Heather Hester shares how she, her partner Steve, and their son Connor navigated his coming out in early 2017 using four pillars: embracing, education, empowerment, and unconditional love. She discusses her podcast Just Breathe and an online course called Learning to Just Breathe.
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Welcome back! In this video, I'm going to share a real-life example of the pillars in action. In the last 4 videos, I covered a lot of groundwork and I showed you how to start using these pillars in your life. If you haven't caught any of those yet or have only caught a couple of them, make sure you do because there is a ton of valuable information packed in them. As promised, I am going to share an example of how Steve and I used the pillars with Connor. For those of you who are listeners of my podcast, Just Breathe, you have heard me share this story as well as many others that use the pillars, and I've never really talked about the pillars specifically, so this will make a lot of sense. When Connor first came out to us in early 2017, we were completely blindsided, but simultaneously embraced him and the news and the information he shared with us. Like I described in the last video, embracing involves physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. The physical is obviously the easiest, and the others followed over the course of a few weeks as we immersed ourselves in learning all that we could. What does the coming out process look like? Where do we find support? Who do we ask questions to and of? How do we learn about the LGBTQ community? What do we need to know about mental health and specifically LGBTQ mental health? And so forth and so on. I could, I could go on and on. As you know, the questions are endless, and as you answer one, three more pop up, right? But as we became more educated, we began to notice that we just felt more empowered to support Connor, which led him to feeling more empowered to be his authentic self, to be out in the world, both literally and figuratively. The consistent embracing of him, his siblings, and whatever popped up prompted education, which allowed the empowerment to occur. I never really thought about the meaning or the power of unconditional love, and I don't really think anyone does until they are faced with difficult situations. But Oh my goodness, when we realized that that was the glue that was keeping us all together and helping us to move through whatever came our way, whatever life threw at us, knowing that it doesn't mean we agree with everything or haven't set boundaries, it means we love no matter what, period. This is just a big picture example of how we used the Pillars of Transformation. In my online course, Learning to Just Breathe, I will be walking you through each step in great detail—how to use it, how to use the pillars—and I will be sharing a ton of resources with with you. This course is exactly what Steve and I wish we could have had 4 years ago. It will save you months of time and headaches and heartaches. It'll save you time finding information when you are in crisis or just stretched so thin. As you can imagine, it's impossible for me to work with huge groups of people because I like to make sure everyone can get the help and support they If this is something that resonates with you, add your name to the waitlist below and you will be among the first to be able to register. In the next video, I'll give you specific instructions that you can follow to make sure you get a spot in the program and and on the early bird list. Learning to Just Breathe is a one-of-a-kind course. Countless hours of research and life experience have gone into creating something really special, something really personal, and something that will really help you and help you feel that you are just You're not alone. I will see you in the next video.
