Kat Finnerty · 49 min
From losing her mother at twelve to a multiple sclerosis diagnosis and marital betrayal, Kat Finnerty's extraordinary journey shows how radical perspective shifts, not perfect circumstances, are the foundation of lasting resilience.
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Kat Finnerty was twelve years old when her mother died on her birthday. Her father's response shaped everything that came after: instead of dwelling in grief, he asked her how her mother would want her to live. She chose to honour that by living fully. Thirty years later, Kat would need that same choice again, multiple times over.
At 27, holding her newborn, Kat was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. A doctor told her not to have more children and predicted she'd lose her ability to walk by 40. She had two more children anyway. By 30, she'd lost vision in one eye, her hands barely worked, and she couldn't leave the house without terror. She was drowning in anger, drinking wine each night, unable to see a way forward. Then she found a Buddhist teacher in an attic gym in Melbourne who told her bluntly to change her perspective. That single conversation, followed by a week of learning to tolerate Vegemite, unlocked something: the realisation that nothing in life is good or bad on its own. Everything is filtered through how you choose to see it.
On her fortieth birthday, Kat discovered her husband was having an affair. That night, instead of letting anger consume her, she made a conscious choice to send love to the people who had hurt her. By morning, she had processed the betrayal and moved forward. Today, Kat lives across three countries, runs retreats, teaches yoga, and writes meditations. She has built a life not despite the MS, the loss, and the betrayal, but from what those experiences taught her about perspective, choice, and kindness.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses grief & loss and suicide & self-harm prevention, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au • GriefLine: 1300 845 745 · griefline.org.au
“Inside, I didn't want to live anymore. Every single day, I just waited for the end of the day.”
“I either need to end my life or I need to find another way.”
“If you're not looking after yourself, you might not be there to look after your kids.”
The hero, today
Nothing in your life is bad or good on its own; everything is filtered through your perspective, and you can choose to change how you see it. When you feel anger or fear rising, you can choose instead to send love and let it go, especially when your health or your children's wellbeing depends on it. Problems are not a sign you're failing; they're a sign you're alive, and the question is not why something happened, but what you want to create from it. You can focus on the pain or the recovery, the suffering or what's going right, and that choice is where your power lives. Helping someone else when you're stuck in your own struggle is not selfish; it's the fastest way to shift your own mind and plant the seeds of kindness that come back to you.
Yes. Kat Finnerty is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
Nothing in your life is bad or good on its own; everything is filtered through your perspective, and you can choose to change how you see it.
When you feel anger or fear rising, you can choose instead to send love and let it go, especially when your health or your children's wellbeing depends on it.
Problems are not a sign you're failing; they're a sign you're alive, and the question is not why something happened, but what you want to create from it.
You can focus on the pain or the recovery, the suffering or what's going right, and that choice is where your power lives.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 00:05
Welcome back to Kintsugi Heroes, helping people tell the stories they need to share so you can find the stories that you need to hear. In this episode, Natalie Stockdale is joined by Kat Finnerty. Kat's life has been shaped by both challenge and growth. From her childhood as the eldest of 5 to losing her mother at age 12, Kat learned early about resilience. Later, she faced a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and the end of her marriage. Kat found new direction through Buddhist teachings, which helped her shift her mindset and focus on gratitude and acceptance. Today, Kat shares her practical lessons on overcoming adversity, supporting others to find balance and hope in their own lives. Hello, Kat.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 00:56
Thank you for joining us today.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 00:58
Thanks, Nat. I'm so happy to be here.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 01:03
And you're in Vanuatu at the moment, which I know is one of your three home countries. What's life like in Vanuatu at the moment?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 01:13
Vanuatu is a place that is so interesting because it's got this constant duality. It's known as the happiest place on the planet, but it's also the most disaster-prone. So life here is always a little bit on that knife edge, and it's really interesting. The people here, I love them. They're a perfect example of why I wrote my book, Never Let a Good Disaster Go to Waste, about the idea of resilience. They're so resilient. So living here, you're kind of like always have, you know, you're looking over your shoulder, but you're also in complete awe of the beauty, and it's spectacular. I actually I love it.
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This conversation includes the eldest of five in a crowded house, her mother's final gift on her twelfth birthday, a diagnosis at 27 while holding her newborn, living in a body that won't obey, finding a guru in an attic in melbourne and change your fucking perspective.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 01:56
Yeah, wonderful. Kate, can we start with your, your story? Start from your, your early childhood. What did your early childhood look like, and how did that shape the rest of your life?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 02:09
So I'm the eldest of 5 children, and my dad— my mother was from Czechoslovakia. She was communist. She escaped communism when she was about 17, 18, and met my father. My dad was a very— he's a very stoic British man. He was a bank manager, and they got married and had 5 children fairly quickly. My mother learned English by watching mostly TV, and she loved Bewitched. So my middle name is Samantha. And so my mom had 5 kids in 8 years. Our life was hectic, you know, 5 5 children living in a tiny 3-bedroom house. My mom was brought up, my mom was brought up during communism and so she was quite frugal the way we were brought up. And my dad was brought up during the war. So brought up just to sort of just survive. Our house was always busy and full of love and laughter. But I was the eldest of 5 children. I felt like I was always babysitting and always having to look after someone and and all I just wanted was freedom. So yeah, our life was quite hectic and busy. My dad was extremely strict. He always had nicknames for all of us kids, and I was the child that he should have drowned at birth because I was—
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 03:35
Why do you say that?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 03:38
Well, first of all, I was born early, which interrupted a hockey game that he was watching. And then I was born early as well, and they were living in an adult-only apartment at the time, so then they had to bring me home to this apartment, and he said I screamed and screamed unless he was carrying me. And ever since then, I was always the rebel child. I was always looking for trouble and always getting into trouble. So he always said, "You're the child I should have drowned at birth." Even now he says it.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 04:10
Affectionately.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 04:11
Affectionately, yes, yes. But then, uh, yeah, things, things changed quite abruptly for me.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 04:19
Um, yeah, something happened on your 12th birthday. Can you take us there? What was— what happened? And that was, it was a very significant, life-changing day of your life.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 04:31
Yeah, so I'll never forget, on my 12th birthday, I woke up and I didn't want to go to school until my mother rang me. I sat looking at the phone and my dad's like, "Get to school." Then when I got home from school, everyone was wishing me happy birthday. All these people were coming to wish me happy birthday. I felt like a rock star. This day was like the whole community showed up and was bringing me presents. I'm like, "Wow, oh my God." My dad came home. I'll never forget. It was just going on dusk. And I was wearing this new t-shirt I got, "Tiny but Tough," and I was just on adrenaline and on a high. And my dad came home and called me into his room and he said, "Your mother just died." And I just, I couldn't believe it. My mother, we'd known she was sick with cancer, but I guess it was the time in the world where you didn't really share as much with your kids. It was just a certain time, and so we didn't know exactly how sick my mother was. And so, yeah, so that day everything changed. My mother— my father, all of a sudden, was a single father to 5 young children. I was the eldest, just turned 12. My youngest sister was 3. And it was really significant in the way that it was handled, actually, which taught me a lot of my lessons. For now.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 06:05
So how was it handled? How did you handle that news?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 06:10
It was really interesting because although nobody ever wants to lose a parent, and it was obviously devastating, my dad being born during sort of the war era in England was, you know, used to loss. People lost entire families, and I remember being so angry and devastated. And my mother actually— I didn't know this until after— but she had made a commitment to live until her firstborn's birthday. And so my mom had been in a coma. So there's a few things that I really learned from that experience. Number one, the power of love and intention. I think she had such a burning desire to think, I'm just gonna live to my firstborn's birthday, even though she was so sick and dying. She woke up. She'd been in a coma for 5 days, and my uncle told me later that she woke up and she was humming "Happy Birthday." She knew it was my birthday. She died, and it was a real testament to the strength of love and intention, I believe. But the way my father handled it, I'll never forget being at my mother's grave, and my uncle had told me how she had hung on and she had had this intention to living to my birthday. I thought, well, you know, what kind of a legacy is that? My mother— I felt really blessed and honored, really. But I'll never forget my father. I thought he just said, everything in life is impermanent. You will lose everything. Take this as a lesson that everything in life is impermanent. Everything has a use-by date. No matter how much you love something or you want it to stay, say it always change, you'll lose everyone. And it's devastating, but what he told me was incredible. He said, how would you think your mother would want you to live? Would she want you to grieve and be angry and sad, or would she want you to live a full life? And so now every year, I just— my birthday is another inspiration to think, yeah, my mother's here with me, she's rooting for me. I'm not gonna live and grieve. I'm going to live to make her proud. So it really was at a young age a tough thing, but to watch how my father handled it and how we lived, it was pretty amazing. He allowed us to grieve for a week and then he was like, back to school, back to normal, you know, the show must go on. And so, yeah, yeah, it was amazing.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 08:40
Wonderful role models. And what a profound act of love by your mother.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 08:44
Yeah, and I think, you know, we don't know how any of us will react when we're faced with that, that final moment of our death and what we'll do with it. And I think she was always very strong and brave, and they never really told us she was dying because they didn't want us to, to remember her sick in a hospital. So, you know, they just was like We're like, no, we want you to remember the strength and love and, and, and be in that space rather than grieving and sad.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 09:20
Kat, you've had several life challenges, one being disease. Can you tell us about when and how multiple sclerosis entered your life and how that impacted you?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 09:33
Yeah, that's such an interesting story actually. I heard of MS obviously as a kid. We used to read books. And then when I was 23 years old, I was invited to go to this bachelor auction. I was working at this gym, and a friend of mine was in this bachelor auction to raise funds. And I'll never forget, before this auction started, this woman came, and she was in a wheelchair. And she was this beautiful— she was about 40 years old. She was just gorgeous. But she was in this wheelchair and she started talking about MS and told us the story how she'd just gotten married, she had a child, and not long after she was diagnosed. And then now she was living, you know, a few years later in a nursing home. And her husband and child would come visit. And I remember thinking, "God, I would hate to live in a body that didn't work properly. I'd hate to be living in a nursing home when I was 40." 40 years old. And I thought, if that ever happened to me, I don't know what I would do. Fast forward 3 years, I was 27. So at 27, I just gave birth to my first child, and I was in the hospital holding my newborn, but I also found that I couldn't really walk. I, I got up to to feed one day and my leg didn't work. And the doctor came in and he said, you know, and I had a few symptoms a few years earlier, and he said, "I'm sorry to tell you, but you've got MS and don't have any more children." He said, "You should be able to walk at least until you're 40." And he said, "You'll be on medication the rest of your life." And that's when I thought, no, no. I thought I was such a fighter, and I was like, no, that's not going to happen to me, you know. I thought, no, I'll fight it. And that was, you know, nearly 30 years ago. Hmm.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 11:43
What gave you that determination, do you think, to fight it rather than accepting accepting what is.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 11:52
Do you know what's strange, Natalie, is that my mother, she had 5 kids in 8 years, and I always felt— and this sounds horrible— but I always felt, you know, she'd left her country, it was communist, she could never go home. I felt like almost in a way, I wonder if she gave up in a way, like life got too hard. I don't know, but I remember it was at the end of my mom's life when she really decided to fight it. She was always too busy, too busy with life to look after herself, and I always wondered if maybe perhaps that was part of the problem. She just sort of gave herself to her children, ignored symptoms of colon cancer, and then I thought, no, if 'If I just really focus on healing and do everything I can to heal, maybe I'll be able to beat this, you know, maybe I'll be stronger than that.' Kat, you raised a really good point about people being busy and not taking time for self-care, particularly mothers.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 13:03
I find in my friendship circle and family circle, mothers particularly put themselves last. So I, I guess that's a lesson that you've learned from your mom.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 13:15
Yeah, I look, I really believe that our happiness comes from our desire to give happiness to others, and our suffering comes from self, from, um, preoccupation with self. So I do believe that. And as a mother, you should be selfless, and you are there to give to your children. But the thing is, if you're not looking after to yourself, you might not be there to look after your kids. And sure, sometimes you have to push through, and I've always been like that. My dad was, you know, we didn't take— if you were sick, he'd say, you know, what's wrong? You know, I got an earache. He's like, well, I'll cut your ear off. Like, stop complaining, go to school. So I was always taught to just persevere, persevere, persevere. And I think that that is important. I think having that resilience and strength I absolutely believe is important, but I also think on the flip side is that it's really important as well to listen to your body and look after yourself because sometimes you can push through and that's fine, but in my mother's case, she died. It was too late. So it's finding that balance, and this is the duality of life. This is the suffering of life. This is the bits that we need to figure out, you know. My book is called Never Let a Good Disaster Go to Waste because I believe we're always either in a disaster, between two of them, always. And it's trying to figure out, um, what to do in that meantime.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 14:46
So you, you, um, you fought on, you decided not to give up, and there was a period of time where you lost your mobility that was I imagine a very dark time of your life. Could you tell us about that and how you managed to navigate, navigate that period?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 15:05
So multiple sclerosis is— and I had what's called relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, so I'd have like a little relapse, you know, something— I'd lose the use of my arm or the use of my leg, but then I'd get better. And so I was really strong and brazen to begin with. I was like, oh, big deal, you know. I can live without one arm, oh, I can live without one leg, you know. I used to use my— I was told not to have any more children, but I accidentally had two more. So I ended up having three children in three years. So by the time I was 30, I had three kids in three years. By the time my daughter was born, because I kept thinking, oh, I'm stronger, this won't beat me. I had this this real strong attitude that I'm unstoppable. And by the time my daughter was born, I'd lost the vision in my left eye. My hands, my arms didn't really work. Even cutting food was hard. My legs were not great. I had 3 children. My 2 boys, one was called Search, the other one Destroy. My boys were wild. I couldn't leave the house because I was always afraid afraid my 18-month-old would run into traffic. It was a living hell for me. And although I was someone that would always put on a brave face, inside I didn't want to live anymore. Every single day I just waited for the end of the day and I'd drink a few glasses of wine and I just wanted to disappear into a bottle and I never wanted to come out. Life was so hard. I was living in a small country town away from family in Australia.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 16:48
You're in Australia?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 16:49
Yes, I'm from Canada. And it wasn't even that. It was just I was in a bad situation. My body was not working. My mind was in a living hell. I just couldn't see a way out of my situation, to be honest. I was someone that was a runner and I was fit. I ran a fitness center and I could barely walk. If I taught a step class, I'd fall over. I couldn't do that anymore. So I hit rock bottom. I hit it pretty hard and I got to the point and I didn't want my kids— I didn't want to be that woman in the wheelchair living in a nursing home and my kids visiting me there. I didn't want that for them. And so I thought, I either need to I need to end my life or I need to find another way.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 17:42
And you found another way.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 17:44
I did, I did, and it wasn't easy, but the choice was— I still had that never say die attitude. And at the time I was reading a book called Eat, Pray, Love. By Elizabeth Gilbert. And I thought, if she can find peace and happiness in India, I thought, maybe I need to go and find myself a guru. So I decided, even though my kids were young at the time, they were maybe 2, 3, and 4 years old, I talked to my husband. And our relationship was a bit of a mess. I think, you know, you go out and you put on a brave face for everyone else, but at home I was like a terror. I was angry and I was never happy with my husband. He did the best he could, really. You know, 3 young kids and a wife who wasn't well. Things must have been tough for him as well. But I could only see my suffering. I couldn't see the fact that I was this angry mother and I had these 3 young kids who had this mother who, you know, I look back with so much guilt. The anger and yelling at them all the time. I really struggled as a parent. Having children, you know, I was the eldest of 5 kids. I used to say, "I've had my kids." I looked after 4 kids growing up from a young age. Having children wasn't something I particularly set out to have. They just appeared. Of course, I know how to stop that, but I didn't. And, you know, I loved my kids dearly, but I wasn't the type of mother I would have ever wished to be. So I had a lot of guilt as well for how I was behaving. So I told my husband I was going to have to leave him and the kids and I was going to move to India and I was going to find Buddhism. But I mean, who leaves their children? That wasn't really something I valued as a human. But I thought, I can't keep going on the way I am. My kids and my husband didn't deserve to have a person like me in their lives. I really felt bad for them. And every night I'd go to bed and I'd meditate. And I think, you know, tomorrow I'm going to be a kind, loving mother and a kind and loving wife. And then I'd wake up and within about 10 minutes, life would happen. I'd be angry again and frustrated and sad. Anyway, so I eventually found Buddhism though in Melbourne. I drove to Melbourne every Wednesday. I found a way. It was 4 hours to Melbourne and 4 hours home. But the first class changed my life, and I was like, I found a way! I felt like, you know, when someone finds God, it's like, I gotta tell you about this! So the first class changed my life, and from there everything changed.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 20:35
Wow. So can you share with us what was so profoundly life-changing from your first class, your first Buddhism class?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 20:43
So I went to this Buddhist class It was in an attic in Melbourne. It was above a gym. And these people had been already going for quite a few years, I guess. When I walked into that room, I was surrounded by, like, love and kindness and compassion. And I thought, "Ah! Whatever they've got, I want that. That's what I want. I want to feel like that. I want to be someone that's warm and loving and happy and generous." And the first class changed my life because The teacher, our lama, she was not what you would expect. She was this married girl, I think, and she was short, she was covered in tattoos. And we went around the room and I introduced myself and told them about my story. And I said, you know, I'm struggling, I've got 3 young kids at home, I've got a husband who who I love, but who we argue all the time. I live in the middle of nowhere. I've got this disease. I'm 30 years old. They told me I have about 10 years left to walk. And I think my life sucks, and I don't know how to change it. And she looked at me, and she was fierce, and she said, you think you've got problems? Change your fucking perspective. And I was like, whoa. She said, "You've got 3 kids? How many people can't have children? Oh, you have a house? Oh, how many people don't have a home? You have a husband? How many people are alone? You drove here, you've got a car? Do you know how lucky you are? You say your body doesn't work, yet you walked up these stairs. You don't have a— you're not focusing on all the things going right in your life. You're focusing on your problems. You're not focusing on all the good." And I was like, ah, and she said, you need to change your perspective. I need you to go home and think of something that you hate and turn it into something you love, and you've got 1 week to do it. I was like, I hate Vegemite. And Vegemite is, for those of you that don't know, it's a thick black paste that people in Australia seem to love. And I spent that week Do you like Vegemite, Nat?
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 23:01
Oh yes, I do. Vegemite on toast, butter, yum.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 23:04
Yeah, because you're Australian.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 23:08
Absolutely.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 23:09
So I don't like it. So that week I came home and I spent the week trying to love Vegemite. And I'd ask Australians, how do you eat Vegemite, Nat? How do you eat it?
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 23:20
Toast, plenty of butter on warm toast, and then Vegemite spread evenly. Over the toast.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 23:27
How much Vegemite do you put on? Do you like layer it on thick?
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 23:31
No, not too thickly, quite sparsely but evenly.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 23:35
Exactly my point. I asked all these people, how do you eat Vegemite? And they'd say lots of butter, toast, and, you know, a thin spread. I'm like, you don't like Vegemite either, otherwise you'd be layering it on like, you know. Anyway, I spent that week trying and practicing eating Vegemite, and I got to a point that week where I could eat it. I didn't love it, but I could eat it and not hate it. And it was that moment that I realized that I could change everything I hated in my life to something I love, because nothing's good, nothing's bad, everything is filtered through our perspective. And so all of a sudden, you know, having these 3 kids who I love but found like suffocating, I was like, Oh my God, I am so lucky. This husband who, you know, worked all day and then came home, I was like, oh my God, I'm so blessed. This body, I'm like, yes, this doesn't work, but this does. So everything, everything I was so angry and upset about, all of a sudden I was so grateful for the problems I didn't have. And my perspective shifted. And thanks to Vegemite. And that's what changed my life.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 24:48
Vegemite and the Buddhist leader in Melbourne. Wonderful.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 24:54
Yeah, someone that yelled at me. My dad used to always yell at me. You know, I was someone that always needed to be yelled at before I did what I was told. And it was almost— it took that metaphysical shaking, really, to make me wake up. All the things that were going right— and yes, I had so many things going wrong, but I wasn't focused on what was going right, the problems that I didn't have.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 25:18
And Kat, I expect that would have been your new mindset, would have been very helpful in helping you navigate your next major challenge, which of course was your betrayal. Could you tell us about, about that and again how you, how you managed to get through that?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 25:37
Yeah, so after I discovered Buddhism and, and sort of during that time, I I really, my health started to get better. I did lots of experimental things which I write about in my book. But on my 40th birthday, I was doing another experiment. I was like, I'm a guinea pig, I'll do and try anything to overcome this illness that I was really dedicated to overcoming. And so on my 40th, I was in the hospital in Melbourne and I was lying in the hospital bed. I was about to go in for this procedure, and my daughter called and said, "Happy birthday, Mommy!" She was about— she was in grade 6 at the time. And I said, "Thank you, honey." And she said, "Guess what?" She said, "Your friend had a sleepover in your bed last night." I was like, "Hmm, really?" And I got home that evening, and sure enough, looked at my husband's phone, and there was definitely an affair. And that was the end of 15 years of marriage and 3 children, like that, overnight. And I was devastated. I was completely and utterly devastated. I thought that could never happen to me. That happens to other people. That happens to people on Jerry Springer, but things like that don't happen to me. But of course, now it did. And at that moment, I went to the kitchen, I put— and I took out my wine and my chocolate and my bag of chips, and I sat there and I stared at the Holy Trinity. And I thought, "Nah, this is not for this disaster." And I looked up and I thought, "Now what?" And I realized that I had that strength within me, and this was a time that I had to realize I had a choice how long I suffered. I could suffer for 12 hours, 12 days, 12 years, or a lifetime. And that night I went to bed and I didn't sleep, and I looked back on my life and all of the things I'd overcome, all of my disasters. And every time I— that anger and that panic and that fear of the fact that all of a sudden my life completely changed in that instant. I thought I have a choice. I have a choice to see all the reasons that my life is going to be awful and I'll be a single mother of 3 kids and I might not be able to walk. I'm now 40. I was told I'd be in a wheelchair. I could focus on all of those things or I could focus and change my mindset and think, no, what do you want to create? And by the time the morning came around, I processed the betrayal, I sent love, I was just focused on all the good things that could happen for me, and I was over it by the morning. And my suffering was done. And it was only because— Sorry, go on.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 28:42
Sorry, that is extraordinary. That is an extraordinary rebound or recovery from, from such a profound betrayal. So how did you feel the next morning, the next few days?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 28:58
The biggest thing the next morning, I would— I just kept picturing my, my children, and I thought, if I don't overcome this pain, if I stay angry and mad and furious The people that are going to wear my pain are my children. And yes, I could hang on to this. And Buddhism teaches this, that we carry our anger like a hot coal in our hands. And it's like, it's hurting us. Just let it go. And because I'd studied Buddhism at that point and yoga for so long, I was— my Buddhist teacher always said, we're either in a disaster or between two of them. And so it's practice for showtime. We practice meditating. We practice all these things. These things because when disaster strikes, what are you going to do? I knew what to do. I knew if I carried my anger and pain around, I would transfer that pain to those people around me. I could just see my children and think, what do I want them to do? Because this happens to all of us. All of us go through pain and suffering. Buddha said, "Life is suffering." But there is a choice. We can choose to let go of that suffering. And so that morning I literally thought, I'm just going to send my partner and my friend love. Which was hard. You know, I'd get angry and mad and then I'm like, flip it, flip it, flip it. Because especially having an illness like MS, stress is such a trigger. I mean, I could feel it in my body when the anger and stress comes up. It's like my body reacts. And so for my own health, I needed to let it go. I needed to just go, "Nope, let it go." And it's completely counterintuitive, you know, to feel that betrayal and go, "No, I'm going to let it go and send them love." A lot of people have a hard time, but that's the hardest part. But I would only injure myself and my kids if I didn't let it go. So I had to send love. I had to let it go. For my, my own health and my own happiness and also for my kids' health and happiness. And so that week I just had to keep flipping it and flipping it and flipping it and things kept happening and I'm like, no, what do you want? What do you want in your life? Do you want to be angry and suffering or do you want happiness and contentment?
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 31:23
You made that choice.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 31:24
Yeah, it was a choice. It was a conscious choice. I could feel anger and fear, or I can feel let go and trust, and just trust, trust, trust.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 31:37
Yeah, yeah, wonderful. Kat, for those people in the audience who might be experiencing betrayal recently, experiencing betrayal or an affair, what advice would you offer them?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 31:51
It was always going to end. So I came up with 12 principles that night. So I really reflected on my life, and that night I came up with 12 principles. The first was mastering your thoughts. Like, if you're going through— and we go through it all the time, right? Every day we hear someone makes us, gets us angry, or frustrates us, or irritates us. And nobody can irritate us, no one can hurt us unless we are hurt by them. We can't be a victim unless we feel victimized. So number 1, it's master your thoughts. We have so many thoughts in our head, so it's stop. So as soon as anything happens, it's like send them love. Whoever is hurting you, send them love and let it go. Let it go. And practice that radical acceptance. It was always going to happen. Everything's impermanent. Every relationship in our life will end. They'll either die or they'll You know, people will always say, "Oh, she changed, she changed." Of course they did. We are changing moment to moment, second to second. None of us stays the same. We start off as a child and where do we end up? We are constantly changing, constantly. We are learning, we are doing things, our bodies are changing. You know, I wasn't born looking like these wrinkles. You know, we think, "Oh, why is my body changing?" It was always going to change. It has to change. It's the suffering of change. So instead of being upset that the relationship ended, knowing it was always going to, always. So radical acceptance and knowing that you can hang on to anger or you can send love, but whatever you put out is what you get back. You send out anger, you get back anger. In Buddhism, they always teach, you know, that everything is a reflection of ourselves and anything we want in our lives is Karma. So karma is us, just whatever we send out, we receive back. You send out hate and anger, you get it back. And I remember my Buddhist teacher used to say, think of an angry person and what do they look like? You know, that what does their face look like? Someone that's bitter and angry, they say your face will look like that. And I think if you don't want to look like that, if you don't want anger and bitterness in your life, Don't send it out. Send out love. Send out kindness. Send out sweetness. It's counterintuitive. It's hard. It's the hardest thing you'll have to do, but it is the best thing you can do for yourself. And that's what I keep doing. And I think if I want happiness in my life— and I'm not perfect. Like, I mean, every single day I have to plant those seeds of love and kindness. Every single day I have to remember it. It's a journey. It's a journey that just never ends. It's a never-ending journey.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 34:45
Kat, you've been living with MS now for decades. What are some of the most valuable lessons you've learned about living with the disease?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 34:55
That everything that happens, happens. It sounds like a cliché, but it doesn't happen to us, it happens for us to teach us lessons. I didn't want this disease. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but it's given me— it's my life. And I always say, why not me? People always say, why me? But why should other people get sick and diseases, but I'm the special person on this planet that nothing should happen to? Like, I just radically accept that this is the life I have, but it's taught me that no matter what happens, I can always choose how I live with it. So I recently had a relapse and I thought I'd conquered the disease. I was disease-free for 10 years. I wrote a whole book about, you know, how I overcame this and I was on a book tour and all of a sudden I was hit by a relapse when I thought I was done and I was preaching and, and that was just a perfect example of, you know, where are there in a disaster between two of them and but what are you going to do when disaster strikes? So having this illness and having this awareness that I have, that I realize I have a choice. I can be upset about it or I can see all the things that are happening that are good and I can radically accept this has happened again but I know how to deal with it. At the end of the day, we're always going to have problems. Shanti Deva said that the problem is not that we have a problem, it's thinking that having a problem is a problem. And if you have a problem, it's not bad. It just means you're actually still alive, because we are always going to have problems.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 36:32
Yeah, such a powerful mindset shift, isn't it? From being— from the victim mindset to the, the mindset of a victor.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 36:44
In Vanuatu, living here, and they say it's the happiest place because it's the most resilient. I mean, I've been through Category 5 cyclones here, earthquakes constantly, volcanoes. People get their entire lives wiped out and they just smile and they move on because everything is impermanent. It's like here one minute, gone the next. What do you do? You can, you can be a victim of your circumstance or the victor. You can just accept and move on and think, what do I want to manifest? How do I want I want this to turn out. And when we get stuck in our suffering, we just create more suffering rather than going, oh, okay, this has happened, now how do we move on? And it's really powerful. It's so powerful to go— you can focus on the pain or you can focus on the recovery. You can focus on what's going right.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 37:44
Again, it comes back to our choice and mastering our thoughts as you said earlier.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 37:50
Yeah, so they say we have 70,000 thoughts in our heads every day. And you can't wake up in the morning and go, "I'm not going to think today." We have to think. We're always thinking. But we can choose which thoughts to believe. And I used to be someone that was very black and white. And Buddhism taught me about 84,000 gates. And that people get really angry at other people. They think away, or however they think. But Buddhism teaches 84,000 gates. There's so many ways of looking at so many things. Perspective. Our perception is our superpower. So we can change our perspective and our perception on everything. We can look at anything and go, "Oh my God, isn't that awful?" Or, "Wow, what an interesting thing to happen. What can I learn from it?" So no matter what disaster you're in, and Some things are horrific, but the one thing you can always do whenever a disaster strikes is think, "Wow, that is how everyone else feels when they go through this thing." Because I might not have wanted it, but it's what I've got. So what can I learn from it? And every single thing can be a learning experience. And so that's what I really take away from anything that's really horrible. You think, "Wow, okay." now I know what it feels like, and now I know that I can overcome this and what to do with it.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 39:17
For those in the audience who may be struggling at the moment from one disaster or another, what would be one main takeaway you'd like to offer them?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 39:30
That it was always gonna happen. We're always in a disaster, so you can either focus on the suffering or focus on the recovery. Like, you can focus on the pain, or you can focus on the— you can stay bitter, or you can make it be better because of it. And, and honestly, I don't go through it and grow through it. And I don't feel like I'm someone that, um, my life's not perfect, you know. I do— I live— I, from the outside, oh, you have a perfect life, you live in Australia, I live in paradise in Vanuatu, in Canada, but there's always problems. There's always problems springing up for me, and I constantly go, how can I look at this differently? How can I flip it? And how can I change it? How can I master this disaster? And that's why I came up with my 12 principles. And so I really do, I run through them all the time when, when something happens. When I first got to paradise here in Vanuatu, so many things were going wrong, and I was like perception. Most of the people that live here don't have running water. They don't have power. The lady that works here, you know, she finished school in grade 6 and had her first child when she was 13. What problems am I grateful for not having? That's what I keep reflecting on whenever things go hard. And then one thing I do here too is I think, who can I help? So when I get really angry and frustrated, I think Who can I help? And that's why I run retreats here and I have a project here, a chicken project that helps bring eggs and protein to people because they don't have enough protein. Because I was here living this great life and oblivious to the pain of others. So whenever I notice myself starting to nosedive, I'm like, stop thinking about yourself. Go help someone else, and that always gets me out of my own head.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 41:29
Yeah, the virtue of kindness.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 41:32
Yeah, and thinking about someone else other than ourselves most of the time. Because they say in the West, we are often scab pickers. We look at this one thing in our life going, this isn't going right for me, and we're oblivious to all the things going right. The fact that we have houses and electricity, and that's why I love being here because I look at their lives and I think, oh my God. We had a staff member one time and I had to show them how to use a toilet brush. They'd never seen a toilet brush because they don't have flush toilets. The things that we're completely oblivious to. It's incredible. We have such a poor perspective.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 42:13
Perspective. Yeah.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 42:14
Perspective. Our perception, our perspective and our perception is our superpower. Constantly, how can I flip this? I love it, it's a fun game, it's like something goes wrong, flip it, flip it, flip it. I like to tell people, whenever, yeah, whenever anything happens, it doesn't matter how bad, just flip it 3 times, like how can I change my perspective, come up with 3 different scenarios instead of like thinking, oh my God, this is so awful, what's 3 different ways of looking at it differently? And just start flipping your perspective. It's a superpower.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 42:49
Brilliant, Kat. Yeah, absolutely brilliant. Kat, can you tell us a bit more about your life now? What does your life look like now over the, the three countries— Australia, Canada, and Vanuatu?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 43:01
So I've been— yeah, I've been touring with my book, Never Let a Good Disaster Go to Waste. Um, my mission really is— I didn't write my book for fame or fortune. Thank God. It doesn't work. I did it because I really am passionate about sharing with others about how to overcome suffering. So my life now looks like, I don't know, I actually don't know what's next for me. I'm passionate about sharing and helping people overcome suffering, and I run retreats around the world. I really just offer up my life to the universe and saying, "What next?" So I'm passionate about teaching my course, How to Overcome Suffering, and working on that. And to be honest, I don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. I just have the intention of just being here to help others and teaching about how to never let a good disaster go to waste, how to become a master of disaster. And working from there and just working from a place of trust. Because right now, you know, in your life you often have a job or somewhere to be, and right now I'm just sort of a person of the world. It's an interesting space.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 44:24
You mentioned coming from a place of trust, and I can see that it's also from a place of compassion. Compassion for others and yourself?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 44:36
Yeah, I think especially I'm in a situation right now where I don't, I don't know what's next other than going around and helping people. I don't really know what's next, but I have to just trust that if I keep planting the right seeds, if I keep, if my intention, I always say if I lead from my heart, if I always do things I do things from a place of loving kindness, it'll come back to me. So I can, especially here where I am, you know, it's so beautiful and, you know, we have staff that work for us and you can get really cozy in your little life. And so you have to sort of push, I have to push myself to step out of it and trust that by going out and helping others and putting that intention out, who can I help today? Whose life can I change today? Even if I can change it a little bit, I know that I will then be bringing that karma back to myself. So they call it selfish enlightenment, you know, and I think in the West we can be really focused on the self. How can we have self-care? But sometimes we get too self-absorbed, and I'm really conscious of trying to not get too self-absorbed and think of ways every day that I can just plant little seeds of kindness. And compatible.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 45:55
What a lovely message. And can we finish by talking about your book? I absolutely love the title of your book, Never Let a Good Disaster Go to Waste. Where can people access your book?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 46:08
So the book is on Amazon. It's, it's, you know, you can pretty much get it everywhere. I also have the audiobook, which is free on Spotify Premium, but it's— the audiobook is everywhere as well. My 12 principles are on my website, never let a good disaster go to waste. No, my website is katfinerty.com. So you can go there, then download the 12 principles for free. I'm also starting my course, so if anyone, and I do coaching on overcoming suffering in 12 hours, so people can always reach out there as well. So follow me on socials, Kat Finerty on Facebook and Instagram.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 46:50
Okay, it has been such a pleasure hearing more about your story. What are you going to do for the rest of the day? What do you typically do in, in a day in Vanuatu?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 47:03
Well, um, that's a very good question. I'm actually currently writing my course and the meditations. Went for a great walk this morning. Walked up, it's just beautiful here, and went for a swim. Where I am is absolute magic paradise, and I teach yoga classes here. I teach some of the locals yoga. I'm going to go out shortly, actually, with the staff and get coconuts because they are masters at opening them, and I am not because I don't know— Por Tong Tom Hanks in that movie Cast Away, because getting into a coconut is really hard if you've never done it before. So I'll be, um, some coconut cream today and some coconut ice cream. I'll be going out with the staff and collecting coconuts and, and doing that today.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 47:55
Oh, what a lovely thing to do. Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for your time and sharing, sharing your wisdom with us. It's, it's, um It's wonderful. It's so rich and so valuable. Thank you very much.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 48:09
Thanks, Nat. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to this episode of Kintsugi Heroes. Thank you to Colin Lilly for permission to use Broken as our theme music for this series. If you enjoyed this conversation, share the podcast with a friend, and let us know by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to support Kintsugi Heroes and the stories we share, head to kintsugiheroes.com.au and follow the instructions to make a tax-deductible donation.
Kat Finnerty (Guest) · 48:50
Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time.
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