(#9) Dr. Johnette Hartnett: Healing Unimaginable Grief

The Great Unfamous

In this episode, we shine a light on a woman who changed the life of her niece. It may not sound that remarkable until you consider the fact that before she could do that, she had to navigate the worst nightmare most of us could imagine.

Dr. Johnette Hartnett is the aunt of Kate Bradley Chernis who we met on the A-side of Episode 5. That’s where we learned that Johnette’s support sparked Kate to co-found the startup Lately by introducing her to a company named Walmart.

But before Johnette changed Kate’s life, she had to reconstruct her own. That’s because four decades ago she lost all three of her children, David John, Johnette and John Peter, in a house fire in Vermont. How she recovered from that unimaginable tragedy to start a new life of purpose and service is filled with lessons that will help anyone dealing with loss today.

That’s because Johnette did not give up. She dug until she found a sliver of hope and then built on it brick by brick. She went back to school to earn a masters and then a doctorate, she was selected for a Kennedy fellowship to Congress and eventually moved to DC where she co-founded the National Disability Institute. She fueled her own recovery by building programs that to this day are transforming the lives of millions of disabled Americans.

So whether you’re struggling to overcome your own personal loss or simply seeking to find more grace, kindness and gratitude -- Johnette’s story is a window into how to build it, one baby step at a time.

So with that, let’s meet Kate’s aunt, a remarkable woman who dealt with her own pain by relieving the pain of others.

These are Johnette's lessons:

3:09 -- "She didn't flinch, not once"

7:29 -- Changing the conversation

8:09 -- How do we talk about grief?

9:17 -- Everybody has a right to grieve

10:39 -- These books aren't meaty enough

12:06 -- Tremendous guilt

14:13 -- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

16:58 -- A Buddhist monastery in the Catskills

17:48 -- A pinecone, a fire and a sliver of hope

20:23 -- "You have a red aura around yourself"

21:11 -- Recognizing hope, taking baby steps

22:30 -- "It wasn't about the fire."

23:05 -- Recovery is a choice

24:00 -- Finding your anchors

26:42 -- Building with baby steps

29:30 -- Listening vs. telling my story

33:00 -- Getting control of the chaos

34:27 -- Healing begins with doing, ends up with being

35:00 -- We are life

36:11 -- Grateful for 11 years of family

39:13 -- "I'm a good person."

40:30 -- Falling in love with your problem

42:05 -- "OMG, you're wearing black and brown!"

43:57 -- As we give to others, we forget about ourselves

Johnette Hartnett's essay "Goodness Prevails"

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