January 7, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode, Kendel and Rachel kick off Season Two with updates and reflections on their journey through grief. They discuss the evolution of their podcast, the importance of sharing grief stories, and the lessons learned from their experiences.
The conversation highlights the power of community, personal growth, and the excitement for new beginnings in 2025. In this conversation, Kendel and Rachel explore the profound impact of grief on their lives, discussing how loss reshapes priorities, planning, and personal growth. They emphasize the importance of community in navigating grief and the necessity of embracing change as a part of life. The discussion also touches on the misconceptions surrounding grief and the need for more open conversations about it.
Looking ahead to 2025, they share their excitement for new plans, including guest appearances and a focus on healing and personal development.
Looking for the book club? Episodes are now here
Resources:
In Crisis? Call or text 988
SAMHSA: Substance abuse and mental health Health services administration
The Dinner Party: Not Your Parent’s Grief Group
Grief Share: Grief and loss support groups
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Two Girls with Grief podcast,
(00:02):
the podcast where we share our real
and raw experiences with grief.
Whether it's tears or laughter,
or maybe a little bit of both,
we're here to figure it out in real time.
We are your hosts.
I'm Kendall Rogers.
And I'm Rachel Dwyer.
And while we're not professionals,
we are professional grievers.
Every Tuesday, we bring you honest conversations
(00:24):
that break down the stigma of grief,
one episode at a time,
because no one should have to grieve alone.
So grab a cup of coffee, settle in,
and let's navigate this journey together.
Welcome to season two of Two Girls with Grief.
(00:50):
We're so excited you're here.
So we're kicking off the new season,
and with a fresh year, we have some updates for y'all.
First thing on the agenda is
we're gonna keep our episodes every Tuesday.
So the normal grief episodes will be Tuesday,
as y'all have been expecting to hear them.
But we're gonna be moving the book club episodes.
It's gonna be called Griefy Girls Book Club.
(01:11):
It's gonna be on its own podcast.
We can separate them.
You're always invited to join us there,
but we wanted to separate it.
So if you're into the griefy stuff, you're here.
If you wanna listen to more of the book stuff,
you can go over there.
Those episodes will be going live on Thursdays
for all you fellow readers.
And we also include a link to that podcast
with the name in our show notes.
(01:32):
So our sub stack will be coming out on Mondays now,
and it'll be twice a month.
And then you can catch the video versions
of Two Girls with Grief on Wednesdays on our YouTube,
and then the Griefy Girls Book Club on Fridays
on its separate YouTube that's called Griefy Girls Book Club.
Yeah, so big changes already.
So this episode, we really wanted to do some reflection,
(01:55):
looking ahead and focus on some lessons we learned in 2024.
Some differences in our podcast is that our season two
will be filled with guests besides this episode
because we wanted to reintroduce ourselves,
reintroduce our new format for season two.
So this episode will be the only single episode
with just me and Kendall because we thought
(02:16):
it was a good time to bring in different grief voices,
different grief stories.
We have our singular experiences with grief,
but we really wanted to expand upon it.
So that's what season two will be.
So first we wanted to reflect on our full season
of grief conversations.
So Kendall, how have you felt your grief journey
(02:39):
and connecting on our podcast and in our grief community?
For one, season one was incredible.
We met so many new people.
We had so many people reach out to us.
We got so many comments of how much just the advice
that we were sharing and our experiences were helping people.
That was so rewarding.
Rachel and I, every time we saw a new comment come in
or somebody email us just saying that what we were talking
(03:02):
about helped them was not making all the pain worth it,
but it just was this silver lining to it all.
I didn't realize how much this could be helping people.
It was something I wanted when I was in like the thick
of grieving with someone like us helping me through it.
So I really hope that those listening, I appreciate y'all.
(03:23):
We thank you so much for being listeners.
We really do hope that all this advice and all this pain
and all this like exploration in the journey helps you
in your own grieving process.
For myself personally, I feel more attuned to my grief.
Like I'm more aligned with it, I guess.
It's not a separate part of me.
And it doesn't feel like it controls me as much.
(03:45):
I don't want to say like I can control my grief now,
but it doesn't feel like it controls me.
As it has in the previous years where it did feel
like the grief was in control
and I didn't know how to navigate that.
This podcast has allowed me to feel more present
in those feelings, both in the worst parts of grief,
but also the best parts and the happy parts
(04:07):
and the joyous parts, which was unexpected for me.
But what was your feelings after season one?
There's power with saying your grief out loud
and sharing your thoughts out loud.
And it was my idea to start the podcast,
but I had never spoken about it before.
And so it was also a really uncomfortable feeling too,
(04:30):
to share the things out loud and be open with my feelings
because I am not someone that shares a ton
of feelings to people.
So it was like constant exercising a muscle
that I just never used.
Besides people that are no longer here,
I would tell them all my things.
But other than that, I always was a little bit more private
with my feelings.
(04:52):
So this whole journey has just been very therapeutic.
I feel so much lighter having shared it.
And it's allowed me to get closer friendships
and closer to my friends and not keep everything so distant
because I feel like I used to put everything in a box
and separate it.
Like this is, I'm just living my life.
We're not gonna talk about my grief stuff.
(05:13):
I'm gonna keep it separate from everybody.
But like you said, it's just a part of me
and allowing it to just be out in the open
and share it when I want to share the feelings
and really talk it through has been really helpful.
And it's been so nice to just build a community
of other grievers and even in our grief support group
and all the people that we have conversations with
(05:34):
on TikTok and Instagram and through emails
has just been really nice.
Like there's so many nice people that are grieving
that are just looking for community and looking for support.
It's been a lot of evolution for myself personally
with my grief, but it's just been so rewarding
to connect with people and share stories.
(05:55):
And I really feel like you connect people on a deeper level
when you have this kind of grief connection
and get that type of pain.
But it also has allowed me to get closer to my friends
where I feel like I kept it from them.
So I think it's been a very good journey overall.
Good, yeah, I completely agree.
What were the unexpected lessons or shifts
that emerged when we started opening up about grief?
(06:18):
I mentioned in my last question of feeling lighter,
but also feeling more comfortable
to be in the spotlight in a sense.
Like we're still a small podcast, we're growing,
but we're putting ourselves out there.
And I didn't realize until doing this podcast
of how much I hid myself from being seen.
(06:41):
I was just getting hit with all these really hard things,
like with sickness and hospitals and people passing away.
That I just didn't like people's pity
and I didn't like that feeling
that I almost was like incognito.
I just didn't want to be in the spotlight.
I feel like I lost a lot of my spark because of that too,
(07:03):
because with grief, you feel like so many pieces
of yourself are missing and you have to be very proactive
to feel like you can build yourself up again.
And I took a long time to do that.
So through this podcast and through this journey
and then having friends like you
and building more grief community,
it's just been so much more empowering
(07:23):
and feeling comfortable seeing my face,
even like posting on social media with stuff.
Like I have never been the person to do that.
It's hard for people to see you and to share things
and have an opinion on what you're doing and feeling.
But knowing that it's okay
and like it's okay to step in the spotlight.
It's okay to take your place.
It's okay to try things.
(07:43):
And I had stopped doing that for so long
because it just feels scary
when you don't have the support of people
that you want to run things by or gone
to take on something new.
And I feel like I hid from trying new things
because of that for so long.
So it's just been a lot of lessons
of like stepping into your power, stepping into the light
and letting yourself shine.
(08:04):
Even if you don't have the people
that you want to be there with you shining, it's okay.
And it's an important step to take.
You still have to dream about your life,
be excited about your life.
And I feel like those are things that I stopped doing.
It wasn't that I wasn't having fun or having good moments
and having things to look forward to at all,
but looking forward to like the future future
that I had stopped doing.
(08:26):
And this whole process has made me excited again for that
and be a dreamer again,
which I feel like I kind of, I gave up on for a while.
But what about you?
Yeah, you mentioned in last season,
and I think in some sense it became our theme of season one
was finding joy in creating those little moments
(08:48):
to make yourself happy in the thick of grieving.
The sadness is all around you
and you can't control the sadness.
So as a griever, you just succumb to it and you live in it
and you think that's your life.
And for you to bring up ways to create your happiness
and almost giving the agency back to the griever and say,
(09:11):
you have all rights to be happy in your life
and you deserve to after so much sadness
that you've experienced.
And that was something that really has shifted my mindset
when it came to my grief of that.
It's not gonna go away,
but I can create my own happiness at the same time.
I've been trying to get with the mindset,
you can't be the passenger in your own life.
And I feel like grief is controlled,
(09:32):
leads you in different directions.
And it's really hard to jump back and be like,
I'm gonna take control and I'm gonna decide
how I want this to go.
When grief really takes you down
and take so much from you that it's hard to be like,
no, I'm not gonna do this anymore.
I'm gonna do something different.
So it's been a great year dealing
(09:53):
with all those different things and figuring out
and really confronting it
because there's definitely a lot of things
I ran from for sure.
So looking ahead to 2025 and it's crazy that it's 2025,
we're actually recording this on January 1st,
which is crazy.
So how are you feeling as we step into a new year
with fresh possibilities?
(10:15):
I'm in this center of stress and strife right now.
And I would say it's kind of manifested
into a physical thing.
As even this morning I'm having car issues
and it's causing so much frustration.
And I call my sister on the verge of tears being like,
(10:37):
why is this happening?
Why would this happen to me?
It's January 1, it's a new year.
Why did this happen on Christmas day?
All this stuff.
And she does a great job handling my random ups
and downs of emotions.
But really when I was talking to her about it,
I realized so much of this stress
was still stemming from my grief.
(10:57):
That because of my dad not being here,
there's a lot of things that still five years
after the fact, I'm still dealing with.
And to think that ignorantly,
I had packaged it all up and put it away
and was done with it.
When these moments arise that I still need a dad.
I still need help with these things
that I don't understand when it comes to
(11:18):
how do you switch a car title?
Things that nobody teaches you.
So that's what I'll be figuring out later.
It was a reminder that the grief is still there.
The grief still jumps out in ugly ways at times.
But I can now recognize it easier now.
And I hope with this new year,
(11:40):
as I'm in this middle of a lot of change,
that instead of thinking it's a reflection of myself
or a reflection that my life is horrible,
I can recognize it as this is just a spoke of grief
speaking out and being angry
and being hurt that your dad isn't here.
Rather than it being a me thing
(12:03):
or the universe is mad at me and punishing me type of thing.
It's funny that grief manifests itself
in so many different ways.
And you think that it only manifests itself
as super sad, depressive modes,
but still it can come out in these bouts of anger.
Still, this is still five years later.
And even today, even this morning,
(12:24):
I was angry that my dad didn't get this thing done
before he passed.
Nothing he could have done.
I mean, it wasn't in his plan to die,
but these little things, a reminder of like,
I'm still working through a lot of these feelings
that I didn't realize I still had.
But what about you?
I was highly dependent on my parents, especially.
More so my sister, I feel like because my dad was American,
(12:46):
because his dad was American,
but he grew up in the Philippines and moved here when he was 18
and he joined the Navy.
And my mom was a naturalized citizen.
But I think because of those stuff,
it's like they figure it out as they go too.
So my sister was really my person
to like figure everything out before me and help me.
So I was highly dependent on them.
(13:07):
Like Google didn't exist.
It was Lori Hotline for everything.
So definitely as people passed away, it was like,
oh shit, I need to figure things out.
And that still happens because you're like,
when did adulting get so hard?
And it's like, you don't have a safety net
because the people are gone.
So I definitely relate to that where it's like,
(13:28):
you have to figure so much stuff out
because you don't have the people
that would help you figure it out.
And now you're like, oh, I actually so much more independent
than I ever wanted to be, but it's fine.
But to go back to the question of how I'm feeling
as you step into your New York with fresh possibilities,
I woke up this morning.
(13:48):
I signed up for like a 30 day reformer Pilates class.
And I went and I was like one of the four people
that showed up because it was New Year's Day.
So I had a good day and then I was like,
I'm gonna treat myself to a nice coffee
because I always see people say like,
act how you want your year to be and like do the things
and practice your life and how you want it to be.
(14:10):
So I was like, I'm gonna treat myself to this nice coffee.
It was $8 and I was like, that's crazy.
In this economy?
Yeah.
And I was like, oh my God, San Francisco.
But I was walking back to my car
and I was like juggling my water bottle and my cup.
And then I dropped half of my coffee onto my seat.
(14:32):
No.
And I was like, $4, literally $4 is on pay.
Just go on.
Yeah, and I was like, oh my God.
And I had a moment where I was like pissed off.
But then I think stuff like that races in your head,
like, oh my God, it's start of the year.
I dropped this, I dropped that, blah, blah, blah.
You know, like you start freaking out
about like, what does this mean?
(14:52):
And in reality, it's not omens.
What it means is that I had my phone in my hand.
I was looking at my phone.
I was also holding a water bottle in a way that was,
I didn't need to, like it had a handle.
I could have held it better.
And the reality was I wasn't being mindful.
I got into my car and I had too much going on in my hands.
And I had pockets, I had a bag.
Like I didn't need to be doing that.
(15:14):
And I think sometimes it's so easy.
And I think even with a grieve, it's like you react to things.
But sometimes it's just like, you really just need to be
in the moment.
And in the moment, I just needed to focus on getting myself
into the car when I have a hot beverage
and not juggle things and be looking at my phone
when I don't need to be.
There's no reason my phone needed to be out.
(15:35):
So I think sometimes it's like, you have to be able
to de-center the situation.
Like you said, it's like, it's not this huge world sign.
Like I did what I needed to do to feel like I'm getting
a good start for the day, which was wake up,
walk James in, eat my breakfast,
and get to this class at 8 a.m.
Even though it was cold, even though I haven't taken
(15:57):
reformer Pilates in a while.
Like I made the decisions like,
this is how I'm gonna start my year
and I'm gonna start off strong and making sure
that I'm focusing on my health and happiness.
And so I did that.
And I spilled the coffee, but so what?
Like that was my fault.
I was just juggling too much in my hands.
But I think otherwise I've woke up feeling very hopeful
(16:19):
and very like determined.
I feel like there's so many exciting things
that we wanna do.
I think there's just so many exciting things
that I know will happen in 2025.
So I think it was a good balance of like checking myself
and like not letting myself run away with that.
With like just something as like spilling my coffee
and having to sit on it as I drive home.
(16:40):
But then I came back, James was so happy to see me.
So excited, like looked at me like I was the best thing
in this world to exist.
So really I should be grateful for that basically,
like to come back to that.
So I am feeling good into the new year
and I am happy that I got my butt up to do that.
I'm also doing 75 soft with some of my friends.
(17:03):
It's the chiller version of 75 hard
where you do like one 45 minute workout a day.
You're supposed to like drink a certain amount of water,
read, I think you're supposed to eat like mostly healthy,
but it's not like super strict,
but you're mostly healthy and drink a certain amount of water
and read five pages a day, which that part is like,
(17:23):
I just got a new book, that's no problem.
I'm gonna exceed that goal for sure.
But yeah, so I'm doing this with some friends.
So it's keeping ourselves accountable.
I changed our group, our Instagram, not our Instagram,
our chat group to 75 soft crew 2025.
So I was the first one to do my workout
(17:44):
and I was bugging them to like get on it.
So all good things, I think it's always good
to take care of your health.
And I always feel good when I'm in good health
and working out and part of my goal is like
to shed any leftover grief weight that I had
and just feeling happy to get back into the tip top shape.
(18:07):
So I feel good about it.
So what is exciting you the most in 2025?
And personally and podcast wise.
One big thing is with grief,
it can really make you look at the new year differently.
It makes you feel like it's another year
(18:28):
without my loved ones.
I mean, it's quickly gonna be nine years
and seven years without my mom
because they both passed away in February.
And then it's gonna be 11 without my dad.
And even saying those out loud just like gives me a ping
in the chest because it's like, that's a crazy amount
of time that I've had to live without them.
So that always is like a weird thing
that I think a lot of groupers feel just like another year
(18:49):
I have to be without them.
But this was the first year that I felt wholeheartedly
excited for the start of the year since they've been gone.
Like just at pure excitement,
like this is gonna be a good year and I know it is.
And I'm gonna make sure that I do what I need to do
to make it sure it's a good year.
(19:11):
2024, I knew it was a year of change.
I was optimistic for the year
but I knew I wasn't doing enough.
I wasn't taking care of myself enough.
I wasn't focusing on my happiness
and really what I wanted enough.
And I knew I needed to change.
So I think 2025, it's like, I know that I've been doing
the things that I wanna do.
(19:32):
I've been putting in the work for it.
So I just feel so much more optimistic for 2025.
And I think it's a big deal to be excited for the new year
when you haven't in so long.
So that is a big thing for me to feel excited for that.
And for the podcast, I'm just excited.
We've already filmed some of the episodes with guests
(19:53):
but I'm excited for all the other conversations
and to learn from other people's experiences.
Everyone's grief is different.
Even if people lost the same people,
even if two people lost a spouse, a daughter,
parent, whatever, everyone feels differently.
Everyone does it differently.
I'm excited to have these conversations.
(20:15):
One, because I just feel like you experience
like a deep connection with someone.
It's just great to have those conversations.
Those like heart to heart conversations.
But also I think it's always good just having more
of these conversations out there
and we're getting cool people to come on.
And I think that will bring a good diverse set of topics
that we're gonna talk about.
So I'm really excited for that.
And just like other things we wanna do,
(20:37):
we separated the Grief of Girls book podcast
to its own thing on Thursdays and we both love reading.
And I think that's been a really fun, lighthearted portion,
I think, minus that some of the books make me cry.
Kendall's picks, but it's been a therapeutic,
but also just like a fun thing.
(20:57):
I think it's a little bit more lighthearted.
And also what we can post,
I think is a little bit more fun.
So I'm excited for all the things.
And I think I'm excited that we separated them out
because I do think that they deserve their own attention
and the grief conversations are gonna be great this year.
And then the grief books, there's so many that we can read
and we both love reading.
So I'm sure we're gonna have a really long list for that.
(21:19):
But what about you?
Yeah, personally, this will be a year of a lot of changes,
taking chances and trying something new
and trusting myself that it'll be okay.
I am someone who can plan forever
and be hindered by all the little details.
So just trying to trust in myself and trust
(21:40):
that I've done everything within my power
to make something good in this world.
And I can reveal more of that later.
But in regard to the podcast,
I agree meeting other grievers,
whether they're guests or whether they're listeners.
We've loved getting to talk with y'all
and learn about y'all's stories.
(22:02):
And you're right, there's like a camaraderie built
when you find out someone has lost somebody.
It's like you're a little,
you're not so isolated anymore.
It's like you have this horrible experience
that bonds you with another stranger.
And that's, it's really,
it's really interesting that our worst experiences
(22:23):
can unite us in an odd way.
I know I mentioned on previous podcast episodes
that the grieving community online is so kind
and welcoming and warm.
And although we're all sad,
it's such a accepting, just a very kind quarter
of the internet, especially when the internet right now
is kind of horrific and a cesspool.
(22:44):
The griever community is really a great place
to be a part of, considering it's our worst experiences
that brought us together.
And through those painful experiences,
trying to build something positive
and find the silver lining in this
and continue on legacies of the people we lost.
These are such beautiful things to do with one's life.
(23:05):
When you've lost somebody all of a sudden,
you're like, I gotta make my life meaningful
and purposeful and make it a better place
because we've seen how bad it can be.
It's funny that you said that you are such a planner.
I used to be such a planner and I say like a square.
I overthink so many things.
I'm like, oh, that sounds responsible.
I shouldn't do that.
And you have to stop planning when all your plans
(23:28):
fall through that you don't have control over
because people die.
So it really changed me in that way where it was like,
you can plan for so much.
You can think that this is exactly
how things are gonna go.
And then you kind of have to like throw your hands up
and be like, this isn't at all what I planned,
but I'm gonna make the best out of this situation
(23:49):
because I deserve to still have a good life
even though so much shit has happened.
But yeah, being a planner and having stuff like that happen
really throws you off for sure.
Yeah, I have a running theory.
If there's a sociologist, this is for you,
that if you're a type A person before somebody dies,
(24:10):
you're gonna lose parts of those type A-ness afterwards
because you realize being type A
and being like anxiety ridden to get everything perfect
does not keep people alive.
Like that's a sad reality of like a type A person.
I used to be so type A.
I'm now like the most type B person,
(24:31):
which is so weird because I look back and I was like,
oh my gosh, I was such a different person.
I cared so much about,
I don't wanna say irrelevant things.
They were just different things.
Now I care more about like,
I look around at problems people are facing
and I'm like, but is that life or death?
Because I've once had to make life and death decisions
for somebody and that really puts in perspective
(24:53):
for me and for other people's problems of,
is that problem actually like as stressful
as you're making it?
But then on the adverse side,
I think if you were a type B person before somebody died
and now after a loss, you're type A
because you're thinking, oh, I should have been more
on top of everything to keep them alive.
(25:15):
And I've seen this like weird pattern with people.
Like, so if you're a sociologist,
please take that run with that.
I would love to see the results.
Let us know, we'll have you on the podcast
and we'll talk about that.
We'll have you on the podcast.
I'm very interested in seeing that.
We're gonna have a three hour long episode about that
to figure that out.
I have seen that too.
And I get it where it's like, you're such a planet
and you're like, okay, what did that get me?
(25:37):
And then the flip side where you're like, okay,
I need to plan everything because all these things happen
that I wasn't in control of.
I can see where that could take you either direction.
I definitely sell planner in some things.
I like to be organized.
I like to, especially for like trips,
like going on vacations and stuff.
I'm not like, we have to do every single thing,
but I like to have restaurants picked out
(25:58):
and like things to do and places to go to.
But we don't have to go to everything,
but there's usually like a few places where I'm like,
I need to go here.
But other than that, like,
I feel like I've chilled out a lot with the planning,
but in terms of like stuff like this,
it's like, I do like to plan.
And obviously you have to show up
and be reliable and get it done.
It teaches you to just have a mix and like,
(26:19):
you don't know how much time you have on this earth.
You don't know what's gonna happen
and you have to make the best out of it.
So that's, it's just been a crazy life journey
full of lessons, that's for sure.
So what would be your biggest grief lesson
that you learned in 2024?
And how do you think it's gonna shape you for 2025?
(26:40):
Yeah, other than the one thing I mentioned earlier
about having to go out and create your own joy,
cause it's not gonna be that state of mind
you're gonna be in all the time as a griever
and that it should be your agency
to go out and manifest that.
Another one I would say would be
(27:00):
if your life is not making you happy
or joyous, perhaps it could be
cause there's dissonance in it
and things are not meshing the way it did.
And I say that out of that loss changes you
and loss changes your goals
and loss changes what you want out of life.
(27:21):
And that what you wanted before in life
might not be what you want now.
And things are gonna start happening
that create division in your life where you're like,
man, this is just not working for me anymore.
And how do I bridge my life back into harmony?
And so, I think as grievers,
(27:43):
one thing we're all terrified of is change
because it's change that made us lose people we love.
It's change that put us in these situations.
It's change that, especially if you've lost parents
or a spouse or a child and like everything
in your life changed, like financially things changed.
Your job had a change.
(28:03):
It is something that is a catalyst for so many things
and it happens when you're not ready.
Like nobody's ever ready for someone to pass.
And I've had to, and I'm working on this.
I'm not saying like I am a true follower of this ideology
cause it is hard for me to still do this,
but I see change, especially after loss of my dad,
(28:26):
that it must automatically be a bad thing.
And I'm trying really hard to tell myself,
sure, bad things can happen,
but good things can also happen
if you allow that space for it.
So that is one hard concept.
It's like a really hard pill to swallow
to be like telling change to a griever.
Like we don't want our lives to change.
(28:47):
We didn't want it to change when we lost our people.
And yet here we are.
We had to, we had no choice.
We've lived through these changes.
And when more change begins to happen in your life,
I think it's really easy to go back into that feeling
of like, I don't want to lean into that
because the last time a big change happened,
bad things happened.
(29:07):
And to remind myself that life is nothing but change.
Life is gonna change all the time.
The seasons change all the time.
You will change all the time.
And that that can also be get good change.
Good changes can come.
Good things can come out of change as well.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, something that we have talked about briefly
is the thought of like manifestation
(29:30):
and just putting, basically putting good things out there,
but also knowing that by opening yourself up,
that you're allowing good things to come to you.
One hard thing is when you were optimistic
and maybe it's prayers, maybe it's manifesting,
you were so optimistic about the world
and how things were gonna work out and then they don't.
(29:52):
It's so much harder to then be the person that's like,
my life is gonna work out well.
Good things are gonna happen to me.
I deserve good things because you get beat down so much
and loss takes so much from you and sickness.
And even if it's like, Kendall lost one person,
I lost three, but she still has to deal with
(30:12):
so many ups and downs with her dad.
And it's like every time, of course,
she wanted it to have a better, better result,
but there's so many complications,
so many things that are happening.
Just those moments, it's like you have hope
because you need hope.
You need to be hopeful that something good is gonna happen.
And when it doesn't, and then when the ultimate one
(30:33):
disappoints you that they're actually gone,
and that's like, there's no take backs from that.
They're erased from this planet
and you just have to keep going.
That is like you're glued to the floor
and you have to rip yourself up off the ground.
And not only keep going, but then want more for yourself.
And like you said, it changes you.
(30:54):
It changes what you want,
but it's like another next level to be like,
I'm gonna put good things out there.
Like we're doing the podcast,
we wanna help other grievers,
we want other people to feel better about their grief.
We wanna support them,
but we also want like good things to happen to us
because we're putting ourselves out there
and we want this to continue to grow.
It's really hard to get to that place
(31:16):
because it's so many steps to just want to be excited
or have anything to look forward to,
just even to function.
Like I definitely think there's years where I'm like,
I don't remember much of those years.
I was just trying to function
and I probably still went on trips,
I probably still had fun,
but I also was probably low functioning
(31:38):
in terms of just my feelings.
Like after heartbreak, after heartbreak, after heartbreak,
after heartbreak, after heartbreak, it's a lot
to just try to keep going
and you're like, I want to keep living a life.
But to get to the point where you're like,
no, I deserve to live a good life
and I deserve good things
and I'm gonna do my part to make that happen,
that's such a difficult thing.
(32:00):
And I've been watching this one family on TikTok
and her name's Debra Fink and she has stage four cancer
and she's been posting about her journey
and she's been sharing.
And despite her going on hospice, she's in pain,
she's still encouraging people
to spend time with your loved ones,
do good things, live your life.
And it's really hard to see grief in real time
(32:23):
and how hard it is.
It's amazing that Debra's even in the space at all
to want to help people and try to inspire people
while doing, going through that.
And I think that's a time where people are like,
oh, you're so strong, you're so strong.
And she's posted videos where she's being vulnerable
and honest and she's tired and she's scared.
And I think we don't talk enough about,
(32:44):
we always just straight go to like someone so strong,
someone you're so strong to deal with this,
but we don't focus more on all the emotions that happen.
If it's strength, even the right word,
because it's like, you don't always feel strong
in those moments, you're just trying to keep going.
And even on the flip side of not being the one actually sick
and in pain, literally, to see your mom like that
(33:06):
or to see any loved one like that,
it's heartbreaking, it's so hard.
And people are gonna say you're strong,
but you're like, I'm not strong.
I'm in that moment.
It's like that strength isn't what I'm feeling.
I'm feeling the worst of our felt.
I'm trying to hold on to hope.
And it's like, at some point, you know,
like I'm gonna be disappointed.
And I think stuff like that, it's like,
(33:29):
it's so interesting to see something so similar happen
to another family and see all those emotions,
but that all circles back to like,
biggest lesson is like, grief is so big
and it's so misunderstood.
And just how we talk about it
and how we support people, I think is hard, you know?
(33:50):
And everyone's different and it depends on how you're feeling
and how currently you're like reactive you are
in your grief and sensitive, you know?
And I don't blame people for being in those spaces.
It's a really hard thing.
Like you're just trying to survive.
And I understand that,
but I think the biggest lesson is like,
people don't get grief.
(34:11):
It needs to be talked about more.
We need to, by speaking about it, by sharing experiences,
by getting other people's experiences,
it has shaped me even more to own how hard it's been.
And just like reflect on every moment.
And just in looking back, I can be like,
I was really strong through a lot of that,
but I also was 20 other emotions and 20 other things.
(34:34):
And just giving myself credit where credit's due.
And then also knowing like, okay,
now I'm in a place where like I need to make these changes.
And that's been the biggest lesson
of like reflecting on the journey of like,
here's what I did well, here's what I wanna do better.
And not in those terms.
(34:55):
So some of it's like, it couldn't be helped.
Like you lose three family members
and then just back to your day, like,
and crush it at life.
Like that's really hard.
So I have to give myself grace for that too.
But I think acknowledging just everything I've been through
and now, okay, I'm in this place where it's like,
(35:16):
I went through all of that, I dealt with all of that.
And now I can take what I've learned, really digest it
and make it for a better future, I think.
To just be moving forward and to be in this place,
I'm like, that is a big win to have gone
through those types of things and want to be here
(35:38):
and want to be doing this and beyond.
I think just, it shaped me, it shaped everything about me.
Yeah, I think with the reminders
that our lives are so fragile and we can easily go back
to that place where we're so scared of.
And I talk about in a medical sense
because it's not quite the same for people
(36:00):
who've lost people in other ways.
But if you've lost people because of medical reasons,
like the fact I'm terrified of hospitals now,
like a place meant to save people and I hate hospitals.
Like I hate the beeps, I hate the lights.
Thank you for all the nurses out there
doing the most they can to save lives.
(36:22):
But they also know like sometimes it's a place
where people die and you begin to associate
those horrific memories with spaces like that.
My uncle passed away a few years ago
and it was my mom's brother.
And we already knew like it wasn't looking good.
And so we got, I don't want to say invited,
but like, can you come here?
(36:45):
And my aunt apologized and was like,
I'm so sorry we're making you be here
because of everything you've been through.
And it was just one of those things
where it was like, I appreciate her recognizing that,
but also it's like, it's my mom's brother.
Like, do I feel great here?
But it's just what you do for the people that you love.
(37:05):
And it wasn't easy, but it's like, life isn't easy
and you have to take those things as they come
and show up for people because that's what's important.
So even if that's the hard stuff, and like you said,
like we get one chance at this,
we get to decide how our life looks from here on out
(37:29):
despite what's happened and you have to take chances
and you have to go for it because you don't want to be
someone that like something happens
and just like you didn't try.
Yeah.
It's always better to try
and you should definitely always be trying to live
a life that fulfills you and is happy
and in their honor, but yours.
So yeah, a lot to think about going into 2025.
(37:53):
So on a happier note,
what can our listeners expect from us in 2025?
Any surprises or plans or anything
that we can announce to them?
We already mentioned that we're gonna be having guests
for 2025, probably said that prematurely in the episode,
but for me personally, I think we've just grown a lot
(38:17):
through the past first season and then our holiday episodes.
I think we've experienced so much growth through that.
I'm now excited to be more in a learning seat.
It's not that we won't be still sharing our thoughts
and opinions in these episodes,
but we're switching roles a little bit
(38:39):
that we're gonna be learning a lot through these episodes too.
So it's not just our experiences,
we're bringing other people in the conversations
that have different experiences, different thoughts,
different things to bring to the table.
So for me, that's just really exciting
to be able to do that and learn
and hopefully also provide good resources
for people through these episodes.
(39:00):
What are you excited for?
I love that we've always tried new things
and try new platforms and just tested things out.
So I'm excited for another year of learning
and exploring different aspects of ways
that we can find Grievers out in the world
and just connect them to these resources
(39:20):
that we're putting out there.
And hopefully they're taking away something
that can really impact their life in a positive way.
Like Kendall said, I think we're both very open
about trying something and a new platform
or trying this or testing it out.
And that's been fun, whether it's like,
okay, this isn't gonna work out or whatever.
We're both very flexible to just try something new
to see if it helps.
So I think it's just been fun to honestly be flexible
(39:43):
and constantly learning and just allowing
new opportunities and new things.
I mean, during the holiday season,
we had like, I think like six or seven episodes
jam packed of just like either they're coming on our podcast
or we're going on theirs.
That it was like this crazy time of like,
oh my gosh, now what's happening?
But it was so exciting.
It was our first time being on other people's podcasts
(40:05):
and yeah, it's just been like a fun time to learn
and people have been so nice and welcoming.
So it's just been a great time.
And so I'm really excited for you guys to join us for 2025
and then for us to also just experience it all
in real time, as we say.
So back to the thing that we went back
(40:29):
when we were doing it in season one
and then we had our holiday series and we stopped,
we didn't do it for that,
but now we're back in season two.
This is probably my favorite part of the podcast episode
is the weekly challenges that we pose.
And so to tie it off with a nice little bow
for the beginning of 2025,
this week's challenge is what is gonna be the first step
(40:50):
you're gonna take in the new year for your healing era?
Oh my gosh, that's a big question.
The first step, hey, I think for my first step
for 2025 is what I'm ready to do.
It's really healing.
(41:11):
I feel like myself, like just overall,
like I think health is a big one for me.
And so I think the first step in my healing journey
is what I did is like I signed up for a 30 day pass
and I'm doing 75 soft and just like,
it's not to like lose a certain amount of weight.
It's just like to get myself back into the place
where I was, where I was working out frequently
and focusing on my diet more consistently.
(41:35):
And that was just a place that I was really comfortable in
and I really threw myself off just by everyone dying.
So yeah, I think for me, my first step of a healing era
is just continue to heal,
but I think just coming to peace with it
and also what it signifies to me
because it signifies to me like losing that sadness
(41:56):
that I had and that just like the worst pain
to just kind of go through that,
especially the second two losses for me.
So I think the healing era is just like,
like taking care of myself.
I think that being the first step of just that.
But what about you?
Yeah, I kind of started yesterday in the previous episode.
(42:17):
I talked how that new year's can kind of be
a sentimental time just as we talked about, you know,
that's another physical day reminder
that life continues to move forward
and you know, the people we love are in the past.
But I was doing this journal prompt.
It's kind of like in two parts.
So one I did on the yesterday, the third,
(42:39):
in like reflection of the year, things that I liked,
things that I didn't like, things that helped,
things that didn't help, my best moments, my worst moments.
And then the second part would be today more forward focus,
looking towards the future,
things that I would like to see happen this year.
So that's one thing.
And you don't have to do these on the specific days.
(43:00):
It just timed perfectly because how often do you
end one year and begin another year,
but you can do these whenever you feel like,
if you just need something to kind of cut off,
cut off the past and then begin a fresh start.
And I mean, that could be a Sunday to a Monday, you know,
like it doesn't even matter.
So that's the one thing I'm gonna be doing today
(43:23):
to kind of set the framework hopefully for the year ahead.
Yeah, I like what you said.
It's never too late to just start doing something
for yourself or start like removing bad habits or whatever.
It doesn't have to be the start of the year.
I think we put so much pressure
on what the start of the year means.
And so I'm not focused on any like news resolutions.
(43:44):
For me, it's like one is just making sure
that I prioritize things differently
and that I also just like take risks
and go for what I want and not worry.
I think with this podcast,
it really has helped me shed that like fear
of just being like seen and being put out there
and being kind of in the spotlight in certain ways
where I was more shy about it.
(44:06):
And now I'm like, you know what?
I'm just gonna step into it and own it.
And we've been doing a lot, we've accomplished a lot.
Not everyone can get all these episodes out
and do all these things.
And it's important that we acknowledge like the road
that it's taken to get here
and how much we have accomplished
and just keep going for that.
And I think that through all of this,
it continues just to help our healing in general.
(44:29):
And we can focus on the little things
that we need to focus on for the year.
But yeah, I don't think it has to be like,
I'm gonna do these 10 things.
I think it can really just be like,
I wanna focus on this one thing
and I'm gonna make sure that's the one thing
that I focus on throughout the year.
Cause I think you don't change overnight.
And 10 things is a lot,
but one thing that you focus on
(44:50):
and you make sure that even if like one day
you don't do it, you get back on it.
You don't have to be perfect,
but as long as it's a main focus, like that's good.
That's a good place to be.
Yeah, I completely agree.
We would love to hear your answers to this week's challenge.
So you can DM us on Instagram or TikTok
at twogirlswithgriefpod
(45:10):
or you can email us at twogirlswithgrief at gmail.com.
Yes, and we'd love to hear from you.
Have a wonderful start to your new year everyone.
Thank you so much for joining us
for another episode of the Two Girls with Grief podcast.
If you are looking for any resources,
we'll include some down below in the show notes.
And a reminder that we have new episodes every Tuesday.
(45:31):
And if you made it this far,
we would appreciate if you could subscribe,
rate, review our podcast.
It really helps us get the word out.
And as a reminder, grief looks different for everybody.
We're just sharing our experiences and our thoughts
and yours might be different and that's totally okay.
So hopefully something we say resonates with you
in one of our future episodes
and we'll see you next week.
(45:52):
Handsurning Bizarre Office
Welcome to the Two Girls with Grief podcast,
(00:02):
the podcast where we share our real
and raw experiences with grief.
Whether it's tears or laughter,
or maybe a little bit of both,
we're here to figure it out in real time.
We are your hosts.
I'm Kendall Rogers.
And I'm Rachel Dwyer.
And while we're not professionals,
we are professional grievers.
Every Tuesday, we bring you honest conversations
(00:24):
that break down the stigma of grief,
one episode at a time,
because no one should have to grieve alone.
So grab a cup of coffee, settle in,
and let's navigate this journey together.
Welcome to season two of Two Girls with Grief.
(00:50):
We're so excited you're here.
So we're kicking off the new season,
and with a fresh year, we have some updates for y'all.
First thing on the agenda is
we're gonna keep our episodes every Tuesday.
So the normal grief episodes will be Tuesday,
as y'all have been expecting to hear them.
But we're gonna be moving the book club episodes.
It's gonna be called Griefy Girls Book Club.
(01:11):
It's gonna be on its own podcast.
We can separate them.
You're always invited to join us there,
but we wanted to separate it.
So if you're into the griefy stuff, you're here.
If you wanna listen to more of the book stuff,
you can go over there.
Those episodes will be going live on Thursdays
for all you fellow readers.
And we also include a link to that podcast
with the name in our show notes.
(01:32):
So our sub stack will be coming out on Mondays now,
and it'll be twice a month.
And then you can catch the video versions
of Two Girls with Grief on Wednesdays on our YouTube,
and then the Griefy Girls Book Club on Fridays
on its separate YouTube that's called Griefy Girls Book Club.
Yeah, so big changes already.
So this episode, we really wanted to do some reflection,
(01:55):
looking ahead and focus on some lessons we learned in 2024.
Some differences in our podcast is that our season two
will be filled with guests besides this episode
because we wanted to reintroduce ourselves,
reintroduce our new format for season two.
So this episode will be the only single episode
with just me and Kendall because we thought
(02:16):
it was a good time to bring in different grief voices,
different grief stories.
We have our singular experiences with grief,
but we really wanted to expand upon it.
So that's what season two will be.
So first we wanted to reflect on our full season
of grief conversations.
So Kendall, how have you felt your grief journey
(02:39):
and connecting on our podcast and in our grief community?
For one, season one was incredible.
We met so many new people.
We had so many people reach out to us.
We got so many comments of how much just the advice
that we were sharing and our experiences were helping people.
That was so rewarding.
Rachel and I, every time we saw a new comment come in
or somebody email us just saying that what we were talking
(03:02):
about helped them was not making all the pain worth it,
but it just was this silver lining to it all.
I didn't realize how much this could be helping people.
It was something I wanted when I was in like the thick
of grieving with someone like us helping me through it.
So I really hope that those listening, I appreciate y'all.
(03:23):
We thank you so much for being listeners.
We really do hope that all this advice and all this pain
and all this like exploration in the journey helps you
in your own grieving process.
For myself personally, I feel more attuned to my grief.
Like I'm more aligned with it, I guess.
It's not a separate part of me.
And it doesn't feel like it controls me as much.
(03:45):
I don't want to say like I can control my grief now,
but it doesn't feel like it controls me.
As it has in the previous years where it did feel
like the grief was in control
and I didn't know how to navigate that.
This podcast has allowed me to feel more present
in those feelings, both in the worst parts of grief,
but also the best parts and the happy parts
(04:07):
and the joyous parts, which was unexpected for me.
But what was your feelings after season one?
There's power with saying your grief out loud
and sharing your thoughts out loud.
And it was my idea to start the podcast,
but I had never spoken about it before.
And so it was also a really uncomfortable feeling too,
(04:30):
to share the things out loud and be open with my feelings
because I am not someone that shares a ton
of feelings to people.
So it was like constant exercising a muscle
that I just never used.
Besides people that are no longer here,
I would tell them all my things.
But other than that, I always was a little bit more private
with my feelings.
(04:52):
So this whole journey has just been very therapeutic.
I feel so much lighter having shared it.
And it's allowed me to get closer friendships
and closer to my friends and not keep everything so distant
because I feel like I used to put everything in a box
and separate it.
Like this is, I'm just living my life.
We're not gonna talk about my grief stuff.
(05:13):
I'm gonna keep it separate from everybody.
But like you said, it's just a part of me
and allowing it to just be out in the open
and share it when I want to share the feelings
and really talk it through has been really helpful.
And it's been so nice to just build a community
of other grievers and even in our grief support group
and all the people that we have conversations with
(05:34):
on TikTok and Instagram and through emails
has just been really nice.
Like there's so many nice people that are grieving
that are just looking for community and looking for support.
It's been a lot of evolution for myself personally
with my grief, but it's just been so rewarding
to connect with people and share stories.
(05:55):
And I really feel like you connect people on a deeper level
when you have this kind of grief connection
and get that type of pain.
But it also has allowed me to get closer to my friends
where I feel like I kept it from them.
So I think it's been a very good journey overall.
Good, yeah, I completely agree.
What were the unexpected lessons or shifts
that emerged when we started opening up about grief?
(06:18):
I mentioned in my last question of feeling lighter,
but also feeling more comfortable
to be in the spotlight in a sense.
Like we're still a small podcast, we're growing,
but we're putting ourselves out there.
And I didn't realize until doing this podcast
of how much I hid myself from being seen.
(06:41):
I was just getting hit with all these really hard things,
like with sickness and hospitals and people passing away.
That I just didn't like people's pity
and I didn't like that feeling
that I almost was like incognito.
I just didn't want to be in the spotlight.
I feel like I lost a lot of my spark because of that too,
(07:03):
because with grief, you feel like so many pieces
of yourself are missing and you have to be very proactive
to feel like you can build yourself up again.
And I took a long time to do that.
So through this podcast and through this journey
and then having friends like you
and building more grief community,
it's just been so much more empowering
(07:23):
and feeling comfortable seeing my face,
even like posting on social media with stuff.
Like I have never been the person to do that.
It's hard for people to see you and to share things
and have an opinion on what you're doing and feeling.
But knowing that it's okay
and like it's okay to step in the spotlight.
It's okay to take your place.
It's okay to try things.
(07:43):
And I had stopped doing that for so long
because it just feels scary
when you don't have the support of people
that you want to run things by or gone
to take on something new.
And I feel like I hid from trying new things
because of that for so long.
So it's just been a lot of lessons
of like stepping into your power, stepping into the light
and letting yourself shine.
(08:04):
Even if you don't have the people
that you want to be there with you shining, it's okay.
And it's an important step to take.
You still have to dream about your life,
be excited about your life.
And I feel like those are things that I stopped doing.
It wasn't that I wasn't having fun or having good moments
and having things to look forward to at all,
but looking forward to like the future future
that I had stopped doing.
(08:26):
And this whole process has made me excited again for that
and be a dreamer again,
which I feel like I kind of, I gave up on for a while.
But what about you?
Yeah, you mentioned in last season,
and I think in some sense it became our theme of season one
was finding joy in creating those little moments
(08:48):
to make yourself happy in the thick of grieving.
The sadness is all around you
and you can't control the sadness.
So as a griever, you just succumb to it and you live in it
and you think that's your life.
And for you to bring up ways to create your happiness
and almost giving the agency back to the griever and say,
(09:11):
you have all rights to be happy in your life
and you deserve to after so much sadness
that you've experienced.
And that was something that really has shifted my mindset
when it came to my grief of that.
It's not gonna go away,
but I can create my own happiness at the same time.
I've been trying to get with the mindset,
you can't be the passenger in your own life.
And I feel like grief is controlled,
(09:32):
leads you in different directions.
And it's really hard to jump back and be like,
I'm gonna take control and I'm gonna decide
how I want this to go.
When grief really takes you down
and take so much from you that it's hard to be like,
no, I'm not gonna do this anymore.
I'm gonna do something different.
So it's been a great year dealing
(09:53):
with all those different things and figuring out
and really confronting it
because there's definitely a lot of things
I ran from for sure.
So looking ahead to 2025 and it's crazy that it's 2025,
we're actually recording this on January 1st,
which is crazy.
So how are you feeling as we step into a new year
with fresh possibilities?
(10:15):
I'm in this center of stress and strife right now.
And I would say it's kind of manifested
into a physical thing.
As even this morning I'm having car issues
and it's causing so much frustration.
And I call my sister on the verge of tears being like,
(10:37):
why is this happening?
Why would this happen to me?
It's January 1, it's a new year.
Why did this happen on Christmas day?
All this stuff.
And she does a great job handling my random ups
and downs of emotions.
But really when I was talking to her about it,
I realized so much of this stress
was still stemming from my grief.
(10:57):
That because of my dad not being here,
there's a lot of things that still five years
after the fact, I'm still dealing with.
And to think that ignorantly,
I had packaged it all up and put it away
and was done with it.
When these moments arise that I still need a dad.
I still need help with these things
that I don't understand when it comes to
(11:18):
how do you switch a car title?
Things that nobody teaches you.
So that's what I'll be figuring out later.
It was a reminder that the grief is still there.
The grief still jumps out in ugly ways at times.
But I can now recognize it easier now.
And I hope with this new year,
(11:40):
as I'm in this middle of a lot of change,
that instead of thinking it's a reflection of myself
or a reflection that my life is horrible,
I can recognize it as this is just a spoke of grief
speaking out and being angry
and being hurt that your dad isn't here.
Rather than it being a me thing
(12:03):
or the universe is mad at me and punishing me type of thing.
It's funny that grief manifests itself
in so many different ways.
And you think that it only manifests itself
as super sad, depressive modes,
but still it can come out in these bouts of anger.
Still, this is still five years later.
And even today, even this morning,
(12:24):
I was angry that my dad didn't get this thing done
before he passed.
Nothing he could have done.
I mean, it wasn't in his plan to die,
but these little things, a reminder of like,
I'm still working through a lot of these feelings
that I didn't realize I still had.
But what about you?
I was highly dependent on my parents, especially.
More so my sister, I feel like because my dad was American,
(12:46):
because his dad was American,
but he grew up in the Philippines and moved here when he was 18
and he joined the Navy.
And my mom was a naturalized citizen.
But I think because of those stuff,
it's like they figure it out as they go too.
So my sister was really my person
to like figure everything out before me and help me.
So I was highly dependent on them.
(13:07):
Like Google didn't exist.
It was Lori Hotline for everything.
So definitely as people passed away, it was like,
oh shit, I need to figure things out.
And that still happens because you're like,
when did adulting get so hard?
And it's like, you don't have a safety net
because the people are gone.
So I definitely relate to that where it's like,
(13:28):
you have to figure so much stuff out
because you don't have the people
that would help you figure it out.
And now you're like, oh, I actually so much more independent
than I ever wanted to be, but it's fine.
But to go back to the question of how I'm feeling
as you step into your New York with fresh possibilities,
I woke up this morning.
(13:48):
I signed up for like a 30 day reformer Pilates class.
And I went and I was like one of the four people
that showed up because it was New Year's Day.
So I had a good day and then I was like,
I'm gonna treat myself to a nice coffee
because I always see people say like,
act how you want your year to be and like do the things
and practice your life and how you want it to be.
(14:10):
So I was like, I'm gonna treat myself to this nice coffee.
It was $8 and I was like, that's crazy.
In this economy?
Yeah.
And I was like, oh my God, San Francisco.
But I was walking back to my car
and I was like juggling my water bottle and my cup.
And then I dropped half of my coffee onto my seat.
(14:32):
No.
And I was like, $4, literally $4 is on pay.
Just go on.
Yeah, and I was like, oh my God.
And I had a moment where I was like pissed off.
But then I think stuff like that races in your head,
like, oh my God, it's start of the year.
I dropped this, I dropped that, blah, blah, blah.
You know, like you start freaking out
about like, what does this mean?
(14:52):
And in reality, it's not omens.
What it means is that I had my phone in my hand.
I was looking at my phone.
I was also holding a water bottle in a way that was,
I didn't need to, like it had a handle.
I could have held it better.
And the reality was I wasn't being mindful.
I got into my car and I had too much going on in my hands.
And I had pockets, I had a bag.
Like I didn't need to be doing that.
(15:14):
And I think sometimes it's so easy.
And I think even with a grieve, it's like you react to things.
But sometimes it's just like, you really just need to be
in the moment.
And in the moment, I just needed to focus on getting myself
into the car when I have a hot beverage
and not juggle things and be looking at my phone
when I don't need to be.
There's no reason my phone needed to be out.
(15:35):
So I think sometimes it's like, you have to be able
to de-center the situation.
Like you said, it's like, it's not this huge world sign.
Like I did what I needed to do to feel like I'm getting
a good start for the day, which was wake up,
walk James in, eat my breakfast,
and get to this class at 8 a.m.
Even though it was cold, even though I haven't taken
(15:57):
reformer Pilates in a while.
Like I made the decisions like,
this is how I'm gonna start my year
and I'm gonna start off strong and making sure
that I'm focusing on my health and happiness.
And so I did that.
And I spilled the coffee, but so what?
Like that was my fault.
I was just juggling too much in my hands.
But I think otherwise I've woke up feeling very hopeful
(16:19):
and very like determined.
I feel like there's so many exciting things
that we wanna do.
I think there's just so many exciting things
that I know will happen in 2025.
So I think it was a good balance of like checking myself
and like not letting myself run away with that.
With like just something as like spilling my coffee
and having to sit on it as I drive home.
(16:40):
But then I came back, James was so happy to see me.
So excited, like looked at me like I was the best thing
in this world to exist.
So really I should be grateful for that basically,
like to come back to that.
So I am feeling good into the new year
and I am happy that I got my butt up to do that.
I'm also doing 75 soft with some of my friends.
(17:03):
It's the chiller version of 75 hard
where you do like one 45 minute workout a day.
You're supposed to like drink a certain amount of water,
read, I think you're supposed to eat like mostly healthy,
but it's not like super strict,
but you're mostly healthy and drink a certain amount of water
and read five pages a day, which that part is like,
(17:23):
I just got a new book, that's no problem.
I'm gonna exceed that goal for sure.
But yeah, so I'm doing this with some friends.
So it's keeping ourselves accountable.
I changed our group, our Instagram, not our Instagram,
our chat group to 75 soft crew 2025.
So I was the first one to do my workout
(17:44):
and I was bugging them to like get on it.
So all good things, I think it's always good
to take care of your health.
And I always feel good when I'm in good health
and working out and part of my goal is like
to shed any leftover grief weight that I had
and just feeling happy to get back into the tip top shape.
(18:07):
So I feel good about it.
So what is exciting you the most in 2025?
And personally and podcast wise.
One big thing is with grief,
it can really make you look at the new year differently.
It makes you feel like it's another year
(18:28):
without my loved ones.
I mean, it's quickly gonna be nine years
and seven years without my mom
because they both passed away in February.
And then it's gonna be 11 without my dad.
And even saying those out loud just like gives me a ping
in the chest because it's like, that's a crazy amount
of time that I've had to live without them.
So that always is like a weird thing
that I think a lot of groupers feel just like another year
(18:49):
I have to be without them.
But this was the first year that I felt wholeheartedly
excited for the start of the year since they've been gone.
Like just at pure excitement,
like this is gonna be a good year and I know it is.
And I'm gonna make sure that I do what I need to do
to make it sure it's a good year.
(19:11):
2024, I knew it was a year of change.
I was optimistic for the year
but I knew I wasn't doing enough.
I wasn't taking care of myself enough.
I wasn't focusing on my happiness
and really what I wanted enough.
And I knew I needed to change.
So I think 2025, it's like, I know that I've been doing
the things that I wanna do.
(19:32):
I've been putting in the work for it.
So I just feel so much more optimistic for 2025.
And I think it's a big deal to be excited for the new year
when you haven't in so long.
So that is a big thing for me to feel excited for that.
And for the podcast, I'm just excited.
We've already filmed some of the episodes with guests
(19:53):
but I'm excited for all the other conversations
and to learn from other people's experiences.
Everyone's grief is different.
Even if people lost the same people,
even if two people lost a spouse, a daughter,
parent, whatever, everyone feels differently.
Everyone does it differently.
I'm excited to have these conversations.
(20:15):
One, because I just feel like you experience
like a deep connection with someone.
It's just great to have those conversations.
Those like heart to heart conversations.
But also I think it's always good just having more
of these conversations out there
and we're getting cool people to come on.
And I think that will bring a good diverse set of topics
that we're gonna talk about.
So I'm really excited for that.
And just like other things we wanna do,
(20:37):
we separated the Grief of Girls book podcast
to its own thing on Thursdays and we both love reading.
And I think that's been a really fun, lighthearted portion,
I think, minus that some of the books make me cry.
Kendall's picks, but it's been a therapeutic,
but also just like a fun thing.
(20:57):
I think it's a little bit more lighthearted.
And also what we can post,
I think is a little bit more fun.
So I'm excited for all the things.
And I think I'm excited that we separated them out
because I do think that they deserve their own attention
and the grief conversations are gonna be great this year.
And then the grief books, there's so many that we can read
and we both love reading.
So I'm sure we're gonna have a really long list for that.
(21:19):
But what about you?
Yeah, personally, this will be a year of a lot of changes,
taking chances and trying something new
and trusting myself that it'll be okay.
I am someone who can plan forever
and be hindered by all the little details.
So just trying to trust in myself and trust
(21:40):
that I've done everything within my power
to make something good in this world.
And I can reveal more of that later.
But in regard to the podcast,
I agree meeting other grievers,
whether they're guests or whether they're listeners.
We've loved getting to talk with y'all
and learn about y'all's stories.
(22:02):
And you're right, there's like a camaraderie built
when you find out someone has lost somebody.
It's like you're a little,
you're not so isolated anymore.
It's like you have this horrible experience
that bonds you with another stranger.
And that's, it's really,
it's really interesting that our worst experiences
(22:23):
can unite us in an odd way.
I know I mentioned on previous podcast episodes
that the grieving community online is so kind
and welcoming and warm.
And although we're all sad,
it's such a accepting, just a very kind quarter
of the internet, especially when the internet right now
is kind of horrific and a cesspool.
(22:44):
The griever community is really a great place
to be a part of, considering it's our worst experiences
that brought us together.
And through those painful experiences,
trying to build something positive
and find the silver lining in this
and continue on legacies of the people we lost.
These are such beautiful things to do with one's life.
(23:05):
When you've lost somebody all of a sudden,
you're like, I gotta make my life meaningful
and purposeful and make it a better place
because we've seen how bad it can be.
It's funny that you said that you are such a planner.
I used to be such a planner and I say like a square.
I overthink so many things.
I'm like, oh, that sounds responsible.
I shouldn't do that.
And you have to stop planning when all your plans
(23:28):
fall through that you don't have control over
because people die.
So it really changed me in that way where it was like,
you can plan for so much.
You can think that this is exactly
how things are gonna go.
And then you kind of have to like throw your hands up
and be like, this isn't at all what I planned,
but I'm gonna make the best out of this situation
(23:49):
because I deserve to still have a good life
even though so much shit has happened.
But yeah, being a planner and having stuff like that happen
really throws you off for sure.
Yeah, I have a running theory.
If there's a sociologist, this is for you,
that if you're a type A person before somebody dies,
(24:10):
you're gonna lose parts of those type A-ness afterwards
because you realize being type A
and being like anxiety ridden to get everything perfect
does not keep people alive.
Like that's a sad reality of like a type A person.
I used to be so type A.
I'm now like the most type B person,
(24:31):
which is so weird because I look back and I was like,
oh my gosh, I was such a different person.
I cared so much about,
I don't wanna say irrelevant things.
They were just different things.
Now I care more about like,
I look around at problems people are facing
and I'm like, but is that life or death?
Because I've once had to make life and death decisions
for somebody and that really puts in perspective
(24:53):
for me and for other people's problems of,
is that problem actually like as stressful
as you're making it?
But then on the adverse side,
I think if you were a type B person before somebody died
and now after a loss, you're type A
because you're thinking, oh, I should have been more
on top of everything to keep them alive.
(25:15):
And I've seen this like weird pattern with people.
Like, so if you're a sociologist,
please take that run with that.
I would love to see the results.
Let us know, we'll have you on the podcast
and we'll talk about that.
We'll have you on the podcast.
I'm very interested in seeing that.
We're gonna have a three hour long episode about that
to figure that out.
I have seen that too.
And I get it where it's like, you're such a planet
and you're like, okay, what did that get me?
(25:37):
And then the flip side where you're like, okay,
I need to plan everything because all these things happen
that I wasn't in control of.
I can see where that could take you either direction.
I definitely sell planner in some things.
I like to be organized.
I like to, especially for like trips,
like going on vacations and stuff.
I'm not like, we have to do every single thing,
but I like to have restaurants picked out
(25:58):
and like things to do and places to go to.
But we don't have to go to everything,
but there's usually like a few places where I'm like,
I need to go here.
But other than that, like,
I feel like I've chilled out a lot with the planning,
but in terms of like stuff like this,
it's like, I do like to plan.
And obviously you have to show up
and be reliable and get it done.
It teaches you to just have a mix and like,
(26:19):
you don't know how much time you have on this earth.
You don't know what's gonna happen
and you have to make the best out of it.
So that's, it's just been a crazy life journey
full of lessons, that's for sure.
So what would be your biggest grief lesson
that you learned in 2024?
And how do you think it's gonna shape you for 2025?
(26:40):
Yeah, other than the one thing I mentioned earlier
about having to go out and create your own joy,
cause it's not gonna be that state of mind
you're gonna be in all the time as a griever
and that it should be your agency
to go out and manifest that.
Another one I would say would be
(27:00):
if your life is not making you happy
or joyous, perhaps it could be
cause there's dissonance in it
and things are not meshing the way it did.
And I say that out of that loss changes you
and loss changes your goals
and loss changes what you want out of life.
(27:21):
And that what you wanted before in life
might not be what you want now.
And things are gonna start happening
that create division in your life where you're like,
man, this is just not working for me anymore.
And how do I bridge my life back into harmony?
And so, I think as grievers,
(27:43):
one thing we're all terrified of is change
because it's change that made us lose people we love.
It's change that put us in these situations.
It's change that, especially if you've lost parents
or a spouse or a child and like everything
in your life changed, like financially things changed.
Your job had a change.
(28:03):
It is something that is a catalyst for so many things
and it happens when you're not ready.
Like nobody's ever ready for someone to pass.
And I've had to, and I'm working on this.
I'm not saying like I am a true follower of this ideology
cause it is hard for me to still do this,
but I see change, especially after loss of my dad,
(28:26):
that it must automatically be a bad thing.
And I'm trying really hard to tell myself,
sure, bad things can happen,
but good things can also happen
if you allow that space for it.
So that is one hard concept.
It's like a really hard pill to swallow
to be like telling change to a griever.
Like we don't want our lives to change.
(28:47):
We didn't want it to change when we lost our people.
And yet here we are.
We had to, we had no choice.
We've lived through these changes.
And when more change begins to happen in your life,
I think it's really easy to go back into that feeling
of like, I don't want to lean into that
because the last time a big change happened,
bad things happened.
(29:07):
And to remind myself that life is nothing but change.
Life is gonna change all the time.
The seasons change all the time.
You will change all the time.
And that that can also be get good change.
Good changes can come.
Good things can come out of change as well.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, something that we have talked about briefly
is the thought of like manifestation
(29:30):
and just putting, basically putting good things out there,
but also knowing that by opening yourself up,
that you're allowing good things to come to you.
One hard thing is when you were optimistic
and maybe it's prayers, maybe it's manifesting,
you were so optimistic about the world
and how things were gonna work out and then they don't.
(29:52):
It's so much harder to then be the person that's like,
my life is gonna work out well.
Good things are gonna happen to me.
I deserve good things because you get beat down so much
and loss takes so much from you and sickness.
And even if it's like, Kendall lost one person,
I lost three, but she still has to deal with
(30:12):
so many ups and downs with her dad.
And it's like every time, of course,
she wanted it to have a better, better result,
but there's so many complications,
so many things that are happening.
Just those moments, it's like you have hope
because you need hope.
You need to be hopeful that something good is gonna happen.
And when it doesn't, and then when the ultimate one
(30:33):
disappoints you that they're actually gone,
and that's like, there's no take backs from that.
They're erased from this planet
and you just have to keep going.
That is like you're glued to the floor
and you have to rip yourself up off the ground.
And not only keep going, but then want more for yourself.
And like you said, it changes you.
(30:54):
It changes what you want,
but it's like another next level to be like,
I'm gonna put good things out there.
Like we're doing the podcast,
we wanna help other grievers,
we want other people to feel better about their grief.
We wanna support them,
but we also want like good things to happen to us
because we're putting ourselves out there
and we want this to continue to grow.
It's really hard to get to that place
(31:16):
because it's so many steps to just want to be excited
or have anything to look forward to,
just even to function.
Like I definitely think there's years where I'm like,
I don't remember much of those years.
I was just trying to function
and I probably still went on trips,
I probably still had fun,
but I also was probably low functioning
(31:38):
in terms of just my feelings.
Like after heartbreak, after heartbreak, after heartbreak,
after heartbreak, after heartbreak, it's a lot
to just try to keep going
and you're like, I want to keep living a life.
But to get to the point where you're like,
no, I deserve to live a good life
and I deserve good things
and I'm gonna do my part to make that happen,
that's such a difficult thing.
(32:00):
And I've been watching this one family on TikTok
and her name's Debra Fink and she has stage four cancer
and she's been posting about her journey
and she's been sharing.
And despite her going on hospice, she's in pain,
she's still encouraging people
to spend time with your loved ones,
do good things, live your life.
And it's really hard to see grief in real time
(32:23):
and how hard it is.
It's amazing that Debra's even in the space at all
to want to help people and try to inspire people
while doing, going through that.
And I think that's a time where people are like,
oh, you're so strong, you're so strong.
And she's posted videos where she's being vulnerable
and honest and she's tired and she's scared.
And I think we don't talk enough about,
(32:44):
we always just straight go to like someone so strong,
someone you're so strong to deal with this,
but we don't focus more on all the emotions that happen.
If it's strength, even the right word,
because it's like, you don't always feel strong
in those moments, you're just trying to keep going.
And even on the flip side of not being the one actually sick
and in pain, literally, to see your mom like that
(33:06):
or to see any loved one like that,
it's heartbreaking, it's so hard.
And people are gonna say you're strong,
but you're like, I'm not strong.
I'm in that moment.
It's like that strength isn't what I'm feeling.
I'm feeling the worst of our felt.
I'm trying to hold on to hope.
And it's like, at some point, you know,
like I'm gonna be disappointed.
And I think stuff like that, it's like,
(33:29):
it's so interesting to see something so similar happen
to another family and see all those emotions,
but that all circles back to like,
biggest lesson is like, grief is so big
and it's so misunderstood.
And just how we talk about it
and how we support people, I think is hard, you know?
(33:50):
And everyone's different and it depends on how you're feeling
and how currently you're like reactive you are
in your grief and sensitive, you know?
And I don't blame people for being in those spaces.
It's a really hard thing.
Like you're just trying to survive.
And I understand that,
but I think the biggest lesson is like,
people don't get grief.
(34:11):
It needs to be talked about more.
We need to, by speaking about it, by sharing experiences,
by getting other people's experiences,
it has shaped me even more to own how hard it's been.
And just like reflect on every moment.
And just in looking back, I can be like,
I was really strong through a lot of that,
but I also was 20 other emotions and 20 other things.
(34:34):
And just giving myself credit where credit's due.
And then also knowing like, okay,
now I'm in a place where like I need to make these changes.
And that's been the biggest lesson
of like reflecting on the journey of like,
here's what I did well, here's what I wanna do better.
And not in those terms.
(34:55):
So some of it's like, it couldn't be helped.
Like you lose three family members
and then just back to your day, like,
and crush it at life.
Like that's really hard.
So I have to give myself grace for that too.
But I think acknowledging just everything I've been through
and now, okay, I'm in this place where it's like,
(35:16):
I went through all of that, I dealt with all of that.
And now I can take what I've learned, really digest it
and make it for a better future, I think.
To just be moving forward and to be in this place,
I'm like, that is a big win to have gone
through those types of things and want to be here
(35:38):
and want to be doing this and beyond.
I think just, it shaped me, it shaped everything about me.
Yeah, I think with the reminders
that our lives are so fragile and we can easily go back
to that place where we're so scared of.
And I talk about in a medical sense
because it's not quite the same for people
(36:00):
who've lost people in other ways.
But if you've lost people because of medical reasons,
like the fact I'm terrified of hospitals now,
like a place meant to save people and I hate hospitals.
Like I hate the beeps, I hate the lights.
Thank you for all the nurses out there
doing the most they can to save lives.
(36:22):
But they also know like sometimes it's a place
where people die and you begin to associate
those horrific memories with spaces like that.
My uncle passed away a few years ago
and it was my mom's brother.
And we already knew like it wasn't looking good.
And so we got, I don't want to say invited,
but like, can you come here?
(36:45):
And my aunt apologized and was like,
I'm so sorry we're making you be here
because of everything you've been through.
And it was just one of those things
where it was like, I appreciate her recognizing that,
but also it's like, it's my mom's brother.
Like, do I feel great here?
But it's just what you do for the people that you love.
(37:05):
And it wasn't easy, but it's like, life isn't easy
and you have to take those things as they come
and show up for people because that's what's important.
So even if that's the hard stuff, and like you said,
like we get one chance at this,
we get to decide how our life looks from here on out
(37:29):
despite what's happened and you have to take chances
and you have to go for it because you don't want to be
someone that like something happens
and just like you didn't try.
Yeah.
It's always better to try
and you should definitely always be trying to live
a life that fulfills you and is happy
and in their honor, but yours.
So yeah, a lot to think about going into 2025.
(37:53):
So on a happier note,
what can our listeners expect from us in 2025?
Any surprises or plans or anything
that we can announce to them?
We already mentioned that we're gonna be having guests
for 2025, probably said that prematurely in the episode,
but for me personally, I think we've just grown a lot
(38:17):
through the past first season and then our holiday episodes.
I think we've experienced so much growth through that.
I'm now excited to be more in a learning seat.
It's not that we won't be still sharing our thoughts
and opinions in these episodes,
but we're switching roles a little bit
(38:39):
that we're gonna be learning a lot through these episodes too.
So it's not just our experiences,
we're bringing other people in the conversations
that have different experiences, different thoughts,
different things to bring to the table.
So for me, that's just really exciting
to be able to do that and learn
and hopefully also provide good resources
for people through these episodes.
(39:00):
What are you excited for?
I love that we've always tried new things
and try new platforms and just tested things out.
So I'm excited for another year of learning
and exploring different aspects of ways
that we can find Grievers out in the world
and just connect them to these resources
(39:20):
that we're putting out there.
And hopefully they're taking away something
that can really impact their life in a positive way.
Like Kendall said, I think we're both very open
about trying something and a new platform
or trying this or testing it out.
And that's been fun, whether it's like,
okay, this isn't gonna work out or whatever.
We're both very flexible to just try something new
to see if it helps.
So I think it's just been fun to honestly be flexible
(39:43):
and constantly learning and just allowing
new opportunities and new things.
I mean, during the holiday season,
we had like, I think like six or seven episodes
jam packed of just like either they're coming on our podcast
or we're going on theirs.
That it was like this crazy time of like,
oh my gosh, now what's happening?
But it was so exciting.
It was our first time being on other people's podcasts
(40:05):
and yeah, it's just been like a fun time to learn
and people have been so nice and welcoming.
So it's just been a great time.
And so I'm really excited for you guys to join us for 2025
and then for us to also just experience it all
in real time, as we say.
So back to the thing that we went back
(40:29):
when we were doing it in season one
and then we had our holiday series and we stopped,
we didn't do it for that,
but now we're back in season two.
This is probably my favorite part of the podcast episode
is the weekly challenges that we pose.
And so to tie it off with a nice little bow
for the beginning of 2025,
this week's challenge is what is gonna be the first step
(40:50):
you're gonna take in the new year for your healing era?
Oh my gosh, that's a big question.
The first step, hey, I think for my first step
for 2025 is what I'm ready to do.
It's really healing.
(41:11):
I feel like myself, like just overall,
like I think health is a big one for me.
And so I think the first step in my healing journey
is what I did is like I signed up for a 30 day pass
and I'm doing 75 soft and just like,
it's not to like lose a certain amount of weight.
It's just like to get myself back into the place
where I was, where I was working out frequently
and focusing on my diet more consistently.
(41:35):
And that was just a place that I was really comfortable in
and I really threw myself off just by everyone dying.
So yeah, I think for me, my first step of a healing era
is just continue to heal,
but I think just coming to peace with it
and also what it signifies to me
because it signifies to me like losing that sadness
(41:56):
that I had and that just like the worst pain
to just kind of go through that,
especially the second two losses for me.
So I think the healing era is just like,
like taking care of myself.
I think that being the first step of just that.
But what about you?
Yeah, I kind of started yesterday in the previous episode.
(42:17):
I talked how that new year's can kind of be
a sentimental time just as we talked about, you know,
that's another physical day reminder
that life continues to move forward
and you know, the people we love are in the past.
But I was doing this journal prompt.
It's kind of like in two parts.
So one I did on the yesterday, the third,
(42:39):
in like reflection of the year, things that I liked,
things that I didn't like, things that helped,
things that didn't help, my best moments, my worst moments.
And then the second part would be today more forward focus,
looking towards the future,
things that I would like to see happen this year.
So that's one thing.
And you don't have to do these on the specific days.
(43:00):
It just timed perfectly because how often do you
end one year and begin another year,
but you can do these whenever you feel like,
if you just need something to kind of cut off,
cut off the past and then begin a fresh start.
And I mean, that could be a Sunday to a Monday, you know,
like it doesn't even matter.
So that's the one thing I'm gonna be doing today
(43:23):
to kind of set the framework hopefully for the year ahead.
Yeah, I like what you said.
It's never too late to just start doing something
for yourself or start like removing bad habits or whatever.
It doesn't have to be the start of the year.
I think we put so much pressure
on what the start of the year means.
And so I'm not focused on any like news resolutions.
(43:44):
For me, it's like one is just making sure
that I prioritize things differently
and that I also just like take risks
and go for what I want and not worry.
I think with this podcast,
it really has helped me shed that like fear
of just being like seen and being put out there
and being kind of in the spotlight in certain ways
where I was more shy about it.
(44:06):
And now I'm like, you know what?
I'm just gonna step into it and own it.
And we've been doing a lot, we've accomplished a lot.
Not everyone can get all these episodes out
and do all these things.
And it's important that we acknowledge like the road
that it's taken to get here
and how much we have accomplished
and just keep going for that.
And I think that through all of this,
it continues just to help our healing in general.
(44:29):
And we can focus on the little things
that we need to focus on for the year.
But yeah, I don't think it has to be like,
I'm gonna do these 10 things.
I think it can really just be like,
I wanna focus on this one thing
and I'm gonna make sure that's the one thing
that I focus on throughout the year.
Cause I think you don't change overnight.
And 10 things is a lot,
but one thing that you focus on
(44:50):
and you make sure that even if like one day
you don't do it, you get back on it.
You don't have to be perfect,
but as long as it's a main focus, like that's good.
That's a good place to be.
Yeah, I completely agree.
We would love to hear your answers to this week's challenge.
So you can DM us on Instagram or TikTok
at twogirlswithgriefpod
(45:10):
or you can email us at twogirlswithgrief at gmail.com.
Yes, and we'd love to hear from you.
Have a wonderful start to your new year everyone.
Thank you so much for joining us
for another episode of the Two Girls with Grief podcast.
If you are looking for any resources,
we'll include some down below in the show notes.
And a reminder that we have new episodes every Tuesday.
(45:31):
And if you made it this far,
we would appreciate if you could subscribe,
rate, review our podcast.
It really helps us get the word out.
And as a reminder, grief looks different for everybody.
We're just sharing our experiences and our thoughts
and yours might be different and that's totally okay.
So hopefully something we say resonates with you
in one of our future episodes
and we'll see you next week.
(45:52):
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