Journeys Through Loss and Grief with Marc Lainhart

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Join Mark Lainhart, the Intuitive Prospector, on a journey into
creativity and transformation. Each episode, Mark and his guests explore
the intersection of science and spirituality to uncover ways to
live a more inspired life. Together, we'll navigate both the
seen and unseen realms to spark joy and personal growth.

(00:36):
This is a community where you are empowered to discover
the diamond with him. Mark is an award winning psychic medium,
decorated veteran, and teacher based in Seattle. Using his intuitive gifts,
he guides the curious on profound soul adventures. Now Here
is your host, Mark Lainhart, the Intuitive Prospector.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
All right, well, hello friends, good morning, or good afternoon
or good evening. Where we may be in this beautiful
planet of ours, This is inspired living. We like to
say you are both the inspired and the inspiration. So
let's embrace this journey together, and let's inspire others, and
let's make every moment count before we expire. Welcome to
inspired living, where each moment presents a chance to ignite

(01:22):
your passions, explore your curiosities, and embrace the many wonders
of both the extraordinary, the ordinary the paranormal, which becomes
normal and science fiction that eventually becomes science fact. I
am your host, Mark Laineheart and the Intuitive Prospector, thrilled
to guide you on another soul adventure filled with creation, inspiration, motivation,

(01:43):
and most importantly, discovery for the human experience and many
life's journey. Together. Through the show, we'll uncover the unique
diamonds within each of us while revealing the many wonderful
hidden gems waiting to shine in our lives and around
the world, whether you're at home, at work, or on
the road, where wherever life takes you. Inspired Living is

(02:03):
crafted to uplift and recharge your spirit and to empower
your dreams. Inspired Living is about building a supportive community
where we celebrate each victory, no matter how big or
how small. And each episode features incredible guests who have
faced challenges, loss, failure, defeat, but have persevered and pursued
their passions, their goals and motivations, making a positive impact

(02:26):
in their respected fields and making our world a much
better place. You can expect engaging discussions, perspectives, thought provoking questions,
and actionable steps to transform and manifest inspiration into reality.
I do want to say thank you to all of
the Inspired listeners both locally around the United States and
the globe. Your support through listening, downloading, subscribing, and leaving

(02:50):
reviews has made Inspired Living a best inspirational, introspective, and
spiritual podcasts show to follow. And it's you know, very
humbling for that. We're on some many lists with amazing
people that do inspirational work. And we just want to
say thank you for following the show and now streaming
through Home Time's Television, and you can also get us

(03:13):
where you listen to your favorite podcasts in the future.
If you haven't subscribed, liked, or followed the show yet,
there's still time to do so you can connect with
us over on our main social media platforms of Facebook
under Inspired Living, Instagram, Blue Sky, and x formerly known
as Twitter. Just look for the handle Inspired for us,
that's the number four. Or you can check us out

(03:33):
on our YouTube channel, Inspired Living. And we're also streaming
now through Audible, Alexa and again wherever you enjoy your
favorite podcast show. So let's get ready to be inspired, uplifted,
and motivated because I always like to say the best
is always yet to come. So let's go prospecting together
through body, through the mind, through the spirit and we
hope that you enjoy this show. And today the show

(03:56):
is going to feature yours truly, your host, Mark Lanehart.
We're going to be doing journeys through loss and grief,
and I'm going to share with you some personal moments
of how I became the Intuitive Prospector and how I
started to do work in the fields of spirituality, healing,
psychic metaphysics, mediumship, things that I never in a million

(04:20):
years thought i'd ever do. To be honest with you,
let alone be doing a show in a podcast to
talk about these very you know, personal moments. But I
want to start off with a quote because I found
that inspirational people that you may know or may not know,
has really inspired me to do these shows each and

(04:42):
every time I come on the air. And I want
to start with Morgan Freeman who had quoted and he
said this learning how to be still, to really be
still and let life happen, that stillness becomes a radiance.
And I found that to be very true. Stillness, through
the silence and stillness, there is many ants to be gleaned.
Many gurus from the past, whether it's Las Sue, whether

(05:05):
it's roomy, they always talked about stillness, and that was
always fascinating to me because it was years ago, at
the age of twenty seven, that I was just living
a normal life, not really thinking about life, death, spirituality,
my own journey, you know. In a former life, I was,
you know, working at this time. I had just gotten
out of the US Coast Guard and it was a
firefighter EMT and you know, being in service to help

(05:28):
my community, helping people out in a time of need,
being called to other people's troubles and trials and tribulations.
And I received a phone call that my little brother
had been murdered. And when you receive that call, your
life changes in an instance. And today we're going to
be talking about how to work through grief, how to
work through loss, and how we can find those answers

(05:48):
in the stillness. I find that when we lose something,
loss changes everything. Whether it's the death of a loved
one like my brothers, the end of a relationship, or
just the quiet fading of a part of ourselves that
will mark a turning point. Now, unbeknownst to me, I
didn't realize that things would get actually quite dire, quite severe,

(06:10):
what I call today the trauma and the tragedy, or
if you put those together, TNT like a bomb. That
blew my life up because it was after I received
this call of my brother being murdered. We were still
in the grieving format of losing my young father in law, Dawn,
to the horrible disease of multiple scrosis, and so we
were in the grieving mode. My wife had just lost
her dad and it didn't get to carry on with

(06:32):
that relationship, and he had moved to the other side.
And it's a horrible, horrible disease multiple scroses is and
being just a part of that and witnessing a loved
one go through that, And for me, that really was
really my first personal death. I had been in an
industry where I had worked professionally, working with death and dying,

(06:52):
body recovery, airplane crashes, et cetera, et cetera. But this
was really a personal loss to me. My first loss
was with my grandma. I was actually with her, which
transitioned was which I call the beautiful pain, the beauty
of being there at the time of transition, but also
the pain of watching that person and no longer having
that physical touch. But on today's show, We're going to
talk about just because they're gone in body doesn't mean

(07:13):
that they're not around us. They're actually quite around us.
And I'm going to give you a real time example
of that and some exercises to help you through your
grief or what I call today honor and your grief.
But through that timeline. Two decades ago, after losing my
father in law to multiple scrosses, getting the phone call
that my brother had been murdered for at that time,
it would be illegal drugs, which in this day and

(07:34):
age it's marijuana or cannabis plants, which is actually legal
in my state, not legal everywhere, but still just the
irony of it. And so we went back home to
you know, figure out what had happened. We didn't know
who had murdered him. It would be months later that
we'd actually find out who did it. But when we
were there, it would be three days later that I
would get the notification that my older brother. So I

(07:56):
had my younger brother, my older brother, and I'm in
the middle and my older brother actually was at work
and he collapsed and they rushed into the hospital. And
so I went from burying my brother on Thursday, Michael,
to going out to the hospital in the valley to
understand that my older brother was terminal with brain cancer
also known as gleioblastiatoma right here on the left temporal

(08:18):
of his brain and had spread throughout his brain, only
a few months to live. And so those three events
really so you take grief anytime, you know, And I've
worked over the years. I've worked through many different modalities,
whether it's hypnotherapy, grieving, counseling, biofeedback, you name it, I've
probably done it. And a lot of times, when you
lose a family member, especially to murder or some sort

(08:42):
of tragic event, you're already pegged out at the stress scale,
You're already at the max. So then you compound those
on top of what I was already going through with
my father in law now my older brother for his
brain cancer treatment because he would actually go a little
bit longer than the terminal diagnosis. But dealing with that
give me very, very hard. That's why I call it

(09:02):
the TNT that blew my life up, you know. So
I want to talk about some spiritual aspects I want
to share with you today about anatomy and physiology of
who we are and what we do and We're going
to just spend this next you know, episode, talking about
how to journey through loss and grief but also not
let it overcome you and actually be able to survive

(09:25):
through severe tragic scenarios like what I went through. And
like I said, this happened to me years ago, but
what it did is it put me to be in
front of you today talking with you, sharing with you
through this through this format, through this podcast. And one
of the things that I found to be very very interesting,
you know, animals, you know, take for example, animals like

(09:46):
elephants or our dolphins or a wolf pack, they seem
to experience loss and even have a period of morning.
I know that there's a there's a pod here and
I live here in Seattle, and we have the JPod
that comes through and there was still one of the
Orca whales that was carrying her her her dead baby
with her months after the baby had died. And that

(10:07):
and that that's that's a way of honoring your grief
and you know, the morning that takes place. But for
us as human only human beings experience deep, deep grief
when a loss occurs. It's part of our self awareness
and handling grief. Requires learning more about the healing power
of who we are self awareness, and at that moment

(10:28):
of loss, that prospect is out of reach, you know, grief.
You know, like I when I was going through this,
it starts as a shock and on to the nervous system.
It's it's then followed by, you know, your first set
of what we would call painful thoughts and could I
have done something different, especially if if any of you
have experienced suicide. I've experienced suicide both in my family

(10:50):
and with friends, and there's that emotion that comes up
of how can I could I have done something different
for that person to help them in their time of
And so these are all the things that we're going
to go through with the journeys through loss and grief.
And one of the things that I want to talk
about is many of you you may know this concept

(11:11):
from doctor Elizabeth Kooble Ross who back in nineteen sixty
nine created this is one I wasn't aware of that
before this this time, but I became aware of it
after the loss and the grief of losing family members.
And it's called the Dabda moodel, and the dabdomodel is
the emotions that we're going to go through. It's not linear. Okay,

(11:32):
So some of these that I'm going to talk about
you may have experienced, and you may not experience none
of them, and you may choose not to experience any
of those. But this was a model that tried to
help us as self awareness of how to deal with
grief and loss and how to continue on. And a
lot of the times, the first thing that will step
in is the denial, especially if somebody is terminal, like
my brother who was terminal with brain cancer at the

(11:54):
young age of thirty five. There was that denial not
only from him but from us as a family, like
how can this be happening? He has so much life
ahead of him, you know. And same with my brother Michael,
who's twenty one old. My father in law is forty seven,
so forty seven, thirty five, twenty one, all young ages,
and you know, that first emotion that comes up is
that denial is this happening? And so she created this

(12:16):
model to understand the emotional construct and us as human beings,
and what we go through the next is the anger,
the anger of why this is happening to us, Why
this is happening to the person, especially if it's terminal,
and then we get into bargaining. There's something I can
do to get out of this situation. So we have
we have denial, we have anger, we have bargaining, and
then the last two of that model, the DABDA model,

(12:39):
is depression and then finally acceptance. And the depression is
something that for those of you that have gone through loss,
whether it's a friend, a family member, or fur baby,
it still resonates. I'm actually a grieving right now for
my fur baby, and I'll give you a story about
what this intels and the synchronouses and the coincidences of everything.

(13:00):
But understanding that these emotions are going to be natural
and there's no timeline for grief. That's the one thing
that I remember people saying to me during that very
traumatic time was Oh, it'll get better over time. It
heals over time. But you can have trigger moments that
take you right back to that moment. And so to me,

(13:21):
it shows me that time is a great illusion, right
because you go back these triggers of your traumas can
take you back to You're not acting in the age
you are, You're acting the age that you were. So
I was twenty seven at the time, and people would say, oh,
time heals, it is healed. But grief is something that
we take with us. It's something that becomes a part
of your journey moving forward, and it's all about how

(13:42):
you want to handle it. How do you want to
take this journey of loss and grief. Do you want
to carry it like a heavy suitcase or maybe put
it on your back as a more manageable way, as
a backpack. For me, it was years of, like I said,
therapy and survivor's guilt, and I was carrying it like
two things of luggage, like heavy luggage, really just weighing
me down. Anxiety depression PTSD, all of that that encompasses

(14:06):
loss and eventually through self awareness, through acceptance. You know,
awareness is the greatest agent for change. Eckhart totally teaches
us that and I found that to be very true
when you become aware and you realize that death is
not the end of the journey, it's only a temporary moment.
And now some people watching this may be saying, well,
I don't believe in, you know, after life, And that's

(14:29):
fine because many philosophies, many scriptures, many gurus talk about
the afterlife. Some call it the summerland, after life, the
after spirit, heaven, hell. Some of you may not even
believe in that. You may believe that this is one
shot and you're done and that's it, right, And you know,
the atheist approach, which I can understand, the agnostic approach,

(14:52):
which is proof that there is something that is over
time is what it's proved to me through intelligent communications,
through spiritual interactions, through what I say is called paranormal
or phenomenon that becomes normal to me. That's my confirmation
that there is something after what we call death, some
big part of what I do today. And so I

(15:12):
always question, you know, the sense of our reality. What
if life is the dream? What if this is all
the dream? And then when we die is when we
actually wake up? Right, Because you think about the states
of consciousness that you're in, and you've got to remember,
before you were born, you were in a very tight space,
very dark, breathing liquid, and all of a sudden, there's
this light at the end of the tunnel, and you

(15:34):
come out and you incarnate into the physical form. You
take that first breath, right, and now you have this
thing called life and this journey of life that's in
front of you for however many next years you have,
whether it's twenty one years, thirty five years, forty seven years,
fifty five years, what have you. And so you know,
what if life is the dream and when we die,
that is us waking up or some with theorize the

(15:56):
light at the end of the tunnel that people talk
about during death. Now, I've had my own near death
experience and I didn't have any light at the end
of the tunnel. But what if the light at the
end of the tunnel is us coming out again to
do it all over again. We don't know. Right's the
that's the curiosity, that's the great question of the human experience.
But I can tell you through this loss, through you know,

(16:16):
watching my brothers and my father in law moving to
spirit world and just as recently my awesome for baby O'Malley,
who was an awesome cat and was in our life
for fifteen years. There's going to be synchronicities and coincidences
if you're open to that and you're aware of that.
So one of the quotes that I loved is from
Helen Keller, and she says this quote, when we have

(16:39):
once enjoyed. We can never lose. All that we love
deeply becomes part of us. And when you realize that
that this journey is all about love, you know, one
day we'll remember how lucky were to have known their
love with wonder and not grief, and that can be
one of the first things that you can start to
move into to honor your grief and to have this

(17:01):
journey knowing that being alive is also going to be
part of experiencing loss in grief and what it's done
for me over this last two decades of studying and
educating myself and being mentoring and going to different locations
around the world as the intuitive prospector to understand who
I am, the time that I have left, and the

(17:21):
appreciation for the relationships that I have because you know,
right now, you know I'm in that grieving mode. You
know this cat. Now, some of you may be watching
this like, oh, it's an animal. Well, I find animals
to be very awesome. One two. This was our fourth
cat that we had had in our journey since being alive,
and he was with us for fifteen years. But he
was an awesome cat. He was like a rag doll cat.

(17:43):
You could do anything. But he was always so loving
and we had to put him down January thirtieth, so
just about a month ago. And you know, January is
interesting because both my brothers passed in January. Now my
totem animal spirit Moves, who had been with us for
fifteen years, I had to put him down at the
end to January. So January is not my most favorite month, right,

(18:05):
But we put him down January thirtieth, and then we've
never really gotten any kind of alter or any kind
of way to honor our former three cats. But there
was something special about this cat. And for today's show,
before I came on the air, somebody knocked on the
door and I'd forgotten that we had ordered this beautiful candle.
And this is what's redoff camera. Here is this beautiful candle. Now,

(18:29):
what's the irony of this? What's the synchronicity, what's the coincidence?
What are the odds that this candle, which has his
ashes infused into the candle itself, what are the odds
that he would show up in a different form on
the day that I'm talking about journeys through loss and
grief while grieving him. That to me is the coincidence.
That's the synchronicity. Carl Jung talked about synchronicities as a

(18:53):
way of confirming what can't be spoken with words. Einstein
I always talked about synchronicities and coincidences of God's way
of trying to remain anonymous of who God is. And
the little pack of cards that came with it that
fell on the ground is called Molly's or I'm sorry,

(19:15):
Wolfe's wish, and it's a little pack of cards that
came with the candle, and it's grieving cards for pet owners.
So I have found in this journey that sometimes we
grieve more of our animals than we do our actual
fellow humans. It's quite fascinating. But one of the things
that I want to share with you during this time
is not only that Dabda model that I was talked

(19:37):
about about denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, but I also
want to talk about just some some things of understanding grief,
the content of what that is. You know, what's the
definition of loss and grief. You can explain that loss
comes from various sources, whether it's death, divorce, job, loss,

(19:57):
et cetera. And grief. Grief is is the emotional the
human emotional response to that loss. And so for the
purpose of this show, you want, I want to set
the intention for you as the audience to highlight that
the journey through grief is a personal and unique timeline. Okay,
and there is your timeline, and everybody grieves differently, right.

(20:19):
But we're also going to do some mindfulness mindfulness exercises
that can begin with just a simple breath exercise and
moving into understanding what grief is. Now, there's different types
of grief. There's anticipatory grief. This is grieving before loss
actually happens, often seen internal illness, which I experienced with
my father in law and my older brother from brain cancer.

(20:44):
Then there's complicated grief. This is when the intensity of
the grief doesn't ease over time. This is something where
a murder or somebody dies in a tragic accident. That's
the complicated grief, which can have a much longer timeline. Then,
of course we have a collective grief. To grief is
where we share in the emotions experienced by us as

(21:05):
a community. And it's usually seen in pandemics or great
tragedies or airplane crashes, and I've been a part of
all three of these, whether it's anticipatory, whether it's complicated,
or whether it's collective. And some of the things that
can really play a part in this journey of loss,
in grief and trying to get to a stillness to

(21:26):
heal is you know, symptoms like anxiety, fatigue. That's something
we've experienced the last few weeks, but we know we're fatigued,
but we honor our grief by acknowledging that that self
awareness of what I'm talking about, changes in sleep patterns.
Things just don't seem to bring joy to you know,

(21:47):
foods or concerts or music. And so I'm going to
give you some ways to stimulate what is called the
vagus nerve. This is something that's very ancient and something
that can be worked with. Maybe you're new to this,
maybe you know all about it, but today's show is
to help you, and we'll do that in the second
half of the show. But this is to understand the

(22:08):
types of grief what we can go through both physically
and emotionally and mentally and spiritually. And then we're gonna
give you know, some exercises. One is about the vagus nerve.
The other one is called a five finger meditation, and
of course there's an inner ear exercise that we're gonna do.
And then now that we're on streaming through home time television,
I can actually show you the podcast. You won't be

(22:30):
able to you won't be able to see it because
you're listening to it, but you'll get an idea and
I'll try to explain it as best I can. And
my personal testimony is just sharing with you. You know, been there,
done that, You got the T shirt a couple of times,
and so I definitely understand the deep impact of loss
and grief. But I also understand, you know, as part
of this show, as part of Inspired Living, is what

(22:52):
we can do to take action and encouragement and motivation
to heal and to keep going on this journey. Like
because we don't know when the end of our life
is right, it's the only one account that we never
know how much our balance is right. We know our
checking account, our savings account or four one right, our
car payment, our mortgage payment, you know how much the
reab left. But the one thing that's always been fascinating

(23:14):
to me is the essence of time. And that's the
one account we don't know how much of the balance remains,
so it becomes very important through the loss. In this
journey of loss and grief, is to recognize that all
you have is right now, the present moment, as I
like this candle for Mussy in his jar filled with
his ashes that came today to synchronize and let me

(23:35):
know that he's still thinking of me even though he
can't speak to me because he doesn't have a vibration
off a vocal cord. That's the spirit of language. That's
something I've come to understand through the metaphysical journey, through
the spiritual journey, through great loss, through my own near
death experience, that the universe will talk to you. It's
not going to be usually a big booming voice from
the sky, and if it is, I'd love to have
you on the show so we can talk about that.

(23:56):
But it's usually going to come through what I teach
on sign symbols, synergy and synchronicities, and those synchronicities is
exactly what happened on today's show. Somebody knocked on the door.
I didn't know who it was. They handed me this
blue box. I'm like, oh, okay, thank you, open it up.
I forgot that we had I had actually forgotten that
we had ordered this vase back at the end the

(24:16):
first part of February and today it's middle of March.
And so that is to me, that's a synchronicity. That's
a coincidence where the language is spirit and what it
does if you have this coincidence or the synchronicity of
your loved one, a family member, a friend, or a
fur baby, if it triggers in your mind. Here this
is advanced communication. This is primitive communication. You understand me

(24:39):
through the language, but it's also a vibration off a
vocal court. This over the years is what I've come
to understand that when you're open and aware and accepting
of just because we don't see it doesn't mean it's
not here. You realize there's a lot of things going
on around us. And again the signs, the symbols, the synergy,
and synergy is what your heart radiates out and energy

(25:00):
that's all around. Everything has energy. This cup of tea
has energy, This mouse has energy, this pen has energy,
this protein shake has energy, you know, and so the
synergy is the blending of the energies all around you.
I even have a multimeter right off camera here, just
to see if I can keep it up, if it'll

(25:23):
go and light up. If you see this light, we
turn it a little bit out, move the candle over
a little bit. If you see this light light up,
this isn't This is called a EMF meter that measures.
And I have this just so I can on my
prifil because I get a lot of perfil hits. If
this light's up, that tells me the energy and the
space is shifted, because everything is energy, and if you
want to unlock the secrets of the universe, you have

(25:44):
to start thinking in terms of energy frequency vibration, not
primitive voice vibration off a vocal cord. Right. And so
if that sign or similar, that synergy of that synchronistic
event and you're in aggrieving mode. I always tell people
did they send you a sign? Well, I don't know.
I wasn't really thinking about it. I wasn't looking for it.
But awareness is the greatest agent for change. And once

(26:04):
that language is developed, you understand the language. It's connecting
through the third eye, the pineal gland, and we'll talk
about the vegas nerve after the break here. You realize
that you are the equipment and you are much more powerful,
and you're an antenna that can receive and perceive different information.
If you're open to that. Nothing nefarious, nothing's scary. I've
been doing this work for two decades now and I

(26:25):
haven't found it to be fearful or scary or demonic
or any any of that bs. But what it did
for me when I got this base today from O'Malley
with his ashes. You can see the ashes. His ashes
are infused in the candle. Knock on the door, here's
your box, Thank you? What is it? Oh, this is awesome.
I'm about to do the show. Let's bring him in.
That's the coincidences and the synchronicities and the power of
spirit to communicate us on a whole different level. All

(26:48):
you're doing is you raising your consciousness. You're raising your vibration.
And in this journey, you almost have to unlearn, just
like I did years ago when these traumas and tragedy
started happening to me. I had to unlearn a lot
of stuff that I was taught because I was experiences
that I couldn't explain. So we're going to go to
our break. We're going to be back here in just
a few minutes. I hope you're enjoying today's show, Journeys
through Loss and Grief with your host, Mark Laineheart Intuitis

(27:09):
Prospector and we'll be right back after this commercial.

Speaker 3 (27:12):
Break, Own Times TV.

Speaker 4 (27:18):
Billions of people walk this earth, yet there is only
one you. Life offers endless connections, lessons and moments of awakening.
Are you ready to explore the beauty of this world,
the healing energy that surrounds you and your own sole adventure?
Mark Lainhart, known as the Intuitive Prospector, is a trusted
guide on that path. An internationally recognized psychic medium, medical intuitive,

(27:42):
and spiritual advisor. Mark Blend's experience with heart centered insight.
From decorated veteran and first responder to teacher, minister, author,
podcast host, and mentor, his journey has been one of
service and discovery. His mission is simple, to help you awaken, heal, growth,
and uncover the diamond within while discovering the hidden gem's

(28:03):
life is placed around you. Dare to explore, dare to
ros Learn more at Mark Lainhart dot com and discover
the Intuitive Prospector online.

Speaker 3 (28:16):
Imagine becoming a super influencer, reinvent yourself, invest in your
brand and then manifest your success with a robust, spheric approach.
Own Times Media and Broadcasting offers a unique and multifaceted
way to become the spiritual and conscious influencer you deserve
to be. By putting your message across our powerful platform

(28:39):
with its proven record of integrity and excellence through our
produced shows, Own Times offers the opportunity to become a
social media TV personality, a radio show host, an Own
Times magazine columnist, and a syndicated podcaster all in one shot.
By live streaming your show on ome Times TV and

(28:59):
broadcast to get across the extensive Home Times Radio and
TV networks, you become more than a host. You become
an ambassador and a force for positive change. Home Times.
Open yourself to the possibilities.

Speaker 5 (29:16):
If I could be you could be me just one hour,
if we could find a way to get inside each
other's mine. Welcome Mile in my shoes. Welcome in my shoes.

(29:38):
Well before you abuse, criticize, and accues, Welcome Mile in
my shoes.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
All right, Welcome back to Inspired Living. I'm your host,
markleene Heart, the Intuitive Prospector. So before the break, we
were talking about ways that we can acknowledge our grief,
our grief, and today's show is about journeys through loss
and grief and just kind of sharing with you my
personal journey of how I went through some very dark
and turbulent times, some dark and stormy times, but through

(30:11):
the storm a sailor develops their sea legs, not by
calm seas, but by rough seas. And Eckhart totally you
know who I read in these early years of understanding
death and dying. He talked about quote stillness is where
creativity and solutions to problems are found end quote, and

(30:35):
that kind of stuck with me. Okay, what are some
of the solutions to the loss of losing you know,
watching a brother go through brain cancer, hearing that a
brother had been murdered and we didn't even know who
his murders were. It would be months later that we'd
find out and then have to go through five murder trials.
So this grieving period lasted for well over two plus years,
from my father in law to my little brother to

(30:56):
my older brother. And so grief is a part of
our life and our part of our journey, and one
of the things that I really started through some of
my therapies that I did, including biofeedback. You know, when
you're twenty seven years old and you're young, and you're
arrogant and you're cocky, I don't need help, right, just
rub some dirt on it. Man up. You know. That's
actually one of the buttons I have right here. Man up,

(31:18):
you know, Man up. And I went through and I
was actually forced to go through this biofeedback through the military.
At the time. I was in the Coastguard, and I
was actually required to go through eight sessions. And from
the first session, I went in with a lot of skepticism,
which I think is normal and healthy to have that
skeptical mind, that challenging mind, that logical mind, that analytical mind.
And I'm pointing to the left side of my temporal

(31:39):
brain here for a reason. But from that first episode,
that first, you know, I got hooked up to all
these machines, my pulse, my breath, my heart rate, everything
saturation in my two saturation, and through visualization and through
breath work and through guided meditations, over the course of
those eight sessions, I could see for my own skepticism,

(32:02):
I could see that there was a benefit to being still,
to practicing visualizations to practicing seeing meditations. And what that
did is it started to take me into the intuitive prospector,
to prospect through body, mind and spirit. And that took
me to the University of Washington to take my graduate
studies in sports Medicine and Human Performance because I thought

(32:22):
that's the way I would be going. Unbeknownst to me,
life had a different had a different course that I
didn't really want to sign up for. But I love
what I do now. But through that course, so I
actually tell people I went to college to learn how
to meditate, and through this course it was visualizations, manifestations,
meditations for the professional athlete, had really nothing to do

(32:45):
with spirituality, psychic mediumship, any of that, and it was
all about professional athletes. And so through that is where
I actually, so this has been about two thousand and eight,
this is where I started to meditate. And it's through
that stillness and that power stealing the mind that my
brother started to come through, my father in law started
to come through, and I started to have awareness that

(33:05):
there was a whole other world. Now for those of
you that have never experienced that, you know, put yourself
in my shoes for a second and go holy smokes,
what the heck is happening? I have literally gone off
the rails lost my mind right. But as my mentor
would teach me later, a crazy person can't self diagnose
because if you've gone crazy, you don't know you've gone crazy,
but you feel like you're going crazy. That's where they

(33:27):
talk about the spiritual awakening, that you feel like you're
almost losing your mind, like you know, rom Dos talked
about it. The more unreal the world around you gets,
the more real you get. And I can look at
the world right now and how unreal it is and go, wow,
there's a lot of unrealness out there. The more really
you get about your own journey the present moment right
And so through that course, through my graduate studies that
I ended up finishing and graduating a year later, that

(33:49):
really put me more on a metaphysical, spiritual, psychic sciences, mediumship, healing,
transformation journey to understand. And that brings me to what
we would call the Vegas nerve. Now that's spelled not
last vegas nerve, it's vag us, and the Vegas nerve
is one of the longest and most complex of the
twelve cranial nerves. Acting as a critical communication or what

(34:11):
we would call a super highway between your brain, your heart,
several organs going all the way down into your abdominal.
It's also known as the cranial nerve. X named it.
This was fascinating to me because the Latin word for
this vegas nerve is literally wandering, reflecting its extensive path

(34:35):
again from the brain stem through the neck and chest
all the way down through the abdomen. Now, what does
the vegas nerve do. The vegas nerve is great for
heart rate and blood pressure. It sends signals slowly down
your heart rate and regulate your blood pressure to keep
it calm. It's also part of your digestive track. It's
also part of your immune response. It's also part of
your sensory mortor control. So this nerve, this vegas nerve acts,

(34:58):
you know. It's like it's literally a pair of nerves
left and right. And it's unique because it builds what
we call biodirectional communications, so it can go back and
forth right. So you have like the super highways of
this cranial nerve x or the vegus nerve. And again
it does you know, it plays a vital role in
the inflammatory reflex process, helping you to reduce inflammation in

(35:23):
your body. I don't know about all you, but when
I am grieving, I am not the person that loses weight.
I'm actually the person that puts on a lot of weight.
I got very very heavy during those times because the
body unconsciously will protect itself, and sometimes it protects itself
by actually adding weight to protect to layer. But when
it comes to the vegus nerve, the super highway that's

(35:44):
going back and forth, it's also digestive, so it actually,
you know, controls the movement of food through your digestive track,
and it triggers the res of stomach acid and digestive enzymes.
But most importantly, it's really the fight or flight mechanism
because a lot of times where either in fight fight.
But I want you to get to that freeze aspect

(36:05):
of the nervous system, the adrenals, your org field, and
one of the things that I learned early on, and
this is something that you can do. And I'm gonna
give you a couple examples on how to stimulate the
vegas nerve. Because when you stimulate the vegas nerve, whether
you're let's say you're going through a very intense time,
or you're going through grief, you know, like I am
right now, how do I handle that? How? You know?

(36:28):
And this is you know, this is where I've seen
people overcome with anxiety, depression, really dark negativity where it
can lead to suicide ideations and suicidal thoughts, suicidal actions,
and so it can be a very dangerous place to be.
And of course, you know, I'm not a professional counselor,
but I always say I always advise people, you know,

(36:49):
whether it's medical, intuitive or psychology or grieving counseling, go
seek somebody that's actually certified and has passed as sat
in front of a board. Now I'm a health care provider,
certified health care provider, but I I'm not an actual
board certified anything. So I always give that disclaimer. You
can come to somebody like me and we can work
through some modalities and through some exercises, but you need

(37:10):
to always go see your natural path, your doctor, your psychologist, accounselor,
like I go to a professional spiritual counselor for my journey. Right,
So that's always important because they've actually spent years in
their education and that and that topic. But what happens
when you want to stimulate the vegus nerve. It can
help reduce that anxiety, It can help reduce the depression,

(37:32):
It can help reduce those monkeys in your mind that
are running around telling you all the negative self self
sabotage that you just don't need, right. And so these
exercises that I'm going to share with you today are
things that I've learned along the path of my journey.
And one of the first things that we're going to
talk about is it's very simple, is you know, putting

(37:53):
an emotion, bringing the emotion to your awareness by naming it. So,
for example, I am reading with the loss of my
awesome for a baby, O'Malley who is now his ashes
are in a vase. He's not here, right, I miss that.
But what I can do is I can acknowledge that grief,
that pain, that anger, that denial, and acknowledge it in

(38:13):
my material world and say, you know what, I just
I wish I could hug him one more time. That's
what I was actually thinking this morning when I got
the vase, without getting upset or crying. I wish I
could just hug him one more time. But I can't
have that, so then I can name that emotion and
I call it the hug, the hug that I'll never get.
And I can feel that hug. I can actually visualize
that hug. I can see him coming up and cuddling me,

(38:34):
and him, you know, used to come up and sit
on my chest. We used to have what we call
mousy mantras. I'd give him positive mantras and he would
just stare at my sult was awesome. But I'm acknowledging
my emotions through the hug emotions, and I've named it hug.
I'm feeling it, I'm processing it, but I'm not gonna
dwell on it now. I'm gonna let it go. And
by releasing it now, I've actually acknowledged the pattern of emotions,

(38:57):
because again, grief and loss is an emotional response to
what happens to us in life. And so I can
now release that and it helps. It doesn't take the
heartache fully away, but it helps bring the burden down.
It helps bring those thoughts down. And then what we
can start to work on is the power of breath.
So we're going to stimulate the vegus nerve, because the
vegus nerve, like I said, goes from the crown chakra

(39:18):
at the top of the head, all these nerves super
highways left and right going all the way down. And
what you can start to do is just the power
of breath. I know it seems simple, but a lot
of people don't even breathe the right way. And the
right way to breathe through the power of meditation is
to breathe them through your nose. And as you breathe
in the air through your nose, the reason you breathe
in through your nose is there's a passageway that actually

(39:39):
is a filter system for one and two, it warms
the air as a warm circulates down into the lungs.
If you're to breathe them through your mouth, you're bypassing
this filter system. Free will and choice, you can choose
to be a mouth breather. I choose not to. But
when you breathe in the right way, you're actually filtering
and you're warming the air as it comes into the
lungs and you expand the lungs. And so the power

(40:01):
of breath and I believe in it so much. It's
my tattoo. It's one of the oldest sanscripts. Known to
mankind as the power of breath. Breath in inhalation. Life
is not a straight line, right, It's not linear, it's
not It's usually what resist persists and the lesson repeats
until it completes, and then we exhale the final breath. Right,
We inhale when we reincarnate, and when we decarnate, we exhale.

(40:22):
So work with me on just the power of breath.
And what we're gonna do is we're gonna do a
five finger meditation and the five fingers. This is something
I learned back through my days, not just through bivile feedback,
but through the Cleveland Clinic when I was going online
to learn some of their studies of how to deal
with PTSD and anxiety and depression, suicide ideations, that kind
of thing. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna

(40:42):
take your hand and you're gonna hold your hand up
and you've got your five fingers, and this is just
a good way to practice. And what you're gonna do
is you're gonna take your finger at the base of
your thumb and as you start to scroll up your thumb,
you're gonna take a deep breath in breathing in the
right way through the nose, use the right mechanics, the
right fundamentals. Breathing in, and when you breathe in, your
chest should actually kind of go back in. Your stomach

(41:05):
should extend out. That's breathing true, that's breathing deep. Right.
This is this in chigong, in the philosophy of Chinese chiegong,
which is a study of energy and the study of
your energy. This is called the Dan ten. And what
you want to do is you want to warm up
your dan ten. There's three levels of the dan tien.
The heater is what it's called. And so when you
breathe in, you're gonna have your five fingers. You're gonna

(41:26):
breathe in on the thumb. Hold for a second on
that thumb, and as you start to go down into
the gap, breathe out. And as you start to circle
up your index finger, breathe in, breathing true, breathing deep.
Get to the top of that first index finger. Hold
your breath for a second. You can do like a

(41:48):
four count, a five count, and then start to slide
into the gap of the second finger. Move into your
middle finger, breathing out. Pause for a second, you're gonna
pause and each gap right, and then you're gonna take
another nice deep breath in. You're gonna start to climb
up your middle finger, taking that deep breath in as
much air as you can until you get to the
top of your middle finger. And when you reach the

(42:10):
top of your finger, the middle finger, hold your breath.
You count to four, one, two, three, four and with
a nice side if you want up doing home, look
at the meter behind me. Meter behind me is totally
lightening up. I don't know if you all saw that.
Go down the middle finger, going down to the gap
and ex hel get to the gap of that third finger,
the ring finger. Pause for a second, do account of four,

(42:34):
and then start to take another nice deep breath in.
And as you start to come up with index finger,
all right, I'm sorry the ring finger. Get to the
top of that ring finger and hold and you're literally
touching each finger because touch is important to this is
stimulating the vagus nerve. And when you're ready, after a
four account, exhale going down the ring finger down to

(42:55):
the gap. Now you're down to your pinky finger. You
can take another nice deep breath, go up the pinky finger,
hold at the top of the pinky finger for account
of four or five or six. You can go a
little bit longer. I usually do an eight to ten count,
and when you're ready, do a nice big sigh ah,
let that air out, and you're gonna trace down the
pinky finger until you're down to your wrist. And then

(43:18):
you turn your hand over and you start again, going
up the thumb, up the index finger, up the middle finger,
up the ring finger, up the pinky finger, taking deep
breaths in on the incline, pausing at the top, ex
healing on the decline, down to the gap, poising in
the gap, taking another nice deep breath. And what'll happen

(43:39):
just that little exercise, you'll actually start to warm up.
And that's why we call this the dan ten warming up,
the dan ten heater. That's one way of stimulating the
vegas nerve. Just a five finger meditation. How simple is that? Right?
You can actually count on your five fingers. If I
can do it, you can do it, right. So the
other one that you can do, there's a couple other
things that you can do to stimulate the vegas nerve.

(44:00):
One is music. Music is very very powerful for stimulating
the vegas nerve, calming the mind, relaxing, So you can
use breath work with music. You can use a five
finger meditation like we just did. You can do a
guided meditation. These are all the ways to trigger the
vegas nerve. Sound, vibration you'll see in the studio. I
have a lot of singing bowls because I believe in

(44:21):
the frequency. And that's the future of medicine is frequency
and vibration. We're already seeing that with lasers that vibrated
a certain certain frequency that can actually break up cancer
cells and also break up kidney stones. Right, We're already
seeing that, and so I imagine that in the next
ten to twenty years we'll see even more, especially with robotics,
especially with AI coming out. But as far as stimulating

(44:43):
the vegas nerve, what if that's going to do. It's
gonna help you to navigate these difficult pathways that you
may find yourself in. Again, meditations, visualizations, breath work, music.
Another great one that I love doing and I do
it every morning is cold therapy. Now I take a
cold show, and I really if you want to fill
a panic and get that vegas nerve stimulated, sit in

(45:04):
a cold shower. Now, I live here in the Puget
Sound and that water temp is about fifty one degrees,
so I can go out and swim for about three
to five minutes. There's actually a lady that I've seen
many times without a wetsuit that's actually swimming. She has
a booy that she pulls behind her in case she
cramps up. Then she can float on the booey and
not drowned. But I'm like, good for you, lady, Good
for you. She's got to be in her late fifties,

(45:24):
early sixties and she's out there swimming for like ten
minutes in this fifty one degree weather temperature of the
Puget Sound. So cold therapy is a great way to
stimulate the vegas nerve. And of course I always say
if you have heart conditions, check with your professional provider.
But cold showers, swimming in a cold bath, sitting in
cold baths. You see a lot of athletes do it
after their performance. You can even just take a cold

(45:46):
pack and put it on the back of your neck.
These cold therapies are great ways to stimulate the vegas nerve.
That's super highway that I'm talking about. So you can
manage your grief, so you can try to heal and
accept and transform the journey that you're on, because sometimes
it feels overwhelming. And trust me, I've been there. I
understand it greatly. That's why I'm sharing with you my

(46:08):
personal story today. Another way that you can do is
sound baths, massage, reflexology. There's a lot. There's a reason
that we call it the soul of our foot is
because in the soul of our foot there are many
pressure points that go to many organs throughout the entire body.
So if you've never had sacral, cranial or reflexology massage,

(46:29):
highly recommend it as a way to stimulate and to
honor your grief and to manage your grief and loss.
But again, we're using ways to stimulate that vegas nerve,
that super highway of nerves that go from you know,
the top of the head all the way down to
the soles of your feet. Why do we call the
souls of our feet?

Speaker 4 (46:45):
Right?

Speaker 2 (46:45):
These are these are always things I always question, the curiosities, right,
Why are these called the temples? Right? And we've got
our orbital ie orbitals, the temples the third eye, you know,
And so for me that is that has always been
fascinating and interesting because we you know, from an anatomy

(47:05):
and physiology standpoint, we are a very very powerful, energetic reality.
You know, Einstein always talked about the three and a
half pound brain in you know, it's on average three
and a half pounds when you weigh it from an
autopsy standpoint. It always said it was always one of
the most complex organisms in the universe. And that's always

(47:26):
kind of sat with me, right and the curiosity, and
that's what inspired living is all about the paranormal, the normal,
the science fiction becoming science fact, the ordinary, the extraordinary,
and things that we just don't understand yet. But imagine
what you didn't know twenty years ago, and how different
the future looks today from twenty years ago, and how
different it's going to look twenty years from now. So
these are all great ways to stimulate the vegas nerve.

(47:48):
Like I said, code therapy, massage, ancupuncture is a great
way to stimulate the vegas nerve. Again, I've done all
of these, so I can speak to all of them
powerful meditations for me. The journey of plant medicine this
last year has been very insightful and working with different
plant medicines to understand the connection to us in nature
and our purpose and our journey here of consciousness. The

(48:13):
last one that I'll share with you, I'm trying to
think there's anything else. Music playing instruments. You can see it.
I'm surrounded by my drums, my guitar. I've got a
finger piano, i got a singing goal, I've got my
flute right off camera here. These are all ways to
stimulate the Vegas nerve. But the point of stimulating the
Vegas nerve is to actually be able to deal with
your grief and the loss that you might be experiencing.

(48:34):
But the last one I want to share with you
before we call it a day and we'll be back
for another episode. We're gonna have an awesome guest on.
We have a couple of guest books. I'm excited to
talk with them and the different topics that we're going
to talk about. But the last one to really stimulate.
You can do this while you're listening, not while you're driving.
Hopefully you're not driving. When you do this. You can
take your finger and stick it just inside your ear,

(48:56):
not in the ear hole. Don't stick it in your
ear hole. Towards your ear drum. Stick it right in
the curvature of the ear right here. And what's fascinating
to me about just anatomy and physiology the ear itself.
If you take the ear and lay it side by side,
it looks like a baby inside the placenta and you
lay side by side. Fascinating, right, But what you're gonna
do is you're gonna stick your finger just inside your ear.

(49:17):
And what you're gonna do is you're gonna take a
nice deep breath and you're gonna rotate inside the ear
because the vegas nerve is actually connected, you know, and
you can actually do a chanting. You can feel that
vibration in the inner ear. Inner ear is fascinate because
it also it stimulates your balance. Right, some people get
vertigo while that's because of the inner ear. But what

(49:37):
you're gonna do is you're gonna just lightly gently circulate
in your inner ear and take a deep breath and
just do this for about a minute, breathing in, breathing out,
breathing in what you want, exhaling what you don't, and
you're gonna actually trigger the vegas nerve. And after about
a minute, just sit for a second and just see

(49:58):
how you feel. You might feel a little like headed,
you might feel like, wow, I just feel more relaxed.
That's stimulating the vegas nerve. And then you can go
to the other ear and do it in the other
ear for about a minute, doing a clockwise or counterclockwise
however however you want to want to do it. So
these are ways to stimulate the vegas nerve. And again,
the vegas nerves help helps you with fight or flight.
It also regulates the nervous system, the adrenals, your oric field,

(50:20):
which is your energy, and it helps you just to
navigate the many pathways of life, especially when it comes
to you know loss, and you know I think that
you know loss from the broader view, it's not simple
simply a personal tragedy. It's part of the universal movement
of life and everything that arises, transforms and eventually dissolves.

(50:40):
That's just life. And when you realize that, if you
realize that your journey is temporary, but you're not the
end because energy always has to go somewhere. By the
laws of physics as we understand it today, the energy
in your heart has to go somewhere. And that's why
I believe in the afterlife or I believe in heaven,
or I believe in life after death. People ask me
all the time, mark where is heaven. I believe that
heaven is an actual location as I was taught. I

(51:03):
believe that what we would incline is consciousness or gaia
or the great, the great, the great love Heaven. It's
it's actually it's it's it's a it's a location based
on vibration, not an actual physical location. And so that
energy returns, love returns to source. And that's why I
know that I will see I will see my Moose again.

(51:26):
I will see my father in law Don again. I
will see my brother Michael again. I will see my
older brother Todd again, as one day I will join them,
and that energy will move from this heart into the
next source or the next consciousness of who we are. So,
you know, I hope that you know. I'm just encouraging you,
you know, whether through its art, through song, through poem,

(51:47):
express your feelings through dance, share it on social media,
you know, do whatever you need, connect with community, get
with support networks, you know, find resources that make sense
to you. Because again, loss is a personal journey. There
is no timeline that to this. Journaling is a big,
big part of this. But as far as like I said, visuals,
interactive components like what we did today, you know, social

(52:10):
media engagements, you know, communities that will help you, uh,
mentors that will help you, counselors that will help you
different things from hypnotherapy to bio feedback to greeving counselor
you know, especially if you've lived with survivors guilt. These
are all very very important and it's okay to gree normalizing.
These very emotions that I talk about come with loss.
But there is no right or way, uh you know,

(52:32):
way to grief. It's just part of the human condition.
And when you can get into that stillness, I promise
you through these modalities that we share today, the stillness
will actually invigorate healing and you will see a transformation
in who you are and get to that stillness because
there's just a lot of activities around us, a lot
of noise, and when you can turn that noise down,
the more still and silent you become, the more you'll

(52:53):
actually hear. I've got it right off camera here, my
listen stone, because listen is that is an anagram for
the same word is silent. And so if you're dealing
with loss, if you're dealing with grief, honor your grief
by doing what we talked about today, and you know,
don't do it alone. Grief can be a very lonely
place to be. And you know, he says, he who

(53:18):
does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.
That's Elbert Hubbard that talked about that. And then I'm
just going to close the show with one last quote
and just to kind of recap with what Helen Keller said.
What we have enjoyed, what we have once enjoyed, we
can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a
part of us and who we are. So thanks for listening,

(53:41):
Thanks for joining me on this journey of human consciousness
and soul adventures here Uninspired Living. And I just want
to say thank you again to the inspired listeners because
doing this work and sharing this journey with you is
very very healing for me, very helpful and inspiring to me.
So I just want to say thank you so much,

(54:02):
and we'll just wrap up with like I always do,
until our next sole adventure together, be kind, be caring,
be compassionate, Honor your grief, work in the present moment,
lots of deep breaths, let that stuff go, and most importantly,
dare to dream, there to explore, dare live, discover the

(54:23):
diamond within, and through that process, I promise you you
will start to discover the many wonderful hidden gems that
are all around us, all around the world, right in
front of you. And it will become it will become apparent,
because awareness is a great dest agent for change. So
thanks for tuning in. I'll see you next time here
on inspired living, as I'd like to say, And I'm
gonna stay No, I'm gonna go take care of body.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Journeys Through Loss and Grief with Marc Lainhart

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Joe Rogan Experience

All Episodes

Journeys Through Loss and Grief with Marc Lainhart

Stuff You Should Know