Turning Adversity into Adult Freedom: A Journey of Transforming Childhood Trauma to Authenticity, Self-Discovery, and Joy - Susan Gold : 122

Susan Gold's story is like a tapestry that weaves together challenges and triumphs, where each thread is coloured by personal growth and self-love. She grew up in a household where people had different coping mechanisms, like alcohol and food. However, Susan paved her path to the busy streets of New York City and into the influential circles of media giants such as Barbara Walters. Her journey was not just about escaping but finding her voice and place in a complex world.

Our conversation with Susan takes an intimate turn as we explore the nuanced landscape of addictive behaviours and the clarity that comes from self-reflection. From a career that placed her at the epicentre of brand-celebrity synergy to a raw confrontation with her struggles with alcohol, Susan's story is a beacon for those navigating the choppy waters of self-identity and purpose. She shares the wisdom gleaned from reframing painful experiences as lessons and the importance of setting healthy boundaries. Through her eyes, we see the power of a mother's bond and the determination to survive and thrive.

Susan's compassion and enthusiasm for life are evident as she invites anyone touched by her story to connect.
Let's enjoy her story!

To connect with Susan  https://www.susangold.us/

Transcript

Daniela SM : 0:00

Hi, I'm Daniela. Welcome to my podcast, because everyone has a story, the place to give ordinary people, stories, the chance to be shared and preserved. Our stories become the language of connections. Let's enjoy it, connect and relate because everyone has a story. Welcome my guest, Susan Gold. Usually, one will refer to a guest by the professional titles, but with Susan it is different. Despite her numerous professional accomplishments that she will explain all in this episode, she identifies as an author and transformationalist who shares magical wisdom, strength and hope. This makes her a beautiful woman, not defined by her titles, but by her purpose and intentions. This is not a holistic story. It is about her life. She grew up in a family where people had different ways of coping. However, Susan paved the way to becoming the incredible woman that she is today. I can relate to Susan because ten years ago I understood that no title could define me. Who is the person inside me? But anyway, join me to be moved and find a piece of your story reflected in Susan's incredible journey. Let's enjoy it, alright. Welcome Susan.

Susan Gold: 1:33

Daniela, I'm happy to be here. I'm really excited and I love the theme of your podcast and all the interesting people that you speak with. So, wow, I feel privileged and excited.

Daniela SM : 1:44

Thank you so much, and thank you for being here, because I am delighted that such a talented woman is sharing her story.

Susan Gold: 1:52

Oh, I'm blushing. It's a privilege and, like you say, we all have a story.

Daniela SM : 1:56

Yes, we do so, Susan. Why do you want to share your story?

Susan Gold: 2:00

Well, I want to share my story to help others, obviously and I didn't think I had much of a story to share In 2007, I had an Irish seeer tell me you have a book to write and people are really going to be helped, and I just shoved that under the closest carpet. I didn't think I had any kind of book to write about my life story, but it appears I have.

Daniela SM : 2:21

It's interesting. Somebody also told me you see a book and not even think about what kind of theme would the book be about? We'll see. Maybe it happens like you.

Susan Gold: 2:29

Yeah, I think the theme of your book has something to do with travel and the intricacies and the stories of people and what that has taught you as a human being. Yeah, how that's opened your heart and blossomed you. I think that's the story of your book?

Daniela SM : 2:44

Yeah, maybe, maybe we will keep in touch. So, susan, when does your story start?

Susan Gold: 2:51

Well, it started early. I was born into a family with five children. I was in the middle and my father's a genius astrophysicist, but he also had a little trouble with the drink. At 7.30 AM you'd hear the whiskey bottle on cork and glug, glug, glug, glug. And he was a bit of a womanizer too and had a touch of narcissism in him. And my mother soothed with food so she ate to sate her anxiety and her sadness. And back then, when you overate, they prescribed diet pills which were straight speeds. So I was growing up in a very chaotic environment. I believe that's where my story started with purpose and with intent, because growing up in that family was the springboard. I needed to address some issues that I wanted to walk through for soul evolution, to grow as a human being and as a soul being, and I know that may not make sense now, but hopefully it will at the end of our conversation.

Daniela SM : 3:56

Well, that sounds so interesting because you will say, wow, your father was a genius and your mom did that and, however, it was a challenge for little kids to be in an environment like that.

Susan Gold: 4:08

It definitely was for me. For sure, I have three brothers and a sister. We all have a very different experience of growing up in that home.

Daniela SM : 4:16

I wanted to ask you that, if you have siblings, because, as we know, trauma is not what happens to people, is what happens inside them, so perhaps your siblings took the same situation differently.

Susan Gold: 4:28

My oldest brother and he and I have abuse between each other Almost his entire childhood. Daniella is blacked out, almost like amnesia. That's how heavy the trauma hit him. My sister thinks she grew up in an idyllic circumstance. She almost feels guilty that she had such a beautiful childhood.

Daniela SM : 4:49

But she seizes that way or for her was different. No, that's how she sees it.

Susan Gold: 4:54

That's how she perceived her reality and for me, I knew something was very wrong and I just had to hold on until I could get out. And I just dreamed of getting out and how I was going to get out.

Daniela SM : 5:09

Wow, how fascinating. And your sister's personality is like she's a very cheerful person. How is her personality?

Susan Gold: 5:17

My sister is as close to sainthood as you can get. She's very loyal, she's very sincere, she's quite supportive. She was a corporate consultant almost her entire career, very much into that patriarchal corporate system, whereas I was the opposite. I was swinging the jobs. Anyway I could get them. I think I spent a year at a corporation, at Fox, and another year at ICM and that was it. Other than that, I was like an entrepreneur and hustling. I couldn't stay in that system. So yeah, we're very different people, very different.

Daniela SM : 5:54

Yeah, that's fascinating. So then you couldn't wait to leave, and you left eventually. At what age?

Susan Gold: 6:00

Yeah, I graduated on a Friday night. I was 17 years old from high school and I left the following morning at quarter to eight in the morning and I was scared, daniela, as the time got closer. You know a lot of my classmates. They were marrying each other. They were staying in this small town where I had grown up, but I knew I had to go, and so I did and ultimately, by the time I was 19, I did get to New York City. I was living in Greenwich Village on my own.

Susan Gold: 6:32

I had negotiated my way out of college for a term to do an internship in New York City and then, once I graduated, I went right back to New York City and I used to admire Barbara Walters on my beanbag, in my belly, in my basement and I was like I want to go to New York City and be like Barbara Walters. So I did get there. I was working for a large global talent agency, wasn't making enough money and so, for a side hustle, I trained people. I was their exercise trainer and Barbara Walters did become one of my clients.

Daniela SM : 7:07

Oh wow, what a making things happen.

Susan Gold: 7:13

I was manifesting before I knew what.

Daniela SM : 7:14

I was doing.

Susan Gold: 7:15

Sure, I mean I was highly intuitive and quite empathic. I could read a room, you know, if I'd walk in I could feel the tone, the texture, who was thinking what I mean? When I was, when I was a child, I was quite telepathic and I could read full sentences and thoughts. But it didn't go over well with adults that really didn't want me to have the information that I had, so I shut that down for a long time.

Daniela SM : 7:42

And Susan, do you plan the leaving the next day from after graduation?

Susan Gold: 7:48

Yeah, I knew I had to go, and my sister and I both got jobs at the Jersey Shore. She was in college and she had a few college roommates. They had an apartment. My father knew a guy that owned an amusement pier off the boardwalk at the Jersey Shore, and so we all shared this little tiny apartment on the second floor of this walkup. I really felt free. It was so beautiful for me to be near the shore and out in nature, but I was really scared to leave that home, even After I had wanted to so much, because there was so much chaos. There was abuse of every types lathered over every nook and cranny, but I was scared to leave, as most of us Are, and I had no idea who I was. I was a chameleon, whatever you wanted me to be.

Daniela SM : 8:37

How interesting that you learn that for survival, yes. So you went to New York. You were doing a high hustle training.

Susan Gold: 8:46

Yeah, one morning I rang barbers doorbell at seven am and she opened the door. She took one. Look at me. She's like Susan, get in here, what is going on with you? She was really intuitive to and she got out of me within moments. I had been sexually harassed in the workplace by my boss the day before and it kicked up so much complex post traumatic stress and she said I'm coming to work with you this morning and we're gonna confront this gentleman together. And I said, yeah, that's okay, barbara, I think I've got it. So I went to work that morning and I did confront my boss on his behavior and he promptly fired me.

Susan Gold: 9:26

I had two and a half months of cash in the bank. I was not even ninety days clean and sober, because some of the same behaviors demonstrated in my household. I was seeing them now in myself. Drinking wasn't was an issue. Telling lies when I could have told the truth. Abusive relationships, friends falling away, friends becoming seetia, losing my goals it was all starting to happen. So I had gone for help. I was newly sober. I had extricated myself from an abusive relationship where the man held the purse strings to see, had the money and I'm embarrassed to say that. So I didn't want to fall back into that and Barbara offered me an assistantship for her then fiance who was running the major movie distribution company. I said, barbara, thank you so much, but I can't be an assistant after what I've experienced. So I decided I was gonna open my own talent.

Susan Gold: 10:20

Brokerage from matching celebrities to brands was introduced to Donnie do it choose now an entrepreneur and an iconic television host. But back then he was running his dad's ad agency and he and I were introduced and he said you know, I've been looking for Andy Warhol to do this commercial for Pontiac dealers. Do you think you could get him to do it? And I said I don't know, I'll try. So I called the factory and nobody would pick up. So I took the subway down to the factory and I knocked on the door and Fred and ease manager answered and I told him I was there and said come back tomorrow and I'll let you talk to Andy.

Susan Gold: 10:58

So I went back the next day, sat waiting, waiting and finally Double doors and Andy Warhol studio open and it was dark in there. I can see anything. I was afraid to go in and in the center of the space was a pin spotlight coming down on this platinum hair that was going seven different directions. And there he was, skinny and black, scribbling with pencils colored pencils and three pugs you know those little dogs with the smushed faces. They were running around the studio and he could care less why I was there. He made no eye contact, he said nothing to me.

Susan Gold: 11:41

There I was yammering on about this television commercial and finally he stopped. He was holding a pug in his arm and he looked me in the eye for the first time and he said now, really, why should I do this? And I said because you can have the pug in the shot with you. And he said okay, I'll do it. So that really was what launched me as having the skill set of matching celebrities to brands, and it came from my intuitive gifts. You know, I had to fair it People's moods, people's energy, for my own safety growing up. And here I was doing it in the workplace. Yes, it totally served me. I started doing this for a living and I was quite successful and eventually it led me to producing for television and for film.

Daniela SM : 12:36

So you, you enjoyed it loved it.

Susan Gold: 12:39

I mean, this was my dream. I didn't even know what a television producer was and why would an ability to match celebrities with brands lead to Television producing? But somehow I did. I went to work for the head of promotion at CNBC in America's talking, which was Roger Ailes network, and Roger wanted celebrities on this talk network. And that's what I was there for to get celebrities to come on to the network. And none were flocking.

Susan Gold: 13:05

So One night I got this inspiration I'm gonna go to a red carpet event, I'm gonna stick a microphone in the celebs face, I'm gonna talk to him about the event and then I'm gonna have him look straight to camera and say they're watching America's talking. And I did it. It was before these promos were even done, so we had all these celebrities on the network saying they were watching the network. So one day I go into work and had a promotion Calls me gold, get in here and like he was in a corner office, I thought, oh my gosh, what did I do? Mr Ailes wants to see you in his office right away. So I went to Roger Ailes and we had a one on one meeting and he said you know, I'm really impressed with what you've done. Name the show you want to produce On the talk network. And then that network went down and he invited me to help launch Fox News channel.

Daniela SM : 14:01

Well, you're a great storyteller. I'm like in, like, so in suspense, everything you're sharing.

Susan Gold: 14:07

You know what? I don't think I've ever shared this, but I really think it comes from my paternal grandmother. Because my dad had asthma, she had to find warm weather so she bought a shore house at the Jersey shore. They lived in Philly. They went to the Jersey shore in the summer. She had this big like boarding house before Airbnb, was she for sure and there was this big rap porch with all these rockers and people would go out and tell stories and I just loved it. I loved listening to them. So maybe it's rubbed off. I'm not sure, daniela.

Daniela SM : 14:41

So you're, you know, from Pennsylvania.

Susan Gold: 14:43

Originally. Yeah, philadelphia counts, that's where my father was raised, but I'm more from the center of Pennsylvania, a teeny, tiny town. Yeah.

Daniela SM : 14:52

I want to go back to understand properly. When you left, you were 17th. You started to drink at 17.

Susan Gold: 14:58

I'd say I started to drink at 17. I really loved sugary foods more than alcohol, but then it started to shift into alcohol and by the time I was 21 I was, you know. I could have the same bottle in my refrigerator for months. The problem was when I took it out I would black out. I would end up in circumstances that weren't suited I. It was starting to cause a problem. I would need to know there was alcohol to go to a luncheon or a party or any kind of gathering. I was walking around New York City with a baseball cap of Walkman and sunglasses. My throat was just absolutely constricting with stress and anxiety. My skin felt like it was, you know, tissue paper that would rip and I just I took a slug out of a wine jug to ask for a raise at work. That's when I said, oh, this is not right. It reminded me of my dad going to the dry sink and uncorking the bottle. So those were the signs.

Daniela SM : 16:04

Yeah, but why this happens? I mean, you were happy to leave. Why did you went into the alcohol?

Susan Gold: 16:10

It's partially what was demonstrated. I didn't see a healthy model for talking through fears, anxieties. I saw take a drink when something does, take some food and soothe, go over exercise to soothe and change your mood. So all these things came into play and I started to act them out and the blessing was I saw it early. I was 25 when I got clean. Ok.

Daniela SM : 16:41

OK, and then it does when you start to do your own business.

Susan Gold: 16:44

Yes.

Daniela SM : 16:45

So that's interesting, because you saw you were working for other people and you were not happy and then you decided OK, I need to clean up and also have my own business to feel fulfilled.

Susan Gold: 16:57

Yeah, I really didn't fit in. I didn't understand why you had to go to HR to talk with somebody that's two halls down from you. The corporate system didn't make sense to me.

Daniela SM : 17:08

It's interesting, right, perhaps people that don't fit in the system, but we think that you have to fit, otherwise you're not successful, and that's the big problem, I feel.

Susan Gold: 17:18

I just didn't want to take the time to make it work out and people used to look at me like I had two heads, because I would always speak my mind at these meetings where people are just, you know, sitting on their hands and like looking at the next person to see what they should answer. I was never like that, just fish out of water.

Daniela SM : 17:37

Oh, wow, ok, that's fun. So you match famous people with brands and then you were a producer. And what happened then? Every time you like the job more right, you did the matching, you love it, and then you went to a producing and you loved it too.

Susan Gold: 17:53

I loved it because I just created what I wanted to do. People in the newsroom. Just they didn't understand me because I just would OK, we don't have this. Well, let's make this happen and just put the pieces together. They were always waiting for some higher up to give them permission and I missed that. I missed that point. So, anyway, what happened was I got a call from a dear friend that I had met on jury duty. She was out in LA, she was running a major syndicated talk show, and she called me and she said I need you out here, I need you to come bring talent to the table for this talk show. And within five minutes on the phone I said yes, I mean, here I was. I had lived in New York City for so long, but I saw it as a great opportunity and a great career move, and it was. But, daniella, really why I went to LA was to meet one of my biggest gurus as in teacher, and that would be the man that would become my ex-husband.

Daniela SM : 18:55

Oh, and what kind of guru was this?

Susan Gold: 18:57

Well, he really taught me my own capability and power and he opened my heart to self love, to really come to understand that beautiful inner being in there. That's that's walked this whole path along with me. Soon after I went to LA we met. We met at some kind of book gathering at the Chateau-Mormon. I just thought this is my match. He said and did all the right things. We were both in film related industries. I was creating television for American movie classics, then he was an idiot Savant when it came to any Hollywood movie. He ran a film retrospective nonprofit in LA and he was a screenwriter. So all the bells and whistles went off right. We became a couple and eventually we married and had a son and I bought a family home for us.

Susan Gold: 19:56

I noticed I was carrying more and more of the weight in the relationship. It became more obvious once we had a child and then, once I bought the home and the stresses of that came on, cracks and the crevices in the marriage started to show and the expiration date was well past its due. So I didn't want my marriage to dissolve, I didn't want to fail. But yet I was so terrified of leaving this relationship and my friends didn't understand well, you're so accomplished, you're so capable Like, why would you have trouble speaking up? But I just, every time I would, it would backfire on me. It was horrible. And then, for some reason, I heard the word clearly narcissist. So I started Googling narcissist narcissism, started learning about it and was like this is the relationship I'm in, oh my goodness. So I decided to try to make my husband accountable. We went into mediation to create a post-nuptial agreement for some financial integrity to come into the relationship. I thought, wow, this is going to work. We got to the last point of contention and I thought we were going to settle it and he folded his arms and his eyes went in those cold slits and he said I'm hiring an attorney and I'm filing for divorce. And, daniela, I heard this loud, intuitive voice come over my right shoulder and through my heart and it said this is the universe doing for you what you cannot do for yourself.

Susan Gold: 21:42

And it was a calendar year of excruciating pain. It was like a perfect storm. Everything I had learned surviving in my family of origin. Everything I learned creating my own business and working for myself. Everything I learned getting sober, facing clinical depression and working with suicidal depression. Everything I learned as a long-term meditator and endurance athlete came into play in the next calendar year, where he would not leave the master bedroom or our home.

Susan Gold: 22:18

So I took up residence in a partial conversion in our garage, on a mattress on the floor and that's the billboard. It took to fall on my head and to wake me up to what I was allowing in my personal relationship, and so I treated that partial conversion in the garage like a monastery and I went deep within myself to do somatic work, somatic therapy work, to really clear out the pockets of trauma that were still holding me hostage in this circumstance. And I also held no contact, meaning no verbal contact and no eye contact like you do when you're on a long-term meditation retreat. And that's what it took to be able to come to an agreement, write him his six-figure check and send him on his way for the next source of supply. And I call him my greatest guru because that taught me my power. That's when it broke that need for codependency. I saw my value and my worth and I came to really treasure and love this sweet being inside my body.

Daniela SM : 23:41

Okay, for what all you learn? That's why you call him your guru. Yeah, I see how interesting.

Susan Gold: 23:47

Yeah, it's very freeing. I can't tell you how excruciating it was to go through that experience in the same domicile and the situation felt so unjust. But every time that would come up I would just remember that message that I was giving this is given. This is the universe doing for you what you cannot do for yourself. And by choosing to look at him as a teacher, it really took some of the sting out of it. Otherwise I would have stayed in that victim role and kept holding on to that hatred. It's like eating the rat poison myself and expecting him to fall over dead. I had to look at it with new eyes and from new perspective.

Daniela SM : 24:34

But giving him the name of guru, don't you elevate him when you really don't want to do that?

Susan Gold: 24:39

Yeah, he was a great teacher. He was a great teacher. He taught me a lot. Yeah, I had to see it reflected in that way, to stand up to it and to truly embrace my behavior. And I believe too, that I came to this earthly walk for soul evolution and this was the lesson of the lifetime.

Susan Gold: 25:03

I hope I'm going to knock wood because I don't really want another one like that, but I feel like this was one of the major lessons to help other people see that. Now reflect that back to him, because there's so many of us that are still victimized by the one who took advantage or foisted this behavior upon us. Well, maybe so, but what happens if we look at it from a different perspective?

Daniela SM : 25:33

Yeah, well, you also have to be open to know that you're learning a lesson Very much. So, yes, for me, for example, I learned that I needed a partner that will offer freedom and that will offer trust, and so I decided that for me, in the future, relationships have to come with these three things fact and trust and freedom. And if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have known how important those were my values. So, yes, I always say that I'm grateful, yet sometimes I'm like, oh, I would like him to suffer a little bit.

Susan Gold: 26:09

I think that's being a human being. I think we wouldn't be human if we didn't have those thoughts. It's not like I'm pristine, but for the most part I'm free of his energy and wish him well and wouldn't want to be in his earth suit for any money in the world.

Daniela SM : 26:26

And what happened to your son at the meantime?

Susan Gold: 26:28

So it was really hard for me to watch my son be in that same circumstance because he was living in that home. Every Saturday was our day together and I found really fun things for us to do. I didn't know there was so much to do in Southern California. I just tried to make that time as special as possible and, no, the circumstance was not ideal, but it was what was presented. It was sad, I mean he didn't want his parents and his family to disintegrate, nor did we. But he learned how to draw boundaries, he learned how to care for himself and he actually told me as a later on in his teens how precious that time actually was, because we had done so many things, he and I together.

Daniela SM : 27:15

That's beautiful.

Susan Gold: 27:16

Yeah, after that it was really he and I until he went to college.

Daniela SM : 27:21

Yeah, it was a precious time, wonderful, wonderful, all right, so we met the guru, and then what happened?

Susan Gold: 27:30

So after you experienced something like that, it's pretty hard to recover and I was using exercise like endurance exercise to numb my pain. I was a very accomplished adult athlete. I worked very hard, almost like an NC2A athlete works when they train. I would go to the pool at 5.30 am and swim an hour and a half and then I would go into kettlebells and do weights and I would go to hot yoga later on and walk the dog three times a day. I mean it was way overboard, daniella, and my poor body was screaming. One day I couldn't walk around the block. I had had a hip impingement and was limping. So that mask of athleticism also fell and I had to learn again how to really create an authentic self and let that go and come from again another place of love as it pertained to my own, being my own body, and that's been another incredible lesson Wow, but you were competing and doing different races, yeah.

Susan Gold: 28:41

I mean, I'd never swam as a kid, but after marathoning and then triathloning I decided I'll just focus on swimming because the injuries were getting too great with the triathloning, and so then I just went. After that I started training with Olympic athletes and world champions to learn how to actually swim and within four years I had a national ranking as a master's competitive swimmer after never doing anything like that, and it was really rewarding and fulfilling. But I had to see that it was creating a false sense of achievement and again I was trying from the outside in rather than the inside out to create my own happiness. And another painful lesson helped me to move forward and I'm much different now as it pertains to what I do for my body. I'll do some general yoga, I'll take a walk, maybe I'll go mountain biking if I feel like it. I never force myself to go down to the lake and swim because I'm supposed to swim this morning. No, I just. If I don't feel like doing that, I don't do that.

Daniela SM : 29:53

Fascinating. So I mean, I don't know if I'm offending you, but addicted personalities in a way. Oh, I think a little bit, yeah, yeah.

Susan Gold: 30:03

And I think it always stays with you. It's just you can turn the volume a little down or you can turn it up, depending on where you are.

Daniela SM : 30:11

It's just to be healthy, but it's never too much, it's never too good.

Susan Gold: 30:15

Yeah, when you have an addictive personality, you're going to have an addictive personality and it's going to manifest. It's just. I think for me, it's how much of a decibel level I want to create around the addiction and I'm aware of it and I'm capable of turning it down or saying no or stopping taking a breather and going, wow, yeah, I'm really coming at this like a bulldozer. I think I'm going to take a break and breathe a minute and then come back with fresh eyes.

Daniela SM : 30:47

So what do you have now that you will say that could turn into addiction, but you keep it down.

Susan Gold: 30:54

Cleaning the house. Cleaning the house. So oftentimes when you come from trauma, you have that desire to make everything perfect, right, to keep it all perfect. So that rears its ugly head and I go, oh yeah, some post-traumatic stress is coming up here. So then I back away from that.

Daniela SM : 31:16

Yeah, okay, so, susan, so what happened? So what happened? So now you know how to take care of your body, you know how to take care of your mental health as well. So what happened then? What happened after that?

Susan Gold: 31:30

Well, I got a little more open. For seven years, after being dependent on male attention since second grade and Billy Fritz, I took a long hiatus, seven years. I had one date by choice. It was a big, flashy, academy Award winning director and talked all week about this event we were going to go to on Saturday and calls me that day and you drive to my house and meet me and then we'll go to the event together. From there and it's like red flag you know first date and you can't drive 10 minutes to come pick me up.

Susan Gold: 32:08

After seven years of no dating, I took an online course. This was during the lockdowns of COVID. It was an online course with people around the globe. Two people were in Los Angeles and that's where I was at the time, so I took them both to coffee separately, became friends with one of the gentlemen. He had lost his wife after a long battle with cancer. I couldn't believe it.

Susan Gold: 32:36

Like the first time we had coffee, daniela, I was there for like more than almost two hours. I was a single mom. I had my alarm set on my phone for 50 minutes, you know, and go off and I would be up and out and onto the next you know event. And here I was, had lost track of time, and then found myself like it flew out of my mind oh please, come for coffee, come for come, come to my house, come on over. I was like I never had anybody over at my house. So, again, the universe doing for me and what I could not do for myself. And we became friends and now we became partners.

Susan Gold: 33:17

So that little intuitive voice said it's time to leave California and I was like, no, it's not. You know, I had no intention of leaving that sunny, golden state, but I heated the call and I live in rural Montana now, which is a surprise after New York City and LA, but I am in absolute rural bliss. I live with an incredible man. We really resonate, we're authentic. He actually like, works around the house and cooks us dinner and cleans up.

Susan Gold: 33:50

And I was like who is this? What happened? And then I published my book, which is about toxic family systems. It's my own personal and professional story, published my book and I'm doing podcasts, conversations to support it, and I'm meeting amazing people and I'm helping others, one to one with things that I've gone through, similar circumstances, and then I'm gonna be working with groups. I feel like this is my mission and my purpose. It was a glittering career. I had matching celebrities to brands and producing, but this is my mission and my purpose Bringing that taboo topic of toxic family to the forefront, which is not pretty, freeing us from this guilt and shame that we carry and connecting us to our hearts. That's my goal now.

Daniela SM : 34:42

Yes, and it's beautiful what you're doing as well. With going to different podcasts, I realized I always obviously learned from the guests that I have, but talking about these subjects because you always think, oh, I never really have. My parents were not like your parents, so yours looks like a way difficult story, but I think it's a generational thing as well. Our parents didn't have the options of help like we did or ignore everybody had the option to read and listen to podcasts and learn about these different things that happens like narcissist family or children from emotionally mature parents. You didn't know, and so now we do, and so I hope that, with all these information that exists, that they are at least 50% of they grew up with like better parents, or that they know how to separate from those attachments much faster. So I think you're doing a great job.

Susan Gold: 35:40

Let's hope so because there's no reason to stay in this hole. There's a lot of freedom and if you're able to talk about it, find out how. See it from a new point of view, because it impacts how you live your life. A lot of us are carrying things that are from way back in our ancestry, that have nothing to do with our current day reality, but it's the patterning and the programming to shift. It has certainly brought me to a new zip code, literally and figuratively.

Daniela SM : 36:11

Yeah, yeah, Tell me a little bit of where you live. I mean changing from a big city to rural Montana. How was that change?

Susan Gold: 36:20

Montana wasn't even on my bucket list, daniela, I just. I've been here a year and a half and sometimes I'm still surprised, but I really feel the flow of the universe will carry you if you allow your heart to be open. And those intuitive hits kept coming. There was a 5G tower that showed up on my neighbor's curb and my dog started acting strange at a certain time. Every afternoon they were telling me my solar panels were gonna be cost prohibitive to run, that the governor was thinking about doubling the estate tax in the state of California, which would have meant my home would have been really hard to profit from. So I got the messaging yeah, you may need some more space expansion.

Susan Gold: 37:12

My central nervous system was working on overdrive with the clatter, the digital cacophony of the city of LA, so I just started looking. I had a friend in Montana. She encouraged me to come. I wanted another part of the country to work, but this was where I was called and I live in the open prairie and the sky is expansive and gorgeous and I'm surrounded by mountains of every type. It looks like Tuscany out my front yard and the Nepali coastline of Hawaii out my side, and it looks like the Swiss Alps in the back and it's beautiful and the energy is working on me. I feel like I was a twist mop, twisted so tight and Montana is untwisting that mop Again, like settling my central nervous system and I belong here for now.

Daniela SM : 38:05

That sounds amazing. I know you show me pictures as well. That's a beautiful place. You are now working from home, then.

Susan Gold: 38:12

Yep, most of my career I was working from home. So you know, when the lockdowns came and we started working from home, it was nothing foreign for me. But yes, I do work home and most of my work is remote. I would like eventually to have live in-person workshops and retreats here in Montana, because it's so gorgeous and so healing, and that's going to come down the line.

Daniela SM : 38:36

Nice? And what about community? If you are in the middle of nowhere, how is that feeling?

Susan Gold: 38:42

Yeah, in LA I was starting not to see my friends because they'd be on the west side and I'd be on the east side and you couldn't connect, like it would take two and a half hours to drive to where they were because of the traffic. So here I've actually met some really interesting people and people that I connect with. Believe it or not, it's been fairly easy and you're right, you have to depend on each other because there's not as many services here. I'm finding my community and building my community, and then I've also continued some digital relationships with friends from LA and New York, obviously.

Daniela SM : 39:17

Wonderful. Do you have another book on the making? Oh you bad person.

Susan Gold: 39:24

So that last intuitive told me I had three books to write, so I thought I'd get going on the first one. So, yeah, there's supposed to be a second book. I wrote down some ideas and thoughts, but nothing's really gripped me, and the old me would have said well, you have three books to write, figure it out. And I would make myself sit at my computer until I wrote something. So now I'm coming from a different place. What feels joyous to you? What feels fun? Do you want to write anything? Do you want to record videos? What will feel good and what do you want to explore in a book or in video? And the answer hasn't come yet, so we'll see what happens.

Daniela SM : 40:06

Yeah, I'm sure it will come when it needs to come. The time will be perfect. I know you're right. Yes, I noticed that too. Susan, tell me something silly that you have, or do I?

Susan Gold: 40:20

have a hula hoop. So my son, every birthday I used to put cray paper you know, weave, like this web in a hula hoop and make him dive through it on his birthday and crash through the cray paper. So I brought that hula hoop with me from LA and the other day I got it out of the closet and I started to hula hoop and it was so much fun and it brought me so much joy. So that's what I'm doing for fun.

Daniela SM : 40:46

Well, if you do a retreat over there, you can have a hula hoop classes too. Those are really fun. I think I would love that. That's wonderful, great. So anything else that I'm forgetting. I think that we got pretty quickly to your long live story.

Susan Gold: 41:02

Yeah, I just want to say if anybody listening resonates, just reach out to me. It's all at susangoldus. There's free stuff there for you and I'd love to have a conversation. And, Daniela, thank you for this platform and this fun conversation and the freedom to explore. You are such a dynamo and I really appreciate you.

Daniela SM : 41:23

Thank you. Since we met, it was like instant. Oh my god, we have to record your story because you're a beautiful woman inside out, so thank you for being here. Thank you, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I am Daniela and you were listening to, because everyone has a story. Please take five seconds right now and think of somebody in your life that may enjoy what you just heard, or someone that has a story to be shared and preserved. When you think of that person, shoot them a text with the link of this podcast. This would allow the ordinary magic to go further. Join me next time for another story conversation. Thank you for listening, hasta pronto.