Hibby Bartlett: Healing From Loss By Being Intentional

Hibby Bartlett is the founder of The World Love Bank App, a platform that allows users to share and receive audio messages of love and support. She is also a mom of three and a self-described "conscious, self-aware person."

Hibby Bartlett is the founder of The World Love Bank App, a platform that allows users to share audio recordings of themselves saying "I love you." She came up with the idea for the app when she was going through a tough time in her own life and realized that sometimes the most powerful thing we can do for someone is simply telling them that we love them. The app is a way for people to share that love with others anonymously, and Bartlett hopes that it will help people heal from loss by being intentional and connecting with others.

In this episode, you will explore:
1. The journey of healing from loss, and how being intentional can lead to starting that process.
2. The concept of the World Love Bank app, and how it can help people heal emotionally.
3. The importance of being willing to love, and how that can impact the world around us.



Start creating a world of love today click here https://www.worldlovebank.com/

Do you have a story to share or just want to connect email me at thyme4teamikita@gmail.com
Don't forget to follow me https://www.instagram.com/thyme4teawithmikita/

Transcript

[00:00:00]
That's good. All right, welcome back. It is time for tea. And I'm mikita I want to first just thank you for sharing your time and your space and your energy with me. Today I am spilling some hot tea with the founder of World Love Bank App, ms.

[00:00:16]
Hibby Bartlett. She is here spilling some hot tea on healing from loss by being intentional and how this could lead you to start the healing process. And she's going to also share her journey with you too, because you're never alone in the process of healing, and we've all experienced loss. So thank you so much, Hippie, for just coming on and just sharing your love and energy with us. Oh, no, my pleasure.

[00:00:46]
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yes, ask me anything. I am here for you. Well, first of all, your journey is so unique, and what you're doing is amazing.

[00:01:00]
I mean, you have to tell us with everything you have going on, but who is Hibby Bartlett?

[00:01:10]
Who is Hibby Bartlett? That's a great question. I just feel like I am me. I am a very conscious, self aware person. I'm a mom.

[00:01:22]
I have two boys who are teenagers and one's just newly adult, and I'm a West Coast BC girl, but originally I'm from Cape Town, South Africa, and so I'm a colored woman. So I grew up. My father's Arabic English, and my mother is German, Chinese and Bushman. So we're quite mixed. And we grew up thinking that everyone was the same.

[00:01:52]
It was just like me and my siblings, we all look a little different. We could all pass for different cultures, and we just were like my mom just said, you know what? Everyone has red blood. And my dad said, Follow the Ten Commandments, you'll be okay when you get older, you decide. And it was just like, okay.

[00:02:10]
And we just grew up that way, so I was never because it's like everybody's color. It doesn't matter what color it is. Everybody has a color. So it's like I was just part of this race of colored people, right? And I just assumed that for the most part, until you get older, people try to put their ideas onto you.

[00:02:31]
I just assumed that I was just part of right.

[00:02:36]
That's how I grew up. I think we do until somebody tells us different, it's inherently in us to see the smile, to see the eyes, but not necessarily to see the color. You know what I mean? And it's a vibration. It's an energy.

[00:03:00]
It's something. You know if you've walked into a room where people are all glad to see you, right? When you walk into a room and you're like until people put us into that element where we need to feel fear or we start to practice that behavior, I think that inherently, we are always in search of good things, and that's who I am. I'm always in search of good things. I'm always willing to share, to give, to experience things, and always definitely willing to learn because I know nothing.

[00:03:37]
I know everything from my experience. And at the same way, it's like but things change. Things change. Thank goodness that things can change. And that if you hold onto one thing too tight, that's a sure fire way to get lost, right?

[00:03:53]
Holding onto something so tip that you end up following it down a dark path. Like, just let it go and just take things in waves. Be willing to grow. Be willing to learn. Be willing to be wrong.

[00:04:04]
Right? There's huge freedom in that. It is. I'd be willing to love. Yeah, that's me.

[00:04:10]
You have to be willing to love. Speaking of being willing to love in your journey, what led you to starting the World Love Bank app? Okay, well, I went through a struggle of my own where I felt that again, I told you who I am. I'm a lovable person, right? I am.

[00:04:33]
But I just felt like it wasn't enough. I just was like, oh, my God, I love people so much, but my love is not enough. And that feeling also, that, like, what is wrong with people? We were told that love is the most powerful thing in the world. Everyone says it's, like, from songwriters to the Testament, from everything, it's like, love is so powerful.

[00:04:59]
It's our one true energy that we can share, and it just wasn't enough. And I was going through this kind of low place in my life, and it brought me back to when my brother had died years ago. He had struggled with addiction and mental health, and I'm his little sister, and he happened to call my mom's house. And this is back in the day when you pick up the phone and you're like, hello? And I haven't talked to him in a while, and he's talking to me, and he's struggling, and I could hear him, and I'm just like, I love you.

[00:05:34]
He's like, no, you don't. I'm like no, I love you. He's like, no, you don't. And I'm like, I love you. He's like, no.

[00:05:40]
I'm like I love you. He's like, no, you don't. And I'm like and I just remember saying it 15 times, like, just constantly, like, I would knock it up. I just kept saying the words, I love you. I love you.

[00:05:51]
I love you. And then finally he said, I love you, too.

[00:05:57]
Back in the day, people say I love you a lot more now, but back in the day, in that environment, we weren't saying that. It wasn't something we said. And I just felt inspired to say that to him. And then I just continued on. And then when we hung up, I didn't realize that was going to be the last time I speak to him.

[00:06:12]
And then three months later, he ended up dying of his addiction it was like around Christmas, and his son, who was three years old, would never hear those words. And so when I was going through my own stage, fast forward to when I'm going through my own circle and I'm like, Dang, love is I just want to give the world love. I just want them to know that they still deserve this. I felt that rememory of my brother. And I'm like, we all need this.

[00:06:42]
I said, I'm going to promise that everyone can access it. I didn't even know how it's going to create it, but it was like, everyone deserves to hear the words I love you. And it's the most precious thing, and we also need a safe place to keep it. So I was like, I'm going to create a bank. I'm going to create a bank for love.

[00:07:01]
And anyone, anywhere can have love whenever they want it's free. And that was my concept of the World Love Bank. I didn't know how I was going to put it all together because this was 2012. But I kept that dream. I saved the.com right, put it out to the side.

[00:07:19]
It's going to manifest somehow, some way. And it did. After years in 2019, I actually figured out how to make a bank out of it, how to make the intangible tangible. Because the ability for apps to be able to develop that into something real that people can connect with is so available today. And so I made this app.

[00:07:50]
I created it. I hired designers and developers, and it was like, okay, it's a bank. You have to deposit I love you. It's your first deposit. It's anonymous because nobody's going to be judged.

[00:08:01]
And this is like how I started creating it. And anyone, anywhere can hear it. So that I love you. That I said to my brother 15 times. People can hear different voices saying, I love you, I love you, I love you.

[00:08:14]
And you can't see the person. You don't know who it is, but you can hear the voice. And you can know that the world is still loving place. You can feel the energy from it. Too well because it's audio, it's sound only.

[00:08:30]
So you can just imagine, like, to hear these other human beings. It's not AI. No one's getting anything out of it except the fact that they're giving it and you give it to get it, because they know that once they put their voice in, they're going to get access to the joint account. So, again, we're building on emotional wealth. So no one's bankrupt, emotionally bankrupt.

[00:08:57]
Now they've got a joint account where there's love given and saved for them. That's an honest so it just will continue to build. And it's something really, that you can wake up and you can hear I love you, because some people don't hear it. Or you might just hear that voice that says, you know what you can hear in that voice saying I love you. But that voice was really the voice you needed to hear.

[00:09:16]
That's going to be like, okay, you know what? My day is starting now, right? Yeah. I love the fact that you said it's like an emotional bank, like you're putting in something. And sometimes we get a little depleted because as people, we sort of give a lot.

[00:09:33]
The fact that you were having that conversation with your brother and you said it like 15 times, and it took him that long to really get to the point where he could receive it. Yeah, he could receive it and not only receive it, but then say I love you back. Because you're right. It was a time when even now, me and my siblings, like, having my brothers say I love you back is tough. Like, they grew up in the they're not the.

[00:10:05]
Overly lovely type. Right. And it's nothing that they don't have it because, you know, they do. It's just people don't express it all the time, and that's okay, too. But if at that stage, I was inspired to do it and if I had to say 15 or I did say 15, if I had to say 20 or 30 times, I would have because I knew that it was just one of those moments.

[00:10:27]
And what we talked about in the World Love Bank, about being intentional, is you don't have to, but once you start hearing it, you practice the idea of being able to receive it, and you'll say it. You'll say it, and you can say it to people, and you can send it to them and they can put it in their bank. So that's the other part where the joint account is anonymous and nobody you don't know. It's like love from hippie. It's just anonymous I love you that are, like, collab altogether.

[00:10:59]
Right? But when you get into your savings account and you use the bank, you actually create and record, like, and I love you, or like a Happy birthday message or something, you send it to someone you love who's in your contact list, and they'll get a message from the World Love Bank from Kia dad, and be like, oh, what's that? And then list it and be like, oh, okay, I want to save that. Because we talked as you were introduced me, we talked about life being temporary. It is.

[00:11:29]
And we don't know when our due date is, but a lot of people worry and stress and money and leaving a financial lump sum for your kids. It's like sometimes all they can think about, and it robs them from the joy of just being present. But when you're gone, you're gone. What you leave behind is so valuable. And it's not the financial part, it's the love.

[00:11:57]
And when people are grieving, they would do anything to hear your voice one more time. They would just want to hear you say, I love you or everything's going to be okay. Don't worry. I'm okay. I hope you're okay.

[00:12:11]
My son wants his bedtime stories written, right? Because I've read them over and over and over when he was little, and he's like, I want those for my kids, but I want you to be reading them. And it's like, I can do that. And he can have them because, honestly, I'm not going to be here forever, right? But I'm leaving behind a legacy.

[00:12:34]
I'm leaving behind something that is valuable to him. And because we've had these conversations, he's not as fearful because people want to it's not that I talk about death or anything. It's that life is temporary. So it makes us more intentional, but what the time we have makes us more appreciative. And that's why I think that people who use the Love Bank will not only use it to build their bank of love, like their emotional wealth, but it'll also get them in the practice of being intentional about sharing it and being able to say those words and believing that the world is still a loving place.

[00:13:09]
Because I think people need to know that we all need love. We all crave love. We all deserve love, right? And especially after the last couple of years, we've all seen and experienced so much lost that now is like a great time to, just, like you said, take those memories and make them not just a memory in your head, but now it's audible. It's something that you can carry with you.

[00:13:41]
Something like you said, you can pass down from the next generation. I couldn't even imagine being able to hear my grandmother's voice.

[00:13:53]
Exactly. And she would be telling you stories about your mom raising your mom or when you were a baby and those things, the sound of her voice. Like, the minute you hear her voice, you would know that's your grandma you would know it's your grandma, right? I don't have my brother's voice. I would love to hear him say something.

[00:14:12]
Cookie right. And so you can learn to have fun with it. Right. But I would love to have his voice. And I'm sorry it's gone because I didn't have a love bank.

[00:14:22]
And we're just not that intentional or in today's, like in society today, maybe we are overdone with so much media and social media that you don't pay attention as much because your attention is so separated. And if you were to say, okay, go into your phone and find it. I love you, I know where it is. But in general, people have so many videos on their phone or on their computer that nothing is separate. There's no special place for their love.

[00:14:57]
If you're grieving, it would be so hard to go through everything to try to find those words. But if you knew your Love Bank had it, it's like you knew where to go to find your security, right? To find that kind of solace. It's like a healing solve. But throughout that journey, while you're working on, you lost your brother, you're going through my own thing, going on your own thing.

[00:15:31]
What was the most challenging part of that? Because when you get to the building, the Love Bank, there's a part that has to be very transparent, very open, and then sharing that story. How did you get to the place of healing to be like, okay, I can let go of this now and share and help a lot of work? It wasn't like I came up with the idea. I didn't build it.

[00:15:58]
It was really exciting, but it was like, no, okay, now you got to get to work, which means on yourself. I work three jobs. I had work to do. I had to raise my kids. I went through bankruptcy.

[00:16:12]
I went through so much. And it was like, I know it's about that self awareness, knowing that you have something to give that's valuable, and knowing who I am. I am a person that loves to connect people. That's what I like to do. So I had the concept, and it's like, okay, now what?

[00:16:29]
So now the growing being of service to others. So when I wasn't working, I was like, how can I be of service to others? And for whatever reason, someone had knew someone who went through in the operation. And long story short, they needed me, who was not working, to go to El Salvador to help out with the orphanage. Just go for one week and be of service.

[00:16:53]
Bring out these solar powered lanterns. And I was like, okay. I didn't know who they were. I was like, okay, I'll be of service. I went.

[00:17:00]
I came back, and I felt so extremely grateful and blessed because I got to see a world that I'd never experienced before. I got to see people who were struggling. I think in North America, we are extremely blessed just to have water, just to have services. And so I came back, and I was like, okay, now what can I do? And I wanted to work on my spiritual growth.

[00:17:26]
And so I ended up, again, trying my best to get a job in something else. I literally was driving to this job interview, and it was for real estate, and it was like management. And I was like, I worked in real estate. I can do this driving. And then I'm like, don't let anything distract me from my spiritual growth.

[00:17:45]
And then I put my hands back on the wheel. I'm driving, and I go to this interview, and the person is interviewing me, and he's like, I really think you'd do great for the job, but would you be interested in this other role? I have a spiritual company, and I'm looking for a marketing director. And I'm telling you, these are the things that they were like odd shots, right? When I stopped trying.

[00:18:08]
Things started happening because I stopped trying to control things started happening and it just was like that. And you always want to take your will back, but then we use like, okay, how can I be of service to others? How can I do this? And I did that for a year and a half, and I learned so many different modalities from cow ceremonies and all these different things, and I just got stronger. And so I would try again.

[00:18:33]
How do I do this? How do I do this? For love? Bacon. And I would get a job at the city.

[00:18:38]
So it was just about never giving up. And I would say that to any other listeners, just don't give up, but believe in good at the same time. Just keep trying. Do the next right thing. And in 2019, I had helped my husband build his business.

[00:18:53]
And we're at a stage where it was just before Covet, but what happened was my dad was struggling with lung cancer and I was trying to help my parents. And what happened was my husband like, this is a really good time, you should try to figure this out. So the internet and YouTube has become so wonderful. Shout out. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to figure this out.

[00:19:21]
So I started doing the research, I started looking at freelancers, I started becoming really resourceful, and I found a way to start building the World Love Bank. And then in October 2019, my dad died. And then we found out about Covet. And then six months later, my mom died. And it was like she died on my birthday from loneliness because she was now in a home and she couldn't reach out and we couldn't touch her.

[00:19:48]
And she was a wonderful, loving woman, and it was just so hard. But at the same time, I'm doing this great thing for the world. And so it was like, there's a toss up and it's like, how do you frame your life? My mom would not have left, but she didn't think I was going to be okay. Heaven's Gates opened on my birthday.

[00:20:07]
What a great day. You learn to start to shift and look at what you want, not what you don't want. You want a loving world, then be a part of a loving world. Give love. Like, look for love if we want to see a difference.

[00:20:27]
Isn't that what Gandhi said? But it's true. It's like, okay, I'm not trying to be like all that. It's true. Whatever you seek, you will find whatever you look for.

[00:20:42]
But if you're looking for the wrong things, you're going to find the wrong things. You could be at the right place at the right time, but you could be at the wrong place at the wrong time. But you know where you are. You know when you pick up something, should you put that back down? Right?

[00:21:01]
You do. I love the fact that it seems like every step, every thing that you did, that was, like, intentional. And for you, like, going over there in a vader, that was just like, I'm going to give no questions about what I'm going to get back, but just give every step along. That journey was, like, preparing you for, okay, you're going through the healing, and you don't even realize it. Exactly.

[00:21:29]
Starting the process of healing, you don't even know, but it's preparing you to get to that place. Because, as I say, God already knows what's about to happen sometimes. And he puts us in places when we say, okay, I'm ready, it's going to open up doors, test us a little bit, and then like, all right, it's time for you to be ready because things are about to happen, and I want you in a safe place, a healed place. And it took that to get there and to build this. Because the world of Bank App is amazing.

[00:22:01]
I've been on it. Good. Excellent. We're growing. We're looking for lots of people to join and give their love because then we can make meditations with the ocean.

[00:22:16]
And I love you. And I love you. The more love we have, the more we can give back love, right? And it's crazy because it's true what you were just saying, and I was thankful for that. Because sometimes we pray and we ask for things that we want, like financial things or material things, and it's like, that's not what you got to be thankful.

[00:22:35]
And instead, it's like, give your gratitude. Thank you for what I already have.

[00:22:42]
And when you pray for things, sometimes you'll be praying for patience. God's not going to give you patience. He's going to give you an opportunity to be patient.

[00:22:53]
Yeah. He's like, I'll give it to you. Boom. You've got it. Now show me you've got it.

[00:22:57]
Show me that you've got strength. Courage. It's like, okay, you've got it. Now you got to show me that you've got it. And that's where the growth happens.

[00:23:08]
I could have went both ways with my mom passing on my birthday.

[00:23:13]
I could have stopped doing what I was doing. I was like, no, I've been telling her about this. She's been hearing about it for a year. I'm going to do this. And it's always growing.

[00:23:24]
So as I said, it's progress. It's not perfection. It's just keep trying, keep growing. Keep up with your daily your daily reflections, your daily duties, your daily things, right? Because it's what we do on a daily basis that builds our life.

[00:23:41]
It's not the end. Right? And I said that to my son, too. Today we went out to the university, and he's, like, two years away. I'm like, I just want to take you out here so you can see.

[00:23:51]
Right? Yeah. And I was like, It's not there. It's the in between. It's all the hard work.

[00:23:58]
You're going to do by showing up on time at school. It's the hard work you're going to do by doing your homework, by playing, by being active.

[00:24:08]
It's the in between. It's the hard work we do when no one's looking.

[00:24:14]
At I love the fact that you didn't like when you did lose your mom and you lost on your birthday, it wasn't like, oh, my gosh, now my birthday is the worst day ever. It's like the gates of heaven opened on my birthday. This is a celebration because you knew she was going to be in a great place. Like you said, she was always your champion and she knew what she was about to do. Yeah, well, and that's part of life.

[00:24:42]
The passing is part of life. It's like the real party starts, but we don't know. We're not invited.

[00:24:52]
And when I say that about my mom, it doesn't mean that I don't still miss her or that at the beginning, when she first passed, it wasn't that I didn't grieve, all those things happen, but I didn't do that thing where I put meaning on things that didn't lose yourself. Hold me down. I didn't lose myself in it. That's right. I know who I am.

[00:25:17]
I know who she is. Right. And I'll tell anyone who's listening, there's never going to be enough time. No, you always want one more day. I just want to say that.

[00:25:28]
I just wish I could, like, you always want one more thing. So the time is up. The time is up. You can't go back. That's why the idea of being intentional, one thing I wish I did was like, I wish I had recorded my mom's African recipes, because my sister can cook and she does great, you know, when she cooks, like, my mom's recipes.

[00:25:49]
But when mom made it, it just tasted a little different, right? Yes. And you wouldn't know what exactly the amount is. You'd have, like, video here. Is that really a picture?

[00:26:00]
What is that? They never really say. They're just like, oh, just a little bit of this. Just watch.

[00:26:07]
So it's like, you can use the bank for so many different ways to create a legacy or to create your assets, your love assets. Right? Because it could be from, like I said, bedtime stories, to recording recipes, to recording history, from your grandma to just sing song or just bank all the I love you for your friends, but if you got kids, you'd be like, this is how you go through a hard day. This is how you and people have critical illness. They might need to prepare in a different way, but the sound of someone's voice is priceless.

[00:26:48]
You can't get it back once it's gone. And we've had just gone through a pandemic, so that if anything should tell us, like, watch out. Anything can happen. It can. So the amazing thing is you can find the app on your app store right on your phone.

[00:27:07]
You can just download, install it and what will they go from there? Because it's really simple and easy to get started, right? So you can go on to the App Store. The world love bank is on the Google Play and the App Store downloaded. So either do world love bank or world love bank.

[00:27:27]
One word. But I do believe on the iOS right now, they've separated it. So I'm trying to get it to be one word again. And then you download it, and then once you put your information in, it will send you a confirmation and then ask you to record and I love you. So this is a really important part.

[00:27:46]
So send the I love you. Just record it. It's anonymous, but it goes into our bank. And then once that happens, you are now open to you use the bank. The World Love Bank.

[00:27:58]
It has a joint account. It's got a checking account where you check in your emotions, keep track of how you're feeling. You can hit the plus button in the middle, where you send it to those in your contact list. And then you have a savings account. When you hit the plus button, what happens is the plus button will let you record or audio only, and you have 30 seconds to record audio and send it to whomever you want your contact list.

[00:28:25]
And then your profile shows you who you sent to. And when you get messages, you can put them into your savings. And the profile sorry, the profile shows you how you're feeling, how many boosters, how many messages you sent out so you can kind of keep track of what's happening. And your savings account, you can check it and you'll see what people have sent you and you can save it. You can put it into little files, hit the plus button in there and yeah, just create that as your savings account for just those are private, but they're for you to keep.

[00:28:56]
Right? They're yours. And if those of us who are listening want to upgrade, which helps support the World Love Bank, they get access to video, they get access to sending messages to themselves. So they get like a legacy account where they can start creating their own legacy. And then they also get the milestone, which allows them to send messages into the future.

[00:29:17]
Yeah. So they could, like, send something for, like next Christmas or next summer, birthday, next year, or just so that in case something you can send something into the future, you can exist in the new world. I don't know. Yes. Exist everywhere at once, present in the future.

[00:29:38]
Yeah. And because of what we do, we do support, like, mental health, we support cancer recovery, and we also support addiction recovery. So that's one of the things that three of the things that World Love Bank looks to be pillars in our community is that once. We start to grow and like I said, help others to share love. We also want to be able to get back into those areas.

[00:30:02]
Okay. I love that and I love the fact that this has allowed you to just show up and to be unapologetically who you are. Do you feel that this has been like I'm me and I'm loving life now and just showing up on your own terms? 100%. Because I think what it was for me is I was really ashamed to be a loving person.

[00:30:30]
I was always like, someone's going to take advantage of you or nice people finish last, right? Yes.

[00:30:41]
Or someone's like that. She's not really that nice. It's not about being nice. I'm smart, I have boundaries. Yes.

[00:30:48]
But I also have belief that I want to share now. And I think that what's really great is that I'm connecting with people who share the same beliefs and that's really what life is about. It's like a track slick. Yes. Right.

[00:31:05]
And I'm okay with that. And I've learned that's part of the journey and honoring our personal existence what makes us happy and being able to share that, that is what I feel like the Love Bank has helped me to do and it continues to help me do every single day. I love it. Well, thank you so much for just coming on and just sharing your love and your energy and your journey. If people want to support or connect with you, where can they do that?

[00:31:36]
Absolutely. They can go to Worldlovebank.com One Word and they can hit the Contact us button and literally you will contact me and just share your story. That's where you can find out more about the World Love Bank. And if you want to partner with us, there's another contact partnership that you can let us know if there's anything we can help you with. So it's a give and take.

[00:32:05]
We just need to kind of grow the community of love. Okay, well, don't worry about writing everything down, you guys. I'm going to have all that information in the show notes again. Hippie. Thank you so much.

[00:32:18]
You guys stay tuned. We're going to have some key takeaways next. Thank you. Have a great day. Thank you.