BETTER OR BITTER With Corinne Keith

Hello, it's Howard Brown. It's the Shining Brightly

Show. And we are going to shine really brightly because I have

Corinne Keith in studio. How are you Corinne?

I'm awesome. Thanks for asking.

I know you're just off for vacation, so you're all

energized and ready to go. So I want to share a little bit about

current, just a short bio and things like that. So first of

all, you identify yourself as a child of God, and you're an only

child to your parents. But you've raised four children, you

have 12 grandchildren, and seven great grandchildren, you got a

beautiful family. And you and your husband, Gail, we're going

to celebrate 56 years in July, I'm going to celebrate 30

It's actually 55. Today, Oh, happy

anniversary. I'm sorry, I read that wrong. I'm

gonna be 30 July 24. So Oh, my God, it's really great. You you

start your bio with family. I love that. So but your journey

began, you know, really with some trauma, we're going to talk

about that with, you know, some sexual molestation, and lies

about God's sex men. All that and your value. And you're a

deep woman of faith. And your emotional spiritual healing has

been pivotal as far as how to get your life together, and

others and it's beautiful. You're gonna talk to us about

forgiveness. And that's really been part of your journey. It's

really how you obtained your what you call victory and

freedom. And it's really true when you're dealing with grief,

and death of your 22 year old son, at the hands of a drunk

driver. So you have a beautiful book called chosen for victory.

We'll talk about that as well. And I can't wait to get started.

But first, first, how do you shine brightly every day?

You know, I am going to let your audience

decide whether or not my answer is true. Because the way I shine

brightly is by my smile. I have been told multiple times, what

an awesome smile I have. So let your audience vote.

Well, for those that are listening, she has a

beautiful smile. And so I would agree that you are shining

brightly through your smile. And smiling is actually great

because you lift people up when you smile at them. So it's right

in line with the show. So it's really good. So let's first talk

a little bit about some of the hard stuff about your background

and growing up. And let's just share it share of what you want

to share about the really the hardship that you've been

through.

Well, my dad molested me early on, I was

about four, maybe five. And I was not even aware of it until

and like I said, we're going back 55 years because this is my

honeymoon tonight. I was not able to concentrate my marriage

with my husband. And I didn't know why. I saw him naked after

he took a shower just shaving and preparing for intimacy. And

I ran out of the bathroom onto the bed and nothing but weep.

And I had no clue why. I was literally in my 40s before with

some counseling, I discovered that I had been molested. And I

had buried it all those years.

Yeah, that's I mean, how do you know? And then

you've carried that with you. And now then you had to now you

finally discover it and have to process it. So I'm so sorry.

You've been you've been working at it and you are working at it

and you have a beautiful marriage. So hopefully that

that's you got a good man there. Gil. He's a good man he stuck

with I

definitely do. I mean, what brand new husband

waits for three days for his wife to be able to consummate

their marriage. I have a very special man. Very

graceful and very patient and all that. And then

the heartbreak with your son, please share.

Paul was on his way home from Bible College. He

was engaged to his fiancee who is filling out their wedding

invitations in the car, when they were hit head on by a drunk

driver going the wrong way down. I 90. All three of them were

killed. Paul was resuscitated at the scene as a result of it.

Paul was always about life. And whether that meant salvation,

whether that meant being a lifeguard and saving people

there, whether that meant organizing blood drives, he did

it all. And so part of his goal was always to be an organ donor.

And we got to meet his heart recipient, who is a mother of

five children. Her baby was five years old at the time. This has

been 24 years ago and we have a relationship with them?

Well, first of all, what was the fiance's name?

Amy? Amy, so I just want to just take a second and just may their

memories and I know you honor them. But may their memories be

only for a blessing for all I knew and loved them, because so

young, I have a 22 year old daughter, I couldn't even

imagine losing heart right now. And to lose both of them and

donate his organs and, and make his life you know, for good and

all that. So this is something that I don't think it never,

ever heals. But do you ever talk to Paul and Amy? A little bit?

You know, see what's going on up there? No,

I know, we'll have an interesting conversation

when we are reunited, I will tell you that.

It's a beautiful thing, organ donation, and it's

just a human sacrifice. And, and that is shining brightly in its

core. So it's unbelievable. And then you also had your own

battles with kidney cancer. Correct?

I did. I was diagnosed with kidney cancer in

December of 19. March, while we went on a six week long trip,

and the doctor told me that I should be able to go ahead and

go when I did. Guess when we had COVID.

That's right. And how are you doing? How are you

doing now?

i It was a miracle. Literally. I had, it's

totally and completely self contained. I needed no

chemotherapy, and I needed no radiation. And so God literally

worked a miracle. And I didn't have it taken out until May of

2021. Oh, 2020 Excuse me, it's been four years.

Wow, that's awesome. That's absolutely

incredible.

I'm telling you the love that you have and the

support that you have from people. Okay, my daughter took

pictures for our 50th wedding anniversary, we had a family

cruise with 27 of us. Nobody could visit me during COVID.

Right. So she had a blanket made with all of the pictures of

everyone that I could take with me in the hospital. So I had a

home of them are

like a quilt as of like a quilt or something. No,

it was

it was a blanket with nothing but pictures on it.

She does all that kind of creative stuff. Oh, okay,

talking about a shiny. I mean, I could hold and cherish that. It

was like holding them as well.

Yeah, wrap yourself up in that blanket.

Beautiful. That's all. Oh, that's really, really nice. Now,

I wanted to go through three types of things. And first, I

want to talk about grief. I know that you have some expertise and

training there. So tell me how you grieve and how you help

others. Well,

the primary thing about grief is that everybody

grieves differently. And when they taught that grief was

linear, they like to you. Grief is not linear I, I actually

created a what I call a figure eight. And it actually shows how

people it's it's in my book as well. It shows how people go

through grief. And it's constant motion. I am looking for that

put up so York people

see that? Yeah, well, we'll go by the book, and

they'll see it. But it's for those that are listening, I just

showed the figure a diagram in the book,

right. And it shows that we go from the

recovery side. Okay, and what that looks like, both externally

and internally. And we can see the progress that we make from

the struggles inside as well as what people see outside. And you

know that you're making progress. Because you can see

how much time you actually spent in recovery. But the key part is

allow people to grieve in their own way. Because everybody has

different triggers. Everybody has different timeframes. And so

it's okay to grieve in your own way.

And you can grieve for lots of reasons to this

doesn't just have to be you know, someone passing there's

there's lots of things to grieve about. Process and things like

that. So it's natural to be able to do that. For

Nobody can do it. Yeah,

they associate it sometimes only with death and

that's just not the case. There's grief and sadness that

you can take with you in many forms and things like that it's

a natural thing. And to go through that, as well, and

sometimes it stays with you a long time. You know, I still

grieve and memorialize my great grandparents and grandparents as

well. And I tried to think of the good things, right? You try

to think of the special times, learnings and things like that

as well. Take us through the next step.

Oh, breathing can also be okay. Just memories and

sharing them with somebody else. Exactly. Healing.

It can be I agree. Take me through forgiveness.

Wise, oh, oh,

my, okay. Forgiveness I learned isn't just

from the head. Forgiveness has to be from our heart. And by

that I mean is we have to address the emotional side of

forgiveness. Okay? When I was dealing with the trauma of my

dad's molestation, okay. I've tried to rationalize his

behavior, because I knew my mother did not meet his needs.

And that was very evident a couple of days before my wedding

when she was telling me about sex. But if I rationalized his

behavior, I didn't deal with the hard for fact, okay, of the pain

that I endured, because of his choices. And it messed up my

head. And as you mentioned, in my bio, okay, it messed it up

about man, it messed it up about sex, it messed it up about God

about myself, because I saw no value in that. Also, I had a lot

of negativity and criticism in my household, and so worth in

value. I didn't know what they were. So I had to forgive the

fact that the demeaning, that came externally, I took

internally, and I believe those lies about myself. So who did I

have to forgive, I had to forgive God, I had to forgive

myself, I had to forgive various people. And those are all

necessary. But I'll tell you something else about

forgiveness. It's like an onion, what I tell people is that the

forgiveness has to be as deep as the wound. So if a wound only

occurred once, it doesn't take a whole bunch to forgive that. But

when you constantly have it wrapped around over years, and

repeated incidences all the time, that has to be unraveled,

in a similar way, that it was wrapped up.

I love that, thank you for sharing forgiveness was

such an important walk that we need to take, for many reasons.

individually and in group. I agree. So and you've been

through a lot, so you're doing that. So basically, something

that's been bonding for you has been your faith. So tell me how

you rekindle your faith you forgive God and, you know, now

your your your faith is what kind of leads you are correct?

Well, for me, my faith is relationship. And by

that, I mean, God's just not somebody way out there. I have a

personal relationship with him. And I am able to write, hear

from him interact. It's a full fledged honest relationship, the

same like I can have with my husband, that communication is

very, very important. And yes, I do journal. And that's one of

the ways in which I not only share my heart with him, but I

hear what he shares with me. And what he tells and reveals to me.

I want to share with you that, you know, I since

I had 1989 and 9091, there was no internet or cell phones or

computer use of for the most part, that when I got stage

three, the metastatic stage four in 2016 and 17. And 18. I will

tell you that prayer, people prayed from all religions, and I

felt it and I think that was part of you know, I face very

long art odds. And I think it helps and I have to tell you

that there is a greater power than us out there. And so I

don't care what religion they weren't, but they were praying

and, and that energy was felt. And I do attribute that part of

my healing. It's hard to explain how the hell I'm here right now.

So otherwise, but I think it was a part of it, and I'm grateful

for that. It was really, it did. So I think that was quite

important as well. Now, we're gonna call this episode better

or better. How come Why do you think we should title it the

episode? Better or better? Right. That was very interesting

in our greenroom conquer decision in our prayer talks.

Well, I think we have a choice. We can't control

what happens in our lives. But we have a choice as to what our

response is going to be. And so it can make me a better person,

I can grow, I can learn, I can change, I can forgive, those

things might be better. Or I can hold on to resentment, and

anger, and bitterness, and hatred, those things make me

bitter. And so we don't like the word, responsibility. A lot of

people shy away from that. But the life that I'm living right

now, I live by the choices that I make. And so that's the better

or better, I get to choose.

I love it. I love it. It's incredible. So also, I

want to hear a little bit about what went into your book. Okay.

Beyond a broken heart. It's available on Amazon. And what

were you What were you thinking? Is this it? Was this your first

book? It is that you've written? Okay, so I was always interested

from the author, what you decided to take what you have

inside you and put it words on paper. And, you know, I have a

friend that talks about, you know, the the word energy, the

spoken word, energy, but the written energy in their pages.

So tell me about your book process and what that's meant

for you.

Well, I may be very unique in this, as I told

you, I do journal. My book was a compilation of 18 different

journals that I drew from, you see, our memory can play tricks

on us. But when it's actually written down, you know, where

you were at at the time. And so I drew my memories from what I

had written in my journals. And I knew I needed to share the

story. I shared the story of the molestation, I showed the story

of Paul's death. And I shared how my forgiveness in the grief

and how I overcame those things. You see, there's a reason that

my business is called chosen for victory, because I am

victorious. And that's why I wrote the book was to share that

it's not just for me, it's for other people as well. And I'm a

coach. So guess what I do? I ask questions. And my book also has

questions on it. Because it isn't about me, it's about your

journey. And it's about how people are going to process

their own unique experiences. So I asked questions to help them

in that process journey.

I love it because we are victorious and others can

be too. So absolutely incredible. So I have to tell

you that we have a short show. So I'm going to ask you to do

something. Put on your sunglasses right now. Ready to

go. Ready? You got some good ones? Oh, yeah, you're coming

off vacation. So we are now shining brightly, our light is

shining off of each other and into the world. For everyone to

feel the kindness, please tell everyone how they can get a hold

of you. And then share some inspiration with me. So we can

close up the show.

Hey, first of all, they can reach me at my

first name is c o r i n n e out chosen for victory.com. And the

inspiration I would like to leave with people is the

responsibility choice that you have to live the life. We don't

blame. We take ownership for what we want to see and have

happen. So my hope and prayer is for everyone to have the victory

that they desire in whatever area they want.

We'll give you a huge amen on that. So thank you

for that. Also, I want to make sure that it I will certainly

put in the show notes. But your website is chosen for

victory.com. And so people can reach you there and find you on

Amazon as well and on LinkedIn. So we'll make sure that they can

find you as well. So you've been listening or watching the

shining brightly show, you can reach me Howard Brown at shining

brightly.com. And there you'll absolutely be able to find out

about my book, my memoir and the other books that I've written

and been involved with some collaboratives and the speaking

I'd be glad to come and speak at your event or fundraiser and

motivate, educate and inspire. And then lastly that my advocacy

is so important. So I work very strongly in the cancer world.

Don't go get cancer go get screened, and if you do let me

know and we can help walk with you along that path and into

survivorship hopefully, and then also my interfaith relations at

my mentorship and entrepreneurship. So my advocacy

means a great deal to me as well. And this podcast is just

blowing up right now. Lots of people listening and looking for

that inspiration. And Corinne, you added great value today, a

great victory. So thank you for being here, as well. It's been a

great show. Lastly, I just want to thank some of the people that

have gotten me here. So my book publisher is front edge

publishing. And we are having a beautiful spiritual newsletter

that goes out every Monday to lots of people called read the

spirit.com. And my podcast finishing house is the amplify

you network. They make me look great every single week. And

then also a sponsor, the diamond beauties magazine is I was on

the cover of may and it's just a beautiful piece that comes out

as part of this show as well. So again, Karina, back from

vacation, all charged up. Thank you for being here. Wonderful

show. And we'll see you soon. Thank

Thanks, our loved our time.

Me too. Thank you.