Why She Keeps Finding Dimes From Her Late Wife | Kathryn Henry

Cognac Jewellery School Foundation Week: Dates in May, July, August and September 2027 phineaswrighthouse.com/the-shop/p/cognac-jewellery-school-summer-foundations-2027

Cognac Jewellery School Intermediate Week: May, July, and September 2027 phineaswrighthouse.com/the-shop/p/cognac-jewellery-school-intermediate-2027

Kathryn Henry spent a decade beside her wife through a grueling cancer battle, walking away from her corporate career to be fully present for it. After her wife passed, small, inexplicable things like dimes, turning up in impossible places, became something she couldn't write off as coincidence. That became the title of her memoir, A Dime to Say I Love You. 

They explore:

• What happened on a rain-soaked mountain trail in Japan that turned a moment of "what did I get myself into" into the clarity to finish writing the book
• The difference between knowing something intellectually and knowing it in every cell of your body, and why only one of those actually changes how you live
• How childhood trauma decades earlier shaped the spiritual practice she now leans on to process both grief and reinvention

Kathryn's story isn't about grief resolving into peace on a tidy timeline. It's about learning to recognize the signs that were there all along, and letting them pull you forward instead of trying to explain them away.

Connect with Kathryn:

Get her book, A Dime to Say I Love You: amazon.com/dp/B0F787W89L?tag=syty-20

Website: KathrynHenry.com

Instagram: instagram.com/kathryn.m.henry

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/henrykathryn

Referenced in this Episode:

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl: amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Beacon-Classics/dp/080701883X?tag=syty-20

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hi friends! This is Wendy Harrup and welcome to the Say Yes to Yourself podcast. On the Say Yes to Yourself podcast, you'll hear stories from women just like us who are adding the practice of saying yes in their daily lives in big and small ways, and as a result are experiencing the truth that everybody wins when you say yes to yourself. Saying yes to yourself is a graceful unfolding, an intentional becoming of the very best version of you. It is my hope that in these conversations we are able to find our truth and be inspired and empowered to live our very best lives. I'm so excited to go on this journey with you, and I look forward to finding a bit of our own story in each other's. Oh, it is another beautiful week in France, and not just beautiful because the heat wave is over, but it's just beautiful here. I have clients that are enjoying their week at the cognac jewelry school. These retreats that are full of creative expression are so beautiful. I love watching the transformation of the students that come sometimes with no jewelry making experience and leave each day with gorgeous, beautiful pieces of their own design and their own craftsmanship. I think it's also interesting that this extended period of focused time on creativity is also exhausting and it's unfamiliar, but I love the expansion that comes from holding this beautiful space for themselves and seeing the beauty that they're creating and cheering each other on. It's just a gorgeous picture of community, of saying yes, of being fully present in this dreamy French countryside creative arts escape. It's beautiful. And if that sounds dreamy to you, we have some space in 2027. There's a link down in the show notes. You can look at all the opportunities. And I'm so excited because everyone will be staying at my house next year, which is really fun. And I'm excited for you to see all the curtains and all the furniture and all of the things that I've been working on these weeks that I've been here at the chateau. So lots of good things, lots of fun things to celebrate. And speaking of good things, today's guest is so fabulous. If you saw my notes from the interview, you would just see giant all caps. I love her. Today we have Catherine Henry. She is the author of A Dime to Say I Love You. She is a soulful storyteller, executive mentor, and spiritual seeker who hopes to help others navigate grief, purpose, and personal transformation through love, resilience, and radical presence. She is such a gem, and I know you are going to love this conversation with Catherine Henry. Catherine, I'm so looking forward to this conversation. You are doing such beautiful work in the world. Thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Thank you for having me. I love and get inspired by all the fun things you're doing in the world. So I'm looking forward to hearing more about that and how you landed where you're at. And I have listened to some other podcasts, so I have some familiarity. It's been it's been fun listening to you. And you're great guests.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Thank you. I I love this podcast so much and the beautiful women that I'm attracting into my experience by not doing, well, I think I'm not doing anything. I know it's everything that I'm doing cumulatively is creating this experience that I'm having, but it feels so delightful, so easy, so aligned, so beautiful. It's like the best version of speed dating ever because I just look at my gorgeous calendar and I have all of these gorgeous women to talk to. And each one, I learned something that I needed to know, and I didn't have to hustle or be out and in 500 places at the same time. I just got to say yes to what felt good and right and next for me, and all of the things that I thought I was quote unquote looking for found me.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

What I love about how you approach your podcast is through the storytelling, through authentic connection, because in each other's stories and life experiences are how we connect meaningfully and how we find ourselves or how we get takeaways that go, oh, oh, I wonder how I would, you know, I wonder how that circumstance would hit me or or how would that land with me. And so I think it's a great way culturally, we've used storytelling for ages to carry on culture, to carry on traditions, and it's an art and it's a beautiful thing and how we connect. So I love that about your show and how you approach your guests and your conversations.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Thank you so much. And thank you for like that is the work that you are doing. I believe it is how we feel connected. It is how we collapse time and space. You know, we just meet someone and in the holding space of their lived experience, we feel connected to them. It's it's how I want to buy all the books of the people that I talk to because I'm like, oh, I love her. I love the way that she answered my question. I want to know everything she has to say that you know, that she was brave enough to write down. So this is um, we've already cued it up for something fabulous. And I'm so excited. Consider it cued. That's right. So I would love to know how are you saying yes to yourself in this season?

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Well, this year has started off as a whirlwind. And how I'm saying yes to myself is really looking at what's being asked of me. So I've had a lot of requests now coming in for speaking engagements and they're, you know, meaningful connections with people in the business world, which is something I really didn't see so much as an immediate next step with a book, but has presented itself and they're big asks. And I'm just saying yes. So, or, or when someone reaches out to me on LinkedIn and says, hey, I've read your book and I'm really I'm at a crossroads in my career and I'm trying to figure out what direction to go. Could I could by chance, you know, could we connect? And I say yes. Uh so it's getting a lot more yeses, but being in a mindset of the universe divine will bring me what I need and allow me to show up how I need to show up in the world to bring about whether it's change, whether it's connection, whether it's inspiration, whether it's support and service, it'll bring what I need to do to me. And in order to do that, you have to be a yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Yes, absolutely. Oh my gosh, all of that. Thank you so much. I love the ways that you are stepping into these opportunities. Again, not what you expected, but you are saying yes, and you are prepared for them because the opportunity is new, but you're not new. You've been preparing for this conversation that we're having. We prepared for 50 years, like it's just it is all happening for us. It is a beautiful invitation for growth and expansion. And yeah, sometimes it's uncomfortable because it's unfamiliar, but it's the right kind of hard.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

You know what's really been a game changer for me is arriving at a place in life. And one of the one of the quotes in the book has to do with what you think, what you say, and what you do are in alignment, then you know, you're gonna be happy and good things are gonna happen. And that speaks to being in the present moment and being able to come into a situation, whatever it may be, a conversation like this, or a work scenario, or a life scenario, or a home scenario with your full self-present and not having to be in the thinking mind to say, oh, what am I gonna, how am I gonna answer this question, or how am I gonna be with this? Just being able to be present and be yourself. So that's to me, that yes is when we can align with feeling that self-love and that connection with who we are, and just okay with showing up as that authentic self makes it so much more beautiful because there's no stress. You just show up. It's like I'm showing up whole and complete as me, as the best version of me that I am at this very moment. Uh, and that's all I can do. That's all I can ask of myself.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Oh my gosh. And it's a big, beautiful ask, and it is attainable and achievable with intention. And it can be a lot of work to get there too.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Like, how do you get through forgiveness, uh, get into self-love, letting go of attachments, you know, these things that that hold us back are our ways of being that have been slapped upon us, if you will, from the moment we come into existence. You know, it's the outside world telling us who we need to be, how we need to be, in order to be worthy, in order, in order to be good enough, in order to be happy. You know, what do we need to do? And it's this outside in mindset that needs to be flipped to an inside out mindset that, you know, I am starting whole and complete. I was born whole and complete. I need to get back to that, that core essence, that which I am. It's can be a lot of work depending on how much trauma and you know, life experiences that have shaped us. But when we face our fears, when we face our trauma, when we face our challenges and allow them to be lessons, allow them to be learnings, allow ourselves to grow from them and come to a place where we realize I wouldn't be the person I am today if I didn't have all those experiences. So let's just know that they all happened, they all came to me to conspire to make me who I am now. And that can help us ground in the place we are now and be more full in how we live and how we love and connect with others on a deep and meaningful level, not superficial. What can I get? It's not the bartering system, what can I get from you? It's what can I what can I bring and offer without an expectation of something in return.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Yes, right, which is radical presence. Yeah, oh my gosh, it's so beautiful. So let's say we have a listener, she's in her 50s, her kids have left for college, her husband has not retired yet, or maybe he's about to, or maybe he's gone, whatever is happening, and she's thinking, oh my gosh, I keep hearing all of these people with their midlife reinvention, and I don't even know where to start because this is all I know, and I know that there's I have this idea that there's more, I have this notion that I'd like something different, but I don't even know how to get from what I'm experiencing now to where I want to go.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Yeah. So what comes up for me in that is oh, I'm a big meditator, and I think there's a lot of clarity that comes in the quiet and the silence within when we shut down the outside voices, if you will, or that thinking mind, which largely can be rooted in our our egoic, you know, desires that are that are really sourced with fulfillment coming from outside. So I encourage and I've coached a few folks in this space that are in the space of life change and even like coming to a point where they're like, you know, this whole career thing, it's not sitting right with me, or I'm not getting what I expected out of it with respect to fulfillment. So the starting point, I believe, is reconnecting with self. Who am I? Like, who am I beyond these outside influences or these outside reference points that others would say, I've some I've had folks ask, well, who are you, Catherine? It's like, well, I'm an aunt, I'm a dog mom, I am a friend, I'm a golfer, I'm an athlete, I'm a weightlifter, I'm a corporate executive, I'm a you know, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I was an abused child. I, you know, I I've been through major trauma in my life. And I am all of that, yet none of it. So I'm not many of those things, I'm not any longer. So, so when we get to a place where we look at where our ladder has been, you know, what we've been climbing all our lives, and we realize that we it didn't take us where we thought it would, go back to the beginning. So for me, it's a journey in understanding all the things that have made me who I am. Uh, for someone who's in that space, get connected, especially women, we have such a powerful intuitive sense. Get connected with that voice within that isn't driven by outside accolades or outside payment due. It's driven by what genuinely lights you up, that inner light within. And and when we start, like, what gets you excited? Is it your plants? Is it, you know, it can be outside things, but it genuinely touches something within that isn't tied to an outside payment, if you will. Right. Right. And I think that's where the work starts and finding love of self, self-love, because that's where we get our boundaries too, on when we've pushed too far and maybe given too much. We as women, we give a lot and we are in service. And being in service is an amazing thing. It's it's probably the cornerstone of where I am in life right now. But my being in service is not to fulfill myself. It's it's not because I need that to be whole. It's because I know that we are all connected and we all need each other. And the more we help each other uplift, the more all of us can celebrate and enjoy life. So it's finding that fuel within. And then being, I love your say yes to yourself, being a yes. What fuels that? What brings joy into the world? What brings sometimes they give me some simple. I was with some very experienced corporate director folks, and uh this one woman was just sharing, like right now in life, I'm simplifying. I'm still doing the work that I love, so it still means doing things in that space, but I have joy every day in my life. I have happiness every day in my life. I choose things that bring joy and happiness. And sometimes that perspective, it needs to be grounded in the knowing that we choose joy and we choose happiness too. It's not I'm happy if all these things out there conspire the way I want them to. It's no, I am happy and all these things are conspiring in the way they are, because life is just life and it does what it does.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Right. And we can't wait until everything conspires in a way that suits us because that might not bring the next person joy. And then they have to wait. So this is all an inside job, but it takes this reacquaintance, and it's interesting because, like you said, we are in service. I think we intuitively desire to care for each other. Even the Course in Miracles says that we're, you know, because we are all one, we are generous out of self-interest, because it's all coming, you know, what we're doing to each other, we're doing to ourselves. And being in service can feel so aligned, so present, so joyful. And there are other times where we call it being in service, but we're actually in obligation, and there's just a different energy around that. And so this reinvention, this redefining of okay, this is who I was, and this is what I've done, and all of these things, and this is who I'm becoming, it does take time, it takes intention, it takes, I don't want to say a determination, but a desire to answer questions like you are on a date with yourself, you know, that you are doing this work because we sometimes think that we know all the answers that we want, but actually there are these habits of thought that aren't serving us, and so we might say, well, it does me no good to talk about what I want because I can't have it, because if I could have it, I'd already have it and we wouldn't be having this conversation. We could lobby for our limitations all day long, so it takes choice and it takes a respect and a desire and an availability to find self-love, to find what we love and do more of that, and then thank ourselves for the opportunity and have that on repeat. But what you said about presence and alignment, it's such an important part of it because this is not just, oh, I was this person at this corporation, I was this person in this marriage, I was this person in this family, and now I want something different. It's no what, like your friend said or your colleague, what would bring me joy right now? Because it's not just one thing that you now just repeat that for the next 40 years. It's dynamic, it's evolving, it's taking in everything that is in our present senses right now and being selective and choosing this would bring me joy.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Yeah, and there's an element of it too that is what's being asked of me when we come into, I believe, and and it's a very clear thing for me. So that one of the experiences I went through was a 10-year battle. My uh wife had cancer, and it was a very intense road, especially the last four or five years, and multiple surgeries, uh radiation exposures, chemo, clinical trials. And she was a powerhouse, like Olympic caliber athlete. And I would I walked away from my corporate career in order to address and go after, you know, being in that battle together. And she transitioned eight years ago. That experience shifted me forever because it went from a place of an intellectual knowing or believing of certain things to be true to an experiential, like going through the death, like literally of the person I held most dear in the world, yet also knowing that she's not dead. Like there is an energy that continues. And there are things that the the reason the book is called a dime to say I love you, she leaves me dimes still. And and this con this idea of these dime moments, which are when something profound happens that can't really be explained materially, like in the in the scientific sense, you can't really say, How did that, how did that get there? When and there's there's no way. And there are moments that bring us to a broader sense of the world, a broader sense of our existence. And the difference between knowing something intellectually and spending life and times in our mind trying to consider everything versus having experiences that we have a knowingness that exists throughout every cell of our being. It's a different type of knowing. You can learn from others, you can learn from books, and you can have an intellectual knowing, but there's spiritual knowing, there's mental, there's emotional, there are other types of learning and ways to experience the world that are just fundamentally different. And as life presents us with experiences, it's giving us opportunities to say yes and to take whatever comes with that yes. You know, it could be a ride through a rock tumbler that is the most difficult thing you've ever done, but you come out this beautiful polished stone.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Or maybe you don't come out, because that can happen too. Right. But it's the fact that, you know, life is gonna give us experiences, whether they're things that we call good ones or things that we call bad ones, which oftentimes our perspective of good and bad changes over time as well. In the moment, you might say, This is horrible, but you know, a week, a year, a decade later, you say, that was the most important experience in my life, and I'm so thankful that it happened. So that that reframing of what we're here to do and what life can present to us and what that means in this experience we call life, that's where that's where the deliciousness of existing is and the connections we make there in those real moments of even the most difficult things that you think you could never have gone through had you been told this is gonna happen. And when you're when you're you know 50 years old, you're gonna jump into this situation and and this is gonna happen. You might be like, uh-uh, no. No, no way, I'm not doing that.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Oh gosh. Wow, it's so stunning. And I love how you even that reframe of what in the moment feels so terrible. You didn't say later on, you find out it was great. You said later on you find out how important it was, and that is so that word is it, it just it speaks volumes, and I love that you in your great generosity have shared this experience in the book, and to share it through the lens that I totally believe as well that your wife is not dead, she is available to you in the non-physical and is reminding you of that, and then your gift to tell these stories is reminding us. How did you come to that understanding? You said you had intellectual knowledge, but before you had experiential, but is that something that you had experienced before with other people in your family? Or how did this how did this um way of thinking present to you?

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Well, it's been a journey of decades of spiritual study, meditation, just that has shaped who I've become that really began as a very young child that was sexually abused for years and had a lot of very difficult things all the way into my teen years. And I had an experience where really a lot of this thinking began when I had been sent off to live in a Christian home in uh the Midwest and found myself completely alone without any tethering or connection back to family or anything familiar. And in that space, I found a strength and a power within that I had no idea existed. And part of that came about because my aperture on life shifted.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Because as I was sitting there in my suffering, I looked at the other kids that were there in this home. Many of them had been there for many years. I was 15, they were younger, like some had come at four or five years old and were never going to be let out of there until they were of age legally. So I was looking around and saying, you know, you're sitting there feeling sorry for yourself or thinking you have it so bad. Think about the struggles these kids have been through, and then broadening that perspective so I could come into a place of not just sitting in what was causing my suffering, which was real, sure, but seeing all that I also had in that space to be grateful for. Like I had a home that I could go home to. And so that way of thinking sparked a connection to just something bigger in life than my own little self. Right. It's been a journey totally. So with the with the death thing and and saying yes, you know, one of the things that holds us back the most is fear. Fear of being hurt, fear of failure, fear of looking stupid, fear of someone disagreeing with us, or or ultimately fear of death is probably the biggest. And life gave me the opportunity, and I I would not have asked for it, but I wouldn't change it. It gave me the opportunity to have the person I held most dear, who you I expected to spend the rest of my life with, still as young people, face their death. And we walked that path together. And it we faced that and found a way to love and still have joy and still have laughter, even though that was hanging over our heads. The truth is we're all going to die. Some way maybe more timely or less timely than others. But going through that experience firsthand and getting the lessons and the beauty that I also saw in that, which we we often shield ourselves from something like that, because all we can see is the the scary and the loss of it all. But there's so much more in that experience. And seeing that and going through that at a younger age and in a relationship that wouldn't be typical. You know, you lose your grandparents, you lose your parents, they're hard. Right. They're very hard. But when you lose a a a spouse or a sibling or a child, you know, those things are less, you know, there's something you're not as as prepared for as you might be, some of the other. And so it was a gift to as much as it sucked, I mean, I'm not gonna pretend it didn't suck, and I wouldn't have preferred something else, but it was also in in, you know, there's two sides to the coin. You don't have the grief, you don't have the loss, if you don't have the love and you don't have the joy, because there's something that is lost. So those, you know, those life experiences that's why we need to make sure we process our all of our life, not just our celebratory, look how good I am, you know, look at my accolades. It's like, yeah, look how many times I've faceplanted, but don't just look at my face plants, look at the fact I got back up. I have my scars, I have my wounds, but I have my scars too. So that means I've healed, or that means that I've now hopefully healed.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Yes. Um, I love that you talk about this experience as a sacred rite, and I think that's such gorgeous language because of course she's your person, and you're going to be there and in the depth and breadth of that holy experience, the entire time of your whole relationship in this culmination, far too early and unplanned. But the the depth of that experience, it sounds like, has opened you up to what your experience is after in such um a grounded solid way that doesn't require validation or buy-in from anyone else that has a different belief system. It doesn't, it doesn't take, you know, if so I grew up in a church and that there was like, oh no, this is it. You you're born and then you die, and then that's it. And I was like, what do they do with all the bodies? I don't understand. What's like what's how where are all the people going, you know? Um, and so I'm I've made myself available to expand my beliefs differently than the ones that a four-year-old created and then just carried in her darling handbag for 50 years. All to say, not that you have to prove anything to anyone, but there is something that just comes from any experience we have. Like we're not just talking, we're not just retelling what someone else told us is the truth. You are telling your story.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Yeah, and so very much of my life I did retell. Yeah. And those those belief systems, and I I speak a little bit about my experience with organized religion. And it wasn't, you know, it just didn't work for me because the way I received it was this is what you need to believe, this is how things are, and you just need to believe this, and then you need to behave accordingly, and then you'll go to heaven. Otherwise, you're going to hell. And I'm like, well, I already am going to hell. Like the relationship things, it's like, this is not good. And and as I then was off in Kansas and kind of broadened my perspective and started doing studies outside to, well, how do other people interact with, you know, divine or God or, you know, whatever their language of of choices to define that, which is so very lacking. Right. I started finding tools. And that's where meditation and contemplation and wait, you mean I should be developing my own way to consider things and decide how they land with me? Like, is this is this true for me? And and it was a whole different like skill development. Uh, well, how do I even do that? What is that within that would even contemplate such a thing? It's not my thinking mind, because that's really that's the computer. Um, it's it's the operating system that goes way beyond that. Uh, so it was it was quite a a process of unwinding a lot of that to then really come to a place that this life is one of of many, and we get the opportunity to experience this life. We can learn, we can grow. Ultimately, it's far more, far more defined and influenced by a divine source than I think most people will ever believe or tap into. And as I've come to a place in my life where I still am very much a go-getter. I set plans, I I set goals, I I look for things to do in the world. I I, you know, want to do whatever I can do to learn, to grow, to make myself the best me I can be. But I don't get attached to a particular outcome or result because I know that what the universe, what divine is going to present to me, can be so much and will be so much more different and enriching and beautiful than I could have ever thought of on my own. It's this space of creativity, it's this space of innovation, it's this space of possibility that we can tap into when we get into that quiet, quiet place. And I am living in that now. I it took me years after Lisa's transition to heal, to come back to where I felt I was whole, because literally my life just completely changed the day she transitioned. I had been in full caregiving kind of mode, and it was a hundred percent was just us. It was battling, it was living, it was loving. That's the world. And then one day she was gone. And it was just like, now what? And in that night, I found a dime on her pillow. Oh the most difficult experience I've ever gone through in my life also was the most freeing. And now I say yes, and then usually that brings a whole bunch of other things. I just said yes to a retreat that I did with some amazingly inspiring women that are all doing great, wonderful things in the world. And some things came out of that that I could have never seen that were pulling me, it's where Devine is pulling me to go, you know, do engagements in the world to speak, not just on a personal level of these life, you know, transformation experiences, if you will, but also in the corporate world. Because how we show up and when we can bring our vulnerability, our whole self and and own it. Like yes, I did things I would never do again, or I did things that I'm so happy I did and would love to do again, whatever, all of them make us who we are. And when we can show up in that, and we can be that and show not only our things that we're most proud of or that we've succeeded in, but those things where we've stumbled. Others see themselves and they're like, okay, you're not, you're not just giving me a bunch of bullshit to make yourself look good. Right. You're letting me see who you are, or what has made you who you are. And that's the connection, and that's the meaning and authenticity in that.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

Yes, that's what makes us ask the next question. That's what makes us take the next step toward each other. That's what makes us do the collaboration, write the book, buy the book, do the speaking series, do, you know, whatever the thing is, that it's it's calling us toward each other, which is calling us toward ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

And we need to have fun. Like even in those difficult experiences, uh, you know, one of the things Lisa and I did, because we we got, as you can imagine, you're going through a a life battle. You know, you get news that, you know, a treatment didn't work, or you know, you wanted to get one drug in the clinical trial and you don't get it, and you were sure that that was the thing that was gonna save our life. And and those are moments where it's hard. It's like, why? Why did this happen? You know, how much how much can I take? Like, have I not had enough? You know, you get to those places in life, whatever circumstances you're faced with. And we would call those our AFGO moments. And AFGO was an acronym for another frickin' growth opportunity. Love it. Instead of being in that place of I can't take another, it's like, oh, okay, it's a growth opportunity. How are we gonna? And we'd laugh. It'd be like, okay, I mean, why not? Powerful. That reason is incredibly, it's just the re reformatting how you look at it. It's like instead of because I know, you know, people can get in a mode of, oh, my life is just so tough and it's so, it's like, you know, there are so many people in the world that have it so much more difficult, especially if we talk about what largely, you know, we have, and and we have people in very difficult circumstances everywhere in the world, including in in the United States. But we don't have bombs dropping on us. And we have clean water, hopefully. We've got, I mean, there's a lot of things that are being pressure tested right now in our world, to say the least. But no matter what the pressure test is, uh, you know, facing death is like that's it trumps. That's pretty much it, right? Yeah. And we still f found a way to live and love along the way. Because why not? You know, Victor Frankel was an author that in in my book I have a lot of quotes throughout the chapters that are on different like lessons. And it's quotes from things that I read over the decades that influenced my life. And that's one for sure. You know, Victor Frankel's book, uh A Man Search for Meaning, is just, you know, someone who was facing the most unspeakable of circumstances and loss and his entire family. I mean, it's just it's unthinkable what happened, yet came through it. And and speaks to what were some of the differences in how people endured what went on. Right. And it it's a powerful read. And it can, you know, I th I really believe, or I believe strongly that when we open the aperture, when we're learners, when we're more curious than afraid, when we come to things with a beginner's mind, not an expert's mind, we can have so much more of a rich experience in this life. We have something to learn from every single person. Every person is an expert in something, yes, and a beginner in everything else, right?

SPEAKER_00 42:35

Oh, it's so gorgeous. And what a beautiful invitation to reframe our circumstances. And of course, you know, you're not asking everyone to compare their bad day to your awful experience, but what you are inviting them to is to the tools to yes, this thing happened, and we made a choice. We made a choice to love each other through it, to laugh our way through it, and it sounds like Lisa gets the last laugh in these dimes. So, can you tell us about the book and about some of these beautiful reminders?

SPEAKER_01 43:25

Yeah, well, there are a few. So the book is called A Dime to Say I Love You. It is a memoir in a sense. Frankly, I didn't want my story out there per se, but I had a real clarity that if I was going to share life experiences that at one point Lisa and I even discussed, I wish I knew this stuff a lot earlier in life because it would have made this journey, I don't know if I'd say easier, but it would have it would have brought even more joy along the way to deal with things we were dealing with. And that was the inspiration of writing the book is what would I say to our younger selves and a gift to just put out, not in any way that it presents the answers. I'd say in many ways it presents more questions and prompts folks for thinking and hopefully inspiring them to go within. There's introspection sections in each chapter. But the book is organized in a way where there are, you know, real, real world stories of things that happen, the lessons that came along the way, and they are things like letting go of attachment, unconditional love, resilience through adversity, self-love. And each chapter has quotes that are things that along the way inspired me or influenced me in my life. So back to the the other examples of things that happened. One that was really profound for me was as I was contemplating and in the process of writing the book, I had taken a trip, I love to go to places that are considered spiritually charged to like just have a deep, deep history India, um many places in the world. But I this time I was in Japan. I was in the Kiyi Mountains of Japan, which there are trails called the Kamano Koto Trails that connect the ancient shrines for hundreds of years people have traversed these trails. And so I was on a hiking trip with a friend and our very first day it was pouring rain and we were starting on the most difficult not from a length but from a vertical climb perspective. And it was raining pretty good but but the folks at the beginning of the trail that ran the kind of like a grocery store type of place said it's safe, you know, you'll be okay. Not a soul on the trail. Oh my we're she's my friend is probably I don't know 60 meters ahead or 30 meters ahead and I've got my hiking poles and I'm just climb climb climb and I stop and I'm having a moment where I'm like what did I get myself into? Like can I do this? And I shook my head and I put my head down on the pole and there at my feet lay a shiny dime and I was just like how can the how can this even be you know and it was a message it was like get moving you can do this. You know not only are you going to climb but you need to write that book you need to keep climbing and you just need to keep going and it it was an example usually with dimes and dime moments and I've talked to so many people who find dimes or maybe people leave pennies for them or it's other things and some like my editor that sensed this the writing of the book says I find dimes all the time and but that was a moment where I shifted from can I do this what did I get myself into to oh yeah I've got this and it was like this renewed energy and strength. And that's how life can be like we can have these moments that just feel like they're tearing us down but this slight shift in perspective can fuel us in that exact moment. You know we haven't taken in any nourishment we haven't had any water we haven't had you know somebody come to lift us up it's another energy that can exist that can fuel us and drive us and that's what the book speaks to is finding those possibilities for yourself. Find your dime moments find your place where you can have this infinite source of fuel that you can tap into it is there. It's there for the taking it's there for the touching if you develop the skills of how to connect with it. Oh my gosh it's so beautiful I could talk to you all day about this I've loved this conversation Catherine oh my god maybe we'll see each other in France one day or some other yes we will I'm in Napa Valley if you get back this if you get this way you'd let me know.

SPEAKER_00 48:21

I'm from that area so oh that's so beautiful please tell everyone where they can find and follow you how they can read the book all of the good things I know everyone wants more of you and I'm at the front of the line.

SPEAKER_01 48:38

So very kind this has been a delightful conversation. So KatherineHenry.com Instagram Katherine M Henry LinkedIn Katherine M. Henry pretty findable would love to hear from people on if they've read the book, what they've gotten out of it and also I love hearing other people's stories. That's where inspiration and connection lies. So very happy to have had this conversation and look forward to us staying connected.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

It's been fun thank you so much we will link everything down in the show notes. I also cannot wait until the next time thank you so much I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. As always any links or notes mentioned can be found at PhineasRighthouse.com in the podcast section of our site or in the show notes below. And if you haven't connected with me personally, come find me on Instagram at PhineasRighthouse and let me know you listened to this episode. I'd love to get to know you. Thank you for sharing this time with me. I know your days are full and I'm really grateful that you chose to spend some of your precious time right here. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss any of these delightful conversations. I'll see you next week