Kim Harms shares about Grief, Guild and Finding Joy | DFS 317

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:00

Uh, welcome to Destin for success. I'm your

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:04

host, Jennifer Takagi, and we have a delight today. We have

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:08

got Kim harms, and she's going to talk to us today about her

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:12

adventures on her path to success and what she's up to

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:17

now. Welcome to the show, Kim.

Kim Harms: 00:00:19

Thank you so much for having me. Jennifer,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:22

so tell me, what do you do? What do you got

Jennifer Takagi: 00:00:25

going on?

Kim Harms: 00:00:26

Well, I've been around the block in life and in

Kim Harms: 00:00:30

business a couple of times. I mean, I just, I've been there.

Kim Harms: 00:00:33

I'm 68 years old, so I've been around the block. And so I'll

Kim Harms: 00:00:36

start with what were my successes in business, right?

Kim Harms: 00:00:39

Well, I, I'm a dentist by trade. I learned to be a dentist, and I

Kim Harms: 00:00:43

had a very successful business in Farmington, Minnesota with my

Kim Harms: 00:00:47

husband, Jim, and I was the first woman president of the

Kim Harms: 00:00:50

Minnesota Dental Association, and I was a national

Kim Harms: 00:00:55

spokesperson for the American Dental Association for 21 years.

Kim Harms: 00:00:59

So professionally, yay. I have a really good professional resume.

Kim Harms: 00:01:04

I've done a lot of things outside of that. I was a school

Kim Harms: 00:01:06

board chair. I lead an international I was president of

Kim Harms: 00:01:09

an international women's group. I have libraries in Rwanda that

Kim Harms: 00:01:14

I've worked on. So I've got lots of other leadership things that

Kim Harms: 00:01:17

I was involved in. So that's, that's, that's my business

Kim Harms: 00:01:21

background, but that's not where I've had the most success. I've

Kim Harms: 00:01:26

had the most success, I think, in life, because I lost I lost

Kim Harms: 00:01:31

my mother and son both to suicide, which was a horrible

Kim Harms: 00:01:35

issue, horrible thing to try to, to recover from. I lost my job,

Kim Harms: 00:01:43

my dental job a year after my son died, because I had

Kim Harms: 00:01:47

irreversible damage to my drilling fingers because of some

Kim Harms: 00:01:51

neck strain that I had. And I'm missing fingers anyway, because

Kim Harms: 00:01:54

my mother took the lidomide. So I only you know by good hand,

Kim Harms: 00:01:57

let me down. Now, the problem was, at the time, I was the main

Kim Harms: 00:02:03

supporter of our family because my husband had just had liver

Kim Harms: 00:02:07

cancer and a liver transplant, and then our son died, and then

Kim Harms: 00:02:10

my brother, my brother died before that. So I just had a few

Kim Harms: 00:02:14

years of of just spending lots and lots and lots of time down

Kim Harms: 00:02:19

in the depths of the grief pit. I was down there for a long

Kim Harms: 00:02:22

time, and it's not a good place to live. And I had a situation

Kim Harms: 00:02:27

that occurred that really changed my life, a very simple

Kim Harms: 00:02:29

thing, and sometimes it's a simple things that can change

Kim Harms: 00:02:32

your life. And this was about two weeks after my son died, or

Kim Harms: 00:02:36

Sunday. Now our son, Eric, just have to say, was this amazingly

Kim Harms: 00:02:40

brilliant, golden boy of a guy. He was loving, kind,

Kim Harms: 00:02:43

compassionate. He was recruited by Columbia University for their

Kim Harms: 00:02:48

engineering program, and when he got to Columbia, he was elected

Kim Harms: 00:02:52

to student council at Columbia. He was a brilliant jazz pianist,

Kim Harms: 00:02:56

so he was playing with the jazz program in Columbia. He was

Kim Harms: 00:03:01

acting with the Barnard students. He was having a great

Kim Harms: 00:03:03

time his first semester Columbia, and with despite all

Kim Harms: 00:03:06

that, he even made the Dean's list. So he came home from his

Kim Harms: 00:03:09

first semester and he was on top of the world, like, who does

Kim Harms: 00:03:11

that, right? Who does that? He was on top of the world. And two

Kim Harms: 00:03:15

weeks later, his girlfriend broke up with him, and he was

Kim Harms: 00:03:19

gone in 45 minutes. So we went from the top of this just

Kim Harms: 00:03:24

wonderful, just wonderful, wonderful son who was on top of

Kim Harms: 00:03:28

the world, to gone. And it was such a shock for both of us. It

Kim Harms: 00:03:32

just completely shattered. My husband had shattered me,

Kim Harms: 00:03:36

shattered my daughters. And so two weeks after he died, I was

Kim Harms: 00:03:41

kind of first couple days back at the office. And I give

Kim Harms: 00:03:45

seminars all over the place about how to manage grief in an

Kim Harms: 00:03:48

office setting, because it's really hard to go back to work

Kim Harms: 00:03:50

when your brain is not functioning well, right? So I

Kim Harms: 00:03:54

was coming out of the office, it was difficult day, and I saw my

Kim Harms: 00:03:59

husband standing next to his cousin by the cars, and I walked

Kim Harms: 00:04:02

over, and they were having a very deep conversation. And to

Kim Harms: 00:04:05

my surprise, the cousin came over, wagging his finger at me,

Kim Harms: 00:04:10

a grieving mother right wagging his finger at me, saying, Don't

Kim Harms: 00:04:13

you ever let your remaining children feel that they are not

Kim Harms: 00:04:18

enough. And I just, I mean, oh my gosh, it just took me back.

Kim Harms: 00:04:23

Like, What? What? What are you talking about? But I realized

Kim Harms: 00:04:26

that he had lost his brother at about the same age, at about 18,

Kim Harms: 00:04:30

and he felt that he lost his parents at the same time,

Kim Harms: 00:04:33

because they could never fight their way out of the grief pit

Kim Harms: 00:04:36

they were down there for the rest of their lives. And he and

Kim Harms: 00:04:39

his sister felt that they were not enough. He felt he lost his

Kim Harms: 00:04:42

brother and his parents at the same time, and that shook me to

Kim Harms: 00:04:46

the core. It was like a lightning bolt that struck me,

Kim Harms: 00:04:48

because I have a husband who's just recovering from a liver

Kim Harms: 00:04:50

transplant. I had two daughters who were just, you know, in

Kim Harms: 00:04:54

emotional agony as well. And I thought, you know, I gotta fight

Kim Harms: 00:04:58

this. I gotta fight this. And I. Realize that living in the grief

Kim Harms: 00:05:01

pit affects everybody around you. So for the next few years,

Kim Harms: 00:05:05

and it took years, I wish I could say it was a something

Kim Harms: 00:05:07

that I could do quickly, but it wasn't quick, but it but it

Kim Harms: 00:05:10

worked. I fought, I kicked, I scratched my way out of that

Kim Harms: 00:05:15

grief pit. I got treatment for depression, and so the biggest

Kim Harms: 00:05:18

success of my life was getting out of the grief pit and living

Kim Harms: 00:05:22

in joy, which is where I am now. I still remember my my son is

Kim Harms: 00:05:27

still part of my life, and my husband, who just passed away

Kim Harms: 00:05:30

about four years ago, still a big part of my life, but I

Kim Harms: 00:05:33

learned to fight through that and live in joy so that I can

Kim Harms: 00:05:38

enjoy and be in the present for my six grandchildren and my two

Kim Harms: 00:05:41

daughters, and that's my success story.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:47

I My heart breaks for you, because I cannot

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:52

imagine the depth of your of your loss. I don't have

Jennifer Takagi: 00:05:58

children. Always wanted them. We couldn't have kids, so I don't

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:01

have kids, but I did lose my parents 12 days apart, which was

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:07

horrific. And I remember one time it was before my parents

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:12

died, a gentleman came to town from Washington, DC to do

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:16

basically an audit of our office. They swore it wasn't an

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:19

audit, but it was an audit. And so he we had known each other

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:25

for several years, and he said, How's it going? What's going on?

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:28

I was like, man, we found out my dad had kidney cancer in

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:33

January, and we started going to MD Anderson in March and back

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:36

and forth every other week for chemo. And then my grandmother

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:41

died, and then my 38 year old cousin died, and then we found

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:44

out my brother was ill, and he just died, and and he goes, we

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:51

all have years like that, but the good news is they don't last

Jennifer Takagi: 00:06:58

forever. And I was like, oh, so when you finish this audit, and

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:05

I pass, like, I can start over, which is kind of how it felt

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:09

when when they left the office, but I look back and there were

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:16

just like, those little pockets of a whole lot, um, and I I did

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:21

work in the Murrah Federal Building at the time of the

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:23

bombing, and I did stay home that day I was sick, and it

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:26

literally was voices from God telling me to stay home take

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:29

care of myself because I was sick. But I watched people

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:33

struggle with survivor's guilt, and I watched people struggle

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:37

that they felt that it was somehow sinful if they felt joy,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:41

when in actuality, your grief can become the sin. And so I

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:48

love that, that you were able to put it all together, even if,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:54

even if the catalyst for that was a hard slap across the face,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:07:58

verbally like that, you were able to do that. So if, if

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:02

somebody is struggling, and I love the fact that you call this

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:06

your greatest success, because you have had immense amount of

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:09

success in your life, but if somebody is in that place of I'm

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:15

trying to go through the motions, but I feel no joy. You

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:18

don't understand what I've lost, because it's not a competition.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:24

It's not we often feel like it is, and that I won, you won

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:29

right, like in that moment. But what advice would you have for

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:33

someone that hearing this because they landed here,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:38

because this was the message they needed to hear today. What

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:43

advice would you give them to be able to get off the couch and

Jennifer Takagi: 00:08:47

start moving and get into action? Well,

Kim Harms: 00:08:51

first, I think, just to know you're not alone, that

Kim Harms: 00:08:53

other people are been there, and we're all surrounding you. When

Kim Harms: 00:08:57

I lost my husband, I had a woman call two days later, and she was

Kim Harms: 00:09:01

forming a grief group of widows, because she's 85 and, you know,

Kim Harms: 00:09:04

the men were kind of dropping, they tend to go first. And she

Kim Harms: 00:09:07

had a lot of friends who were widows, so I had a group of

Kim Harms: 00:09:10

people who suffered through similar things. So find, find

Kim Harms: 00:09:15

other people that will understand you. Because, you

Kim Harms: 00:09:17

know, you go a little crazy in grief. I mean, you think about

Kim Harms: 00:09:20

things that you probably couldn't tell very many people,

Kim Harms: 00:09:22

but you can talk to people that have been through it because

Kim Harms: 00:09:25

they've thought the same things too. They've been through the

Kim Harms: 00:09:27

same things as well. So first of all, see if you can find a group

Kim Harms: 00:09:31

of people that will that are peers in your journey, that's

Kim Harms: 00:09:34

that's really one of the first things. The other thing is that

Kim Harms: 00:09:37

everybody grieves differently, and one of the reasons that you

Kim Harms: 00:09:41

know, my our marriage survived, because many marriages don't

Kim Harms: 00:09:43

survive when you have a loss of a child, right? Especially a

Kim Harms: 00:09:46

suicide. Oh my gosh. You know, the statistics are horrible. But

Kim Harms: 00:09:49

one thing that we did is we chose to accept the way each of

Kim Harms: 00:09:53

us grieved and respect that, and not to do any blaming we didn't,

Kim Harms: 00:09:57

you know, the a girlfriend broke up with them. Well, you know

Kim Harms: 00:09:59

what? Breaking up with someone is a normal thing in life. If

Kim Harms: 00:10:02

she didn't love them, she should have broken up with them. I

Kim Harms: 00:10:04

mean, that it wasn't her breakup that caused this, right? It

Kim Harms: 00:10:07

wasn't her breakup that caused this. And so if you blame

Kim Harms: 00:10:11

people, it's going to make it very, very hard to get out of

Kim Harms: 00:10:15

that grief pit. I think blame kind of pulls you down in the

Kim Harms: 00:10:18

grief pit. And you did mention God. You mentioned God a little

Kim Harms: 00:10:21

bit. So I just have to say, Bible tells us that the joy of

Kim Harms: 00:10:24

the Lord is your strength, and that we need to be joyful in all

Kim Harms: 00:10:27

things so. So when you think about the the guilt about being

Kim Harms: 00:10:31

joyful, you know there shouldn't be guilt. There shouldn't be

Kim Harms: 00:10:34

guilt in being joyful, and that, that is that, but that. But it

Kim Harms: 00:10:37

happens. It happened to me too. Like the first time I started

Kim Harms: 00:10:39

laughing after my husband, my son, died, or my husband died,

Kim Harms: 00:10:42

he was like, Oh, well, I can't laugh. I'm, you know, I'm in

Kim Harms: 00:10:44

mourning. Well, you know what? I think that one of the messages

Kim Harms: 00:10:48

that I have to my grandchildren is, I want you to laugh. I want

Kim Harms: 00:10:50

you to have a great time. I want you to enjoy your life after I'm

Kim Harms: 00:10:53

gone. And that's your legacy to me, enjoying your life. I want

Kim Harms: 00:10:56

to pass it on to you. So survivor, you know, survivor's

Kim Harms: 00:11:00

guilt is a false guilt, and you shouldn't be guilty. And living

Kim Harms: 00:11:04

a joyful life is beneficial to everyone around you. Now, do you

Kim Harms: 00:11:07

pop up in joy like right away? Heck, no, takes you, takes your

Kim Harms: 00:11:11

time, right? I mean, it's you know, you have to, you have to

Kim Harms: 00:11:14

process. There's grief that has to be processed, and that's a

Kim Harms: 00:11:17

long and painful journey. And I wish, when I lost my son and my

Kim Harms: 00:11:21

husband, I wish that I could, like, go to sleep, like Rip Van

Kim Harms: 00:11:23

Winkle and, like, wake up in 20 years, and I'm okay, right? That

Kim Harms: 00:11:26

doesn't work, even if you woke up in 20 years you hadn't

Kim Harms: 00:11:28

processed the grief. I became a grief counselor after I lost,

Kim Harms: 00:11:32

you know, my my job for because of my fingers and so that that

Kim Harms: 00:11:36

was one of the things I learned, is that is, you have to process

Kim Harms: 00:11:39

it. So give help if you need it. Get a grief counselor if you

Kim Harms: 00:11:42

need it. There's no shame in that. I'm treated for

Kim Harms: 00:11:44

depression. Thank God, I'm treated for depression. My

Kim Harms: 00:11:47

mother took her life. My son took her life. Hey, I'm, I'm

Kim Harms: 00:11:49

getting treated for depression. And I'm, I'm, there was a time

Kim Harms: 00:11:53

when I kind of thought, oh, you know, I'm feeling better. I

Kim Harms: 00:11:55

don't need this. And my doctor, and of course, I, you know,

Kim Harms: 00:11:59

didn't respond well to getting off my medication, my doctor

Kim Harms: 00:12:02

said, Why did you do that? I go, Well, you know, I don't, I

Kim Harms: 00:12:05

shouldn't be on this. And she said, Well, are you going to get

Kim Harms: 00:12:07

off your blood pressure medication too? And I said,

Kim Harms: 00:12:09

Well, no, no, that my blood pressure will go, Well, hello.

Kim Harms: 00:12:12

You know, you're, you're being treated for something you need

Kim Harms: 00:12:15

treatment for. So, so get back on that medication. And I did,

Kim Harms: 00:12:18

and I'm going to be on it for life. And you know what? It's

Kim Harms: 00:12:22

great because it helps me. It really does help me to live a

Kim Harms: 00:12:25

better life and to be present for my children and my precious,

Kim Harms: 00:12:29

precious grandchildren and and anybody around you. You don't

Kim Harms: 00:12:32

really have to have children or grandchildren. You need to be

Kim Harms: 00:12:35

there and available for whoever is in your life. And it's so

Kim Harms: 00:12:39

much better. So it's better for everybody else that you're out

Kim Harms: 00:12:42

of the grief pit. It's so much better for you. Living outside

Kim Harms: 00:12:45

of the grief pit is so much better than living in its

Kim Harms: 00:12:49

depths. So I just want to encourage you to fight, fight,

Kim Harms: 00:12:52

fight, fight, no judgment. There's no time limit on how

Kim Harms: 00:12:55

long it takes to get out, or if you can get out, but at least if

Kim Harms: 00:12:57

you can work your way up, you know from that bottom rung that

Kim Harms: 00:13:01

will be helpful

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:03

well, and I want to bring something up that

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:06

you mentioned, and that is the idea that you grieved the loss

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:12

of your job. You have this neck pain injury that has impacted

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:16

your drilling fingers, and so you literally lost your job,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:21

your career, your livelihood that you had been in for so many

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:24

years and so well accomplished. And I think people think death

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:30

or a breakup of a relationship are like the only things to

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:33

grieve. But there's grief of the loss of a dream. There is the

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:38

grief of losing your career. Sometimes I've seen a lot of

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:43

people in, like the law enforcement or firemen type

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:47

positions where you're basically aged out like you've been here

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:50

long enough it's physically not good for you anymore, and they

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:54

struggle, right? Because that's all they ever knew or did. And

Jennifer Takagi: 00:13:59

so it was like, Ah, so I just to the listeners out there today, I

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:04

just want to say grief comes in many forms, and we grieve many

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:09

different things, and I love that you need peers in your

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:13

journey. And I had a conversation with someone today,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:17

and grief actually came up in that conversation as well, which

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:20

is interesting. And she said, Be careful that you don't get in a

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:26

grief group where every week, a new person comes in and you have

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:30

to retell your story to the point that you're basically re

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:34

triggering yourself in to the grief pit. Like people pulling

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:39

you along versus pushing you down or holding you down is so

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:42

important, because there are groups for everything, including

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:47

helping you stay stuck versus helping you move forward and out

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:51

of the grief pit, this has been so helpful. So what are you

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:55

working on now? What book do you have? What course are you doing?

Jennifer Takagi: 00:14:58

Are they around grief? What do you got going on? On there?

Kim Harms: 00:15:01

Well, I have a few books that one is Naomi in the

Kim Harms: 00:15:03

widows Club, which is a devotional for widows. It's a

Kim Harms: 00:15:07

year's devotion. And now we have a workbook that are eight week

Kim Harms: 00:15:10

workbook to go along with that. But my main book that I've been

Kim Harms: 00:15:14

working on now, and if I'm out, I'm working on legacy building.

Kim Harms: 00:15:18

And so I have the book, are you ready? How to build a legacy to

Kim Harms: 00:15:22

die for. And it's the first part of the book talks about building

Kim Harms: 00:15:25

valuable legacies. And remember, the legacy is every interaction

Kim Harms: 00:15:29

you have with every person. So I'm not talking about money

Kim Harms: 00:15:31

necessarily here. I'm talking about love, faith, hard work,

Kim Harms: 00:15:35

all those legacies you can pass on to the people you leave

Kim Harms: 00:15:38

behind. The second part, it talks about death and dying. I'm

Kim Harms: 00:15:41

a death doula, and so I I work about, okay, what do people

Kim Harms: 00:15:44

believe about death and dying? Let's just talk about it. You

Kim Harms: 00:15:47

know, certain percentage believe I'm a Christian. I believe I'm

Kim Harms: 00:15:49

going to be, you know, be in heaven with my family that I've

Kim Harms: 00:15:52

lost. There are people that believe in reincarnation. There

Kim Harms: 00:15:55

lots and lots of beliefs about death. So I just talk about

Kim Harms: 00:15:58

them. And, you know, we can't judge those beliefs, because

Kim Harms: 00:16:00

who? No, we don't. We're, heck, we night. We aren't going to

Kim Harms: 00:16:02

know until you know, until the time comes right. So hey, I'm

Kim Harms: 00:16:05

sticking with mine. I think I'm right, but we'll see. And then,

Kim Harms: 00:16:08

then the last part is a deep dive into all the things you

Kim Harms: 00:16:13

need to do so that when you pass away, your your survivors can

Kim Harms: 00:16:18

just come into one place and have everything ready. I talked

Kim Harms: 00:16:22

about the development of a legacy book, where you have a

Kim Harms: 00:16:24

three ring binder and page protectors, and you have, at

Kim Harms: 00:16:27

least, if you don't have your Will there, at least where the

Kim Harms: 00:16:29

will is. So if you don't have something in the binder, you

Kim Harms: 00:16:32

identify where it is, and you have everything right there. I

Kim Harms: 00:16:35

have my birth certificate, my titles to my car, all the

Kim Harms: 00:16:38

information about my my house, all the all the information that

Kim Harms: 00:16:42

you need, passwords and so on and so forth. It's a long list

Kim Harms: 00:16:45

of information so that when you pass away, your loved ones can

Kim Harms: 00:16:49

come instead of trying to go through all of your closets and

Kim Harms: 00:16:53

so on to find your papers. My husband, by the way, had his

Kim Harms: 00:16:56

file system was in paper Bay, plastic bags that kind of looked

Kim Harms: 00:17:00

like maybe garbage bags, you know, with important stuff in

Kim Harms: 00:17:02

there. So, you know, don't do that. Get it all organized and

Kim Harms: 00:17:05

filed so that, luckily I knew luckily I knew it. I've been

Kim Harms: 00:17:07

married to him for 44 years. I knew his system and I had kind

Kim Harms: 00:17:10

of arranged things. But just show it's a greatest act of love

Kim Harms: 00:17:15

you can show for your kids is to prepare them for a time when

Kim Harms: 00:17:18

they when, when you're no longer there, and also prepare them

Kim Harms: 00:17:21

emotionally. In fact, I had just a quick little story my my

Kim Harms: 00:17:24

little granddaughter the other day said, you know, Nana? And I

Kim Harms: 00:17:27

said, Yeah, Heidi, he goes, Well, if what happened to pop?

Kim Harms: 00:17:29

Pop happens to you? And I said, do you mean if I die? And she

Kim Harms: 00:17:33

said, Yeah, Nana, if you die, if you die. And I said, Well, give

Kim Harms: 00:17:37

a question, Heidi, she goes, Well, if you die, can we still

Kim Harms: 00:17:41

go to Disney World? They said, yes, yes, you can. And I'm so

Kim Harms: 00:17:47

glad you brought that up, because when I die, I want you

Kim Harms: 00:17:49

to be happy. I want you to go to Disney World. That's your legacy

Kim Harms: 00:17:53

to me, you are doing an honor to me when you do that. And I think

Kim Harms: 00:17:56

that's what we need to leave for our children. We need to let

Kim Harms: 00:17:59

them know we want them to be happy and to move forward in

Kim Harms: 00:18:01

their lives and not be stuck in that grief pit.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:18:05

Oh my gosh. I love that. And when you said

Jennifer Takagi: 00:18:08

about the various belief systems around death and dying and where

Jennifer Takagi: 00:18:11

you go, my dad and I were having a conversation one day, and I

Jennifer Takagi: 00:18:14

said, Well, you know, she believes blah, blah, blah. And

Jennifer Takagi: 00:18:19

you know, that's not what we believe it all. And I was grown.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:18:22

I was in my mid 30s, probably, and he looked at me, he goes,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:18:25

Yeah, what if we die and find out they were right?

Kim Harms: 00:18:30

Well, somebody actually asked me that question,

Kim Harms: 00:18:33

and it was, it was a really in a sad occasion. He had just lost

Kim Harms: 00:18:36

his son for it was a grief podcast. It was live, and he

Kim Harms: 00:18:39

just had lost his son, and he just had this horrible, sad look

Kim Harms: 00:18:41

on his face, and goes, well, what if, you know, you come to

Kim Harms: 00:18:44

to your death, and, like, 30 minutes before you die, you find

Kim Harms: 00:18:48

out, it was all a bunch of baloney. And I was kind of

Kim Harms: 00:18:51

shocked, because, like, what kind of that's, that's a tough

Kim Harms: 00:18:53

question, right? But then I thought, you know, even if it

Kim Harms: 00:18:57

was, I'd be sad that I wasn't going to reconcile with my, you

Kim Harms: 00:19:00

know, my husband and my son and my mother and all of that.

Kim Harms: 00:19:03

However I'm living my life based upon joy and love. And those are

Kim Harms: 00:19:08

the those. Those are the the standards that I live by. And

Kim Harms: 00:19:13

I'm so glad to live that life, because it almost makes a heaven

Kim Harms: 00:19:15

on earth when you can love people and be joyful in your

Kim Harms: 00:19:18

life, the time on Earth is so much better. So so I'm pretty

Kim Harms: 00:19:23

confident that I'm going to be right on that one, but if I'm

Kim Harms: 00:19:26

not, then living my life the way I do, it's been a huge blessing.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:19:32

Well, it is, and we all have the choice every

Jennifer Takagi: 00:19:34

single day. Are we going to find the good and see the good? Are

Jennifer Takagi: 00:19:38

we going to look for the negative? Because it can be

Jennifer Takagi: 00:19:40

we're so trained to look for the negative. Um, I was having a

Jennifer Takagi: 00:19:44

conversation recently and and before I could even get my first

Jennifer Takagi: 00:19:48

sentence out, this friend of mine just went on a negative

Jennifer Takagi: 00:19:52

tirade, and I said, Oh, I don't want to talk about that at all.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:19:55

I want to talk about this because this was amazing and

Jennifer Takagi: 00:19:57

magical and wonderful. And can I tell you this? Story instead,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:20:01

and she puffed up a little bit like a toad, but I'm a little

Jennifer Takagi: 00:20:04

bit of a bully, so I got to tell my fun story instead. We have

Jennifer Takagi: 00:20:11

choices to make, so as we wrap up our episode, do you have any

Jennifer Takagi: 00:20:15

final words for the audience?

Kim Harms: 00:20:18

Well, I'd just like everyone to know that no matter

Kim Harms: 00:20:20

where you are in life, no matter what happens to you in life. And

Kim Harms: 00:20:24

I spent some time in Rwanda. So if you want to look at do some

Kim Harms: 00:20:27

research on Rwanda, for a country that just completely

Kim Harms: 00:20:29

turned itself around after a genocide through forgiveness and

Kim Harms: 00:20:33

reconciliation, they were my grief counselor. So I had the

Kim Harms: 00:20:35

best in the world. No matter what happens to you, can live

Kim Harms: 00:20:39

your life in joy. It takes time. It takes work. It's it's not

Kim Harms: 00:20:43

easy, but it's worth it. So I just would love to ask you to

Kim Harms: 00:20:47

fight for joy that would, that would be what I'd like to leave

Kim Harms: 00:20:49

you with.

Jennifer Takagi: 00:20:50

Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. And all of

Jennifer Takagi: 00:20:53

the information to get hold of Kim will be in the show notes,

Jennifer Takagi: 00:20:56

so you can get her books, her workbooks, and cannot connect

Jennifer Takagi: 00:21:00

with her, if you so desire. And I can't wait to get your book

Jennifer Takagi: 00:21:04

and workbook, because that'll be awesome. I'm Jennifer Takagi

Jennifer Takagi: 00:21:09

with destin for success, and I look forward to connecting with

Jennifer Takagi: 00:21:12

you soon. You.