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Kori Gouge

True Wealth Mentor for Rebel Entrepreneurs, Denver

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Losing, Learning, Loving, Laughing, and Living – Lessons from Emily

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Today would have been my best friend’s 39th birthday. Emily LOVED her birthday. It was better than Christmas to her. I was talking to one of my business besties last night and telling her how I usually do something for Emily on her birthday. She replied, “You are doing something for her. Look at all you are doing.” She was referring to me building my business and not giving up on it, no matter what.

I was talking to one of my business besties last night and telling her how I usually do something for Emily on her birthday. She replied, “You are doing something for her. Look at all you are doing.” She was referring to me building my business and not giving up on it, no matter what.

She was right. Emily would be so psyched for me as I would have been for her. That is part of what struck me when she died – how much she still wanted to do. From that day, I wanted to make sure I was doing everything I could to live my life purposefully since I was given the chance to do so. Living my life to the fullest is the best way to honor her and to celebrate her life. I wish she could be here, every day. I will always miss her.

Life is strange. It’s so devastating to lose someone so close to you, someone, who was such a huge part of your life. It’s hard to imagine life without them. And then you have to. And the only way to do it is to do it so well, that you know wherever they are, they are smiling with you.

I wanted to share a few things I loved about her in the hopes you will take some of it with you today.

Lessons from Emily:

  1. Never lose your sense of humor, no matter what is going on, share a smile.
  2. Commit fully to personal growth and healing.
  3. Travel as much and as often as you can, even if that means going somewhere new in your city.
  4. Always tell the truth, even when it’s hard.
  5. Go after what you want, no matter how scary it may seem.
  6. Stand up for yourself even when your knees are shaking.
  7. Love deeply.
  8. You are stronger than you realize.

In honor of Emily and to celebrate her birthday, I encourage you to tell someone you love them (this includes telling you this!), smile more often, commit to your own self-learning, explore a new place or activity, and above all, do something fun!

Never ever pass up an opportunity to leave someone in a better place than you found them – whether that’s through a story you share, a heartfelt smile, a good laugh, a hug, or a sense of good energy and a lightened spirit.

We get to choose how we show up each day and the impact we desire to have on every person we come into contact with. Today, above all days, make that interaction count.

Much love,

Kori

On Love and Loss

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I have a tattoo on my right shoulder. It has two Sanskrit words – bodhichitta and vimukti – which mean awakened heart and letting go. It serves as my reminder to live my life that way – keeping my heart open and letting go. Why? Because my heart was shattered and then shattered again. I could feel myself shutting down, closing myself off, putting a wall around my heart and I knew, despite the pain, this would not heal me. I knew, somewhere deep down, I had to keep love alive within me.

The reality is your heart will be broken. And it will be broken again. And again. People, animals, and situations come into our lives and sometimes they are taken away from us sooner than we had expected, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts and our lives. We will never be the same. That hole will always be there. At times it may feel less gaping and at other times it will feel as if we are newly wounded, tear-streaked, and bloody.

Our lives become different. We become different. Our losses mark us, they alchemize us. Our work is to not let them break us. We must keep our hearts open, despite the pain. We must let go of the pain, it does not need to define us. We must seek support and love from those around us even when the allure of isolation beckons at our door. We are still here, we must still have work to do, and we must do it for those that we have lost.

Allow yourself time to grieve. Allow yourself time to recover. Now, more than ever, is the time to revamp our self-care practices because it is exactly at these times that our self-care practices get thrown out the window. Your heart needs to be taken care of. Allow yourself to explore what that means to you and what that looks like. For me, it meant going on walks. The movement served as a way to process the intensity of my emotions, allowing them to flow through me instead of stagnate. It also meant reaching out to people, something that is not easy for me. Writing is another tool I use to help process my emotions as well as a way to stay connected to myself. That is the danger here  – that we allow the darkness to invade our soul and we disconnect from ourselves and others. This is when we must seek the light, no matter how dull it may appear.

Allow the light to fill the cracks of your broken heart. A loss feels like heart surgery and it is. It is a process of healing and repairing and,ultimately, transformation. This work is hard, it is a roller coaster of ups and downs, but what it is doing, in the end, is bringing us back to ourselves. I believe it is an honor to have experienced such tremendous love. Yes, I would rather not have lost it but I would also never give up that love, even if I had known they would die way sooner than I could ever have imagined. I don’t understand it. I may never understand it. What I do know is that I am still here and  I must allow my heart to grow stronger by loving again. What a gift and an honor it is to be able to do so. I must choose love. I must choose light. Over and over and over again.

In the words of 8 year old, Sam, in the movie Love Actually, “Let’s go get the shit kicked out of us by love.”

Food Memories and Musings

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You never know where food might take you. Food holds memories and at times can serve as a time machine, transporting us back to that last memorable time when we were eating that exact food. This happened to me recently with my Curried Butternut Squash Soup. I was suddenly back in the hospital room with Emily.

I made this soup for my best friend, Emily, when she was in the hospital with acute Leukemia. It was my mission to bring her healthy, nutritious meals homemade with vegetables from my organic garden. I was determined this would help heal her illness and restore her to health. I had to cling to the hope that she would survive this evil disease. I believe in the power of nutrition to heal our bodies and the power of connection to heal our souls. I brought her homemade meals almost every week. I sat at her bedside as we discussed her prognosis, life, and relationships. We cried many times with some laughter thrown in here and there for good measure. She was scared. I was in denial. I didn’t want to think about the possibility of her not making it. She was my best friend, she had to survive. She had just had her first child, recently bought a home with her husband of less than a year, completed her Master’s degree in counseling and was currently practicing at a mental health center. She had overcome a challenging childhood and a difficult first marriage that ended in divorce. She told me many times during her divorce that there was no way she would survive another divorce, as it was killing her. Neither of us would have ever imagined at that time that something much more lethal would end up killing her a mere five years later.

We went through so much together and a lot of the time we spent together involved great food and deep conversations. We were never afraid to go deep with each other, to tell each other the things we didn’t necessarily want to hear but needed to hear. I feel so incredibly blessed to have had her as one of my very closest friends for almost 10 years. Unfortunately, my soup couldn’t save her. None of the food I brought her could save her. Modern medicine couldn’t save her. Her time here was so very short – a mere 36 years – yet she had tremendous impact on her friends, her family, her clients, her mentees. I can’t wrap my head around why she was taken away so soon, I never will understand. She had so much to offer this world still. It grieves me that she is gone. I miss her every day. This soup is in honor of Emily, in honor of true, authentic, deep friendships, in honor of the power of connection, in honor of the power of food to bring people together, in honor of the souls who come into our lives and change us forever. May you always have access to healthy, nutritious food, may you always be surrounded by kind and caring souls, and may your table always be filled with good food, great love, and much laughter.

Here’s the recipe.