Out of Darkness Comes the Light

What happens when life takes us somewhere we never wanted to go?

Darkness takes many forms. It can arrive through depression, trauma, grief, uncertainty, or a moment that divides our lives into a clear before and after. And when we’re inside it, finding a way forward can feel impossible.

In this special edition of The Virtual Campfire, Tony Martignetti revisits powerful conversations with Ann Brennan, Lane Gardner, and April Rinne through the themes of Campfire Lessons for Leaders. Each has experienced profound moments of darkness. Each found a different path toward the light.

For Ann, that path began with asking for help when being “the strong one” was no longer enough. For Lane, it came through creativity and finally finding the courage to tell her own story. And for April, devastating loss became the beginning of a lifelong exploration of change, purpose, gratitude, and what it means to truly value the time we’re given.

Their stories remind us that hope isn’t always something we simply find.

Sometimes, it’s something we build.

When the Strong One Needs Help

Ann Brennan was accustomed to being the person others considered strong.

An entrepreneur and endurance athlete, she had spent years training for and completing an Ironman. People following her journey even called her “Iron Ann.”

Then her family’s world changed.

Ann’s son Ethan was struggling with self-harm and suicidal thoughts. As Ann desperately tried to protect her child, she stopped taking care of herself. She wasn’t eating. She wasn’t sleeping. She slept outside Ethan’s room and became consumed by the fear of losing him.

Eventually, Ann lost hope herself.

Her turning point came when she realized she needed immediate help and contacted an emergency psychiatric unit.

For someone accustomed to carrying the weight, admitting she could no longer carry it alone felt almost impossible.

But asking for help wasn’t a failure of her strength.

It became a different definition of it.

The Courage to Stop Hiding

After leaving the hospital, Ann made another difficult decision: she told people what had happened.

She wrote publicly about her experience, despite her husband’s initial concern that something so personal should remain private.

Then a message arrived.

A 15-year-old boy had read what Ann wrote. He told her he had been planning to take his own life that night, but instead had called his mother and asked for help.

That moment changed the conversation for Ann and her family.

The experience that had brought so much shame could also create connection. By allowing other people to see that “Iron Ann” struggled too, she gave them permission to acknowledge their own struggles.

Ann and Ethan eventually began raising money and awareness for suicide prevention, first through endurance walks and later through Burgers and Bands for Suicide Prevention.

Again and again, Ann discovered the same thing: when one person is willing to share their story, someone else often finds the courage to share theirs.

Strength isn’t always standing alone.

Sometimes strength is saying, I need someone to hold me up right now.

And sometimes those words are where hope begins.

When Creativity Becomes a Lifeline

For Lane Gardner, the arts became a refuge long before she understood the role they would ultimately play in her life.

Lane grew up surrounded by difficult and traumatic circumstances. Her father returned from Vietnam carrying the weight of PTSD, her parents separated when she was very young, and home became an increasingly challenging environment.

But music was always there.

Her family gathered for informal jam sessions. Later, community theatre, singing, and acting gave Lane something more than an artistic outlet. They provided a safe space, a community, and an opportunity to temporarily step inside someone else’s story.

As Lane puts it, the arts helped save her life.

She eventually became a professional singer and actor and spent decades teaching others through the arts.

But there was one story she had avoided telling.

Her own.

Turning Pain Into Something You Can Hold

Becoming a mother brought Lane face-to-face with unresolved experiences from her childhood.

She experienced panic attacks and postpartum depression, and old trauma resurfaced in ways she could no longer ignore.

So Lane returned to what she knew best: music.

This time, however, she wasn’t performing someone else’s words or inhabiting someone else’s character. She began writing songs about her own experiences.

Music gave difficult emotions somewhere to go.

Anger could become rhythm. Fear could become lyrics. Experiences that felt overwhelming when confronted directly could be explored inside the safe container of creativity.

The thing Lane had once used to escape her story became a way to finally understand it.

And that realization eventually became something she could share with others.

From Individual Pain to Collective Healing

In 2018, Lane and her husband worked with students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, only months after the devastating mass shooting there.

Using a collaborative songwriting process alongside a licensed music therapist, the students transformed pieces of their individual experiences into a shared work of art.

Something powerful happened.

Their individual stories became part of a collective story.

The resulting song didn’t erase what had happened. It gave those experiences another form—one that could be shared, heard, revisited, and used to create connection with others.

For Lane, it reinforced a fundamental belief: creativity isn’t reserved for people who call themselves artists.

Art can give us a language for experiences that ordinary words sometimes can’t carry.

And healing doesn’t always mean leaving the past behind.

Sometimes it means including the past in our story—and then finding a way to transcend it.

When Life Divides Into Before and After

April Rinne was just 20 years old when both of her parents were killed in a car accident.

In an instant, the future she imagined disappeared.

There was life before the phone call.

And there was life after it.

April suddenly faced questions about grief, family, career, independence, and identity at an age when most people are only beginning to imagine what their adult lives might look like.

She had to grow up quickly.

The loss also left April with an acute awareness that life could change without warning. She began asking questions most people don’t confront until much later:

What really matters?

What makes a life meaningful?

What am I going to do with the time I have?

The tragedy didn’t provide easy answers.

It changed the questions.

Learning to Move With Change

April’s experience with loss eventually shaped a very different relationship with uncertainty.

Rather than seeing change solely as something to resist or fear, she began exploring how we can move through it while remaining grounded in what matters most.

Her parents had given her a love of education, travel, diversity, and experiences over possessions. Losing them made those lessons even more meaningful.

It also changed how April approached the decisions ahead of her.

Instead of automatically following the conventional career path others expected, she began evaluating choices against a more fundamental question: if life is shorter and less predictable than we imagine, how should that change what we do today?

That perspective would influence her career, her relationship with change, and eventually her work helping others navigate uncertainty.

Loss had made impermanence impossible for April to ignore.

But awareness of impermanence also created something else:

Gratitude.

Recognizing the Gift of Borrowed Time

When we know something won’t last forever, we can become more aware of its value.

April describes life through this sense of “borrowed time”—an appreciation that our very existence is extraordinary and that none of us knows exactly how much time we’ll receive.

That doesn’t mean living in fear of what might happen.

It means being awake to what is happening now.

The people around us.

The work that matters to us.

The experiences we choose.

The contribution we’re capable of making.

And perhaps that’s one of the unexpected ways light emerges from darkness.

The darkness doesn’t have to disappear for us to see differently.

Out of Darkness Comes the Light

Ann Brennan, Lane Gardner, and April Rinne encountered darkness in profoundly different ways.

Ann discovered that asking for help could itself be an act of strength.

Lane discovered that creativity could transform pain into expression, connection, and healing.

April discovered that profound loss could deepen her appreciation for life and reshape how she approached change, purpose, and the time she had been given.

None of their stories suggests that suffering happens for a reason.

And none suggests that darkness simply disappears.

Instead, they reveal something more human.

Sometimes hope begins with a phone call.

Sometimes healing begins when we finally tell our own story.

Sometimes loss changes the questions we ask about how we want to live.

And sometimes the experiences that leave us feeling most alone eventually reveal just how much we need one another.

Out of darkness comes compassion.

Out of darkness comes connection.

And if we’re willing to keep moving forward, out of darkness comes the light.

About This Special Series

This special series of The Virtual Campfire revisits powerful conversations from the show’s archives through themes inspired by Tony Martignetti’s book, Campfire Lessons for Leaders. Each episode brings together stories of transformation, courage, and growth to explore the moments that shape who we are—and who we become.

Learn more about Ann Brennan, Lane Gardner, and April Rinne and explore their work, organizations, books, and resources through the links accompanying this episode.

Subscribe to The Virtual Campfire, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who would benefit from joining the conversation.

To learn more about Tony Martignetti and his work, visit TonyMSpeaks.com.

This special series inspired by the themes of Campfire Lessons for Leaders is proudly produced by It All Works.