June 28, 2024 • 47 mins
When I lost Carlos I cycled through all the stages of grief, except acceptance. I don’t even believe in the stages of grief because stages imply there’s an order and a structure to grief. Grief tosses all plans, assumptions, and logic right out the window. It doesn’t care who you are, what you need today, or why you need it. In this episode, I acknowledge that reality and talk about ways we can move forward and not on. This podcast is for those of us trying to figure out how to do the impossible: grieve and living onwards while doing it.
Join us at https://www.livingonwards.com/blog/movingforwardnoton to comment on this episode. Join our live community discussions on Patreon, too.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello. Welcome to the Living Onwards podcast.
I am authentically grieving. As you heard in our first episode or trailer,
I'm your host, Sarah, and I have a beautiful adult daughter,
two cats who run the house, and a dog who does her best not to be managed by the cats.
She's actually laying down next to me right now, snoring away while one of the cats is next to her.
(00:22):
I also work full-time. You might wonder why I shared this information with you
so upfront, and I generally am pretty leery about sharing things online.
But let me explain why I thought that was important.
In addition to all of that stuff I just said, I am a widow who lost my husband
in January 2024 to cancer after a 10-year battle together.
(00:45):
We were a cancer family, and losing him was devastating.
That said, long before we lost Carlos.
I grieved the loss of normal and normality in our lives, the loss of a future,
and the constant changes to reality that cancer brought.
So my point is that this podcast is brought to reality by me,
(01:07):
someone who's grieving and has grieved, by someone who legitimately is trying
to figure out how to go about living onwards myself.
And I know that many of you are on a similar journey. And I thought it would
help to share my own story, but also hear yours.
I'm not a grief expert, just to be clear. I'm learning as I go too,
(01:28):
literally grieving myself as I try to figure out this path I'm on.
I grieve. I analyze my grief. I grieve some more. I read books on grief.
I research grief. I talk to friends who are widows or widowers, and I grieve again.
When I first became a widow, I was determined not to forget Carlos and never move on.
(01:49):
I felt like if I let myself live, I would lose what we'd had together.
I felt like living onwards was just not an option. I was so afraid to lose him if I lived.
I felt like if I lived onwards, it meant forgetting him or somehow diminishing his role in my life.
And I was unprepared to do that. And so I didn't. I didn't move on. I didn't live onwards.
(02:15):
It meant forgetting him to me, and I was unprepared to do that.
And so I didn't. I didn't. I just stopped.
I lived in the moment, and I didn't do any of those things that I needed to
do. Bills didn't get paid.
I grieved. I was angry. I was sad.
I felt like I was just stuck in this cycle of grief. I had no idea how to make
(02:38):
it stop, or even if I wanted it to stop.
There was kind of this side of me that thought, if I'm grieving,
I'm honoring our marriage, our relationship, his memories.
It wasn't rational. I also experienced many secondary losses,
such as losing contact with people because I couldn't deal with talking to people,
(03:00):
such as not going and doing things I needed to get done because I just couldn't
face day-to-day stuff. Nothing seemed important.
And that's really challenging to tell myself that even in spite of or even in
this situation that I didn't choose, which was losing him,
(03:22):
I also had to face that life happens still.
You can't just sit and pause forever. And so this podcast will be about all
of that, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful.
There is no timeline for grief.
It is unique to both of us. And that is okay.
I do think we can talk about, though, some of the things we can do to find a
(03:46):
way to go towards living onwards. words.
But can I be honest with you? And I think you can guess this.
I said January, right? You and I both know that's only five months,
five long months, at least as of the time this is being recorded in June 28th.
That's five long months. And the silence is so very loud, as I say.
(04:09):
It's been five months since I saw his face and held his hand.
It's been five months since I had to watch him take his last breath.
And sometimes I just have to sit in that for a moment. I'm human.
It's only been five months.
So when I speak of not moving on or not wanting to forget, I wasn't trying to
(04:29):
do either in the last five months.
In the last five months, I was surviving and I still am.
I just knew that I wasn't going to let that happen even while I figured out
how to go about living onwards. Like, I knew that my goal would be not to move on, but to move forward.
I knew that I wasn't going to forget in order to live onwards.
(04:52):
As I sit here recording this, I guarantee you, I assure you,
I am still trying to figure out how to live onwards. words.
I am not sure if that will ever change. I'm not sure what that looks like to
live forwards or live onwards or move forwards or to go about living onwards.
I think, though, that's the whole point, right? That we need to figure this
(05:16):
out for ourselves, for them, and for our own sanity.
This podcast is for those trying to figure out what that looks like.
It's for those of us trying try to figure out how to do the impossible,
to grieve while also living onwards.
I have no expectations of this podcast except to share my story and hear yours too.
(05:36):
If it helps me, if it helps you, if it makes us feel less alone,
then it is worth every word, every minute, and every effort.
I know we are not moving on. We are moving forward.
I'm not even sure it's possible to move on, and I think that chasing that just hurts ourselves.
We are not forgetting them. We are remembering them. We are not leaving them behind.
(05:59):
We carry them with every single step of the way. I don't know how to live onwards,
but I'm going to try, and I'm taking you with me if you're willing.
Moving forward involves, I think, accepting that death is a part of life.
It's inevitable, right? We're not immortal, and it's not something we can control to any degree.
(06:20):
I think I think the hardest thing for me was having no control over cancer in
our case, and ultimately no control over death.
I felt like I was watching a movie without control over the outcome.
Like, I pictured myself sometimes just sitting in that couch and a movie's on
the TV that I don't want to watch. I don't enjoy.
(06:42):
In fact, I probably hated the movie, but I couldn't find the remote control
and I couldn't turn off the TV or change the channel or find a different movie.
I had a real challenge not having control over all of it. And still to this
day, it's very difficult for
me to have to kind of come to grasps with the fact I couldn't control it.
(07:04):
It was terrifying and exhausting in all those years.
And it's so easy to feel like you have no control over the situation.
And you may not over the situation, but you can control your actions and I can control mine.
I have a printout on my wall that I will share in Facebook and on livingonwards.com
(07:27):
that says what I can control and what I cannot control.
I will share it and you can download and print it if you like.
But I think you'd like that because sometimes the most basic thing I can do,
and I'll take it off the wall so you can see it for those who are on video,
is sometimes all I can do is look at this and say, you know what, I can't control it.
(07:52):
Or I can control who I am and my actions and similar, even if I can't control the situation.
And so we'll share that. You might find that interesting. Again,
if you were on video, you saw a quick shot of it.
If you're on podcast, go to livingonwards.com to look for that. I'll be glad to share it.
(08:12):
It takes courage and strength to face our new reality.
And it's utterly unfair since I never wanted to be here. You never wanted to be here.
If we had our control, we would never lose anyone ever, no matter what the situation.
The best thing that I think we can do for each other and to ourselves is to
be kind to ourself. Remember that you're not alone.
(08:34):
You have the strength within you
to make it through, even if it seems impossible. And believe me, I know.
Be gentle with yourself as you navigate this journey, because it wasn't a journey
you chose, but you have to go through it.
You can go through it, and I believe I can too.
I know it's tough to go about living onwards, and sometimes Sometimes it's easier
(08:55):
to just stay exactly where we are, no matter how hard it is.
I mean, grief in and of itself, living without the person that you love so much,
is very hard, too. The journey forward is hard.
Living onwards is extremely difficult.
(09:15):
Fool yourself. Staying where we are isn't okay either.
And so it's not like it's a choice between hard and okay.
It's a choice between hard and harder. And so I think part of it is that we fear the unknown.
Sometimes we just find comfort in what we do know, which is our current reality,
(09:36):
even if it no longer exists.
I think we hold on as a way of not facing reality.
I know that it is what it is for me.
In the first few weeks, losing my husband, I just wanted to hold on tightly to everything.
His clothes, his shoes, his toothbrush.
I mean, I wanted to keep everything exactly as it was.
(09:59):
I wanted to feel like he was still here and I could find comfort in that,
like he might just come in the door at any time.
It was a way to fool myself into somehow believing this is temporary.
But I think it was really important and is really crucial to remember that even
if we as individuals hold on tightly and refuse to acknowledge reality,
(10:25):
it won't bring them back.
We need to learn how to live in this, with this, even though we don't want it
and we never would have sought it. Our experiences shape who we are.
And letting go means facing the possibility of losing a part of ourselves.
And I don't think we lose a part of ourselves.
(10:46):
I think that's just our fear that somehow we'll lose them or lose the us that
was defined by our life with them. And you can do both.
It doesn't mean like you're just trading one for the other. But it can be really
hard and daunting to imagine living forward without those familiar anchors from
our past, without the support of that same loved one you're now grieving.
(11:11):
And so the key lies in recognizing that growth often requires pain.
Good things often require hard days, hard tasks.
And often we just can't live without being challenged to live genuinely.
If nobody ever challenged us to live and live life, would we do it?
(11:33):
We should for ourselves, but sometimes it's easier to just be where you are.
And in order to kind of move forward, we need to challenge ourselves and also
be challenged by life to learn.
We can't live as a half person, even if we feel one.
I remember somebody had said in one of the grief groups or online that for them,
(11:57):
when you were a husband and wife or you loved someone deeply,
it was like you were a whole. You were a single person.
And then you lose the person and suddenly we are not even half.
We're like a third or a tenth of a person, even though in theory we were half, a whole, together.
(12:19):
It's like your entire identity.
(12:48):
So by understanding this, we can journey towards living onwards, but not on.
We're not saying to move on. We're saying to live onwards.
I saw an analogy in one of the grief groups that I really like.
I'm going to try to describe it in words. I hope I can because it really worked for me and helped me.
So you don't have to love puzzles, but just try to follow me.
(13:12):
Imagine that you're putting together a puzzle on your table.
You've been working at it. You turn those pieces around and around.
And if you've ever done a puzzle, you know how it is. When a piece kind of clicks
in, especially if it's a piece that you've been trying to find a spot for, you get really happy.
You're like, oh man, that's the right piece. I found it.
You feel like you've solved it. So you've been working on this puzzle for a
(13:37):
while and you finally finish the puzzle.
Or at least all the pieces fit together, even if it isn't perfect.
It's your puzzle. Suddenly someone comes along and knocks the puzzle off the
table and the pieces fly everywhere. You find most of the pieces,
some of the pieces, you know, you're like, ah, I don't know where this belongs, but I found them.
(13:58):
But you need help finding others. You can only assemble a puzzle if all the
pieces you need are present, right?
Nobody does want or have an incomplete puzzle.
If it's 100 pieces, you need 100 pieces. pieces imagine
that if you can't find some of those pieces you just
never can complete that specific puzzle again your
(14:20):
life with your loved one is the puzzle and with them gone you can try and try
and try to put that puzzle back together or even fool yourself into believing
that the puzzle can still be whole you're always seeking that but it's not the
puzzle's gone and that life that that puzzle.
(14:40):
Cannot be remade. So we have to get to a point, and it took me a long time to
get there, and believe me, I still resist it in my heart.
We have to have the courage to realize we can never put that puzzle that was back together.
We have to say, I have to have the courage to start a new puzzle,
to find the pieces that we can find. It doesn't mean you throw out everything.
(15:05):
It doesn't mean you just, you know, throw all the puzzle pieces out because
a lot of those pieces are still part of you.
You're not saying that nothing then that was part of that puzzle or part of
your life applies then to now.
You're saying that I know I am making a new puzzle, but I can use puzzle pieces
from the past to help solve the new puzzle.
(15:27):
So we need to make new puzzles so we can be whole again.
You will always remember that puzzle, that prior life, that being,
that existence that you have.
You don't forget it, but you're just working on a new puzzle and you're finding
the pieces that you need to piece together to be whole again.
I hope that helped. I know it's hard to kind of say or describe it out loud.
(15:51):
I will put the post that I had seen on
a grief group a while back on our livingonwards.com page for this episode.
I'll tell you right now, and maybe it was your reaction as well.
My first reaction to that analogy was puzzles.
I don't want to do a new puzzle. I like my old puzzle. I want that puzzle back.
(16:13):
I didn't agree to lose my puzzle. But unfortunately, I also kind of said,
That's my reality. You're right. I'm trying to back together a puzzle that now
is missing some very big pieces because he's gone.
It's a hard pill to swallow. But we have to get to the point that we recognize
(16:35):
that we can't go back to our old lives. They don't exist.
That's what we're grieving. grieving it's like
our brain knows that we can't
go back our heart wants to go back and i
think that's where grief is hardest when the two fight
when the two cannot agree because it's just so difficult to make those two things
(16:58):
work together and i think that maybe they never will what we do need to do is
learn how to face living onwards and finding all the pieces we need to do to
living onwards ourselves.
It's a daunting prospect living onwards. I know it's like challenging my entire
reality when I don't want to do that. It's overwhelming.
(17:20):
So I think we can all, I think all we can do sometimes is pick up our heads,
square our shoulders, and turn to face this new reality whether we want to or not.
Most times we'll manage small steps. Other times, big ones.
We don't need to start with significant steps. We're not trying to solve the world's problems.
(17:41):
We are not trying to boil the ocean, as I sometimes say. We know that this journey may never be done.
There's stuff in our life that may take months or years or never to improve on.
But what we can do is focus on breaking them into small steps so we can progress.
(18:02):
So that we can see progress and that we know that we can do it because we've
broken that effort into such small steps that we can say, I can do this.
And then when you've done it, I did that.
In project management, there's something called a work breakdown structure.
And maybe it's a little nerdy to bring project management terms into grief, but bear with me.
(18:27):
In project management with a work breakdown structure, you're given a huge,
seemingly impossible project, and often without a lot of guidance.
You know, project managers and other people often deal with the fact that they're
being asked to do something and they're not given a lot of context or a lot
of information and almost certainly nobody told them how to do it.
(18:47):
And so their job is to figure out how to do it.
And that's what the work breakdown structure helps to do.
So when you're given this massive task, whether you wanted it or not,
and in this case, we'll say our task is living onwards,
you break it down into as many small tasks as you need to in order to move forward.
(19:08):
That's the work breakdown structure.
You break down this massive thing into as many small tasks as you need to in
order to be able to move the bar forward.
So you don't just stay stuck in project management, thinking about how big or
impossible the project is. You don't just stop.
You move forward by identifying all the pieces and parts that need to get done
(19:32):
or that have to be even considered or decided on in order to complete the project.
You don't say, hey, we're going to finish this project in six months and then...
Just hope every day it happens. No, in fact, you have to break it down to even
daily tasks to help you get to that six-month point and be able to measure against that.
(19:53):
The good news, bad news about this analogy is that you do have a project in front of you.
Like I said, we could consider that living onwards.
Maybe it's surviving grief, but it's not just one project, right?
We're not a project manager facing a tangible project that we can easily say,
(20:14):
oh, here's the 10 steps and then we're done.
There are many pieces and parts to life. And it's overwhelming if we face it
thinking of the following steps as something like make life better or my project
is to get more friends or move to a place I can afford.
Those are valid and they might be valid for you. But you also have to start somewhere.
(20:35):
And so start thinking about the steps or tasks you need to do to build towards that goal.
Make those tasks as small or as many as you need to. You might have 50 tasks to achieve that goal.
If that is still overwhelming, make it 150 tasks just to start somewhere.
The most important thing is to start by setting achievable goals,
(20:58):
even if they might seem small or insignificant to anyone else.
They don't have to live your life. They might be a part of your tasks and goals,
but you need to define how to go about living onwards yourself and for yourself.
Unfortunately, and I wish this was not true, there is no book for that.
I would have bought that book.
(21:19):
Even though there is no book or anything with a formula that says,
hey, Tom, this is the roadmap to achieve all of your goals, or here is a formula
to fix everything and help your grief, and boy, I would have liked that, you are not alone.
I found myself a week or two after Carlos passed realizing I needed to find other widows, ASAP.
(21:41):
That actually became my goal or my project, if you will, using the analogy.
And so I had some widow friends, and thank goodness for them.
They were an absolute godsend, but I needed more.
I hungered to talk to people who could help me with my grief,
even while in their grief.
People that understood, even in my silence, I was hurting, and that I could
(22:05):
talk to, but also hear their experience and maybe learn from them, too.
And so to kind of face this, I needed to figure out where to go to find more
widow and widower friends.
And so using the work breakdown structure analogy, you know,
I thought through what kind of tasks and steps I could do to start working towards
(22:28):
that goal. So I went to Grief Share at church.
I joined over a dozen private grief groups on Facebook, and I actually found
widow and widower friends.
So that goal was successful, but it wasn't a case where I just put a goal out
on the horizon and said, I hope I find more friends.
No, I actually needed to think through how you go about finding widow and widower friends.
(22:52):
So I really appreciate that group because we talk openly and frankly about our
grief in everyday situations.
And no one understands me better than the ones who've gone through it.
And I suspect that you're the same. If you don't have friends that are widow
widowers, join the conversation on livingonwards.com or on our discourse server.
(23:16):
And we're going to make that happen. And if you still can't,
reach out to me in the contact form because I would be glad to talk to you and become friends.
Others may find that psychiatrists, medication, or therapists helps.
That's no judgment. You know, do what you need to do to live life and to find a way to living onwards.
(23:38):
If you do have a psychiatrist, I would just say you should have a therapist, too.
Sometimes it's easy to think one or the other can solve it.
Or, hey, if I take this pill, it'll somehow solve the world's problems. It can.
But the trick is that psychiatrists focus on the physical, the biological side of grief, right?
The medicine fixes something or mitigates it, you know, emotions or similar.
(24:04):
The therapist helps with the mental health, the way that you cope,
the way that you process information.
So if you go that route, I would highly recommend going with both because they're
kind of two peas in a pod and you'll find that one is improved by the other.
And again, don't let anyone tell you to do any one round or that somehow you're
(24:26):
failing because you go to a psychiatrist or therapist.
I think it's quite the opposite. You're being brave and you're being authentic
to yourself to recognize you need more help.
I would also say that your well-being in all of this is probably the most critical thing.
I know that I can feel very overwhelmed by grief, life and living life with grief.
(24:47):
I also know that those friendships with widows and widowers are a blessing and
a curse. I love them very much.
But let's be honest, they're very raw exchanges sometimes, and you must also guard your heart.
What I find is that sometimes if a message comes in and I see who it's from, I just have to park it.
And I say, you know what, right now my goal, my task is to get through the workday.
(25:12):
Or my goal or task is to sleep tonight.
So I'm not going to read that at 930 at night or whenever I'm trying to wind down.
That's okay. That's giving yourself the grace to do the best that you can do
in an impossible situation.
But there's many times that when I'm having a particularly hellacious day,
(25:33):
I am blessed by the fact that I can pick up the phone and text or call them
or meet with them in person if they're close enough to just be around somebody
who doesn't judge when I need the no judgment zone.
Sometimes we don't talk much at all. Sometimes we're just, you know,
talking about the weather or the kids or the dog or whatever.
(25:57):
It's the difference of there's no expectations when you're talking to someone
else going through this, because they know that you're just surviving,
that you're just trying to live life and get through life.
I think the biggest thing that I heard someone tell me, and I can't remember
who it was, is that we need to give grief its space.
(26:19):
Grief is going to happen. It's not like you can just ignore grief.
It could care less if you ignore it. It's just going to happen.
So sometimes you you need to give grief a platform. Give it a podium. Give it a microphone.
Let grief out. Let it shout in that microphone and take a stage and let it have
(26:40):
its five minutes of fame in your day.
But then take that microphone back for a while and be you.
Don't let it run or overshout or overcome your day.
Let it happen because no matter what you do, it's going to happen.
If you stop it from happening, it'll come out somewhere, guaranteed,
and probably when you least want it to happen.
(27:02):
If any friendships or relationships make you unable to focus on your goal of
living onwards, it's worth a look at whether you need to step back from that person or situation.
That said, growth often lies outside our comfort zones.
And what I find is that it's very easy to misread stress or discomfort as a
(27:23):
good or as a bad thing. I'm sorry, correction.
Do not misread stress or discomfort as a bad thing.
I would just say do what I try to do, which is to analyze the heck out of the
situation with a clear mind. If you're emotional or if you're deep in grief,
that might not be the best time to analyze because, you know,
(27:44):
you're probably not analyzing well.
But when you're having stress or discomfort, find some space where you have
a slightly clearer mind, at least, and don't let grief drive you in the wrong direction.
I think that grief can definitely make us decide to be avoiding stress or discomfort
(28:05):
or avoiding friendships or relationships with family or friends.
And I think that that's really risky because, boy, we can very quickly end up
just staying in bed all day and not doing anything.
And that's not good for us.
It's not good for our sanity. So don't let grief drive you in the wrong direction,
(28:26):
but also really be cognizant of what's working for you and what's not.
If I embrace the discomfort myself, it sometimes becomes a chance to discover why it bothers me.
Like, why am I discomforted? Why am I stressed?
And if there's a situation that I need to change, that's fine.
(28:46):
At least I've analyzed it with a clear mind. If it's a situation where,
you know, I need to just work through it because I need to grow resilience to
it, that's good to know, too.
And being willing to work through it for my own personal sake and development
is important, too. I would also say is to stay positive and focus on the possibilities
(29:10):
of embracing change rather than dwelling on risks and failures.
If you've lost a loved one like I have, it would be very easy to just put your
head down and hide from the world. That isn't what you want to do.
And I think you know that deep down. You owe it to yourself to pick up your
head and square your shoulders to face forward. forward, please do it for yourself now and in the future.
(29:35):
Find your motivation and cling to it, even if you have small motivations that
you can focus on each day and each hour.
One step towards moving forward in life is to focus on the present moment.
That's really hard sometimes because I don't necessarily always like my present moment.
By being mindful and aware of my thoughts and actions, I'm very self-aware of
(29:59):
what triggers my grief when it is healthy and when it's not.
I have very traumatic recall of those last weeks, days, hours,
or minutes, but those are not healthy or fair when they plague my heart or mind.
And also, I know what triggers will happen sometimes.
(30:19):
Sometimes I know something will trigger, like holidays or birthdays or seeing
somebody for the first time that I haven't seen since I lost Carlos.
Other times, just going to the store as a minefield emotionally.
But I think the difference is, or perhaps the opportunity, is that I'm very aware of it.
(30:40):
And I try to face it head on.
I know that it's like, oh, I could avoid going to the store.
I could avoid seeing this person. I could avoid doing this or that or going
out to this event or whatever.
That's kind of unrealistic, right? We can't just never go to Walmart again.
We can't just say, I'm not going to see so-and-so who's a family member or similar.
(31:04):
Whatever your situation is, I think the goal is to say, okay,
I know there's triggers.
I know that it's going to happen. Grief is going to ambush me.
I know that something's going to happen that's going to make me cry.
The grief is always there. Just remember that. The grief is always there.
(31:26):
It's not something that you did wrong when it happens.
It's not something that you can just avoid by doing nothing. Because guess what?
Whether you stay home or not, or whether you do nothing that you think triggers
it or not, it's still there. It's going to come.
It's like, if you don't get triggered at the store, you'll probably be triggered
making dinner or something.
(31:46):
So it will happen no matter what you do. So are you going to be controlled by that?
Are we going to stop living because it might ambush us sometime somewhere?
It's going to happen. It'll ambush us regardless. So face it and focus on living onwards.
I had that happen just the other day. I was having a great day at work,
you know, just coming along, doing everything great, you know, accomplishing a lot.
(32:09):
All of a sudden, I was on the couch between meetings crying. Why?
I have no idea. It wasn't in plan. It wasn't a trigger. It wasn't, I don't know.
And so it's going to happen no matter what we do. Are we going to be controlled by that?
What I did is I knew I had 20 minutes between meetings. I cried.
(32:31):
I let it all out. It was some ugly cry.
And then I kind of picked myself up by my bootstraps. I kind of wiped my face.
And I went back to work. And that's how I try to control it while I was also
giving it space to be because it's going to happen no matter what.
So just remember that nothing about living onwards means you're moving on.
(32:53):
The memories, the people, the photos, the items are all still very real and
present in reality or in our hearts and minds.
By facing life with grief, you're moving forward, not on.
You're saying, I'm going to live
with my grief. I'm going to find a path forward for my sake, my sanity.
And an essential part of that for me is to set realistic goals every single
(33:16):
day, sometimes every hour, depending on how bad the day is. Let's be honest.
Sometimes just getting up out of bed in the morning is a heck of a great goal.
Sometimes that goal for some people is as simple as taking a shower and going
out to get coffee today, any day.
Like, let's just go get a coffee every day, even if we're doing it alone.
We're going to leave the house.
We're going to get dressed. We're going to leave the house. We're going to go
(33:38):
to the coffee shop. We're going to interact with the person at the window,
maybe laugh, maybe throw a joke out.
Going to get a coffee, drink it there, or bring it home.
That's an okay goal. It's a goal, right?
Sometimes that goal is to get through the workday without crying,
just like I just shared. Sometimes that's a big goal.
Other times that goal is to get a good night's rest. Oh, I don't sleep.
(33:59):
I don't know how people sleep. I don't sleep, and I sleep awful no matter what I do.
Sometimes people lovingly say, well, you should sleep more. It's important.
Yeah, that's great. I agree. But someone tell my heart and mind that I need the same.
So that, to some people, might seem super minor because they're not living with grief.
(34:24):
But most days, that might.
Be enough for me. If I get a good night's sleep, I feel like I'm a new person.
Like I lived life by letting myself sleep. Doesn't solve the grief.
It doesn't mean that it was a great day, but oh boy, that goal of falling asleep
and having a good night's sleep, if I achieve that, I met that goal.
(34:46):
And maybe some other days, if you don't fall to the floor curled at a ball crying,
we're going to call that a win too.
If you feel comfortable, I would say share your goals with a friend,
a family member, a therapist, or even a pastor, the right person will understand
what you're doing and that you're trying to pass, I'm sorry,
you're trying to find a path forward.
(35:08):
Towards living onwards.
And your journey is your journey alone. Nobody else can help you write this journey.
And in a lot of ways, that sucks too.
I wish someone could tell me, here's what you do. Here's the A to B to C to get to D.
No matter who you talk to, They're not going to be able to tell you that for you.
(35:29):
So that's part of your goal is just understanding that and not expecting other
people to define it for you.
They can help provide guidance. They can encourage you.
And sometimes if you're talking to the right people, you might just say you're
not okay. Hey, hey, it was a bad day.
I wanted to do this and that today.
(35:52):
I wanted to take the dog to the vet. I wanted to, you know, get up and go to coffee.
I wanted to work a full day. I wanted to go to dinner with my friends.
And oh my goodness, I didn't even take a shower.
If it's the right person you're talking to, that's okay.
Sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is admit, I did nothing.
(36:14):
We did nothing we hoped to do today.
But the biggest thing is your goal is to do better tomorrow.
And that's the thing. It's like, don't give up. Don't get stuck.
Don't feel like it's impossible, even if today it was impossible.
I've had those days. I know you have. of. Lean into the folks who love you and
don't judge you and share as much or as little as you want.
(36:38):
Just make sure they know. I think it's important, and I've had to do this myself,
to share that you're talking to them not because you expect them to fix it.
You're talking to them because you trust them with your goals and your journey.
So I think I myself am very guilty of when you tell me something,
(37:01):
a problem, a challenge, whatever, I go straight into fix-it mode.
I'm like, you got to try this, you got to do that, you got to whatever.
You're not looking for that when you're talking to these folks.
And if you are, you're never going to be happy because nobody else can fix it for you.
But what you can do is tell them and save yourself some pain later in your conversations.
(37:24):
Look, I'm sharing this with you because I trust you and I love you and I need
to share with someone, but I don't need you to fix it.
And often I just need you to listen.
That might help level set it a bit because I am the person that sometimes will
just want to fix it and you're going to be sitting there going,
you don't understand my situation.
(37:45):
So just sharing that because that's something that I often have to learn myself
when I react to other people sharing And I've had to kind of teach myself not to react that way.
So in my own case, I'll share some things that I needed to achieve,
some goals that might sound silly to others, but you know what?
(38:06):
No one else is in my grief journey but me.
I knew, for example, that I was grief eating, but I couldn't just set a goal
like, you know, let's lose X pounds by 2025 or whatever.
That was too big, and it needed to be more detailed for me to feel like I did something.
If it takes me a year to achieve a goal, how would I celebrate in the meantime?
(38:30):
I'm always chasing this goal.
Good goal or bad goal. I mean, it's not a comment on the goal.
It's more like if it's way out there in the future, it's so big.
I have nothing to celebrate in the in-between.
I also haven't really set realistic, like what I can do to help get there.
So I needed to to set goals or tasks that helped me progress and see my progress in what I was doing.
(38:56):
So I broke it down into simple steps, small steps, like I'm going to track my
eating in an app every day.
I'm going to go to the gym at least three times a week.
I'm going to weigh myself every week and similar. I know I like to travel. That was another goal.
I know I like to travel. Well, well, it's great to say, you know, I want to travel more.
(39:16):
But that doesn't actually make the travel happen. You know, it's like if it's
not on the calendar, will it ever actually happen?
Or will it always be this broad, I want to travel more goal?
So what I did is pulled out the calendar for the next year and intentionally
picked dates for future trips and then booked them when it made sense.
(39:39):
As a result, I have trips going through the end of January, roughly every other month.
I knew that the house, another goal, another goal I have or had is that the
house was full of emotional triggers because we bought this house together.
But I knew with the house full of triggers that I couldn't just say,
(40:04):
everything here makes me sad.
Everything here upsets me or my house upsets me.
I didn't want to have to move. I didn't want to be sad every time I walked through the house.
And so instead, I started breaking it down into steps that I could take and that I could measure.
And so what I did is I walked around the house identifying what triggers I could
(40:28):
change, and I broke those down into a long but small size list of items.
And I'm still working through it months later, but I had to start somewhere, everywhere.
In order to help how I felt walking through the house.
So, for example, the week Carlos died, I had family gather up and donate all
(40:50):
medical stuff and reminders of medical stuff.
We also changed the bedding set in the guest room, which had been turned into
a hospital room of sorts, so that I didn't see the same room every time I walked
by and have, like, a clear reminder of those days.
I changed the art on the walls to stuff that was meaningful to me, not just us.
(41:13):
I donated most of his clothes, and I set up an area on his side of the bed with
some of my favorite pictures of him or us.
I started somewhere, anywhere, and I'm still going. I suspect this is a journey,
this thing called moving forward or living onwards, that I'll never finish.
But that's okay. I'm on the journey.
(41:34):
I'm not stuck in park back on January 28th and just staying there.
Most importantly, we all need to remind each other to stay open-minded and flexible
when adapting to change.
Life is full of unexpected twists and turns, and we know that we want to find
ways to navigate life with resilience and grace.
(41:54):
This situation almost broke me in December and January. And in February,
I didn't know if I'd make it through after losing Carlos.
I don't want a break. I want to be resilient for our daughter and myself.
I also just don't want to fall apart and be a burden on others.
I can struggle and fall, and I do. but I want to be true to myself and pick
(42:16):
myself up whenever I can and however I can.
I think we know life is filled with tragedy, challenges, and unfairness,
but will that define your every action?
Or will you have the courage to pick up your head, square your shoulders,
and focus on living onwards?
That's a question that only you can answer. When we fall and collapse,
(42:39):
it's an opportunity for growth and development.
It's not that we screwed up or, oh, I should have done this or that better. Sure.
But in our grief, we're surviving. We're doing the best we know how to do in
an absolutely impossible and unfair situation.
By being aware of what happened and perhaps why it happened,
(43:00):
right or wrong, we open ourselves subs up to new perspectives and insights that
help us the next time we face the similar situation.
We can embrace these moments, even if they're so hard, so that we can define
how to use them to move forward and not on, to focus on living onwards, is the most important.
(43:21):
Viewing mistakes not as failures but as stepping stones toward progress is really
important to me, and I think it will be or is for you.
Instead of dwelling on past blunders, just focus on the lessons they offer and
use them as fuel for your continuous growth.
It's okay to stumble. We all do. What truly matters is what you do once you
(43:44):
stumble, how you rise from that stumble.
That's what defines you. I stumble. I know you do too. And I often get mad at myself when I do.
I hope to turn that into thinking about what I could have done differently or
whether I would change anything at all.
You have to face it and say, what happened? Why did it happen?
(44:05):
Should I change anything or should I do it again?
That's self-retrospective. That's introspective thinking.
That's about the only way you evolve and the only way we can get through this
journey and move forward.
And so I think we know that whatever you do, whether you change a thing,
you gain that wisdom and resilience we need to get through our grief journey
(44:27):
and everything else life throws at us then, now, and in the future.
It allows us to break free from stagnation and evolve into better versions of ourselves.
At least I hope I'll evolve because I know I have a lot of evolving to do.
So let's go ahead and take that leap of faith.
Embrace the change that we have to have because we can't stay where we are. It no longer exists.
(44:53):
And watch how our lives can transform together. By embracing change,
letting go of the past, and taking risks for personal growth,
we can move towards a brighter future.
Living life fully and authentically means not guarding a grave,
but instead honoring our loved ones by finding purpose again and continuing to grow.
(45:14):
Grow remember this grief thing is
a natural part of life but it doesn't have to define
us by facing our fears head
on and stepping out of our comfort zones we open ourselves up to new possibilities
and opportunities for happiness in life so let's let's figure out how to let
(45:35):
go of what's holding you back not let go of the people we love or the memories that we cherish
but to let go of what's holding us back so
that we can face the unknown with courage and gain
trust in our ability to create a good
future that can again have joy love and potential the person you lost is no
(45:56):
longer here to define you or guide you for better or for worse you are here
though i am here and we owe it to ourselves to step into living onwards that's the end of the episode.
Thank you for joining me today. I am Sarah, and as I said, I am authentically grieving.
I would ask that you subscribe today to start your journey towards healing and
(46:18):
discovering the resilience within you.
Share this podcast with anyone you think would be interested,
and just know that most people find podcasts because a friend recommended it
to them, not because some algorithm found it for them.
Hello. Welcome to the Living Onwards podcast.
I am authentically grieving. As you heard in our first episode or trailer,
I'm your host, Sarah, and I have a beautiful adult daughter,
two cats who run the house, and a dog who does her best not to be managed by the cats.
She's actually laying down next to me right now, snoring away while one of the cats is next to her.
(00:22):
I also work full-time. You might wonder why I shared this information with you
so upfront, and I generally am pretty leery about sharing things online.
But let me explain why I thought that was important.
In addition to all of that stuff I just said, I am a widow who lost my husband
in January 2024 to cancer after a 10-year battle together.
(00:45):
We were a cancer family, and losing him was devastating.
That said, long before we lost Carlos.
I grieved the loss of normal and normality in our lives, the loss of a future,
and the constant changes to reality that cancer brought.
So my point is that this podcast is brought to reality by me,
(01:07):
someone who's grieving and has grieved, by someone who legitimately is trying
to figure out how to go about living onwards myself.
And I know that many of you are on a similar journey. And I thought it would
help to share my own story, but also hear yours.
I'm not a grief expert, just to be clear. I'm learning as I go too,
(01:28):
literally grieving myself as I try to figure out this path I'm on.
I grieve. I analyze my grief. I grieve some more. I read books on grief.
I research grief. I talk to friends who are widows or widowers, and I grieve again.
When I first became a widow, I was determined not to forget Carlos and never move on.
(01:49):
I felt like if I let myself live, I would lose what we'd had together.
I felt like living onwards was just not an option. I was so afraid to lose him if I lived.
I felt like if I lived onwards, it meant forgetting him or somehow diminishing his role in my life.
And I was unprepared to do that. And so I didn't. I didn't move on. I didn't live onwards.
(02:15):
It meant forgetting him to me, and I was unprepared to do that.
And so I didn't. I didn't. I just stopped.
I lived in the moment, and I didn't do any of those things that I needed to
do. Bills didn't get paid.
I grieved. I was angry. I was sad.
I felt like I was just stuck in this cycle of grief. I had no idea how to make
(02:38):
it stop, or even if I wanted it to stop.
There was kind of this side of me that thought, if I'm grieving,
I'm honoring our marriage, our relationship, his memories.
It wasn't rational. I also experienced many secondary losses,
such as losing contact with people because I couldn't deal with talking to people,
(03:00):
such as not going and doing things I needed to get done because I just couldn't
face day-to-day stuff. Nothing seemed important.
And that's really challenging to tell myself that even in spite of or even in
this situation that I didn't choose, which was losing him,
(03:22):
I also had to face that life happens still.
You can't just sit and pause forever. And so this podcast will be about all
of that, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful.
There is no timeline for grief.
It is unique to both of us. And that is okay.
I do think we can talk about, though, some of the things we can do to find a
(03:46):
way to go towards living onwards. words.
But can I be honest with you? And I think you can guess this.
I said January, right? You and I both know that's only five months,
five long months, at least as of the time this is being recorded in June 28th.
That's five long months. And the silence is so very loud, as I say.
(04:09):
It's been five months since I saw his face and held his hand.
It's been five months since I had to watch him take his last breath.
And sometimes I just have to sit in that for a moment. I'm human.
It's only been five months.
So when I speak of not moving on or not wanting to forget, I wasn't trying to
(04:29):
do either in the last five months.
In the last five months, I was surviving and I still am.
I just knew that I wasn't going to let that happen even while I figured out
how to go about living onwards. Like, I knew that my goal would be not to move on, but to move forward.
I knew that I wasn't going to forget in order to live onwards.
(04:52):
As I sit here recording this, I guarantee you, I assure you,
I am still trying to figure out how to live onwards. words.
I am not sure if that will ever change. I'm not sure what that looks like to
live forwards or live onwards or move forwards or to go about living onwards.
I think, though, that's the whole point, right? That we need to figure this
(05:16):
out for ourselves, for them, and for our own sanity.
This podcast is for those trying to figure out what that looks like.
It's for those of us trying try to figure out how to do the impossible,
to grieve while also living onwards.
I have no expectations of this podcast except to share my story and hear yours too.
(05:36):
If it helps me, if it helps you, if it makes us feel less alone,
then it is worth every word, every minute, and every effort.
I know we are not moving on. We are moving forward.
I'm not even sure it's possible to move on, and I think that chasing that just hurts ourselves.
We are not forgetting them. We are remembering them. We are not leaving them behind.
(05:59):
We carry them with every single step of the way. I don't know how to live onwards,
but I'm going to try, and I'm taking you with me if you're willing.
Moving forward involves, I think, accepting that death is a part of life.
It's inevitable, right? We're not immortal, and it's not something we can control to any degree.
(06:20):
I think I think the hardest thing for me was having no control over cancer in
our case, and ultimately no control over death.
I felt like I was watching a movie without control over the outcome.
Like, I pictured myself sometimes just sitting in that couch and a movie's on
the TV that I don't want to watch. I don't enjoy.
(06:42):
In fact, I probably hated the movie, but I couldn't find the remote control
and I couldn't turn off the TV or change the channel or find a different movie.
I had a real challenge not having control over all of it. And still to this
day, it's very difficult for
me to have to kind of come to grasps with the fact I couldn't control it.
(07:04):
It was terrifying and exhausting in all those years.
And it's so easy to feel like you have no control over the situation.
And you may not over the situation, but you can control your actions and I can control mine.
I have a printout on my wall that I will share in Facebook and on livingonwards.com
(07:27):
that says what I can control and what I cannot control.
I will share it and you can download and print it if you like.
But I think you'd like that because sometimes the most basic thing I can do,
and I'll take it off the wall so you can see it for those who are on video,
is sometimes all I can do is look at this and say, you know what, I can't control it.
(07:52):
Or I can control who I am and my actions and similar, even if I can't control the situation.
And so we'll share that. You might find that interesting. Again,
if you were on video, you saw a quick shot of it.
If you're on podcast, go to livingonwards.com to look for that. I'll be glad to share it.
(08:12):
It takes courage and strength to face our new reality.
And it's utterly unfair since I never wanted to be here. You never wanted to be here.
If we had our control, we would never lose anyone ever, no matter what the situation.
The best thing that I think we can do for each other and to ourselves is to
be kind to ourself. Remember that you're not alone.
(08:34):
You have the strength within you
to make it through, even if it seems impossible. And believe me, I know.
Be gentle with yourself as you navigate this journey, because it wasn't a journey
you chose, but you have to go through it.
You can go through it, and I believe I can too.
I know it's tough to go about living onwards, and sometimes Sometimes it's easier
(08:55):
to just stay exactly where we are, no matter how hard it is.
I mean, grief in and of itself, living without the person that you love so much,
is very hard, too. The journey forward is hard.
Living onwards is extremely difficult.
(09:15):
Fool yourself. Staying where we are isn't okay either.
And so it's not like it's a choice between hard and okay.
It's a choice between hard and harder. And so I think part of it is that we fear the unknown.
Sometimes we just find comfort in what we do know, which is our current reality,
(09:36):
even if it no longer exists.
I think we hold on as a way of not facing reality.
I know that it is what it is for me.
In the first few weeks, losing my husband, I just wanted to hold on tightly to everything.
His clothes, his shoes, his toothbrush.
I mean, I wanted to keep everything exactly as it was.
(09:59):
I wanted to feel like he was still here and I could find comfort in that,
like he might just come in the door at any time.
It was a way to fool myself into somehow believing this is temporary.
But I think it was really important and is really crucial to remember that even
if we as individuals hold on tightly and refuse to acknowledge reality,
(10:25):
it won't bring them back.
We need to learn how to live in this, with this, even though we don't want it
and we never would have sought it. Our experiences shape who we are.
And letting go means facing the possibility of losing a part of ourselves.
And I don't think we lose a part of ourselves.
(10:46):
I think that's just our fear that somehow we'll lose them or lose the us that
was defined by our life with them. And you can do both.
It doesn't mean like you're just trading one for the other. But it can be really
hard and daunting to imagine living forward without those familiar anchors from
our past, without the support of that same loved one you're now grieving.
(11:11):
And so the key lies in recognizing that growth often requires pain.
Good things often require hard days, hard tasks.
And often we just can't live without being challenged to live genuinely.
If nobody ever challenged us to live and live life, would we do it?
(11:33):
We should for ourselves, but sometimes it's easier to just be where you are.
And in order to kind of move forward, we need to challenge ourselves and also
be challenged by life to learn.
We can't live as a half person, even if we feel one.
I remember somebody had said in one of the grief groups or online that for them,
(11:57):
when you were a husband and wife or you loved someone deeply,
it was like you were a whole. You were a single person.
And then you lose the person and suddenly we are not even half.
We're like a third or a tenth of a person, even though in theory we were half, a whole, together.
(12:19):
It's like your entire identity.
(12:48):
So by understanding this, we can journey towards living onwards, but not on.
We're not saying to move on. We're saying to live onwards.
I saw an analogy in one of the grief groups that I really like.
I'm going to try to describe it in words. I hope I can because it really worked for me and helped me.
So you don't have to love puzzles, but just try to follow me.
(13:12):
Imagine that you're putting together a puzzle on your table.
You've been working at it. You turn those pieces around and around.
And if you've ever done a puzzle, you know how it is. When a piece kind of clicks
in, especially if it's a piece that you've been trying to find a spot for, you get really happy.
You're like, oh man, that's the right piece. I found it.
You feel like you've solved it. So you've been working on this puzzle for a
(13:37):
while and you finally finish the puzzle.
Or at least all the pieces fit together, even if it isn't perfect.
It's your puzzle. Suddenly someone comes along and knocks the puzzle off the
table and the pieces fly everywhere. You find most of the pieces,
some of the pieces, you know, you're like, ah, I don't know where this belongs, but I found them.
(13:58):
But you need help finding others. You can only assemble a puzzle if all the
pieces you need are present, right?
Nobody does want or have an incomplete puzzle.
If it's 100 pieces, you need 100 pieces. pieces imagine
that if you can't find some of those pieces you just
never can complete that specific puzzle again your
(14:20):
life with your loved one is the puzzle and with them gone you can try and try
and try to put that puzzle back together or even fool yourself into believing
that the puzzle can still be whole you're always seeking that but it's not the
puzzle's gone and that life that that puzzle.
(14:40):
Cannot be remade. So we have to get to a point, and it took me a long time to
get there, and believe me, I still resist it in my heart.
We have to have the courage to realize we can never put that puzzle that was back together.
We have to say, I have to have the courage to start a new puzzle,
to find the pieces that we can find. It doesn't mean you throw out everything.
(15:05):
It doesn't mean you just, you know, throw all the puzzle pieces out because
a lot of those pieces are still part of you.
You're not saying that nothing then that was part of that puzzle or part of
your life applies then to now.
You're saying that I know I am making a new puzzle, but I can use puzzle pieces
from the past to help solve the new puzzle.
(15:27):
So we need to make new puzzles so we can be whole again.
You will always remember that puzzle, that prior life, that being,
that existence that you have.
You don't forget it, but you're just working on a new puzzle and you're finding
the pieces that you need to piece together to be whole again.
I hope that helped. I know it's hard to kind of say or describe it out loud.
(15:51):
I will put the post that I had seen on
a grief group a while back on our livingonwards.com page for this episode.
I'll tell you right now, and maybe it was your reaction as well.
My first reaction to that analogy was puzzles.
I don't want to do a new puzzle. I like my old puzzle. I want that puzzle back.
(16:13):
I didn't agree to lose my puzzle. But unfortunately, I also kind of said,
That's my reality. You're right. I'm trying to back together a puzzle that now
is missing some very big pieces because he's gone.
It's a hard pill to swallow. But we have to get to the point that we recognize
(16:35):
that we can't go back to our old lives. They don't exist.
That's what we're grieving. grieving it's like
our brain knows that we can't
go back our heart wants to go back and i
think that's where grief is hardest when the two fight
when the two cannot agree because it's just so difficult to make those two things
(16:58):
work together and i think that maybe they never will what we do need to do is
learn how to face living onwards and finding all the pieces we need to do to
living onwards ourselves.
It's a daunting prospect living onwards. I know it's like challenging my entire
reality when I don't want to do that. It's overwhelming.
(17:20):
So I think we can all, I think all we can do sometimes is pick up our heads,
square our shoulders, and turn to face this new reality whether we want to or not.
Most times we'll manage small steps. Other times, big ones.
We don't need to start with significant steps. We're not trying to solve the world's problems.
(17:41):
We are not trying to boil the ocean, as I sometimes say. We know that this journey may never be done.
There's stuff in our life that may take months or years or never to improve on.
But what we can do is focus on breaking them into small steps so we can progress.
(18:02):
So that we can see progress and that we know that we can do it because we've
broken that effort into such small steps that we can say, I can do this.
And then when you've done it, I did that.
In project management, there's something called a work breakdown structure.
And maybe it's a little nerdy to bring project management terms into grief, but bear with me.
(18:27):
In project management with a work breakdown structure, you're given a huge,
seemingly impossible project, and often without a lot of guidance.
You know, project managers and other people often deal with the fact that they're
being asked to do something and they're not given a lot of context or a lot
of information and almost certainly nobody told them how to do it.
(18:47):
And so their job is to figure out how to do it.
And that's what the work breakdown structure helps to do.
So when you're given this massive task, whether you wanted it or not,
and in this case, we'll say our task is living onwards,
you break it down into as many small tasks as you need to in order to move forward.
(19:08):
That's the work breakdown structure.
You break down this massive thing into as many small tasks as you need to in
order to be able to move the bar forward.
So you don't just stay stuck in project management, thinking about how big or
impossible the project is. You don't just stop.
You move forward by identifying all the pieces and parts that need to get done
(19:32):
or that have to be even considered or decided on in order to complete the project.
You don't say, hey, we're going to finish this project in six months and then...
Just hope every day it happens. No, in fact, you have to break it down to even
daily tasks to help you get to that six-month point and be able to measure against that.
(19:53):
The good news, bad news about this analogy is that you do have a project in front of you.
Like I said, we could consider that living onwards.
Maybe it's surviving grief, but it's not just one project, right?
We're not a project manager facing a tangible project that we can easily say,
(20:14):
oh, here's the 10 steps and then we're done.
There are many pieces and parts to life. And it's overwhelming if we face it
thinking of the following steps as something like make life better or my project
is to get more friends or move to a place I can afford.
Those are valid and they might be valid for you. But you also have to start somewhere.
(20:35):
And so start thinking about the steps or tasks you need to do to build towards that goal.
Make those tasks as small or as many as you need to. You might have 50 tasks to achieve that goal.
If that is still overwhelming, make it 150 tasks just to start somewhere.
The most important thing is to start by setting achievable goals,
(20:58):
even if they might seem small or insignificant to anyone else.
They don't have to live your life. They might be a part of your tasks and goals,
but you need to define how to go about living onwards yourself and for yourself.
Unfortunately, and I wish this was not true, there is no book for that.
I would have bought that book.
(21:19):
Even though there is no book or anything with a formula that says,
hey, Tom, this is the roadmap to achieve all of your goals, or here is a formula
to fix everything and help your grief, and boy, I would have liked that, you are not alone.
I found myself a week or two after Carlos passed realizing I needed to find other widows, ASAP.
(21:41):
That actually became my goal or my project, if you will, using the analogy.
And so I had some widow friends, and thank goodness for them.
They were an absolute godsend, but I needed more.
I hungered to talk to people who could help me with my grief,
even while in their grief.
People that understood, even in my silence, I was hurting, and that I could
(22:05):
talk to, but also hear their experience and maybe learn from them, too.
And so to kind of face this, I needed to figure out where to go to find more
widow and widower friends.
And so using the work breakdown structure analogy, you know,
I thought through what kind of tasks and steps I could do to start working towards
(22:28):
that goal. So I went to Grief Share at church.
I joined over a dozen private grief groups on Facebook, and I actually found
widow and widower friends.
So that goal was successful, but it wasn't a case where I just put a goal out
on the horizon and said, I hope I find more friends.
No, I actually needed to think through how you go about finding widow and widower friends.
(22:52):
So I really appreciate that group because we talk openly and frankly about our
grief in everyday situations.
And no one understands me better than the ones who've gone through it.
And I suspect that you're the same. If you don't have friends that are widow
widowers, join the conversation on livingonwards.com or on our discourse server.
(23:16):
And we're going to make that happen. And if you still can't,
reach out to me in the contact form because I would be glad to talk to you and become friends.
Others may find that psychiatrists, medication, or therapists helps.
That's no judgment. You know, do what you need to do to live life and to find a way to living onwards.
(23:38):
If you do have a psychiatrist, I would just say you should have a therapist, too.
Sometimes it's easy to think one or the other can solve it.
Or, hey, if I take this pill, it'll somehow solve the world's problems. It can.
But the trick is that psychiatrists focus on the physical, the biological side of grief, right?
The medicine fixes something or mitigates it, you know, emotions or similar.
(24:04):
The therapist helps with the mental health, the way that you cope,
the way that you process information.
So if you go that route, I would highly recommend going with both because they're
kind of two peas in a pod and you'll find that one is improved by the other.
And again, don't let anyone tell you to do any one round or that somehow you're
(24:26):
failing because you go to a psychiatrist or therapist.
I think it's quite the opposite. You're being brave and you're being authentic
to yourself to recognize you need more help.
I would also say that your well-being in all of this is probably the most critical thing.
I know that I can feel very overwhelmed by grief, life and living life with grief.
(24:47):
I also know that those friendships with widows and widowers are a blessing and
a curse. I love them very much.
But let's be honest, they're very raw exchanges sometimes, and you must also guard your heart.
What I find is that sometimes if a message comes in and I see who it's from, I just have to park it.
And I say, you know what, right now my goal, my task is to get through the workday.
(25:12):
Or my goal or task is to sleep tonight.
So I'm not going to read that at 930 at night or whenever I'm trying to wind down.
That's okay. That's giving yourself the grace to do the best that you can do
in an impossible situation.
But there's many times that when I'm having a particularly hellacious day,
(25:33):
I am blessed by the fact that I can pick up the phone and text or call them
or meet with them in person if they're close enough to just be around somebody
who doesn't judge when I need the no judgment zone.
Sometimes we don't talk much at all. Sometimes we're just, you know,
talking about the weather or the kids or the dog or whatever.
(25:57):
It's the difference of there's no expectations when you're talking to someone
else going through this, because they know that you're just surviving,
that you're just trying to live life and get through life.
I think the biggest thing that I heard someone tell me, and I can't remember
who it was, is that we need to give grief its space.
(26:19):
Grief is going to happen. It's not like you can just ignore grief.
It could care less if you ignore it. It's just going to happen.
So sometimes you you need to give grief a platform. Give it a podium. Give it a microphone.
Let grief out. Let it shout in that microphone and take a stage and let it have
(26:40):
its five minutes of fame in your day.
But then take that microphone back for a while and be you.
Don't let it run or overshout or overcome your day.
Let it happen because no matter what you do, it's going to happen.
If you stop it from happening, it'll come out somewhere, guaranteed,
and probably when you least want it to happen.
(27:02):
If any friendships or relationships make you unable to focus on your goal of
living onwards, it's worth a look at whether you need to step back from that person or situation.
That said, growth often lies outside our comfort zones.
And what I find is that it's very easy to misread stress or discomfort as a
(27:23):
good or as a bad thing. I'm sorry, correction.
Do not misread stress or discomfort as a bad thing.
I would just say do what I try to do, which is to analyze the heck out of the
situation with a clear mind. If you're emotional or if you're deep in grief,
that might not be the best time to analyze because, you know,
(27:44):
you're probably not analyzing well.
But when you're having stress or discomfort, find some space where you have
a slightly clearer mind, at least, and don't let grief drive you in the wrong direction.
I think that grief can definitely make us decide to be avoiding stress or discomfort
(28:05):
or avoiding friendships or relationships with family or friends.
And I think that that's really risky because, boy, we can very quickly end up
just staying in bed all day and not doing anything.
And that's not good for us.
It's not good for our sanity. So don't let grief drive you in the wrong direction,
(28:26):
but also really be cognizant of what's working for you and what's not.
If I embrace the discomfort myself, it sometimes becomes a chance to discover why it bothers me.
Like, why am I discomforted? Why am I stressed?
And if there's a situation that I need to change, that's fine.
(28:46):
At least I've analyzed it with a clear mind. If it's a situation where,
you know, I need to just work through it because I need to grow resilience to
it, that's good to know, too.
And being willing to work through it for my own personal sake and development
is important, too. I would also say is to stay positive and focus on the possibilities
(29:10):
of embracing change rather than dwelling on risks and failures.
If you've lost a loved one like I have, it would be very easy to just put your
head down and hide from the world. That isn't what you want to do.
And I think you know that deep down. You owe it to yourself to pick up your
head and square your shoulders to face forward. forward, please do it for yourself now and in the future.
(29:35):
Find your motivation and cling to it, even if you have small motivations that
you can focus on each day and each hour.
One step towards moving forward in life is to focus on the present moment.
That's really hard sometimes because I don't necessarily always like my present moment.
By being mindful and aware of my thoughts and actions, I'm very self-aware of
(29:59):
what triggers my grief when it is healthy and when it's not.
I have very traumatic recall of those last weeks, days, hours,
or minutes, but those are not healthy or fair when they plague my heart or mind.
And also, I know what triggers will happen sometimes.
(30:19):
Sometimes I know something will trigger, like holidays or birthdays or seeing
somebody for the first time that I haven't seen since I lost Carlos.
Other times, just going to the store as a minefield emotionally.
But I think the difference is, or perhaps the opportunity, is that I'm very aware of it.
(30:40):
And I try to face it head on.
I know that it's like, oh, I could avoid going to the store.
I could avoid seeing this person. I could avoid doing this or that or going
out to this event or whatever.
That's kind of unrealistic, right? We can't just never go to Walmart again.
We can't just say, I'm not going to see so-and-so who's a family member or similar.
(31:04):
Whatever your situation is, I think the goal is to say, okay,
I know there's triggers.
I know that it's going to happen. Grief is going to ambush me.
I know that something's going to happen that's going to make me cry.
The grief is always there. Just remember that. The grief is always there.
(31:26):
It's not something that you did wrong when it happens.
It's not something that you can just avoid by doing nothing. Because guess what?
Whether you stay home or not, or whether you do nothing that you think triggers
it or not, it's still there. It's going to come.
It's like, if you don't get triggered at the store, you'll probably be triggered
making dinner or something.
(31:46):
So it will happen no matter what you do. So are you going to be controlled by that?
Are we going to stop living because it might ambush us sometime somewhere?
It's going to happen. It'll ambush us regardless. So face it and focus on living onwards.
I had that happen just the other day. I was having a great day at work,
you know, just coming along, doing everything great, you know, accomplishing a lot.
(32:09):
All of a sudden, I was on the couch between meetings crying. Why?
I have no idea. It wasn't in plan. It wasn't a trigger. It wasn't, I don't know.
And so it's going to happen no matter what we do. Are we going to be controlled by that?
What I did is I knew I had 20 minutes between meetings. I cried.
(32:31):
I let it all out. It was some ugly cry.
And then I kind of picked myself up by my bootstraps. I kind of wiped my face.
And I went back to work. And that's how I try to control it while I was also
giving it space to be because it's going to happen no matter what.
So just remember that nothing about living onwards means you're moving on.
(32:53):
The memories, the people, the photos, the items are all still very real and
present in reality or in our hearts and minds.
By facing life with grief, you're moving forward, not on.
You're saying, I'm going to live
with my grief. I'm going to find a path forward for my sake, my sanity.
And an essential part of that for me is to set realistic goals every single
(33:16):
day, sometimes every hour, depending on how bad the day is. Let's be honest.
Sometimes just getting up out of bed in the morning is a heck of a great goal.
Sometimes that goal for some people is as simple as taking a shower and going
out to get coffee today, any day.
Like, let's just go get a coffee every day, even if we're doing it alone.
We're going to leave the house.
We're going to get dressed. We're going to leave the house. We're going to go
(33:38):
to the coffee shop. We're going to interact with the person at the window,
maybe laugh, maybe throw a joke out.
Going to get a coffee, drink it there, or bring it home.
That's an okay goal. It's a goal, right?
Sometimes that goal is to get through the workday without crying,
just like I just shared. Sometimes that's a big goal.
Other times that goal is to get a good night's rest. Oh, I don't sleep.
(33:59):
I don't know how people sleep. I don't sleep, and I sleep awful no matter what I do.
Sometimes people lovingly say, well, you should sleep more. It's important.
Yeah, that's great. I agree. But someone tell my heart and mind that I need the same.
So that, to some people, might seem super minor because they're not living with grief.
(34:24):
But most days, that might.
Be enough for me. If I get a good night's sleep, I feel like I'm a new person.
Like I lived life by letting myself sleep. Doesn't solve the grief.
It doesn't mean that it was a great day, but oh boy, that goal of falling asleep
and having a good night's sleep, if I achieve that, I met that goal.
(34:46):
And maybe some other days, if you don't fall to the floor curled at a ball crying,
we're going to call that a win too.
If you feel comfortable, I would say share your goals with a friend,
a family member, a therapist, or even a pastor, the right person will understand
what you're doing and that you're trying to pass, I'm sorry,
you're trying to find a path forward.
(35:08):
Towards living onwards.
And your journey is your journey alone. Nobody else can help you write this journey.
And in a lot of ways, that sucks too.
I wish someone could tell me, here's what you do. Here's the A to B to C to get to D.
No matter who you talk to, They're not going to be able to tell you that for you.
(35:29):
So that's part of your goal is just understanding that and not expecting other
people to define it for you.
They can help provide guidance. They can encourage you.
And sometimes if you're talking to the right people, you might just say you're
not okay. Hey, hey, it was a bad day.
I wanted to do this and that today.
(35:52):
I wanted to take the dog to the vet. I wanted to, you know, get up and go to coffee.
I wanted to work a full day. I wanted to go to dinner with my friends.
And oh my goodness, I didn't even take a shower.
If it's the right person you're talking to, that's okay.
Sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is admit, I did nothing.
(36:14):
We did nothing we hoped to do today.
But the biggest thing is your goal is to do better tomorrow.
And that's the thing. It's like, don't give up. Don't get stuck.
Don't feel like it's impossible, even if today it was impossible.
I've had those days. I know you have. of. Lean into the folks who love you and
don't judge you and share as much or as little as you want.
(36:38):
Just make sure they know. I think it's important, and I've had to do this myself,
to share that you're talking to them not because you expect them to fix it.
You're talking to them because you trust them with your goals and your journey.
So I think I myself am very guilty of when you tell me something,
(37:01):
a problem, a challenge, whatever, I go straight into fix-it mode.
I'm like, you got to try this, you got to do that, you got to whatever.
You're not looking for that when you're talking to these folks.
And if you are, you're never going to be happy because nobody else can fix it for you.
But what you can do is tell them and save yourself some pain later in your conversations.
(37:24):
Look, I'm sharing this with you because I trust you and I love you and I need
to share with someone, but I don't need you to fix it.
And often I just need you to listen.
That might help level set it a bit because I am the person that sometimes will
just want to fix it and you're going to be sitting there going,
you don't understand my situation.
(37:45):
So just sharing that because that's something that I often have to learn myself
when I react to other people sharing And I've had to kind of teach myself not to react that way.
So in my own case, I'll share some things that I needed to achieve,
some goals that might sound silly to others, but you know what?
(38:06):
No one else is in my grief journey but me.
I knew, for example, that I was grief eating, but I couldn't just set a goal
like, you know, let's lose X pounds by 2025 or whatever.
That was too big, and it needed to be more detailed for me to feel like I did something.
If it takes me a year to achieve a goal, how would I celebrate in the meantime?
(38:30):
I'm always chasing this goal.
Good goal or bad goal. I mean, it's not a comment on the goal.
It's more like if it's way out there in the future, it's so big.
I have nothing to celebrate in the in-between.
I also haven't really set realistic, like what I can do to help get there.
So I needed to to set goals or tasks that helped me progress and see my progress in what I was doing.
(38:56):
So I broke it down into simple steps, small steps, like I'm going to track my
eating in an app every day.
I'm going to go to the gym at least three times a week.
I'm going to weigh myself every week and similar. I know I like to travel. That was another goal.
I know I like to travel. Well, well, it's great to say, you know, I want to travel more.
(39:16):
But that doesn't actually make the travel happen. You know, it's like if it's
not on the calendar, will it ever actually happen?
Or will it always be this broad, I want to travel more goal?
So what I did is pulled out the calendar for the next year and intentionally
picked dates for future trips and then booked them when it made sense.
(39:39):
As a result, I have trips going through the end of January, roughly every other month.
I knew that the house, another goal, another goal I have or had is that the
house was full of emotional triggers because we bought this house together.
But I knew with the house full of triggers that I couldn't just say,
(40:04):
everything here makes me sad.
Everything here upsets me or my house upsets me.
I didn't want to have to move. I didn't want to be sad every time I walked through the house.
And so instead, I started breaking it down into steps that I could take and that I could measure.
And so what I did is I walked around the house identifying what triggers I could
(40:28):
change, and I broke those down into a long but small size list of items.
And I'm still working through it months later, but I had to start somewhere, everywhere.
In order to help how I felt walking through the house.
So, for example, the week Carlos died, I had family gather up and donate all
(40:50):
medical stuff and reminders of medical stuff.
We also changed the bedding set in the guest room, which had been turned into
a hospital room of sorts, so that I didn't see the same room every time I walked
by and have, like, a clear reminder of those days.
I changed the art on the walls to stuff that was meaningful to me, not just us.
(41:13):
I donated most of his clothes, and I set up an area on his side of the bed with
some of my favorite pictures of him or us.
I started somewhere, anywhere, and I'm still going. I suspect this is a journey,
this thing called moving forward or living onwards, that I'll never finish.
But that's okay. I'm on the journey.
(41:34):
I'm not stuck in park back on January 28th and just staying there.
Most importantly, we all need to remind each other to stay open-minded and flexible
when adapting to change.
Life is full of unexpected twists and turns, and we know that we want to find
ways to navigate life with resilience and grace.
(41:54):
This situation almost broke me in December and January. And in February,
I didn't know if I'd make it through after losing Carlos.
I don't want a break. I want to be resilient for our daughter and myself.
I also just don't want to fall apart and be a burden on others.
I can struggle and fall, and I do. but I want to be true to myself and pick
(42:16):
myself up whenever I can and however I can.
I think we know life is filled with tragedy, challenges, and unfairness,
but will that define your every action?
Or will you have the courage to pick up your head, square your shoulders,
and focus on living onwards?
That's a question that only you can answer. When we fall and collapse,
(42:39):
it's an opportunity for growth and development.
It's not that we screwed up or, oh, I should have done this or that better. Sure.
But in our grief, we're surviving. We're doing the best we know how to do in
an absolutely impossible and unfair situation.
By being aware of what happened and perhaps why it happened,
(43:00):
right or wrong, we open ourselves subs up to new perspectives and insights that
help us the next time we face the similar situation.
We can embrace these moments, even if they're so hard, so that we can define
how to use them to move forward and not on, to focus on living onwards, is the most important.
(43:21):
Viewing mistakes not as failures but as stepping stones toward progress is really
important to me, and I think it will be or is for you.
Instead of dwelling on past blunders, just focus on the lessons they offer and
use them as fuel for your continuous growth.
It's okay to stumble. We all do. What truly matters is what you do once you
(43:44):
stumble, how you rise from that stumble.
That's what defines you. I stumble. I know you do too. And I often get mad at myself when I do.
I hope to turn that into thinking about what I could have done differently or
whether I would change anything at all.
You have to face it and say, what happened? Why did it happen?
(44:05):
Should I change anything or should I do it again?
That's self-retrospective. That's introspective thinking.
That's about the only way you evolve and the only way we can get through this
journey and move forward.
And so I think we know that whatever you do, whether you change a thing,
you gain that wisdom and resilience we need to get through our grief journey
(44:27):
and everything else life throws at us then, now, and in the future.
It allows us to break free from stagnation and evolve into better versions of ourselves.
At least I hope I'll evolve because I know I have a lot of evolving to do.
So let's go ahead and take that leap of faith.
Embrace the change that we have to have because we can't stay where we are. It no longer exists.
(44:53):
And watch how our lives can transform together. By embracing change,
letting go of the past, and taking risks for personal growth,
we can move towards a brighter future.
Living life fully and authentically means not guarding a grave,
but instead honoring our loved ones by finding purpose again and continuing to grow.
(45:14):
Grow remember this grief thing is
a natural part of life but it doesn't have to define
us by facing our fears head
on and stepping out of our comfort zones we open ourselves up to new possibilities
and opportunities for happiness in life so let's let's figure out how to let
(45:35):
go of what's holding you back not let go of the people we love or the memories that we cherish
but to let go of what's holding us back so
that we can face the unknown with courage and gain
trust in our ability to create a good
future that can again have joy love and potential the person you lost is no
(45:56):
longer here to define you or guide you for better or for worse you are here
though i am here and we owe it to ourselves to step into living onwards that's the end of the episode.
Thank you for joining me today. I am Sarah, and as I said, I am authentically grieving.
I would ask that you subscribe today to start your journey towards healing and
(46:18):
discovering the resilience within you.
Share this podcast with anyone you think would be interested,
and just know that most people find podcasts because a friend recommended it
to them, not because some algorithm found it for them.
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