Heart Healing from Loss

Robin Keesler is an Identity and Self Discovery Coach and she is here with Grief Coach & Specialist Wendy Sloneker to share her own journey of self discovery and finding (and finding again) her identity. Robin believes that we all have the capacity to make change in the world by focusing on heart-centered leadership; which is each of us finding those little bits of joy and passing it on to expand the love in our world.

Today Wendy Sloneker, Grief Specialist & Coach, welcomes a very special guest, Jesse René Gibbs, author of the book Girl Hidden. Jesse shares the traumatic story of her childhood, what it was like discovering the truth about what happened to her, and her journey of healing by finding support and writing her book. 

Jesse René Gibbs also speaks on her experience with therapy. She acknowledges that, for her, ...

“Wait,” you say. “Surely healthy, successful weight loss is a cause for celebration, not grief?” 

Getting healthier is always a cause for celebration, but as No BS WeightLoss founder Corinne Crabtree tells us, “Grief is everywhere in weight loss.”

Friendships and relationships can change, even disappear, when one person in the relationship loses weight. Those who lose weight may suffer a total...

Today Wendy Sloneker, Grief Coach & Specialist, explains Anticipatory Grief. These are the thoughts and fears about something specific that might be coming or changing, such as a medical diagnosis, a loved one or pet that starts to physically or mentally decline, or the noticing of incremental loss (tangible or intangible). 

There’s a little part of her brain Wendy calls “The Peanut.” She describes it as t...

Today Grief Coach & Specialist Wendy Sloneker talks about situations where you might be caught in the middle or at least have the perception of being so. And we all know the “middle” is usually between a rock and a hard place. 

“The middle” may be the middle of an uncomfortable situation, it could be between two people at odds, it might be the center of a family disagreement. And it’s exhausting. If you’ve...

Today on Heart Healing from Loss, Grief Coach Wendy Sloneker welcomes special guest Serena Hicks. 

Serena Hicks is a Money Mindset coach and mentor who focuses on connection with others and helping others grow their business by focusing on truth telling, freedom, and rejecting patriarchal programming. Instead, Serena encourages others to let go of your struggles and replace them with an allowing that requi...

In this episode of Heart Healing From Loss, Grief Coach Wendy Sloneker talks about being ready to do new things during a season of grief and loss. 

Opening yourself up to new things can be a way to navigate difficult feelings and make progress on your journey. However, taking on new things during a season of loss can feel scary and risky. 

The trick? Don’t do too much at once. Wendy shares how...

Today Grief Coach Wendy Sloneker discusses the feelings of grief and loss that come with getting laid off from a job. This is happening to a lot of people in the tech field right now, and it is one of those events in life that brings up a whole lot of feelings, including grief and loss. 

Wendy shares that taking time to really feel your feelings and process emotions is important. Emotional processing may s...

Taking that first step to seek support is a big one! Deciding to take on navigating through grief and loss is challenging enough; finding the right kind of support can be a whole new level of hard. 

If you break your arm, you don’t wear someone else’s cast. If you’re ill, you don’t take someone else’s medicine. So why would you settle for the wrong kind of emotional support?

In this episode, G...

"If we try to go with the Nike slogan of 'just do it,' and just, you know, keep pushing through and thinking we're being warriors, we are damaging our mental health, damaging our physical health."

Sound familiar? Do you just keep "doing it," pushing forward, moving ahead no matter what it's doing to you?

We know that learning a skill takes practice, and we're willing to recognize the need to learn in some places in our lives, and i...

Wendy is a little under the weather, so she’s helping us remember how important it is to take care of ourselves. Some days are your “low” days and it is OKAY to have these days. Take care of yourself and give yourself some comfort on a low day. Don’t pressure yourself to be “on” or make big decisions. Take the cue from your brain and body to take the rest you need and give yourself a break. The tough moments are tempor...

Wendy’s guest is Forest Dimaggio and the two of them go WAY back — all the way to kindergarten! Forest shares her journey of five years, 21 doctors, innumerable misdiagnoses and zero relief before she was finally diagnosed with Lyme disease in 2010. 

While the news was far from ideal, the moment of diagnosis was actually a huge relief — Forest finally had an ans...

What is the difference between feeling a feeling and BEING a feeling? If you’re experiencing a lack of progress through your journey with grief and loss, it could be because of being your feeling instead of feeling your feelings.

Did you know that when your dog shakes, they are regaining control of their emotions? Unless it's a rainy day, in which case, it's probably just shaking off the wet.

Speaking of shaking off emotions, humans can do it too, though maybe not quite as literally. 

In this episode, Wendy shares a personal story when she had to shake off the shame of investing in herself. What felt like "too much" — too much time, too much money, just ......

Nope. You do not have to be strong when going through grief and loss. Sometimes, doing the best you can today is all you have the capacity for. And that’s enough.

Grief and navigating loss have nothing to do with strength. Sometimes “being strong” can actually prolong your pain because the defenses go up. The ability to feel your feelings also has nothing to do ...

Capacity: When we're in times of change and loss, whatever forms those take in your life, our emotions may feel like they're just too much.

You have more capacity than you think. Yes, it's uncomfortable. But learning to jettison what doesn't help you, make space for the things that do (though they may be painful), and learn from the pain you feel — this is healthy and (sorry) possibly pretty uncomfortable.

Stuck can feel, oddly, "s...

Fertility challenges can come with a whole range of griefs — not just the loss of a pregnancy or the hopes of genetically related children, though those losses can be devastating. 

There can also be grief around losing trust in one's body, around decisions made in the past that may or may not have impacts now, around identity and sense of self, or even around just not having things happen the way they seem to happen "for everyone e...

A fresh new year can feel like an opportunity for a fresh start, with all the excitement (and anxiety) that comes with it.

That fresh start may require Big Changes. Letting go of toxic emotions, choosing some different paths, shifting a mindset that isn't helping you move forward — all these can help, but they are so much easier said than done for most of us.

New tools can help you do that inner work, says Grief Coach Wendy Sloneke...

Loss means change. And in times of change, there's a feeling of, "It's not what it was" or "It's not what it used to be."

We long for the way it used to be. But what is it — specifically — that we're missing or wishing were back to the way it was before? Being specific about the loss or the change can help us manage our way through the grief. 

On the other hand, there's the phrase "It is what it is." Can we just say...ugh. "It is w...