BW 157: Flight Canceled, Concert Disrupted, Rain Poured… And It Was PERFECT

[TRANSCRIPT BELOW]

 

What if everything that seems to be going wrong is actually working for you?

 

In this powerful episode, Emily shares three real-life stories where things didn’t go as planned — from canceled flights to a sick concert performer to rain ruining a theme park day — and how she turned frustration into peace, and setbacks into miracles.

 

LEARN:
✅ How to coach yourself through disappointment and chaos
✅ Why gratitude + mindset shifts change everything
✅ The truth about manifestation and belief after loss
✅ How self-coaching helped Emily create a dream life in just 2 years

 

 

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🔗 Mentioned in this episode:
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📅 Book a 1:1 Consult: https://www.bravewidow.com/consult

 

 

grief coaching, widow mindset, emotional resilience, manifestation, self-coaching, Brave Widow, life after loss, mindset after grief, travel disaster mindset, gratitude in hard times, emotional regulation, coaching success story, calm during chaos, flight canceled story

 

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TRANSCRIPT

 

Welcome and Exciting Announcements
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​[00:00:00]

welcome to episode number 157 of the Brave Widow Show. You guys, I have such a good episode in store for you today. I have been looking forward to recording this ever since I decided what I'm going to be talking about. But before I dive in.

Before I dive in, I wanna share with you some exciting things that are happening. First thing, if you are thinking about one-on-one coaching, I'm down to my last. Available spot. Once I fill this last available spot, we are going to a wait list and I am gonna start working on a group program that's coming out in August called the Brave Widow Academy.

So if you have been thinking about coaching, you've been delaying it. You've been like the amazing client that signed up yesterday [00:01:00] that said, Hey, I've been listening. I've been following you for a year and a half, and I decided it was finally time. To pull the trigger and set up a call with you. If that is you, it's perfectly okay.

But don't wait. Go ahead and sign up for a call because my coaching spots are almost full. And then I'm gonna also be focusing on Brave Widow Academy, which is that group. Program, and I'm excited about it. Also, if you join one-on-one coaching, you get everything inside of Brave Widow and you also will get access to the Brave Widow Academy at no additional cost.

So the Brave Widow Academy is a three K program over six months, so go to brave widow.com and schedule a consult call with me there. You're gonna get a roadmap of exactly the things that I recommend that you focus on to help you get unstuck, to help you [00:02:00] move forward. To stop feeling lost and lonely, and to start feeling guided and purposeful and connected.

Also, if you join Brave Widow Academy in this round, only you will be a founding member of the Brave Widow Academy, which is a very prestigious thing. So I have, I. Founding members of the original Brave Widow when I very first started. I have founding members of my mastermind that I hosted last year, and then we'll have founding members of the Brave Widow Academy and you will forever be memorialized as a founding member and as a founding member.

You get special Brave Widow swag, you get special loyalty alumni pricing, like all kinds of things when you become a founding member that you get for life,

it is amazing. It's fun, and it's bragging rights [00:03:00] for life, which is really cool. So if you're interested in coaching or the Brave Widow Academy, go to brave widow.com and sign up for a consult or get on my email list and you will find information coming out on the academy here in the next couple of weeks.

The doors are going to open the week. Of July 28th and we will actually open and have our first session on August 11th. So very exciting.

Personal Growth and Coaching Journey
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Okay, so I've shared on the past couple of podcast episodes that last week I was planning to go down to Miami to Key Largo to go to a retreat and graduation from the Faith-Based Coaching Academy where I graduated as an accredited and certified life coach just over two years ago. And. How much has changed in two years?

It's been amazing. And two of my brave [00:04:00] widow clients, Michelle and Lily, they were also graduating in June of this month. I, they ended up being referred to me by people in the Faith-Based Coaching Academy or by people who were part of the event two years ago. They were referred to me. We worked together and then I ultimately referred them back to the Faith-Based Coaching Academy because one of them wants to be a life coach and the other wanted to start her business as a, physical trainer and nutrition coach, and they both rightly are amazing people and are gonna have a huge impact.

And it was such a full circle moment. It was so amazing to think that just two years ago, I didn't even know for sure if I could be successful as a coach, if I was gonna be able to help people. I believe that I could. I didn't know for sure if I was gonna be able to do it or how that would work out, or who I would work with.

[00:05:00] And then to see two of my own clients standing up there in their graduation attire, it was just amazing. It also was amazing because just two years ago while I was there, I had put on my, we made these vision planters and one of my visions and desires for the future was romance. I wanted to get married again.

I wanted to find someone and I had no idea if I would, or how long it would take or any about thing, about how any of that was gonna work out. But it was a big topic during the retreat when I was there two years ago, and this year guys, Robert actually came with me to the retreat. My husband now took a week of vacation from work to go with me to.

This retreat to spend an entire day from 8:00 AM to 10:00 [00:06:00] PM with 90% Christian women in this group where we focused on our futures and what we envisioned and what our next steps would be. And it was just like this really amazing retreat. And he was there and I got to introduce him to so many people who were witness to me just two years ago.

Saying out loud I, I want to find someone, I want to have someone to share life with, and I am willing to believe that it's possible even though I have no idea how it's gonna be.

The Power of Belief and Manifestation
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And then I get to bring the manifestation of that desire, which is amazing, like God can create. So many miracles and so many wonderful things in our lives in what feels like looking back a short amount of time in the moment.

It might feel like a really long time, but looking back, it's pretty amazing to be like, wow, that was just two years ago, and so many other things have come to life [00:07:00] from that experience two years ago. I've talked about it on other podcast episodes, so I'm not gonna take a lot of time talking about that today, but the power of.

Getting very clear about what you want for your future, about believing that it's possible, even though the how it's possible is very, it's in the shadows. It's very unclear, but believing that it is possible and stepping forward in faith and taking the action in spite of fear and doubt and insecurity and all of those things.

What amazing blessings and things can come to fruition. And I'm gonna do another podcast episode about our beliefs and coming from a place of abundance over scarcity. Because I think about all the fears as widows that we have even around for one example, dating or finding love again, right? We tell ourselves all the [00:08:00] reasons why. We're gonna have to settle that person's not gonna be able to love us the way that we want, that they're not gonna understand that we're a widow that we have too much emotional baggage that, that we have to accept someone not as good as the person that we loved before. And. On and on, right?

Oh, we're older. We're outta shape, we're, we have kids now. Like whatever, we tell ourselves all of these things that aren't even true, and Robert has just been such an amazing example of someone who breaks through all of those fears that many widows have. This is the person who took a week of vacation to go with me to.

The National Funeral Director Association last October in New Orleans, who was willing to walk around and talk to funeral directors and pitch Brave Widow and talk about how I could help them. This is the person who has referred me, anyone for life coaching, leadership coaching, like he tells everyone about what I do.

[00:09:00] He took this week of vacation and sat through a. Retreat with me because he wanted to be supportive and to learn more about what it is that we do in coaching and what it is that we do to create a future for ourselves. And it's just amazing that as you hold belief for what is possible, it allows you to have a higher standard.

For what you expect and what you want in your life, and it allows you just to create this experience and relationship with someone who is more amazing than anyone you could have imagined, like. When I was dreaming about romance two years ago, I really wanted someone who would go with me to my real estate investor meetings, who would go with me to conferences, who loved to learn and just was really engaged in that.

And I really didn't know if I was gonna find somebody [00:10:00] who was driven like that, who was interested in that, and I never. Really would've imagined that I would have someone who was so just connected to what I do and in promoting what I do and helping to bring that to the world. That has just been amazing.

So anyways, that's gonna be a whole separate podcast episode because it is very powerful to recognize when we sabotage ourselves from having those types of things. So today, what I wanna talk to you about.

Real-Life Examples of Coaching Impact
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Is, I've had several experiences recently through, right before I went on this retreat this past week through the retreat, through traveling home, through the retreat of ways that.

I have seen how much I have changed because of coaching, whether it's getting coaching from someone else or coaching myself and how that's made such a huge difference and a huge impact on [00:11:00] my life. And I wanna share those as examples of not only how coaching has helped me, but also how as you learn how to coach yourself.

It's not that you don't ever have. Thought, negative thoughts that pop up. It's not that you don't ever have fear. It's not that you don't ever have those moments of but you learn how to get much quicker at pivoting, at adapting, at coaching yourself to be able to move forward. And so I thought recently I've had several of these experiences that were great real life examples of what I'm talking about with coaching.

A lot of times my clients think that because I've done so much work in coaching and I've done so much self coaching that I never have doubts and fears, like somehow, I just magically knew Brave Widow was always gonna work out as a business. Like somehow I always knew I'd be successful. I always knew I would find Robert.

I always knew [00:12:00] like whatever it is, that it was just easy. That I never have those moments of I don't know what to do. A fear of just being negative, having that negative self-talk. And so I try to share examples of times where I do still experience that. The difference. Is that I recognize when I have those unwanted thoughts, those intrusive, negative, overwhelming thoughts, and because I've practiced coaching so much, I get better and faster.

At being able to coach myself through that so I don't get stuck there. So it's not that you have enough coaching and your life is perfect and it's easy and you never have issues. You go through coaching to build up your skillset like a muscle. You're developing that muscle to learn how to navigate things more quickly, with more resilience with [00:13:00] more.

From a place of feeling at peace and feeling grounded instead of a place of panic and uncertainty. All right, let's jump in to some of my examples.

Luke Bryan Concert Experience
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So here in the last couple of weeks Robert and his son Chase and I went to a Luke Bryan concert, which was awesome, and for Chase's birthday, we'd bought this VIP experience where we could take him to see Luke Bryan, because Chase and Robert had planned on seeing Luke Bryan back around 20 20, 20 21, whenever COVID really started shutting down a lot of concerts. So several years ago they'd planned to go because of COVID.

The concert that they had tickets for was canceled. And then here we are a few years later, it's. Close to Chase's birthday and I convinced Robert you should go for the VIP experience. Come on, it's a little more expensive, but this is gonna be a memory [00:14:00] he's gonna remember for forever.

Like how awesome would it be to see Luke Bryan so close, see the beads of sweat on his forehead. He's singing these songs in this small private concert before the actual concert. How cool would that be? So we buy the VIP tickets and we go to this, they have this tent set up and we're like on the second row of people like Luke Bryan is so close, you can almost reach out and touch him.

Like it was really cool. It, as he comes out, he tries to sing and you can tell that his. Really straining, like it's really a struggle. And what he says is, I don't know what it is about this venue or Arkansas, the last couple times that I've come here, my sinuses, my allergies, I just go crazy.

And so it's just really difficult for me to sing and I. Just had this moment where I [00:15:00] was like, oh no. The first concert Robert and Chase wanted to go to got canceled. Then this concert they come to, and Luke Bryan can't even go all out because he is not feeling well and he really was struggling to be able to sing.

Like you could just see it on his face. And he did a great job, like he still performed in that private show, but he was very open in sharing, like this is just. A struggle, and I'm just gonna do the best that I can. And I don't know what it is about this environment, but it's it's a challenge. And so I could have, we could have in that moment been like, why me?

Why us? Why this place? Why of all the times, of all the concerts, does it have to be this one that he's struggling with? So instead of thinking that. I chose to feel was compassion. I chose to felt compassion for a performer who instead of [00:16:00] canceling the concert, which he very easily could have done, he decided to show up anyway and give.

The best performance that he could. And so we had the small the VIP pre-con. Then, an hour or so later, we go to the main concert and if you've been to a big concert, like the lights, the stage, it's also outside. It's incredibly hot and sweltering in Arkansas, and they're having to.

Dance around and jump around and move across the stage. And as I wa, as we watched Luke Bryan up on the stage, it was so obvious that he was really sick. Not just oh, my allergies are bothering me, but I don't know. He might've had a full-blown cold. Totally speculating here, but there were times he couldn't sing all the words to the songs.

There were times where you could really tell his voice was straining, and I just felt so much compassion for him, as did the people around me, which was really [00:17:00] amazing. And what the old me would have thought. Was like, oh my gosh, we paid all this money for these VIP tickets. This was an important event and thing for Chase and for Robert.

This was supposed to be an amazing concert and the artist is struggling to sing. And I did have the thought that came up that was like, ugh. I wonder why is this happening? Like why this place, why this concert? Like of all the concerts, what are the odds that this would happen? But I quickly decided.

To not live in that swirl of thoughts. I quickly decided oh man, look at this, look at this artist, right? He is he doesn't need to do any more concerts. Look, Brian's got it going on. He could probably go the rest of his life and his children's lives and never have to work again.

But he's here in Arkansas of all places. And man, he is giving it his best. And I just felt compassion for him [00:18:00] and appreciation and gratitude because he still showed up and I thought he did it. He could have canceled and he didn't. And what a blow that would've been, right? Poor Chase, the second time concert canceled.

So about three songs or so into the concert, Luke gets back on the mic. He's telling everyone that wasn't in the pre-con Hey, every time I come here something is going on. I don't know what it is, but my allergies and my sinuses go crazy. Like I, my voice for some reason does not wanna show up at this venue.

And he said, I've decided that I am going to refund. Everyone for the tickets that they purchase for tonight. And we are gonna do the show, the rest of the show the best that we can and have a good time. And you would've thought he was giving everyone like $10,000. Like everyone was so grateful and [00:19:00] appreciative and it was like thunderous applause, and I like Luke Bryan just fine.

But I will tell you after that concert, the respect and loyalty and appreciation that I have for him is tenfold what it was before, because he could have canceled the concert. He could have decided not to refund us like he did the whole show, like two hours. He did every song. He did the whole show the best that he could.

He showed up and he decided to refund everyone their tickets. How amazing is that? And because I had decided early on to not be resentful, to not get caught up in the swirl of if you were sick, you shouldn't have had the concert. Or of course you come to the one concert that's important to me, and then you only partly do [00:20:00] it because you're not feeling well instead of ruining part of the concert experience because I got caught up in all of that.

Because I decided to feel compassion and gratitude and appreciation early on. I had a wonderful time. The entire concert, it was amazing. I. And it showed me the power of choosing to feel gratitude, choosing to have compassion instead of getting caught up in my own negative thoughts and allowing myself to be a victim of myself really.

So that's the first example. I've got two more.

Universal Studios Adventure
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Alright, so after the retreat that we had in Key Largo last week, we, Robert and I decided to drive up to Orlando. And that I say oh, it's just like zip up to Orlando? No, that's like a four and a half hour drive one thing that's important to know about me is that many years ago. I was a very rigid planner like that is in my nature. I wanted to know, even [00:21:00] if it was a weekend at home, what time are we getting up? What time are we going to the store? What time are we having lunch? What time? Like I like an agenda.

I like times. I like to know what times things happen. Now. Being married to Nathan really broke me of a lot of that. Or should I say I'm matured and elevated myself to where I don't have to be super rigid with plans, right? Like I can be spontaneous. It doesn't ruin my day. I was so rigid with plans when I first got married that if we left at 11 when we had planned to leave at 10, I would let that ruin hours of my day.

I would just feel so discombobulated and so thrown out of sync with what was going on, and I would just sulk and be upset and it would just ruin a lot of my day. It's embarrassing to say that, but it's true. When I first got married between [00:22:00] Nathan having a family, going back to school and having a demanding career, I learned how to be spontaneous, how to be adaptive, how to be resilient, and how to have a rough outline and plan that allows for a lot of flexibility so that I don't get my expectations built up.

And then. They're not met, and then I get disappointed and it's just this like vicious cycle. Okay? But know that's still at my core. I like to know the plan when we're going, what time we're gonna be there, all of that. We had planned on driving up to universal. We had thought about doing it the night before.

Then we weren't sure exactly what time the retreat was gonna be over, so we decided to get up and leave early in the morning. I was thinking we might leave at six or seven in the morning, but we ended up leaving closer to seven or eight, I knew that it was gonna take us at least four and a half hours to get up there, depending on traffic, depending on if we need to stop and grab something to eat. And [00:23:00] so in my mind, I'm just ticking through the amount of time that we're gonna have at Universal, which is seeming like really slim.

So if we left around eight. We ended up getting there around 1230 or one. And when we first got there Robert knew some folks there that we wanted to go say hi to of, and when we got there, we realized they're on, like the complete opposite side of the park from where we are. So we get there we walk, we spend time walking all the way across the park, spend a few minutes talking with some friends, then we decide, oh, let's go ahead and eat lunch.

And in my mind. Even though I am totally supportive of what we are doing, I can't help but feel in the back of my mind like, wow, how long is this taking? This is taking a really long time. Are we gonna be able to ride the rides? Are we gonna be able to enjoy a lot of time here? Because it was probably close to two o'clock before we really started wrapping up all these [00:24:00] things to start going on some of these rides.

It also was super hot, like way hotter than I expected. So the sun's like beating down on us and we're getting a later start. The normal, we have a really early flight the next morning, like a 5:20 AM flight. Okay. So we don't wanna be there super late. So I'm just calculating in my mind like how many rides we can get to, I don't wanna feel rushed, but I also don't wanna be there till nine o'clock at night.

And all of the things. So we ride a few rides. It actually goes quicker than I expected and I remember as I was feeling like that. Internal buildup of, oh, are we gonna have enough time? And I really wanted to enjoy this, and I was hoping we would be here earlier. I just slowed myself down and I remember asking myself the question, how could this still be perfect?

That we're here at this time, that we have a [00:25:00] shortened window of time to enjoy the day? How could this still be perfect? And the answer came to me. I'm just kidding. There was no answer that came to me right in that moment. So we go, we write a few rides and we make our way over. We're at Universal Studios Florida, in case you're familiar, I.

We're not big rollercoaster people, so it was mostly motion simulation rides. 'cause I'm a big rollercoaster wimp and Robert is too, but mostly me. So we make our way over to the Harry Potter world and as we make our way over there and get something to drink, just like sheets of rain, like down pouring rain, and we hadn't planned for it.

Terrain that day. And so we're standing there under this covered area in Harry Potter World. The dragon that's that breeze fire is not breathing fire. And we're waiting. And we're waiting and we're waiting. So I can show him what it looks like. It's not going off. I don't know what was happening with it that [00:26:00] day.

And I remember standing there, no jacket, no poncho, and I didn't really wanna spend $30 for two ponchos.

Embracing the Unexpected
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So we're standing there. I'm like, how could this be perfect? How could this still create a perfect experience for me? And there were no answers. I. But instead of feeling frustrated, instead of feeling panicked, instead of feeling like, ah, why, I really wanted to have a good time here.

And now we're like getting rained out and I, we stand here and our shoes are, our feet are soaking wet, and we're like, bunched up with these other people. Oh, instead of getting into that, I just sank down into a place of feeling at peace and a place of being grounded and saying, okay.

This is our circumstance. How could this be perfect? And I just allowed the circumstances to happen. I couldn't control 'em, I couldn't change 'em, but I decided to still have [00:27:00] a positive mindset to still feel gratitude for the fact that I was even there, that I got to share with Robert some of my favorite things about being there.

A Rainy Day at the Park
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So we go to there's a really fun ride in Harry Potter's world, escape from Green GOs and it's an indoor ride. So we're like, okay, we're just gonna run through the rain, put our stuff in the locker and go ride this ride. 'cause it's all inside. So we go ride that and we come out. It's raining mildly, but not as much as it was.

We walk through a couple of stores and eventually the rain really starts to die down to where it's misting and then it's completely died down. And as we were walking around the park to go check out some other rides, I realized something. The rain cooled down the temperature of the park. So where we were boiling and it was the sun was just beating down on us and sweat was rolling down my back and I'm like, [00:28:00] oh, it's so hot.

Now. All of a sudden it felt cool and refreshing outside the rain also drove away a lot of the crowd. So we were walking around a park that was maybe a third of the people that were present when we first got to the park. So we actually ended up getting to ride all of the rides. We wanted to, at least once, we did another one twice.

We had plenty of time to go through the gift shop and pick out a few things for the kids and we. Got to have a fulfilling experience where we're like, yeah, we did what we wanted to do while we were here. We saw things, we enjoyed our experience, and now we're ready to go, have some dinner, go back to the hotel, get everything prepped, and we'll wake up at 3:00 AM tomorrow morning.

And so we walk out, we have dinner. At the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, which [00:29:00] was also a fun experience. It's a great food, a great environment. If you go through there and we got back to the hotel. It was maybe around eight or eight 30.

Reflecting on the Day
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It was just like all of the things clicking in place, and I remember just.

Analyzing what had happened that day, that of so many times where I could have been frustrated about the day, I could have felt rushed, I could have felt panicked, I could have felt frustrated, I could have felt resentful, and that would've ruined the period of time that I felt that way. But because I still had those thoughts, like why today of all days is it raining?

Why is it so hot? Why? Why are we running behind? And I wanted to get here early. Like all of those thoughts still came up. It's not that I just walked through it's gonna be fine. I think that's what my clients think happens sometimes. It's oh, okay, I'll just decide to be happy. That's not it.

That's not how it works. [00:30:00] So what we do instead is we ask, okay, how could this still be working out in my favor? How could this still be the perfect experience? How could this be something working out for me? When it seems so apparent it's working against me, it's not in my favor, but coming to a place of feeling grounded.

Feeling at peace and feeling gratitude, which is really important in grief and in life, is feeling gratitude as much as we can. Then we're able to enjoy our experience much more and to reflect back and be like, wow, I see now how that really was in my favor, how that really was working out for me. It's amazing.

Okay, the third experience here.

Flight Cancellations and Delays
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So our flight was a 5:20 AM flight from Orlando to Tulsa. And we were supposed to from Orlando, through Charlotte to Tulsa, and we were [00:31:00] gonna get home arrive at Tulsa at 11 and then drive home. So we'd be home at 1:00 PM something like that. On Saturday, so I wake up at 2:00 AM for, I don't even know what woke me up, but Robert's looking on his phone and he is our flight just got canceled.

Now I have traveled for many years for work and also for personal, for fun. And so I know there's an inherent risk. Anytime you travel, anytime you fly on a plane, there's an inherent risk that your flight's gonna get delayed. It's gonna get canceled. There's gonna be issues like. I don't know what the odds are.

If it's 50 50, sometimes it feels like more than that, especially if you're looking at summer storms that tend to blow through Dallas and Atlanta. But I know there's always an inherent risk. With traveling on a plane, you might have delays. There might be a mechanical issue, there might be a flight crew issue.

There might be another plane that wasn't allowed to leave. There might be air [00:32:00] traffic control, who's super busy, who can't get the planes with any of the land, like I have been delayed for so many different reasons. That I just, I know that's a possibility. But when he said our flight was just canceled, I was like that's weird.

Why They would just cancel our just cancel it like it was just canceled. So I pull out my phone. Tennis is like 2:00 AM We've had just like maybe a few hours of sleep at this point, and I noticed that our. Second flight said it was canceled and that it was pending rebooking and our first flight.

Was delayed. So our first flight had been delayed to, I wanna say 10 30, something like that. And it also was taking us to Chicago instead of Charlotte. But our second flight was still pending and I wasn't really used to it being pending normally American rebook shoe pretty [00:33:00] much automatically. We were just trying to figure out what was going on.

So we spent about an hour looking up different flights, looking up different options, and we had to go to Tulsa because that's where our car was. But I was looking at flights back to my personal air direct airport. I was looking at flights at Northwest Arkansas. I was looking at all kinds of different flights, like trying to figure out how could we still get home at a decent time.

I woke up a few hours later and. Realized that we were booked on a flight at 1230 to Chicago and then from Chicago to Tulsa, and I think we were gonna land in Tulsa around seven or so. So we would get home around nine or nine 30, just depending on what all happened. And I just remember a big, just a feeling of disappointment ugh, we had several things planned to do on Saturday afternoon, just.

Things that need to be done, errands that need to be ran, and we're like, oh, we're not even gonna get [00:34:00] home till nine or nine 30.

Navigating Travel Challenges
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When I was planning on getting home by one or one 30, and when I went to look at our 1230 flight, our first flight, the flight number for the plane that was coming from Chicago to Orlando to pick us up to go from Orlando to Chicago, that incoming flight was canceled.

So then I start worrying because I'm like how are we gonna fly out of Orlando if our plane's not even here and it got canceled and it's not coming? Maybe they swapped us out for another plane, maybe not. So we go ahead and get ready and we're debating what to do. I. And I'm sitting there thinking like, why?

Why? And I'm just a human, right? So I have those questions like, why this flight? Why me? Why? I just wanna get home, why? And I had this moment where I was like we got changed. Our layover was in Charlotte. Now our layover is gonna be in Chicago, so maybe something would've happened in [00:35:00] Charlotte, like maybe this is actually working out for you because something would've happened in Charlotte and.

I just remember thinking like, Ugh I'll never know, right? I'll never know if that's why this flight got delayed. All I know is my flight's delayed, and I don't even know if it's still happening because the incoming plane hasn't arrived and isn't coming. We try to call American and there's a 90 minute wait to get through American.

So we enter in for a callback and we just start getting ready, trying to come up with our backup plan.

Finding Peace Amidst Chaos
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And I remember as I was taking a shower and I was getting ready, having the thought of, am I okay with not knowing how this is working out in my favor? Am I okay with. Not looking up Googling Charlotte oh, flight to Charlotte.

Did it still go, did it, what happened in Charlotte? Did God save me from this big thing and there's a reason why my flight got [00:36:00] delayed, right? Am I okay with not knowing? And I remember like coaching myself on that and thinking yes, okay. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna look up anything going on with Charlotte.

I don't know if there's. Issues there or whatever. I'm just gonna be at peace and I'm gonna believe that this flight delay some way, even though it's not in my favor, is working out for me, and this is in my favor and this is what needs to happen. After we getting ready and we're just really just debating what to do we noticed that American Airlines is actually in the news.

You can Google it. Had a technology issue that started either late Thursday or early Friday,

and thousands of flights got delayed, many flights got canceled, and it just looked like a big mess. And so then we're wondering like, do we still try to go on this flight? Is this one also gonna get canceled? Is it gonna get delayed? And then we're gonna mix our next [00:37:00] layover. Do we try to book on a different airline like.

What? What do we need to do? Do we just plan to stay another day and rebook our flight for the next morning really early and hope that everybody has their issues worked out? What do we do? And so Robert and I debated back and forth on the different options and I finally just said whatever we decide, we have to be at peace with that if we decide to stay an extra day.

Then we have to be at peace with the fact that maybe our flight leaves at 1230 and it gets to Tulsa at 7:00 PM tonight, and we could have been on that flight. We have to be at peace with that. If we decide that we wanna take this flight, we have to go to the airport, we have to get checked in, and we have to be at peace with the fact that maybe this flight gets canceled, maybe it gets delayed again.

Maybe we gotta go rent another car and hang out in Orlando for another day, like we have to be at peace. With our decision and not look back and say, oh, I should have done this. I should have done that. Like whatever. This is a 50 [00:38:00] 50 shot here in my mind. And we were gonna wait for 90 minutes for American to call us back.

So we decided to go to the airport to see if we could talk to someone and figure out what our odds were that we were still getting on this flight. So we end up getting to the airport and. It was around nine 30 or 10 maybe, that we get to the airport and the line. All of the lines to talk to. The people at American in the ticketing area were backed up like super backed up, so we ended up taking our bags inside, but we kept the rental car parked because we weren't sure if.

This flight was actually gonna happen. There were people everywhere with their suitcases. There were people camped out. There were people getting annoyed and frustrated and everybody talking on their phones about these delays and cancellations. And I was just like, oh, this was not looking good.

I was grateful though that we got there early because had we waited [00:39:00] to check in at the normal time, we never would've made it. To the ticket counter to check our bags. So I remember deciding okay, we're just gonna talk to the people and see what they say. And they may not even know, like, how would a ticketing person know if our plane's gonna still happen or not?

So we wait in line with our bags, we get to the counter, and the lady is just looking super flustered. And so I just asked her, I was like, has it been a tough day? And she's oh my gosh. Like I could see her just really soften as I let her know I saw her and I saw the chaos and the craziness, and I wasn't there all about myself.

And I wasn't there to complain. I just, she totally softened and she's yes, it's been a really rough day. And I was like. I'm sorry. I was like I can only imagine with all the craziness, what your day's been like. And she just smiled and was like, okay, how can I help you guys? Like maybe it was a [00:40:00] tiny breath of fresh air for her where she felt seen in that moment, which by the way, is something that you can do to make a big difference in someone's life, especially someone who works in retail, food service, customer service.

People being able to feel seen in one moment makes a big difference. So we talked to her and she tells us that actually they did move us to a different plane. So we're still planning to leave at that exact same time. We get our bags checked. We had just enough time for Robert to take their rental car back to the rental place.

Get back into the airport. We got checked in. We had enough time to eat lunch. We had enough time to grab something to drink and head down to the gate, and that was overall pretty seamless.

Gratitude and Perspective
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And I remember commenting as we were making our way to the gate we're seeing all these flights that got canceled and all these flights that [00:41:00] got delayed.

We're probably pretty fortunate that we are even getting to go home today. I. There are lots of people who didn't get to fly who had no alternative path that they could take to get where they were going, but we get to be grateful that we are going home today and we get to be grateful that American ended up calling me over two hours after I had called them.

We get to be grateful that. American didn't answer the call when I called and that we decided to just go to the airport and have a conversation because we got there so early that we waited in line and we had the time to wait. We didn't get there and just start sweating instantly. When we saw how backed up the line was when we saw oh my goodness, we're gonna have to wait in line 45 minutes or an hour, or whatever it was to [00:42:00] get to the front of the line, like all the lines were backed up.

Had we not thought about that, had we gone at the normal check-in time, we. Probably would've missed our flight. We might have not made it, or we would've felt very stressed trying to get to the front of the line or rushing through security rushing to the gate, and instead we got to have a very peaceful experience.

Yes, we had concerns and frustrations while we were in line because we didn't know, but I refused to let that ruin that moment, ruin the time that I was there waiting because what I kept telling myself is we'll figure it out. Whatever it is, if it's not gonna happen, if it gets delayed, if we have to go tomorrow, it's not ideal, but we'll figure it out.

Like it's gonna work out fine. It's not what I would've chosen, but we'll figure it out. We'll get it, we'll get it done. It'll be fine. And because we did that, we got to have, mostly pleasant experience in the check-in line. We got [00:43:00] to. Have plenty of time to stop and have lunch to walk down to our gate.

We didn't feel rushed, we didn't feel panicked, like we had time to get there. We continued to have delays on our second flight and in our travels home when we planned on being home at nine or nine 30, we ended up getting home at 10 30 at night, and I was just. Exhausted and all the kids wanna see you and talk about your trip.

And I'm like hugging them and running to my bedroom to take a shower because I was so tired. But because I was able to coach myself and because I have learned how to not get caught up in the swirl and the panic and the frustration, how to manage myself through that, it creates a much more peaceful experience.

Coaching Through Life's Ups and Downs
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You heard me talk about a couple podcast episodes ago about how the goal in life isn't to be happy. It's not. [00:44:00] Sorry if someone told you that the goal in life isn't to maintain an emotional state of happy. The goal is to be in the middle, to be at peace, to be grounded, and.

Confident. And so I wasn't expecting to be in line like, oh, this is great. I'm still getting to go home. This is gonna be a good experience. No, my goal was as I was waiting in line, as I was waiting to figure it out, it's it's fine. We're gonna figure it out. And yes, it's annoying and it's frustrating that I'm not gonna get home when I thought I was and I'm just, we're just gonna have to figure it out, like it's okay.

My emotions don't need to be really high. Happy. Happy. And they also don't need to be really low oh, this is the worst thing. It's just gonna ruin my day. The goal is just to be in neutral, like in the middle, grounded, clear, at peace.

Join Brave Widow Coaching
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And so I hope that you have enjoyed me sharing these three examples with you of how coaching.

[00:45:00] Thought I'll use some coach speak, thought work, mindfulness, how all of those things have helped me, not just in grief, not just in life, not just in, very nuanced or specific things, but how I use those tools and strategies to coach myself real time through those so that my emotions don't swing up and down really wildly.

That I'm able to maintain a sense of peace. And a feeling grounded. And if that is something that you're looking for, then you should be part of Brave Widow Coaching because those are the tools and the strategies that you can learn so that your life doesn't feel like you're just constantly getting knocked around by really big emotions, but that you learn how to navigate them and you practice the skill.

Of being able to navigate them. It doesn't happen overnight and sometimes we [00:46:00] want it to happen faster. I do have some clients that are like, okay, I was able to coach myself through this, but man, that was hard. That took me like 15 minutes or 20 minutes, or I thought about that way longer than I needed to, and it's that's okay.

You are able to coach yourself. You're building up that muscle, you're building up that skillset of being able to do it. So maybe in the next time it won't take 15 minutes, it'll take 12 minutes, and one day it'll take five minutes, and then one day it'll take 30 seconds and you just get faster and faster at navigating the thoughts and the feelings that just wanna bombard you.

You also become skilled at allowing yourself to feel frustrated, allowing yourself to feel negative emotion and not letting it take you over. But being able to sit in the yuck of Ugh, this is so frustrating. I wish this wasn't happening. This is really annoying. I wanted to be home. I have so much to do.

I don't know when I'm gonna get to do it. And just that feeling of ugh. Then [00:47:00] after you allow yourself to feel it, taking a deep breath and saying, okay, we're gonna figure it out. It's gonna look different than I thought. We're gonna figure it out. If that sounds like something that you could use more of in your life, I would love to do a consult call with you.

As I mentioned, I have one spot left before we go to a coaching wait list, so go to brave widow.com today and schedule your consult call. And look out for more information coming out. I'm gonna drop some hints about the Brave Widow Academy over the next couple of weeks, and then I will really start sharing a lot of detail about what's inside.

But we are starting in mid-August when the kiddos go back to school.

If you're newly widowed and aren't sure where to start, you need the brave new widow's starter kit inside brave new widow. You'll find a starter guide to help you through your first few months. A quick start guide. You can share with family and friends so they know how to [00:48:00] help you. And a collection of some of the frequent topics that widows want to learn more about. To get the brave new widow series.

Just go to brave widow. Dot com slash start it's free and you'll get instant access. That's brave widow.com/start S T a R T. See you there.