Ep #198: Christopher Wesley: How Do You Survive after Losing Everything?
episode
Business Growth Architect Show: Founders of the Future
29 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 10 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What does it feel like to lose everything and how does that trauma manifest?
What's it feel like to lose
everything? It's like losing myself, like everything. It feels like having been subjected to violence. The things that we lost, I feel like I lost them through an act of violence. You can't buy something that is gonna take the place of that relationship.
I can't go in there and buy a bunch of pearls and then it expected to have the same energetic vibration as my grandmother's pearls.
I lost all my journals, all of my sketchbooks, lost the guitar. It l it was literally the difference when I was fourteen between me being a responsible, happy adult and committing I cannot let this event win. I cannot let this be the thing that brings me down.
I'm gonna ask you the question everybody's asked me. What does it feel like to lose everything?
It's like losing myself. Like everything, like my entire it's not like I didn't lose my entire identity. But I lost foundational pieces of it, enough of the foundational pieces, that I have to figure out what pieces are broken and missing and figure out how to replace and regenerate those. So it I feel like an incomplete puzzle now.
Yeah, and for our listener, you know, Christopher Wesley is in the same boat as I am. Uh he is also and Christopher, are we fire survivors or are we fire victims? Have you figured that one out yet?
How do you define yourself – a survivor or a victim of the Altadena fire?
I try and use the word survivor more than victim. But I feel sometimes like a victim. It's a role that I have to actively try and narrate in my mind to keep me from like going down a dark hole.
You lost your house in the Altadena fire and we lost our house in the Pacific Palisades fire. So we are brother and sister in this catastrophic event. And when we prepared for the show, he and I had some conversations about that it A catastrophic event does something to a person. Can you put that in words for our audience?
It feels like having been subjected to violence. Like the f the things that we lost, I feel like I lost them through an act of violence is Probably the best way to explain it. That sense of trauma, that sense of not feeling that safety and security that I used to have, both in in being at home, but also in possessions. Like I don't buy a lot of things anymore. Because there's a part of me that says, What's the point? Do I even want this? Do do I care about this?
You know, I have these things I lost all my jewelry. My mother had just given me all the family jewelry. And I really long for a nice necklace because I And then every time I go in a jewelry store I I look at the stuff and then I get really upset. And then I I can't do it and then I run out. How do you experience this, this idea of because we have a right as per our insurance, at least to some degree, to replace some of the things that we have lost? How do you
handle that? I remind myself like I have the initial reaction, which is usually visceral. I see something and it it's it there's that reaction that I used to have it and it was taken from me. When I can get on the other side of that 'cause it's quite often a process to get to the other side of it. It's not something that happens in just a minute or two. Sometimes it's a couple of hours, depending on um how meaningful the thing is that I lost. But Yeah yeah. We have relationships with these things. And No matter what anyone says about it, it's an inanimate object. The there are things that were burned that we have relationships with it beyond like the utility of it. They meant something to us. And that part we can't replace, you can't buy something that is gonna
take the place of that relationship or that can just step in and be that thing that you got from your mother.
Truly. Or grandmother's pearls, right? Your grandmother's yeah.
So do you think this is Us surviving or are we transforming?
What happened during the night of the fire and how did you evacuate?
And
Definitely transforming. Yeah. There's defin yeah. Uh there's survival in it. It's not clearly defined difference in identity. On mornings like this morning when I read Edison will put lines underground, but they're going to charge us ten thousand dollars extra to do this, when I Times like that, I feel like I'm surviving.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What does it feel like to lose everything and how does that trauma manifest?
0:00–1:40
2
How do you define yourself – a survivor or a victim of the Altadena fire?
1:40–5:04
3
What happened during the night of the fire and how did you evacuate?
5:04–7:26
4
How has your storytelling background shaped your response to the disaster?
7:26–12:59
5
What is the ‘Sparkbringer’ resilience archetype and how can it be applied?
12:59–17:40
6
How do you now help others navigate personal or natural catastrophes?
17:40–24:13
7
What resources (assessment, coaching calls) do you offer for resilience building?
24:13–27:30
8
What lasting lessons have you taken from the fire and how do they shape your future?
27:30–29:58