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Episode 715: Gratitude Builds Fortitude with Holly Bertone · The Trauma Therapist

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Are welcome back to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
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My mission is to help trauma therapist be their incredible cells, to be human,
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to be real, not just a clinician. I'm a big believer in
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who we are is more important than what we know, and this requires cultivating
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authenticity, genuineness, and vulnerability, and that requires intention. Can learn more
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about my courses and workshops by going to the Trauma Therapist project dot com.
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That's the Trauma Therapist Project dot com. Let's get started. So five four,
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three, two and one, our folks, welcome back to the Trauma
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Therapist Podcast. Very excited to happen to my guest today, Holly Bertone.
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Holly, welcome, Thanks so much guy for having me on. I'm excited
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to be here and excited to connect with your listeners. Awesome, you are
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welcome. So Holly says she's been given the gift of breath cancer and she's
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a hashimotive survivor. Her superpower is sharing how gratitude builds fortitude and knowing every
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lyric to every eighties song ever made. Oh my gosh, we have to
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talk about that. After spending twenty five years rising through the ranks of consulting
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in federal government service. Her failing health shattered her corporate dreams. Thankfully,
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she's honoring these changes as a gift and has found where You Purpose as a
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certified health coach focusing on gratitude and mindset. Holly is a CEO and founder
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of Pink Fortitude and Fortitude Academy. She's also host of the Gratitude Builds Fortitude
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podcast, where she helps women either diagnoses or diagnosis as a gift so that
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they can unwrap their resilience to both fortitude with gratitude. Holly, Welcome,
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Thanks so much for having me. Welcome. So, before we get going,
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share with our listeners where you're from originally and where you are currently.
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Actually. Interestingly, I grew up in south central Pennsylvania in a small town.
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I was lit up, oh Okay, Waynesboro south of Gettysburg, and
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I actually lived in Alexandria, Virginia for twenty two years and three weeks ago.
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I just moved back to the area, so it's kind of coming back
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home. Wow wow wow cool. All right, So let's let's start here.
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How did all this unfold for you? Yeah? So everything, I
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like to say, everything began the day before my thirty ninth birthday, because
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my thirty ninth birthday was the day that everything changed. But I like to
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share the person who I was the day before because I think that helps set
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the stage. And I was climbing the corporate ladder. I was the chief
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of staff of one of those three letter federal government agencies they make TV shows
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ab outside a very successful career, I was racing x Tera triathlons, and
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I was a mountain bike racer, traveling all over drinking Margarite's with my girlfriends,
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like living what I thought was the perfect life. And on my thirty
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ninth birthday, I was given the diagnosis of breast cancer. I got the
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phone call from my doctor and yeah, he said, I'm sorry to let
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you know that you have breast cancer. Now, all of the test had
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been in progress, and when I felt the lump, deep down, I
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knew. But it's hearing those words that it really comes to life. And
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I went through surgery, chemo, and radiation, so kind of traditional treatment.
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And what had happened was after treatment ended, I kept getting sicker.
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I was not getting better, and I kept going back to my doctor and
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they said, well, I've your body's been through a lot, so you
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know it's going to take you a while to recover. I'm looking around at
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all of the women in support group. They're out running those pink ribbon five
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K races. I can't get out of bed. Something is wrong with me.
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They finally diagnosed. It was took another year that they diagnosed me with
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Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which is an autoimmune condition. And so that was two thousand
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and ten and then two thousand and eleven, and that was what started the
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whole journey and the whirlwind ever since. So excuse me for excuse me for
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that, but pardon my ignorance here. When when someone or when you got
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diagnosed with breast cancer is do they say, okay, it's on Is it
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on a continuum of severity? Yeah? They actually the doctor, oh my
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goodness. The doctor that called me to give me my diagnosis was a doctor
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in my practitioner's office. I had never met him before. And the word
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that he said was don't worry, you have the good kind. Now,
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I don't think there's any cancer that I would consider the good kind, but
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it was for anyone listening who's familiar. I was ERPR positive, her too
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negative, and they still couldn't agree if I was one B or two A.
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But my tumor was lazy and small. So on a scale of I
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guess good cancer to bad cancer, I don't know. I wouldn't call any
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cancer, you know, a good cancer. But it was definitely a lazy
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tumor and very treatable. Right. I can't imagine just hearing that, getting
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that phone call. So you said, after the Hashimoto's the journey began,
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the world would begin. How do things unfold for you? Yeah? Yeah,
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So what had happened was you know and can't It's in this community there's
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a lot of people that say, oh, I, you know, would
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never want to wish this, or I'd never want to wish this, or
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I'm glad I don't have this, or I'm glad I don't have that,
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And I hear that and having both and kind of coming at it from both
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sides. Ones not better or worse than the other. They just kind of
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have their different demons that come with them. And with an autoimmune disease,
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there's a lot of daily life challenges that is that they're relentless, so things
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like fatigue, my fatigue was debilitating. There was a lot of pain,
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There was a lot of ibs, There was a lot of migraines. So
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I was living with this and dealing with this and trying to navigate a full
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time job and a family and doing all the things, and it was impossible
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to the point where in twenty and seventeen, my health had crashed so much
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and my health was in such bad condition. The fatigue was so bad.
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I mean, I was all but bedridden, and they basically forced me to
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resign from my federal dream job. So that really took me out for a
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minute. But I decided I made a choice. We all kind of come
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to that place where we can make a choice, and I decided that this
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is not acceptable. I don't want to live this way for the rest of
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my life. So I decided to take responsibility for my health. I became
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a certified natural health coach, and that's what started the process of looking into
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more natural methods and modalities of healing. But yeah, sure, um,
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when so with the hashimotives. Had you been symptomatic like before your cancer diagnosis
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or did this happen you know, just after the cancer diagnosis, I was
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racing traffons and working and doing all the things. It's not that, not
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that I'm aware of. Okay, Okay, I'm just curious. Um although,
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although I don't know, I think probably chemotherapy and all of the cancer
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kicked it into a full blown diagnosis. But I'm sure under the scenes,
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with such an unhealthy lifestyle, um that I'm sure under the scenes, a
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lot of it was brewing for years. So you said things changed and you
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were looking to more kind of holistic remedies. What were you doing prior to
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that to help with the hashimotives? Absolutely nothing. I was drinking six cans
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of coca cola a day, eating you know, pasta and pizza and yeah,
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just okay, yeah this, no, this is not acceptable. So
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what do you start doing? So I started with the nutrition, and that
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moved the needle a little bit. I started with removing toxins, and that
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moved the needle a little bit. But I plateaued. I was like,
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this is an I tried everything I did. I tried everything the you know,
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infrared saunas and enemas and supplements and I mean acupuncture, you name it.
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I tried it. And it wasn't until I took a step back and
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started addressing the emotions and all of the mindset stuff, and that that's really
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where gratitude became such a huge part of my life, and really when that
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inner healing started to begin. Okay, so this is awesome here. So
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how did you know to start addressing the inner work your mindset? In a
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sense? I was doing a lot of reading and research, and I think
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sometimes you just hear something right so often and interestingly, back to the breast
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cancer days. About a month after my diagnosis, I felt this piece kind
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of come over me. And I had joked so much about breast cancer being
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my birthday gift. You know, it's being very sarcastic, using humor as
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a coping mechanism. It's like, oh, some girls get earring, some
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girls get flowers. My gift was breast cancer, you know, in a
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very sarcastic way. And I said it to myself and everyone else so many
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times that I started to believe it, and I didn't know what that meant.
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When I felt that piece that this is a gift for some reason,
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I didn't know what that meant at the time. And then fast forward years
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later, it all started coming together and I'm realizing there is a gift in
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this. I don't know what it is yet still at that moment in time,
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but I knew that there was a gift and could I tell a story
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about my mom with of course a little detour. So when my mother was
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when she found out she was pregnant with me, she was diagnosed with Addison's
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disease, which is a very rare adrenal disorder, and the doctors told her
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that I would never be born. The doctors told her she would never live
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past the age of thirty. She actually passed away at seventy three. So
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she lived a very full and active life. But growing up I watched her
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through some very healthy years and some very sick years, and she always that
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it builds fortitude. It builds fortitude, It builds fortitude, And it was
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just her life montress, something I heard every single day, and when I
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got sick myself like, oh okay, I get it, like this whole
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thing, like the storms of life. It's you know, the storms of
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life builds fortitude. And I kind of took that with me. I'm like,
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it builds fortitude. And it wasn't until actually after she passed away and
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I had already been knee deep in researching gratitude and studying gratitude and learning about
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gratitude and practicing gratitude and even starting to share it with my community, that
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it clicked that it wasn't the it of something bad happening or the storms of
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life that builds fortitude, was actually gratitude and looking back at her life and
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how she just showed up every single day in a state of gratitude and love
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and happiness regardless of what was going on, and it just it clicked like
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I was doing it. I don't want to say I was doing it wrong,
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but it was that light bulb moment of making that switch. And the
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research proves it. I mean, gratitude builds mental resilience. There's plenty of
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studies out there and realizing that gratitude builds fortitude, like this is it,
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This is it, and it all starts there. And that's when I realized,
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like, this is my message. So just for me to get clear
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here, you're saying that you became you began to express gratitude just because that's
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what you wanted to do, not because of gratitude. For to look at
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these diagnoses as a gift in the sense. Yeah, yeah, so I
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realized that there was something bigger, like this is all happening for a bigger
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reason, and the piece has just started to fall into place one by one,
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and realizing that just gratitude is kind of the key to everything. And
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I started by making a list of three things. I think it's kind of
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what we're all taught to do. But making a list of three things,
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it's a checklist. It's not it's just an action. And it's not until
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you actually understand gratitude from that holistic perspective that it stops becoming something that you
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do and starts becoming who you are. And that's when you realize the absolute
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game changer in your life because it can affect every single area of your life.
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I mean this, this study show it improves your relationship, your health,
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you can exercise more, you have less strusting if you're you know these
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all of these things, and it's because it's it's that change in mindset yourself.
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Listen now yourself, listen to everything that you say, everything that you
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eat, everything that you drink, every thought that you have. And when
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you're in that state of gratitude, it just trickles down to all the aspects
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of your life. I would imagine that it takes a certain amount of strength
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to be you know, in the in hashimotives and experiencing all of those symptoms
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that you mentioned and being able to pick your head up and find gratitude.
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You know, how how do you get there? It's I like to say,
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starting out and I'm not saying you can't do the list of three things,
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but starting out to meet gratitude where gratitude is at, and like gratitude
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meet you where you're at. Because I know, in my community and I'm
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sure you're in your community as well, we're facing tough challenges and you know,
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looking at specifically, you know, with with trauma, and a lot
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of individuals in my community come into that disease state with trauma already there.
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And if it's not there, the disease state causes its own state of trauma.
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So looking at it from a place of you know, your your your
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body's been broken down, your body's portrayed you, you know, you're you're
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you're maybe depressed and feeling all of these things and you know, not having
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that self love, and it's hard to kind of go from that place to
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oh I'm happy, and oh, just be grateful. Right, I cringe
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when people say, oh, just be positive or oh just be grateful.
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I absolutely cringe. I'm a gratitude coach and I cringe when people say that,
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because that's not what it's about. It's it's those tiny little steps to
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get you to that place, and to start with meeting gratitude where gratitude is
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at and letting gratitude meet you where you're at. So it's one step at
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a time, and I actually teach it from a place of from personalities,
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you know, looking at it. If you are someone who is you know,
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kind of a driving personality, to just you know, have fun with
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gratitude, make it a game, make it just you know, kind of
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a competition. If you're someone who's more heart center, to just go really
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really deep with it, take one thing and just go really deep with it.
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You know, if you're someone who's more analytical, you are going to
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be that list maker, right and you're just going to have a gratitude journal
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with lists all over the place. You know, if you're someone who's a
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little more outgoing, kind of the life of the party, you know you're
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going to want to share gratitude like like glitter, you know, all over
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the place. So there's different ways to get started. It doesn't always have
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to be that list. And um, what's interesting? Actually? Can I
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can I share another story? Yeah? So when when mom afforditude passed away,
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I was one hundred percent in the fields, right, like my mother
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just died and I'm very, very sad, and I was knee deep in
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my gratitude practice at that point. So I've got these, you know,
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I have two toddlers on each of my shoulder, throwing tantrums at each other.
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Okay, one side is, you know, be in the fields.
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You need to just be sad. And the other side is, well,
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you're you know, you do gratitude and that's your thing, so you need
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to be grateful. And I have these two toddlers throwing tantrums on my shoulders
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at each other, and so I just I just kind of got quiet,
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and I'm like, Okay, I don't have to feel grateful. I want
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to be in the fields. And that was okay. And then at one
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point I started thinking about I had this little yellow mechanical pencil, you know,
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like the click click with the and I love that pencil and At one
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point, I just thought about my pencil and I was grateful for my pencil,
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and I was like, Okay, this is really weird. I am
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grateful for a stupid little yellow pencil and it opened the door. And that's
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all that it took. So I mean, I and I you know,
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I didn't know you share too. Like it's okay to be in the fields,
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and it's very normal and natural and it's a part of it, right,
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but there's also a time and a place to say, Okay, I'm
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ready to take this first steps. What do you say to people who are
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like, how could I be grateful? I've got this disease? Gratefulful?
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What where's my freaking health? Yeah? Yeah, now absolutely, And and
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that is that is a very very valid and I and I hear that all
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the time, and especially individuals that come into my community. I had at
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one point taken a survey. Seventy five percent said that either gratitude did not
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work for them or that they were not deserving of gratitude. And part of
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that is because of that diagnosis. The gratitude change is your brain. So
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even if you don't want to be grateful, even if you don't think it's
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for you. It will change your brain and it will change your life,
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and it's a place at some point down the road, like I said,
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from it being something that you do, to becoming who you are, to
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realizing that everything really is a gift, that there is gratitude in the good,
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the bad, and the ugly in it all, that everything is happening
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for us instead of to us. And when that switch happens, that's really
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when the magic happens. Yeah, I mean, that's that's I believe that,
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and I think it's it's can be challenging for a lot of us.
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And absolutely it almost feels like it's zen Master territory. You know, it
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really hard to do. It is. But I also think that can't we
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And look, I haven't had a diagnosis like that, but you know,
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I've gone through my own wrap and it can't we go through that and still
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be grateful, Right, They're not necessarily mutually exclusive, but having gone through,
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uh, you know, an experience both of these issues, these diseases,
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what are you grateful for? What am I grateful for you? Yeah,
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Holly Yellow pencil, I just I'm grateful for it all. You know,
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it's it's an end today, there was something not so good that happened
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this morning. And then right before I jumped on here had a very wonderful
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event happened to a friend of mine, and I just I kind of said,
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like, it's I could be grateful for the good event and not for
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the bad, but I'm grateful for it all because it all serves a higher
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purpose. And what's interesting about this we have? Can I tell another story?
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Of course? Yeah? Yeah? So, um so, I was
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traveling um from so to the West Coast and back a few years ago,
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UM with with my ex husband and knee deep and gratitude. At that point,
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we stopped at a hotel and they said they had a room for us.
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Now, we're in the middle I think of like Kansas or Kentucky.
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We're in the middle of literally of nowhere, and it's like seven o'clock at
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night. We've been traveling for twelve hours and we get to the hotel.
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It's like a fifteen minute wait and the manager was like, oh, I'm
22:55
so sorry, your room's not ready. What what? So they finally had
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the room ready for us. So we go up and it's ninety degrees outsides
23:03
in the middle of the summer and walk in. Well, the air conditioner
23:07
was broken. And it wasn't just broken the air conditioner, it was leaking
23:12
all over the floor. So you know, air conditioning leaking on carpet,
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and it's like squish, squish, sis, right, I don't even want
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to think about the mold in the room. So we get downstairs and they
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did not have another room. So we go back upstairs and like, okay,
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let's get a shower, and there were no towels. And at this
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point, I mean, he followed me down. I used to be very
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very reactive, very reactive, and he follows me down because he's like,
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at this point, I just want to see fireworks get out, Like let's
23:45
just watch the Redhead go. You know, let's just watch the red Head,
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you know, throw off some fireworks. So we get down. There
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was no towels, and the manager explained, I guess there was mutiny in
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the hotel and like all the help quit and so he was just trying to,
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you know, hold down the ford, and you know, it was
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just an absolutely horrible day for him. And it didn't even I didn't even
24:08
think about what came out of my mouth, and I said, it's Okay,
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we're grateful for the room and a roof over our heads, and you
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know, we'll we'll figure it out, and thank you for a place to
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stay tonight. And after the words just came out, and this was the
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first time that I realized, this is something. And it's not an on
24:32
off switch, like you can feel grateful in the moment, but it's not
24:34
on off switch. It's it's a muscle. It's like exercise that you know,
24:38
you can't do ten pushups and then have beautiful arms. And this is
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That was the moment, that was the pivotal moment that I realized how much
24:48
gratitude had changed my brain, how much gratitude had change my reaction, and
24:52
how much gratitude was starting to change my life. And it wasn't just me.
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I gave that gift of gratitude to that manager, and I gave that
25:04
gift of gratitude for him to give to the next person. So I wasn't
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the person. I wasn't the angry customer screaming at him, the probably twentieth
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angry customer screaming at him that day. Right, you know, wow is
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it? You know it's I just recently got divorced and it was one of
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I was on the receiving end of it, and I'm like, what,
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you know? And I quickly realized that, you know, I could be
25:37
so angry and so pissed off and feel toxic and just sit in the corner
25:44
with a blanket of my head, but I could. I can't do that.
25:48
Life is too freaking short, you know. And I honestly, but
25:53
you know, people ask me, well, my god, you know that
25:56
sucks, and you know, but there have been good things to come from
26:02
this, and I honestly don't know. Maybe I'm getting to the point where
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I'm grateful for this, but you know, I kind of feel like I'm
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I'm getting there. Yeah, And we can either look at things as problems
26:26
or opportunities. And when that shift happens, when we look at things as
26:33
opportunities, life just opens up a whole set of doors because we have a
26:37
choice. Because we do have a choice, right, And it's so easy
26:41
to go down that route of this sucks, my life sucks, Why the
26:48
hell did this happen to me? And that's a very easy way. It's
26:52
almost like culturally encouraged way. We see it all around us all the time.
26:57
But this other way of looking at things, is it easy? It's
27:11
I don't think it is, no, But but here's here's the thing,
27:14
guy is. And I actually just recorded two days ago. I recorded in
27:21
the Gratitude Builds forty two podcasts. I recorded in an episode on this very
27:25
topic. Is if there's a situation in your life that's not going to change,
27:32
that situation is going to be there, right, So you have a
27:34
choice of how you can respond. And you can either use that situation as
27:40
an excuse or you can say, Okay, I accept the situation for what
27:45
it is, and I am going to now move on with my life and
27:49
do my thing and not let it have control over me. Right. That's
27:55
a powerful place to be, right, It is very powerful, and I
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think it's made all the more so because it's it's almost like in our culture,
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it's not the default way to deal with things, you know, but
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when you encounter someone like yourself, it's kind of all inspiring. I mean,
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it's like, holy crap, you know, where did you get this?
28:25
Well, Mama fortitude? You know, I mean, just remind everyone
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I'm speaking with Holly Bertone. Um, Jesus, Holly, you're pretty incredible.
28:34
Um, your website is Pink Fortitude dot com. Is that the best
28:40
place for people to get in touch with you? Absolutely? Or on Instagram?
28:44
Holly Dottun Okay, we'll also have UM we'll have that linked up here
28:51
at the show ups page at the Trauma divers Podcast dot com. And also
28:53
we have a landing page that listeners can go to. Again, we'll have
28:57
that linked up here at the show It's page at the Traumatis Podcast dot com.
29:02
UM, what would you say your mission is at this point? I
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always like to say that I help my clients go from being grumpy warriors to
29:15
grateful warriors and to really just make that switch that you know, I have
29:22
a diagnosis or I have this situation in my life, but it's not my
29:26
prognosis. It doesn't have to take over my life. And to really help
29:32
individuals understand that this can this can be a part of who you are,
29:37
but it doesn't have to be all of who you are. And that you
29:42
talked about how gratitude shifted things for you. Talk about how it has helped
29:51
you on your or what part has it taken played in your healing journey?
29:55
It has been, like I said, yourselves listened to everything that you say,
30:00
and to be in that place of kind of going from you know,
30:07
having surgery, hating certain body parts because of the surgery, of dealing with
30:15
the fatigue and the migraines and the ibs and all of the things, and
30:19
being in that place where I used to be this triathlete, to hating my
30:26
body for betraying me and for being so broken, to now being grateful for
30:33
everything that my body does for me, that despite everything that I did to
30:37
my body, that it still wakes me up every single day that I am
30:42
still alive. My heart is still beating, I am still breathing, and
30:48
it gives me a choice every single day to make good decisions for my help
30:55
or to not. And that's the cell listen and the cells respond, and
31:03
it all starts with gratitude. Wow. Um, okay, share with tho
31:08
listeners, what the pot what your podcast is? Yes, it's the Gratitude
31:11
Built Fortitude Podcast. Awesome, awesome, Well man, you are one inspiring
31:18
individual and I'm sure you hear that all the time. I'd love to have
31:21
you back at a later date and I just appreciate you sprinkling your your amazingness
31:30
on us. Today. Thank you so much guy for having me on,
31:33
and I really look forward to connecting with everyone. All right, take care,