April 10, 2024 • 63 mins
In this episode I have the privilege of talking to a very beautiful soul, Nathalie Himmelrich, around some very sensitive and confronting topics. Nathalie is a passionate writer, holistic counsellor, coach, woman & mother. Her areas of specialty are relationships, grief, and trauma, with a passion to help people find their inspiration for healthy grieving. Nathalie knows this topic well through the insights gained from her own traumatic experiences around grief. We explore the tough decisions she had to make for her sick child in utero, and subsequent passing. Dealing with her mum's depression and her death shortly after the birth of her twins. The difference between active and passive grief, and how we have been textured by our grief through our experiences, beliefs, and understandings. We also take a look at modelling our grief and the ever-changing nature of it.
This is a very rich conversation, peppered with personal insights, that allows you to sit comfortably with your grief, in whatever form that may take. These are areas of grief we don't typically speak about, so I am grateful for Nathalie sharing so much invaluable information around bridging these gaps.
Following this conversation I had the privilege of sharing my own story on Nathalie's podcast How to deal with Grief and Trauma. You can find the link to this in the links below.
Nathalie's Bio
Nathalie Himmelrich is a published author, holistic therapist, and coach. As a therapist, she specializes in helping both men and women navigate relationships, and in supporting individuals dealing with trauma, traumatic losses, and those experiencing grief. As an author, she has written numerous grief resource books. As a public speaker, she presents at international conferences and workshops. She has written 6 grief resource books and numerous articles on the topics of grief and trauma. She is also the host of the podcast How to Deal with Grief and Trauma.
Quote:
"But in all of those losses, the one variable is yourself. And that is, how have you been textured by grief in your life?." ~ Nathalie Himmelrich
Resources:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It's not the time that makes it easier.
(00:01):
It's with time it gets easier.
And what does that mean easier?
Because not everyone will agree withme, but for me, and I'm speaking
about my experience, the easierpart is that if I look back at raw
grief, the first year, the first twoyears, I'm no longer in that space.
(00:22):
I'm no longer, crying uncontrollablyor being devastated, being in place of
depressed myself and having no energy.
I'm no longer in that same place.
I do still think about my mother.
I do still miss her.
I do wish she would be here formy 12 year old to grandmother her.
I do acknowledge that.
I have this yearning for my daughterto have her twin, for me to have
(00:46):
that experience of two girls with me.
I still have that.
Today on the Beautiful Side of Grief,I am speaking with Nathalie Himmelrich
, who is a passionate writer, holisticcounselor, coach, woman, and mother.
(01:09):
Her areas of specialty arerelationships, grief, and trauma, with
a passion to help people find theirinspiration for healthy grieving.
Nathalie is highly sought after inthe fields of grief, trauma, and
relationships, and her Publish multiplegrief resource books, and that's
because she knows grief so well.
She experienced the loss of herown daughter, Amaya, and then four
(01:33):
months later, her mother, who wasdealing with depression and with
whom she had a close relationship.
I feel there will be some immense valueto gain from this conversation we have
today as we explore the emotional,psychological, and physical aspects of
these experiences and how they manifestin our lives as Nathalie is indeed a
(01:56):
treasure with vast wisdom and knowledge.
So a very warm
welcome to you
so much, Helen, for having me, and Ican already tell, I'm going to love
the conversation that I'm going tohave with you, because from podcaster
to podcaster, I can tell the way youspeak to your listener is engaging and
taking them on a journey within theirstory, within their healing story.
(02:20):
Nathalie I appreciate you saying thatbecause this is what it's all about.
It's about your story and it's about thewisdom that you have to share around that.
And I just think that's got immense value.
So yeah, I'm excited.
You know what I loved about whenI was researching you is what you
wrote about who I am on your website,and I'm going to read this out.
(02:43):
Behind these titles and image is me,Nathalie, a sensitive human being.
I want to be real with you.
I don't always look like this,and I can attest to that.
I don't always look like this either.
Sometimes I look and feel really wornout by the challenges life and death
have presented me with and you knowwhen I read that I knew I was connecting
(03:08):
to a beautiful authentic soul who justgets life so well and doesn't try to
hide from it or hide aspects of it.
So I think this is going to beone of those conversations where
we get lots of gold nuggets.
So what I would like to startwith is something that we
(03:29):
wouldn't know about you, Nathalie.
If we read up everything thereis on you, what is something
that we wouldn't know about you,
That's a good question.
What would that be?
First of all, the things thatyou read out, for me, I'm not
a very public person in itself.
So for me to have or want or needa website and write about myself,
(03:51):
It's always a question of what am Isharing, where am I wanting to share
what I'm sharing and where, what is me?
So for example, one thing thatpeople might not know is that I do
not like to take selfies or I donot like to take pictures of myself.
like the things that you need fora website on an about me page.
(04:13):
This is something that I don't.
particularly like.
So anything that has to do withsocial media, where it is required or
suggested that I would show me speakingis, it's quite a challenge for me.
So for me, as well as a podcasterto speak about me and my personal
experience, it has been something thatwasn't me, but it was like a choiceless
(04:34):
choice in where I came from as atherapist, then with my own significant
loss experience to share about that.
So both in written, in audio, in, invisual, in, in pictures, as well as in,
in any way or form or shape or form,that's not really at the center of me
that I like to present myself as, butI thought it was like, or it came to me
(04:58):
like a choiceless choice in the senseof, if I can do good, if I can bring
people To an understanding of grief andhealing that is different to what they
have given or what they have inherentlyin themselves, then it's there's
this like a choiceless choice for me.
This is how it came aboutfor me to be so public.
I don't know if thatanswers your question.
(05:19):
it's perfect because I relate to thatso well, that is something that I've
struggled with on this whole journey.
And I know.
The exact same thing to put yourselfout there in the public, ,and you
see these other people that are socomfortable in front of the camera,
taking selfies and all of that,
and I feel like I wear the scars ofmy life on my face and on my body.
(05:43):
and, there's a part ofme that's proud of that.
Proud of surviving all ofthat, but it doesn't always
make for the nicest pictures.
I seem to be one of those awkwardpeople in front of the camera, so
I totally relate to what you'resaying, but it is what we need to do.
Yeah, the choiceless choice.
I like that.
(06:04):
Are you comfortable giving us a backgroundleading up to conceiving your twins
and then around the diagnosis youreceived regarding Amaya at 19 weeks?
So I was a therapist before and I, soeven before I was, I'm a teacher and
then I became therapist and I was drawninto dealing with people with loss.
(06:28):
So first of all, that wasrelationship related loss.
I worked a lot with couples.
And there was something that, that,intrigued me about death, even before
my own significant loss experiences.
And I don't know why, but I feelnow in retrospect that it was like a
preparation for me to be dealing withloss, to be coming close to death.
(06:51):
And I became pregnant quite late in life.
And I was pregnant withtwins, with identical twins.
And then at 19 weeks, there wasa diagnosis that Amaya had multi
cystic kidneys, which is, biggerpicture is Potter's syndrome.
And leading up to their birth, therewere different situations where we
(07:16):
had with doctors in ultrasound scans,where different people said different
things, but it was quite, challengingand in retrospect, this is where the
trauma started to happen because at26 weeks that one of the doctors said,
all you have to think about palliativecare and that came out of nowhere.
And I had already saidto my, gynecologist that.
If there was no medical reason to doso, we would not want to terminate
(07:39):
or make a decision for the baby.
We wanted the baby to make thedecision when it was time to go.
And that led then to, 34 weeksof pregnancy where they, checked
again in ultrasound, differentdoctors, we changed them.
And then it was clear that they neededto be born because they were identical.
(08:05):
They had, different sacks.
So the, um, one of the things iswith poplar syndrome is that the,
the body doesn't produce, urine.
So once the amniotic fluid wasgone, then it becomes very tight.
But the advantage was of two ofthem in that it was a cushioning
because Amaya didn't have thefluid and Anandamay had the fluid.
(08:25):
Anyway, so not to draw itout for too long, but they
were born at almost 35 weeks.
and then, because also other doctorssaid, we can only really tell what exactly
is happening once the child is born andonce we can do an x ray or different
tests, because within the mother's womb,it's difficult to make certain tests.
(08:47):
So they were born and came to the NICU,and then they were kept in cribs and they
were watched and then within a few days,It was clear that Amaya, Amaya's system
wasn't producing any pee, so any liquid.
And so then the body slowly itself.
(09:09):
And that's when, in the secondnight, she had a collapsed lung.
And for us, as parents, in communicationwith the doctors, it became clear that
she was giving us a sign that, I'll, Ihave to help retract a bit because with
the collapsed lung, if they wouldn'thave intervened there and then she would
(09:30):
have died, but they drained the lung.
And then,
Yeah.
so that was in the middle of the night.
And so she survived that, but obviouslythis was a sign for us that, okay,
she's saying, okay, I'm okay to leave.
So that's our.
recollection about it or ourmaking meaning around that.
(09:51):
And then on the third day, we decidedto turn off the machines with which
she was kept alive and took quitesome time and ritual to facilitate
that, what I feel is facilitate withthe birth, the entry into this world.
We, as parents, with the helpof the nurses in the NICU, we
facilitated the way for her toleave, which was both painfully, and
(10:19):
traumatic for a mother, for me, aswell as in retrospect, even then it
was extremely beautiful to be, forme, I speak about that as the honor
of allowing me to hold my child inmy arms as she draw her last breath.
And so I could, and now obviously withmy analytic mind, I can look back and
(10:41):
I can analyze what was happening there.
There was this, this joy and thispride of having the twin girls first
on me and then to hold her as shewas drawing her last breath and she
was moving and she was looking at meand maybe these are just movements
that a baby at that age does anyway.
I don't know, but it wassymbolical for me, right?
(11:04):
And so for me to be allowed and tobe able to be present to her in her
passing was an honor that I felt wasmaking so much meaning for me in in
the intenseness of letting go oneof my child from physical reality.
And
(11:24):
That's such a beautiful perspectivefrom what must have been an unimaginably
difficult time for you because, you'retrying to hold space for both girls.
One, who you are preparing to say goodbyeto and who you did say goodbye to,
and then one that you need to nurture.
(11:44):
How do you do that?
how do you navigate thatextremely confusing, time?
I think that's a perfect question becausepeople who are listening to this probably
aren't or were in this place wherethey don't know what to do with this,
with the split between grief and joy.
And in that moment, Iwas also inexperienced.
(12:05):
I also didn't know how to do that.
And I was also feeling devastatedand didn't know how do you do this?
Because there is no guideline.
There is no rule book as to,okay, look, this is how you do it.
Like for breastfeeding, youhave breastfeeding lactation
consultant that help you.
But unless you've come to a placewhere you find a person that can
(12:26):
help you going through these phases,who might've been there before.
it's a road that you learn tonavigate while you're doing it.
But in retrospect, then I canobviously see what did I do.
first of all, I just did it momentby moment, breath by breath,
and I had a lot of support.
So I look back and I can tell thatthe only reason why I didn't lose
(12:52):
my mind, just as a, using a broadersense of the term, was because I I
was given, and I searched out peoplethat were there holding my hand and
accompanying me all the way through that.
So for example, if I retract, I wasstanding at the humidi crib of my
daughter and there comes a woman standingnext to me and she wasn't dressed in
(13:14):
the normal clothes as a NICU nurse.
And I thought, who's that person?
But I didn't consciously think that.
She was just starting to talkto me and it was soothing.
And she was, she then turnedout to be the NICU nurse.
this hospital's, social worker and yeah.
So right from the beginning, therewas someone there who gave me idea.
(13:36):
Then the NICU nurse that was assignedto our daughters or one of them who
helped us in the transitioning period,it's called transitioning period, she
was very skilled at what she was doing.
This wasn't the first timeobviously, and she was there with us.
And then we also had Heartfelt,which is the, company that comes
who takes pictures of childrenwho are severely ill or are dying.
(13:59):
And I didn't know, but the person whocame, took, it was the first time that
she took photos of a transitioning period.
It's not necessarily common,but we didn't know better.
Obviously we were not experienced and Ijust wanted to have photos of my girl.
And she came the day before, when shewas there before her lungs collapsed, and
she came for the transitioning period.
(14:20):
So there were people therewho somehow were there for us,
for me.
So I can only speak formyself, but I assume for the
father of the babies as well.
And so they were like people walkingwith me through that path, that I
didn't know what's going to come.
I didn't know the terror.
I didn't know anything.
(14:41):
But there were people there.
So I think from my understanding now oftrauma and grief, I understand fully that.
Not being alone, having someonethere with you and taking it slow.
Those three things.
And I didn't need to know, but thosethree elements were meaningful to the
(15:01):
whole rest of the 12 years since then.
Wow, and that's what I was goingto ask you, what you found most
supportive during that time, andyou've just explained that beautifully.
Then you get home, and your mum isliving on the side of the world.
So again, that's a tough time initself, and you're just probably
(15:26):
getting used to, just having thisone wee baby home with you, and then
you get the news about your mum.
My daughters were born in September,1st of September and Amaya on the 3rd.
And then, yeah, as you were saying,I started to learn to be a mother
because this was my first childas well and had sleepless nights.
(15:46):
And then beginning of December,my parents came to visit.
So they lived in or live in Switzerlandand they came to Australia to
Sydney where I lived at the timeand they visited for about a month.
And so we spent December together,we spent Christmas together.
And so my mother was, was dealing withdepression, but it was at that time.
(16:09):
stable, I would say, but it was,she was obviously, not obviously,
no, but she was stable at that time.
And then by the end of December,I think actually the 30th,
they left and went back home.
So they returned toSwitzerland, where I live now.
And 19 days later, she died from suicide.
(16:31):
And,
Wow.
to retract a little bit, she hadsuicide attempts while I was pregnant.
So one would say, yeah, thatdoesn't come as a surprise.
it still does come as a surprise.
It's not something that you expect orbecause someone has attempted before
they're going to do it necessarily again.
But while I, when I was 19 weeks pregnant,when we found out about the Potter's
(16:52):
Syndrome, that's when my mother had one ofher attempts, which took her to hospital.
And so I was leading up to the birth ofthe children, I was already in, in this.
stressful place inside of myselfbecause I was fearful of my mother
and what would happen to her.
But then after they left,
it's not something that I expected.
(17:13):
She wasn't in a state where Isaid, Oh my God, she's gonna,
she's in a really bad place.
This is not what I expected.
And yeah, then we had this conversation.
I had this conversation with myfather who started saying, Oh,
you have to be really strong now.
And I knew what he was going to say.
So my mother died from suicide.
And within four days, we werein Switzerland, we had to make
(17:37):
a passport for that small babyand to come to the funeral.
And luckily, so from when the girlswere born, it took me some time,
but I was already searching out atherapist for myself because being a
therapist myself, I knew that, and itwas, I was leading up to what I was
saying before, I knew, okay, I can
(17:58):
only make this through.
If I have, if I take the same kindof support that I would wish other
people have and that I can seemy clients the way that they go.
So I knew.
Okay.
This is what I would like to give myself.
And so I, at that time, my GPsuggested someone to me, and in
(18:19):
fact, she wasn't a grief therapist.
However, she was really good.
She was, in fact, pregnantherself, which I found out in
the course of me seeing her.
Which for some people is quite atrigger, understandably a trigger.
But it's not about, whethershe was pregnant or whether or
not she was a grief therapist.
For me, it's a question of,can I relate to that person?
I can only find out when I try.
(18:40):
And is this person supportive?
And I wanted someone, and I said that tomy GP, I wanted someone that I didn't have
to tell what does she need to do with me.
She needed to know herself becauseI wasn't in the seat of being a
therapist, I was in the seat of being a
yes, exactly,
my mother died, I had a therapist andI was already in session with her.
So I called her and I said, okay,I need to go and see you today.
(19:02):
This is very destabilizing.
And so I had support, from the get go.
And I think that as well,that just gave me this space.
However, it doesn't take away the grief.
It doesn't take away the instability,the skips and the questions that go
on in your mind, but there's someonethere helping you navigate that.
(19:24):
If you have the chance to find someonethat you can talk to, the ruminations or
the post traumatic stress and all thesefeelings, the combination of grief, grief
is a word that is a summary of all thethings that are going on in your brain,
in your physical, in your emotional self.
So that was absolutely amazing.
(19:45):
Absolutely important.
As you were speaking, what came intomy head was that I remember listening
to you talking about your experienceand you mentioned that you didn't,
very few people knew that you hadanother sister and your mother never
(20:07):
talked about having a miscarriage.
Do you think in some way thatwas a triggering response?
For her, with her depression, whatyou were going through, pregnant, and
yeah, it just made me think of that,and I don't know whether you've thought
about that, as a factor in it all, but,back in those days, people didn't talk
(20:31):
about their miscarriages, they just
got on with it, didn't
I never thought about that.
I don't know.
I wouldn't know about it.
Obviously for my mom, this waseven with the distance, this was
triggering because she loved babies.
She was, even in her depression, shewas looking forward to the However, when
(20:53):
she had her attempt at 19 weeks, had aconversation with her and I said to her,
how can you even think about doing that?
Me selfishly being pregnant andand saying, I'm pregnant with
your granddaughters and youwould not want to live anymore.
What would that do to me and my babies?
And that, so I was obviouslythinking about myself, but then
she said something interesting.
(21:13):
She said, when I'm in that place,
it has nothing to do with you.
I do not think about you.
And even though that was difficult tograsp, and I can now understand because
I read about people in the suicidalspace a bit more to understand it.
I had knowledge before, butobviously then I'm pregnant, I'm
thinking about myself and my mother.
(21:34):
So it's personal, not with clients,but I understood what she was saying.
I understood it in retrospect.
When someone is in a place ofsuicidal ideation to the point
of wanting to proceed with that,they are in this tunnel vision.
They do not have their loved dealingwith it because otherwise they couldn't.
(21:56):
They are in this low point, theycoming up, so they have a little bit
of ACT activation that they can proceedwith the suicide, but they're not
thinking and taking into considerationwhat it does to the other people.
Because otherwise, theywouldn't be doing it.
They wouldn't be proceedingwith the suicide.
So from that point of view,what she was saying makes sense.
(22:18):
It was about her.
It was about escaping her pain.
And not about thinking aboutwhat would it do to my daughters.
And something else she said,which is with me to this day.
She said, Because I said, how doyou think I would have grieved
and could have handled that?
I would have been devastating, devastated.
And she said, it would behard at the beginning, but
(22:39):
with time it would get easier.
So at the time hearing that I was furious.
She would say that, but now lookback and in a week going to be 12
years since my mother's suicide.
So it's a nine 19th of January.
So looking back with 12 years of.
experience of living my life, postloss of my daughter and my mother.
(23:03):
She's right.
It's not the time that makes it easier.
It's with time it gets easier.
And what does that mean easier?
Because not everyone will agree withme, but for me, and I'm speaking
about my experience, the easierpart is that if I look back at raw
grief, the first year, the first twoyears, I'm no longer in that space.
(23:27):
I'm no longer, crying uncontrollablyor being devastated, being in place of
depressed myself and having no energy.
I'm no longer in that same place.
I do still think about my mother.
I do still miss her.
I do wish she would be here formy 12 year old to grandmother her.
I do acknowledge that.
I have this yearning for my daughterto have her twin, for me to have
(23:52):
that experience of two girls with me.
I still have that.
And sometimes there are theseplaces, and I just had that around
Christmas, where I, out of no apparentreason, profusely miss my mother.
To the point where I had dayswhere I was deeply depressed
because my mother isn't here.
(24:12):
Now I personally know the triggersfor that, but it wasn't expected.
So that doesn't mean that after12th year I'm fine, or I'm
over it, or I'm through it.
None of this applies.
But I have integrated to the pointwhere I can live with it and I can
hold myself in a place when I'mgrieving, when I'm actively grieving.
(24:34):
But there's also many more timeswhere I'm passively grieving.
We have to define what is grieving.
Because I think when we talkabout grief and grieving,
each person has their ownimagination around what it means to
them, but we're not talking aboutwhat do we systematically talk
about it together as a culture.
What is grieving if we want totalk about the same experience?
(24:57):
So for me, actively grieving iswhen something is really triggering.
when I feel the pain, when I'mmaybe emotional about it, that's
the active grieving, painful, thesadness and the feelings are good.
When I'm passively grieving, it is thatmy mother will always be my mother.
I miss her presence, sometimesmore, sometimes it's not in
(25:17):
the forefront of my mind.
But that's the way it is.
That's not going to go away, or itdoesn't need to go away, because I
don't expect that to ever be completedin a way that I do not miss her.
Now this is specific to my mother,because it has to do with the
relationship that I had with my mother.
And it is different to the griefthat I might have with someone
(25:41):
else dying in my life, becausethe relationship is different.
It's not that I expect that everyperson has the same kind of grieving
experience towards their mother,because the relationship will be
not the same as me and my mother.
I want to draw out on thatpoint a little bit more.
Nathalie let's talk about thedifferent types of loss, because you
(26:03):
had loss of people and relationshipsand significant loss prior to
losing your daughter and your mum.
They, in some way, were probablypreparing you for being able to
deal with loss on a certain level.
But like you say, they no way compareto your daughter and your mom.
(26:27):
In terms of different kinds of losses, soyou tell me if I answer your question, but
I'm going again to my personal experience.
So I've lost people in my lifethrough death, which was grandparents.
But in terms of, if we're looking atthe loss of a grandparent at the age
where their life is come to a placeof completion, then through the normal
(26:49):
way of living a life, we sort of expectit, meaning we know, okay, the end
of the life, at the age of whereveryou want to say, 60, 70, 80, 90, life
is complete in the sense of the bodynot being able to continue living on.
if it is timely, then it is, it hasa different connotation than when
(27:12):
death is untimely, when it comesunexpected, when it comes through some
form of violence to self or to someoneelse, administered by someone else.
And when it's untimely, as inthe loss of a child, then it's
a completely different scenario.
Also, different losses that, I haven'tspoken about are losses through
(27:33):
relationship breakups or when youlose someone that is not there, dead,
then it's a different kind of loss.
And even in that scenario,there's different versions.
There's the versions of, comingto an agreement together or
having some deceit in that.
So there's all kinds of variations tothat, not without going into all the
(27:55):
details that make the loss specific.
But in all of those losses,the one variable is yourself.
And that is, how have you beentextured by grief in your life?
What have you heard?
What has been said to you, whathave you taken on, what does your
culture deem normal or not normal?
(28:16):
What are the things that have been playedout in your surroundings around that?
Not just culturally, not justyour family, but the wider circle.
And all these information,they texture the variable of
the self in relation to grief.
That's what the brain, sorry,the brain takes on as this is.
This is what loss should look like.
(28:37):
This is what people have said to me.
This is what is expected.
And we get this informationalso through series.
Anyone listening to thisprobably watches some kind of
TV, movies, or Netflix nowadays.
And you see these films and theyportray, if you listen with the grief
ear, you can hear a lot of connotationsthat are socially accepted norms or
(29:02):
suggestions that are given, has shegotten over the loss of her husband?
Is she dating again?
Isn't it time?
You know, all these connotations,they feed into that.
Expectation that we bringto grief in ourselves.
Have we learned from our surroundingsthat it's better to be avoided?
(29:24):
Or strong emotions as a wholeare better being avoided?
Or is it accepted that we experiencethe emotions and also show them?
That is, these two things arelike the cornerstones of that.
Or have I been told or said orinexplicably taken on that I shouldn't
(29:45):
be talking about it, I should berather avoid it or suppress it.
And all of that makes your reaction orsomeone else's reaction good, expected,
or bad, or unusual, or strange, even.
So you have a very good resource onyour website that is free to anybody
(30:09):
to access and that, is the GoodGrief Support and Healthy Grieving.
and it goes through all the differentideas from a person who's supporting
the person grieving as well asthe person grieving themselves.
And these are the types of thingsthat you talk about in that resource,
(30:29):
aren't they?
Would you say a little bit more?
I would love you to
supporters or family members of theperson that is at the center of the loss.
I often had people somehowrelated who were, asking of
support coming to me for support
saying my sister has lost her child.
and I don't really know whatto say, or I noticed that the
(30:51):
relationship isn't as it was before.
Can you help?
And this is from the sideof the supporter, but also
from the person grieving.
I often heard these people just don'tunderstand, which is understandable
if you haven't experienced something.
And if you going back to the idea of whatare we bringing to the grief, all these
(31:11):
things, don't make us very, experiencedin dealing with someone who's grieving.
They just don't, because we have mostlyheard the five myths about grieving.
Be strong, keep on going.
What is it?
Grieve alone.
I can't name them all, but anyway, this isthe common myth that we have around grief
that most of us know about in subconsciousways that we bring to the table.
(31:36):
So people then don't know what to say.
People cross the street and don'tspeak to the person because they
are like, I don't know what to say.
I don't want to say anythingwrong because they could cry.
And what would I do if someone's crying?
I don't know what to do.
And so I realized that there's this biggap they're missing of the support of
(31:58):
how to be with someone that is grieving.
And so my latest book, is called Bridgingthe Grief Gap because I need, I needed
to put that into words because so manyof my therapy sessions were about that.
And I wanted to give a resource forpeople to be able to give to the person
in their family that they want to besupported by or to understand themselves.
(32:20):
Okay.
This is normal what I'm feelingbecause what most of the time I
spend with clients and sessionsabout normalizing their experiences.
Because it's so out of the ordinary ofwhat we experience in normal life that
they feel like they're going crazy.
This is a phrase that I hear all the time.
I feel like I'm going
Yeah.
Yes, it's you're experiencingsomething out of the ordinary.
(32:41):
But given the circumstancesthat you're in, this is common.
This is normal.
It doesn't feel normal, but it isnormal given the circumstances.
So the resource that you mentionedon the website, which is free,
is for people to get the mainpoints of Bridging the Grief Gap.
This is sort of the bare bone,minimal, to understand how can I
(33:03):
be with someone, what do I say?
And that's it.
I just had this, I just had an experiencethis week where in a group of people
that I'm working with, someone'sgrandchild died shortly after birth.
And it was exactly that situation.
There were all these people workingtogether and one of the person
was affected by loss, not at thevery core, but still very close.
(33:28):
And I could see everyonewas like in shock.
They were all in freeze when thenews was being brought to them.
And the person bringing the news was veryemotional, so there was a trigger for her.
And I could normalize eachperson's behavior because I
knew what was happening there.
And
Yeah.
this is the kind of the bridge that Ihope to give to people because grief will
(33:53):
sooner or later touch anybody's life.
I had my own.
Sorry about
No, go on.
Yeah.
with my, one of my relativesafter my daughter died.
And, she was so well meaning,honestly, she thought that if she
(34:14):
took all the tough news and shieldedme from the harsher realities of
it, she was doing me a good service.
Yet I'm the type of person thatwants all the pieces to fit together.
And I needed to hear theinformation, I, I needed to be
a part of that decision making.
(34:35):
regarding my daughter and yes, it wasa tricky one to navigate because I
knew she meant well, but she didn'twhat I needed and I needed to hear it.
Even if I didn't like what I was hearing,I still needed to hear the information.
So that's the sort of
thing about, isn't it?
It's like people, they come froma good place, they just want to do
(34:59):
the right thing and the best thing.
But like you say, if they've gotno previous experience, it's very
difficult to know what is the right
thing to do.
And you know what you're saying isexemplary for the fact that a lot of
people still believe that avoidance orshielding is the best way for someone.
(35:21):
Now in certain cases that might bethe As an example of one of my podcast
guests, she spoke about the death of herdaughter, which was in a car accident.
And the police didn't allowthe mother to see the child.
Now, I'm absolutely sure this wasout of good experience of what the
mother would see in terms of traumaticresponse of the post traumatic
(35:43):
stress that she would have from that.
So there's situations wherethat is appropriate, given the
experience that these people have.
But in many other cases, it, it's goodto have the information because the mind
naturally goes to what if, what would Ihave done different, was I lacking, guilt,
(36:03):
guilt and shame is often part of grief.
So the mind naturally goes to wantingto understand and wanting to know what
did I fail to do that this happened.
And so some of the informationis important to give the brain
a little bit of respite to say,you did everything you could.
This is not your fault.
(36:25):
And so the question of the information,I don't know what, what she was trying
to shield you from, in other cases,like with the police who said, no, we
do not want you to see your daughter,they knew that this, this, this,
this, Probably lead to some of thepost traumatic stress that comes in
any way with the unexpected violentdeath of like a suicide or accident
(36:52):
yeah, my daughter was an accident,and luckily, I did get to see and I
didn't get to be with her until she'dbeen to the coroner, but then she, I
brought her home with me and it wasjust a, around the car and the vehicle.
But actually that exam, that,that situation, when I did go to
(37:15):
the, person who had towed the car.
And he actually was brilliant because hedrew for me exactly what had happened.
So I understood, and I got some
real peace and from theinformation that he provided me.
And, he forewarned me that, thevehicle was not going to be pretty.
(37:36):
And I knew, she'd been hit by a truck.
So I knew but it was my choice as well.
So for me, and that'sthe type of person I am.
I would not recommend that for for,others that, that may be the last
thing they want to be involved with.
But, I think that what the message is
don't assume that you knowwhat is best for that person.
(37:59):
And, And it's about trying to beopenly communicative with them about
things,
and the way you just spoke about thatlittle part of your story, it shows that
this person showing you the vehicle, heprepared you and it wasn't Immediately
after the death, or after the loss, orafter the accident, I assume, when he
(38:20):
showed you the car, it was a bit of time.
So I think there's a differentiationbetween, in the moment, in,
in a stressful space anyway.
And the preparation isextremely important.
You know, one of the things thatcame to mind when you were speaking
was, seeing my mother after she died.
So I did choose not to seemy mother in the casket.
(38:42):
And made this decision, not in a spurof a moment, made this and I, and I
thought about it and I felt into itand I had seen my mother 19 days prior.
And when she was holding my livingdaughter, and I have this picture in
my mind, and I wanted to be with that.
And my dad was trying to convince me,my father was trying to convince me, Oh,
(39:02):
you should see her because he had heardthat helps the realization of the death.
And for me, in that moment, I wasthinking, okay, if I never see
her in the casket, how will thatbe in one year and two years?
And I didn't have a feeling inthat moment of, I should have.
(39:23):
If only I had, so it's a bitdifficult to future pace that
thing, but I took some time.
And so I decided, no, I don'twant to, they were trying to
convince me, but I decided not to.
So now it's 12 years later and I I don'thave ever the feeling I should have.
It's a personal thing because forsomeone else they would say, no, I
(39:43):
have to, I want to, but don't make thatdecision for someone else and don't
make it quickly take time because takingtime, spreading time is the counter
indicator for trauma because traumais too fast, too much to deal with.
So if we're taking time
and taking small bits gives the systemtime to integrate it and then it comes,
(40:09):
the decision comes from a different place.
So that is the story that I was tellingabout the mother in the accident
was right at the accident scene.
Yeah.
So she was in that moment of obviouslywanting to go to her daughter.
This is like an urge.
And so it's a, do you understand?
(40:29):
I don't, I don't want tosay that this is the right
do understand that becauseI knew my daughter had died.
I knew before the police told me.
And my natural instinct was to hopin my car and go and find my baby.
Where is she?
Where is she?
And I didn't know whichway she was coming home.
And so I was fraught with that.
And all I wanted to do was be with her.
(40:53):
And that was my overwhelming desire.
and I believe, that is what, a lot ofparents would feel it's but like you say,
the flip side of that is that sometimesthe reality of what they're going to see
is too overwhelming for their system.
And yeah, I know that, when thepolice did contact me, they just
(41:15):
said, Oh, we've closed the road off.
They didn't tell methen that she had died.
Although.
I found out shortly after on Googleactually, I found out on Google and
yes, and so yeah, so I still think, Iwas still going to find a way and then
I realized, this is what's happened.
So yeah, in every situation,every experience is so unique.
(41:40):
So what fits one person doesn'tnecessarily fit somebody else, does it?
And speaking on that, can youalso just speak to us a little bit
about how the body holds the grief?
Because you spoke about it, 12years along at Christmas, you
had that feeling within you.
(42:03):
And I'm a great believer that youdon't even have to consciously
know when the date is coming up.
Your body tells you.
So the interesting thing about is that,you know, grief is experienced on all the
different levels physically, emotionally,mentally, cognitively, and spiritually
(42:24):
in a way, depending on your beliefs.
But it is held on all thoselevels in different ways.
And so on a physical level,there's different, different
ways that it can experience.
So it's like grief's energy tries tofind a way to be, to be experienced,
(42:46):
to be making its way out of the body.
And so if we're talkingabout the physical sense.
It could be headaches.
It could be disorientation.
Grief brain is often spoken about.
So the foggy thinking, notbeing able to concentrate.
Like I had significant experiencesin the months after my daughter
(43:06):
died that felt like a broken heart.
So I would be feeding my daughter.
So in that position as breastfeedingis, and then there came a moment
where I was like, okay, there'ssomething I cannot breathe anymore.
I feel like I can only breathevery shallowly and I had to call
(43:28):
someone, can you please take, takeAnanamaya because I can't move.
So there was something like,my lung caught between a rib.
So the medical thing or the, or maybemy ribs of alignment, but you know,
you can someone would say, oh, well,your ribs are out or whatever, but it
felt like my heart was broken and Icouldn't breathe, which is very symbolic
also because the lungs in traditionalChinese medicine are relating to grief.
(43:51):
So whichever angle you look into that,it was making sense, but in overall,
it's just grief's energy, trying tofind a way to go out of the system,
whether that is through tears, throughuncontrollably crying, whether it is
through ruminations in the thoughts,or whether to try and make meaning,
(44:12):
building alter, putting up pictures orsymbolism, or trying to see symbols.
It's just a way for us to make or tocontinue the relationship with the
person, a loved one, because eventhough they're no longer physical,
the relationship doesn't end.
So our daughter have died.
(44:34):
But we still have our daughters.
It is just in a differentform of relating.
The same way as my mother died.I stillhave a mother just the relationship I have
is no longer physical It is what havea mother And the energy of griefcomes
out in all kinds of different ways There'sneeds that happen in a person's system
(44:59):
their life in whatever way, whetherthat is, tending to a grave or making
meaning in other ways, whether it ismaking a podcast like you and I, or
writing a book or nothing of that.
Maybe it is, pouring the love into the people around you because
you know how precious life is.
It doesn't have to bea big outwardly thing.
(45:22):
It can be something veryinside of ourselves.
And I think it's, maybe I'm paintingthat a bit too broad, but it's
like, how can grief as howeverone defines it, find its way to be
expressed in an attempt to integrate,
to make life around that loss expandto the place where that grief, that
(45:47):
loss always has its place and hasn'tbecome smaller, has been textured by
more life and more experiences around.
I think that's beautiful.
I love the way you explained thatand it takes the pressure off people
too, who feel that they have tohonor their loved one in some way.
(46:09):
they can just do it from within,with their memories and having that
special part time of the day or wherethey just really, take that time
just to, to remember them, how they.
how they impact of their lifeand just however they want
that to look for them really,
isn't it?
(46:29):
Yeah,
I want to add somethingto that story that I
yeah,
in because that's the element that Ithink is not yet so open in the sense that
how do you live a relationship betweenyou and the person that you've lost.
Meaning, if we're looking at motheringa child, we see lots of examples.
(46:50):
We see other mothers walking with theirchildren, we see them do, or fathers,
and we have a model of what motheringlooks like, or fathering, or parenting.
So we have lots of models, wehave, we see that in films.
But it's not so common to see a modelor ways at which you can continue living
a relationship with between you andthe person that has, that has died.
(47:12):
And that needs to be learned becauseif I don't have a lot of models outward
outwardly anyway that I can, that Ihave been fed all over, it's like,
well, okay, I need to learn to live arelationship that I have very little
role modeling for very little example.
And so that.
It's something that is as individualas any living physical relationship.
(47:33):
So to now live a relationship betweena physical being and the non physical
being, and I like the quote thatgrief is homeless love, meaning that
non physical being is the home foryour love, but it's not physical.
How do I do that?
this is, this is what big partfor me of integrating grief is.
How do I continue that?
And in what way?
(47:53):
Maybe it is writing letters,maybe it is just having a silent
communication, or maybe it is.
a symbol, whatever it is, but it is thatlearning to nurture that relationship,
because even if we sometimes talk inpast tense, my mother was, And we would
talk about what she was and what she did.
She is still my mother.
(48:15):
That doesn't, her role is nevergoing to be negated just because she
died, the same for our daughters.
And so how do you, ensure that yoursurviving daughter, how do you deal with
the relationship between the two of them?
Because it's a twin bond, regardlessof how you look at it, isn't it?
(48:39):
And, and does she, is she curious?
Does she want to know?
Does she want to see pictures?
So we are very open.
We are very transparent and wehave been from the beginning.
I wouldn't know any other way to do that.
And I personally thinkit's very important.
luckily I have been born into atime and space and place where
(49:00):
this was okay and haven't been toldotherwise, just forget about that.
Just don't speak about it.
This, this was, this is another culturesor other times that was very common.
But in my case, we we are, and weweren't, we are very transparent.
However, I only have 12 yearsof experience with my daughters.
And so I can see the different, levelsof maturity and age in which she has
(49:22):
related to her sister, her sibling.
And it has changed over theyears, and it is ever changing.
I expect that.
So I make a differentiationbetween my relating to my daughter
and her relating to her sister.
And I make this distinction verydeliberately because my relating
(49:43):
or my grieving or my, whateverthat means, integrating grief
is my part and hers is hers.
But obviously as a mother, I'mpart of that for her, but I, as to
the best of my ability as I can, Itry not to impose anything on her.
So I take her lead.
Um, I, and I have takenher lead from early on.
(50:04):
Like for example, we have, we havesome pictures of them together,
for example, in my bedroom, Ihave pictures of the two together.
And in her room, there's a picture of meholding Amaya, and, but she has a choice
over what one should, can be there or not.
And so now at 12, also of her going intoa new school, I had a discussion with her
(50:27):
about whether, how, to whom, and in whatdetail she wants to bring in her sister.
And I made that conscious effort to havea conversation with her to her, for her
to think about and make a decision becauseof the history that she had with that.
Because she had already been, alwaysspeaking about, because in school they
(50:48):
ask, How many siblings do you have?
And then they speak about that.
And children react very naturally.
What?
You have a sister?
We've never seen her.
That's not true.
They're very natural about it.
And then she says, Yeah, but died.
And then they're, Uh huh.
Okay.
They don't like go, Ah.
But a lot of the adults have said, sheshouldn't be leading with that story.
She shouldn't be alwaystelling that story.
(51:08):
And I said, Why not?
truth.
Okay.
That, that's part of who she is.
That's And just because, oh, just becauseit makes you uncomfortable doesn't
mean she doesn't have to talk about it.
But in her going new school now, Ijust, I had a different conversation
because of her maturity level.
So I made a decision to say, howmuch do you want to talk about it?
(51:30):
based on your experience.
so now she she deliberatelylets it flow in when she wants
to, when she feels comfortable.
But not as a lead in to conversation.
And, you know, I also want to say that,in terms of identity, you know, like,
(51:50):
obviously she is, a twin, and she hasa twin sister, but it doesn't have
to be the main part of her identity.
Because she's been living as a,as an individual, and as an only
daughter in our case, although Iwanted other children, for 12 years.
So she made her identity that.
And yes, that not living sister is stillpart of her, but it's building that
(52:14):
identity the same as me as a mother.
Am I, is, how big of a part of me is beinga grieving mother or a bereaved mother?
How much of me is part part of me isbeing in the semi orphaned daughter?
And how much of me is part of theother beings that I am, and that
(52:34):
is a, that is in a pie chart.
If we want it has changed, doesn'thave be the same because in raw grief,
it's a lot about being a grievingmother, because that's the experience
that we have, which is natural.
But as time goes by, there might beother things, other glimmers in life
that I want to bring into that makeup who I am and that I want to be.
(52:55):
And so it's it's changing, ever changing.
I really like the way you've describedthis and I especially like that you've
separated your grief patterns from yourdaughter's grief patterns and allowed
both to exist and hers to even take thelead and I think that is so important
(53:19):
that we understand that, especially infamilies, because everybody has their
own way of doing it, depending on theirpersonality and lots of different factors,
how, what the family dynamic is and so on.
So that's incredible.
Look, we have had such a beautifulconversation and I was going to talk
(53:40):
to you about trauma, but actually Ithink that If you're, if you would
like to, we can do a whole separateepisode on that because I feel like
I really like where this episode hasheaded and what it has addressed.
And, I really like what we'vetalked about in bridging the gap of
(54:02):
grief and the importance of that.
Is there anything else that we haven'tdiscussed that you would really like
our listeners to know around grief?
Yeah.
As a nice story to end as well and to bemindful of in terms of grief of children
(54:28):
when there's different, maturity levelsthat relate to different kind of grieving.
But one of the interesting thingthat I found is, and that also
embraces the trauma aspect of this.
Allowing someone to be where they're at.
This is a very short story.
When she was four years old,we had her birthday party.
And at the end of the birthdayparty, it was the first time
(54:48):
that I saw her actively grieving.
Now in my mind, I thought,that's because of her sister.
Well, it turned out to be something else.
She was sitting on mylap and she was crying.
She was crying for about half an hour.
So with my understanding and my knowledgeof grief and trauma, I just allowed
her to be, I didn't shush it away.
I didn't tell her, okay.
(55:08):
I didn't try and divert her attention.
I just said, and I justsometimes let her be.
And I sometimes, you know, gaveher the space to have whatever.
And then she was crying.
And sometimes she was sayingsomething for like, I'm so sad.
Oh, yes, you're saying I wasmirroring back to her, which
was I wasn't implying anything.
I wasn't putting meaning onto it.
(55:29):
I just let her have her experience.
And I was curious, butI had my assumption.
So I had I thought itwas about her sister.
And then at some point she said, I'mso sad my birthday party is over.
And it won't be happeningfor another year.
So I realized that she's a four yearold and that's about the age when the
(55:54):
grieving can be really experienced.
So it was interesting to see that.
And she was grieving because ofherself, because that's also very
natural because they're thinkingabout themselves at the age of four.
And then at, at, at another pointin time, I finished that story
first, about half an hour into that.
She herself said, Okay, Mummy,we can do something else now.
(56:16):
So recalled half now, but it was shorter,but it was longer than I, I expected.
And then it was over.
However, another time I did somethingfor myself, which I sometimes do around
the birthday, I sort of do somethingfor me in relation to because, you
know, in life in general, we celebrateAnandamay's birthday, but not Amaya's
(56:36):
outwardly because I don't want that.
It's for me.
It's not for anyone else.
And it's not for Anandamay.
But we do it as a family.
We celebrate her person.
One year we had balloons,I think, from the birthday.
So we put the name of Amaya onit and we let it go into the sky.
Not a very good thing to do.
(56:57):
But it was just
but I did that samething and then I thought
about that
afterwards.
and and she was crying andcrying, and crying, and she
wasn't crying because of Amaya.
She was crying becausethe balloon went away.
So, you know, it's it's thosekinds of things the, the children
will grieve in their own way.
Like when she became a teenager,she, early on, she was grieving
(57:18):
of not having her friend, hermate, her closest with her.
And she sometimes says things like,if Amaya was here, and she would
imagine what it would be like.
That's also the relationship thatshe's building with that non physical
sibling that she wishes she has.
that she had, but that shedoesn't have in present tense.
(57:39):
So I think it's important for peopleto understand that, you know, the best
thing you can do with someone who'sgrieving, whether that is your child or
yourself or your friend, is to just bethere with her, inquire and ask questions
and not shy away from not knowing.
You don't need to know, but you can askand unassumingly ask what's going on.
(58:02):
Such good advice.
I have three quick questions.
I ask everybody to finish up the podcast.
So what is the best thing that'shappened to you so far today?
And look, I have to just let peopleknow that your day's only just started.
You got onto this podcast veryearly over in Switzerland and
I'm very grateful for that.
But is there anythingfabulous that's happened
(58:25):
to you already?
The best thing today wasmy conversation with you.
I want to tell people who listento Helen, maybe some of you are
like listeners that have listenedto you for all your episodes.
Helen is a fabulous podcast host andthe kind of conversation that we have,
she knows me and I only just met her.
So this was the best thing today.
Thank you for startingmy day today like that.
(58:48):
I appreciate that.
I really do.
What is something thatyou are most grateful for?
Most grateful.
I would say the experience with mydaughters, and I say plural because
all of them, I'm I'm very gratefulto be having all the experiences
(59:14):
that relate to my daughters.
They are so special, aren't they?
They just bring another dimension toyour life you could never possibly
imagine until you're right there in it.
And yes, and I still feelthat with my own daughter.
So special.
And when you have moments in yourday that are not going so well, and
(59:37):
we have an expression here in NewZealand when we say, when things
turn to custard, what is your go to?
How do you pivot out of those moments?
(01:00:00):
I would say radical self-care,and that can look can look
differently in different scenarios.
I, if I can, normal, my, I,I, I'm a therapist to myself.
Sometimes I hear myself speaklike a therapist to myself and,
and that is a gift to have.
It's not always a.
No, I think it's actually the way that Ideal with things and I don't necessarily,
(01:00:26):
I'm not necessarily able to do thatright away, but with a bit of reflection,
with a bit of time, I can usually be,and I have learned to be, this is not
something that I was all the time.
I have learned to be very kind to myself.
Well,
That's beautiful.
Because I think we're often ourown worst critics and yeah, we
(01:00:47):
judge ourselves a bit too harshly
sometimes.
Oh, Nathalie, what an
absolute pleasure.
I knew this was goingto be a great interview.
I could just feel it whenI was researching you.
I was going, Oh, yes, I love this lady.
And you have proven to just be so,You just have this way about you that
is so compassionate and so, oh, calm.
(01:01:12):
You are so calming and I just, I envythe people that get to come and see
you, for therapy because you just mustbe do such an amazing job with them.
And I have to say, I'm very gratefulthat I got to speak with you today.
For the time you've given us andthe wealth of information you
(01:01:33):
shared on how we can start to bridgethat gap with grief and, in grief.
And I will have all the links to howpeople can contact you in the episode
notes, but, would you like to sharethat with everybody now, just before we
finish up?
yes, if people want to find outmore, they can just start with my
(01:01:53):
website and that's NatalieHemmerich.
com.
And everything else sortof leads from there.
I think that's all.
so much.
so much, Helen, for your timeand for having me on your show.
I love the conversation and I feelequally grateful to have had the
opportunity to be speaking with you.
(01:02:14):
Oh, that's been an absolute pleasure.
Thank you.
Now, head off and enjoythe rest of your day.
Thank you.
and pass on my thanks to yourdaughter for taking you away
from breakfast
That's okay.
It's not the time that makes it easier.
(00:01):
It's with time it gets easier.
And what does that mean easier?
Because not everyone will agree withme, but for me, and I'm speaking
about my experience, the easierpart is that if I look back at raw
grief, the first year, the first twoyears, I'm no longer in that space.
(00:22):
I'm no longer, crying uncontrollablyor being devastated, being in place of
depressed myself and having no energy.
I'm no longer in that same place.
I do still think about my mother.
I do still miss her.
I do wish she would be here formy 12 year old to grandmother her.
I do acknowledge that.
I have this yearning for my daughterto have her twin, for me to have
(00:46):
that experience of two girls with me.
I still have that.
Today on the Beautiful Side of Grief,I am speaking with Nathalie Himmelrich
, who is a passionate writer, holisticcounselor, coach, woman, and mother.
(01:09):
Her areas of specialty arerelationships, grief, and trauma, with
a passion to help people find theirinspiration for healthy grieving.
Nathalie is highly sought after inthe fields of grief, trauma, and
relationships, and her Publish multiplegrief resource books, and that's
because she knows grief so well.
She experienced the loss of herown daughter, Amaya, and then four
(01:33):
months later, her mother, who wasdealing with depression and with
whom she had a close relationship.
I feel there will be some immense valueto gain from this conversation we have
today as we explore the emotional,psychological, and physical aspects of
these experiences and how they manifestin our lives as Nathalie is indeed a
(01:56):
treasure with vast wisdom and knowledge.
So a very warm
welcome to you
so much, Helen, for having me, and Ican already tell, I'm going to love
the conversation that I'm going tohave with you, because from podcaster
to podcaster, I can tell the way youspeak to your listener is engaging and
taking them on a journey within theirstory, within their healing story.
(02:20):
Nathalie I appreciate you saying thatbecause this is what it's all about.
It's about your story and it's about thewisdom that you have to share around that.
And I just think that's got immense value.
So yeah, I'm excited.
You know what I loved about whenI was researching you is what you
wrote about who I am on your website,and I'm going to read this out.
(02:43):
Behind these titles and image is me,Nathalie, a sensitive human being.
I want to be real with you.
I don't always look like this,and I can attest to that.
I don't always look like this either.
Sometimes I look and feel really wornout by the challenges life and death
have presented me with and you knowwhen I read that I knew I was connecting
(03:08):
to a beautiful authentic soul who justgets life so well and doesn't try to
hide from it or hide aspects of it.
So I think this is going to beone of those conversations where
we get lots of gold nuggets.
So what I would like to startwith is something that we
(03:29):
wouldn't know about you, Nathalie.
If we read up everything thereis on you, what is something
that we wouldn't know about you,
That's a good question.
What would that be?
First of all, the things thatyou read out, for me, I'm not
a very public person in itself.
So for me to have or want or needa website and write about myself,
(03:51):
It's always a question of what am Isharing, where am I wanting to share
what I'm sharing and where, what is me?
So for example, one thing thatpeople might not know is that I do
not like to take selfies or I donot like to take pictures of myself.
like the things that you need fora website on an about me page.
(04:13):
This is something that I don't.
particularly like.
So anything that has to do withsocial media, where it is required or
suggested that I would show me speakingis, it's quite a challenge for me.
So for me, as well as a podcasterto speak about me and my personal
experience, it has been something thatwasn't me, but it was like a choiceless
(04:34):
choice in where I came from as atherapist, then with my own significant
loss experience to share about that.
So both in written, in audio, in, invisual, in, in pictures, as well as in,
in any way or form or shape or form,that's not really at the center of me
that I like to present myself as, butI thought it was like, or it came to me
(04:58):
like a choiceless choice in the senseof, if I can do good, if I can bring
people To an understanding of grief andhealing that is different to what they
have given or what they have inherentlyin themselves, then it's there's
this like a choiceless choice for me.
This is how it came aboutfor me to be so public.
I don't know if thatanswers your question.
(05:19):
it's perfect because I relate to thatso well, that is something that I've
struggled with on this whole journey.
And I know.
The exact same thing to put yourselfout there in the public, ,and you
see these other people that are socomfortable in front of the camera,
taking selfies and all of that,
and I feel like I wear the scars ofmy life on my face and on my body.
(05:43):
and, there's a part ofme that's proud of that.
Proud of surviving all ofthat, but it doesn't always
make for the nicest pictures.
I seem to be one of those awkwardpeople in front of the camera, so
I totally relate to what you'resaying, but it is what we need to do.
Yeah, the choiceless choice.
I like that.
(06:04):
Are you comfortable giving us a backgroundleading up to conceiving your twins
and then around the diagnosis youreceived regarding Amaya at 19 weeks?
So I was a therapist before and I, soeven before I was, I'm a teacher and
then I became therapist and I was drawninto dealing with people with loss.
(06:28):
So first of all, that wasrelationship related loss.
I worked a lot with couples.
And there was something that, that,intrigued me about death, even before
my own significant loss experiences.
And I don't know why, but I feelnow in retrospect that it was like a
preparation for me to be dealing withloss, to be coming close to death.
(06:51):
And I became pregnant quite late in life.
And I was pregnant withtwins, with identical twins.
And then at 19 weeks, there wasa diagnosis that Amaya had multi
cystic kidneys, which is, biggerpicture is Potter's syndrome.
And leading up to their birth, therewere different situations where we
(07:16):
had with doctors in ultrasound scans,where different people said different
things, but it was quite, challengingand in retrospect, this is where the
trauma started to happen because at26 weeks that one of the doctors said,
all you have to think about palliativecare and that came out of nowhere.
And I had already saidto my, gynecologist that.
If there was no medical reason to doso, we would not want to terminate
(07:39):
or make a decision for the baby.
We wanted the baby to make thedecision when it was time to go.
And that led then to, 34 weeksof pregnancy where they, checked
again in ultrasound, differentdoctors, we changed them.
And then it was clear that they neededto be born because they were identical.
(08:05):
They had, different sacks.
So the, um, one of the things iswith poplar syndrome is that the,
the body doesn't produce, urine.
So once the amniotic fluid wasgone, then it becomes very tight.
But the advantage was of two ofthem in that it was a cushioning
because Amaya didn't have thefluid and Anandamay had the fluid.
(08:25):
Anyway, so not to draw itout for too long, but they
were born at almost 35 weeks.
and then, because also other doctorssaid, we can only really tell what exactly
is happening once the child is born andonce we can do an x ray or different
tests, because within the mother's womb,it's difficult to make certain tests.
(08:47):
So they were born and came to the NICU,and then they were kept in cribs and they
were watched and then within a few days,It was clear that Amaya, Amaya's system
wasn't producing any pee, so any liquid.
And so then the body slowly itself.
(09:09):
And that's when, in the secondnight, she had a collapsed lung.
And for us, as parents, in communicationwith the doctors, it became clear that
she was giving us a sign that, I'll, Ihave to help retract a bit because with
the collapsed lung, if they wouldn'thave intervened there and then she would
(09:30):
have died, but they drained the lung.
And then,
Yeah.
so that was in the middle of the night.
And so she survived that, but obviouslythis was a sign for us that, okay,
she's saying, okay, I'm okay to leave.
So that's our.
recollection about it or ourmaking meaning around that.
(09:51):
And then on the third day, we decidedto turn off the machines with which
she was kept alive and took quitesome time and ritual to facilitate
that, what I feel is facilitate withthe birth, the entry into this world.
We, as parents, with the helpof the nurses in the NICU, we
facilitated the way for her toleave, which was both painfully, and
(10:19):
traumatic for a mother, for me, aswell as in retrospect, even then it
was extremely beautiful to be, forme, I speak about that as the honor
of allowing me to hold my child inmy arms as she draw her last breath.
And so I could, and now obviously withmy analytic mind, I can look back and
(10:41):
I can analyze what was happening there.
There was this, this joy and thispride of having the twin girls first
on me and then to hold her as shewas drawing her last breath and she
was moving and she was looking at meand maybe these are just movements
that a baby at that age does anyway.
I don't know, but it wassymbolical for me, right?
(11:04):
And so for me to be allowed and tobe able to be present to her in her
passing was an honor that I felt wasmaking so much meaning for me in in
the intenseness of letting go oneof my child from physical reality.
And
(11:24):
That's such a beautiful perspectivefrom what must have been an unimaginably
difficult time for you because, you'retrying to hold space for both girls.
One, who you are preparing to say goodbyeto and who you did say goodbye to,
and then one that you need to nurture.
(11:44):
How do you do that?
how do you navigate thatextremely confusing, time?
I think that's a perfect question becausepeople who are listening to this probably
aren't or were in this place wherethey don't know what to do with this,
with the split between grief and joy.
And in that moment, Iwas also inexperienced.
(12:05):
I also didn't know how to do that.
And I was also feeling devastatedand didn't know how do you do this?
Because there is no guideline.
There is no rule book as to,okay, look, this is how you do it.
Like for breastfeeding, youhave breastfeeding lactation
consultant that help you.
But unless you've come to a placewhere you find a person that can
(12:26):
help you going through these phases,who might've been there before.
it's a road that you learn tonavigate while you're doing it.
But in retrospect, then I canobviously see what did I do.
first of all, I just did it momentby moment, breath by breath,
and I had a lot of support.
So I look back and I can tell thatthe only reason why I didn't lose
(12:52):
my mind, just as a, using a broadersense of the term, was because I I
was given, and I searched out peoplethat were there holding my hand and
accompanying me all the way through that.
So for example, if I retract, I wasstanding at the humidi crib of my
daughter and there comes a woman standingnext to me and she wasn't dressed in
(13:14):
the normal clothes as a NICU nurse.
And I thought, who's that person?
But I didn't consciously think that.
She was just starting to talkto me and it was soothing.
And she was, she then turnedout to be the NICU nurse.
this hospital's, social worker and yeah.
So right from the beginning, therewas someone there who gave me idea.
(13:36):
Then the NICU nurse that was assignedto our daughters or one of them who
helped us in the transitioning period,it's called transitioning period, she
was very skilled at what she was doing.
This wasn't the first timeobviously, and she was there with us.
And then we also had Heartfelt,which is the, company that comes
who takes pictures of childrenwho are severely ill or are dying.
(13:59):
And I didn't know, but the person whocame, took, it was the first time that
she took photos of a transitioning period.
It's not necessarily common,but we didn't know better.
Obviously we were not experienced and Ijust wanted to have photos of my girl.
And she came the day before, when shewas there before her lungs collapsed, and
she came for the transitioning period.
(14:20):
So there were people therewho somehow were there for us,
for me.
So I can only speak formyself, but I assume for the
father of the babies as well.
And so they were like people walkingwith me through that path, that I
didn't know what's going to come.
I didn't know the terror.
I didn't know anything.
(14:41):
But there were people there.
So I think from my understanding now oftrauma and grief, I understand fully that.
Not being alone, having someonethere with you and taking it slow.
Those three things.
And I didn't need to know, but thosethree elements were meaningful to the
(15:01):
whole rest of the 12 years since then.
Wow, and that's what I was goingto ask you, what you found most
supportive during that time, andyou've just explained that beautifully.
Then you get home, and your mum isliving on the side of the world.
So again, that's a tough time initself, and you're just probably
(15:26):
getting used to, just having thisone wee baby home with you, and then
you get the news about your mum.
My daughters were born in September,1st of September and Amaya on the 3rd.
And then, yeah, as you were saying,I started to learn to be a mother
because this was my first childas well and had sleepless nights.
(15:46):
And then beginning of December,my parents came to visit.
So they lived in or live in Switzerlandand they came to Australia to
Sydney where I lived at the timeand they visited for about a month.
And so we spent December together,we spent Christmas together.
And so my mother was, was dealing withdepression, but it was at that time.
(16:09):
stable, I would say, but it was,she was obviously, not obviously,
no, but she was stable at that time.
And then by the end of December,I think actually the 30th,
they left and went back home.
So they returned toSwitzerland, where I live now.
And 19 days later, she died from suicide.
(16:31):
And,
Wow.
to retract a little bit, she hadsuicide attempts while I was pregnant.
So one would say, yeah, thatdoesn't come as a surprise.
it still does come as a surprise.
It's not something that you expect orbecause someone has attempted before
they're going to do it necessarily again.
But while I, when I was 19 weeks pregnant,when we found out about the Potter's
(16:52):
Syndrome, that's when my mother had one ofher attempts, which took her to hospital.
And so I was leading up to the birth ofthe children, I was already in, in this.
stressful place inside of myselfbecause I was fearful of my mother
and what would happen to her.
But then after they left,
it's not something that I expected.
(17:13):
She wasn't in a state where Isaid, Oh my God, she's gonna,
she's in a really bad place.
This is not what I expected.
And yeah, then we had this conversation.
I had this conversation with myfather who started saying, Oh,
you have to be really strong now.
And I knew what he was going to say.
So my mother died from suicide.
And within four days, we werein Switzerland, we had to make
(17:37):
a passport for that small babyand to come to the funeral.
And luckily, so from when the girlswere born, it took me some time,
but I was already searching out atherapist for myself because being a
therapist myself, I knew that, and itwas, I was leading up to what I was
saying before, I knew, okay, I can
(17:58):
only make this through.
If I have, if I take the same kindof support that I would wish other
people have and that I can seemy clients the way that they go.
So I knew.
Okay.
This is what I would like to give myself.
And so I, at that time, my GPsuggested someone to me, and in
(18:19):
fact, she wasn't a grief therapist.
However, she was really good.
She was, in fact, pregnantherself, which I found out in
the course of me seeing her.
Which for some people is quite atrigger, understandably a trigger.
But it's not about, whethershe was pregnant or whether or
not she was a grief therapist.
For me, it's a question of,can I relate to that person?
I can only find out when I try.
(18:40):
And is this person supportive?
And I wanted someone, and I said that tomy GP, I wanted someone that I didn't have
to tell what does she need to do with me.
She needed to know herself becauseI wasn't in the seat of being a
therapist, I was in the seat of being a
yes, exactly,
my mother died, I had a therapist andI was already in session with her.
So I called her and I said, okay,I need to go and see you today.
(19:02):
This is very destabilizing.
And so I had support, from the get go.
And I think that as well,that just gave me this space.
However, it doesn't take away the grief.
It doesn't take away the instability,the skips and the questions that go
on in your mind, but there's someonethere helping you navigate that.
(19:24):
If you have the chance to find someonethat you can talk to, the ruminations or
the post traumatic stress and all thesefeelings, the combination of grief, grief
is a word that is a summary of all thethings that are going on in your brain,
in your physical, in your emotional self.
So that was absolutely amazing.
(19:45):
Absolutely important.
As you were speaking, what came intomy head was that I remember listening
to you talking about your experienceand you mentioned that you didn't,
very few people knew that you hadanother sister and your mother never
(20:07):
talked about having a miscarriage.
Do you think in some way thatwas a triggering response?
For her, with her depression, whatyou were going through, pregnant, and
yeah, it just made me think of that,and I don't know whether you've thought
about that, as a factor in it all, but,back in those days, people didn't talk
(20:31):
about their miscarriages, they just
got on with it, didn't
I never thought about that.
I don't know.
I wouldn't know about it.
Obviously for my mom, this waseven with the distance, this was
triggering because she loved babies.
She was, even in her depression, shewas looking forward to the However, when
(20:53):
she had her attempt at 19 weeks, had aconversation with her and I said to her,
how can you even think about doing that?
Me selfishly being pregnant andand saying, I'm pregnant with
your granddaughters and youwould not want to live anymore.
What would that do to me and my babies?
And that, so I was obviouslythinking about myself, but then
she said something interesting.
(21:13):
She said, when I'm in that place,
it has nothing to do with you.
I do not think about you.
And even though that was difficult tograsp, and I can now understand because
I read about people in the suicidalspace a bit more to understand it.
I had knowledge before, butobviously then I'm pregnant, I'm
thinking about myself and my mother.
(21:34):
So it's personal, not with clients,but I understood what she was saying.
I understood it in retrospect.
When someone is in a place ofsuicidal ideation to the point
of wanting to proceed with that,they are in this tunnel vision.
They do not have their loved dealingwith it because otherwise they couldn't.
(21:56):
They are in this low point, theycoming up, so they have a little bit
of ACT activation that they can proceedwith the suicide, but they're not
thinking and taking into considerationwhat it does to the other people.
Because otherwise, theywouldn't be doing it.
They wouldn't be proceedingwith the suicide.
So from that point of view,what she was saying makes sense.
(22:18):
It was about her.
It was about escaping her pain.
And not about thinking aboutwhat would it do to my daughters.
And something else she said,which is with me to this day.
She said, Because I said, how doyou think I would have grieved
and could have handled that?
I would have been devastating, devastated.
And she said, it would behard at the beginning, but
(22:39):
with time it would get easier.
So at the time hearing that I was furious.
She would say that, but now lookback and in a week going to be 12
years since my mother's suicide.
So it's a nine 19th of January.
So looking back with 12 years of.
experience of living my life, postloss of my daughter and my mother.
(23:03):
She's right.
It's not the time that makes it easier.
It's with time it gets easier.
And what does that mean easier?
Because not everyone will agree withme, but for me, and I'm speaking
about my experience, the easierpart is that if I look back at raw
grief, the first year, the first twoyears, I'm no longer in that space.
(23:27):
I'm no longer, crying uncontrollablyor being devastated, being in place of
depressed myself and having no energy.
I'm no longer in that same place.
I do still think about my mother.
I do still miss her.
I do wish she would be here formy 12 year old to grandmother her.
I do acknowledge that.
I have this yearning for my daughterto have her twin, for me to have
(23:52):
that experience of two girls with me.
I still have that.
And sometimes there are theseplaces, and I just had that around
Christmas, where I, out of no apparentreason, profusely miss my mother.
To the point where I had dayswhere I was deeply depressed
because my mother isn't here.
(24:12):
Now I personally know the triggersfor that, but it wasn't expected.
So that doesn't mean that after12th year I'm fine, or I'm
over it, or I'm through it.
None of this applies.
But I have integrated to the pointwhere I can live with it and I can
hold myself in a place when I'mgrieving, when I'm actively grieving.
(24:34):
But there's also many more timeswhere I'm passively grieving.
We have to define what is grieving.
Because I think when we talkabout grief and grieving,
each person has their ownimagination around what it means to
them, but we're not talking aboutwhat do we systematically talk
about it together as a culture.
What is grieving if we want totalk about the same experience?
(24:57):
So for me, actively grieving iswhen something is really triggering.
when I feel the pain, when I'mmaybe emotional about it, that's
the active grieving, painful, thesadness and the feelings are good.
When I'm passively grieving, it is thatmy mother will always be my mother.
I miss her presence, sometimesmore, sometimes it's not in
(25:17):
the forefront of my mind.
But that's the way it is.
That's not going to go away, or itdoesn't need to go away, because I
don't expect that to ever be completedin a way that I do not miss her.
Now this is specific to my mother,because it has to do with the
relationship that I had with my mother.
And it is different to the griefthat I might have with someone
(25:41):
else dying in my life, becausethe relationship is different.
It's not that I expect that everyperson has the same kind of grieving
experience towards their mother,because the relationship will be
not the same as me and my mother.
I want to draw out on thatpoint a little bit more.
Nathalie let's talk about thedifferent types of loss, because you
(26:03):
had loss of people and relationshipsand significant loss prior to
losing your daughter and your mum.
They, in some way, were probablypreparing you for being able to
deal with loss on a certain level.
But like you say, they no way compareto your daughter and your mom.
(26:27):
In terms of different kinds of losses, soyou tell me if I answer your question, but
I'm going again to my personal experience.
So I've lost people in my lifethrough death, which was grandparents.
But in terms of, if we're looking atthe loss of a grandparent at the age
where their life is come to a placeof completion, then through the normal
(26:49):
way of living a life, we sort of expectit, meaning we know, okay, the end
of the life, at the age of whereveryou want to say, 60, 70, 80, 90, life
is complete in the sense of the bodynot being able to continue living on.
if it is timely, then it is, it hasa different connotation than when
(27:12):
death is untimely, when it comesunexpected, when it comes through some
form of violence to self or to someoneelse, administered by someone else.
And when it's untimely, as inthe loss of a child, then it's
a completely different scenario.
Also, different losses that, I haven'tspoken about are losses through
(27:33):
relationship breakups or when youlose someone that is not there, dead,
then it's a different kind of loss.
And even in that scenario,there's different versions.
There's the versions of, comingto an agreement together or
having some deceit in that.
So there's all kinds of variations tothat, not without going into all the
(27:55):
details that make the loss specific.
But in all of those losses,the one variable is yourself.
And that is, how have you beentextured by grief in your life?
What have you heard?
What has been said to you, whathave you taken on, what does your
culture deem normal or not normal?
(28:16):
What are the things that have been playedout in your surroundings around that?
Not just culturally, not justyour family, but the wider circle.
And all these information,they texture the variable of
the self in relation to grief.
That's what the brain, sorry,the brain takes on as this is.
This is what loss should look like.
(28:37):
This is what people have said to me.
This is what is expected.
And we get this informationalso through series.
Anyone listening to thisprobably watches some kind of
TV, movies, or Netflix nowadays.
And you see these films and theyportray, if you listen with the grief
ear, you can hear a lot of connotationsthat are socially accepted norms or
(29:02):
suggestions that are given, has shegotten over the loss of her husband?
Is she dating again?
Isn't it time?
You know, all these connotations,they feed into that.
Expectation that we bringto grief in ourselves.
Have we learned from our surroundingsthat it's better to be avoided?
(29:24):
Or strong emotions as a wholeare better being avoided?
Or is it accepted that we experiencethe emotions and also show them?
That is, these two things arelike the cornerstones of that.
Or have I been told or said orinexplicably taken on that I shouldn't
(29:45):
be talking about it, I should berather avoid it or suppress it.
And all of that makes your reaction orsomeone else's reaction good, expected,
or bad, or unusual, or strange, even.
So you have a very good resource onyour website that is free to anybody
(30:09):
to access and that, is the GoodGrief Support and Healthy Grieving.
and it goes through all the differentideas from a person who's supporting
the person grieving as well asthe person grieving themselves.
And these are the types of thingsthat you talk about in that resource,
(30:29):
aren't they?
Would you say a little bit more?
I would love you to
supporters or family members of theperson that is at the center of the loss.
I often had people somehowrelated who were, asking of
support coming to me for support
saying my sister has lost her child.
and I don't really know whatto say, or I noticed that the
(30:51):
relationship isn't as it was before.
Can you help?
And this is from the sideof the supporter, but also
from the person grieving.
I often heard these people just don'tunderstand, which is understandable
if you haven't experienced something.
And if you going back to the idea of whatare we bringing to the grief, all these
(31:11):
things, don't make us very, experiencedin dealing with someone who's grieving.
They just don't, because we have mostlyheard the five myths about grieving.
Be strong, keep on going.
What is it?
Grieve alone.
I can't name them all, but anyway, this isthe common myth that we have around grief
that most of us know about in subconsciousways that we bring to the table.
(31:36):
So people then don't know what to say.
People cross the street and don'tspeak to the person because they
are like, I don't know what to say.
I don't want to say anythingwrong because they could cry.
And what would I do if someone's crying?
I don't know what to do.
And so I realized that there's this biggap they're missing of the support of
(31:58):
how to be with someone that is grieving.
And so my latest book, is called Bridgingthe Grief Gap because I need, I needed
to put that into words because so manyof my therapy sessions were about that.
And I wanted to give a resource forpeople to be able to give to the person
in their family that they want to besupported by or to understand themselves.
(32:20):
Okay.
This is normal what I'm feelingbecause what most of the time I
spend with clients and sessionsabout normalizing their experiences.
Because it's so out of the ordinary ofwhat we experience in normal life that
they feel like they're going crazy.
This is a phrase that I hear all the time.
I feel like I'm going
Yeah.
Yes, it's you're experiencingsomething out of the ordinary.
(32:41):
But given the circumstancesthat you're in, this is common.
This is normal.
It doesn't feel normal, but it isnormal given the circumstances.
So the resource that you mentionedon the website, which is free,
is for people to get the mainpoints of Bridging the Grief Gap.
This is sort of the bare bone,minimal, to understand how can I
(33:03):
be with someone, what do I say?
And that's it.
I just had this, I just had an experiencethis week where in a group of people
that I'm working with, someone'sgrandchild died shortly after birth.
And it was exactly that situation.
There were all these people workingtogether and one of the person
was affected by loss, not at thevery core, but still very close.
(33:28):
And I could see everyonewas like in shock.
They were all in freeze when thenews was being brought to them.
And the person bringing the news was veryemotional, so there was a trigger for her.
And I could normalize eachperson's behavior because I
knew what was happening there.
And
Yeah.
this is the kind of the bridge that Ihope to give to people because grief will
(33:53):
sooner or later touch anybody's life.
I had my own.
Sorry about
No, go on.
Yeah.
with my, one of my relativesafter my daughter died.
And, she was so well meaning,honestly, she thought that if she
(34:14):
took all the tough news and shieldedme from the harsher realities of
it, she was doing me a good service.
Yet I'm the type of person thatwants all the pieces to fit together.
And I needed to hear theinformation, I, I needed to be
a part of that decision making.
(34:35):
regarding my daughter and yes, it wasa tricky one to navigate because I
knew she meant well, but she didn'twhat I needed and I needed to hear it.
Even if I didn't like what I was hearing,I still needed to hear the information.
So that's the sort of
thing about, isn't it?
It's like people, they come froma good place, they just want to do
(34:59):
the right thing and the best thing.
But like you say, if they've gotno previous experience, it's very
difficult to know what is the right
thing to do.
And you know what you're saying isexemplary for the fact that a lot of
people still believe that avoidance orshielding is the best way for someone.
(35:21):
Now in certain cases that might bethe As an example of one of my podcast
guests, she spoke about the death of herdaughter, which was in a car accident.
And the police didn't allowthe mother to see the child.
Now, I'm absolutely sure this wasout of good experience of what the
mother would see in terms of traumaticresponse of the post traumatic
(35:43):
stress that she would have from that.
So there's situations wherethat is appropriate, given the
experience that these people have.
But in many other cases, it, it's goodto have the information because the mind
naturally goes to what if, what would Ihave done different, was I lacking, guilt,
(36:03):
guilt and shame is often part of grief.
So the mind naturally goes to wantingto understand and wanting to know what
did I fail to do that this happened.
And so some of the informationis important to give the brain
a little bit of respite to say,you did everything you could.
This is not your fault.
(36:25):
And so the question of the information,I don't know what, what she was trying
to shield you from, in other cases,like with the police who said, no, we
do not want you to see your daughter,they knew that this, this, this,
this, Probably lead to some of thepost traumatic stress that comes in
any way with the unexpected violentdeath of like a suicide or accident
(36:52):
yeah, my daughter was an accident,and luckily, I did get to see and I
didn't get to be with her until she'dbeen to the coroner, but then she, I
brought her home with me and it wasjust a, around the car and the vehicle.
But actually that exam, that,that situation, when I did go to
(37:15):
the, person who had towed the car.
And he actually was brilliant because hedrew for me exactly what had happened.
So I understood, and I got some
real peace and from theinformation that he provided me.
And, he forewarned me that, thevehicle was not going to be pretty.
(37:36):
And I knew, she'd been hit by a truck.
So I knew but it was my choice as well.
So for me, and that'sthe type of person I am.
I would not recommend that for for,others that, that may be the last
thing they want to be involved with.
But, I think that what the message is
don't assume that you knowwhat is best for that person.
(37:59):
And, And it's about trying to beopenly communicative with them about
things,
and the way you just spoke about thatlittle part of your story, it shows that
this person showing you the vehicle, heprepared you and it wasn't Immediately
after the death, or after the loss, orafter the accident, I assume, when he
(38:20):
showed you the car, it was a bit of time.
So I think there's a differentiationbetween, in the moment, in,
in a stressful space anyway.
And the preparation isextremely important.
You know, one of the things thatcame to mind when you were speaking
was, seeing my mother after she died.
So I did choose not to seemy mother in the casket.
(38:42):
And made this decision, not in a spurof a moment, made this and I, and I
thought about it and I felt into itand I had seen my mother 19 days prior.
And when she was holding my livingdaughter, and I have this picture in
my mind, and I wanted to be with that.
And my dad was trying to convince me,my father was trying to convince me, Oh,
(39:02):
you should see her because he had heardthat helps the realization of the death.
And for me, in that moment, I wasthinking, okay, if I never see
her in the casket, how will thatbe in one year and two years?
And I didn't have a feeling inthat moment of, I should have.
(39:23):
If only I had, so it's a bitdifficult to future pace that
thing, but I took some time.
And so I decided, no, I don'twant to, they were trying to
convince me, but I decided not to.
So now it's 12 years later and I I don'thave ever the feeling I should have.
It's a personal thing because forsomeone else they would say, no, I
(39:43):
have to, I want to, but don't make thatdecision for someone else and don't
make it quickly take time because takingtime, spreading time is the counter
indicator for trauma because traumais too fast, too much to deal with.
So if we're taking time
and taking small bits gives the systemtime to integrate it and then it comes,
(40:09):
the decision comes from a different place.
So that is the story that I was tellingabout the mother in the accident
was right at the accident scene.
Yeah.
So she was in that moment of obviouslywanting to go to her daughter.
This is like an urge.
And so it's a, do you understand?
(40:29):
I don't, I don't want tosay that this is the right
do understand that becauseI knew my daughter had died.
I knew before the police told me.
And my natural instinct was to hopin my car and go and find my baby.
Where is she?
Where is she?
And I didn't know whichway she was coming home.
And so I was fraught with that.
And all I wanted to do was be with her.
(40:53):
And that was my overwhelming desire.
and I believe, that is what, a lot ofparents would feel it's but like you say,
the flip side of that is that sometimesthe reality of what they're going to see
is too overwhelming for their system.
And yeah, I know that, when thepolice did contact me, they just
(41:15):
said, Oh, we've closed the road off.
They didn't tell methen that she had died.
Although.
I found out shortly after on Googleactually, I found out on Google and
yes, and so yeah, so I still think, Iwas still going to find a way and then
I realized, this is what's happened.
So yeah, in every situation,every experience is so unique.
(41:40):
So what fits one person doesn'tnecessarily fit somebody else, does it?
And speaking on that, can youalso just speak to us a little bit
about how the body holds the grief?
Because you spoke about it, 12years along at Christmas, you
had that feeling within you.
(42:03):
And I'm a great believer that youdon't even have to consciously
know when the date is coming up.
Your body tells you.
So the interesting thing about is that,you know, grief is experienced on all the
different levels physically, emotionally,mentally, cognitively, and spiritually
(42:24):
in a way, depending on your beliefs.
But it is held on all thoselevels in different ways.
And so on a physical level,there's different, different
ways that it can experience.
So it's like grief's energy tries tofind a way to be, to be experienced,
(42:46):
to be making its way out of the body.
And so if we're talkingabout the physical sense.
It could be headaches.
It could be disorientation.
Grief brain is often spoken about.
So the foggy thinking, notbeing able to concentrate.
Like I had significant experiencesin the months after my daughter
(43:06):
died that felt like a broken heart.
So I would be feeding my daughter.
So in that position as breastfeedingis, and then there came a moment
where I was like, okay, there'ssomething I cannot breathe anymore.
I feel like I can only breathevery shallowly and I had to call
(43:28):
someone, can you please take, takeAnanamaya because I can't move.
So there was something like,my lung caught between a rib.
So the medical thing or the, or maybemy ribs of alignment, but you know,
you can someone would say, oh, well,your ribs are out or whatever, but it
felt like my heart was broken and Icouldn't breathe, which is very symbolic
also because the lungs in traditionalChinese medicine are relating to grief.
(43:51):
So whichever angle you look into that,it was making sense, but in overall,
it's just grief's energy, trying tofind a way to go out of the system,
whether that is through tears, throughuncontrollably crying, whether it is
through ruminations in the thoughts,or whether to try and make meaning,
(44:12):
building alter, putting up pictures orsymbolism, or trying to see symbols.
It's just a way for us to make or tocontinue the relationship with the
person, a loved one, because eventhough they're no longer physical,
the relationship doesn't end.
So our daughter have died.
(44:34):
But we still have our daughters.
It is just in a differentform of relating.
The same way as my mother died.I stillhave a mother just the relationship I have
is no longer physical It is what havea mother And the energy of griefcomes
out in all kinds of different ways There'sneeds that happen in a person's system
(44:59):
their life in whatever way, whetherthat is, tending to a grave or making
meaning in other ways, whether it ismaking a podcast like you and I, or
writing a book or nothing of that.
Maybe it is, pouring the love into the people around you because
you know how precious life is.
It doesn't have to bea big outwardly thing.
(45:22):
It can be something veryinside of ourselves.
And I think it's, maybe I'm paintingthat a bit too broad, but it's
like, how can grief as howeverone defines it, find its way to be
expressed in an attempt to integrate,
to make life around that loss expandto the place where that grief, that
(45:47):
loss always has its place and hasn'tbecome smaller, has been textured by
more life and more experiences around.
I think that's beautiful.
I love the way you explained thatand it takes the pressure off people
too, who feel that they have tohonor their loved one in some way.
(46:09):
they can just do it from within,with their memories and having that
special part time of the day or wherethey just really, take that time
just to, to remember them, how they.
how they impact of their lifeand just however they want
that to look for them really,
isn't it?
(46:29):
Yeah,
I want to add somethingto that story that I
yeah,
in because that's the element that Ithink is not yet so open in the sense that
how do you live a relationship betweenyou and the person that you've lost.
Meaning, if we're looking at motheringa child, we see lots of examples.
(46:50):
We see other mothers walking with theirchildren, we see them do, or fathers,
and we have a model of what motheringlooks like, or fathering, or parenting.
So we have lots of models, wehave, we see that in films.
But it's not so common to see a modelor ways at which you can continue living
a relationship with between you andthe person that has, that has died.
(47:12):
And that needs to be learned becauseif I don't have a lot of models outward
outwardly anyway that I can, that Ihave been fed all over, it's like,
well, okay, I need to learn to live arelationship that I have very little
role modeling for very little example.
And so that.
It's something that is as individualas any living physical relationship.
(47:33):
So to now live a relationship betweena physical being and the non physical
being, and I like the quote thatgrief is homeless love, meaning that
non physical being is the home foryour love, but it's not physical.
How do I do that?
this is, this is what big partfor me of integrating grief is.
How do I continue that?
And in what way?
(47:53):
Maybe it is writing letters,maybe it is just having a silent
communication, or maybe it is.
a symbol, whatever it is, but it is thatlearning to nurture that relationship,
because even if we sometimes talk inpast tense, my mother was, And we would
talk about what she was and what she did.
She is still my mother.
(48:15):
That doesn't, her role is nevergoing to be negated just because she
died, the same for our daughters.
And so how do you, ensure that yoursurviving daughter, how do you deal with
the relationship between the two of them?
Because it's a twin bond, regardlessof how you look at it, isn't it?
(48:39):
And, and does she, is she curious?
Does she want to know?
Does she want to see pictures?
So we are very open.
We are very transparent and wehave been from the beginning.
I wouldn't know any other way to do that.
And I personally thinkit's very important.
luckily I have been born into atime and space and place where
(49:00):
this was okay and haven't been toldotherwise, just forget about that.
Just don't speak about it.
This, this was, this is another culturesor other times that was very common.
But in my case, we we are, and weweren't, we are very transparent.
However, I only have 12 yearsof experience with my daughters.
And so I can see the different, levelsof maturity and age in which she has
(49:22):
related to her sister, her sibling.
And it has changed over theyears, and it is ever changing.
I expect that.
So I make a differentiationbetween my relating to my daughter
and her relating to her sister.
And I make this distinction verydeliberately because my relating
(49:43):
or my grieving or my, whateverthat means, integrating grief
is my part and hers is hers.
But obviously as a mother, I'mpart of that for her, but I, as to
the best of my ability as I can, Itry not to impose anything on her.
So I take her lead.
Um, I, and I have takenher lead from early on.
(50:04):
Like for example, we have, we havesome pictures of them together,
for example, in my bedroom, Ihave pictures of the two together.
And in her room, there's a picture of meholding Amaya, and, but she has a choice
over what one should, can be there or not.
And so now at 12, also of her going intoa new school, I had a discussion with her
(50:27):
about whether, how, to whom, and in whatdetail she wants to bring in her sister.
And I made that conscious effort to havea conversation with her to her, for her
to think about and make a decision becauseof the history that she had with that.
Because she had already been, alwaysspeaking about, because in school they
(50:48):
ask, How many siblings do you have?
And then they speak about that.
And children react very naturally.
What?
You have a sister?
We've never seen her.
That's not true.
They're very natural about it.
And then she says, Yeah, but died.
And then they're, Uh huh.
Okay.
They don't like go, Ah.
But a lot of the adults have said, sheshouldn't be leading with that story.
She shouldn't be alwaystelling that story.
(51:08):
And I said, Why not?
truth.
Okay.
That, that's part of who she is.
That's And just because, oh, just becauseit makes you uncomfortable doesn't
mean she doesn't have to talk about it.
But in her going new school now, Ijust, I had a different conversation
because of her maturity level.
So I made a decision to say, howmuch do you want to talk about it?
(51:30):
based on your experience.
so now she she deliberatelylets it flow in when she wants
to, when she feels comfortable.
But not as a lead in to conversation.
And, you know, I also want to say that,in terms of identity, you know, like,
(51:50):
obviously she is, a twin, and she hasa twin sister, but it doesn't have
to be the main part of her identity.
Because she's been living as a,as an individual, and as an only
daughter in our case, although Iwanted other children, for 12 years.
So she made her identity that.
And yes, that not living sister is stillpart of her, but it's building that
(52:14):
identity the same as me as a mother.
Am I, is, how big of a part of me is beinga grieving mother or a bereaved mother?
How much of me is part part of me isbeing in the semi orphaned daughter?
And how much of me is part of theother beings that I am, and that
(52:34):
is a, that is in a pie chart.
If we want it has changed, doesn'thave be the same because in raw grief,
it's a lot about being a grievingmother, because that's the experience
that we have, which is natural.
But as time goes by, there might beother things, other glimmers in life
that I want to bring into that makeup who I am and that I want to be.
(52:55):
And so it's it's changing, ever changing.
I really like the way you've describedthis and I especially like that you've
separated your grief patterns from yourdaughter's grief patterns and allowed
both to exist and hers to even take thelead and I think that is so important
(53:19):
that we understand that, especially infamilies, because everybody has their
own way of doing it, depending on theirpersonality and lots of different factors,
how, what the family dynamic is and so on.
So that's incredible.
Look, we have had such a beautifulconversation and I was going to talk
(53:40):
to you about trauma, but actually Ithink that If you're, if you would
like to, we can do a whole separateepisode on that because I feel like
I really like where this episode hasheaded and what it has addressed.
And, I really like what we'vetalked about in bridging the gap of
(54:02):
grief and the importance of that.
Is there anything else that we haven'tdiscussed that you would really like
our listeners to know around grief?
Yeah.
As a nice story to end as well and to bemindful of in terms of grief of children
(54:28):
when there's different, maturity levelsthat relate to different kind of grieving.
But one of the interesting thingthat I found is, and that also
embraces the trauma aspect of this.
Allowing someone to be where they're at.
This is a very short story.
When she was four years old,we had her birthday party.
And at the end of the birthdayparty, it was the first time
(54:48):
that I saw her actively grieving.
Now in my mind, I thought,that's because of her sister.
Well, it turned out to be something else.
She was sitting on mylap and she was crying.
She was crying for about half an hour.
So with my understanding and my knowledgeof grief and trauma, I just allowed
her to be, I didn't shush it away.
I didn't tell her, okay.
(55:08):
I didn't try and divert her attention.
I just said, and I justsometimes let her be.
And I sometimes, you know, gaveher the space to have whatever.
And then she was crying.
And sometimes she was sayingsomething for like, I'm so sad.
Oh, yes, you're saying I wasmirroring back to her, which
was I wasn't implying anything.
I wasn't putting meaning onto it.
(55:29):
I just let her have her experience.
And I was curious, butI had my assumption.
So I had I thought itwas about her sister.
And then at some point she said, I'mso sad my birthday party is over.
And it won't be happeningfor another year.
So I realized that she's a four yearold and that's about the age when the
(55:54):
grieving can be really experienced.
So it was interesting to see that.
And she was grieving because ofherself, because that's also very
natural because they're thinkingabout themselves at the age of four.
And then at, at, at another pointin time, I finished that story
first, about half an hour into that.
She herself said, Okay, Mummy,we can do something else now.
(56:16):
So recalled half now, but it was shorter,but it was longer than I, I expected.
And then it was over.
However, another time I did somethingfor myself, which I sometimes do around
the birthday, I sort of do somethingfor me in relation to because, you
know, in life in general, we celebrateAnandamay's birthday, but not Amaya's
(56:36):
outwardly because I don't want that.
It's for me.
It's not for anyone else.
And it's not for Anandamay.
But we do it as a family.
We celebrate her person.
One year we had balloons,I think, from the birthday.
So we put the name of Amaya onit and we let it go into the sky.
Not a very good thing to do.
(56:57):
But it was just
but I did that samething and then I thought
about that
afterwards.
and and she was crying andcrying, and crying, and she
wasn't crying because of Amaya.
She was crying becausethe balloon went away.
So, you know, it's it's thosekinds of things the, the children
will grieve in their own way.
Like when she became a teenager,she, early on, she was grieving
(57:18):
of not having her friend, hermate, her closest with her.
And she sometimes says things like,if Amaya was here, and she would
imagine what it would be like.
That's also the relationship thatshe's building with that non physical
sibling that she wishes she has.
that she had, but that shedoesn't have in present tense.
(57:39):
So I think it's important for peopleto understand that, you know, the best
thing you can do with someone who'sgrieving, whether that is your child or
yourself or your friend, is to just bethere with her, inquire and ask questions
and not shy away from not knowing.
You don't need to know, but you can askand unassumingly ask what's going on.
(58:02):
Such good advice.
I have three quick questions.
I ask everybody to finish up the podcast.
So what is the best thing that'shappened to you so far today?
And look, I have to just let peopleknow that your day's only just started.
You got onto this podcast veryearly over in Switzerland and
I'm very grateful for that.
But is there anythingfabulous that's happened
(58:25):
to you already?
The best thing today wasmy conversation with you.
I want to tell people who listento Helen, maybe some of you are
like listeners that have listenedto you for all your episodes.
Helen is a fabulous podcast host andthe kind of conversation that we have,
she knows me and I only just met her.
So this was the best thing today.
Thank you for startingmy day today like that.
(58:48):
I appreciate that.
I really do.
What is something thatyou are most grateful for?
Most grateful.
I would say the experience with mydaughters, and I say plural because
all of them, I'm I'm very gratefulto be having all the experiences
(59:14):
that relate to my daughters.
They are so special, aren't they?
They just bring another dimension toyour life you could never possibly
imagine until you're right there in it.
And yes, and I still feelthat with my own daughter.
So special.
And when you have moments in yourday that are not going so well, and
(59:37):
we have an expression here in NewZealand when we say, when things
turn to custard, what is your go to?
How do you pivot out of those moments?
(01:00:00):
I would say radical self-care,and that can look can look
differently in different scenarios.
I, if I can, normal, my, I,I, I'm a therapist to myself.
Sometimes I hear myself speaklike a therapist to myself and,
and that is a gift to have.
It's not always a.
No, I think it's actually the way that Ideal with things and I don't necessarily,
(01:00:26):
I'm not necessarily able to do thatright away, but with a bit of reflection,
with a bit of time, I can usually be,and I have learned to be, this is not
something that I was all the time.
I have learned to be very kind to myself.
Well,
That's beautiful.
Because I think we're often ourown worst critics and yeah, we
(01:00:47):
judge ourselves a bit too harshly
sometimes.
Oh, Nathalie, what an
absolute pleasure.
I knew this was goingto be a great interview.
I could just feel it whenI was researching you.
I was going, Oh, yes, I love this lady.
And you have proven to just be so,You just have this way about you that
is so compassionate and so, oh, calm.
(01:01:12):
You are so calming and I just, I envythe people that get to come and see
you, for therapy because you just mustbe do such an amazing job with them.
And I have to say, I'm very gratefulthat I got to speak with you today.
For the time you've given us andthe wealth of information you
(01:01:33):
shared on how we can start to bridgethat gap with grief and, in grief.
And I will have all the links to howpeople can contact you in the episode
notes, but, would you like to sharethat with everybody now, just before we
finish up?
yes, if people want to find outmore, they can just start with my
(01:01:53):
website and that's NatalieHemmerich.
com.
And everything else sortof leads from there.
I think that's all.
so much.
so much, Helen, for your timeand for having me on your show.
I love the conversation and I feelequally grateful to have had the
opportunity to be speaking with you.
(01:02:14):
Oh, that's been an absolute pleasure.
Thank you.
Now, head off and enjoythe rest of your day.
Thank you.
and pass on my thanks to yourdaughter for taking you away
from breakfast
That's okay.
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