“When your heart breaks open, more love comes out of it.” –Nada Hogan
There’s something about the loss of a loved one that freezes life into a shelf. But it is when we hurt that we learn how to hope. Don’t shut your doors to the world. Step outside and live again. It’s what your loved ones want for you and this is what today’s episode will help you do. Grief will fall like rain. Still, you must love and hope again.
Listen to the podcast here:
Highlights:
01:51 Life Transformation From Longings and Discontents
09:54 Moving Forward with Memories
16:10 Grieve Your Heart Out and Love
21:42 How to Hope Again
26:52 Open Up to Possibilities
33:22 Choose to be Free
Resources:
Dare Ah New Belief Podcast by Nada Hogan
Quotes:
“It’s amazing how the things that can be the most tragic to us become the greatest teachers in our lives.” –Art Costello
“We all have longings and discontents. There’s something inside of us that beckons us for more.” –Nada Hogan
“Life is always seeking fuller expression of itself.” –Nada Hogan
“If you can’t identify something, you can’t change it.” –Art Costello
“We can’t control how we go. But what we can control is how we honor those that do.” –Art Costello
“When your heart breaks open, more love comes out of it.” –Nada Hogan
“If we can grow right into everything that’s wrong, we absolutely can grow into everything that is right.” –Nada Hogan
“If you believe in the possibility, then everything becomes probable.” –Art Costello
“Forgiveness releases so many people from what binds them.” –Art Costello
“There’s just so much more than the circumstance. … So don’t give in to the circumstance. Have the circumstance but don’t let it have you… Set yourself free and live this beautiful life…” –Nada Hogan
Set yourself free- Forgive, Love and Hope Again. Join @myexpectation and @NadaCoaching as they share how they were able to move forward after the loss of a loved one. #LongingsandDiscontents #Death #LifeTransformation #MovingForward #Memories… Click To Tweet
Trancriptions:
Art Costello: Welcome to the Shower Epiphanies Podcast. Today my guest is Nada Hogan and I have known Nada now for a few months and I met her at the new media summit. I love her she’s, she’s full of fire. She does life transformation coaching. Let me introduce Nada she’s special. She has a great story that is really impactful and I’ll let her tell it so with no further ado, let me introduce you to Nada Hogan.
Nada Hogan: Well, thank you Art, and it is absolutely an honor and a privilege to be here with you today I’m so grateful for this opportunity. Yes, so has Art said I am Neda or Nada either and I have a podcast that’s called Darin new belief, which is named after my daughter whose name is Dara. And that’s the story that art is talking about a 10 and a half years ago, my daughter was 18 years old and was killed in a car accident and it was, that was my life transformation. Um, and my coach would have been my daughter, Dara, who knew that the 18 year old would be teaching the 45 year old. So it was through that and, and you know, Art, as you know, it’s 10 and a half years. That’s a long time and I’m still processing and still trying to figure out everything that has come from that accident. But what I can tell you the biggest thing is the connection that or reconnection, I should say, that I reestablished to that that presence and power in me that’s inside of all of us that I call our God’s source or our God’s self or the essence, infinite intelligence living inside of us. And that thing that should have pulled me the farthest away from having any kind of faith in a god or a b, a powerful being more powerful than us. It was because of that accident that my faith got stronger. So it was, it was kind of a strange turn of events on how, how my life turned around because of my daughter’s accident.
Art Costello: Yeah. It’s amazing how, the things that can be the most tragic to us become the greatest teachers in our lives and awakenings. As you know, I lost my wife to cancer 12 years ago, and for me it was an awakening experience. I’m a Vietnam vet also, which 17 and 18 years old awakened me to life and how to live life. So I find it, I understand it. I’m not sure everybody that’s listening can understand it because they haven’t experienced it and I don’t want them to have to experience it, but yet I want them to realize that they don’t have to go through that to tap into what we’re talking about. So can you –
“It's amazing how the things that can be the most tragic to us become the greatest teachers in our lives.” –Art Costello Click To Tweet
Nada Hogan: –Yes.
Art Costello: -expound on how somebody who has not experienced this tragedy or this event in their life that has affected them, how they can tap into it? How do you teach that to people?
Nada Hogan: Well, I think the easiest way to teach it is we all have longings and discontents. There’s, there’s something inside of us that, that beckons us for more, right? I mean it’s, it’s more than just going to high school, going to college, getting a job, getting married, having the house, raising the kids, retiring and you know, and then showing up on death’s doorstep and right. How many people go through life? And it’s just that you go through the motions of doing the things that you’re supposed to do, that you think you’re supposed to do. And there’s no life in that. There’s no spirit in that and we know people, we’re around people that go through life doing that all the time. And I think that that essence, that thing, that presence and power shows up inside of us as longings and discontents, that, that we’re longing for something more the same exact way that a pine tree every single year, when you look at a pine tree, there’s up that brand new baby green on the ends of it, right? And it might just be, you know, a quarter of an inch, then a half an inch and then it inch but it’s life pressing through that tree. And that same DNA that’s in the tree is the same DNA that’s in us, that it’s life as all we seeking fuller expression of itself. So when I talk to people at and, and I say, you know, what would you love for your life? And usually there, whether they have gone through a traumatic event, whether they’ve been in Vietnam or they’ve suffered the loss of a wife or a child or whatever the case may be. So many times they throw their hands up and say, I don’t know. I don’t know I mean it’s all of the things that I’ve wanted in my life never happened so I just quit dreaming. I quit thinking I could have anything more. And when you get a person just to settle down enough and really listen to them, it will come up. Like I want to go see the Grand Canyon, I’ve always wanted to go and see the Grand Canyon and something as simple as that will open up the door to, I’ve always wanted to be an artist I want to start painting. I’ve always wanted to be a volunteer in Africa, whatever. But that one little door opening of noticing there’s, I’ve always wanted to do something and as soon as you can identify even the littlest things, doors just open up and those longings and discontent start showing themselves more and more because it’s just life sane, your in me, I’m in you. We need to do something together here you’re not here just to exist to get to death. It’s all it’s life, it’s all about living.
“We all have longings and discontents. There's something inside of us that beckons us for more.” –Nada Hogan Click To Tweet
Art Costello: Then it taps into very much to what I teach in expectation therapy because that’s my, my bag my thing is that –
Nada Hogan: –Yeah.
Art Costello: -expectations and how we manage our expectations because so many people that go through what you’ve explained, I hear from that too. So in my process I talk about one of the biggest elements and expectation therapy is identification. Because if you can identify something, you can’t change it. You know if you, –
“If you can’t identify something, you can't change it.” –Art Costello Click To Tweet
Nada Hogan: –Right.
Art Costello: -if you don’t want to identify it or identify it properly. So we spend a lot of time on and identifying what your core expectations are. I just had a conversation just a few minutes ago with a guy on the same issue about, you know, how do you identify what, what you want? Well, the way that you do that is you have to really go into some self-delving into your heart, your soul, your gut, your brain, and you have to figure it out. And, and, I take people to places that they’re comfortable because I think that in order for you, and it was the same with myself when I went to identify as a nine year old, I had to figure out everything on my own. I went to a hilltop and laid on my back and have these –
Nada Hogan: –Yeah.
Art Costello: -conversations with God about what was going to happen to me, what was going to be coming with me because my, my existence was so crappy and everything. And I heard a voice that just said, be faithful and believe, you know? And once you start doing that and you, and it becomes part of your core, you trust them and you become very authentic. And it’s really what we’re seeking is our authentic selves to become the authentic person who we are meant to be. And it’s all –
“Life is always seeking fuller expression of itself.” –Nada Hogan Click To Tweet
Nada Hogan: –Yes.
Art Costello: -different for all of this and –
Nada Hogan: –Absolutely.
Art Costello: -is so it’s important to identify that. So I love, I love that. When you, what your, you know how you’re doing that with people. Can you tell me when you, when you have somebody who has a tragic event, like you did you know how you work with them and how you help them because there’s somebody out there today listening who need you and I want them to understand how you got there and how and how you can help them overcome it.
Nada Hogan: Yeah. Well you know, I know for me that when I’m working with people that you have to go through the grieving process there, you can’t bypass that. You have to go through the grieving process. And then I think for most people, their hits a place in your life where you just say they’re just, there has to be more than this. I have to be able to fill something more than this. And, and for me, that turning point for me is when, I mean, I don’t know if it was a download or where it came from, but it came to me, how am I honoring Dara today? Because staying in bed and crying and [inaudible] in, in that pain didn’t prove that I loved her. Although prior to her accident I would have expected somebody to do that and, and you probably never get out of bed because that’s how you really prove that you love that person. That’s that I don’t think that can be further than the truth. I think we prove how much we love that person and honor that person by carrying them forward, carrying their memories forward with us, sharing stories about them, listening to stories that other people have, the light and life that that person brought to another person. I think that is the way that we start our own healing because we know, I mean it’s not a surprise and it’s not a secret. We’re all gonna die, w we would like it to be after a full life and we live to be 80 90 a hundred but it doesn’t always happen like that.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s not, you know, you, you hear a soul contracts and we decide long before we come down onto this planet what it is, you know, how long we’re gonna be here and, and did my daughter say, you know, yeah, I’ll, I’ll be that 18 year old girl who is killed, you know, before her time and air com quotations. And I may have said, yeah, I’ll be the mom that that takes on that pain. I can do that and then be able rise, rise from the pain of that. I don’t know if any of that stuff is true, but I do know that mothers lose children, all the time. And it doesn’t mean…that it doesn’t break our hearts because it does break our hearts. But I think it also means that that person that we lost is in a good place. And whether we want to call it heaven or I do like to call it heaven and sometimes I just say, you know, she just went back to the source so she went back to the energy from which she came from that her physical body has gone, her spirit hasn’t left. Her spirit certainly hasn’t left me and she shows up all at the time. But staying in that broken heart and staying in that pain, I don’t think in honors her. And in fact I think I shared, I don’t remember if it was if I shared this with you are true or not, but I know it was just a few months after her accident and I have pictures on the hallway and every time I would walk by her picture I would just cry. I mean I would fall to my knees and I would just sob and cry and I heard her in my heart. Say if all I do is bring you pain and sorrow, then quit looking at my pictures and you can look at my pictures again when you can smile and be happy for all of the great memories we have together and I didn’t look at her pictures for, I don’t know, a month, two months. I didn’t look at them for a long time because it felt to me like that was a soul contract from her to me. Why are you being in pain? You, you’re bringing this part on yourself. Then just don’t look at me, do something go smell flowers, go go for a walk. Do something that brings you life because I’m safe, I’m in a really great place and I will help you and support you, but I can’t help you if you are finding reasons to cry. I hope that’s making sense and I don’t mean it to sound cold or cruel.
Art Costello: I think it sounds beautiful. Honestly, I do. You know, there’s a beauty in that that is so raw and, and authentic and genuine that, you know, and I only say not maybe it is because of my own experience because, you know, when I lost my wife and she passed away three years afterwards, I dishonored her, I promised her that I would take care of myself and do things like that and I started drinking and acting like an ass to put it mildly and not honoring her. It’s when my kids came to me three years later and said to me, dad, you promised mom you wouldn’t do this. That I got back down on my back in the front yard of our ranch and looked into the heaven’s again. And I asked God, you know what is going to become a me? Just like I did when I was a nine year old. And I heard that voice say, listen, I’ve given you all the tools, get off your ass and go do something about it. And –
Nada Hogan: –Yeah.
Art Costello: -I got up and I started riding and head of that came the book expectation therapy, the course and all those things that have come from it, meeting you and all the wonderful people that I have, but more important that I met the love of my life again. You know, –
Nada Hogan: –Yeah.
Art Costello: -almost a year and a half after that and then living it. So I understand it from the point, and I also understand it from Vietnam because of losing friends and close friends there at a young age, 18 years old, and you see the depth that surround you begin to realize the fragile thing that we have in life. It’s so fragile and you just one step, one term, one anything can end it and not a, what you’ve told us is that we don’t control that. We can’t control how we go, but what we can control is how we honor those that do. And they’re so beautiful what you’re, what you’re doing in your being able to help other people, golly you know, it’s so powerful for me when I hear it. Tell me something about some of the people you’ve helped. I mean, you know, –
“We can't control how we go. But what we can control is how we honor those that do.” –Art Costello Click To Tweet
Nada Hogan: –Yeah.
Art Costello: -you know, can I, I’d like to hear some of how you’ve helped other people get through this.
Nada Hogan: So normally how, how I help. I had a, I had a friend who lost her son just a year and a half ago and that was so close to home that that’s one of my hardest because that’s so close to home, right? Because our heartbreaks, our friend, our heartbreaks for any human who, who is going through pain. But I think the way that it works is allowing that person to go through the grieving process and to be angry at God and scream at God and whatever it is that you have to do. I think it’s just all of that process and then it’s all, at least the way I see it is as we go through the stage, like a little kid having that temper tantrum and we’re just so angry and unconsolable and because there are no words, there are no words when that kid is having that temper Tantrum, unless they get that thing that they want, they’re not going to settle down. Well, there’s no way we can bring this person back who has passed away. So it’s getting all of that frustration and pain and grief and shock and, and dazed and conciseness out of us, it’s almost when you surrender to…what is, this is what, and now what do I do with that? And then –
Art Costello: –Reality.
Nada Hogan: -being able to help. What’s that?
Art Costello: The reality.
Nada Hogan: The reality of it. Yeah, because you know, this is it. This is it there’s no do overs. I don’t, I don’t get to make that phone call, I don’t get to write that letter. I don’t get to, you know, I’ll meet you for lunch now. Like, no, it’s done It’s final and that’s the most painful thing of it. It’s final and most everything else in our life, we can get a do over. We can try again with a spouse, we can try again with a kid. We can try again with a job when it’s death, that’s it. And I think it makes us freaking insane I think it makes us crazy. So coming to terms with knowing I have, my heart is broken right now, but every single Oregon in my body knows how to heal itself, including my broken heart. And if I can find a way to help another person or to honor my loved one and do one thing today that feels like love. And even if it’s in the name of my loved ones. So today I do this in honor of you, Dara. And if that means I hold a door open at the store for somebody else to walk in, the person who flips me off in the car because I accidentally cut him off. I don’t recant with, you know, my finger going into the air to. I do that in honor of you today, Dara or Jim or Pete or whoever, because, because I can honor you that way and it’s, it’s love. I can give back to the world love from my pain. I can have even a deeper well of love, which you never would have convinced me of 11 years ago. But it’s almost like there’s more love in my heart than there has ever been in my heart. And the people that I’ve worked with, those who want to get better, I believe the same exact thing has happened, that they just discover that there’s more love in their heart. It’s almost when your heart breaks open, more love comes out of it. So there is the pain, but the pain tends to resolve and the love tends to get a little bit stronger and more powerful and, and more aware, more present. And I think that’s all part of the healing. If, cause there’s some people who choose to never heal and, and we can’t do anything with that. It’s, that’s very sad. But that’s a path that that person has chosen. And I just tell him, you know, when you’re ready, I, I’m always available and, and if you’re never ready, then I will love you and hold you and hold you in high thought while you’re going down this journey. Because some people do choose to be angry for the rest of their life about the loss of that loved one. But, but that’s how I do it that’s how I how I work with my clients who are trying to, we’ve come to terms with the loss and now what do I do? And then this is where like we can open up a whole brand new world of wonderful things and many times I would do something completely different in new and I would say to my daughter like, oh my God, if only you could see this. And I hear her say, are you serious? I’ve seen that a kajillion times. You’re just now seeing it. I’ve been there and back 500 times today. You know? So,-
“When your heart breaks open, more love comes out of it.” –Nada Hogan Click To Tweet
Art Costello: –Yeah.
Nada Hogan: Yeah.
Art Costello: One of the things that that I’d like to bring up, what, what you talk about, I respectfully understand it, but it also pertains to a lot of other things in life because when people hang on to the hurts and the events that have formed their life, what comes to my mind is my mother. My mother was a child of the depression, her father was very wealthy. And my mother grew up and was born into wealth and then when she was 10 years old in 1929 the stock market crashed and they lost everything. My mother could never give up on it that her father lost their wealth. Well, my granddad didn’t lose their wealth it was the event outside of his control. But my mother would always say…I remember how it used to be when I was a little girl. And I wish that it was like that again because my mother had to work and rebuild her life. But she was so stuck in 1929 as a little girl that it prevented her from living the life that she was meant to live. And she really tried to instill it in her children because she would always say nothing has ever, ever, ever going to be the same –
Nada Hogan: –Oh.
Art Costello: -in its own way. That inhibits a child from freedom. And I had never thought about it in that light until we were just talking now. And it just goes to show you when we discuss things and we bring things up, how we can learn from them. And you know, I wish my mother’s life had been different I wish she was happy. She was so unhappy all of her life that she tried, they’ve been inhibited from living. And I can remember as a little boy promising myself that I would never live in the past. And that I learned it was part of my learning process to live in the now and I’ve always lived in the now moment because I know I can’t change the past and I can’t control the future. So all I got is now and I had to teach myself that. So that’s something that that I really, really love teaching other people about. And you do too in in your own way because you know, it’s just surrounded around more around the grief element where I’ve chosen the expectation part of it because in my childhood, my parents placed no expectations upon me. None –
Nada Hogan: –Hmm.
Art Costello: -none, –
Nada Hogan: –Yeah.
Art Costello: -no social expectations, no scholastic expectations, no, no expectations at all. So that became my center but really we were talking about some of the same things and how to get through on just in different ways, which I find fascinating. But yes, I also find it really rewarding and grateful. I’m very grateful that that you’re doing what you’re doing and that –
Nada Hogan: –Yeah.
Art Costello: -you’re able to help people through that grieving process because we all grieve things, even not around death, you know? I mean about events in our lives, you know, a breakup. Think of all the kids that get upset in a, you know, we have so many kids that are suicidal now and they’re taking their lives because they give up hope and what –
Nada Hogan: –Yep.
Art Costello: -what we’re teaching people is how to hope again after events in our life. How, how do you hope again, how do you live again? And it lies so deeply in, in the choices we make and what, and how we expect things to be and how we manage those expectations around that. And it’s a, it’s just really beautiful I mean, when you think about it is really a beauty, and it, and it’s, it’s very free.
Nada Hogan: –Absolutely.
Art Costello: And that’s the same thing I see in you is how free you are after having lost their, you know. And when you walk by her picture and you heard those, her speak to you through the, through those pictures that were around you, it’s very moving. I mean it’s very real and I think it can really help some people resolve some issues because it’s not just around the element of death, you know, it can be divorce, it can be so many other issues that we have breakups and loss of a job. You know, I think one of the other key elements that you bring up is becoming a doer doing, –
Nada Hogan: –Yeah.
Art Costello: -doing things.
Nada Hogan: Absolutely yes. Well you know and, and just like your mom Art when you were saying how and there’s so many people who do that, they’re 60 years old and and you can tell they’re not happy and just in general conversation, something about high school will come up and you’re like, you’re talking 40 years ago, 45 years ago, that that’s the thing that’s preventing you from living your life a lot. Well you don’t understand, I do understand, I completely understand because I was there at one time too and it was through the blessing of my daughter and everything that I got to gain and learn that holding onto the past. We have this beautiful book in front of us that has pages, everything on the left hand side, written pages that starts on your birthday and comes all the way up to this very moment and from this place forward, all empty pages, to put anything on those empty pages. But most of us have a tendency to take everything from the past, usually the bad things from the past, bring them forward and put those onto the, the clean white papers that lay in front of us, which is our future. And then like a prophecy we grow right into that. Well, if we can grow right into everything that’s wrong, we absolutely can grow into it everything that is right. And as I’m saying this, one of the things that came to me one time, this was just so profound for me and I, I don’t remember where I was when this happened, but I know I was having a moment about losing Dara and I had said, oh, I know what it was. I was trying to get rid of, I was cleaning out my claw and I had some jeans that didn’t fit me anymore and I was going to donate the jeans and I was like, donate my jeans. I can’t get rid of these. She knows me from my Levi’s. If I got rid of my Levi’s, how would she ever know me? Now I know that doesn’t make sense to what? To a competent person, but it made complete sense to me. I would not get rid of those Levi’s. We’re the only jeans that I could wear so I kept them and it was a couple of days later, I said, I can’t do this and I can’t do that and I can’t do this because I’m gonna leave you behind. And again, I heard this and this is why I so believe that we just go back to source, that it’s just energy. And we’d go back to the source and I heard again in my heart, I heard her say, perhaps you’re not leaving me behind it all. Perhaps I’m waiting for you I’m ahead of you and I’m just waiting for you to catch up with me. And what I difference that made in my life because that’s what happens with a lot of us. Whether we are leaving behind a lifestyle that we knew and now we, we can’t live that now we’ve gone from, you know, Uber wealthy to completely poor and you know how, how do I move forward from that? Like how, how do I know that there’s not another wealthy lifestyle waiting for me? How do I not know that there’s another beautiful, wonderful spouse waiting for me? How do I not know that there’s the best career choice ever? That’s a perfect alignment and in harmony with me that’s waiting for me. It’s opening up to possibilities accepting, we don’t have to like it. That accepting whatever that loss is, the job, the spouse, the, the house, the city we lived in, whatever it is, and knowing if we live in a world of polarity, which we do, then if this thing feels that bad, then the opposite of it has to be something really freaking great. So I’m gonna put my energy into that thing that’s really freaking great and that’s what I’m going to look for. Those are my pages that go forward those are all of my empty pages going forward. The world of possibility and in and what I can grow into what is my true being ness and becomingness in this world?
“If we can grow right into everything that's wrong, we absolutely can grow into everything that is right.” –Nada Hogan Click To Tweet
Art Costello: Yeah, I always talk about that. I believe in the possibility of everything. That’s –
Nada Hogan: –Yes.
Art Costello: -one of my mantras. I believe in the possibility of everything and –
Nada Hogan: –Absolutely.
Art Costello: -and then probability. I talk a lot about probability because if you believe in the possibility, then everything becomes probable.
“If you believe in the possibility, then everything becomes probable.” –Art Costello Click To Tweet
Nada Hogan: Isn’t that true? And people go, Oh yeah, well not for me. Think about we put a spaceship on the moon. How crazy is that? We did that right? So the things that we’re wanting in our life, we’re not asking to build a spaceship and send it up to the moon. That was completely improbable, no possibility or probability, I’m sorry possibility open up, probability opened up and now it’s a fact, right? So, yeah, possibility to probability and then go ahead and put her down in the history books I did it.
Art Costello: It all becomes around choice. It’s about –
Nada Hogan: –Yeah absolutely.
Art Costello: -making a choice to be positive or to be negative. You know –
Nada Hogan: –Yeah.
Art Costello: -if you dwell in the negative see and I talk a lot about expectations that we view them, you know, it’s the seed from which we grow, but we view our expectations in two manners. It’s either faith or it’s fear if you –
Nada Hogan: –Yeah.
Art Costello: -look at something in fear and of vacillate, because everybody has different things and ideas about expectations and all of our expectations are different. But the two constants in it are, if you look at things in a faithful light, in faith, not always being faith in a religious sense with faith in the positive, in the good…versus the fear and the negative that it brings to your life. Because people that are negative are not doers they don’t do things because they let every, they let the fear stop them from being who they were really meant to be. So if you’re listening today and you’re living in this space of fear, make a conscious choice of what I do with my clients. I literally tell them, take your right hand if you’re right handed or your left hand. If you’re left handed reach up to your temple and turn the switch, turn the switch to positive. If you’re negative, get it standing straight up do it physically. Take that action and do it physically make that choice now to become positive and let go of all the negative things that are going on in your life because it’s gonna, it’s gonna stop you from being who you were meant to be.
Nada Hogan: –Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah cause you can’t, you can’t stop the circumstances. Circumstances are going to happen in our life, but we don’t have to have the circumstance. I mean we can have a circumstance it doesn’t have to have us. Right there’s always something so if somebody was to say, well nothing, there can’t be anything good in the, in the death of your 18 year old daughter in that event. No, I mean there’s nothing good in that event, but you can harvest something good from that. It doesn’t have to stay in this place of negative and bad. I think one of the biggest blessings that we did, which, which was not even by my choice, the man that hit my daughter or he ran a red light and he hit my daughter killed her instantly. He was 59 years old and in this state in Minnesota, if there is a vehicular homicide, you have to go to court. That’s, you don’t get a choice in that that’s what you do. So when we went to court, I thought, I’m gonna attack this man, I’m going to attack him and this is the very first day when you just show up and say, you know you plead guilty or you understand the charges against you, whatever. I mean it’s two seconds I literally, it’s two seconds and I thought I, I’m going to end up in jail because I will attack him. This is a bad situation I should not be here because I chose to go alone there is a court liaison with me. But when I saw him out of the corner, he walked by and out of the corner of my eye I saw him. And this wave of forgiveness just washed over me as if it was a shower. There is not a question in my mind that, that that was directly from Dara directly from Dara, this love and forgiveness that washed over me. And we asked the judge as this long process, but we asked the judge, don’t give him gel time. What’s it gonna prove? He’s a, he’s 60 years old. He had Asperger’s. You could just tell life had beaten him up all of his life. Why are, why are we gonna punish him and let him do? I know you have to do something but let him go to a soup kitchen and do something good for another person. And one of the biggest blessings that came out of that accident, because I asked it all the time, why Dara and why him? Why, right? Cause two seconds later she would not have been hit. Two not even two seconds, one second. She wouldn’t have been hit from behind or from the front. It wouldn’t have happened. Why him? Why her? And it was at court and I didn’t know it then this realization just came to me probably in two years ago maybe…we had an opportunity to forgive a man who did the absolute unthinkable, right to be 59 years old and to kill an 18 year old girl because he had taken an overdose of, oh, I can’t think what the name of it is now, an anti-anxiety. He was trying to commit suicide, but he didn’t think that it would kick in as he was driving home. He thought he would be home and then would be able to just, you know, his heart would stop from the, from the drugs in his body, but it didn’t happen. He passed out at the intersection and, and ended up hitting my daughter. So of course in his mind, nobody, how can anybody ever forgive me? And that was one of the biggest blessings. And like I said, that didn’t come from me. That was not my heart saying I forgive you. That was this wave of love and forgiveness that came from Dara. And to be able to have that blessing to give to him and to say we forgive you. And he just started crying in court. He just was bawling his eyes out because there could be no communication. Court is messed up like that. We couldn’t have, we couldn’t even tell his lawyer, would you please tell him that we forgive him, that we’re not holding grudges, we don’t wish bad on him, that we feel as bad for him as we feel for us. They can’t do any of that stuff so, so for a whole entire year he had to hold that pain of knowing what he did. And you know, what does his family think of me? What do all of her friends think of me? And it was forgiveness and he just cried his eyes. So what? I want my daughter to be dead so I can experience that absolutely not. Absolutely not but that’s a fact and what a beautiful thing came out of that, that this now 60 year old man got to experience what it felt like to truly be forgiven for one of the worst things that could ever happen in a person’s life. I have no idea what it would feel like if every hit and killed anybody right?
Art Costello: –Yeah.
Nada Hogan: So what, what a blessing that was and like I said, that wasn’t me. That wasn’t me, that that was completely Dara reaching down and it was a wave of forgiveness. So that that is available to us all at the time.
Art Costello: Hmm Mm. And what a beautiful lesson under such circumstances. What a beautiful lesson to come from Dara’s passing that way. I mean for lessons in, in not only how to live, but how to forgive because forgiveness releases so many people from what binds them. I mean, –
“Forgiveness releases so many people from what binds them.” –Art Costello Click To Tweet
Nada Hogan: –Yeah.
Art Costello: And to learn how to, to learn these lessons, it’s unimaginable to think of going through because I don’t think there’s anything worse than the world than losing your child. I can’t imagine it.
Nada Hogan: Yeah.
Art Costello: I, I just can’t imagine it. I have three –
Nada Hogan: –Yeah.
Art Costello: -children by grandchildren. And you know, it’s a fear every parent has and never grandparents has.
Nada Hogan: –Right.
Art Costello: It was terrible losing a spouse, but to lose a child, I think there’s something about it that is just earth shattering more than anything else. I thought about it when I was in Vietnam, the parents that a loss sons to war and all that, you know, it’s just what a, what a beautiful lesson in forgiveness in life. And thank you for sharing it because –
Nada Hogan: –Yeah.
Art Costello: -I know that it’s gotta be extremely heart tugging and hard for you to, to share this. But you’re right the beauty of it and the legacy that Dara has left the world in her passing and you carrying that lesson on is honestly honored to share this moment.
Nada Hogan: Thank you Art. Yeah.
Art Costello: Because I –
Nada Hogan: –I appreciate it.
Art Costello: -there’s so many people out there that are suffering because they can’t forgive somebody else…and they need to because it’s not only about the other person. I think it’s more about you. It’s more about what you…release in what your legacy is going to be to this world. So if you’re listening to this and you need to learn about forgiveness, you have somebody here who has…a life event that is teaching such valuable lessons and I’m just honored to have shared it with my audience and I’m honored that you’re, have been on the show I know we’re nearing our time to wrap up, is there anything you want to share that to end the show?
Nada Hogan: Um, first I would just like to say thank you so much because I know how dear and sweet and loving and kind you are and that’s why I think your program is so spectacularly powerful and you walk the talk and I just, I would just love for your listeners to know that there’s just so much more than this circumstance. There’s so much more inside of us that every single one of us has DNA, like the trees, like the grass that’s pushing to reach its full potential. It never stops no matter what that’s circumstances. So don’t give in to the circumstance have the circumstance, but don’t let it have you, find. Find your footing, find your path, find forgiveness, find forgiveness for yourself, find forgiveness for that other person set yourself free and live this beautiful life that, that our God intended all of us to live in this beautiful, free life.
“There's just so much more than the circumstance. … So don't give in to the circumstance. Have the circumstance but don't let it have you… Set yourself free and live this beautiful life…” –Nada Hogan Click To Tweet
Art Costello: Beautiful words, beautiful words. Can you now tell my audience how they can get a hold of you, where they can get a hold of you and how we can find you?
Nada Hogan: Yeah, so I’m on the internet at nedahogan.com and you can email me at nedaatnedahogan.com
Art Costello: Nada, thank you for being here, I love you dearly. You, you’re such an impactful person and you know, I’m sorry you lost, Dara but there’s purpose in everything and it’s for us to find it. It’s for us to find it and you certainly have thank you again for being here.
Nada Hogan: Absolutely thank you Art. It’s my honor and my privilege. Thank you.
Art Costello: Goodbye.
About Nada Hogan
Parents are naturally the ones to teach and guide their children. But Nada Hogan learned much more from her daughter, Darah. When Darah passed away, Nada’s world crumbled as any parent would. But she was able to move forward and transform her life as she learned forgiveness and love. Today, she helps others deal with their loss and move forward as a Dream Builder, Coach and a Life Mastery Consultant. She also do Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. She would have been trapped in her grief if she did not choose to hope again.
Connect with Nada
Website: https://www.nadahogan.com/
Email: nada@nadahogan.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nada-hogan-lifecoach
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nadacoaching/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NadaHoganLifeCoach/
Telephone: 651-245-8051
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