Harnessing Courage Through Grit & Gratitude: With Laura Bratton

Welcome to Hard Beautiful.

Journey where we embrace vulnerability as our superpower.

And let.

Courage, light our path.

I’m Tiff Carson.

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Here to share heartfelt.

Stories of healing, grief, and resilience.

Each week.

I’ll talk with guests.

From experts to.

Everyday heroes about.

Their journeys through adversity together.

We’ll uncover the beauty that emerges from life’s challenges and how each experience can spark profound growth.

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Join us on this courageous journey of connection and transformation.

What would you do if the world you knew literally started to disappear?

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Today’s guest is Laura Bratton.

And she had to face that question when she was just nine years old.

Diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease, she was told that she would eventually go blind.

For most of us, that kind of news would feel like the end.

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But Laura’s story reminds us that sometimes the breaking open becomes the beginning.

She didn’t just survive the loss of her sight, she uncovered A deeper vision for her life and work that continues to impact thousands around the world.

Her story is 1 of grit.

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Not the kind that shouts, but the kind that whispers.

Keep going.

And it’s also a story of gratitude, not just when things are good, but when life is confusing, painful, and uncertain.

That combination of strength and softness is what makes Laura’s voice so powerful, and it’s why I knew I had to have her on the podcast.

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So as you listen today, I want to invite you to reflect on this question.

What challenge in your life could become a doorway to deeper courage?

What would it mean to not just get through it, but show up for it with heart and with grace and maybe even a little bit of gratitude?

2:17

So let’s get into it.

Hello Laura, how are you doing?

I’m great excited to be here.

I am so excited to have you here.

So let’s say I bump into you at a coffee shop and we strike up a conversation.

2:35

How would you introduce yourself to me?

Great question.

My book is called Harnessing Courage.

So I would definitely start with life has I would begin introducing myself as life has given me the opportunity and force me to develop deep, deep courage.

3:02

I love that.

Can you take us back to when you first heard that diagnosis and what do you remember about that time and what started to shift for you emotionally after you got that diagnosis?

3:19

The gift of being 9 was that as I heard the diagnosis as a nine year old, I heard it.

I remember it.

I remember sitting in the doctor’s office.

But emotionally I couldn’t process what it meant because at that time I knew I could see.

3:39

So in my 9 year old mind I thought, well, even though they’re telling me that I can see now, so I’m going going to always see.

So my immediate reaction was I was hearing it and just my parents so remind me of this 30 years later, I just said, mom, can we go to Starbucks and get a Peach tea?

4:00

And my parents had just gotten this life changing news about their child.

And I went to Starbucks tea.

When the emotional difficulty began, when the reality of that nine year old doctor boy that I so vividly remember, that began to be real and affect me and realized significance of it as a teenager.

4:26

So one day I’m in geography class, the teacher says start copying down the notes on the board.

So I did as I’ve always done and took out my new book and grabbed my pen and I looked up at the board and all I could see were these black like blobs.

4:46

They weren’t images.

It wasn’t letters, it wasn’t defined shapes.

It just looked like these black random marks on the board.

It was just real blurry.

So I looked back down my new book, looked back up at the board and that’s still all I saw.

5:03

Just these blurry black images.

So I leaned over to my neighbor and said what’s wrong with the print?

How are you writing down the notes on the board?

There’s nothing to copy down.

And her response was made that 9 year old diagnosis real.

5:21

Her response was or had the print looks perfect.

What do you mean?

That’s when I realized I was losing a significant amount of sight and that life was quickly changing from what I knew to a life without sight.

5:39

So what as that vision, as your vision started to decline, was it a rapid decline or was it a slow decline?

So it was both at the same time.

So over for the four years of high school, I didn’t have any sight.

5:57

So I went from not perfect 2020 sight, but pretty good sight to no sight at all.

So it was quick within that four years, but there wasn’t one moment where I woke up and had no sight.

6:13

So it was gradual, but it was a fast gradual.

So what was it when you were nine that made your parents like, was it just an annual good checkup that that this was discovered?

So my mom is a teacher and so as an elementary school teacher she knows exactly.

6:32

She’s more aware of just exactly where the what I should be doing it when it what grades.

So at the end of 2nd grade, she noticed that I was holding books closer to my face that I had been in previous months.

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I was sitting in the chair closest to the TV rather than just anywhere in the den, wherever it didn’t matter.

So noticing, and I wasn’t even aware I was doing this.

So noticing those differences, that’s when they made an appointment for just a regular ophthalmology appointment in the summer when I was out of school, just assuming it would be a regular checkup, I would get some glasses and we’d move on with life.

7:16

So yes, so that my my parents noticing slight differences calls the regular ophthalmology appointment.

So again, as your vision started to decline, what kind of grief or like internal battles did you face and how did you begin to start processing that you were losing your sight?

7:43

The immediate reaction was denial.

Oh, this is not that bad.

Oh, it’s not going to last that long.

When I graduated from high school, this will all be over.

I don’t know why high school is my bad, my magic point, but I just told myself that that denial didn’t last long.

8:02

And that’s when, exactly like what you said, that’s when the grief process started.

And my that grief process manifested in deep panic attacks and just severe depression.

8:18

My thought process was I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

This is too hard, it’s too much.

It’s the present’s overwhelming, the future’s overwhelming.

I can’t do this.

So intense anxiety and depression, Was that how the grief manifested?

8:36

How did you start to work through that or what kind of journey did that look like for you?

So the gift of as I am saying I can’t I can’t I can’t.

The gift was the support around me.

8:53

So as I am literally living in constant panic attacks and so depressed I can’t sleep or function.

My parents were literally telling me everyday or we don’t know the future, so all we have to do is take it day by day by day.

9:11

And that having them say that literally day after day, week after week, month after month.

That taught me again, not through their words, but through their actions.

Oh, all I have to do is take it day by day and they would literally tell me and say, you got up, got to school on time.

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That’s an accomplishment We’re good for today.

That was accomplishment for today again.

And it was just those everyday normal actions that we laugh at now, but they didn’t seem funny at the time.

I have one older brother and he just continued to treat me like his little annoying baby sister.

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And then I was like, Oh my gosh, you are such a mean brother.

Like, how could you not feel sorry for me and baby me?

Yeah, That was the greatest gift he could have given me because what he was showing through his action was you’re still my old sister.

10:07

You’re so you you just can’t see as well.

So it was that constant presence of those seizures that made accommodations that would give me double time on tests or the friends that were just continue to be my friends.

They were like, hey, let’s just go how?

10:23

Well, we weren’t doing lemonade stands at 14.

We were like, hey, we did Lois Day stands as little girls.

Why don’t we go just, you know, go get ice cream as 14 year olds?

So it was just the that support and that teaching me and modeling.

10:40

You’re so you that that slowly made me realize, yes, I’m overwhelmed, yes, I’m anxious, yes, I’m depressed.

And these people around me still think I’m me.

Like they still think I’m worthy.

They still think I purpose.

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Maybe I can do this for one day.

And then the one day became 2 days and the two days became four days.

So it was a gradual process of working through that depression, working through that anxiety, working through that process of changing that I can’t into I can’t.

11:15

Oh, I love so much about that, but the fact that your brother kept treating you like his little sister is probably a really pivotal moment in your in your healing journey through the grief part of this, I’m assuming.

11:31

Absolutely.

Yeah.

No, I’m not exaggerating.

He’s five years older.

So when his friends were around, you know, they were five years older.

So we’re in the backyard playing basketball.

Obviously five your boys who are five years older than me is a 14 year old.

11:48

They didn’t just let me win the game just ’cause I couldn’t see as well.

And again, at the time I was like y’all are so mean but but that was such a gift cause again, what they were teaching them was you’re so you.

12:04

Yeah.

Yeah, so you’re right that it doesn’t sound like a healing gift, but it 100% was deeply, deeply healing.

So you weren’t born with this blindness, so you had 9 even longer than that where you actually could see and you could see the world around you.

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Do you still see that world in your mind’s eye?

Do you still see it in your heart?

Yes, every single day, every, all the time, definitely.

And that, that is a gift that when someone describes, oh, that car is red or, you know, I have that instant memory, yet it makes the grief that much harder because I know how easy it was.

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I know how easy it was to live with sight.

Yeah, so it makes the grief that much more intense and difficult.

So the.

Duality of it, right?

Yeah, the duality is perfect.

Yeah, that’s you said it perfectly.

It’s a duality.

But I’m so thankful that I had that vision, that visual map.

13:15

Yet the grief is so intense because I know how easy it is.

I’m working a lot lately with energy healing and so do you feel energy more strongly now with your sight being gone on compared to before?

13:35

Yes, I’m glad you said that.

I’ve done a lot of energy work and I’m trained in Reiki and I’ve both received Reiki and and also given Reiki, just tons of people being trained in it.

I love energy work because now I’m so in tune to that just because I have less.

13:56

I’m not focused on the visual sense that you’re focused on.

So yes, I pick up on energy very intensely.

And I ask you that because there’s times when I’m doing energy work with people myself where I feel like I can get more in tune when my eyes are closed.

14:18

Yes, yes, that.

And I, that was interesting that when I was learning Reiki, my, the practitioner I was learning from said, wow, you’re actually the easiest person I’ve ever trained to, to do Reiki.

And at first I was like, well, that doesn’t make any sense.

14:35

And then I was like, oh, it’s like, ’cause I’m not fighting to use the visual, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

Wow.

So you talk about grit as a strength.

Was there a moment where you realized that you were building it and not just born with it?

14:55

Great question.

Absolutely so.

And what I had to learn, the way that I’ve experienced gret and had to learn to build it is again, that moment to moment.

OK, This moment I choose to trust myself.

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I don’t know what the rest of the day will look like, but for for this moment, this hour, I choose to trust myself.

Or if it was a day when I was saying I can’t, OK, for this moment, this day, this class, I choose to have the strength.

So that’s how I define grit and how I’ve had to learn to build it is acknowledging what is.

15:37

So it also might be a moment of acknowledging I’m really, really sad right now.

So rather than just pushing that sadness away, the grit is acknowledging that sadness, sitting with it, and then choosing to move forward.

I love that.

15:53

That is definitely been a a process of building day by day, not just a one time decision.

OK, I’m going to have grit story.

That is a process and and I think it’s a process of just choosing over and over and over every day, every hour.

16:09

Yes.

And choosing to sit in some of the hard stuff.

Yes.

Wow.

So gratitude is one of my very favorite things to talk about, and it is probably one of the things that really saved my life when I was in the darkest period of my life.

16:33

It was around when I, like I told you, I went to Wilmington back in 2018.

I was having a mental break.

I was near the end of the road for for me because I couldn’t, I couldn’t handle so many things that were going on in my day-to-day.

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And one of the things that I switched from was why me?

Why me?

I can’t, I can’t, why is this happening to me?

And it was the day that I started my gratitude practice that changed everything.

17:14

And I didn’t know, I I I actually remember saying to somebody, yeah, right, sure.

It, it can feel impossible, right?

When life is really, really hard and you’re faced with really hard things.

What did gratitude look like for you when your life felt the darkest?

17:36

You said it perfectly.

I literally said, you’re right.

So yeah.

So a conversation with a mentor started the process for me.

So as I’m at the end of high school, I’m still anxious.

I’m still panicked.

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I’m still depressed, still trying to figure out how does this life work when you’re living outside the world without sight.

And a mentor said to me, Laura, I want you to start focusing on gratitude.

And every day I want you to start writing down three things you’re grateful for from that specific day, People, events, situations from that day you’re grateful for.

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I looked at her and smiled and said, OK, But in my head, exactly what you said, I was thinking, that’s a terrible idea.

There is no way gratitude can be helpful there.

I have nothing to be grateful for.

18:34

Absolutely not.

So in my teenage southern stubbornness, I was determined to prove her wrong and prove her and show her.

This was what a terrible idea this was.

So I started to write down things I was grateful for just to prove I did not have anything to be grateful for.

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And I started thinking of things and the one day became 2 days and the two days became a week and a week became 3 weeks.

And my mindset started to change from I can’t to focus on what I did have.

And then I realized what she was teaching me.

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I thought gratitude that she was saying that just wake up and be thankful for your blind.

Just be so thankful that you had this anxiety and depression.

But what she was teaching me is to wake up and say no.

I’m not grateful to be blind.

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I am grateful to wake up and have a guide dog that helps me navigate the world.

I’m not grateful to wake up and be so overwhelmed by my present and my future.

I am grateful for parents who tell me and remind me every day.

All we have to do is take it moment by moment.

19:48

So the gratitude that I’ve, that she told me that I’ve developed and still use every single day is that perspective, that mindset of what helps us navigate through the difficulty, what helps us navigate through our day.

20:06

So again, is not saying just be grateful for anything all the time, everywhere.

Be positive, be happy.

It’s not that gratitude, it’s the gratitude of what helps us navigate through the day, through life.

20:23

I had a moment this past couple weeks when I was on vacation with my kids and there was a hard moment that we had in our hotel room on the first night and it was, it was really, really difficult.

And I worked through it with my kids.

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And as we were walking to dinner, I, I didn’t write it down, I didn’t say it to anybody, but I felt it in my heart.

And I just said, I am grateful for that moment, for all of us and for how I navigated that situation.

21:00

I wasn’t grateful for the crap and the chaos.

Right.

Right.

I was grateful for being shown how in my heart of how to handle that situation and the guidance that I got.

Yes.

That is a complete game changer.

21:17

It is a game changer and, and it can be, but it can be for your car.

It can be for the fact that it’s running properly, that you have gas to get to work, you’re grateful for light traffic that day.

You know, like it can be for those kind of things as well.

21:37

But it’s yeah, it, it just shifts and and it doesn’t have to be a journaling practice.

It can be just in your mind, right?

Yes, people ask me all the time.

So still, every single night you write down three things.

You’re grateful.

For.

I’m like, no, absolutely not.

It doesn’t mean journaling for rest of your life.

21:56

It just that cultivates A mindset.

And I love what you said.

I’m glad you said that about the, the gas in your car.

It’s, and that’s what I work with people on is becoming awareness every day, what we consider mundane moments.

22:12

Being grateful for that, being grateful for the lunch that you enjoyed.

I even tell people, even if it’s been a really hard day and you’re just grateful the day’s over and it’s, it’s, it’s time you can stop checking your e-mail and go to sleep.

You know, just being grateful for the everyday moments of life.

22:34

So what does courage look like in your everyday life now?

Not just those big moments, but the quiet ones too.

So curs looks like acknowledging what I’m feeling and then choosing to keep going.

22:53

So whether I’m feeling this situation makes me anxious, this situation makes me fearful, this situation makes me sad.

Validating that feeling, acknowledging that feeling and then choosing that yes, I’m anxious.

23:10

I acknowledge that anxious, I turn towards that anxiety and I choose to trust myself and have that self compassion and just do the next step.

So to me, courage looks like that constant balance of acknowledging what I’m feeling and choosing to move forward.

23:29

What?

Do you wish that people understood more deeply about navigating disability or an unexpected life change?

That in that huge change, like you were saying that huge life change is not expected.

23:50

Remember that you are so worthy.

And I say the reason I say that is from my own experience and also working with others.

When we have a change that’s not expected in our life, our complete, typically our complete focus goes to that change and we forget that we’re so worthy.

24:13

We forget that we still matter.

We forget that we’re still enough even in the huge life change that’s happening.

And it it could be any life change, right?

That that they’re navigating.

24:29

It could be the death of somebody like a deep grief.

It could be navigating losing your sight like you did it.

It can be any life change.

Any life change?

Yeah, that you are worthy.

Yes, that you’re worthy and that you’re enough.

So like I said, gratitude is a big part of my podcast and before I wrap up every interview with my guests, I always ask them, what’s one thing that you are especially grateful for today?

25:01

Today I am grateful for just the gift of being able to walk outside and just be in nature.

So it’s a rainy, cloudy, Gray, foggy day here.

And so I instantly want to go to complaining.

25:18

You don’t want it to be sunny and beautiful yet.

Just the gift of being able to walk outside and feel the rain and still hear the birds and just experience the fresh air, that’s an incredible gift.

So how can people hear more about you, Work with you?

25:39

I know I’ve checked out some of your stuff and it is so incredibly inspiring.

Where would you like people to go to learn more about you?

The best place is not a website. laurabratton.com has all the information on the speaking, the book, the coaching.

25:57

It’s all.

It’s all right there.

It’s all on there.

Cultivate a life of grit and gratitude.

Laura Bratton.

You do keynote speaking as well, don’t you?

Yeah.

And can you talk a little bit about Ubi or how do you pronounce it?

26:13

Yeah.

So the the point of creating that organization, the reason I founded that was for the speaking and for the coaching.

So speaking to organizations that are navigating through change, rather than just getting stuck and limited by the change, helping them to use the principles of great and gratitude to move forward, to keep going so that the goals can still be reached and they’re not just stopped by the change.

26:40

And then still with the with the same thing with the coaching, just working with people on an individual level as they’re going through different life changes, just as you were mentioning unexpected changes that they didn’t anticipate and both changes they’re experiencing.

26:56

How do they navigate through this if the change doesn’t stop them, prevent them from living a full life?

What is the biggest block you have encountered in business, like in the corporate world versus individual world?

27:15

Resistance in the in the corporate world, just the resistance to.

We don’t need that.

We’ll just push through it and figure it out.

Not talk about it, not deal with it.

Yeah, if.

27:30

We don’t talk about it and don’t deal with it.

We’re good.

Is that the same in working with individuals as well?

Like one-on-one?

Working with individuals, I would say it’s fear.

The fear of the future, the fear of the change, the fear of just the unknown.

27:52

What the each day will hold, What the future will hold.

Can you give me a little bit of an insight into what what it would look like to work with you with an individual rather than a corporate company?

28:08

So the first thing I do with individuals, and I’ll give one specific example from an athlete that I was working with who had a very significant physical injury and was working through recovering from that injury and getting back on the field.

28:27

The first step with her, with anyone is just for them and giving them permission to acknowledge what you’re going through is really difficult.

You didn’t expect this entry, you didn’t want this entry, this one in the the plan, the timeline.

28:45

So just giving yourself the space to acknowledge it’s OK to be sad and frustrated and overwhelmed because this, this wasn’t what anyone wanted.

So again, just giving people permission to acknowledge, to 1st grieve what they’re going through.

29:02

And then that acknowledging that grief gives us power to then move forward to creating that plan step by step by step.

Do you find that people have a really hard time acknowledging that hard piece?

Yes, because that’s where the fear comes in.

29:19

So the fear is if I acknowledge the heartbeat, I’ll never, ever leave the heartbeat.

I’ll stay in that feeling of acknowledging the hard for the rest of my life and it’ll just swallow me whole.

So is there something that you do to breakthrough to get that acknowledgement to I guess happen?

29:44

Yes, what I found in this was beneficial for me and my own experience and then in people that I’ve worked with, helping them to understand and realize, yes, this is really, really hard.

So if it’s if the fear is too great to go there, let me be your support and trust me of knowing it’s not going to be this fearful forever.

30:10

It’s the fear is not going to swallow you whole.

So again, I say all that to say, having them trust me as their support system, so allowing that I believe in them as their coach, that this fear will not overtake them and just they’ll be fearful the rest of their life.

30:28

So having them trust me that yes, I believe in them, that they can move forward when they don’t believe in themselves.

And that is ubiglobal.org where you can learn more about that.

And again, laurabratton.com and her book is Harnessing Courage.

30:48

Do you want to talk a little bit about that book?

Yeah, so I love talking about the title.

So I was very specific and worked a lot with my editor and publisher on wanting that title.

The reason that I named and I was very deliberate.

31:04

I’ve had two Guide Dogs, both for about 11 years each, and the harness is the leather device that goes around the dog and then the person who’s blind holds the end, the handle, the harness.

So the harness is around the dog and then the person is holding the harness and then you walk forward as a team.

31:25

So even in the harness, it takes a lot of courage for me to trust of 50 pounds, 60 LB black lab that literally be my eyes.

And it also takes a lot of courage for the dog, all the training that they’ve been through to have the courage to guide me safely.

31:45

So that’s the main reason I named it Harness and Courage, just as out of gratitude and a deep, deep appreciation for what the two Guide Dogs have given me.

What are your two Guide Dogs names?

So my first guide dog, they were both female black labs.

32:03

My first guide dog, her name was Jira and then my second guide dog her name was Betty.

Well, you must have such a strong connection to those dogs.

That’s that talk about the energy work that you referred to earlier.

32:20

Yes, absolutely.

As some I have you, she’s over on the floor right now.

My dog Ella, she is with me for every single podcast.

It’s like she knows that I can feel her energy and she so she’s just the greatest support for me doing.

32:42

This work, it is such a gift.

It is.

It is.

Much a gift, more than words can say.

Mm hmm.

So Laura’s story reminds us that our greatest challenges don’t define us, but how we choose to show up does.

32:58

She lost her sight, but never lost her vision for what was possible.

And her journey is a beautiful reminder that grit and gratitude aren’t just concepts, they’re life lines.

So ask yourself this week, where could you meet your pain with a little more presents and where could you meet your journey with a little more gratitude?

33:22

If you love this conversation, please be sure and check out Laura’s website.

I will have all of the links in the show notes.

Laura, thank you again for showing us how to choose courage in the dark and lighting up the way for others.

33:41

Thank you for the gift of the opportunity in this platform.

Thank you so so much.

Until next time my friends, breathe deep, feel it all, and remember you’re not alone on this hard, beautiful journey.

Bye bye.

33:57

Thanks for being here.

For this episode of.

Hard, beautiful journey.

I hope.

Today’s episode inspired you to embrace your own vulnerabilities and recognize the strength within you.

Remember every story of resilience.

Adds to the beauty of our shared.

34:14

Journey if you enjoyed.

This episode please like subscribe.

And leave a review.

Your support?

Helps me spread hope and healing to even more listeners.

Until next time, keep shining your light and embracing the beauty in your journey.

34:31

Bye bye.