to the acupuncturist, or going to bed, or taking a bath, or I’ve been actually binge watching Little House on the Prairie, while building campaigns lately. I haven’t really been watching it, I’ve been listening to it, but whoever realized how many awesome life lessons there are in Little House on the Prairie.
Nada Hogan : Oh yes, absolutely. There are so many.
Kim Sutton: I haven’t watched it really since I was single digit or low, you know, like a tween. Okay, I haven’t watched it in that since then. And just like any Disney movie, there’s a different lesson to be learned, or just a different entertainment value as a child watching any of these shows or movies. Then we use circle back and watch them as an adult. And I found myself just staring at the TV with my mouth wide open with a, wow, I didn’t catch that back then, but that was big.
Nada Hogan : Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things, and it seems to me that, back in the day when life was so much harder, we didn’t have the cars, just to jump into a car and take off. And then general, we just turn on a switch and we have heat, and we have light, when things were harder and it was, absolutely, early to bed and early to rise because you had to work with nature, and you had to work with the sun coming up, by the sun going down. And unless you had enough lanterns to see a lot in your house, you straighten your life down fairly easily, but you probably didn’t just fall fast asleep. And that was time when he would talk with one another, and you would pick to know about each other, and what was happening, and what are your dreams, and what are your fears. And not to the extent that we do it now, maybe, but it was so different that, I think there was much more balanced even though the work was physically harder. I think there was much more balanced in the work play and leisure. But now it just seems like with all the automation, and all of the ways that we can stay connected in technology, that it’s just work, work, work, work, work until you drop. And it’s like, no, there’s nothing in nature that does that. If everything has to breathe and take a break, we have to be able to take care of ourselves. We have to be, you know, that whole thing about, you know, just push through that other, that extra hour with it. I’m not in agreement with that. I treat a lot of people in acupuncture that do do that, and they’re so stressed out that something’s going to, yeah, and it’s usually, it’s your health, whether it’s your mental health, your spiritual health, or your physical health.
Kim Sutton: Absolutely. So one of the biggest Ahas to me, this is just that week, and this is gonna sound like a sad excuse. This is just that week when it can’t really happen in my life, but I was sitting there watching Ma and Pa, sitting around the fire just talking, and then I stare at my TV and I’m like, huh. When was the last time that we just sat around talking? Because they didn’t have TV, radio, computer, I mean, they’re talking, if they were going to interact, they didn’t, you know, that’s what they did. Paul playing his fiddle and they go outside, and sometimes I wonder, was the quality of life better back then than it is now? Yes, we have modern technology, and medicine, and more as far as that goes. But as far as social interactions, which would be better. Anyway, Nada, this has been such an incredible conversation.
Listeners, I hope that you have a different perspective, maybe a better perspective on forgiveness now, and how, whatever you are going through in this present moment. This is just what you’re going through now and there’s something better waiting for you tomorrow, but I would love to hear your comments. I know Nada would as well, so please head over to thekimsutton.com/PP599, can you believe that? Episode 599. And leave your comments below the show notes, and also go over to iTunes, if you’re not yet subscribed, please subscribe. Like comment on this podcast, Positive Productivity as well as Nada’s podcast, Dare Ah New Belief. But Nada, where can people find you online connect, get to know more, and work with you.
Nada Hogan : So my website is nadahogan.com and my email is Nada, nadahogan.com easiest way. Oh, I guess Facebook under Nada Hogan Life Coaching + Acupuncture. So, but email is probably the best.
Kim Sutton: Well, you’ve heard me say it before, but if you are trying not to burn dinner, if you are driving, especially after listening to this episode, if you are driving do not go right now, the show notes will be waiting for you with all of the links and how you can connect with Nada, again at thekimsutton.com/PP599. Nada, I just want to thank you so much again for being here. Do you have any parting pieces of advice or a golden nugget that you can offer to listeners?
Nada Hogan : Absolutely. We all have a choice to live a vision driven life regardless of what the circumstances are. So you can live an epic life.
