Let Me Tell You This About That

Conversations from the Heart: Reflections, Resurrections, and Resilience

• Hess and Delbert • Season 1 • Episode 28

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In this episode, lifelong friends Hess and Delbert engage in a heartfelt conversation while reflecting on their individual lives, shared history, and current events. They discuss the beauty of nature, the importance of finding 'your tribe,' and the significance of having meaningful and supportive conversations. They also touch on lessons from Brené Brown's resilience work, share memories of loved ones, and highlight the enduring impact of positive public figures like Governor Andy Beshear and Pope Francis. Join Hess and Delbert as they explore themes of connection, healing, and moving forward through the challenges life presents.

Jose is getting his chemo--Help my friend José wipe out the Stage 4 cancer in his body! The Chemo has shrunk the mass in the colon, but the cancer in his liver has increased--so the chemo is going to be more powerful! Help him out and donate please.
https://gofund.me/e6f61999

In addition to being a podcast host, Hess is also an LCSW--if you'd like to learn more about her work as a therapist, check it out at www.jessicabollinger.com

One of her mission's is for all of our lights to shine--when we see each other and allow ourself to be seen--and we can say to the person in front of us, There You Are! the world will be an amazing place!

Delbert is a realtor in Louisville, KY, and you can find her at Kentucky Select Properties

Her philanthropic work to continue her sister Carole and niece Meghan is Carole's Kitchen. Blessings in a Backpack helps feed the many hungry students in our schools. The instagram account is: https://www.instagram.com/caroleskitchen.nonprofit?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==





Hess:

Hey, thanks so much for joining us to let me tell you this about that. I'm Hess. I'm sitting in my white chair looking at out my backyard at the farm.

Delbert:

Good morning. It's me, Delbert from the green couch, as always looking out my big picture window and. It's not really a pink and purpley kind of swirl. A it's more just a beautiful yellow sunrise coming out of the clouds. Gorgeous.

Hess:

The sun's coming up

Delbert:

It's,

Hess:

and earlier. Delbert.

Delbert:

I know, I, I love spring and summer. It's beautiful. Oh gosh. It's Derby week here in Louisville, so that's a big deal. But the reason that Mayor Farsley planned derby. For the first week in May is because all the dogwoods, all the flower trees are blooming. It's very lush and green. It's very beautiful here. So he wanted people to come and see our city. At its most beautiful time of year, I.

Hess:

Yeah, it is so beautiful right now, Delbert, you were talking about how, and this is why you all, this is why we started this podcast, so let me just refresh you all on That is Delbert and I, we go back to first grade, our mother of good counsel. about to turn 67. Delbert turns 67 in January, house 67. feel Delbert.

Delbert:

It is awesome. I told you, like I, I got off Route 66 up onto the 67 ramp and it's been good cruising ever since.

Hess:

Cool.

Delbert:

Been awesome. I've only had one spiritual crisis this year and we I've worked through it, so I'm good. I'm golden.

Hess:

Yeah, so we go way back and we've been crisscrossing lives for, we've been braiding our lives together. Sometimes we know it, sometimes we don't. And about six years ago, eight years ago, we're sitting in the back. Of my boat, the Relation Ship, talking about writing our stories of our lives. And we began we went beyond the back of the boat to calling each other every Sunday morning. And it just it just rights my ship. It helps me anchor in what's important to me. What happened the previous week. We talk about it, we talk about our weeks ahead, and able to pull anchor. After those Sunday morning talks and go forward in my week knowing and just feeling good having a vision and being who I am. And we've been a witness to each other's lives and we all need that. And it makes, it just makes me feel so good. What So Delbert, I just wanted to give them the background and you pick up here and say where you were last week and how us talking together helped you.

Delbert:

Oh yeah, absolutely. As you all know from some of our pods that we've done on my sister Carole and my niece Meagan they passed during Holy Week 16 years ago. And so I always struggled just a little bit with Holy Week, some years more than others. It's really hard for me to wrap my head around the resurrection when, my people aren't coming back, and that's just very, little kid way of putting it. But and then Francis died too it was just on the struggle bus a little bit. And I talked to Hess about it and told her how I was feeling and she really helped me just put things in place like we always do with each other on our Sunday talk. And by the time we finished our pod last Sunday, I. Made Easter dinner and hid my Easter eggs and had the most wonderful time with my family. So that really was my resurrection. And as Hess says, without the crucifixion, there is no resurrection. And I hope all of you out there listening, find your people, find your tribe, find your bounce back, your people that listen to you and bear witness to your life. It's so important to just have a springboard, a sounding board, somebody that listens, that understands without judgment and just lets you be you.

Hess:

You had said that you had hit a crisis point and what you talked about with us to me that morning was the pictures of the prison camp in El Salvador really reminded you that is a concentration camp and reminded you of the stories of your grandpa. Freeing the people after the war was over, he was one of the first infantries that went in to, to free a certain concentration camp and how they could smell it from 10 miles away and so on. You were just like, HEss I don't know if we, you know about talking about something political, but No, this is about humanity. This is about. Us as people, you talked about it and it helped you talk about it. You felt how much it bothered you, and then you talked about it and you told me that I gave you permission to talk about it.

Delbert:

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Hess:

go ahead.

Delbert:

No, I'm, no, you did. Because we had said, we wanna try to make sure that our podcast, stays clean. That we wanna make sure that everybody feels welcome to listen. But sometimes I think if we're having a struggle and we feel like something needs to be said, that it's, this is the place to say it because we're just at such a time in our country where we really need to speak up when we see injustice. And we also need to remember to be civil and cordial to each other. And yeah. Yeah. And so has, I told her about my struggle that morning before we did the podcast Easter morning and she just said, let's do it, Delbert. Let's do it. What a gift that is to have a friend that says, yeah let's go ahead and bend our own rules a little bit. The, with the idea of doing what's right. I think we always have to do that. We were raised in the Catholic church. We had wonderful role models in our priests and nuns. We had a wonderful experience growing up, and so we're trying to stick with our truths here,

Hess:

And we got, we wanna be the model of conversation, helping us work through

Delbert:

right.

Hess:

Even if it might be with somebody that has an opposite opinion that they can cross. A bridge into your world and you can have a kind listening conversation, being able to cross the bridge into each other's world. So thank you all for joining us for last week's podcast you crossed the bridge into world of what her struggle was. And it's not, I, people say struggle bus. Gosh, it's more than a bus. It's

Delbert:

could be an entire freeway. Yeah. Or it could be. It feels like you're just trapped in a small place, right? When we talk about sitting with it, getting some movement, try to get yourself out of that. Out of that role.

Hess:

with, you have to sit with it first and your mama told you, just shake it off. But you're like, Hey, wait a second mom. I wanna sit with her a little

Delbert:

Yeah.

Hess:

this.

Delbert:

Yeah.

Hess:

it can help us make the steps we need to make to make the next best step.

Delbert:

Exactly, and I did on Holy Saturday, I did, I went to my sister's house and kinda helped her with a little egg hunt for her grandchildren and had dinner and came home and did my holy Saturday fire and my little fire pit. And. I did the color packets and all the beautiful colors and just sat with it, sat with my sadness about some things, and and it helped me, like we say, don't sit there too long, but go ahead and sit there if you need to and really live with it and try to figure it out. And then, talk to your family, talk to your friends. Figure it out. Get it right. With your own mindset. And so we talked about what our resurrections were for the week and mine was just really talking to Hess, being with my family, having a lovely Easter, and then just getting right back out there and working again, just getting right back out with my clients and being myself. And that's the best thing you can be. HEss and I talked a little bit last night about a retreat that we did and Hess you wanna talk about Brene Brown a little bit?

Hess:

Yeah, so I got trained in the Brene Brown work, I think back in 2019 and in her books Daring Way I. It's you gotta be brave. You gotta be there. You gotta show up in your arena. You gotta show up with the values that are important to you, that light your way with rising strong. If you're, that book is about you will fall, you're in the arena, you will fall you will be faced down and you gotta be able to get back up. And you have to find out who you need to listen to in your arena. Not the cheap seats, not the critics. I. Not, sometimes, not the people that built the arena, that's the establishment, right? Or the way that you're supposed to be you. You gotta listen and also be compassionate towards yourself and you gotta listen to your marble jar friends that encourage you and get back up. Yeah. The retreat that we did a year ago, this past January for a group of different fellow friends from Sacred Heart, we covered some of the Brene Brown work and we're gonna meet back up again in, in June in Bethany Beach. We're gathering again together, and we, and do a little bit more work and get some beach time too. So you gotta, you it's hard work in the arena. You were faced down Delbert and you were struggling and you you got back up this week.'cause you got back up with the things that move you forward that, that get you going forward. You you were giving out the Easter food to the kids at schools. You were meeting with clients. You were, opening up clients to, giving people the, those clients the opportunity to find a house they love to make a home that they can their life in. And it's all moving forward. It's all taking different steps to making things better for yourself and for other people.

Delbert:

Right and. Just along that line about showing up and moving forward. I love our governor, Andy Beshear Hess sent me his podcast. I listened to his first podcast, and Hess has already listened to all three of them. They're so wonderful and they we love'em because they're. Positive based, talking about working together, not being red or blue, R or d. They're talking about let's move forward, let's have an open dialogue and let's make our country the best it can be together and listen to each other. So I love that and I love that. We have a governor that's out there putting out a good positive message.

Hess:

During the Covid at four o'clock, he would give talks, and when the first person died of Covid, he had tears in his eyes. He was, it was, yeah. He would say the person's name and talk about their life. Just it was so healing listen to him at four o'clock every day and

Delbert:

Because we had nowhere else to go.

Hess:

And he'd say, now you can't be doing that. We gotta watch out for each

Delbert:

Yeah,

Hess:

be doing that.

Delbert:

I love that. I love that he's so positive. And so yeah, we invite you friends to engage with us and to share your ideas and feelings and we'd love to hear from you. Hey Hess, what else? This week, you doing something really cool at the horse park this week, aren't you?

Hess:

So this week at the Kentucky Horse Park is the Kentucky three day event, and it is a an equestrian sport Eventing, and you do dressage cross country and stadium jumping, and the event at the Kentucky three day event. The last weekend of April every year is a four and five star event. And in the whole world, there are only like five of these. Of these events at this category five star event, there are only five locations every year where these are held and this is a level Delbert that is even higher than the Olympic level. They're doing more difficult stuff, so it was just so fun. Yesterday was Cross Country Day and they had the four stars running in the morning, the five stars in the afternoon. And seeing these partnerships. this horse and rider they have developed this team together where the horses are started at lower levels. They get confidence, they move up to more difficult obstacles. Higher, wider, and they're slowly moved up so they don't get fearful and they work as a team. And these horses, Delbert, they're like, okay, where's the next flags? Because you at a jump or obstacle, there's a red flag on the right, white flag on the left. And they, the horse with this team that's been developed, they like, they're looking for the flags. And in some of the obstacles, they're narrow, almost just a little bit beyond the width of the horse and rider. And the horse goes right right through the middle of these little narrow obstacles also. some of'em have different com, different complexes where at certain jumps there might be. There might be two or three or four different obstacles that they go through four A, B, c, D or something like that, just one table in the middle of the field. That's just one obstacle. So anyway, it was so fun, and it's like you said, Delbert these horse and rider teams are like in the Brene Brown arena and a real arena of through something that's really hard. It was so beautiful to see pictures this morning of some of the horses coming through the finish line and ecstatic look on the rider's faces, these hugs, these cheers people jumping up. It's just it's something and something that lasts a little bit longer than two minutes of the derby, right? Because

Delbert:

A little, you get a little more. We celebrate for a long time, but yeah, the derby doesn't last very long. What about the one guy that was teaching the class? What he said? I thought that was so awesome.

Hess:

Yeah. Cathy's assistant Nikki was riding their horse, their horse, Shack. In a little clinic yesterday at the horse park where people could take a little side venue and Cal Carter teach five different ride horse and rider combinations about jumping and riding the horse. And one thing he said was tell the horse what you want it to do versus keep correcting for what you don't want. Your list would be a lot smaller then, right?

Delbert:

Exactly. It's not so overwhelming. When you're just planning for what you want, going the direction that you want. Exactly. I love that. So cool.

Hess:

Yeah. So good for life.

Delbert:

Exactly. Great metaphor for life. The being in the arena and moving forward and asking for what you want. Not always correct in what you don't want. I love that

Hess:

Bert, I'm seeing a bluebird right over my right shoulder up in the tree. Oh my gosh. Wow.

Delbert:

you have so many different birds out

Hess:

I love it.

Delbert:

at the farm.

Hess:

Yeah.

Delbert:

Gorgeous.

Hess:

Yeah. And this is something too, I have I have on my phone. Like I was with a client the other day in my office and I could hear this beautiful sound of this bird. And while this, while my client was doing this exercise, I surreptitiously, she had her eyes closed. I surreptitiously pulled up my Merlin app. On my phone and you can press record and it records the sounds going on around you. And it was a beautiful little wood thrush in the outright, outside the window. yeah, so that Merlin app en enables me to know what birds are out there that I'm just hearing versus seeing, so it expands. knowledge of the birds and the sounds and what birds are there, so it's pretty cool.

Delbert:

There's a, there was a restaurant here in Louisville. It's close now, but I just loved it. It was right across the street from my office. It's called o. And I took you there Hus, but it was already changed over to Enzos and it's really good too. But they had this big patio and I always loved to sit outside on the patio and the manager always had these bird sounds piped through with the music. I was sitting out there with my daughter one mother's day and we were just sitting out there talking, having a glass of wine, and all of a sudden, like this blue heron just swoops over the patio and it is close to the river. It's close to river Road where my office is, and, we were like, whoa. And the manager came out and he goes, I don't know if the birds think there's like a bird party going on here because I pipe those bird. He's but I see more birds here. And it was just like one of the things that just added so much to being there, you're just in the middle of the city, you're just birdwatching it. But anyway it is, it's just such a delightful thing, whether you're just sitting on your porch at home and a little cardinal bird flies over, or blue bird. It's just part of the wonder of nature and the beauty all around us.

Hess:

When we were talking last night, Bert, you said you were gonna go outside and sit on your patio and it was so beautiful to hear your voice. Also with the birds in the background when you were sitting out there.

Delbert:

No. And I usually have little bunnies that come around that time of night, but they must be getting ready for derby. They might have been in their hutch getting their derby glasses washed or something, I don't know. But,

Hess:

working on their derby

Delbert:

Yeah. Yeah. Putting some lavender and chamomile flowers together for a little derby hat. For sure.

Hess:

So that, that's just an example. Just us talking about the birds, how sometimes I can be stuck in my own thoughts and in my own demise, and what. What angst I might be in, and if I just it and be with it, and then if I kinda open up a little bit more, oh, there's birds out there. There's things out there. There's people out there there's a world out there. I could go ahead and start walking out and getting out and.

Delbert:

Exactly. It's one of the things that I said at the retreat, the reason I love the sunrise and the sunset so much is because it involves looking up and out. Just like getting outta your own head and just looking at the beauty and the wonder. And right now there's. Things that aren't so beautiful going on in our world. And it's important to talk about'em. It's important to be heard in a very calm and healing way. I wanna listen to everybody. I wanna listen to everyone's viewpoint, and I also wanna be heard. But we also, when that's done, I. When the conversation's over, then we look upward and outward towards the beauty

Hess:

There's some, there's supposed to be something really healing about exposing yourself to the sun for about a half an hour every morning. The sun and the light.

Delbert:

Well, and it gives you a lot of good vitamin D too, which helps your attitude. I.

Hess:

One thing I like about Andy Bess Shear's podcast is when he has a guest on, he finds out what their why is, And he says It's so important because we always have a why of why we might think something, or why we got into what we work what's important to us. There's always a big why and when we can have these conversations across the bridge and to somebody else's world, we can find out what their why is

Delbert:

And it's always so interesting, it's so interesting. And just in our small little group in our retreat, listening to everybody's lives, and we all went to school together. We're all connected even though you, some of us are a little bit closer friends than others, but it's just wow, I didn't know that about you. Why, just the complete awe and wonder of getting to know people, getting to know their why. I listened to the first podcast and Morgan and Morgan attorneys were on there. Wow. What an incredible family and company and just integrity and philosophy they have about helping people and how they built their business on, doing the right thing.

Hess:

Yeah. A bad car accident and his brother was in. Yeah. Yeah. It's all good. It's all good. My wife Cathy, she always says it's all good. And that can r my boat a little bit when I All good. There's gonna be something come from this. There's gonna be a resurrection, there's Positivity that comes from this.

Delbert:

Exactly. We're all in this together. We wanna listen to each other and be the be absolute best we can be. Hess, what's just say one of your why's. You've got a lot of why's,

Hess:

Oh baby. We'll do a why on a whole podcast because my why is pretty deep.

Delbert:

is it pretty deep and long. Okay. Alright.

Hess:

Yeah,

Delbert:

You got a lot to say about this. About that. Okay.

Hess:

I have a lot to say about this, about that,

Delbert:

and that's too long. Okay, I'll be trying to work that up and then pot stirs you all listen to your why and be thinking about that for the next time. Do you wanna do the St. Francis? St. Francis? I've already canonized him.

Hess:

Y'all already have.

Delbert:

my goodness. I just loved his mercy and tenderness and.

Hess:

He was a missionary. Did you see the wooden box that he is gonna be

Delbert:

that's what I was just gonna say. Like I, I love Pope Francis. I cried a lot watching a lot of the coverage about him because I'm like, why didn't we see at least one thing about Pope Francis every day? He was such a good man. He is always reaching out, healing people. Hugging children, kissing them on the head, giving them a blessing, every day he did things like this, washing the feet of the poor appointing women to high positions, telling us to be kind and accepting of refugees and immigrants because he was himself an immigrant. And to see him going through the streets of Rome. In a pickup truck in a simple wooden casket that just said it all to me. What a humble and devoted servant of people he was. And I'm just sad about it. I hope we get somebody as wonderful as him, but he's earned his good rest and,

Hess:

so this is one that I loved. He said, rivers do not drink their own water. Trees do not eat their own fruit. The sun does not shine on itself. Flowers do not spread their fragrance for themselves. Living for others is a rule of nature. We're all born to help each other no matter how difficult it is. Life is good when you're happy, but much better when others are happy because of you. Yeah.

Delbert:

Oh, so good. He's got so many good quotes. Friends, I'd say if you're having a rough time, look up one of his quotes. So beautiful. The way he, his life

Hess:

up one that's good for you. That, that, that fits

Delbert:

Helps you get your bounce back.

Hess:

yeah. Yeah. So y'all, thanks for listening today. We love you Hess and peace and love.

Delbert:

And I'm Delbert. Be sure to like and subscribe. We're on all the podcast platforms and happy Derby Week. Peace and love. We love you friends.