The difference between surviving and thriving after devastating loss isn’t just semantic—it’s the distinction between existing in the shadow of tragedy and reclaiming your right to joy.
Tina Palmgren discovered this difference firsthand when she lost not only her husband to a sudden heart attack at age 31, but also her stepchildren and entire social circle in one devastating sweep. What followed was a decade-long journey from the bare minimum of existence to understanding that she deserved more than just breathing. Her story illuminates how grief can compound with earlier life experiences, creating layers of emotional barriers that take intentional work to overcome.
In the hospital emergency room years later, still dealing with health scares related to her own childhood heart surgery, Tina found herself laughing uncontrollably with her mother over something as silly as a stranger’s bra left on a nearby table. That moment of genuine laughter marked a turning point—not because it solved her grief, but because it reminded her what thriving could feel like.
The Sudden Collapse of Everything Familiar
When tragedy strikes suddenly, the immediate aftermath often involves multiple losses simultaneously. Tina’s experience illustrates how one devastating event can trigger a domino effect that dismantles an entire life structure.
Her husband’s heart attack on a Thursday led to what seemed like routine hospital care over the weekend. “We decided he’d stay in the hospital over the weekend and they would do an angio on Monday,” Tina said. But by Sunday night, complications during emergency treatment led to a brain hemorrhage that left him in a coma for four days before his death.
The medical crisis became just the beginning of her losses. Despite having built relationships with her stepchildren over five years—relationships strong enough that “the younger one even called me mom a few times”—Tina knew what was coming. “When my husband and I started dating, even before I met his kids, he had told me, if anything ever happens to me, you’ll never see my kids again,” she recalled.
The prediction proved accurate. The high-conflict relationship between her husband and his ex-wife meant that Tina’s connection to the children ended immediately. “I knew as a stepmom, I didn’t have any rights,” she said. “I also knew that no matter what I did, she wasn’t going to let me see the kids.”
But the losses extended beyond family. “I met my husband, like, a month after I moved to the Twin Cities, so most of my friends were his friends, and they kind of quit coming around, too, because they didn’t know what to say to you,” Tina explained. “I ended up kind of losing my whole circle.”
The Challenge of Grief Without Community
Traditional grief support often assumes certain commonalities in experience, but Tina found herself isolated even within grief counseling groups. “I went to a couple grief counseling things at a couple of the hospitals, but they were all older people that had been with their husbands or wives for 20, decades,” she said. “I just. I was like, that’s not fair. You got that much more time than I got.”
The disconnect went deeper than duration of marriage. “They didn’t have young kids. They didn’t lose their kids. They still had their [family],” she noted. This highlights how grief experiences can vary dramatically based on life circumstances, making it difficult to find appropriate support networks.
Amy Stone’s observation during the interview captured this complexity: “One of the ways to look at it is that you not only lost your husband, which is an enormous thing… you also lost your family, your insta-family.” When death occurs in blended families, the surviving step-parent often faces a unique form of disenfranchised grief—mourning relationships that legally never existed.
Even workplace interactions became complicated. Tina faced accusations from a coworker who assumed her platonic dinners with male friends meant she was “sleeping with everybody.” She also dealt with a boss who somehow blamed Tina’s grief for her own children’s suffering. “She said her kids were suffering because my husband died. And I was like, okay, I don’t even know your kids, so what am I doing to your kids that they’re suffering?”
Understanding the Difference Between Survival and Thriving
For Tina, recognizing the distinction between surviving and thriving took nearly a decade. The delay wasn’t just about grief processing—it connected to messages she’d internalized much earlier in life.
Born with a heart condition requiring surgery as an infant, Tina grew up hearing “you’re lucky to be alive.” While well-intentioned, this message became limiting. “I took that and owned it and said, you don’t deserve more,” she explained. “So you don’t deserve happiness, to thrive, to be abundant… And didn’t know that I incorporated that into my whole life.”
When her husband died of heart complications, the parallel triggered deeper abandonment issues from her six-week hospital stay as a baby—when parents didn’t stay with children during extended medical treatments. “When my husband died, that brought back the abandonment issues that I had,” she said.
The breakthrough came around age 48, when Tina realized she was “holding this you’re lucky to be alive thing.” But even before that intellectual understanding, she began taking practical steps toward thriving about eighteen months after her husband’s death.
“Thriving to me is enjoying life again and really enjoying what you do, doing what you love,” she said. For her, this meant rediscovering physical activities: “I love to lift weights because I can feel the muscle. It makes me feel like I’m alive.” It also meant prioritizing social connection and humor: “Laughing is so much fun.”
Practical Tools for Moving Beyond Survival Mode
Tina’s recovery involved several concrete strategies that helped shift her from existing to engaging with life. She found that gratitude practices created a foundation for noticing positive elements: “Gratitude journals. I did a lot of writing of gratitudes, like five a day.”
Reading became both escape and processing tool. “I read all kinds of books. I can’t remember what I read, but there was some grief books. But I also just read some fun books, too, as well, that were light and… that would take my mind off of things.”
She also discovered the value of mental distraction for managing overwhelming thoughts. “That’s why I listen to books all the time or listen to meditations, because I can shut my own mind off stuff,” she said. This wasn’t avoidance, but rather strategic management of rumination and worry.
Geographic change also played a role. Meeting someone new about eighteen months after her husband’s death gave her “a fresh new start, really” when she moved from the Twin Cities to Stevens Point, Wisconsin. “It just took me out of a whole depressing thing that I would relive all the time.”
Interestingly, faith-based support wasn’t immediately helpful. After her husband’s funeral in the church they had planned to join, Tina noticed the same candle going out during both the funeral and Christmas Eve service. “I’ve not set foot back in that church again,” she said. “I was too [shaken].” She noted that returning to spiritual practices came later: “I have gotten back into that now.”
Courage to Rebuild Social Connections
One of the most challenging aspects of recovery was rebuilding social connections after losing an entire friend network. “I think I really needed the courage to get out and meet people and… talk about what happened, but also to make new friends because I really didn’t have any anymore,” Tina said.
This process required vulnerability in an already fragile state. Some attempts at friendship failed—like the coworker who spread rumors about her social outings. But others provided crucial support. She described a male friend who “would take me out and we just go out and eat and talk… He helped me so much because he was just there for me.”
The key insight was recognizing that social isolation often compounds grief. “One of the things that goes with overwhelm, like grief is overwhelming,” Amy Stone observed during the interview. “One, we sometimes withdraw… And the other is the loneliness and the isolation. They happen at the same time.”
Later in life, when Tina decided to leave an unfulfilling second marriage, she returned to bartending—work she’d done to put herself through college. This career choice reconnected her with her more social, playful self. “I said, you know what? I want to meet people. I want to bartend… It was like, oh, I don’t have to be this stuffy corporate person anymore. I can have fun.”
Finding Purpose Through Service
Today, Tina runs a business helping other companies streamline their processes through Excel automation and efficiency consulting. Her ability to “see it in my mind how it should be done differently to make it more efficient, more accurate” serves clients while providing her with meaningful work.
This evolution from survival to purpose illustrates how traumatic experiences, while devastating, can sometimes develop capacities that later serve others. Tina’s journey through multiple losses and rebuilding gave her insight into systems, efficiency, and problem-solving that now helps businesses save time and reduce stress.
The Long Timeline of Healing
Perhaps the most important lesson from Tina’s story is the realistic timeline for moving from survival to thriving after profound loss. While she began taking practical steps toward rebuilding within eighteen months of her husband’s death, the deeper psychological work of believing she deserved more than mere survival took nearly a decade.
This timeline challenges cultural expectations that grief should follow predictable stages or resolve within socially acceptable timeframes. Tina’s experience suggests that healing happens in layers, with practical recovery often preceding emotional and spiritual recovery.
Twenty-six years later, retelling the story still “brings tears to your eyes and chokes you up,” Tina noted. This doesn’t represent incomplete healing, but rather the permanent impact of profound loss. Thriving doesn’t mean forgetting or “getting over” tragedy—it means building a life that includes joy, purpose, and connection despite carrying permanent scars.
The difference between surviving and thriving isn’t the absence of pain, but the presence of hope, agency, and connection. It’s the recognition that devastating loss, while permanently altering life’s trajectory, doesn’t have to define its limits. As Tina discovered through years of intentional work, it’s possible to honor what was lost while claiming what remains to be lived.
This article was inspired by an interview with Tina Palmgren and Amy Stone on The Art of Imperfect Adulting podcast. To hear more compelling conversations like this one and receive special offers from our guests directly to your inbox, join our email community today.
Interview Transcript Tina Palmgren with Amy Stone | The Art of Imperfect Adulting | September 19, 2025
Amy Stone [00:00:05]:
Tina Palmgren, welcome to the art of imperfect adulting. I’m happy you’re here. Are you ready for a fun chat?
Tina Palmgren [00:00:11]:
Absolutely.
Amy Stone [00:00:13]:
All right, Me too. All right, so I start all of my conversations with my guests, asking people where they call home. So tell us where you are.
Tina Palmgren [00:00:21]:
Well, I still call home Upper Michigan, although I’m in Stevens Point, Wisconsin now.
Amy Stone [00:00:26]:
Yeah, I know. Before we start, before we hit record, you confused me because you referred to somebody in the Upper Peninsula, and I said, wait a minute, that’s Michigan. And you realize. But I was like, I knew. I knew because you and I know each other a little bit, that you’re in Wisconsin. So there we go. So in a second, we’ll get to the topic of the day, which is not my geographic confusion with the part of the world known as the up. But so we. What is a compliment or kind words that you have given somebody? Can be something small. Could be earlier today.
Tina Palmgren [00:00:55]:
Well, I know it was somebody that had did something different with their hair, and I just really liked it. I know it was curly, and I don’t remember what it was, but I just, I liked how they redid their hair style. And it was just something different that usually it’s up in a ponytail or whatever, and it just looked really great down.
Amy Stone [00:01:12]:
Very good. So you’re just doling out compliments so often, you’re not even keeping track. I love to hear that. Yes, I do.
Tina Palmgren [00:01:17]:
I know.
Amy Stone [00:01:18]:
I love to hear it. All right, the topic of the day is we’re going to talk about a time when you were working through, like, a particularly dark time in your life after a sudden relationship change is what I’m going to start the conversation with, and then we’ll walk through this. Right. So are you ready to talk about that today?
Tina Palmgren [00:01:34]:
Yes.
Amy Stone [00:01:36]:
All right. Very good. So you and I have actually known each other for a couple years online. What’s interesting is that I had no idea about this part of the story, this time of your life. And the only reason I mentioned that is just as a nod that that’s the reality of, like, being a human being. We often know people, but we don’t know whole chunks of their story. So get to the tough stuff in this conversation. I want to back up and talk about maybe some of the happy memories or the good stuff that came before the the end. So you were married. How long were you married? How long was the marriage?
Tina Palmgren [00:02:10]:
Just over four years and a month and a half.
Amy Stone [00:02:13]:
All right, so four years of marriage and the beginning of the story that we’re talking about, which is the dark time is that your husband passes away. So I want to just double check the details to make sure that we’re all understanding the, what was going on. You mentioned in the intake form that he has kids and that’s pretty specific wording. So am I to understand that these were step kids? These are not your kids.
Tina Palmgren [00:02:37]:
Correct, they are my stepchildren.
Amy Stone [00:02:40]:
All right, so you were married, you had some step kids. And so the, the story that we’re sharing today is not actually about directly about your husband or about the kids, but in order to understand some of the change that you experienced, I did want to talk a little bit about the life that you guys had together. So how, how old were the kids during the marriage, roughly and how much. Tell us a little bit about how much time you guys were spending together. Were you living with the kids full time? Were they going back and forth between houses? Were you all getting along? What was, what was that like before?
Tina Palmgren [00:03:13]:
Yeah, so they were about 6 and 9 when I met my husband. And so they were around 10 and 13, 11 and 14 somewhere in there when he passed away. We had them every other weekend and we would take them on trips, but we did have to go back to court to. Because the ex wife was not letting him see the kids. Okay, so there was some issues with that and just different things. But no, the kids and I got along very well. We did not. He could not even talk to his ex wife hardly. She, she, they could talk a little bit, but not, they didn’t have a good relationship.
Amy Stone [00:03:55]:
Pretty high conflict relationship then. All right, but you were, they, you were seeing them and they were a part of your life, but it wasn’t like, exactly.
Tina Palmgren [00:04:02]:
I mean, so the younger one even called me mom a few times. I’m sure it was a slip. But, you know, we all got along. We, we were very close. And they.
Amy Stone [00:04:13]:
Yeah, that is, that is a funny feeling when somebody who, somebody young, they, they do that. They’ll even do that with teachers and babysitters and stuff. Little kids, they’ll do that. But with the step parent relationship, sometimes it can feel a little, a little tenuous, a little stressful. It’s like, oh my gosh, what does this mean? Does it mean anything? Like, do I need, do we need to have a conversation? But sometimes it’s just an accident. You’re the long haired adult near me who can get me a juice box.
Tina Palmgren [00:04:40]:
Exactly.
Amy Stone [00:04:41]:
All right, so. All right, so I have some questions about the experience of your husband’s passing. Was it a Sudden event or was this something where he was sick and.
Tina Palmgren [00:04:53]:
You knew it was way it was sudden. He had a heart attack. They didn’t know why he had a heart attack. This was on a Thursday and on Friday we decided he’d stay in the hospital over the weekend and they would do an angio on Monday. And so Sunday night we got a call that he, they had taken him off the blood thinners and he was having a, another heart attack. So they were rushing him to do an emergency angio. And what happened is he had a tear on his heart, on the artery in his heart, which his fed over 50% of his heart, which is abnormal. Normally there’s three that do that. It was fine, but because it was tore, it had a tear, it was trying to clot to heal itself. Right. So that’s what caused the heart attack. So they gave him tpa, which is a clot dissolving medication, and he hemorrhaged to his brain and it went downhill from there. So into the rest of the details, but he died from the hemorrhage. He was pretty in a coma for the last four days of his life.
Amy Stone [00:06:05]:
Oh yeah, that’s fair. Yeah, that’s very, very hard. So the heart attack was it. That was a sudden event and very, very stressful. And then a couple days in the hospital thinking that you’re going to have therapeutic treatment, he’s going to come out on the other side of an angio treatment. Unfortunately it doesn’t work out. And over a five day period, you go from being in a pretty new marriage with step kids to being widowed.
Tina Palmgren [00:06:36]:
Exactly.
Amy Stone [00:06:37]:
And sounds like that was an emotional rollercoaster of time in the hospital is ups and downs, ups and downs. Oh my goodness. That is all right. So I have a guess for this, but I wanted to ask you this. I was raised that it’s impolite to ask people how old they are. And you told me how old you were when this happened and I could do the math. But tell us roughly how long ago this was because it’s not a fresh story. You’re telling the story from some time ago.
Tina Palmgren [00:07:05]:
It’s been 26 years, but it still brings tears to your eyes and chokes you up. Yeah, the kids are in their late 30s now and want nothing to do with me. And I understand that’s that was from the ex wife, but that’s just the way it is.
Amy Stone [00:07:22]:
All right, so that’s all right. So. But it’s been quite some time. Everybody knows that grief is hard and you mentioned that it’s still hard today, like, and it’s something we talk about all the time, but knowing that grief is hard. You were. You were pretty young when you went through this. I don’t know how much experience with direct grief you had, knowing that it’s hard. Like, we know that from when we’re little kids and movies and TV shows and books and it’s very dramatic, and people tell us all the time that’s not the same as actually living through it. Are you ready to talk a little bit about what it was like to actually go through it for you?
Tina Palmgren [00:07:54]:
Sure.
Amy Stone [00:07:55]:
All right, we’ll go gently. We’ll go gently. You start getting emotional, we’ll go gently. I’m trying to move it back and forth, like, heavy question, light question, so on and so forth. All right, so you shared with me, when you pitched this, that you lost the privilege of seeing his kids grow up. And so that’s really specific. Specific wording. And so it caught me. I was like. I was like, that is very specific, the way she said this. Were you surprised that that happened? Was it something that happened right away? Or how did. How did. Or did they just drift off? Because he was no longer together when.
Tina Palmgren [00:08:30]:
My husband and I started dating, even before I met his kids, he had told me, if anything ever happens to me, you’ll never see my kids again.
Amy Stone [00:08:38]:
So just because of the relationship between him and his ex wife, were they geographically close? Were you guys close to them geographically, or was there some distance?
Tina Palmgren [00:08:47]:
About an hour. But when we started dating, they were about 10 minutes apart.
Amy Stone [00:08:52]:
Okay. And big town. Small town. Is it the town where you live now?
Tina Palmgren [00:08:56]:
No, it was over by the Twin Cities in Minnesota.
Amy Stone [00:08:59]:
So pretty big city. So. All right, so that makes sense. So then. Because if you were in a small town, you know, like, and they live 10 minutes away, I would think that they’d be. You’d have to work to not see them eventually, but this was a big city. Big city. All right. So soon as that happened, they stopped coming around. And you had been. You had been a part of their life for at least four years, probably a little longer with dating over five years. Yeah, five years. Was that hard?
Tina Palmgren [00:09:26]:
It was very hard. But at the same time, I. I knew as a stepmom, I didn’t have any rights.
Amy Stone [00:09:32]:
Yeah.
Tina Palmgren [00:09:34]:
I also knew that no matter what I did, she wasn’t going to let me see the kids. So I didn’t fight for them. Like, I probably would have had my husband not told me I’d never see him again.
Amy Stone [00:09:47]:
Yeah, yeah. And. And it’s. You had a lot of other stuff going on. You had a lot of other stuff going on. All right, so is it fair to say that this started a pretty dark period of your life?
Tina Palmgren [00:09:59]:
Oh, definitely. Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:10:00]:
Yeah. All right. So there’s no rule about how old you’re supposed to be when you’re widowed, like, at all. And. But I would say. I would say that you were pretty young when this happened.
Tina Palmgren [00:10:11]:
I was 31.
Amy Stone [00:10:13]:
Yeah. I think that’s pretty. I. That feels young. And did. So did you know anybody else who had lost a spouse at that time that. Did you have any support with, like, friends or community like that?
Tina Palmgren [00:10:25]:
No. I went to a couple grief counseling things at a couple of the hospitals, but they were all older people that had been with their husbands or wives for 20 decades, you know, and it’s like, I just. I was like, that’s not fair. You got that much more time than I got. And, you know, I just couldn’t relate. They didn’t have young kids. They didn’t lose their kids. They still had their. So I. I didn’t know anybody that was, like, in my situation.
Amy Stone [00:10:56]:
Yeah. Because you lot. One of the ways to look at it is that you not only lost your husband, which is an enormous thing, you know, and. And this. That. That’s. That primary relationship is tough because they’re your friend, too. They’re your partner in life. They live together, but you also lost your family, your insta. Family. So it was a really dramatic change. Even though it sounds like you and he had talked about it, knowing something’s going to be hard is not the same as experiencing the hard. So that’s. Yeah.
Tina Palmgren [00:11:24]:
And I met my husband, like, a month after I moved to the Twin Cities, so most of my friends were his friends, and they kind of quit coming around, too, because they didn’t know what to say to you. You know, like, they were all his friends beforehand, and they didn’t want to upset me or anything, so I ended up kind of losing my whole circle. Wow. Family. My immediate family was about it.
Amy Stone [00:11:51]:
And was your family there, or were you separated geographically from your family?
Tina Palmgren [00:11:56]:
I had a brother that was 20 minutes away and then a sister that was over an hour away, and then everybody else way farther. So.
Amy Stone [00:12:05]:
So at least a little bit of family. Yeah.
Tina Palmgren [00:12:07]:
A little bit close. You know, I could get there or whatever. And. And I. One of the good things that came out of it is my oldest sister is 20 years older than I am, and I never really knew her growing up because she had Moved away. You know, back in the 70s, you didn’t call because it was so expensive and. And all the stuff. So she actually came and stayed with me for a week and we really started to develop a better relationship. And we’re very close now, so that was one of the better things that came out of it.
Amy Stone [00:12:39]:
That’s actually a beautiful story that. So you had some family that knew and came to support you and they maybe knew that you were a little isolated and came and to be with you in this very unexpected time. Sounds like, though, like during. And this was a couple decades ago. So communication was different. Like you highlighted, like long distance calls were different and things like that. So when you were going through. He was in the hospital and you were home, that information flow would have been slow too, not as instant. So you would have been get. You have been answering a landline. Something is wrong.
Tina Palmgren [00:13:15]:
Actually, we did have cell phones.
Amy Stone [00:13:17]:
You had cell phones.
Tina Palmgren [00:13:19]:
So in 1998, they were just coming out. I did have one. Didn’t work half the time. You know, depending where you were, it didn’t matter because I broke down right after that on. On Christmas Eve. And where I was, of course it didn’t work.
Amy Stone [00:13:33]:
Didn’t work.
Tina Palmgren [00:13:34]:
Yeah. It was just kind of funny. But I was. Once he went in the hospital, I was there pretty much the whole time. Okay, so you take care of the cat, you know, and sleep. But then I would go back and then once he. Once he was in the hospital, in. In the coma, we stayed there the whole time. We stayed upstairs in the room. So I didn’t even leave.
Amy Stone [00:13:59]:
All right, so you. So that. So communication was instant because you were by his side. So I think it’s the other way. It’s the other way. So this happens. It’s a very emotional process. You’re going through the grief and the processing of the grief and living your life. I’ve interviewed. I’ve done several interviews with people about. About the grief that comes after we lose people. Different scenarios. There’s some similarities with how people feel going through it. And also everybody handles it very, very differently. You. So you say that you realize that you needed the courage to continue. Tell me a little bit about when you started to feel like it wasn’t. It wasn’t. Your grief was not going the way you wanted to and why you picked the word courage.
Tina Palmgren [00:14:50]:
I think I really needed the courage to get out and meet people to. And talk about one. Talk about what happened, but also to make new friends because I really didn’t have any anymore. There was a couple that I started hanging out with after the fact and. And they really helped me. There was a gentleman. And at that time, I had no clue. I. I’m pretty sure he was in love with me. I, you know, I was at the point. It was only like five, six months after he died, if that. When he. He would take me out and we just go out and eat and talk and whatever. And he helped me so much because he was just there for me. Just kind of got me out of my head and just chit chatted and whatever. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t ready by any means. So he, he helped me a lot. But then I worked with somebody that. She just really makes me mad because we were really close friends beforehand and I had kind of broken away before my husband died, but because him and I would go out, she would announce to everybody that we were sleeping together. And I’m just like, no, we’re not.
Amy Stone [00:16:08]:
A little bit of workplace drama.
Tina Palmgren [00:16:11]:
Yeah. And that was just like. And so another gentleman at the same office, his wife died. So him and I would go out and talk and have dinner so we didn’t have to cook or whatever. And so then she said I was sleeping with him too. And I’m just like, I’m not sleeping with anybody. I’m sorry. I’m not even thinking about that because my brain ain’t there, you know, so being accused of being a slut or whatever. Not that it. I’m like, whatever. I don’t. I have been in the past. You know, we all have different stories, but it was very hurtful to be on top of just I’m in grief and she’s accusing me of sleeping with people because I went out with them. Yeah, that’s weird.
Amy Stone [00:16:56]:
One of the things that goes with overwhelm, like grief is overwhelming. That’s the way we feel. And one of the things that goes with overwhelm is the withdrawal. The two things, right. One, we sometimes withdraw. Like we pull back from the social parts of our life because we’re exhausted and we can’t do anything right. And the other is the loneliness and the isolation. They happen at the same time, which is like a weird thing. Like, so it’s like you feel very alone, you feel very isolated. In your case, this is grief of somebody who’s a huge part of your social circle. And it’s hard, so courage to get back out there and have social engagements. And then what I hear you sharing is that because this overlapped with a co worker, you feel like you Were being penalized, socially penalized, because you were just looking for some companionship to not be alone, and people were drawing conclusions. That doesn’t sound like it was tons of fun, to tell you the truth.
Tina Palmgren [00:17:50]:
No, it was not tons of fun. I also had a boss that told me that I was. How did she. Let me get the words. She said her kids were suffering because my husband died. And I was like, okay, I don’t even know your kids, so what am I doing to your kids that they’re suffering? And her kids were 18. One was a senior in high school, and the other was 13. And I’m like, how are your kids suffering? Because my husband died. I. I’m not getting the connection. So it was very. It was a very tense workplace with my boss because she. She just didn’t understand or, you know, I said, if I’m crying, please just tell me it’s going to be okay. Okay, Just sit there. You don’t have to say anything. But they see me, and they’d turn around and walk away.
Amy Stone [00:18:39]:
So. Yeah. And so I think I’m hearing that, like, you were hoping that the connection at your. Like, the support from your co workers, that was a place where you were seeing other people, and it would have been really helpful if those folks had been more supportive. It comes up in every conversation I do about grief. The funny things that people say to us that are not supportive and often just sometimes land completely wrong. Things that people say and that somebody coming to you and saying that their children were feeling hurt from the death of your spouse, that might fall into that category of not sure where that came from.
Tina Palmgren [00:19:18]:
Yeah, I’m like, I don’t even know your kids. I don’t even think I had ever met her kids.
Amy Stone [00:19:23]:
And did your husband work in the same office you did? Is that the connection? No. So there’s no work connection. All right, Very good. All right. So. All right. So when you talk about the courage, it’s like the courage to go on. It’s the courage to live your life. That’s one of the things you were talking about. And so we’re talking about the social. Like, this is going to work. That’s a big part of life. Socializing, making friends. That’s a big part of life. You say that you realize that you deserved more than to be alive, but also to thrive. So did you. How. When did you begin to realize that? Like, do you remember? This is a long time ago, but grief is. Grief is slow. So at what point did you. Do you think you realized if you remember that you want to do more than just exist.
Tina Palmgren [00:20:12]:
Well, I’m thinking in two different contexts, so I didn’t. I also had open heart surgery when I was a baby.
Amy Stone [00:20:19]:
Okay. Yeah.
Tina Palmgren [00:20:20]:
And I always heard you’re lucky to be alive growing up. So I took that and owned it and said, you don’t deserve. Right. So you don’t deserve happiness. To thrive, to be abundant, to. To whatever. And didn’t know that. I incorporated that into my whole life. You know, who are you? You’re. You’re alive. What more should. You’re alive? So that. And then abandonment. Because of that open heart surgery, I was left at the hospital for six weeks because back in the 60s, parents did not stay and we didn’t know the trauma that. That brought on to people after, you know, psychologically. And so when my husband died, that brought back the abandonment issues that I had. And I had other things in between there that had kept happening that I didn’t know about yet. Right. Because. But you still. Your mind goes back because, you know, and so it took me another. I think I was about 48 when I really realized, oh, I. I’m holding this you’re lucky to be alive thing and really go. But it was about a year and a half after my husband died that I was really starting to move on. I had met somebody else and he knew my husband. It was a brother, my brother’s friend. And then I was finally starting to say okay, because he showed interest. And I felt. I felt okay with it by then. And I was like, it. It would get me out of where I was. Right. Because I ended up moving from the Twin Cities to Stevens Point, Wisconsin. And it just took me out of a whole depressing thing that I would relive all the time into being a fresh new start, really.
Amy Stone [00:22:13]:
So there’s a lot. Okay, so you did. Yes. So you had. As a baby, you had open heart surgery. And. And that. That’s one of those messages that people say with such a good intention. Yeah, sounds. Sounds so sweet. You’re lucky to be alive. Well, true. Right. Better than the alternative, of course. But at the same time, it got turned around in the way you were living your life in that all I should be grateful for is the alive part. I can’t ask for any more. Exactly. That’s really interesting. Okay, so you already had that going into all of your adulthood and your relationships. You get married, a heart disease and heart attacks. That’s a pretty common thing. But it is an interesting parallel in your life that then you lose Your husband to a heart attack, and then he is going through a surgery and doesn’t make it is not as lucky. You go into pretty grief, loneliness about a year and a half, and you begin to come sort of back to the surface and rebuilding your basic life. You move and get away from it. Sounds like pretty significant depression. Depression and grief. Okay, so you move. But it’s another decade that this is cycling through your mind before you finally say, hey, wait a minute. I deserve more than just breathing. Exactly. I deserve more than that. Okay, so thriving. Let’s talk a little bit about. As you’re going through this, then. You’re. You’re now in your fourth decade of life. I don’t know if I did the math right there, but is that right? Okay. Okay, so. And then you begin to say, like, okay, so you begin to say, I want to thrive, not just live my life. What would you give us an idea of what you. In your opinion and your mind as you’re working through this? What is the difference? Some of the differences between living and thriving?
Tina Palmgren [00:24:15]:
Thriving to me is enjoying life again and really enjoying what you do, doing what you love. So I love to work out. Most people are like, I hate working out, but I love to lift weights because I can feel the muscle. It makes me feel like I’m alive. Right. In more than just one way. Enjoying golf, being with family, just having. Laughing. Oh, my God, laughing is so much fun. So I. We did have a really funny story. When we were in the hospital, Kurt’s youngest, or Pete’s youngest son gave me a little football, and I carried it around, and I. I was pushing on my chest for an entire day. And when we went to bed that night, I was having chest pains and it. And with my heart. Open heart surgery, you know, everybody’s thinking, oh, heart attack for her, too. So we go down to the er, because we’re staying at the. We go down to the er, and my mom and I, neither of us put on a bra, and my other sister does, and she didn’t really need one, but we always laugh about that. And so we’re in this little curtained ER section, and I’m on the. They have me patched up, and they have the little oxygen thing. And, you know, he’s like, oh, your rhythm’s funny. And I’m like, well, it would be. I had open heart surgery and blah, blah, blah. And, you know, and they all left. And there was this. This lady in the next curtain room that had her bra sitting on the table and my mom Goes, linda, grab that bra. And we started laughing, and we could not. We got the giggles, and we could not stop. And my sister was like, would you two shut up? And we were just laughing. And the. The doctor finally came in over about 15 minutes later, and we’re still laughing. He’s like, what is going on in here? You know? And we didn’t really tell him that part, but I’m like, you know what? We’re all good. I’ll be upstairs. If something happens, I’m in the hospital, you know, I’ll sign a release, whatever I gotta do. But obviously I’m fine. If I was having a heart attack, you guys all would have been here, so. But it was just. We laughed so hard about that bra because my mom and I didn’t have one on.
Amy Stone [00:26:26]:
And she told you to grab one?
Tina Palmgren [00:26:27]:
Yeah. Then here’s this bra on the next table. And we were just giggling so hard.
Amy Stone [00:26:31]:
But nobody took it. You didn’t take a stranger’s bra?
Tina Palmgren [00:26:33]:
No, we didn’t take bra, but we were laughing about it, and. And just could not stop laughing about is.
Amy Stone [00:26:40]:
So it was top of mind. You’re concerned about your own health. You’re at a state of agitation. If you’re pushing on your chest, you don’t die together. Oh, my. This might hurt because I was pushing on this. I was holding on to this toy all day.
Tina Palmgren [00:26:54]:
I pulled all the muscles that attach to the rib cage. So every time you breathe, it hurt.
Amy Stone [00:26:59]:
Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. All right. So it takes you about a year and a half to start going through the mot, back to some of the basics of life. Then it takes another decade before you start doing the work of reclaiming the thriving. So did you do any work specifically to pull yourself out of the grief? And I think of this not in terms of. Not in terms of judging or going into details about what you’re doing, but if there’s anybody listening who’s in a similar spot in their life. Some of the things that you did that helped you get back to the daily life.
Tina Palmgren [00:27:39]:
Gratitude journals. I did a lot of writing of gratitudes, like five a day. And then. And then I did a lot of reading. I read all kinds of books. I can’t remember what I read, but there was some grief books. But I also just read some fun books, too, as well, that were light and. Because that would take my mind off of things. Right. If I get into. That’s why I listen to books all the time or listen to meditations, because I can shut my own Mind off stuff and it just makes life. I’m not a big worrier, but at the same time it’s like if I know I don’t have control over it, I can let it go. I don’t think I was really good at asking God or anybody to help me at that time because I kind of felt like I was left behind. But I have gotten back into that now. It’s like, okay, yes, I know there’s a bigger, bigger picture and that there are things out there that can help us and you know, and, and God is part of that and. Or universe or whatever you want to call it, you know, sure, there’s something out there that’s bigger than us that really can help us along the way.
Amy Stone [00:28:54]:
But that came later at the, in the beginning you were, in the beginning you were like. Which I think, you know, that’s one of the themes that go. Many people go through. That’s a very helpful point. Right. Because even if you have a faith based support network or a community around faith, sometimes in the heat of grief, in the very beginning stages of grief, when you’re really just focusing on get up and take a shower and go to the office, you’re not ready to hear that message. And it can take some time to get back to it. I think that that might be helpful for people who are going through it because is. It is. It is definitely things that I’ve heard people say to me where it’s like, you know, they want to share their message of faith at that time. And it’s like, okay, okay, okay.
Tina Palmgren [00:29:40]:
Yeah. Part of it for me at that time. The weekend my husband, my husband went into the hospital on a Thursday that weekend we were actually scheduled to join a church. We were going to go to the church and join it and whatever. And. And instead the next week we had his funeral there. Right. And so when we were at the funeral, you know, they have these, all these candles and one particular candle went out. It was the second one from the top on the right. So Chris, so he died the week before Thanksgiving. So this is the first year we never had Christmas at home in Upper Michigan. Everybody came to my house and that was about the last time I seen the boys because they did come over that, that week and, or that night and whatever. So we went to church on Christmas Eve and that same candle burnt out. Wow. I’ve not set foot back in that church again. I was, I was too. There’s a lot of.
Amy Stone [00:30:41]:
Yeah, there’s a lot of layers that you could go a lot of ways with that story. But I would absolutely be freaked out when I was so much younger and I was going to a goal setting workshop. So this is. I don’t want to give this too much mysticism or authority or anything. It’s just a funny, ridiculous story. But. So she was talking about being specific when you set your goals and the example she actually gave. She’s like, maybe you want to see a group of people, like, I want to see my friends. She’s like, well, be specific that you want to see them for a happy reason because you know something horrible could happen and that’s why you see them. But that’s not what you want to create for yourself. And I was, I remember thinking at the time, I was like, wow, okay, you know, good point. I want to see everybody at a holiday barbecue. I see everybody at the awards ceremony, not at a funeral. Because some were sad. Yes, exactly.
Tina Palmgren [00:31:29]:
Right.
Amy Stone [00:31:29]:
Yeah.
Tina Palmgren [00:31:30]:
More people came to Pete’s funeral than did to our wedding.
Amy Stone [00:31:33]:
Oh, well, okay. Yes, that’s.
Tina Palmgren [00:31:36]:
Well, his funeral was huge. I mean, we didn’t. We had a small wedding and it was meant to be small, but that’s.
Amy Stone [00:31:41]:
That’S what I was thinking. I was like, you could, you know.
Tina Palmgren [00:31:43]:
But at the same time, a lot of people couldn’t come to the wedding. Like my cousins, her. Her daughter was just born, so she had a newborn, I think it was like two weeks old. And so I understood they couldn’t come, but, you know, like the rest of the family didn’t come, the other cousins. And so it was just like mostly his friends and then my immediate family and some co workers that I knew. But at the funeral, you know, there was people from his work, people from his school, because he was from there. So there are all kinds of people I didn’t even know. And what was really funny is one of the. My brother walked in and walked up to this older gentleman who was Pete’s ex wife’s dad. My brother and him had known each other for years because they worked together at 3m.
Amy Stone [00:32:33]:
That’s fun.
Tina Palmgren [00:32:34]:
And they. We didn’t know that we were somehow interconnected.
Amy Stone [00:32:37]:
Interconnected. All right.
Tina Palmgren [00:32:39]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:32:40]:
All right. So. So you get. So a decade after this, you begin to really do the mindset, work on what’s getting in the way of thriving, and you begin to lean into it, find joy working out, golf, what other things, what other things bring. You are thriving.
Tina Palmgren [00:33:00]:
You know, I went back to bartending. So I was married at this time. And I wasn’t happy in my second marriage. And even the day I got married, my gut said, do you really want to do this? And I didn’t listen. We’re good friends. We still talk to this day, and we’re friends. I love his girlfriend. I. I’m like, you’ve never smiled at me the way you smile at her. You know, it’s just. But we were more like a brother, sister type relationship. And his family finds it very strange that we still get along. My family has no problem with it because that’s just how we are. And it’s just. For me, it was just so much. I was in this relationship that I didn’t really want to be in anymore. And how I put myself through college was bartending. And I said, you know what? I want to meet people. I want to bartend. And I started bartending. And that opened up so many things for me because it was like, oh, I don’t have to be this stuffy corporate person anymore. I can have fun.
Amy Stone [00:34:03]:
Okay?
Tina Palmgren [00:34:04]:
I can give people crap and, you know, just shoot the bull with people and. And have fun, and I can run my business that way. I don’t have to have it be, oh, you gotta do this and this and this and that, you know? No, it’s. Let’s make it fun.
Amy Stone [00:34:22]:
Yeah. All right. So a part of thriving sounds like that, you know, everyday life can be enjoyable. It doesn’t have to be. Everything doesn’t have to be rooted in just, you know, step by step by step grueling work.
Tina Palmgren [00:34:36]:
All right, have fun. If it’s not fun, why do it?
Amy Stone [00:34:41]:
There you go. So this is. So this is a long journey. So we’ve talked about. Like, this goes all the way back to when you were a baby. And then you have this very extreme experience when you’re in your 30s. It actually takes about a decade to work through, but it takes you through that. Tell us. In a minute, we’re going to do the final fun questions, but tell us what you do. Tell us about what you do now. And you mentioned you have a business and you have, and I know you bartend, but tell us about your business that you do now so that everybody knows what you do.
Tina Palmgren [00:35:08]:
Yeah, so I own excelling your business, created it from scratch. And what I just really found that I love is I’m really good at. At finding errors and fixing things. And I see when I come in and look at what you’re doing, I can see it in my mind how it should be done differently to make it more efficient, more accurate. So I’m going to save you time Take away the stress of how you’re doing things. It’s like a lot of times, here’s an example. I was working with a, a company that does medical testing. And so the hospitals would send in like 300, 400,000 line proposals. And they were hand matching the test names to the hospital name to their name. And when I was working with them, I said, I know there’s a number for that test. He’s like, yeah, but they don’t give it to us. And I said, why don’t you ask it from them? Because they have it, right? Because you have to have it to bill insurance. And he just looked at me like, we can ask him for it. Like nobody had thought of that. This is a billion dollar company that’s been around for years and they’ve been doing it this way. Nobody ever thought to do it a different way. Right. So by getting that number, they took a process that took over eight hours to do, depending on the size of that file, to done in less than two minutes with an easy formula.
Amy Stone [00:36:37]:
Wow. All right. And so you, you work with people within Excel. You specialize in working with people with. That’s why Excel is in the name of the company. All right, very good. That is, that is very cool. You have a special offer for the listeners, which is a program that you have, which is called Fortune in the follow up. Normally you sell it for $333. Your special, it’s on spec. You’ve got it on special for the audience at 222. A little bit of fancy numbers there. There’s a link in the show notes everybody. And of course, for everybody listening, the easiest way to get to the link for any offers that come up in the show is to be a subscriber to Imperfect Adulting. And then I send it straight to your email box. Thank you very much, Tina, for that very generous offer. Are you ready for the final three questions?
Tina Palmgren [00:37:22]:
I am. Let’s go.
Amy Stone [00:37:23]:
Let’s do it. Let’s do it now. So I knew that you were a bartender because you and I have done some networking in the past. So the first question I want to ask you is a final fun question is when you go into a bar these days, what’s the thing that you order for yourself?
Tina Palmgren [00:37:37]:
Well, if I’m not going to able to make my own drink, I usually just order beer because then I know exactly what’s in it. I don’t like being overpowered because that happens. And I know I have this if I’m drinking hard alcohol when I’m out. I won’t stop. Okay, so I just drink beer.
Amy Stone [00:37:55]:
All right, so if you’re. If. So you won’t let anybody else make you a cocktail. If you’re going to have a cocktail, you’re making it yourself.
Tina Palmgren [00:38:01]:
Exactly.
Amy Stone [00:38:02]:
That’s. I get it. I get it. That’s. That’s. That’s so good. I have it. Like there’s other. It’s like when you go to someplace and you’re not sure what. What the quality of things are. I’m like, okay, I’m going to pick something cold. I will have a diet soda. You know, I’ll have a cold soda. Like, it’s like, don’t give me anything complicated. Something that comes out of a bottle cold. There we go. All right, so you mentioned that you like to listen to books, so I’m going to ask you, like, if you remember any of the recent books you’ve read that you would recommend to somebody else.
Tina Palmgren [00:38:31]:
Oh, boy. A fun one. And these are. This is a whole series. And you don’t have to listen to them in order. It’s Janet Ivanovich and Stephanie Plum is the character. Oh, my God, they’re just so freaking funny. I. I love to listen to her, and usually I’ll listen to it a couple times just because you miss something around the. But they’re just. They’re hilarious.
Amy Stone [00:38:55]:
All right, so since you’re so. I love them, too. That’s one of the very. Like, so I will. When they are released, I will, like, pre order those books. I’ve probably read or listened to all of them. Who’s your favorite character? So this is a series of books that goes. And it’s got this bail bondsman named Stephanie Plum, and she goes on adventures, and it’s full of crazy characters. I also love them. Who’s your favorite character from, like, the series? Oh.
Tina Palmgren [00:39:25]:
I’m gonna have to say. Say now. I can’t come up with. I want to say Ranger. Is that his name?
Amy Stone [00:39:31]:
Okay. Ranger. Yeah, I know.
Tina Palmgren [00:39:32]:
Rangers.
Amy Stone [00:39:33]:
Yeah.
Tina Palmgren [00:39:33]:
Rangers.
Amy Stone [00:39:33]:
Be the guy.
Tina Palmgren [00:39:34]:
All because he’s the dark, mysterious, handsome guy.
Amy Stone [00:39:38]:
Right? Right.
Tina Palmgren [00:39:38]:
Little. Little.
Amy Stone [00:39:39]:
Not.
Tina Palmgren [00:39:42]:
Does things a little behind the scenes that maybe he shouldn’t, but at the same time, he’s always it. It’s always in for the right reason.
Amy Stone [00:39:51]:
I’m a big fan of Grandma. Like, her grandma. Such a good character. Lula.
Tina Palmgren [00:39:59]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:40:01]:
I was totally in my. In my. I was like, go for Lulu. Go for Lula. All right, very.
Tina Palmgren [00:40:06]:
I do like Lula, though, because she. She’s always fun and. And just, you know, Just a, A character that is memorable.
Amy Stone [00:40:14]:
Yeah, exactly.
Tina Palmgren [00:40:15]:
When she. Because she always talks about her outfits and her hair and it’s just like. You can just picture it. You’re just like, oh, God, no, don’t bend over.
Amy Stone [00:40:25]:
Oh, my goodness. Yes. Yes. No. That’s a whole theme in the descriptions of. Yes. People who have not read these books are like, what are they talking about? It’s like. It’s one of my favorite series. It’s one of those things where she does it. These are numbers are in the title. So she’s numbering them. So it’s like Lucky 22. And the next one comes out. They’ve been out for years. I’ve been reading them for years and they will sometimes make me just chuckle out loud. And it’s an easy read. Exactly like what you’re talking to. If you’re stressed out and you pull one of these. It does not take a lot of brain power to read these books.
Tina Palmgren [00:40:57]:
Right.
Amy Stone [00:40:58]:
Really, really. Just adventures. So. Absolutely. All right. So off the topic of book reviews. But I do love them. Great recommendation. When you take vacations. When you like to take vacations, do you like to travel a long way away from home to go to, like an exotic, faraway location, or are you a person who sticks to your nearby stomping grounds?
Tina Palmgren [00:41:18]:
Well, I like to travel everywhere, so I, I enjoy traveling near and far. I get. That’s the thing that I don’t like to do is have everything planned out because I want to be able to talk to the locals.
Amy Stone [00:41:30]:
Okay.
Tina Palmgren [00:41:31]:
They’re going to have secret places to go that other people don’t typically go or just. I, I want to get a flavor of what it’s really like to live there. Not just the tourist areas.
Amy Stone [00:41:42]:
Wherever you go, you’re looking for the, the, the. The local. The local, exactly.
Tina Palmgren [00:41:47]:
Because they’re going to know the. Where’s yours? What. What’s your favorite bar? It’s not going to be the tourist bar. It’s going to be some little ho dink bar that. But you’re going to go in and just meet the characters that live there. Just like in, in the movie books or in the books. You know, it’s just like, let’s meet the real people of the area. I always think that’s fun.
Amy Stone [00:42:06]:
That’s good.
Tina Palmgren [00:42:07]:
Yeah. I love to plan a little bit, but you got to have room for impromptu and in spontaneous stuff because that’s the whole point of a trip to me.
Amy Stone [00:42:17]:
I love it. There’s a story. I always throw one of my kids under the bus with this story, because we were traveling. We were traveling somewhere, and we’d been there several days, and. And my kid came to me, and he’s like, why are we in all the touristy spots? And we live. I live in Miami, which is a tourist place, but, like, I’m a local here, so we. We only go to the tourist places when. On purpose, right? Yeah. And. Or if people are there, we’re, like, always taking our local shortcut. But why are we going to the touristy places? And I was like, I hate to boil. Spoil this for you, but we are a tourist here. I don’t know where the local places are. The reason I’m taking you to the tourist places, because we. We are on vacation. We are the tourists in this situation. Okay?
Tina Palmgren [00:42:57]:
Yeah, that’s true. I mean, I’ve not even been to some of the things up home where I grew up, you know, there’s tourist areas that I’m like, I’ve never been there. So now I got to go back home to go there.
Amy Stone [00:43:09]:
Ah, there you go. Well, that’s it. Tina Pongren, thank you so much for being an amazing guest today on the show.
Tina Palmgren [00:43:14]:
Oh, thank you, Amy. I enjoyed it so much. Thank you.