A Second Chance at Life and Love: Gaylen Wilson on Heart Transplant, Sobriety, Intimacy & Rebuilding Relationships

Gaylen WilsonHeart transplant survivor paying that blessing forward by helping couples rebuild emotional safety, Intimacy, and connection before the relationship collapses.Today’s guest is Gaylen Wilson, a heart transplant survivor, 20-years-sober former alcoholic, relationship author, erectile dysfunction advocate, Certified Thriving Relationship Coach, and founder of The Monument Method Institute with his wife Heather.Gaylen’s life has not been one comeback. It has been a series of forced reinventions.After farm failure, a collapsed stockbroker career, alcoholism, sobriety, career disruption after 9/11, rebuilding as a computer repairman, and later becoming a successful field-service technician, Gaylen faced the largest crisis of his life.In 2014, a virus attacked his heart and left him in end-stage heart failure. For the next three and a half years, he and Heather lived through hospital rooms, fear, financial pressure, uncertainty, lost intimacy, disability, and the reality that without a transplant, he was going to die.On June 19, 2018, Gaylen sat Heather down and told her he likely had only a few months left. About thirty minutes later, the transplant center called. The next morning, he received a new heart.That experience left him with one driving question: