This week on the Vitally You® podcast, I’m joined by singer-songwriter Kellie Haddock. Kellie’s music is truly the essence of joy and I’ve got her Christmas album, Peace On Earth, on repeat this holiday season. Kellie and I discuss how she has transformed her tragedy into gratitude and ways that she’s sharing her story to be a beacon of hope for people who need it. Tune in to hear my conversation with Kellie and learn more about her inspiring story.
Kellie Haddock is a singer, songwriter, wife and mom with an amazing story of resiliency and joy. Her music draws from real life stories of beauty, heartache, hope and the celebration of life. She was also part of The Thank You Project, a short film featuring Kellie and her son’s story of gratitude after tragedy. It has attracted more than 150 million views and has been featured on The TODAY Show, The Huffington Post, and Cosmopolitan among other national and international media outlets.
Kellie says that people often tell her that she’s experienced more grief than any one person deserves, but she has her own spin on that. She says that she has experienced more healing than she deserves and feels blessed to be alive. Kellie has 17 years of experience fighting for joy and hope after a tragic car accident left her widowed. She eventually found love again and went on to expand her family, all while sharing her story and wisdom on social media and through her music.
In today’s episode, Kellie shares some of the greatest lessons that she’s learned and how she’s managed to stay present and rely on her community in the midst of intense tragedy and suffering. We also discuss important aspects of her healing path and how her music has helped with that process. Kellie gives some details about her new album coming out next year and what she hopes listeners will take away from her songs. Listen in to hear more about Kellie’s amazing story.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, or on your favorite podcast platform.
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Special offer:
For the first three months of my podcast, one reviewer each month will be selected to win a sleeve of LifeWave X39 stem cell activation patches. To be entered to win, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, screenshot your review, and send it to dana@danafrost.com, or pop it into a direct message on Instagram, @danafrostvitallyfree.
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14. Hope After Tragedy
[00:00:00] Dana Frost: Welcome to Vitally You, a podcast created to introduce you to the tools that will be your roadmap for feeling younger while growing older. I'm your host, Dana Frost, a wellness expert, life coach, and energy medicine practitioner. Here's what you can expect: conversations about vitality from the inside out with guests experts in the field of health, culture, and spirituality. And solo episodes along the way from me, where I do deep dives into the topics of aging, heart intelligence, energy medicine, and your innate capacity to heal. If you want to feel younger while growing older, this is the place for you.
Hi, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. Feeling younger while growing older, I'm Dana and I'm your host. And I am so delighted to. Bring today's guests to you. We have Kellie haddock Kelly as a singer songwriter, a wife and mom. She's a former widow. Kelly has lived through tragedy and found hope and joy. On the other side, her music draws from real life stories of beauty, heartache, hope, and the celebration of.
The thank you project, a short film featuring Kelly story of gratitude. After tragedy has attracted more than 150 million views and has been featured on the today. Show the Huffington post cosmopolitan among other national and international media outlets. Kelly has performed in Iraq, Israel, China, and across the U S in stadiums for up to 10,000 in people's homes and everything in between offering music that engages the soul in all of its beauty and vulnerability.
I want to urge you to check out her Spotify. She has several albums that are just amazing. Last Christmas. I spent the Christmas season listening to her Christmas album. Peace on earth on. Her music is a reminder that no matter what life brings love will have the last word and hope is possible. So, Kelly welcome on behalf of our listeners of the Vitaliy podcast.
I want to welcome you to this episode today. Thank you for joining us.
[00:02:30] Kellie Haddock: It's so good to be with you this morning, Dana. So
[00:02:35] Dana Frost: I want the listeners to know that I was introduced to Kelly at a women on fire in person meeting. I think it maybe was in 2000 and maybe 17 it's when you were the guest musician for us, it was in, he was here in Miami.
Do you remember that Kelly?
[00:02:57] Kellie Haddock: It was a really fun weekend. It was great.
[00:03:00] Dana Frost: Yeah. And I, you know, I was really had this impression, there was so much vitality coming from your, just your countenance and I could really feel your spirit in your music. And I know that we're connected on Instagram and I always feel so much joy exuding from you.
And. This is one of the reasons I wanted to share your story on the podcast is because what you bring to, I feel like humanity, the social media platform, your music is really the essence of true joy. And I know your story. So I know that you've seen a considerable amount of heartache in your life, and you have made peace with it.
This is just my word you've overcome. And you really bring your scattering, just the essence of pure love and joy. And I think that's a really beautiful gift to the world. And last Christmas I listened to your Christmas album on repeat. I just, it really filled my soul. So I thought Christmas is a great time also to introduce our listeners to your Christmas music.
So welcome. Thank you so much for being here. Well, you are
[00:04:21] Kellie Haddock: more than kind and thank you, Dana.
[00:04:24] Dana Frost: So Kelly, could you share. Could you just begin telling our listeners about your story? Maybe my first introduction was the thank you project.
[00:04:33] Kellie Haddock: Sure. I had a really bad eating disorder for about five years. I was very, very, very sick.
And through that, in that context, surprisingly, I met incredible man who really fought for my. And he, he entered into my struggles in a way that didn't make me feel shame. Um, and in a way that loved me there and helps you just held me accountable really. And helped me feel lovable just how I was not a skinnier version of me or more perfected version of me.
And I'm so kind of through walking through that together, we fall in love. We got that. And about a year and a half later, we had our first child, a little baby boy named Eli fire, you red hair. And, um, we were visiting his family. In Orlando. And I call it the longest vacation of my life because we never made it home.
We were living in Miami actually at the time. And, um, we were driving on the 10th and, and another car going the other direction, hit us going over a hundred miles an hour and killed my husband instantly. And my son and I were like, Uh, to the hospital where my son fought for his life. And he was in the pediatric intensive care unit for many days.
And the doctors said that if he lived, he probably would never walk or talk or show emotion. And, you know, we all have hard stories and we've all experienced hard things. And time is one of the best gifts we've been given weight and time came. Sometimes something we fight against. I think time is really a gift because it gives us a gift to see that whatever hard things happen to us life never stays hard forever.
And you get through these hard things and you can look back with the gift of time and realize that there there's always this inertia in life, this energy in life that is pushing us. So you might be listening to my story today, but I'm 17 years into grieving and healing and fighting for joy and hope.
But if you are still in that really hard spot right now, I just want to speak to that to say your story's not over yet. And your story's still being. But in that moment, there was days in the hospital with my son realizing that I just lost my husband in the love of my life. And my son will probably have severe special needs.
And I'm a single mom, young widow, trying to figure all that out on my own. And I felt like my story was over. And here I am 17 years later. So Eli's a miracle. If you want to hear more of his story or read more of his story, I share pretty openly, as Dana said on social media, and you can read all about his story on my website.
So I don't have time today to get into all those details, but just know that he's a miracle. And about five years after the accident, I remembered. I think the other love of my life, I feel like the most blessed girls not to be married to two incredible men. And, um, and that's just a huge gift. And so he adopted Eli and Eli was turning 10.
So we'd been married five years and Eli was turning 10 and we had to. Small children at the time. And we were just watching Eli play with his brothers and sisters, and he does have special needs, but he can walk and talk and show emotion. And he's just so much fun. Like his world is very simple and joyful and he just brings happiness wherever he goes.
And. We're watching him play with his little brother and little sister, 10 years after the accident. And we thought, man, wouldn't it be me to find the medical professionals who cared for Eli in those early weeks, who thought that he might not ever be able to walk or talk or show emotion? He thought because no baby does much of those things.
And so we thought it'd be so cool to tell them the rest of the story. And then we started thinking, well, they're part of the reason he has the story. And so we thought, well, it'd be really great to think them. And, um, through a series of incredible events that I would never be wise enough to orchestrate, you know, life just came together perfectly.
And, um, we actually were at a party and met the person in charge of all the marketing for the hospital that you like was in. And they wanted to make a video for their 25th anniversary. And I was telling him not because I knew any of those things, but just that I wanted to find the doctors and thank them.
And he said, well, could we follow you with the film crew and help you find all the doctors? And I said, well, sure. You know, not none of us were expecting anything. So we spent six months, we thinked over $30. If you watch the thing you project that he wants, but, um, it shows like a hub and each thing, he was at least an hour long, it were crying and it was really, really meaningful, but the video is very abbreviated.
And, um, so we went back 10 years later to say, thank you. And the today show actually heard what we were doing. They picked up rights to the story and aired it on Thanksgiving morning, their last lot, right before the Macy's day parade, which is probably their biggest viewership of the whole year. And, um, from that, that was the spark that kind of caused our story of gratitude after tragedy to go viral.
And it's encouraged so many people beyond the people we just thanked and. I love when we choose to have an outward facing life of loving others, caring for others is so much more exponential than when we live these small insular self-focused.
[00:10:33] Dana Frost: I want to burst into tears and I know your story and I've seen the thank you project video.
I wasn't aware that it was aired on good morning, America. It is a powerful video. I remember a time in my life when I felt like the earth opened up, but beneath me. And it was, you know, a cavern of grief and a friend of mine who had been through something similar. So. I promise you, you won't feel like this forever.
It was really hard for me to grasp that during those days, weeks and months, but later I, as I reflect and I'm like, oh, she was right. You know that deep grief, it doesn't last forever, but it, we have to feel it. Like, there's just, no, we have to feel what, what is happening in our life and every moment, and sometimes the pain feels unbearable.
[00:11:34] Kellie Haddock: You're a hundred percent. Right. But the only way to healing. So there's no shortcuts. There's no way around. The only way to healing is to grieve in a healthy way, which to me is making no emotion off limits. And that's not feeling guilty for laughing. If you think something's funny and that's not feeling afraid to just messy cry, be angry, but just whatever that emotion is embracing that, but then embracing it in a way that you remember you are bigger than your emotion.
So your emotions have a lot of value, but you also have control over your emotions. And so you can feel them and not cut them off, but you also can choose joy and choose hope. And that might not be possible at first, but a lot of people, I think, believe that help enjoy our emotions, but I think hope enjoy our choices way before they're.
[00:12:28] Dana Frost: I love that. And actually I need to make a note because I want to make sure we highlight that hope and joy. What did you say? Hope and joy are choices
[00:12:40] Kellie Haddock: before
[00:12:41] Dana Frost: they're emotions before they are emotions. That's really a beautiful insight to hold on to. I was speaking to a friend yesterday, Kelly and she had in October, she had a lithium house fire and she hadn't, her husband had just come home from a hike and they had been gone for hours.
And it's, you know, we were reflecting on from one moment. To the next in life, everything can change that that's happened to you. And you were a, you know, a young woman, a young mother. What would you say to someone in that position? Because you, as you said, Kelly, you're 17 years into the grieving process.
It's 17 years later. You know, life teaches us what you said. Things will change as we process. And we, we are moved to the other side of something that's really challenging. We learn that, but when we're in the midst of it, and maybe I feel like when people are younger, they don't have as much experience.
So, what would you say to someone like, where were you as this young woman, as you said, you, you know, all of a sudden you're a widow, you're a single mother. You are still really young. What would you say to yourself? Going back? I'm sure you've maybe done this exercise. What do you say to yourself
[00:14:04] Kellie Haddock: back then?
Good question. I think that nothing is wasted. No is wasted. No loss is wasted. No, story's wasted. And, um, to not give up, I really wanted to give up. There were a lot of days I really wanted to give up. The interesting thing is the first year or so for me, my second year of grief was a lot harder than the first year, because I was just terrified of grief.
And so in a lot of ways, the first year I just tried to avoid it and like sugarcoat it and being like, you know, cause I was just so afraid you're in PTSD. Yeah. And I was terrified to feel those things. And so I was just sort of building this fragile glass castle to live in that eventually crumbled. And I think that crumbling around me.
Was the best gift. Like we just were talking about, if we don't grieve in a healthy way, we can't move forward. So there's a really a balance of feeling those emotions. But then like we were talking about remembering that you're bigger than your emotions and that gift of longevity of realizing. This might be intensely hard right now, but it won't last forever.
Like you were saying, and it won't be wasted if you choose to open your eyes and open your heart to whatever it is that you can learn. But in the midst of that intense tragedy and suffering just don't be afraid to be present in it and let others in. I mean, I think we all, you know, I know we can't do this on our own and nobody expects us to, and we can't compare ourselves to other.
Everybody grieves in different ways, everybody's been hurt in different ways. Everybody's loss is different. So we can't compare. That's such a theme, everything good, but we also need to invite others in and be honest and say, Hey, like I can't do this. This is hard. I just, I don't know the way forward that we have other people.
I have a song called spotlights. And that's really what that song is about is. We are spotlights for others when they're going through that dark hard thing, our stories of overcoming can help shine light into the dark things that other people are going through. And we need a, to be spotlights, but we all need spotlights in our life as well.
I love that
[00:16:20] Dana Frost: song of yours by the way. Thank you. Yeah, we're really, I always say we're not meant to do life alone. We just, we're not, and that's. You know, I think one of the tragedy is of the current pandemic is a lot of people are, are going through a really intense situation without the support that you know of other people.
And we, we need each other, we
[00:16:45] Kellie Haddock: do desperately. Yeah.
[00:16:50] Dana Frost: And so, as you have progressed on your journey, what were some of the really important aspects of your healing path?
[00:16:58] Kellie Haddock: Well, choosing to feel it. You notice I use the word choosing a lot and choosing, you know, we we've, we can believe these lies. I think especially as women, we're vulnerable to feel powerless.
And I think that's just such a lie that we are powerless. And I, if I could speak one thing over you listening, it's like, you are so much stronger than you realize for me. My faith is really incredible. That is my foundation. I think just having time in the morning to be still an anchor myself is essential.
I love to work out. I love to run. I think the really practical, physical things have a lot of value and it's easy to kind of glaze or gloss over that and think, oh, I don't have the bandwidth to take care of myself, but I think taking care of yourself as the very thing that will give you the bandwidth to get through the other hard things.
So as you mentioned, Dena, my husband a few months ago had quintuple heart bypass surgery, and he was about 10 minutes away from not making it. So it was a 14 hour surgery. It was a really long day, really long recovery in the ICU. And I was staring. Possibly being widow again. And, um, it really drew up a lot of things in me, but one of the surprising things that you're up was that strength of like, oh, you know, a lot of those things I, I had been building and talking about, you know, I do podcast interviews a lot, you know, a lot of these things I'm talking about, it was like, okay, time for the rubber to hit the road.
Like, do I really believe these things? And doesn't really work and. It was encouraging to, to be able to realize like, yes, like I can choose hope I'm not powerless in this moment. I, I'm not just stuck on whatever whim of whatever's happening around me, but I I'm. I have a strength in me that allows me to respond to these situations.
And every morning I would get up early and I'd go on a run and I sent it to myself. I'd have time for me, even though my husband is in the ICU. And so just taking that time to care for yourself, that's not
[00:19:12] Dana Frost: selfish, it's not selfish. You know, Kelly. I remember when I started my coaching practice, I was living in San Paulo, Brazil, and it was 2007.
And I was really curious that this idea of self care struck so many women at that time. As being selfish and that's self centered and it's self-serving. And I think that we've evolved culturally. I think that women have evolved to appreciate and understand that we are in better service to others when we do take care of ourselves and the capacity to be available in life in general grows and expands as we.
Really our present. We use, I have a morning, I call it quiet time practice and it is my centering point and it is the way that I can be present and be of service. And when you say the physical, I think that's so important because. If we need the full system, we talk about mind, body, soul, and that's like a buzzword, you know, so much it's truth.
I see it as truth that you need all those systems to come together. And they, they work in synchronicity with one another. And if one is out of balance, actually they're all out of balance. And all of those systems need to come together in symphony with one another, whether it's the times where there's fullness in life and there's joy in their celebration, or during the times when we're facing the loss of a loved one or a health challenge, or we're taking care.
I know a lot of people right now who are taking care of their parents and their children. And so it's like kind of the sandwich. Situation where they've got it on both sides and in addition to maybe their work. And so it can be really challenging the idea of self care. We can believe the lie that there's just not time.
I agree. I'm appreciating right now in this moment that you brought up the physical practice that you have. Because it can get lost. And for me, it's like, this is our skin. This is our earth suit. And we need that earth suit to be, you know, to be in the world. Right. So we can't expand our soul. If the earth suit isn't taken care of.
[00:21:40] Kellie Haddock: Right. I totally agree. Dana.
[00:21:46] Dana Frost: I love all of that. Kelly. Thank you. And it seems like community played a role for you as well. You talk about, you know, you mentioned don't be alone, reach out, have a spotlight.
[00:21:57] Kellie Haddock: Yeah, definitely. I think I would repeat myself to say yes, invited communities, safe people. And don't feel guilty if somebody doesn't feel safe to put up healthy boundaries as well, they can thank you for wanting to help, but I don't need that right now.
So now I think it's, again, it goes both ways. Cause you need to be willing to receive because people do want to people there's so many good people out there. They really do care. And so many people brought us. For weeks after my husband's heart surgery. And that was so hard for me to receive. So a lot of them were people I hardly knew.
And I was like, really the thank you, you know? So, so receiving is an art and that's really important, but then putting up boundaries to say, I don't need that right now. That's okay too.
[00:22:46] Dana Frost: Yeah. I've learned that from several, actually two people who we have in common. Debbie Phillips and Lori Tilbury in their stories.
They both have been able to be very clear when they were going through a very intense season to say, this is what I need. This is what's helpful. And I, I watched that and I was like, that's really why. I agree. So Kelly, let's move on to how you just share your life. Your music is incredible. It really just speaks to the soul.
And I love what you're doing on Instagram in terms of, I mean, I really want to encourage everybody to follow you because it's like getting a little, it's a dose of joy every day watching you. And it's a reminder of hope and joy. Those are that's the way I would describe it. Hope and joy reminders of hope.
[00:23:40] Kellie Haddock: Thank you, Dana. Well, you know, we talked a few minutes ago about how nothing is wasted and, you know, people can look at me and say, I've experienced more hardship than I deserve, but I would say the opposite. I would say I've experienced more healing than I deserve. And I am so blessed and I'm so grateful for my life and even my story and, uh, the ways that I've seen it help.
And the way that I've been able to be a spotlight for others is such a gift. And I only in recent, the last couple of years have realized that's a responsibility I've been given to steward. So I am sort of taken upon the brand of being a hope giver, but there's so much that robs us of hope. And there's so many people pointing out what's wrong world around us.
That, you know, I want to be a person that's pointing out. What's good and what's lovely and right. And hopeful. And, um, so especially through social media, as you said, you know, I try to show up there every day in a way. Just an arrow pointing to hope in a way that's really honest, because as, as you said, I I've, I've been to the rock bottom and I've experienced, um, incredible tragedy.
So the hope that I carry and the hope that I offer is not just some pie in the sky, you know, sugar-coated nice idea, but. It's a bedrock truth and it's also a hundred percent possible, a hundred percent accessible because we all have the option of choosing hope, enjoy. And if I can help empower women to realize that that option is always on the table, no matter what, what they're going through.
Then that to me is my mission. And my music is exactly that. I'm so excited. I have a new record coming out in the spring 2022, and I'm, it's called orchids from fire. And this is the cheerleader album I've kind of always wanted to make. And I wrote most of these songs after my husband's heart surgery. I mean, I talked a little bit about just learning to be honest with my grief and my emotions for me, that's been a big area of growth.
And this record is really a record that is intended to just serve others. I love these songs and I love singing them, but they're not. If I could just be a neon sign in the sky, that's what this record is to say that nothing is wasted and you are stronger than you. So did interfering people on. And so that music is such a gift that I get to have to help encourage women in particular.
And, um, I love getting to do it.
[00:26:20] Dana Frost: That's just really beautiful Kelly and, um, I really can't add anything to those beautiful words of yours. So. I want to ask you a question that I ask all of our guests. And that is what does feeling younger while growing older mean to you?
[00:26:35] Kellie Haddock: I feel like I'm still fairly young and it's interesting because.
I lived a story that most people don't experience until they're much, much older. And so for so many years, I felt like I was sort of without age, because my life experience didn't match up. You know, I was a widow and parenting a child with special needs in my twenties, which most people are like out at clubs having a good time in their twenties.
So yeah, a lot of ways in growing older, I feel more comfortable in my own skin because I finally feel like. My life is matching up with my age and that kind of feels good. And there's a freedom of not caring as much about what other people. And not trying to be bound by other's opinions and approval.
[00:27:23] Dana Frost: Well, that's really beautiful. And I feel like
[00:27:25] Kellie Haddock: I am looking to you and Debbie and lots of others that are a few steps ahead of me in their journey for inspiration.
[00:27:33] Dana Frost: Yeah. And we're looking to you to, I mean, it goes, you know, it's really interesting. I had, I did a podcast interview yesterday with a young man who's 29 and he has so much to share.
I think that. It's such a funny thing, because it's really not the chronological age. It has so much to do with how we feel, what our spirit is feeling and exuding. And I feel like your life is a wonderful example of in the midst of tragedy, moving through that. And. Really exuding exuding. Well, we've said it, this is, you know, we'll say this, I'll say the same thing over and over again, and hope enjoy, but something that we all, as you said, it's we all need that.
We need the beacon of light of hope and joy, because more of what we get from mass media and, you know, the visuals and the news that we're exposed to it down-regulates. R it actually downregulates our immunity and our health. And so being exposed to hope and joy. Is something that really serves us on many different levels.
So
[00:28:46] Kellie Haddock: I agree.
[00:28:47] Dana Frost: Yeah. Well, Kelly, thank you so much for being with us and sharing your story with us. I know that it's going to be so encouraging for our listeners at this time of year, and I want to encourage everyone to go to Spotify, to Kellie haddock on Spotify. Listen to her music, download her playlist.
This means so much to musicians when we like, and we actually save the playlist. Doesn't isn't that a big boost to you? Yeah.
[00:29:16] Kellie Haddock: People don't realize it, but all the streaming platforms are actually algorithms just like Instagram and Facebook. So. When you put a heart on it or you download it and save it, it actually tells the algorithm, Hey, people like this and it shows it to more people.
So it's, so it's so easy for somebody to click the heart button and it really has a big impact for.
[00:29:38] Dana Frost: And we will put that in the show notes. We'll put the link to your website, to your Instagram account, to your Spotify. And if you like this podcast and you appreciated Kelly, his story, I would, the, your thank you could be to go and like her music on Spotify and follow her on Instagram.
So, Kelly, thank you. And as always, I am streaming love from my heart to yours, to all of our listeners with so much deep gratitude and. May you feel hope and joy this holiday season. Thank you everybody.
[00:30:11] Kellie Haddock: Thank you.
[00:30:17] Dana Frost: Thank you for joining me on the vital you podcast. If you like it, please spread the love with a review and share it with your. As a thank you for the first three months of my podcast, one reviewer each month will be selected to win a sleeve of Lifeway X 39 stem cell activation patches. Lifeways X 39 patch is the only product on the market that resets the body's own stem cells.
So they behave like younger, healthier selves without injections, chemicals, or pharmaceuticals, experience the power of the patch on your journey of feeling younger while growing up. To be entered to win. Leave a review, screenshot your review and send it to dana@danafrost.com or pop it into a direct message on Instagram at Dana frost, vitally free.
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