With Suzanne Hanna, a licensed psychotherapist, holistic health practitioner, spiritual coach, writer and inspirational speaker who has helped hundreds of men and women move through their fear and pain as a way to live a more inspired and wholehearted life. She is the founder and creator of The Wilderness Walk, an experiential hero’s journey through the darkness and fear of the inner mind and the pain of the wounded heart in order to help others integrate ALL aspects of their being, both light and dark, and has created a membership community called The Map that provides countless tools, support and inspiration for those who are committed to owning their path and living a life of deeper meaning and purpose. 

Suzanne works with people who are committed to their own healing. The courageous souls who want to live the best versions of themselves and be a ripple in this world for others. Her seven and nine week journey’s are changing lives all over the world and leading people on a path to internal freedom. She is currently working on her first book about her personal journey. She also hosts a popular LIVE weekly radio show and is a featured blogger.

Join us for our enlightening conversation as she shares her insights and helpful tips on how we can achieve true healing and internal freedom. You will also enjoy listening to Suzanne as she talks about the concept of shadow and light, how we are composed of different bodies, the masculine and feminine energies within us, our backpack of life experiences, and how important evolution is.

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Biggest takeaways (or quotes) you don’t want to miss:

• As humans, we are comprised of both light and dark and we have several different bodies. (Be sure to listen to Suzanne share on the FOUR body types, which are all inter-connected.)
• “Most people try to heal on the cognitive level which is just the mental body… which ends up having no true sense of integration and wholeness because they’re focused on one body only.”
• “Everything in life is a mirror of everything… what we see in the world is just a projection of our own internal experience.”
• Life is uniquely designed for our evolution.
• Listen to Suzanne share her story involving “20 seconds of insane courage” and where this lead her next in her life.
• “You have to make a choice at some point in your life — whether you want to choose fear or freedom.”
• “We’re all carrying a backpack of life experiences and depending on what’s in it is going to discern how we should up and relate.”

“We are all on a journey to get to a place where we can integrate both the light and dark aspects of ourselves to experience freedom and wholeness.”

-Suzanne Hanna

Check out these highlights:

• 08:37 Suzanne shares the “thresholds” she encountered in her life and how she overcame them.
• 11:19 Suzanne explains the origins of the “Wilderness Walk”
• 17:30 Listen to Suzanne share what it truly takes to heal at a cellular level.
• 23:15 Why some people do NOT prioritize their personal development.
• 30:55 Suzanne tells the first two phases of the Map journey.
• 47:43 What’s the number one gift you can give to your family and to the people closest to you?

How to get in touch with Suzanne:

On social media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewildernesswalk/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suzannemhanna/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannasuzanne/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/suzanne_hanna/

Learn more about Suzanne, by visiting her website here.

Special offer for listeners: Get a FREE 9-day transformational journey that will help you navigate your wilderness within allowing for greater clarity, insight and aligned action toward your deepest desires. Click here for more info – https://www.thewildernesswalk.com/

You can also get a free access to the “The Map” community (a community of people navigating thresholds and transitions) on Facebook by joining here.

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below.

GGGB Intro  00:00

Here’s what to expect today…

Suzanne Hanna  00:02

You know, we create these traps and hazards that will help us avoid discomfort. So one of those might be denial. Another one might be distractions. Another one might be busyness, you know, another one might be emotionally eating or numbing. And we find ways to avoid things for as long as we potentially can avoid them. But what will inevitably happen along the path at some point is the pain gets so great that we can’t ignore it anymore. And that’s when people are at that threshold where they get thrust through the door. And they have to, you know, they have to wake up, they have to look at it, there’s no way that they can ignore it anymore. But I would say the one thing that I have taught people over the years is that the stories we tell ourselves about what might be inside that box are far worse than what is actually in the box.

GGGB Intro  01:02

The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of guts, grit and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit and Great Business™ podcast where endurance is required. Now, here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:35

Alrighty, welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®. I’m an attorney and legal coach based here in Seattle, Washington, serving online and information entrepreneurs throughout the US and around the world. I am super excited about the conversation we are going to have today. Welcome to my friend, fabulous, fabulous woman and you are in for a treat today. If you are listening. Welcome to Suzanne Hannah. Hi, Suzanne.

Suzanne Hanna  02:08

Hey Heather. And I just want to say that you are one of my most favorite people too. So it’s a mutual love club that we’re a part of, so…

Heather Pearce Campbell  02:19

I love it. Well, Suzanne, so I met Suzanne through a friend of mine, Elena Lipton, who’s also been on the podcast, and we got to meet in person. Earlier, it was last year already, almost a year ago, Suzanne almost a year ago, May of last year. So we spent a fabulous handful of days in the desert and it was truly, truly magical. We can get into more of that. For those of you that do not know Suzanne and officially welcome to another episode of God’s grit and great business. But Suzanne, who is with us today is a guide, a licensed therapist, coach, visionary, writer and inspirational speaker. She has helped hundreds of men and women move through their fear and pain as a way to live a more inspired and wholehearted life. Suzanne is the founder and creator of the wilderness walk an experiential hero’s journey through the darkness and fear of the inner mind and the pain of the wounded heart in order to help others integrate all aspects of their being both light and dark. Her three and nine week journeys are changing lives all over the world and leading people on a path to internal freedom. Suzanne also created a membership community called the map that provides countless tools, support and inspiration for those who are committed to owning their path and living a life of deeper meaning and purpose. Suzanne works with people who are committed to their own healing. The courageous souls who want to live the best versions of themselves and be a ripple in this world for others. She is currently working on her first book. I love it. And Suzanne comes to us from the mountains of Colorado, right Colorado?

Suzanne Hanna  04:12

Yes, yes.

Heather Pearce Campbell  04:13

Excellent. I love it. So we’ll see if the video hangs on for us today. We were just talking technical issues before we went live. But Suzanne, I am so happy to have you here that we feel like this is a bit overdue. Like the moment I met you. I was like, Oh, everybody needs a Suzanne in their life. Everybody needs to hear from this woman.

Suzanne Hanna  04:34

Yeah, it is way overdue. In fact, you have been on my mind quite a bit. And you know, there’s just some people who come into your life that just don’t leave your own spirit and you’re one of those people so I am so glad that we connected and I’m so glad that you know sometimes when journeys cross, you know we think that they’re you You know, temporary, but really, it’s something that even if I don’t see you, I don’t hear you. There’s just something there that’s imprinted. Right? So I’m grateful for you.

Heather Pearce Campbell  05:11

Oh, well, likewise, the feeling is very mutual. And that event that I went to last year, right, it was a very spur of the moment thing, Elena messaged me and was like, Heather, I think you need to do this, check it out. And like, you know, two days later, I’m like, Yes. And then it was just a couple of weeks after that, that we were on flights down. Like I didn’t have a very big window of time. And it was exactly what I needed. At that time. Of course, it was right. And the group of women that you brought together was just phenomenal. This event was called the journey to stillness for folks listening. And just so ironic in the middle of COVID, right, when we’re all trapped in our homes, at least I had been, and having two small children in the house, like I literally felt like I had to leave my house to find space and stillness, which is what we did. And it was just completely magical. So Suzanne, you do totally have a way of not only bringing people together, but creating a really phenomenal space for people to do some really important work. And I know that I only know probably small bits and pieces of your journey, right? But I remember going to your website initially and learning about your wilderness walk and just being like, yes, yes, yes. And yes, all the yeses. Do you want to share with the folks who don’t know you a little bit about how that came about? Right? Because that was a leap and you left a portion of your life? And I think a long standing career and like you’ve really demonstrated that leaping and courage in your own life?

Suzanne Hanna  06:55

Yeah, so I mean, I will, I will start out by saying that I think I was born into a family where I was, I was sort of destined to be a truth teller. It was just something that, you know, my family had lived in a big trap of denial. And, and I was one of those people, even at a very young age, I can remember saying to myself, does anybody else see this? Does anybody else, you know, know what’s going on. And so I was always able to tap into some internal courage that I had to speak the truth. And as I got older, it’s interesting, because I grew up with a lot of anxiety. I used to have nightmares as a kid, and always had this incredible fear of being alone. It was just a big pervasive fear that I had throughout the course of my whole life. And the interesting thing is, as I got older, I went to New York City. That’s where I went to college. And my mother, still to this day, jokes about how I went from this sheltered little town outside of Boston into, like Washington Square Park in New York City. And it was just a big, big change. But fast forward until I was about 40. I had gone through a marriage and a divorce. And I had met a man several years after I had gotten divorced and got into a relationship where there was definitely some emotional abuse. And at this point, I had been a psychotherapist, I had a very successful private practice. I’ve been, you know, working with about 40 clients a week and an enormous amount of people. And there was a part of me internally that felt like a fraud. Because here I was in a toxic relationship. And I was working with people who were in situations not that different from my own. And I realized that I got to a place where I talked about this in the map, and I talk about this on my journeys, where you just get this internal restlessness, this internal, knowing this internal discomfort where you know, something has to change. But you’re just terrified at creating that change. And I was in that place. And I think we all are multiple times throughout our life. I call them thresholds where we go through these thresholds in our lives. And for me, I was at a threshold where I knew I needed to do something radically different. And so what I did was in this is a whole separate story I won’t get into but I had synchronistically gotten a Golden Retriever puppy at that time, who became a huge part of my heel One journey. And one, just one day, I was able to finally tap into what I call 20 seconds of insane courage. And I laughed. And what I had decided to do was I wanted to hike across the United States to immerse myself in unnerving solitude in the wilderness. And I wanted to confront my fear of being alone. And, you know, not everybody’s going to do something quite that radical.

Suzanne Hanna  10:31

But for me, it was just, it just seemed an important part of my journey. I loved being in nature, my dog’s name was Grace, which is the perfect name for everything that I had moved through. And I just loved seeing everything through her eyes, you know, she was she had the, this way of just tapping into this exuberance that, you know, I wanted to experience and so off and on for the course of about three years, I hiked 1000 miles across the country. And in doing so, I felt really divinely guided to go out and teach people what I had learned on that journey. And that’s why I called it the wilderness walk. And I absolutely, because I know so many people cannot leave their families and leave their jobs for extended periods of time to do something like this. So for me what I wanted to do was to create journeys, where people could experience the level of internal excavation that I experienced without having to leave their homes for extended periods of time. And I wanted to bring people on live transformational retreats, where I knew that they could get the integration that they would need in order to not just cognitively understand, but really, truly embody what those journeys are about. So that’s basically how I got to create the wilderness swag, I’ve now been doing, I do two journeys, I do the journey to stillness, which is what you experienced. And I do the jury from fear to freedom, which is a much more intense journey. One works with moving into the shadow, and one works with more going into the golden shadow, which is the light aspects of our being. And I believe that basically, we are all on a journey to get to a place where we can integrate both the light and dark aspects of ourselves so that we can experience freedom and wholeness. Because if there’s anything we’re running from, then we can think we can’t be free. We can’t be free. And believe it or not, we run more from the light than we do the dark. And so it’s really, really important for people to, to navigate, I think those aspects of themselves to get to a place of real self acceptance.

Heather Pearce Campbell  13:13

Well, I mean, there’s so much that we can talk about within what you’ve said, and having experienced one of your events there. This what comes to mind for me, and what I’d love to hear more about is this, like the physical expression or the physical side of the journey that accompanies that internal journey, right. And I think there’s something really important there because even like when you mentioned, you know, the 20 seconds of courage and like you knew there was no turning back and you made this decision. And then, you know, facing your fear of having this physical side of the fear, right, that you just had to go out on your own and be alone in the wilderness. I think most people are afraid of heights. I don’t think it’s an abnormal fear. I was on a hike one time and with some friends, we were down actually in Arizona, and we were hiking and have a super high falls. One, I’m not a swimmer. I don’t love swimming. I’m a terrible swimmer. I think I hated swim lessons because they made us jump from a high dive as the first thing that we did, right? This is the middle of Idaho in the early 80s. So it was a terrible way to learn swimming. So I’ve never had a really super positive relationship with water but I was doing this hike. And I literally looked down off this ledge that was probably 60 feet above the water and I knew I cannot leave this area until I jumped, until I overcame this fear and nobody was making me do it. Nobody was pushing me but there was something about that combination of like, the physicality of something or the embodiment of like an idea. It combined with that internal facing fear, there’s just something so powerful there. So one, I love that you not only did that for yourself and took this amazing journey, but that you’ve tried to recreate it for other people in a way that brings those elements together like the embodiment, right, the integration that you mentioned, I think is really important to have the space including the physical space to do that, because you can’t just learn things cognitively. And have that incorporated. But the other thing that you mentioned about the light and dark, I recently had a conversation with Dr. John Demartini. And basically it was the same concept set in a different way about how, as humans, we cannot look across at somebody and look down on their bad aspects and look up to their good aspects. And, like, it’s this whole thing of acceptance or other people that we put on the pedestal, right, that we look up to, like, that’s not truly loving people, loving people is accepting the whole bit, accepting the light and the dark and understanding that it’s all okay, it’s it, and that we have the same thing in us. Right? It’s anyways, he had a totally different way of saying I think a very similar thing about this is the path of being human and reaching a point really of true love with ourselves and with other people.

Suzanne Hanna  16:26

Yeah, so there’s so much to say about that, first of all, so number one, what I would say is that being human, and being on a human journey, we are comprised just from being human, comprised of both light and dark, we’re also we have, you know, we have several different bodies, we have the mental body, we have the spiritual body, we have the physical body, we have the emotional body. And all of those bodies are very, very important. And they’re all very interconnected. In fact, you cannot even if you wanted to separate them. And so, as a therapist for a really long time, what I realized is that most people try to heal on the cognitive level, which is just the mental body. And what ends up happening is that there’s no true sense of integration and wholeness and alignment that happens, because they’re only focused on one body. So when I, when I was on my wellness walk, it was very clear to me that the only way we truly heal is at a cellular level. And the only way we can get there is if we heal the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical body. And so when I did my journeys, I wanted to incorporate all aspects. And what most people don’t understand is that our minds are very powerful, but the gateway to healing is through the body, it’s not through the mind. And so what ends up happening is that we end up feeling very disconnected. We think one thing, we feel something different, we do something different, and we’re completely out of alignment. And so what I know is that to be true, is that if we really want to treat to heal on a real deep level, we have to go into the body and into the physical experience. And that’s why pretty much everything that I do is experiential, because I actually want to get people out of their heads as much as possible. And because our minds are very tricky, they’re very, very tricky, because we’re very good at creating masks. And we’re very good at projecting something that we think the world will accept. And then one last thing that I’ll say, because I think this is so true, with what you were talking about with your other guest, that I think is really, really paramount is, you know, this concept of, of shadow and light. And when you talk about it, we can put people on a pedestal and we can put people, you know, we can judge people, but here’s something that changed my life. And it was taught to me by my mentor, young woman, Zant. And what I was taught, she said, she used to call me beloved, she called everyone she worked with beloved, she’d say, beloved, there’s only you and God in the room. And if it’s not love, it’s not God. And that was really, really powerful to me, because what we don’t understand is, we can only see things in other people that we have within ourselves. So when we look at somebody and we admire something, it’s because we have that same quality, we just may not have embraced it or we may not have nurtured it. And the same with the dark side. You know, we have those same qualities within us and we may judge them or we may have shame around them, or we may deny them And so everything in life is a mirror of everything. So what we see in the world is just a projection of our own internal experience.

Heather Pearce Campbell  20:09

Right? Yeah, well, and this, this is what underlies the importance of shadow work, right? And looking at all of it and having some hand holding and guidance in accepting all of it. Otherwise, I think we end up just being driven by our triggers, and by the things that we want to avoid in ourselves.

Suzanne Hanna  20:32

Oh, for sure. And when I would say to most people is that you know, it when I meet people, the first thing that people say to me if I say, What do you want, they’ll say, I just want peace, or I just want you know, to feel good about myself, or I just want my business to succeed, or I just want this or I just want that. And what I say to people is that everything in your life, your relationships, your business, all of those things, are a reflection of how you feel internally. And so it’s really, really important to understand, in fact, one of the greatest pieces of shadow is self sabotage, and all the ways we sabotage things in our lives. And it’s, it’s because there’s an aspect within ourselves that we may not feel worthy of it, we may not feel good enough, we may not feel that we have a certain level of value. And so we find a way to unconsciously sabotage. So I think this work, to be honest, is the most important thing anyone can do, honestly.

Heather Pearce Campbell  21:38

Oh, Truly, truly, I mean, I and I’ve said repeatedly, even on this podcast, the the extent of our success through our business, or with our you know, our work with our clients, whatever it is that we’re doing, it’s all limited by our capacity for personal growth and development, right? It truly, truly is, just like our leadership abilities are capped at our ability to transform ourselves. So it’s, yeah, there’s no denying this part of the journey if you’re somebody who’s truly, truly interested in best outcomes for yourself and for other people.

Suzanne Hanna  22:16

Yeah, and the thing that I find most ironic, Heather, is that people don’t prioritize personal development. I work with lots of entrepreneurs, I work with lots of business leaders. And one of the things that I noticed over and over and over again, is that probably, you know, if we had like a pie chart, a big portion of what they invest in is either their business, their children, or, you know, their, yeah, their health or health, but not even their health until it gets to be problematic, right.

Heather Pearce Campbell  22:52

And but I’m saying at that point, right, they’ll invest ungodly amounts to figure that out once they’re having some problems. Yes. Right.

Suzanne Hanna  23:00

And so I look at all of these things. And I say, what if you could, you know, it’s almost like preventative medicine. You know, what if you could look at all of these things, because like I said, everything is a day extension of you. And so to me, it’s like, we have it backwards. We build our families, we build our businesses, we build all of those things, before we even begin to start looking inward. And I feel like looking inward is probably even more important than all of the other things that we do and we invest in. But because so many people don’t feel worthy or don’t feel valued. There’s a piece of guilt that people feel when they spend money on themselves, when they take time away from their families, time away from their kids and their business. And very often they don’t do it until they’re in crisis.

Heather Pearce Campbell  23:58

Yeah, yeah. Well, and I am curious, because the piece you are talking about your childhood and how, you know, there obviously was a lot going on, but you felt like you could see through it, you were a truth teller? You know, I think a lot of people, you know, I can speak from my own experience that some of the stuff that was going on when I was a kid, I didn’t sort out, I didn’t figure out until I was an adult. Right. And so I think that, in that circumstance, I don’t know how unusual that is. But in my mind, I feel like that’s pretty unusual to be able to kind of see through the mess as a child. Where did that come from? That just always has been a part of you. Do you think that it’s just part of your calling in this life?

Suzanne Hanna  24:47

Well, I think everything is preparation for a purpose. You know, I believe, no matter what experiences we’ve been through in life, I think it’s preparation. But I didn’t. I wasn’t able to put words to what I felt or what I saw until I was an adult too. But I knew something. I knew I was different than, you know, I knew there was some difference there. But what I will say is that life is uniquely designed for our evolution. I mean, that’s just the way life is designed. And so whether we, you know, do things by choice, or whether we do we get the proverbial two by four on our heads. And, you know, it happens that way. Either way, it’s going to happen because the universe is designed to help us evolve. And so, I believe every life experience, both the painful experiences, probably even more, so the painful experiences, as well as all of the amazing experiences are designed to help us wake up. We’re here to wake up. And so I believe that many times people have gotten Wake Up Calls, but they’ve chosen to ignore them on some level. But it always comes back around again, it’s just a matter of how big of a two by four do we need?

Heather Pearce Campbell  26:17

Right? Well, and I think so many of us, myself included, can look around and see the truth of what you’re saying that we are here to wake up. Some of us, you know, see the signs, see the calling a little bit earlier in the journey, others are waiting for the two by four. And it does happen. I mean, I even look at you know, just reflecting on my personal life and my marriage and you know, things that we go through as adults and looking at the ways that this play plays out for me, for my partner, you know, for other people that I know, it is really fascinating to observe the truth of this. And so my question is in light of, of people, and maybe I don’t know, maybe there’s not just one answer to this question. Why don’t people look internally? Right? Why don’t they open the box earlier?

Suzanne Hanna  27:15

It’s a great question. And it’s a pretty easy answer. And it’s fear. And, and the reason being is because we are conditioned from a very young age to fear the unknown. And so we don’t know what we’re going to find when we open the box, we don’t know if we’re going to be able to handle it. If we open the box. I mean, we start to have all these stories of what might happen. I’ve worked with many, many people who, for instance, may know that they need to leave a relationship, for instance, but they will do everything possible, I call them traps and hazards, you know, we create these traps and hazards that will help us avoid discomfort. So one of those might be denial. Another one might be distractions. Another one might be busyness, you know, another one might be emotionally eating or numbing. And we find ways to avoid things for as long as we potentially can avoid them. But what will inevitably happen along the path at some point is the pain gets so great that we can’t ignore it anymore. And that’s when people are at that threshold where they get thrust through the door. And they have to, you know, they have to wake up, they have to look at it, there’s no way that they can ignore it anymore. But I would say the one thing that I have taught people over the years is that the stories we tell ourselves about what might be inside that box are far worse than what is actually in the box.

Heather Pearce Campbell  28:54

So true. Well and the example that you gave of relationships, like how this plays out when people are in a primary relationship that is not working, some part of them knows it’s not working, right. So there’s these other distracting behaviors that might happen. But even when they are obvious, let’s just call it breaches in the damn right. It is amazing how normal it is in society. Like I think of the number of women that I know that learned that their husband had cheated on them that did not tell their family did not tell some of their closest friends like didn’t didn’t share the reality of what they were experiencing with anybody in the world because they were afraid what if I decide to stay with him? Right? I want this. I want other people to say like they weren’t ready to face the unknown of just like being truthful with it. I just find it so fascinating that that is how we’re largely connected. Shit. And that pattern shows up time and time again, I think of people holding these. I mean, for lack of a better word for secrets for a time, out of fear and self preservation instinct, even when it goes against self preservation.

Suzanne Hanna  30:18

Yeah, so you have to look at it as you know, again, it all comes back to we’re conditioned to fear uncertainty. And whenever there is change, so if if if I have to face the fact that my husband cheated, or I have to face the fact that maybe I need to end this marriage, or I have to face the fact that I might have to break up my family, and children, there’s, there’s a lot that goes into that, which is why, you know, I always say, part of the map journey that I do is that the second phase of the map, the first phase, answer the call, which is what we’re talking about right now, when we get those nudges when we get those intuitions and those instincts, but the second is embody courage, because you cannot change without courage. And if your fear is greater than your courage, then you will stay stuck. But here’s what I will say about this is that the reason why that happens, Heather so much is because it’s so deeply tied to shame. You know, we’re embarrassed, you know, like you just said, Well, what if I stay with him if I tell all my friends that he cheated, and then I decide to stay with him? What will my friends think they’ll think I’m stupid, they’ll think I’m weak, they’ll think whenever. And we’re terrified of judgment, we’re terrified of what people will perceive. And so what we often do, and this is a funny thing is if we really go back to what I said before, that there’s only you and God in the room. And if it’s not love, it’s not God, it’s really your own judgment that you’re projecting onto everybody else. Because you feel that way you feel you know that you’ll look like an idiot, that you’ll do this or that, and you just make the assumption that everybody else will too. And it doesn’t mean that some people will feel that way. But ultimately, what I tell people is that you have to make a choice at some point in your life, whether you want to choose fear, or you want to choose freedom.

Heather Pearce Campbell  32:31

Because freedom is always involved. So it’s one thing to tell the truth to ourselves. Right? It’s another thing to tell the truth, maybe about what’s happening in our life, or ways that our relationship has collapsed or ways that our business has fallen down or whatever, to other people. Right. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Suzanne Hanna  32:53

Yeah, so I think you were going to ask, does freedom always mean we have to tell the truth in all areas? And my answer to that is yes. Because here’s the thing, if you know, there’s a saying in AAA, we’re only as sick as our secrets. And so there’s, there’s a feeling that when we feel like we have to hide, we feel like we have to diminish ourselves, we feel like we have to put on a mask, we talk a lot about this in the jury from fear to freedom of how we put on these masks so that we can be accepted, and people will see a version of ourselves that we think is acceptable. But yet internally, there’s all these pieces of ourselves that we deem unacceptable. But we don’t ever talk about those. But here’s what I’ve learned, after doing this for a decade, and working with hundreds of people, if people knew that all of these things are very universal. Like when I first came out and talked about my fear of being alone, I can’t tell you how many people came out of the woodwork and said, Me too. I mean, look at the whole premise of the me to movement. It took courage for some people to come out and say, I was sexually abused. I was sexually assaulted. And then all of a sudden there was this Me too. Me too. And what I’ve said to people is that courage ignites courage. And if we have courageous people who will say, you know, I tell people all the time, there’s many things in my business that I’ve attempted that didn’t pan out that, you know, people could perceive as I failed that, but I look at that as again, if I look at everything as preparation, then it really is in failure. It really is preparation to get me to that next place to that next step. And so, that doesn’t mean we tell everything to everyone, because I know that we have to have a certain level of I think, you know, Brene Brown says the people Should we have to tell things to people who have shown the capacity and the ability to hold our truths? But I do think we need to speak it, we need to speak it in safe circles. We need to speak it amongst friends, we need to speak it in some way, shape or form. Because if I’m aware, that’s an important part of the journey. But again, it’s like courage will ignite courage. And so I think it is important, you know, that we heal in a relationship. And I think it’s an important piece, which is why everything that I do I do with groups, because I think there is a huge gift and being witnessed. I think it’s a really powerful thing.

Heather Pearce Campbell  35:50

Oh, well, certainly having been part of one of your groups, I can attest to that. And I think this piece about knowing your audience, having safe spaces where you can show up and speak the truth is really essential. where my mind goes with that is how much that is missing for men in society. And, and also how many people I think, carry some portion of their life where they feel like they’re falling down. So maybe somebody’s successful in their career or their business, but they really feel like they’re falling down as a parent or in their primary relationship. And they’re, you know, holding it together, but still not really looking there, right and not, and not having the courage to also be in conversation with other people around like, Hey, I’m falling down in this area. And, you know, I love what you said about courage begets courage, and also, courage. I think when we’re sharing some of the ways that we are experiencing our own limitations, it also invites support when we’re sharing it in the right places that we would never otherwise have come into our life. Right?

Suzanne Hanna  37:05

Yeah. So the thing I would say yes, about men, this is so key, I love working with men and the journeys that I’ve done, where men have been a part of it, it’s been such a gift. Because very often, you know, we all have masculine and feminine energies within us. So we all have those components. But there’s something very powerful, especially if a woman has been wounded by a man or a man has been wounded by a woman to be in a safe space where you can actually have what I call reparative experiences with people of the opposite sex. And it’s the same thing with same sex because a lot of women have been wounded by women and men have been wounded by men. But I feel that the challenge is that men are even more conditioned than women to suppress and repress. And so they’ve got to be strong, they have to be providers, they have to take care of people. And so to a lot of men that I’ve talked to, they see vulnerability as weakness. And it’s funny, because in A Course of Miracles, which is a great book, one of the one of the sayings in that book is, in your vulnerability lies your strength. And I really believe that to be true for both men and women. When I see men being vulnerable, especially in front of other men, it is so powerful, because let’s face it, they have a shadow side, they have a light side, they have pain. They’re going through a lot of things in similar ways as we are, but they’re just conditioned not to talk about it where women are much more willing to go there. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  38:57

Yes, yes. Well, it’s like a recent example. My husband has a co-worker who has gotten quite ill, and he’s been on a treatment plan. And then he had an additional illness that layered on that was a virus and he ended up in the hospital. And this has been ongoing for some time, probably well over six months, because it happened kind of in the middle of last year. And you know, my husband has said multiple times, like I just feel so uncomfortable talking about his illness, and you know what it might mean and I don’t want to have him be feeling sad or distressed at work, you know, all of these fears around like what even talking about it might like what the impact of that might be. And it wasn’t until after he this this coworker who my husband really cares for ended up in this long hospital stay put into a coma came out the other side, that you know, I was asking Phil this my husband like, what might it look like to talk to him to express like how much you actually care about him and have been thinking about about him and, you know, wanting to do something for him and his family. And it still took a while, like, we talked about it numerous times, and you finally did it. And it was really emotional, like his co-worker, you know, had a full breakdown and cried and expressed a lot of fears about what he was facing. But the interesting thing is that even though I’m sure that there was some discomfort there and doing it, there was also this tremendous relief in facing that conversation. And it’s healing, and healing and for this guy to really know how much Phil has read about him and cared about him. And, and the reality is like, for women, I just think like, so many of us would have had the conversation six months ago, not always, like, I’m not saying that everybody would have all women. But you know, these kinds of things, women just have a much easier time talking about and showing up and supporting each other with and even just observing, like how, how difficult it was to begin that conversation. You know, we’ve spoken over the years, my husband and I. How challenging it is for men to create real relationships and to do that well and have a supportive environment in which to do that. So it’s just, anyways, it’s a reflection, but I think, really underlies how important it is that we create this for ourselves, right? Society is not probably going to create it for us.

Suzanne Hanna  41:32

Well, and we have that’s why I say courage is a really important piece, because it took your husband to tap into courage to have that conversation and face the discomfort of that conversation. And here’s the thing, it’s, it’s I’ve worked with a lot of people who have lost children, lost spouses. And the ironic thing is, the number one complaint that I hear over and over again, is, nobody knows what to say. And so because they feel they don’t know what to say they don’t say anything. So what they do is they avoid these people who have lost children or lost spouses, they want to talk about it, they want to share their experience, they want to remember, you know, the people they loved. And so it’s very interesting how uncomfortable we are with our own pain, how uncomfortable we are with our own discomfort, because that’s what it’s really about. It’s like, I’m uncomfortable with my own discomfort. So I don’t want to say anything to you. Again, it’s all about projection. And so I think it’s really important for us to look at the fact that it is an innate human need to want to be seen. And so when you talk about that gentleman who went through what he went through, he wants to be seen, he wants to be supported. He just may not know how to do it or how to get that. And he probably has a lot of people around him walking around on eggshells. And it’s a really uncomfortable feeling. Because you feel like, okay, this is more awkward than having a hard conversation. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  43:25

Right. In my mind. It’s like how, like, what are we doing showing up to work day after day when we’re not even looking at and talking about the real stuff? Like that’s the real stuff, right? And it’s like, I don’t know, I want so badly for people to be living on the real side of life, like really addressing the stuff that needs to be addressed. So yeah, it’s just really interesting to watch how difficult it is. And it’s exactly what you said, it really is about our own fears. Because when I was asking for, like, what is it about that makes that conversation just so hard? He’s like, he’s like, it’s totally my own fear of loss. My own fear of you know, which I looked at his childhood is moving his parents got divorced early, he lost his dad, he then had an adopted father that was somewhat abusive last to you know, it was just like this series of all he had was his mom, and he was terrified that he would lose her to right it’s, we all have some version of this in ourselves, right, that drives our fears.

Suzanne Hanna  44:30

Yeah, so in wilderness walk language, I call it the backpack. You know, we’re all carrying a backpack of life experiences, and depending on what’s in our backpack is going to discern how we show up and how we relate. And so, yeah.

Heather Pearce Campbell  44:47

Well, it’s I mean, I am such a fan of what you do and how you guide people through these amazingly challenging, difficult places to go for a lot of us but do it in a way that just feels just like such an invitation and such, like with a lot of curiosity, and you really are a master at facilitating that type of journey. So if you’re listening, I would love, love, love for you to pop over, we’re going to include, and Suzanne, I’ll ask you here in a minute where you like to show up. But we’re going to share all of your links, including anything that you want to share with the audience as a gift on our show notes page, which is that legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast, Suzanne, where do you like for people to connect with you online?

Suzanne Hanna  45:38

Oh, my God, so many places? Well, I’m on Facebook and Instagram. But I also, you know, I have two websites, I have the wildernesswalk.com, which is really all about my journeys, and a lot about shadow work. And then I have my personal website, suzannehanna.com, which you know, goes in a lot more into sort of my methodology, and who I am and all that kind of stuff. So you can find me on either of those websites, find me on Facebook, find me on Instagram. And for, you know, on the wildernesswalk.com website, I have a free nine-day journey that people can opt into, which is great just to get people to build a lot of self awareness. And then I also have the map community, which is basically a community of people navigating thresholds and transitions. And so it’s a great place to go. And that’s free. People can get into that. And that’s on a private Facebook group.

Heather Pearce Campbell  46:43

I love that. What do you have to say to folks, because I think there’s a certain percentage of folks who are out there who are thinking, I’m successful, I mostly have this figured out like, this is not really, right? You’re laughing for people that can’t see the video and laughing and nodding there. I think there’s a certain category of people, they’re like, Ah, this isn’t for me, because I’ve kind of already arrived, or at least I’m on the path. Right? And I know, this is a never ending journey. But what do you say to those folks?

Suzanne Hanna  47:14

Well, first of all, I mean, it’s interesting, because, you know, like you said before, I’ve worked with a lot of really successful people who might be very successful in business, but are really suffering in another way. And it is a never ending journey. And I always say to people that, you know, you, you know, if you go to the doctor to get a checkup, you do all these things to try to be mindful of your health and your body. And, and the number one gift that you can give your family that you can give the people closest to you that you can give the world is your own healing. And so to me, it’s, it’s if somebody says that they’ve got it all together, and they don’t need to, that tells me a lot about how much they’re in denial, or how much they’re avoiding. Because, you know, I’ve been doing this for 25 years, I still do all of my own work, I see my own therapist, I do my own retreats, I do all of that kind of stuff. Because the truth of the matter is, is that it’s an evolution. And we have to keep evolving. And there’s a lot of thresholds. So for me, you know, I’m in my midlife, I’m in my 50s. And the 50s are a whole threshold, going through menopause, going through all of these other things. And so who I am today is very different from who I was 10 years ago. And so that’s what I mean by evolution. It’s important.

Heather Pearce Campbell  48:47

So true. And I love I’m gonna repeat your quote, the number one gift that you can give the world is your own healing. I love that it needs to go in a frame folks put it up in a frame. We do, right, Suzanne? One final thought that I really hope people will jump over and check out your work. I am just so I just feel so blessed to know you. I’m so thrilled that our paths have crossed. I feel like we have just like barely touched on the tip of stuff that we can just continue the conversation, which maybe we will and another time pick it up and come back here on the podcast. What final thoughts would you like to leave folks with today?

Suzanne Hanna  49:27

You know, I would just say that if we look at everything happening right now in the world, I mean, we’re having the most mass shootings we’ve ever had in the history of the world. And you know, we’re in a war in Ukraine. There’s all of these things that are happening right now. And I feel that time is imminent, and fragile. And we don’t have any more time to put things off or to wait. The time is now in so I feel like if anyone is in Any sort of pain, or discomfort or discomfort or confusion, this isn’t, well, I’ll deal with that in two years or five years or 10 years, the time is now we don’t. We’re currently living on borrowed time. We don’t have the ability to do that. And so if I could say anything to anyone, and I would just say, as you said, so beautifully, the greatest gift we can give this world is our healing. And I think that has to be the number one priority.

Heather Pearce Campbell  50:31

Yeah. Oh, I love that. Suzanne, thank you for your time. And thank you for sharing just a little bit about your story. I’m so excited for people to know you. 

Suzanne Hanna  50:41

Thank you.

GGGB Outro  50:45

Thank you for joining us today on the Guts, Grit and Great Business™ podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. For key takeaways, links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more, see the show notes which can be found at www.legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us too. Keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.