Takeaways & Reflections | Evolving with Grief

Grief can either suck the life right out of you or, it can build you into the most compassionate heart for others who will look to you to lean on for support in their grief.

They say grief shared is grief diminished, but many people find sharing their grief difficult. Some turn to writing as a way to express and soothe the soul like I had and like my guest, Faith shared, in episode 59. Or, they turn to others in support groups or friendships, only to be let down or disappointed, as my guest Sherrie was and talked about in episode 58.

There is one question I encourage you to ask yourself; one that I challenge you to ask yourself. If you have listened to episode 59, then you may already know what it is. If you haven't, then listen to this week's episode because I mention it again.

Also, this episode is dedicated to the founder of The Grief Recovery Method®, John James, who passed away on 8/10/2021, only three short months following his cancer diagnosis. GRM changed my life and, I will forever be grateful to James for creating this beautiful gift out of his own grief. What a gift to humankind he was and will continue to be to the many hurting hearts who feel led to doing the deep, inner-work through GRM. His legacy will endure; I do not doubt that. Love + Light, John. 💛

RESOURCES:

• Ep 58 | Sherrie Dunlevy
• Ep 59 | Faith Wilcox
• The Grief Recovery Handbook
• The Wheel of Life by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
• Grief Recovery Online or One-on-One Program

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NEED HELP?

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
• Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor

If you or anyone you know is struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, there are free resources available HERE.

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_______

NEED HELP?

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
• Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor

If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.

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• 
  hearts who desire to be heard.
  Or anyone who wants to learn howto better support loved ones
  experiencing loss. As a 30+ yeargriever in advanced grief
  recovery methods specialist, Iknow how badly the conversation
  around grief needs to change.
  
  (00:30):
  Through this podcast, I aim toeducate gravers and non gravers
  alike, spread hope and inspirecompassion towards those
  hurting. Lastly, by providing myheart with the ears and this
  platform, Grievers had theopportunity to share their
  wisdom and stories of loss andresiliency. How about we talk
  about grief like we talked aboutthe weather? Let's get started.
  
  (00:55):
  Thank you for choosing to listento grieving voices today. Today
  is the takeaways and reflectionsepisode where I'll be talking
  about Episode 58 with SherrieDunlevy, and Episode 59 with
  Faith Wilcox. Sherrie had losther infant son 29 days after his
  
  (01:15):
  birth, and also her beloved pet.
  And so she talks about each ofthose losses and the impact they
  had on her as well as herexperience of going through
  grief recovery and how thatchanged her life. And faith
  talks about the loss of her 13year old daughter. She was
  diagnosed at the age of 13 anddied 365 days later in her
  
  (01:40):
  mother's arms of cancer. And thecurious thing about that is she
  didn't know she had one year tolive when she was diagnosed. But
  I think it's an importantquestion to ask ourselves, what
  would I do? If I knew I had oneyear to live? Starting with
  
  (02:01):
  Sherrie's episode, she broughtup a very important topic that I
  want to bring up in thistakeaway's episode and she
  talked about her this desirethat she had when she lost her
  son. She thought that time thatfollowed, she was really
  struggling with why she feltabandoned, why people weren't
  
  (02:26):
  there for her that she thoughtwould have been or should be.
  And she said she came up with afew reasons why this happened.
  One was it hit too close tohome, that if it happened to
  them, thinking about that makesthem sad, it's just too sad for
  them. Another reason why shecame up with why people
  
  (02:49):
  abandoned her was they never hadto deal with a situation like
  that before. And they justdidn't know what to say. Also,
  people really want to saysomething, but don't know what
  to say, or afraid to say thewrong thing. And they want to
  help and they want to dosomething, but they just don't
  know what to do. And so it'seasier to do or say nothing than
  
  (03:09):
  the wrong thing. And one thing Iwould like to add to that is
  that, I think also too, peopleare often consumed with their
  own grief, consumed with what'sgoing on in their own lives.
  Maybe not even grief at thetime, but just the just all.
  Especially women or head ofhouseholds, you wear all the
  
  (03:33):
  hats. For me personally, I canjust say I have days where it's
  just feel so scatterbrained,it's hard to focus, my attention
  is pulled in many differentdirections and, and so trying to
  hold the capacity for compassionand empathy and trying to hold
  
  (03:55):
  that space for somebody else. Ina really trying difficult
  emotionally challenging time.
  I'm struggling in my own mind,I'm probably not the best suited
  person to sit with you duringthose days. But also I think it
  
  (04:17):
  comes down to communication. IfI am feeling that way if I am
  because here's the thing, too,in that situation that would
  cause me grief is like a reallywant to be there for you, but I
  just can't right now "this iswhat's going on, this is how I'm
  
  (04:38):
  feeling, this is what I'mexperiencing". You know, and I
  might feel like it's nothing incomparison to what you're
  feeling. You know, the personthat just you know is going
  through a loss but all the same.
  How do you do to be there forsomebody who you really want to
  be there for? and yet, just youdon't have the brain capacity to
  
  (05:01):
  do it. AndI think it's where we tend to
  complicate things, weovercomplicate things, and
  sometimes we think that we justneed to do these big grandiose
  gestures, or these bigexpressions of our love and
  care. But sometimes it can justbe as simple, "I don't have the
  
  (05:24):
  brain capacity today. I hope Ido tomorrow. But in case I
  don't, know that I'm sending youlove, know that I'm sending you
  a hug". Maybe you put that in acard, and you mail a card to
  that person? Or maybe you sendthem a fruit basket? It can be
  something small, a smallgesture. Maybe if they have a
  
  (05:50):
  pet, maybe it's like, "Okay, Iknow, I need to disconnect a
  bit. I need to, like reboot mybrain." But maybe you don't have
  a pet. Right? And so maybe thatperson that had a loss, has a
  pet. "Hey, can I walk your dog,it'd be good for me, it'd be
  good for your dog, and it wouldhelp you out." Right? So I think
  
  (06:11):
  sometimes we have to thinkoutside the box, and maybe a
  little bit creatively about howwe can be of service to other
  people when we really, reallywant to, but no, we're just not
  there yet in full capacity, butstill want to do a little
  something. And if you arefeeling in full capacity, you
  
  (06:35):
  know, mentally, emotionally,physically, all of those things
  where you can be there for otherpeople, then it's like, by all
  means balls to the wall, I mean,put all your effort and energy
  into that, because you wouldn'tbe surprised how life-giving
  that can be for somebody else,and for you as the giver of your
  
  (06:57):
  time and energy. And it doesn'teven have to be a financial
  expense to do anything special.
  I just encourage you to thinkabout maybe what you would like,
  I think that's also where wetend to overcomplicate things.
  
  (07:21):
  It's like, "what would Iappreciate today? what would I
  really like? what would lift myspirits? Or what would be
  helpful to me today?" .And thendo that thing for that person,
  or somebody else? Who is goingthrough a challenging time, who
  
  (07:43):
  don't have to be grievingsomething. Just maybe it's a
  challenging time, right? And,you know, all of this desire for
  Sherrie to find why peopleabandoned her is kind of what
  led to her writing her book,"How can I help?" your go-to
  guide for helping loved onesthrough life's difficulties, and
  
  (08:04):
  it is on Amazon. And I did linkto her book in the show notes of
  her episode. So I do highlyencourage you to check it out,
  and to listen to that episode inits entirety. And I'm going to
  go through a few more thingsthat Sherrie and I talked about.
  Next, I'd like to share just howcontrast really shows us what we
  
  (08:27):
  do want. And therefore, it's aknowing of what we don't want.
  And we had talked about duringour episode about this post
  traumatic growth. And I hadheard this term before, but I
  think it's true in that when yougo through something traumatic,
  or you have a really difficult,challenging experience, loss of
  
  (08:50):
  a loved one or just naturaldisaster. Things like that we
  realize, what we don't want,like, "this isn't working for
  me, that's not working". How doyou know we start to think about
  
  (09:12):
  what we do want. And so there'sa clarity that can come from
  grief. It is a clarifier thatbrings us to our awareness, all
  that probably isn't working inour lives, things that we would
  desire to change. Even if wedon't know how or what that
  looks like. You can feel it inyour body. Your body responds to
  
  (09:37):
  what isn't working, if we justkind of tune in. We just take a
  moment to tune in to what ourbodies are telling us because
  our bodies are always speakingto us, especially in grief.
  Especially with that posttraumatic growth journey that
  
  (09:57):
  all gravers go throughAnd because there's no timeline
  to grieve, I think thatexperience or how long that
  experience takes is verydifferent for everybody. I think
  it also relies on how open weare to learning something new,
  to see in our lives and otherpeople from a different
  
  (10:24):
  perspective. I think one of thebeautiful things about grief is
  it brings us more compassion, webecome more compassionate
  people, I believe. And so it'sreally leaning into that
  compassion for ourselves first.
  Because it's really hard to giveothers compassion, when we don't
  
  (10:47):
  have it for ourselves. It comesback to that old thing. You
  can't pour from an empty cup,right? I think that is one of
  the lessons that Sherrie hadreceived in her grief, and what
  made her seek out griefrecovery, help in the grief
  recovery method, and I justloved how she shared her
  
  (11:12):
  experience in that, she said ithas the most amazing tool, and
  it was the best gift that shehad ever given herself. And I
  would wholeheartedly agree formyself personally. Grief
  recovery has been the gift thatkeeps on giving. I certified in
  March of 2019, in Austin, Texas,and I was just telling someone
  
  (11:38):
  about it the other day. And Iwas telling this friend, there
  are pivotal moments in ourlives. Times where we can think
  back and, and think well, thatconversation or that bumping
  into that person or, being inthe right place at the right
  
  (12:01):
  time, or that choice I made orthat decision. We can pick out
  these moments in our lives thatare very pivotal to us, that
  really changed the trajectory ofthe rest of our lives, where we
  understand and are aware thathad I not done that thing, my
  
  (12:21):
  life would not be where it istoday. A happenstance
  conversation, and I've had somany of those instances, just
  the perfect conversation at theperfect time, or hearing
  something exactly when I neededto hear it, or stumbling upon a
  
  (12:43):
  resource or something that wouldinevitably change my life. And
  that was grief recovery, to behonest, which opened the doors
  and led to many other thingssuch as Reiki and end of life
  doula and the clients that I'vebeen working with in Reiki and
  what I'm learning starting tolearn now to further my Reiki
  
  (13:06):
  and deeper my practice therewith crystals and sound healing.
  We evolve with our grief, we arealways evolving with our grief.
  It's just truly sad to me, Ifeel sadness when I see people,
  
  (13:30):
  especially online, often in thegrief community, that feel like
  their life is destined to be howit is today. I was that person
  who thought my life was going tobe how it was, and I was going
  
  (13:50):
  to feel how I was going to feelfor the rest of my life. You
  can't see the label from insidethe jar. Right? I mean, that's
  another quote. But it's so true,it's really hard to see a path
  
  (14:14):
  forward when you've triedsomething and it didn't work or
  you've tried that thing and itdidn't work or or you constantly
  feel like you're judged,criticized or analyzed. And
  that's what grief recovery isabsolutely different. The
  
  (14:36):
  approach is different. In itsindividual, because you're an
  individual like it isindividualized to you. Because
  your grief is unique to you. Icould go on and on on a tangent
  on that but grief shows us whatneeds to be healed, grief
  
  (15:01):
  is a clarifier it and it willforce you to evolve. Eventually,
  I think eventually, unless youare unwilling to surrender to
  what it has in store for you,the gift that it could give you
  
  (15:22):
  and I can just see the eyesrolling because when you are
  deep in grief, you do not wantto hear how there's gifts in
  grief, you don't want to hearthat there is purpose to your
  suffering, like you just don'twant to hear that stuff. I
  
  (15:44):
  didn't want to hear that stuff.
  But eventually, there comes apoint where you just get sick
  and tired of being sick andtired. And like my friend
  Sherrie said in her episode, andhonestly, we had recorded that
  many months back. And I hadnever forgotten this phrase that
  she said, but when you lay youdecay, and if that's not true of
  
  (16:06):
  so many other aspects of ourlives, whether let's say you
  have a cancer diagnosis. Ofcourse, there are days where
  absolutely all you can do islay. But if you just laid,
  right, if you just laid andyou'd never got up and you never
  
  (16:29):
  had a reason to get up, or younever tried to get up, you never
  even tried or, granted, there'sall kinds of scenarios and
  situations. This is a veryblanket statement, but that
  statement lay or decay. It'slike our bodies are meant to
  move. And, I don't I'm not evensure who said it. But a body in
  
  (16:58):
  motion, stays in motion like thelaws of physics or something.
  I'm not sure. I think you getthe idea, though, of where I'm
  getting to, but we must stay inmotion. And that's true with
  grief too, or you do get stuck.
  
  (17:18):
  It's like you're in a sinkhole.
  Grief is like a sinkhole. It'llswallow you whole, if you let it
  ,grief will force you out ofyour comfort zone and bring
  change whether you like it ornot. The more you fight these
  changes, that grief will bringin the more resistant you are to
  these changes, the more yoursuffering will persist. And that
  
  (17:42):
  was no different in my grave. Ihad many days where I cried more
  tears than I thought I couldever possibly cry. When you're
  crying from sadness, it's muchdifferent than when you're
  crying from pain. Just likeSherrie had mentioned in her
  
  (18:02):
  episode. She said you willsomeday at some point cry so
  much that you've cried enoughfrom the pain. And I agree, I
  think there comes a point whereyou just run out of tears and
  crying from the sadness is muchdifferent. And I think it's once
  you actually process that pain,and you work through that pain.
  
  (18:26):
  What is left is the sadness.
  That doesn't go away. You know,grief recovery isn't about
  getting over or putting behindyou the person that passed away
  or the relationship that is lessthan loving, grief recovery is
  
  (18:51):
  about addressing the pain. Anysadness you feel isn't just
  going to go away, there's stillgoing to be that empty seat at
  the table. And just this week,as I'm recording this, on
  Tuesday, the founder of griefrecovery passed away from cancer
  
  (19:12):
  after three months of sensesdiagnosis. And for me
  personally, it's a very sadloss. It's a sad loss for all of
  us grief recovery specialists, Ibelieve, because he founded
  something that is incredible,that has changed and impacted
  
  (19:33):
  all of our lives. And I am inawe of the legacy that he has
  created and his left. And I feeldeeply honored to be able to
  carry on his work and hiscreation of the grief recovery
  
  (19:54):
  method in the work that I dowith my clients.
  Again, it's the gift that keepson giving. And it was an
  incredible gift that He hasgiven me. And so I dedicate this
  episode to John James, whocreated the grief recovery
  
  (20:19):
  method out of his own pain inhis own sorrow. And if you are
  interested in learning moreabout his story, I encourage you
  to pick up the book the griefrecovery handbook. It is linked
  in the show notes. And if youdon't see the show notes, or
  don't go to the show notes, youcan also find the grief recovery
  handbook on Amazon. And I highlyrecommend it. Moving on to
  
  (20:44):
  Episode 59 with Faith Wilcox,she shared her story of her 13
  year old daughter beingdiagnosed with cancer and
  actually passing away in herarms 365 days following her
  diagnosis. And this was over 20years ago. And she just recently
  published a book, which is alsolinked in the show notes for
  
  (21:09):
  Episode 59. It's called "Hope asa Bright Star". And it was
  developed from her writings thatshe wrote at the bedside of her
  daughter, and what she hadlearned throughout that whole
  process of sitting with herdaughter in that year, in and
  out of the hospital, chemoradiation treatments and also
  
  (21:36):
  navigating being a parent to herdaughter's sister as well. And
  the dynamics of you know, how doyou function as a family when
  you have such a sick child andyou're in and out of the
  hospital. And I can't imaginewhat that's like, I cannot even
  imagine, I resonated with whatFaith had shared about how
  
  (21:58):
  writing was such a pivotalhealing tool for her. Because I
  too, have been writing since Iwas in my teens and I journaled,
  I wrote poetry. I found muchcomfort in expressing myself in
  that way. And I think for a lotof introverts or empathic
  
  (22:19):
  people, we find that it is mucheasier for us to process our
  feelings. We often dointernally, but it's a great
  exercise in expression, to givethe your feelings of voice in
  some way. And so for me, it wasalways writing. And that was the
  
  (22:41):
  case also for Faith. And shegives some tips for other
  parents at the bedside of aloved one, going through the
  same situation that sheexperienced. And I just thought
  when I was listening back andediting, I just thought to
  myself, like, had she known shehad one year to live? Would she
  
  (23:03):
  have made different choices?
  What would she have wanted toexperience? I mean, what a good
  question to ask yourself to getsome fire under your butt. You
  know, if you had one year tolive, you were told today, you
  have one year to live? Whatwould you want that year to look
  like? I don't know about you.
  But I feel very overwhelmed bythat question, to be honest.
  
  (23:28):
  Because I feel like there's somuch more that I have to offer
  people and want to do in mylife. I think like grief, that
  question is a clarifier. I havea pretty long bucket list. I
  don't know about you, but I dohave a bucket list. And I seem
  
  (23:50):
  to be adding to it year afteryear. But it is a daunting
  feeling isn't it? To think ifyou were given only one year.
  Probably many of the things thatyou might have on your bucket
  list aren't things that youwould probably prioritize.
  
  (24:13):
  Maybe it's putting your feet inthe ocean or feeling you know
  the beach, sand in between yourtoes for the first time or
  swimming with dolphins. I'mreminded of a story of Jeffie
  which is shared by ElisabethKubler Ross and her book "The
  
  (24:33):
  Wheel of Life" , a memoir forliving and dying. But she shares
  the story of this little boynamed jeffy who is dying of
  cancer and was sick much of hisyoung childhood in the last
  thing he wanted to do was morecancer treatment, more chemo and
  radiation and he just wanted togo home. And so his family took
  
  (24:59):
  him home. And when they gothome, the one thing he wanted to
  do was to ride his bike. AndI'll actually share this, you'll
  hear the story of Jaffe broughtup in a future episode, I had
  the privilege of having aconversation with Ken Ross, who
  
  (25:21):
  is Elisabeth Kubler Ross's son.
  And I brought up that storybecause I was moved to tears
  when I read it. But Elizabethlife is just one of many
  stories. She was actively doingher work, but it's like the, the
  
  (25:43):
  amount of work, the amount ofaccomplishments that she had in
  that time, is just, I'm in awe.
  So anyway, I just was made methink of that story of Jeffie.
  When I thought of that question,what would you want to do if you
  
  (26:06):
  had one year left to live andturns out with jeffie, he knew
  intuitively, that he had but afew hours at most. In fact, he
  wanted to go home so he coulddie at home. That story was just
  though a beautiful example ofjust this little child, young
  
  (26:32):
  child taking ownership of thekind of death he wanted to have.
  And I just think, imagine if wehad that kind of authority, and
  took that authority to have thatkind of conviction when we're
  
  (26:55):
  alive, right? not when we're onour way out. And so again, it
  just comes back to that wholequestion. And my biggest
  takeaway from Faith's episodeis, how would I want my next
  year to be if I knew I had oneyear to live? And so that's,
  
  (27:16):
  that's the question I want toleave you with today to truly
  ponder on, and think about, andwhat do you want your next year
  to be? Like? If you are grievingright now, what do you want your
  next year to be like. In caseyou don't know if it is
  something that you want to moveforward working through your
  
  (27:38):
  grief, I offer grief recovery,both online and in person, and
  both one on one and in a group.
  So if that's something that isof interest to you, I encourage
  you to please reach out to me atVictoria at
  theunleashedheart.com or you canhead to the show notes. And
  there will be some links to mysocial media there and you can
  
  (28:00):
  send me a message. I highlyencourage you to do that. If you
  have any questions orreservations about moving
  forward in your grief, becauseyou got one life to live? And
  how about we make the most ofit. Right? Thank you so much for
  listening to today's episode,which as I mentioned, I'm
  
  (28:20):
  dedicating to John James, thefounder of the grief recovery
  method, and the grief recoveryInstitute. A program that has
  very much so changed my life andhas been the gift to me that has
  kept on giving. If you wouldlike to learn more about this
  amazing program, I encourage youagain to reach out to me check
  
  (28:42):
  out the show notes. Andremember, when you unleash your
  heart, you unleash your life.
  Much love.
  From my heart to yours. Thankyou for listening. If you liked
  this episode, please share itbecause Sharing is caring. And
  
  (29:07):
  until next time, give and sharecompassion by being hurt with
  yours. And if you're hurtingknow that what you're feeling is
  normal and natural. Much love myfriend