Grief Tips, Grieving Voices Podcast, Growth, Healing, Mental Health, Mind/Body Wellness, solo episode |
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Today’s episode is about navigating significant dates and other reminders after a loss. Anniversaries, birthdays, holidays—these milestones can be poignant reminders that reopen the chapters of our grief, not to mention the special places that flood the heart with memories, and then the waves of emotion follow.
But here’s what I’ve learned: While it may seem like these days are there to test our resolve, they also offer us an opportunity for reflection and honoring memories. Consider this—what if you could transform your pain on these dates into acts of remembrance? Lighting a candle or playing their favorite song isn’t just about ritual; it’s about keeping a part of them alive within us.
Key Points Discussed:
- Acknowledging the Weight of Memories
- Permitting Yourself to Feel
- Creating New Traditions
- The Silence Around Grief
- Finding Support That Moves You Forward
- Planning Ahead for Tough Days
- Self-Care & Communication During Grief
When my father passed away, my family chose silence as our coping mechanism—a choice that left little room for healing. It taught me an invaluable lesson: acknowledgment is not only necessary but vital, especially when young eyes are looking up at us to learn how to navigate their own emotional landscapes.
The power of community in times like these cannot be overstated. Surrounding yourself with people who understand your journey is more than comforting; it’s healing. But remember—finding spaces where growth is nurtured over stagnation is crucial. As you approach those tough calendar days, plan ahead. Honor your feelings by allowing yourself to say no when needed and yes to self-care and tenderness towards your heartache.
To everyone walking through seasons of grief: know that every step taken is progress made toward healing—even on those dates marked by absence rather than celebration.
RESOURCES:
_______
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.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Navigating the Waves of Grief: Honoring Lost Loved Ones on Special Dates
Grief is an unpredictable companion, often intensifying during significant dates that remind us of those we’ve lost. In this episode of *Grieving Voices*, we delve into how these poignant reminders—birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays—can reopen healing wounds and what strategies can help us cope with the renewed sense of loss.
The Ebb and Flow of Memories
Special dates act as powerful triggers for grief. They are stark reminders that life has irrevocably changed. Whether it’s a birthday without the celebrant or a holiday missing one key participant, such days highlight absence with an acute sharpness.
It’s crucial to recognize that feeling overwhelmed by these occasions is not only common but entirely natural. It’s part of the grieving process—one that doesn’t adhere to timelines or expectations. Be gentle with yourself; allow emotions to surface without self-judgment.
Crafting New Traditions in Remembrance
In my own experience following my father’s passing, I learned that ignoring these important dates wasn’t beneficial—for me nor for my siblings who were also grappling with their grief journey. Instead, creating new traditions can be a therapeutic way to honor our loved ones’ memories while acknowledging our ongoing lives.
Lighting a candle might seem simple yet symbolizes so much more—it’s a beacon of remembrance casting light on cherished moments shared together. Playing their favorite music allows melodies to fill the silence left behind—a celebration of their tastes and preferences even in absence.
Cooking a meal they loved serves as an homage through flavors and scents—an intimate connection maintained across different realms. These acts don’t replace presence but rather intertwine memory within current experiences, ensuring our loved ones continue to influence our lives meaningfully.
Seeking Supportive Communities
The importance of finding understanding individuals or groups cannot be overstated when navigating grief’s complexities on special dates. Sharing stories about your loved one can provide immense comfort—not just in expressing your feelings but also in hearing others’ accounts which may echo your own experiences or offer fresh perspectives.
Seek out environments where you feel genuinely heard—a space where progress towards healing is encouraged over stagnation in sorrowful reflection alone.
Preparing for Tough Times
Planning ahead for challenging days involves recognizing personal needs amidst societal expectations surrounding social gatherings and festivities—the right to grieve authentically should always take precedence over conforming to norms if they do not serve your well-being at heart.
Declining invitations needn’t be seen as rudeness but rather an assertion of self-care; prioritize activities conducive to your healing journey whether it means solitude or seeking company depending on what feels right at any given moment.
Healing from loss isn’t passive—it requires openness towards moving forward despite pain lingering beneath surfaces readying itself especially during significant times like anniversaries and holidays.
Taking small steps each day towards acceptance can gradually build resilience against grief’s harsher waves when they come crashing down unexpectedly around these sensitive periods.
As we conclude today’s *Grieving Voices* discussion remember: care deeply for yourselves because through unleashing hearts comes freedom—and ultimately life itself becomes unleashed anew albeit differently shaped by love enduring beyond physical presence alone.
Until next time cherish every heartbeat knowing each throb honors those gone before us guiding lights forevermore along paths trodden under starlit skies filled with memories everlasting… Much love always 💖
Episode Transcription:
Victoria Volk: Welcome dear listeners to another episode of our journey together through grief and healing on this episode, one ninety, holy cow of grieving voices. So thank you so much for being here.
Victoria Volk: Today, I’m addressing a topic that touches the heart deeply, navigating special dates and reminders after the loss of a loved one. Whether it’s the anniversary of their passing, their birthday, or the first holiday season without them. These moments can reopen wounds and challenger peace, quite frankly. Let’s start by acknowledging that these dates and reminders like the empty chair at the holiday table or the quiet of a bedroom once filled with laughter. Carry a weight of memories and emotions. And it’s entirely okay to feel a surge of grief, and it’s okay to seek ways to honor and remember those we’ve lost while nurturing our hearts. Firstly, I want to tell you, give yourself permission to feel. I didn’t for over thirty years. And that’s a form of suffering. That’s a form of self suffering. Grief doesn’t follow a schedule and emotions may come in waves. It’s important to allow yourself to experience these feelings without judgment. I can tell you, I wish I would have allowed myself to feel much sooner and earlier in my life.
Victoria Volk: Creating a new tradition can be a meaningful way to honor your loved one. Light a candle for them. Play their favorite music, or prepare a meal they loved. This act of remembrance can be a comforting way to keep their memory alive. I remember when my dad passed away and on the anniversaries, there was no talk of remembrance or honoring quite frankly, it was not even really acknowledged. It was something that we held closely to the vest individually. And that’s really sad to me. And I don’t wish that for anybody, especially children who grow up learning that that’s the air quote, right way to grieve. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. There’s your way, but there are healthier, more proactive ways. That move you forward, but don’t keep you stuck. That’s what I’m all about. And so in order to do that, Oftentimes we need to reach out to for support. Surrounding yourself with understanding, friends, or family, or even joining a support group. Be careful though. Support groups can be a place that make you feel more miserable after you leave.
Victoria Volk: So it’s important to find a support group that you feel comfortable with, that everyone’s voice feels heard and honored, and quite frankly, that maybe has some action that moves you forward, not keeping repeating the same story week after week. But it can be a great place to connect with other people who have experienced a similar loss as you. And even if they haven’t experienced a similar loss as you, we can all learn something from each other. But spaces like these and people that we trust can often provide us comfort It enables us to share stories and memories which can be powerful way to feel connected to your loved one and to others who understand your pain. Again, this wasn’t something that was demonstrated for me growing up as a child. And I don’t think that is the case for many children, even today, I don’t think much has changed in in the ways that we grieve. Which is why my mission to share what grief is and my understanding, my new understanding, my new knowledge, what I’ve learned about it, has become an important mission of mine.
Victoria Volk: So thank you for joining me in this episode, and I hope that you share it. And share any other episode that you feel could be insightful or helpful to someone else you know or love. Coming back to the episode and what we’re talking about today, it’s important to plan ahead for those tough days. Knowing that a difficult date is approaching, consider planning a day that balances remembrance with self care. It might be a day for quiet reflection or doing something that brings you joy or peace. I recently had the deversary of my father. And quite frankly, I spent the day doing what I love. And that’s putting together and working on a pet loss program. And working on my mission, that was a way that I could honor my loss. In the memory of my father. And so whatever that means for you, that is a form of self care.
Victoria Volk: Moving on for those reminders that come unexpectedly, like an invite to an event your loved one will never experience. Like a wedding, graduation, baby shower. It’s okay to give yourself grace. It’s okay to decline invitations if you’re not ready. And it’s okay to take moments for yourself when memories flood in unexpectedly. Perhaps you wish to attend these events, and create an exit strategy for yourself if it becomes too much and emotionally overwhelming. One more thing on that note, if it’s been several years. Now again, grief doesn’t follow a timeline. If moving forward and being able to go to events like a wedding or a baby shower or graduation is something you want to do without feeling this pull to the pain of the past? That is an indicator for you, that it’s time to take action, that it’s time to address what is emotionally incomplete for you.
Victoria Volk: And I’ve shared it in other podcast episodes, and I’ll share it today. I do have a program that’s one on one working with Grievers. Twelve sessions. It’s called do grief differently. It’s just you and me. It’s not talk therapy. It’s an evidence based program that is specific to you and your life experience and your specific grief. And that’s why it works. It may appear to be like this cookie cutter thing. And I know a lot of people might think, well, it worked for you who you know, it’s not gonna work for me. How do you know unless you try? And if you tried everything else, what do you have to lose? But more years of a joy filled life. That’s my challenge for you today as you’re listening to this, to consider that. Moving on to my final recommendation for Grievers listening to this. Is consider creating a memory box or a dedicated space in your home where you can display photos, momentos, or anything else that reminds you of your loved one.
Victoria Volk: Visiting the space can offer a sense of closeness and a personal sanctuary for your grief and love. There is a caveat to this though. Sometimes we can enshrine people. We can create an enshrinement in our homes. Of the person we we lost. And these enshrinements where we view the person as never having any humanness to them, like never having any faults, never doing anything bad and we just we we think only the positive about this person. But if you really dig deep, You have to ask yourself, how true is that? Because even the closest people we we love who have passed away, hurt us in some way, caused us suffering or pain, or stress or frustration, maybe we were estranged. We need to get to the emotional truth of the relationship and if we entrying people. And never become emotionally complete with those those hertz that we’re holding on to. But we’re over shrouding and over simplifying and probably even minimizing or not even addressing the other things that hurt us. This is where we remain emotionally incomplete. And remain stuck in our pain.
Victoria Volk: So it’s important to consider that when you’re creating this space in your home for someone who is passed away. On the flip side of that, we also call the opposite, be devilment, where you only think of the negative about somebody or only hold on to the negative aspects of the relationship. And you have to ask yourself that as well. Like, is that completely true? Is that one hundred percent true of the relationship? Relationships are dynamic and complicated and complex and layered and and we have to address all of the emotional stuff on the positive and the negative side to become emotionally and we can’t do that if we’d be devolving someone or if we’re enshrining the relationship. And maybe that’s the first time you’ve heard any of that.
Victoria Volk: And Maybe you’re asking yourself, oh, do I have an enshrinement? It might be devilish someone in a relationship, and only you can answer that. But take some time with this episode and reflect on the things that I’ve shared so far. Listen to it again if you have to. But remember, dear listeners grief is a journey that is uniquely yours. And there’s no right or wrong way to navigate these moments when they hit. But I wanted to share this episode as a way to support and bring some lightness to the dark, and to let you know that it’s okay to have days where you don’t feel okay. And being able to communicate that to those around you saying, you know what, I need space today. Thank you so much for the invitation, but I’m going to have to decline. That’s all you need to say. You don’t need to go into the long story, an explanation. You don’t owe an explanation. Just I need to tend to my heart today. That’s it.
Victoria Volk: And so what’s most important is that you do what feels right for you allowing yourself to heal. Again, allowing yourself to heal. You have to be open to receiving that healing. And I also think you need to be ready to want to heal. And remember in your own time and in your own way that will happen. Might not be today, but hold the hope that it could be tomorrow or even two months from now. If you take little baby steps every day, I promise you you’ll get there, but Time is not gonna wait for you to figure it out. Didn’t wait for me. Over thirty years, it did not wait for me. Trust me on that. It takes action to move your life forward in the direction that you want it to go. Thank you for sharing this time with me today. May you find comfort and strength and healing in the days ahead?
Victoria Volk: Until next time, take care of your hearts. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grief Tips, Grieving Voices Guest, Mental Health, Mind/Body Wellness, Pet Loss |
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Welcome to another profound episode of Grieving Voices, where we explore the emotional intricacies of dealing with loss and healing.
Today’s guest is Denise Schonwald, a registered nurse turned nationally licensed therapist. With her holistic approach to care that encompasses mental, physical, and spiritual well-being, she offers insights into nurturing both body and mind.
In this episode:
- Discover how Denise transitioned from critical care nursing into mental health support.
- Understand why honoring commitments is crucial for personal trust and self-care.
- Learn about the high burnout rates in nursing – especially post-COVID – and how self-care can prevent it.
- Explore the importance of emotional intelligence in recognizing when you’re inflicting suffering on yourself through poor self-care choices.
- Gain strategies for managing anger effectively without damaging relationships or your own well-being.
- Delve into people pleasing: why we do it, its impacts on our lives, and how to establish healthier boundaries.
- Hear about grief’s “waiting room” – what keeps us there and how to move forward.
Denise’s journey from a nurse fascinated by the intricacies of human anatomy to a spiritual teacher and family mediator is nothing short of inspiring. She has woven her experiences into a tapestry that offers comfort and guidance to those navigating emotional turmoil.
Through her narrative, Denise uncovers an essential truth: honoring personal commitments is pivotal. When we falter on these promises to ourselves, trust erodes, leaving us vulnerable to self-inflicted suffering.
Self-care isn’t just about indulgence; it’s preventative maintenance for our souls—something Denise has embraced through meditation and mindful practices like Reiki. These practices have been instrumental in managing stress levels after witnessing patients’ crises firsthand as a critical care nurse and mental health professional.
Denise sheds light on how emotions like frustration are precursors to anger—an emotion many grapple with yet struggle to manage effectively.
RESOURCES:
*Denise is generously offering my listeners a free copy of one of her books. Reach out to her through her website to receive your FREE copy today!*
CONNECT:
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.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Insights on Personal Commitments and Emotional Management
In the labyrinth of life, we often find ourselves at crossroads where our hearts bear the heavy toll of grief. Today, I had the privilege to converse with Denise Schonewald—a beacon of solace and understanding in such turbulent times.
Denise’s journey from a nurse fascinated by the intricacies of human anatomy to a spiritual teacher and family mediator is nothing short of inspiring. She has woven her experiences into a tapestry that offers comfort and guidance to those navigating emotional turmoil.
Through her narrative, Denise uncovers an essential truth: honoring personal commitments is pivotal. When we falter on these promises to ourselves, trust erodes, leaving us vulnerable to self-inflicted suffering. It’s akin to constructing a dam without acknowledging the river—eventually, the waters will breach their confines.
She sheds light on how emotions like frustration are precursors to anger—an emotion many grapple with yet struggle to manage effectively. Her approach? Acknowledgment paired with therapeutic tools like tuning forks that recalibrate our emotional energy.
One profound aspect she touches upon is people-pleasing—a double-edged sword that while momentarily alleviating anxiety can lead us astray from our true selves. Clear communication and solid values stand as sentinels guarding against this tendency.
As someone who has experienced loss closely through my son’s grieving over his friend’s suicide, Denise’s insights resonate deeply. Creating safe spaces for expression and being present in silence are powerful acts of support during grief.
Nurturing the Soul Through Meditation and Mindful Practices
Self-care isn’t just about indulgence; it’s preventative maintenance for our souls—something I’ve embraced through meditation and mindful practices like Reiki which have been instrumental in managing stress levels after witnessing patients’ crises firsthand as a critical care nurse.
Wisdom and Practical Guidance
Denise reminds us that preparing for tomorrow doesn’t mean living in fear but rather simplifying life so we can face what comes with grace and resilience.
Her work goes beyond counsel—it provides hope anchored in real-world wisdom honed through years of helping others navigate their darkest hours.
And if you’re wondering about tangible steps towards healing? Engage with nature or nurture—a pet or even a plant—to foster growth amidst sorrow.
For those seeking more than words, Denise extends an invitation: visit deniseschonewall.com for resources including mental health quizzes and books designed not merely as reads but as companions along your journey toward healing.
The essence here is clear: Unleash your heart because within its beats lies untold strength capable of weathering any storm—with love serving as both anchor and compass guiding us home.
Episode Transcription:
Victoria Volk
00:00:00 – 00:00:38
Welcome to grieving voices. Thank you for joining me today and listening. And today I have Denise Schonewald with me. She is a dedicated registered nurse for over 30 years, a seamlessly transitioned into a nationally licensed mental health counselor and published author based in Sarasota, Florida. With a deep understanding of the emotional challenges faced by patients and their families, Denise’s holistic approach integrates mental and physical well-being. As a spiritual teacher and certified family mediator, she brings a unique perspective to her private practice, offering support to clients nationwide through virtual sessions.
Victoria Volk
00:00:39 – 00:00:55
Denise is committed to nurturing both body and mind, providing flexible and accessible care for individuals, couples, families and even young thinkers starting at the age of 4. Thank you so much for being here and also thank you for a copy of your book.
Denise Schonwald
00:00:56 – 00:00:59
Oh, terrific. I’m glad you received it. Welcome.
Victoria Volk
00:01:00 – 00:01:30
It’s insightful self-therapy, increasing your awareness about mental health and how to live a happier life. And I will put a link to that in the show notes, and we’ll actually be talking. I’ll be there’s a couple of things I have noted that I would like to talk about that you mentioned in the book, but first I’m curious what brought you into the nursing profession and you know, it’s in a way a healer profession. What brought you there?
Denise Schonwald
00:01:31 – 00:02:07
Well, I love how fascinating and sophisticated the body is. So I always saw myself in some sort of nursing. I considered just very briefly being a physician, but and I love also helping people. I did my specialty was critical care, and working with people who are very sick and dying is quite an honor and very stressful. And I just it was just a wonderful career until I was getting to the point where I was getting too old to do the grind of 12-hour shifts and call and nights and weekends and holidays.
Denise Schonwald
00:02:07 – 00:02:13
And so the transition for me to into mental health was an easy one.
Victoria Volk
00:02:13 – 00:02:19
What would you say to a young person who is just pursuing a career in nursing?
Denise Schonwald
00:02:20 – 00:02:58
I think a lot of people go into nursing, a lot of the young people that I meet, because it’s a wonderful career. I mean, you certainly have a lot of opportunities. You can certainly do very well financially. But what I really encourage them to do is not to forget that these are people that are going through very tough experiences. And I think a lot of times, we get caught with the clinical aspect of ordering meds and titrating drips and so forth, and we forget that these patients are going through something very very difficult, probably one of the most difficult things I’ve ever gone through, not only physically, but emotionally and sometimes spiritually.
Victoria Volk
00:02:59 – 00:03:18
What do you think is the highest indicator or greatest indicator of a nurse who will burn out in that career because they can be a very high burnout rate in that career as well, especially with COVID. I mean, you can you saw it. We saw it happening before our eyes.
Denise Schonwald
00:03:19 – 00:03:45
Yes. One thing when people are either physically sick or emotionally struggling, they pull energy. They only they’re thinking about themselves. They’re focused on themselves, rightly so, because they’re sick. And as healers and helpers, we understand that it takes a lot out of us to try to help them and nurture them, not only physically and emotionally.
Denise Schonwald
00:03:45 – 00:04:00
And when nurses and physicians and and mental health counselors don’t do their own work, so when we get home, we have to recover from that with self-care and exercise and rest, then we’re likely to burn out.
Victoria Volk
00:04:01 – 00:04:17
In your book, one thing I jotted down was, and I didn’t really think about this in terms of how we can inflict suffering on ourselves, but I think there’s actually a book. Oh gosh. The four agreements.
Denise Schonwald
00:04:17 – 00:04:18
Yeah. Love it.
Victoria Volk
00:04:18 – 00:04:35
Yeah. Yeah. But you mentioned in your book, the importance of honoring commitments. And when you think about the flip side of that, of dishonoring our commitments, and one of the commitments can be self-care to ourselves, right? Just self-care.
Denise Schonwald
00:04:35 – 00:04:35
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:04:36 – 00:04:40
But can you speak a little bit about the importance of honoring our commitments?
Denise Schonwald
00:04:42 – 00:05:10
If you think about relationships, the only thing that we can sort of we rely on with each other is trust. And when I tell you that I’m going to do something or you tell me that you’re going to help me with something and you don’t do that, that really betrays my trust. And so that’s difficult to recover from. But what I find more frequently is people, and individuals really don’t honor themselves. They don’t get enough self-care.
Denise Schonwald
00:05:10 – 00:05:34
They don’t, sometimes when I talk to patients about self-care, they say, I don’t have time for that. And I say, well, you’ll either make time for self-care or you’re gonna have to make time for illness because the body cannot sustain if we don’t nurture it. And I’m not really sure why as a society now, we’re neglecting our own self-care care for sacrificing it for helping others.
Victoria Volk
00:05:37 – 00:06:10
You know, there’s been periods of time in my life where I’ve been guilty of sabotaging my own self-care. It’s like in those moments of, like, extreme challenge or being confronted with something really challenging, that that’s when you need to double down on your self-care. And me personally, I think I’ve had to learn that lesson several times. Like, okay, this is when I need to really double down on taking a break and needing a mental break. And so I’m glad that you mentioned that in your book.
Victoria Volk
00:06:11 – 00:06:41
In that same vein, you talk there’s another aspect of your book where you talk about the importance of emotional intelligence. And I think as we develop that emotional intelligence, we have that obviously more self-awareness when we realize that we’re self-sabotaging our self, you know, our own self-care and things like that. What have you found in your practice has been helpful for people that you’ve worked with and even for yourself in developing emotional intelligence?
Denise Schonwald
00:06:42 – 00:06:57
Here’s a very easy way. 1 is notice, not judge. Notice how as an individual that we’re starting to act. Are we all of a sudden very irritable? Are we going to the refrigerator one too many times for more food?
Denise Schonwald
00:06:57 – 00:07:26
Usually, when we’re very stressed emotionally, we go for sugar and carbs just automatically. Watch how much we’re drinking. If we’re smoking, watch how much we’re smoking because the body is trying to balance. And if we’re not doing healthy things, the mind becomes very active, and we start reaching for things in the environment that are unhealthy, spending, too much screen time. It’s something that the body is trying to find ease.
Denise Schonwald
00:07:26 – 00:07:30
But, unfortunately, if the mind’s in charge, it’s likely not gonna be a good choice.
Victoria Volk
00:07:31 – 00:08:10
My personal go-to is anger. So when I’m, like, just this last week, last week was a doozy of a week. I had some credit card fraud on my website, and it’s like when I thought that the week couldn’t start off any worse, it snowballed. I’ve lost access to my business Facebook page. Like, it’s been just technical, like stupid stuff that, I actually like the Facebook page thing was my own stupidity, not realizing what I was doing, but it’s really created a lot of anger to come up inside me.
Victoria Volk
00:08:10 – 00:08:27
And I find that when I’m angry, and I would love to talk about anger more because I think it’s a really important emotion that we have. But when I find that I’m getting angry, I don’t eat. I don’t drink. I don’t want it. I don’t want people to even talk to me.
Victoria Volk
00:08:28 – 00:08:32
Don’t talk to me. I just I need to sit with my anger.
Denise Schonwald
00:08:32 – 00:08:33
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:08:33 – 00:09:01
And I know not everybody’s like that. Like, a lot of people will just that like you said, they’ll reach for the refrigerator or they’ll go shopping to distract themselves. But for me, it’s like I have and it I it doesn’t come out very pretty either. So, like, how do you reconcile that? Like, when the anger is coming out and up, it’s like and you have people around you and you don’t wanna be, you know, you don’t wanna be a jerk.
Denise Schonwald
00:09:01 – 00:09:01
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:09:01 – 00:09:07
What is your advice for that? Because I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there listening like, that’s me.
Denise Schonwald
00:09:07 – 00:09:25
Yes. One of the things, as a therapist that I do when I meet someone is I’m trying to figure out where they are emotionally. Like, where is their emotional frequency? It’s actually measured in something called Hertz. Anger is around a 150 Hertz.
Denise Schonwald
00:09:25 – 00:09:52
So it’s a low vibrational energy, but it’s got a lot of intensity. So anger, ego, jealousy, they’re all around the same sort of frequency. And when we get to that point, we likely are going to say something or do something. We can no longer hold it in. And after we say something or do something, likely, we feel either very guilty or shameful about how we just acted out.
Denise Schonwald
00:09:53 – 00:10:27
And then many times, we feel very sad and depressed. Both anger and shame and depression are take a lot of energy from the body, both very extreme emotions. For me, personally, when I want to say something out of anger or ego, let somebody know how I really feel, I remind myself not to say a word. Because even if I do, it’s not likely going to be well received. I will say, however, right now, I really don’t feel like I’m in a good place to talk about this.
Denise Schonwald
00:10:27 – 00:10:38
I would like a little time to, you know, think about it or whatever I wanna say just to give myself a little bit of space knowing that I’m going to very dangerous territory because I’m already pretty darn angry.
Victoria Volk
00:10:40 – 00:10:45
And it’s not even like I’m getting angry at people around me. They’re just trying to ask me a question
Denise Schonwald
00:10:45 – 00:10:45
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:10:46 – 00:11:17
or they’re and I’m just so wrapped up in my own anger that I can’t even have a conversation. But you bring up a good point. I never I so one of the service offerings I have is, biofuel tuning with tuning forks. And so it’s interesting that you mentioned the hurts of anger, because I never thought personally to get out my tuning fork, maybe just come to my office, light a candle and you know, just strike my fork
Denise Schonwald
00:11:18 – 00:11:18
Yes.
Victoria Volk
00:11:18 – 00:11:19
Few times.
Denise Schonwald
00:11:19 – 00:11:35
Vibrational energy to go a little bit higher
Victoria Volk
00:11:21 – 00:11:21
Yeah
Denise Schonwald
00:11:21 – 00:11:35
to get through that anger. Yes. The other thing is underneath anger, and I when I work with little children who have anger issues, I pretend it’s an umbrella. And I say, what’s underneath the angry umbrella? I’m frustrated.
Denise Schonwald
00:11:35 – 00:11:50
I’m overwhelmed. I’m disappointed. And I try to give them some language so that it doesn’t just come out in door slamming or screaming or calling names. And I go, okay. Let’s let’s think about the what’s under the angry umbrella.
Denise Schonwald
00:11:50 – 00:11:52
It’s actually very helpful for me too.
Victoria Volk
00:11:53 – 00:11:59
I will probably remember the umbrella the next time because I’m sure this issue that I’m dealing with is not over yet. And so, I’m suspecting some more anger will pop up
Denise Schonwald
00:12:00 – 00:12:00
uh-humm
Victoria Volk
00:12:00 – 00:12:39
as a result, but, thank you for that. I also wanna talk about people pleasing, which you mentioned in your book too, because just this past weekend, there was a skit on SNL. Ariana Grande was on and it was a people-pleasing support group skit. And, you know, it was it kinda was making fun of the people pleasing, but it had it was interesting that SNL is addressing this on their show
Denise Schonwald
00:12:40 – 00:12:40
Mmmor
Victoria Volk
00:12:40 – 00:12:41
talking about it on their show in this way.
Victoria Volk
00:12:41 – 00:12:56
But, you know, what people were saying was, oh, no worries. You know, because they had their lines to say, and one of them was, no worries. Whatever you decide and, you know, what do you think? Well, I’m I’m okay with whatever you think, you know, and so it was kind of exaggerating things. Right?
Victoria Volk
00:12:56 – 00:13:25
But I heard myself in what they were saying in some of these things, like, no worries, you know. What is what are some techniques for people to stop themselves when to recognize again, it’s developing that emotional intelligence about people pleasing first, but what are some suggestions that you have for people to get out of that? First of all, why do we do it? And then secondly, how do we stop it?
Denise Schonwald
00:13:26 – 00:13:37
Well, the reason why we do it is when someone’s unhappy or they don’t have something, it causes us a lot of anxiety, and we want to go in and fix it. And I might say, well, I wanna do it because I wanna help them but what I really want to do is make myself feel better about it.
Victoria Volk
00:13:37 – 00:13:37
Mmm..
Denise Schonwald
00:13:38 – 00:14:09
And so we have to be careful of that. And so what I tell a lot of people is when somebody’s unhappy or some they’re going through something, you can be supportive without fixing it. Because sometimes when we please, every the other person gets very resentful and frustrated because we’re coming in and we’re trying to just rescue and take care of when that’s not what they’ve asked for.
Denise Schonwald
00:14:09 – 00:14:45
They’re just letting us know they’re upset about something or some situation. But what happens with people pleasers, if we can imagine drawing a circle, and inside the circle should be our personal values and ethics and what makes us different from the next person. What is it that we know to be true about us? And when we meet people, they will figure out fairly quickly what’s inside our circle, what our values are, and they will like us or not like us or align with us or not. Does it mean one’s good or bad?
Denise Schonwald
00:14:45 – 00:15:17
Just means we understand and we appreciate each other or we don’t. The people pleaser circle has a lot of gaps in it. And what happens with them, unfortunately, is they will fall prey to people who are very manipulative and controlling. Because somebody who’s manipulative and controlling, they’re masterful at finding a people pleaser. And so when the people pleaser pleases, they’ll walk away knowing that they really may not have wanted to do what they just volunteered to do.
Denise Schonwald
00:15:18 – 00:15:34
And then they get a lot of they betrayed themselves, and they also have supported somebody to be very manipulative and to be very unkind. And that is really hard on the body.
Victoria Volk
00:15:34 – 00:15:34
You can see why.
Denise Schonwald
00:15:35 – 00:15:35
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:15:35 – 00:15:45
So in the dynamics of friendship and when we think about grief and what I hear a lot too is and I know people that have had this personal experience, but when you are going through something really challenging and you’re reaching out to people and they’re not showing up in a way that you need them to
Denise Schonwald
00:15:46 – 00:15:46
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:15:47 – 00:16:23
or are asking them to, how do you reconcile that where I don’t know how I’m trying to ask this, because it kind of revolves around people pleasing. It’s like, what if 2 people pleasers? I guess. You know, if you’re 2 people pleasers, and then you one person has, like, a really difficult time and needs the other person, and yet they can’t they just can’t do it.
Victoria Volk
00:16:23 – 00:16:39
They just they’re not able to support you. And so how do you reconcile honoring where someone else is at that they just can’t support you in that time? Because this can happen with grievers too a lot. Right?
Denise Schonwald
00:16:40 – 00:16:40
Yes
Victoria Volk
00:16:40 – 00:16:47
Like, this is where friendships kind of can break down and break apart, because people aren’t showing up for you how you hoped.
Denise Schonwald
00:16:47 – 00:16:47
Yes
Victoria Volk
00:16:48 – 00:16:50
Yeah. Can you speak to that a little bit?
Denise Schonwald
00:16:50 – 00:17:36
And I think with people pleasers, I think sort of the fear is that they’re going to hurt or disappoint someone. And what I try to do is help them with language because you can express how you feel without being insulting or dismissive. What I have found with grief is many people get very uncomfortable with grief, and they don’t know what to say, so they will say something very insensitive. Not meaning to, but they can hurt your feelings because they just sort of speak out of fear, and then they say something that is very hurtful. So what I tell people is understand that it’s just a very uncomfortable situation, and a lot of people don’t really feel comfortable navigating it.
Denise Schonwald
00:17:37 – 00:17:56
If they’re offering something that you really don’t want or won’t appreciate, it’s thank you so much. That’s so thoughtful. Maybe next week would be better to drop off whatever, some food or something like that. It’s always complimenting and appreciating, but then also letting them know what would work best.
Victoria Volk
00:17:59 – 00:18:01
So you bring up boundaries
Denise Schonwald
00:18:01 – 00:18:01
Yes
Victoria Volk
00:18:01 – 00:18:03
in a way in a roundabout way.
Denise Schonwald
00:18:03 – 00:18:03
I do.
Victoria Volk
00:18:04 – 00:18:12
So, I actually wanted to talk about that because you have a great exercise for creating boundaries in your book. Do you mind sharing that?
Denise Schonwald
00:18:12 – 00:18:16
Well, is that about the circle? Is that what I talked about about the 2nd?
Victoria Volk
00:18:16 – 00:18:20
Yes. Yes. You did. Yeah. You did touch on that when it came to yeah.
Denise Schonwald
00:18:20 – 00:18:38
Yes. And so what I tell people when your circle is clearly defined, you don’t have to defend it. You don’t have to overexplain it. You don’t have to get nasty when somebody but people will test boundaries. They want to know, like, what you will accept, what you won’t tolerate.
Denise Schonwald
00:18:39 – 00:18:55
It’s very important that we all understand that. As a therapist, as you can imagine, I get a lot of good experience and practice with boundaries. People are can be very manipulative, and why can’t you do this, and why can’t you see me there? And I said, listen. I would be happy to.
Denise Schonwald
00:18:55 – 00:19:16
Unfortunately, I’m not able to do it today, but I certainly have time tomorrow or Wednesday. If that’s acceptable to them, they go, okay. Thank you very much. If it’s not, that means that they’re not that there’s no boundary there. They don’t they would prefer that I don’t have boundaries, and it’s not going to be a good fit.
Denise Schonwald
00:19:16 – 00:19:30
I don’t wanna support them to be manipulative and abusive, nor do I want to run myself to the point where I’m exhausted and I’m no good to anyone. So I honor them, and I also honor myself with boundaries.
Victoria Volk
00:19:31 – 00:19:52
I was just gonna say, and that’s where a lot of helpers get themselves into trouble is yeah. And it and that ties in with the people pleasing. Right? Where you just you want to be supportive, you wanna be helpful, and it’s often to your own detriment when you’re not recognizing or acknowledging that boundaries are healthy, and they’re good for both parties involved.
Denise Schonwald
00:19:52 – 00:20:18
They really are. And if we don’t have, boundaries, what we end up doing is have being very bitter and resentful. Because we feel like people are taking advantage of us, and they are, but we’re also allowing that. So we also have to take responsibility for that. And, again, it’s getting comfortable just having these conversations nicely and then allowing the other person to accept it or not.
Victoria Volk
00:20:19 – 00:21:05
Yep. Absolutely. What I like you what you said about grief too, you know, when you get to that point where all these things just kind of where you realize you need boundaries and you start honoring your own commitments and you’re recognizing that you’re a people pleaser and you’re doing all these things and you have all this awareness, you can find yourself in a lot of grief just because like you said, when you’re start implementing these things in your life and having these awarenesses, people can it can rub people the wrong way. And that’s where these, you know, friendships and relationships can deteriorate as a result.
Denise Schonwald
00:21:01 – 00:21:01
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:21:01 – 00:21:06
And there’s grief in that, especially if it’s been a long-time friend or whatever the scenario may be, or even a marriage or a partnership and, and things.
Victoria Volk
00:21:06 – 00:21:10
I like how you said grief is it’s like you can become stuck in the waiting room.
Denise Schonwald
00:21:10 – 00:21:10
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:21:11 – 00:21:29
And so many people get stuck in the waiting room. And me personally, I was stuck in the waiting room Most of my adult life. I was a child griever and I, you know, you carry that stuff with you from childhood into adulthood and all the trauma and the mess and the baggage. Right?
Denise Schonwald
00:21:29 – 00:21:29
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:21:29 – 00:21:42
You carry it with you into adulthood. And, I mean, only in the past 5 years, have I had this leaps and bounds of self-awareness and growth and reconnecting with my own intuition and my own knowing.
Denise Schonwald
00:21:42 – 00:21:42
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:21:43 – 00:21:55
But can you speak to the philosophy you have about that and then about treating grief with medication and your philosophy around that?
Denise Schonwald
00:21:56 – 00:22:27
One of the things about grief, and I tell people this all the time, there’s no way of going around it. You have to just go through it. And you we’re we get so frightened of pain. But also with pain is I try to remind people, and this has been helpful in my own life, I try to look for meaning. Because what you said was so true about relationships, people that you think will show up for you sometimes don’t, and people that you think really didn’t even know you that well will show up.
Denise Schonwald
00:22:28 – 00:23:04
So grief will cause this major shift, and what you’re gonna get from it, hard to say. And it’s just something that that it just surprises me. But what I tried to find through my own grieving times is what how can I come through this a better person? One thing about with death, even back when I was in my critical care days, is boy I had such an appreciation for life and relationships and so forth. Also, for me to be more compassionate when other people are grieving.
Denise Schonwald
00:23:04 – 00:23:27
We tend to go to the funeral and maybe check in once, and then we go on to our daily lives. But yet, that’s when it’s the most difficult, you know, when things start to settle down. And so I’ve made myself a mental note to reach out to a lot of people that are grieving and suffering, just checking in. Not offering to help, not offering to just hey. How are you doing?
Denise Schonwald
00:23:27 – 00:23:33
Giving them that space to just speak their truth and how they’re feeling. It’s very important.
Victoria Volk
00:23:35 – 00:24:03
Do you find working in the mental health or the area of mental health and obviously with and things like that. Do you find because I’ve I’m feeling like, you know, there’s so much heaviness in the world. There’s so much sorrow and, suffering. Really? I mean, suffering.
Victoria Volk
00:24:03 – 00:24:03
Yeah.
Denise Schonwald
00:24:03 – 00:24:04
I agree.
Victoria Volk
00:24:04 – 00:24:53
It’s like, I feel like sometimes I just want to cocoon myself. And it’s like, you know, when you are work and when you work in this space, it’s like sometimes I think to myself, do people expect that I should do or behave or respond a certain way because I’m the grief expert or I work with grievers or the mental health expert, and I’m, you know, working with patients and families. And I know all this stuff, and I’m a helper. Like, how do you reconcile that for those listening, who are helpers, who are working in this space. Because to me, sometimes it is it feels like too much.
Victoria Volk
00:24:53 – 00:25:02
And that’s where I know I need to then maybe address some self-care within myself, but can you speak to that a little bit?
Denise Schonwald
00:25:02 – 00:25:32
It it’s very true. And so when you’re finding that it’s all so overwhelming and it’s so heavy, we need to go in and go, okay. What do I need so that I’m in a better, I’m sort of in a better fitness state to handle and to share space with this person who’s grieving? But, you know, at the end of the day, we’re all human beings, and it does affect us. Just because we don’t know this person or who’s lost somebody doesn’t mean we don’t feel that energy.
Denise Schonwald
00:25:32 – 00:25:57
That energy that their experience is pulling. They’re pulling from us because they want support and they want help and they’re they’re struggling and they’re suffering, and yet that’s gonna take a toll on us. You asked me before about medication.
Victoria Volk
00:25:49 – 00:25:49
Yeah
Denise Schonwald
00:25:49 – 00:25:57
That’s something as a nurse, I understand that sometimes medication is needed, but we also have to go through this grieving process. We’re not gonna get around it.
Denise Schonwald
00:25:57 – 00:26:12
We can try to numb it a little bit, but it’s very very painful. Some people can’t survive it. They’ve been married 50 years and their spouse dies. They tend to go right after them because it’s so heavy on the heart in particular.
Victoria Volk
00:26:13 – 00:26:29
Yeah. Thank you for circling back to that question. And even for me personally, it’s not even that I think you know, it’s not even people reaching out to me asking me but it’s like this I feel like this maybe a sense of duty in a way.
Denise Schonwald
00:26:30 – 00:26:30
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:26:30 – 00:26:34
And then I feel guilt when I don’t. And so that’s a little bit hard to reconcile for myself sometimes.
Denise Schonwald
00:26:35 – 00:27:10
Well and sometimes you need to make sure you’re in a good space to like, for instance, if somebody’s people that don’t know that I’m a therapist, if they catch me at the grocery store, I’ll say something like, listen. I’m really sorry this has happened to you. Why don’t you give me a call so we can meet privately or something like that? I just don’t know that I’m in a good mental space to have this conversation, you know, standing in the and the deli guy or whatever and so forth. And so I understand that it’s important to them, but I also have to make sure that I’m in a good place because I wanna give them my 100% focus.
Denise Schonwald
00:27:11 – 00:27:15
And I’m not in a good place when I’m out doing errands and so forth.
Victoria Volk
00:27:16 – 00:27:19
Yeah. And that’s great advice for the helpers listening to this.
Denise Schonwald
00:27:19 – 00:27:25
Mhmm. Yes. We’ve we all, sometimes have to go through that challenge.
Victoria Volk
00:27:26 – 00:27:59
We had talked before we started recording, talking about grief. And one of the things I would like to talk about is supporting kids because we had, you had mentioned that you, there’s been a lot of loss for your children or your son over the years and throughout his school years and into adulthood. And I think one of the things that hasn’t really been talked about a whole lot from a mental health standpoint is supporting, kids who have lost friends.
Denise Schonwald
00:27:59 – 00:27:59
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:28:00 – 00:28:05
And so can you share your professional and parental because it was also your son, right, from that like, the two halves of that?
Denise Schonwald
00:28:06 – 00:28:31
Yes. My son, who is now 28, probably lost 10 friends between 18 and 25, many to drug overdose, suicide. And you know, how do you and as parents, we wanna we don’t want them to suffer because they’re our children, and we wanna make it easier for them. But, again, this is something we gotta go through. We can’t go around.
Denise Schonwald
00:28:31 – 00:29:09
So all I have been able to do, and and the most recent one was just a couple years ago for my son, his very good friend committed suicide, This is to really sort of sit down and say, how are you doing? How are you feeling? Just because it’s an uncomfortable conversation, but it’s one that he needs the space to grieve. It can be very painful for me to hear it because he’s my son, and I don’t want him to suffer. But it’s also important that he know that I’m willing to sit with him in that time and in that space and be as comfortable as I can when he’s uncomfortable.
Denise Schonwald
00:29:10 – 00:29:11
So but it’s tough.
Victoria Volk
00:29:12 – 00:29:19
One of the common things that people say in grief is when people are asked, you know, how are you feeling? How are you doing? Most people say I’m fine.
Denise Schonwald
00:29:19 – 00:29:19
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:29:20 – 00:29:26
And in the grief work that I do, we say that fine means feelings inside not expressed.
Denise Schonwald
00:29:26 – 00:29:26
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:29:27 – 00:29:45
So it’s really just a mask. Right? That we say. So what are some things that you suggest then if you ask your son or your child or young adult or whether they’re 5 or 15 or 25 and you ask them how they’re doing or how they’re feeling and they say I’m fine, when do you press that?
Victoria Volk
00:29:45 – 00:29:50
Or how do you press that? And do you just keep asking until they say otherwise?
Denise Schonwald
00:29:50 – 00:30:00
Well, the other thing that yeah. I’m I’m very intuitive. So I’ll I’ll say something like, you know, how are you doing since you’ve lost such and such? And if they go, yeah. I’m doing really well.
Denise Schonwald
00:30:00 – 00:30:16
They seem to be very dismissive of it. I’ll say, listen. You know, if at any time you wanna talk about it, I’m I’m happy to have the conversation. Because it’s a little bit tough when you don’t wanna have the conversation, and somebody goes, well, just tell me. Just tell me or just share with me.
Denise Schonwald
00:30:16 – 00:30:37
And, you know, that’s also a boundary. But I like to sort of create the opening of listen, if you ever have a tough time with it, I’m more than happy you know, give me a call. I’m more than happy to talk to you and sit with you during this. But we have to understand that some people everybody deals with grief differently in their own way, and we need to honor that.
Victoria Volk
00:30:37 – 00:30:57
So what if you as the parent is uncomfortable with the topic of grief, period? And how do you get yourself more comfortable in having that conversation? Like, if you’re not confident in how you would respond or how you would support them, you may not be inclined to even ask. So how do you get to that point as a parent?
Denise Schonwald
00:30:58 – 00:31:17
Right. Well, so what maybe what you’re asking or what you’re suggesting is that the parent feels very anxious and very fearful of doing that. And so when we do that, we only think about ourselves. So we pull in and go, oh, I don’t wanna have this conversation. I don’t wanna feel uncomfortable and so forth.
Denise Schonwald
00:31:18 – 00:31:54
And what you were saying with your tuning forks to get your vibrational energy a little bit higher is for me to say, I’m okay to be uncomfortable to just open this space for this person to express themselves. And what I tend to do when I’m uncomfortable is I try to listen more than speak so that I don’t say something that I wish I hadn’t said. So I open the opportunity for conversation unless they don’t seem to wanna have it, and then I assure them that, listen. I’m happy to talk to you if you want to. If not, no problem.
Denise Schonwald
00:31:54 – 00:31:57
Just want you to know that I’m just checking in and hope you’re doing well.
Victoria Volk
00:31:59 – 00:32:09
Yeah. And you touched on it, but I think a lot of people think they have to have the solution, right or the fix it.
Denise Schonwald
00:32:09 – 00:32:09
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:32:10 – 00:32:15
And sometimes you just need to listen, and that’s maybe the best medicine is just to listen. You don’t even, you know, release that pressure from yourself to have to have to respond.
Victoria Volk
00:32:16 – 00:32:18
And just like like you said, just listen.
Denise Schonwald
00:32:18 – 00:32:22
Yes. I like to say, just checking in, see how you’re doing. So just it’s really light.
Victoria Volk
00:32:22 – 00:32:22
Mhmm.
Denise Schonwald
00:32:23 – 00:32:28
And if they say, you know, doing this well as can be expected, I’ll say, okay.
Denise Schonwald
00:32:28 – 00:32:31
Just want you to know I was thinking about you. Maybe that’s enough.
Victoria Volk
00:32:32 – 00:32:49
Right. What is one thing that you would like to scream to the world or wish that people knew about just grief in general, your personal grief that you’ve experienced? You had mentioned before we started recording, you have lost your parents, but what would you like to scream to the world?
Denise Schonwald
00:32:50 – 00:33:17
With any time someone comes into your life that I would say touches your soul, when they leave this earth, there’s going to be suffering and grief. That’s just a natural part of it. I try personally not to pull in and suffer by myself. These are times where I can connect with other people. These are times when other people will come in to support me, and I need to receive that.
Denise Schonwald
00:33:18 – 00:33:39
Certainly, with grief and any sort of suffering, there’s meaning. I think about my parents and some of the wonderful things that they taught me and left me as a legacy. You know, something’s not so great, but I can let those go. And to me, that’s very meaningful. My my sister and I talk about my mom all the time because she had some, like, silly habits.
Denise Schonwald
00:33:39 – 00:34:03
And then we’ll notice ourselves doing the same silly thing, and we connect, and we think of her in a positive light. I certainly, when I leave this earth, don’t want my children every time they think of me to burst into tears. No. I certainly know that they’ll grieve me, but I also hope that I’ve left a lot of goodness in them that they will think of me and smile, say some nice things. That’s my hope anyway.
Victoria Volk
00:34:04 – 00:34:14
I’m pretty sure my kids will probably say, you know, she was pretty weird. They say I’m weird now. So I take that as a compliment though.
Denise Schonwald
00:34:14 – 00:34:14
Yeah. Absolutely.
Victoria Volk
00:34:15 – 00:34:32
So throughout your career, I mean, as you know, a critical care nurse, like what were some of the things before you had these tools and before you went to school and back to school for mental health, what were some of the things that you personally leaned on and that you’ve brought into your practice and kind of incorporated?
Denise Schonwald
00:34:33 – 00:34:51
For me personally, self-care is key. I start every day with about 15 minutes of meditation just to sort of keep get myself grounded and sort of to find my center, if you will. I work hard, but I also take time. I exercise every day. For me, that’s something that I really need to do.
Denise Schonwald
00:34:52 – 00:35:11
Just just really helps me just disconnect for a little while. I’m very careful with my screen time. My first hour of the day, no screen time, and I shut it down a couple hours before I go to bed just so that I can my mind can take a little bit of a break. I’m a big proponent of acupuncture. Reiki, I love quite a bit.
Denise Schonwald
00:35:11 – 00:35:23
Massage, not saying you need to do these every week, but sporadically, depending upon how you’re feeling, incorporate some of these wonderful practices for just overall health and healing.
Victoria Volk
00:35:23 – 00:35:32
Did you start doing these things as you were a critical care nurse too in the within in the 30 years or just in recent years?
Denise Schonwald
00:35:32 – 00:35:52
I had a defining moment one night in the ICU. I was looking around at all of the patients that we had, and I realized some were just at the end of their lives. They were, you know, in their nineties and maybe had a heart attack and so forth. But most of the patients that we had sort of put themselves there. They neglected their body.
Denise Schonwald
00:35:52 – 00:36:19
They were stressed out. They were smoking, diabetes, and I made a commitment to myself that if I were ever in the ICU, it wouldn’t be because I did something to contribute to that. And then when I went over to mental health, I felt the same thing. I was like, boy, you know, we me included, and I really start to invested, invest more in my mental health. And I realized that when we don’t we’re not mentally healthy, we’re eventually going to become physically ill.
Denise Schonwald
00:36:20 – 00:36:30
And so I understand how important it is for me to manage. And this is my responsibility, my own stress and wellness, so that I can stay healthy and happy.
Victoria Volk
00:36:31 – 00:36:48
You bring up a good point in that. Well, it just brings up the feeling in me that you can have, let’s say you’ve been you have a there’s a couple they’ve been married 30, 40 years or, or even not. Let’s say it’s just been maybe 5 or 10, like or significant other. You don’t have to be married. Right?
Denise Schonwald
00:36:48 – 00:36:48
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:36:48 – 00:37:35
In partnership with someone. And you see these people just like one or the other, or maybe even both, just kind of going about life and just eating whatever they eat and drink whatever they eat, drink. And like you said, perpetuating these the disease that’s probably slowly manifesting until it becomes a flow full-blown heart attack or stroke or whatever the case may be that lands them in the hospital or in a medical crisis or terminal illness or whatever the case may be. And then one of them becomes a caregiver.
Denise Schonwald
00:37:35 – 00:37:35
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:37:35 – 00:37:41
So for those listening who may find themselves as a caregiver, who are looking at their significant other who has put themselves in that position and now feel maybe anger,
Denise Schonwald
00:37:42 – 00:37:42
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:37:42 – 00:37:42
resentment.
Denise Schonwald
00:37:43 – 00:37:43
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:37:43 – 00:37:46
And to reconcile that as a caregiver, like it’s like you’re holding the both the reality and the grief.
Denise Schonwald
00:37:46 – 00:37:46
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:37:47 – 00:38:02
The reality of what you’re looking at in the situation of what it is and how that person got there. And then also, but I love this person. I wanna care for them.
Victoria Volk
00:38:02 – 00:38:02
Like,
Denise Schonwald
00:38:02 – 00:38:02
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:38:02 – 00:38:05
I think that’s a really difficult challenge for caregivers.
Denise Schonwald
00:38:06 – 00:38:47
I agree. And what I suggest for people that are going through that is to consider having a therapist just to sort of, you know, catharsis or venting with somebody that can help us in coping skills can be very very healing. It’s just hard when we have to go through it alone, particularly when they’ve got some sort of, like, dementia or something like that. It’s you know, this is why these support groups are so important that we can sort of help each other. There’s no way of eliminating it, or it’s just getting some help to just sort of cope through it, cope with it, and also get other people that can help and support as needed.
Denise Schonwald
00:38:48 – 00:38:58
But I know my husband is is 15 years older than I am, and as his health has started to decline, I have reached out to my own therapist more frequently just for support.
Victoria Volk
00:38:58 – 00:39:15
Let’s say you see where the train is going, and they’re just not wanting to take the power back within themselves. They’re not taking ownership of the situation. They’re not doing what you would hope they would be doing. And I’m sure there’s a lot of people in this situation listening. Right?
Victoria Volk
00:39:16 – 00:39:21
What do you do in that situation? Because you can’t make somebody start working out. You can’t make somebody seek mental health.
Denise Schonwald
00:39:21 – 00:39:21
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:39:22 – 00:39:27
You can’t make somebody else do these things.
Denise Schonwald
00:39:27 – 00:39:32
Correct. And what what I see down here in Florida, we have a lot of people that obviously that retire and come down to Florida.
Victoria Volk
00:39:32 – 00:39:32
Mhmm.
Denise Schonwald
00:39:33 – 00:40:03
But what I see typically is that neither husband or wife or partner has really prepared for sort of the end or the latter stages of life. For example, they have 2 or 3 homes, you know, and they’re 80 years old. I mean, that’s and they’ve never really downsized and so forth. Then one or the other gets sick, and the one person is not only caregiving but now has the 2 homes, you know, 1 in Michigan and 1 in Florida.
Denise Schonwald
00:40:03 – 00:40:38
And so what I say to them is, as you’re starting to age, downsize and get something manageable, manageable for 2 or 1 because that may happen. But there’s some things that we can do regardless of what our spouse chooses so that we’re in a better position, maybe financially and logistically and so forth so that we’re preparing for this. But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve met with people that with the 3 homes. This is, you know, it’s really unreasonable at 80.
Victoria Volk
00:40:39 – 00:40:44
Like you mentioned though, you made a statement something to the effect of planning for retirement or later years or the golden years ho you know,
Denise Schonwald
00:40:44 – 00:40:44
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:40:45 – 00:41:00
that time period in your life, we you know, so many people spend so much time financially preparing for that, but you don’t think about what do I want my health to be
Denise Schonwald
00:41:00 – 00:41:00
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:41:01 – 00:41:02
At that stage.
Denise Schonwald
00:41:02 – 00:41:02
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:41:03 – 00:41:17
And what’s in my power and control to address that starting today so that when I get to that stage, I can enjoy it. Right. Because what’s the point of getting to that period of your life if you are sick and you can’t enjoy it?
Denise Schonwald
00:41:17 – 00:41:17
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:41:17 – 00:41:19
And I think yeah.
Denise Schonwald
00:41:19 – 00:41:57
And one of the things that I work with people in is when we become physically ill, depending upon what’s happening, that has started on the emotional energetic level. So certain emotions will play out physically. And what happens is, you know, we’re so afraid to deal with I don’t, guilt or shame or trauma or so forth, but eventually they manifest physically. I cannot tell you how many patients that we had in the ICU, and they would say, can you believe I’ve had a heart attack? And I would look at their chart, and I’d be like, you know, I sort of can.
Denise Schonwald
00:41:57 – 00:42:11
I mean, you have a lot of risk factors and you don’t take care of yourself. And yet, you know, we think that just because we don’t wanna recognize it or acknowledge it, it’s not gonna take have an impact on us, and it really does.
Victoria Volk
00:42:12 – 00:42:14
And everybody around them.
Denise Schonwald
00:42:15 – 00:42:29
Yes. Yes. And so I have to think, not only is it gonna affect me, but it’s gonna affect my spouse, it’s gonna affect my children. And you know, we have to take responsibility for that. But many people don’t, unfortunately.
Victoria Volk
00:42:30 – 00:42:44
No. What is one tip that you would give? I mean, you’ve shared a lot of tips, but what’s one tip that you would give to someone listening who is hurting, whether it’s watching someone else suffer who is grieving or whether they’re grieving themselves.
Denise Schonwald
00:42:44 – 00:43:02
Mhmm. Even when life is going fairly well. So we’re going through our developmental stages and so forth. At every stage, it’s a struggle, because we haven’t done it before. And once the kids go off to college or we retire or we get a new job or whatever.
Denise Schonwald
00:43:04 – 00:43:33
I highly recommend I started to see a therapist every now and then back in my twenties. Because even again, when there’s nothing really particularly wrong, certain stages are very difficult for me. When my husband retired, that was a major change because he was home all the time. I’m still working, and it for me, that was a struggle. And I really felt like I needed somebody just to other than my sister and my friends, and that’s not their job, to be my therapist, but just talk through it.
Denise Schonwald
00:43:34 – 00:43:53
And I highly recommend everybody have a therapist, not just because I am one, because they’re very very helpful. Find somebody that you connect with and find somebody that can work with you when you’re really going through a tough time so that it doesn’t play out physically and affect your life and others around you.
Victoria Volk
00:43:53 – 00:44:09
Well and when would you rather find a therapist? When you are in the emotional throes of something and it’s like, feels very immediate, like stat important or
Denise Schonwald
00:44:09 – 00:44:09
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:44:09- 00:44:14
When you can kinda ease yourself into the experience. Because for a lot of people, they may not never have had an experience of working with a therapist too.
Denise Schonwald
00:44:15 – 00:44:27
Yes. And it may be take a couple till they find somebody that’s right for them. People will say to me all the time, can you recommend a good therapist? And I go, a good therapist is somebody that is right for you. So that’s very important.
Denise Schonwald
00:44:27 – 00:44:34
And you’re right. Let’s not wait till we’re right in the throes of crisis, and then we’re scrambling to try to find somebody.
Victoria Volk
00:44:35 – 00:44:49
What would you say to people who don’t really think therapy is for them because they just don’t wanna, like, just talk about I just don’t wanna talk about talk, talk, talk. Right?
Denise Schonwald
00:44:49 – 00:44:49
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:44:50 – 00:44:58
Like, what is your perspective of that? Like, do you core incorporate other things or, like, action steps and things into your practice?
Denise Schonwald
00:44:58 – 00:45:22
One of the things that I recommend for everybody is always have a self-help book around. I mean, there’s thousands of them, and I always carry a book with me. And I’m I read and read and read. And, again, 1, 2 pages at a time because I sort of have a busy schedule and so forth. But there’s always some advice and some keys and some ways to cope that can be very very helpful.
Denise Schonwald
00:45:22 – 00:45:33
So start that way where you start to just learn about yourself and emotions and how they affect the body and whatever you’re interested in meditation and so forth, and then move from there.
Victoria Volk
00:45:34 – 00:46:14
That has actually been one of the catalysts for my growth is reading self-help books because at least to you know, it’s like one book can lead to the next book to lead to the next book or you end up down this rabbit hole where you learn maybe a new perspective. And, you know, it just it really it’s like, you didn’t get to where you are overnight. You’re not gonna get to where you want to go overnight. So you might as well just take these incremental steps. And if it’s reading 2 pages at a time, like you said, I mean, that’s it’s has a camp compound effect,
Denise Schonwald
00:46:15 – 00:46:15
Yeah
Victoria Volk
00:46:15 – 00:46:17
you know, just like grief and trauma, and it has this compound effect, but we can chip away at that.
Victoria Volk
00:46:18 – 00:46:22
I think by doing the things that you’ve talked about and mentioned,
Denise Schonwald
00:46:22 – 00:46:22
Mhmm
Victoria Volk
00:46:23 – 00:46:23
in this episode.
Denise Schonwald
00:46:23 – 00:46:43
Plus it helps us when we connect with other people. I can’t tell you how many times I’ll be out and about and somebody will say thank you for recommending that book. And I have no memory of and I go, what book was that? And they go, oh, this book, it was so helpful. I rec I gave it to my sister and this is how we the power of our ripple in a positive way.
Denise Schonwald
00:46:43 – 00:46:43
Mhmm.
Denise Schonwald
00:46:43 – 00:46:57
Other than complaining or you know, connecting with people just over problems, we’re actually connecting with people and recommending books and then talking about the books to each other and what we liked and what was helpful and so forth.
Victoria Volk
00:46:57 – 00:47:02
What is your grief and the grief that you’ve helped others work through taught you?
Denise Schonwald
00:47:04 – 00:47:26
I have a very good friend that lost her son at 16, so it sort of was a freak accident. And so now he’s passed away a little over 10 years. And I said to her one night, how do you deal with it now that it’s 10 years? You know, it’s not like it’s been 2 months and so forth. And she said, you know, she said, we’ll never get over it.
Denise Schonwald
00:47:26 – 00:47:50
She said, but we’ve learned to live peacefully next to it. And I thought that that was such an interesting way to describe. She said, you know, it’s just something that’s always gonna be there, and you have to learn to be at peace with it living next to you. It’s a wonderful question to ask people who are going who have are grieving 5 years down the road. Ask them, well, what is it like?
Denise Schonwald
00:47:50 – 00:48:08
Like, what is what are the challenges 5 years later or 15 years later and so forth? It’s something that not only is helpful for them and also helpful for us. I never forgot that that’s how she described it, and I thought that was so beautifully said.
Victoria Volk
00:48:08 – 00:48:21
One thing I talk about with my own experiences, so I lost my dad when I was 8 to cancer. So he was sick for almost 2 years before that. So I really didn’t have much of a childhood.
Denise Schonwald
00:48:21 – 00:48:21
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:48:21 – 00:48:28
Had to grow up really fast. And my grandma had died the year before that my mom, my mom’s mom, and then my sister moved away.
Victoria Volk
00:48:28 – 00:48:49
So there was just a lot of change and trauma and things happen very back to back in the early part of my life. And one thing I say to people is that, especially with children who experienced grief or trauma in childhood is that they’re gonna grow up with it.
Denise Schonwald
00:48:49 – 00:48:49
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:48:49 – 00:49:06
So and one thing I hate that people say is that children are resilient. Like, I can’t stand that when people say that because children don’t have a choice. And they just they may be just are able to adapt a little bit more easily than the adults because we don’t have a capacity at that young age to wrap our head completely around it.
Denise Schonwald
00:49:06 – 00:49:06
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:49:06 – 00:49:28
And so we, we adapt and how, because we’re imaginative. Right? As children were more imaginative.
Denise Schonwald
00:49:06 – 00:49:06
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:49:06 – 00:49:28
And so I created a lot of stories in order to adapt to my experience. And so people saw that as resilient and saw that I was fine and I was adapting well and but, you know, that stuff has stuck with you.
Victoria Volk
00:49:28 – 00:50:29
It you carry it with you and you grow up with it and it changes over time.
Denise Schonwald
00:49:29 – 00:49:29
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:49:30 – 00:49:49
And that’s what I want people to understand about child grievers is that it will never leave them. It is, you know, and there’s so many people too. Like, I can recognize when I come across an adult who hasn’t had probably a lot of loss in their life. They haven’t had an experience that has completely flipped their life upside down or completely changed life for them,
Denise Schonwald
00:49:49 – 00:49:49
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:49:50 – 00:50:06
it’s easier for me to see, you know, they and I think that’s what helps build emotional intelligence too is grief and trauma.
Victoria Volk
00:50:06 – 00:50:09
I mean, would you kinda say that in a way?
Denise Schonwald
00:50:09 – 00:50:23
Yeah. And I always think where I’m going through it, why me? And then I think, well, why not me? Yeah. Because we, you know, we think that that’s something somebody else should should experience. But I realized that it’s important for me to experience too because it’s very very painful.
Denise Schonwald
00:50:23 – 00:50:33
And it also helps me get have a new understanding of other people that are going through it. But you’re right. You have to learn to look next to it because it doesn’t go away.
Victoria Volk
00:50:34 – 00:50:37
Yeah. What gives you hope for the future?
Denise Schonwald
00:50:37 – 00:50:56
I absolutely love what I do, and I feel it’s very fulfilling. It’s also very challenging. And for me, certainly I my passion is I just finished my second children’s book. I write books. That’s sort of my ministry.
Denise Schonwald
00:50:57 – 00:51:07
I enjoy sharing what I know about mental health. I hope to help people live happier, more fulfilling lives. And so that is sort of why I’m here.
Victoria Volk
00:51:09 – 00:51:29
I love that. In the last paragraph of your book, I just want to read it because I absolutely loved it. It was one of my favorite parts of the book. Remember the mind does what you tell it to do. If you say, I choose to take care of myself because I’m worth it, your mind will be the best assistant you could hire.
Victoria Volk
00:51:29 – 00:51:39
It will help you flow through your day in with ease and less pain, suffering, and stress. Our perception is our reality. Make the choice to help others by first helping yourself.
Denise Schonwald
00:51:39 – 00:51:39
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:51:40 – 00:51:56
I think that beautifully wraps up our episode. But I do wanna ask you about one more thing because I found it interesting in what you also incorporate into your practice is Henry your dog.
Denise Schonwald
00:51:56 – 00:52:02
Yes. Yes. In fact, I keep snapping my fingers because he’s growling a lot.
Victoria Volk
00:52:02 – 00:52:03
He wants your attention, I suppose.
Denise Schonwald
00:52:03 – 00:52:12
He does. He does. Yes. I started my practice initially with a therapy dog by the name of Max, and he worked with me. He we had to put him down when he was 15.
Denise Schonwald
00:52:13 – 00:52:27
And you know, it’s just such a wonderful part of the practice. And so Henry is now his successor and people just love to come in. And of course he loves his job and that has been, it just helps people feel more at peace.
Victoria Volk
00:52:28 – 00:52:35
Since you brought up Max, can you discuss a little bit briefly how you navigated that pet loss of
Denise Schonwald
00:52:35 – 00:52:50
That was, that was a tough one. He was the dog that we got when the children were little, and now the children are all, you know, out of the house and married and often. And then he worked with me for years years years. And so, you know, when he passed, it was like I had lost to Lynn.
Victoria Volk
00:52:50 – 00:52:50
Mhmm.
Denise Schonwald
00:52:51 – 00:52:53
Talk about being in the waiting room.
Denise Schonwald
00:52:53 – 00:53:12
I mean, I didn’t I had Henry at the time. He was a puppy, and I just didn’t know how to move forward. And I had difficulty sort of sitting through a session and so forth. And and again, you know, he was a very important part of my life and and had to sort of work through that.
Victoria Volk
00:53:14 – 00:53:23
How did you work through that? Because I know there’s a lot of people listening that probably have experienced pet loss. I know I’ve talked pet loss has come up a lot in recent months for me.
Denise Schonwald
00:53:23 – 00:53:56
And there are times where I still struggle. I have this little picture that I kiss before I go to sleep every night and so forth. And I just, you know, he was, he taught me a lot. In fact, my first book, Healing Your Body by Mastering Your Mind, the reason that I wrote that book was I dedicated it to him because I felt like he was such an important part of the practice and I wanted his leg you know, I wanted him to live on. And so I sat down and I wrote the book and dedicated to him, and that book has been very well received.
Denise Schonwald
00:53:56 – 00:53:58
So that was one of the ways that I honored him.
Victoria Volk
00:53:59 – 00:54:02
Well, and I’m sure it was very therapeutic for you to write it.
Denise Schonwald
00:54:02 – 00:54:15
Mhmm. Yeah. I wrote a little bit at the end about how we got him and how we named him and how he was very instrumental in our practice and so forth. And so we’re a little bit about him, and people love that part of the book.
Victoria Volk
00:54:16 – 00:54:19
So how did you know that you were ready for another dog?
Denise Schonwald
00:54:19 – 00:54:45
Well, it’s interesting. He was getting older and I wasn’t sure that he was really wanted to practice with me anymore. We had a little dog door, which I do in my office, and he was starting to come in less and less. And I thought, you know, maybe I’ll get another puppy and see if he can teach the puppy how to be a therapy dog. But by the time the Henry came in, he really was getting very sickly and he just really didn’t live too much longer.
Denise Schonwald
00:54:46 – 00:55:02
And that was really tough too, having a puppy and then also a dog sort of toward the end of his life. But I just he was such a valuable part of not only my practice, but to me. You know, he was he was just a real special little guy.
Victoria Volk
00:55:03 – 00:55:07
Well, and I’m sure to your patients as well, the people that you worked with, your clients.
Denise Schonwald
00:55:07 – 00:55:18
Hundreds of emails and texts and cards after he passed. And and that just also reminded me of how important it is for us to connect to each other and support each other when we’re going through grief.
Victoria Volk
00:55:19 – 00:55:38
In a recent episode too, I was saying to I mentioned weird pet loss come had come up and I said, you know, even if people listening can’t, they’re in a place where they can’t have a pet or they don’t feel comfortable getting a pet because it’s maybe more care than what they can handle at the time or whatever. Just get a plant, get something to nurture,
Denise Schonwald
00:55:39 – 00:55:39
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:55:39 – 00:55:43
you know, give that, give yourself something to nurture. And even maybe that small thing can help you
Denise Schonwald
00:55:43 – 00:55:43
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:55:43 – 00:55:44
create some purpose
Denise Schonwald
00:55:44 – 00:55:44
Yes.
Victoria Volk
00:55:45 – 00:55:52
in your day. You know, if you’re feeling a little low, if you’re
Denise Schonwald
00:55:52 – 00:55:52
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:55:52 – 00:55:53
yeah.
Denise Schonwald
00:55:53 – 00:56:09
You’re very fulfilling. In fact, if when people sort of look me up after this episode, if they’d like to email me, I’d be happy to send them a copy of one of my books. That’s just a thank you for listening today. We’ve talked to us about some really great topics.
Victoria Volk
00:56:10 – 00:56:13
Yeah. And where can people find you to connect with you?
Denise Schonwald
00:56:14 – 00:56:33
My website is the best, deniseschonewall.com. In there, I have a little 10 question mental health quiz, which is also very fun to do, just to sort of see where you are. My books are listed. I have 3 currently. I’d be happy to send someone a copy of one of them if you email me.
Denise Schonwald
00:56:33 – 00:56:48
If you’d like an appointment, I’m licensed both in the state of Florida and nationally. So I see clients all over the United States. If somebody would just like to try a session and see how it works out, be more than happy. My calendar is online.
Victoria Volk
00:56:48 – 00:56:50
Wonderful. I will put the link in the show notes, and
Denise Schonwald
00:56:50 – 00:56:50
That’s great.
Victoria Volk
00:56:51 – 00:56:53
Thank you so much for everything that you shared today.
Denise Schonwald
00:56:53 – 00:56:55
You’re welcome. I enjoyed it.
Victoria Volk
00:56:55 – 00:57:01
Great. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grief, Grief Tips, Grieving Voices Podcast, Pespective, Pregnancy & Infant Loss |
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
In a world where discussions about loss are often shrouded in silence, there’s a particular kind of grief that remains even more hidden—termination for medical reasons (TFMR).
Today on Grieving Voices, I had the honor of speaking with Sabrina Fletcher, a compassionate pregnancy loss doula who brings solace to parents facing the heart-wrenching decision of terminating a wanted pregnancy for medical reasons. Sabrina bravely shared her personal journey and how she’s turned her pain into purpose by supporting others through similar grief.
Key Points Discussed:
- The surprising prevalence of TFMR compared to stillbirths and the taboo surrounding it.
- The emotional turmoil and quick decisions forced upon parents facing unfavorable prenatal diagnoses.
- The grief journey taken by both Sabrina and her family following their loss, including how they each processed their emotions differently.
- Challenges within the healthcare system that fail to provide adequate support for those undergoing TFMR.
- Suggestions on improving medical care experiences during such sensitive times, including specialized bereavement care similar to practices in England.
TFMR is often shrouded in silence and taboo, but it’s more common than many realize. Sabrina advocates for open conversation and emotional support that upholds the dignity of those making these tough choices out of deep love for their children.
Our discussion also highlighted how even young children experience loss deeply and need acknowledgment in their grieving process—a powerful reminder not to underestimate our little ones’ emotional worlds.
Sabrina emphasizes breaking generational patterns by openly discussing grief rather than suppressing feelings – an approach shaped in contrast to what she experienced growing up, where losses were dealt with privately behind closed doors.
Remember: Transforming your grief doesn’t require grand gestures; small steps are just as significant.
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
_______
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.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Navigating the Silent Sorrow: Understanding and Supporting Termination for Medical Reasons (TFMR)
In a world where discussions about loss are often shrouded in silence, there’s a particular kind of grief that remains even more hidden—termination for medical reasons (TFMR). Today, we delve into this sensitive topic with insights from Sabrina Fletcher, a pregnancy loss doula who has turned her personal pain into a beacon of support for others facing similar heartbreak.
The Unspoken Grief of TFMR
While stillbirth is recognized as an agonizing experience warranting sympathy and support, TFMR is three times more common yet seldom discussed. Parents making the excruciating decision to end a wanted pregnancy due to severe health risks face not only profound sorrow but also societal stigmatization. This lack of understanding can leave bereaved parents feeling isolated in their grief.
Sabrina Fletcher knows this all too well. Her journey through TFMR led her to become an advocate and guide for those walking this lonely path. Through peer support, one-on-one sessions, workshops—and now our conversation on Grieving Voices—Sabrina offers solace by helping parents honor their love for the child they lost while finding light amidst darkness.
From Personal Loss to Providing Support
The taboo surrounding TFMR means many do not receive the compassionate care they desperately need—a reality Sabrina experienced firsthand when she had to make that impossible choice between her own health and her pregnancy. However, instead of succumbing to despair, she channeled her anguish into action.
Recognizing the void in supportive services during such losses inspired Sabrina’s mission: creating spaces free from judgment where individuals could share their unique stories of grief whether it be from pregnancy loss or other life-altering experiences like suicide or long-term caregiving.
Adapting Grief Support in Times of Crisis
When COVID-19 struck, it compelled many services—including grief support—to transition online. Although initially unplanned, virtual platforms have proven invaluable by fostering international communities united by shared experiences without geographical boundaries.
On these platforms like Instagram and Facebook groups created by Sabrina herself; people found comfort knowing they were not alone regardless if they were seeking help after losing someone close or grappling with anticipatory grief—the emotional suffering felt before an impending loss occurs.
A Framework For Healing
During our discussion on Grieving Voices podcast episode featuring Victoria V. Sabrina shared a practical approach she uses with clients navigating their mourning process:
1. **Acknowledge:** First comes recognizing physical manifestations associated with bereavement without rushing to interpret them.
2. **Assign:** Once ready emotionally; pinpointing specific feelings linked with these bodily sensations allows individuals clarity regarding their internal state.
3. **Align:** Finally taking steps towards healing whether through acts self-care or external efforts such as advocacy based upon acknowledged emotions provides direction amidst confusion brought about by sorrowful events.
This framework isn’t just theory—it’s been lived out through actions like therapy sessions community engagement daily check-ins friends going through similar situations—all contributing toward managing complex emotions following another pregnancy post-loss period fraught fear joy alike intertwining unpredictably within expectant parents’ hearts minds alike.
Transformative Power Compassion Action
Perhaps most importantly what resonates throughout conversations resources provided via platforms like [thetfmrddoula. com](http://thetfmrddoula.com) is notion transformative power compassion action hold when dealing kinds tragedies. No gesture is too small nor any step insignificant When comes to transforming raw painful emotions something meaningful tangible both individual collective level. Every story every voice adds richness tapestry human resilience empathy growth In closing let us remember words echoed Victoria herself “Treat me gently you would any grieving parent” encapsulating core message extending kindness understanding everyone traversing difficult terrain loss Remember open your heart truly transform your life. Much love
Episode Transcription:
Victoria Volk
00:00:00 – 00:00:32
Thank you for tuning to grieving voices. I am your host, Victoria V. And today my guest is Sabrina Fletcher. She guides bereaved parents through the heartbreak of losing a wanted pregnancy to a termination for medical reasons or also known as TFMR with groups 1 on 1 and workshops. As a pregnancy loss doula who’s been there herself, She companions people as they find the light in their stories and self-expression and the deep love they carry for their babies.
Victoria Volk
00:00:32 – 00:01:25
Thank you so much for being open enough to share about this on my podcast today. I was excited to hear about this because I, you know, you even said that it’s, 3 times more common than stillbirth,
Sabrina Fletcher
00:00:40 – 00:00:40
uh-hummm..
Victoria Volk
00:00:40 – 00:01:18
which was a surprising statistic to me because, I mean, I’d heard that yes, people can, you know, terminate a pregnancy because of medical reasons, but I didn’t realize there was like, an acronym for it
Sabrina Fletcher
00:01:18 – 00:01:19
You’re right.
Victoria Volk
00:01:19 – 00:01:21
there was an underbelly or undercurrent of, like, taboo or, you know
Sabrina Fletcher
00:01:21 – 00:01:21
Mmm..
Victoria Volk
00:01:21 – 00:01:23
about it and this yeah. That so I’m I think it’s a loss that is not talked about, like you said, very much.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:01:23 – 00:01:23
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:01:23 – 00:01:25
I haven’t heard it on I don’t listen to a ton of other grief podcasts just because I kinda wanna stay in my own lane. But
Sabrina Fletcher
00:01:25 – 00:01:25
Yeah. Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:01:25 – 00:01:42
I’m excited to share this with my listeners broaden our perspective of grief and, talk about it. So thank you so much for being open to sharing your journey, which brings us to 2018. And do you mind starting there?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:01:43 – 00:02:05
Sure. Thank you so much, Victoria. And thank you for having me on to talk about this piece of pregnancy loss that is silenced and shamed. And in some spaces, it’s becoming a little bit more openly spoken about, and I think that as more people speak about it, more people understand. Oh, okay.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:02:05 – 00:02:16
Yes. This is another type of pregnancy loss. That is what if they went through it themselves. That is what I really experienced. And like you said, I went through it myself in 2018.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:02:16 – 00:02:53
It was early 2018 and we had a bad ultrasound result where we could see and the doctor was showing us the different abnormalities and what was wrong with our baby. And one of the conditions there were various things that were showing up. One of the conditions was swelling in the head and the chest and the back of the neck. And since it was pretty much all over the body and the torso, he was calling it hydrops. So that’s just the name for fetal swelling.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:02:55 – 00:03:32
And that along with other things, you know, we went home and I was researching, and I also found out and he told me at that ultrasound. He said you know, if you decide to continue the pregnancy, this is now a high-risk pregnancy, but I didn’t really know the extent of that. I found out that high drops can cause similar swelling in the pregnant person and they call it mirror syndrome. So it could have caused harm to my organs as well. It’s just very devastating because this was a wanted baby.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:03:32 – 00:03:49
I took this whole fertility course. I was tracking my cycles. I knew my ovulation date. We wanted her in our family, but then when we found out she was sick and also the condition that she was carrying could have harmed my health. We did decide to terminate the pregnancy.
Victoria Volk
00:03:51 – 00:03:56
And you had another child. You have already had one child. Correct? Or did I read that?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:03:56 – 00:04:02
Yeah. That’s right. That’s right. So my oldest daughter was 4 years old at the time.
Victoria Volk
00:04:03 – 00:04:14
And so just a matter of, I mean, trying to put this in perspective for people listening, you still have to function on the day-to-day and care for a 4-year-old.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:04:15 – 00:04:15
Yeah. Function.
Victoria Volk
00:04:16 – 00:04:18
Right? After receiving this news.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:04:18 – 00:04:18
Mmm..
Victoria Volk
00:04:18 – 00:04:28
And how did you like? How do you what did those early days and weeks looked like? And then how long did it take you to come? Like, how long did you give yourself to
Sabrina Fletcher
00:04:29 – 00:04:30
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:04:30 – 00:04:35
come to that decision? And was your husband also on board right off the right out of the gate too?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:04:35 – 00:04:35
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:04:36 – 00:04:40
Because you were maybe sometimes that could be a conflict for some relationships.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:04:41 – 00:05:35
Oh, yeah. I mean, it wasn’t an easy decision. I mean, it ended up being clear after we did enough research and talked to the doctors and I was looking at different medical journals and all the research that I could get my hands on that wasn’t behind a paywall, you know, because I’m not a medical researcher myself. I don’t I don’t have all of those subscriptions. So what what I could find and what I could see, and also finding other people’s stories online, it led me to see that this is also a compassionate choice to decide to induce early really, and help her pass peacefully instead of coming to term, going to term, or possibly not even making it that far and would she die in utero, or would we have to have some crazy it’s not even a c section.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:05:35 – 00:06:09
It’s called a exit strategy where they, like, take everything out all at once. And, you know, it’s very hard on both the baby and the and the pregnant person and and she was already sick. So, you know, could she get through that kind of medical trauma to even then be, you know, with all the tubes and all the life support and everything, and then how long or you know, or would I hold her in my arms as she died? You know, there there’s really no right way to go about it because there are people in my community. I went on to become a pregnancy loss doula.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:06:10 – 00:06:39
I’ve always wanted to be a doula. But then when this happened to me, I realized, oh, this is the place in birth that I really want to focus on. I really want to support people who are going through this. And some of those families in one pregnancy, like, maybe they carried some sort of genetic something, disposition or disorder, whatever you would like to call it. And maybe some of their children do carry it or maybe they do bring some pregnancies to term and, you know, their babies die in their arms.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:06:39 – 00:07:06
And then in another pregnancy, they decide to terminate. There’s really there’s no there’s no right there’s no right way. It’s just whatever feels best for you and your family in that moment. And that’s how we made our decision. We just felt like that was the best for this baby, for my body, and the fact that we already had a living daughter that we were also taking care of.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:07:06 – 00:07:17
And there’s also another grief story in our family. My husband lost his mom when he was about 6 years old. And so he was like, woah. No. No.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:07:17 – 00:07:32
We cannot lose you. You have to be here for our older daughter. So that really became a big part of the decision as well. It wasn’t overnight. You know, it took us a few days, but we were also up against a crunch.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:07:32 – 00:08:00
So, with the restrictive laws to have an abortion, no questions asked, we had a week. So we didn’t really have that much time to decide. So we had to make this decision very quickly. I do feel like there are pieces of my decision that were taken from me. I wasn’t really given all of there wasn’t enough time to get all the information that I would have liked to get.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:08:01 – 00:08:19
You know, I would have liked to have an amniocentesis, but we were only 13 weeks along at that point. And you have to wait till 16, 18 weeks. And, I did ask the doctor, you know, when he was telling us all the bad news about an amniocentesis. It could have came back clear too. So that’s the thing.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:08:19 – 00:08:35
Like, we were already seeing how sick she was. But you know, it is good to know all of the medical information before making, you know, a drastic medical decision like this. So it’s really very very awful.
Victoria Volk
00:08:36 – 00:08:40
I’m just thinking about like someone who’s having to go through this and make this decision or decides to make this decision. And yet, you know when you often think about when we hear the word abortion, right?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:08:40 – 00:08:40
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:08:41 – 00:09:10
we hear the child does not they don’t want the child. Right? It’s for whatever reason, whatever the circumstances, like they choose that they’re, they’re not, it’s not a good time for them for whatever reason. We don’t think that someone who’s sitting in the waiting room is there because they really want the baby
Sabrina Fletcher
00:09:10 – 00:09:10
Uhumm..
Victoria Volk
00:09:10 – 00:09:12
and there’s a medical reason why they’re there or, you know,
Sabrina Fletcher
00:09:12 – 00:09:12
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:09:12 – 00:09:13
a circumstance like yourself.
Victoria Volk
00:09:13 – 00:09:25
And I think that’s a really miscarriage. That’s a miscarriage of grief. And it also is for the person who is choosing that for themselves, because I mean like it or not, there is going to be grief there involved.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:09:25 – 00:09:25
Uhumm..
Victoria Volk
00:09:2 – 00:09:40
You know? Even if it’s not, you know, felt the full weight of it in the moment, even years later, I have no doubts that there are women that experienced grief for many years later.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:09:40 – 00:10:05
Mhmm. But Yeah. I definitely agree. And after going through this experience myself and having an abortion for reasons that were just so filled with love and compassion, And I never been through what I guess we could call a a lifestyle abortion but I kind of had those misconceptions too. It’s like, oh, it just means they just they don’t want this baby.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:10:05 – 00:10:23
Like, this isn’t a wanted baby. But I realized, I think all of those decisions are made with the greatest amount of love and respect as well. It’s like, I don’t want this life for this child. There’s still so much love in that decision. Or like, I can’t do this to a child right now.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:10:23 – 00:10:38
Like, that’s so much love. So, so much love. And, yes, you’re right. Of course, there will be grief there. Many people do experience grief with these decisions, whether it’s for medical reasons, whether it’s for lifestyle reasons.
Victoria Volk
00:10:39 – 00:10:51
What do you wish would have been different about that experience and what do you think needs to change in how women are supported
Sabrina Fletcher
00:10:48 – 00:10:48
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:10:49 – 00:10:51
In the medical setting in particular.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:10:51 – 00:11:19
Yeah. Yeah. So there are some people who I like to look to England. They have a pretty good system set up when it’s going to be an abortion for medical reasons, for fetal anomaly, or the pregnant person’s health, they’re earmarked in a certain direction, and they end up going with bereavement midwives. So these are midwives who are grief-informed, hopefully, trauma informed.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:11:20 – 00:11:59
They, you know, they see the family. They see the baby as a baby. They see it as palliative hospice care, which it really is. It’s it’s end-of-life care for that baby and for or to help the the mother or the pregnant person, you know not die. And they help people to get footprints or like, make a scrapbook or you know, they’ll bring in a chaplain or they’ll help you with the funeral arrangements.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:12:00 – 00:12:18
You know, it’s a it’s a death of a family member. And I think it’s that piece that was missing in my experience. Because of the laws, I ended up going to an abortion clinic, which put me in the box of lifestyle abortion. My husband was there with me, and we had so many tears and we asked for a private room. They said, oh, no.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:12:18 – 00:12:39
We don’t do that thing. We were asking for these things that other people get in some places. And in some hospitals worldwide, they will do this sort of bereavement care where they have a special room that’s on another floor, so you don’t hear the laboring women and then babies crying. We didn’t have that. We didn’t have a special extra room.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:12:39 – 00:13:03
We didn’t have a bereavement midwife. We didn’t have someone informed in grief. We didn’t have anyone saying, I’m sorry for your loss. They’re really very simple, compassionate things that I wish I would have had. The doctor who helped us, did understand our whole situation, and he did say, I’m, you know, I’m so sorry for your loss.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:13:03 – 00:13:37
So that meant so much. You know? It’s just those few words, like really seeing us as bereaved parents. And I asked for footprints and he was able to get them. So some pieces of my story do have some respect and honor and reverence in it, but a lot of it I mean, the counselor that they had on hand, I kept talking about grief and, like, asking for grief resources, and she was like, I don’t really know.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:13:40 – 00:13:59
And I thought, oh, you know, I thought, like, I can’t be the only one who’s coming here because their baby is sick and they’re grieving and they’re having to end a wanted pregnancy. But I guess maybe I was or I don’t know. So those are the things that I wish would have been different in my story.
Victoria Volk
00:13:59 – 00:14:00
Well, you know now that you weren’t because it’s more common than
Sabrina Fletcher
00:14:00 – 00:14:00
Yes
Victoria Volk
00:14:01 – 00:14:06
3 times more common than stillbirth and
Sabrina Fletcher
00:14:06 – 00:14:08
Amazing.
Speaker 1
00:14:08 – 00:14:13
And I’m sure do you have a statistic, like a more recent recent statistic as far as how common this is overall?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:14:15 – 00:14:35
Oh, that’s that’s the most recent one. So that’s some research that came out of Europe, I think, combined with England because they do earmark these cases. They do have, like, specific categories. So they’re they are able to see, okay, this termination is a early induction. This termination is a pregnancy loss.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:14:37 – 00:15:00
And that research, yeah, came out of Europe a a few years ago. And they found that with the numbers that they have in Europe and England, these countries combined, the number of stillbirths are so many, and then the number of TFMR pregnancy loss, are 3 times as many as that number.
Victoria Volk
00:15:01 – 00:15:12
Do you know of any places in the United States that are implementing some sort of like what you just described for women going through this?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:15:13 – 00:15:40
Yes. Some of the better stories that I hear are coming out of some places in the US. I’ve heard some really good stories out of Washington DC and then other big hospitals across the nation. But they’re the bigger the bigger hospitals maybe who see more of these cases, and I think it’s really prior patients like me
Victoria Volk
00:15:41 – 00:15:41
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:15:41 – 00:15:46
Writing in or calling in or speaking up after and saying, why didn’t this happen?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:15:46 – 00:15:55
Or I read this story, and they got this kind of care. And why didn’t we have that? And I really believe that that’s why they get better care now.
Victoria Volk
00:15:56 – 00:16:20
There’s an organization called death with dignity, dying with dignity, 1 or the other. And, but their whole goal is to push legislation across the country in the United States for basically to die with for people to have the ability to die with dignity. And there’s a whole lot of things that go into that. But, I can see something like that being applied in this manner
Sabrina Fletcher
00:16:20 – 00:16:20
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:16:21 – 00:16:40
for the situation, like for legislation to be put into place that requires hospitals and medical care staff and maybe even perhaps, you know, and I think it’s almost gonna take 1 like, lone ranger to blaze the trail and create some sort of independent facility. And then you know how it can kind of snowball from there
Sabrina Fletcher
00:16:41 – 00:16:41
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:16:42 – 00:16:59
where women feel, more supported in that decision with all the things that you said that you wish would have been there for you.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:17:00 – 00:17:00
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:17:00 – 00:17:20
And on that note, I mean, grief is the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations, and anything that we wish would have been different, better, or more. And so how did you and your husband together and independently kind of work through that loss? And your daughter. I mean
Sabrina Fletcher
00:17:21 – 00:17:22
Mmm. My daughter.
Victoria Volk
00:17:22 – 00:17:24
Or she had an awareness of you know, by the age of 3, we’ve already learned how to respond to most of life
Sabrina Fletcher
00:17:25 – 00:17:25
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:17:25 – 00:17:26
already by 3.
Victoria Volk
00:17:26 – 00:17:28
So can you speak to that a little bit?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:17:29 – 00:18:08
So as a family and her my husband, and myself, we all went on our unique grief journeys. Some of it was together. We had a memorial service for her, and my daughter was there. I wanted her to take part. I wanted there to be, you know, some sort of symbolic recognition that, yes, a family member died in our family and, you know, this was your sibling and it’s okay to talk about it.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:18:08 – 00:18:19
It’s okay to bring it up. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to make art about it. It’s okay to you know, like, she would draw. I don’t even know where this came from.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:18:19 – 00:18:39
Like, instinctively, she made these, like, stone funeral Karnes. I think that’s how you say it, where they, like, make these stone mounds, but they’re and her so my husband’s father died 2 weeks before our baby did
Victoria Volk
00:18:39 – 00:18:40
Oh, wow.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:18:40 – 00:19:01
As well. So there was there was a lot of grief and death awareness happening for her that month and in the months to follow. So I remember she said, this is for a. This is for grandfather. And she had made this stone, corn.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:19:01 – 00:19:25
And then she said, and this is for my sister. This is for Clara. And she had made kind of a smaller stone and brick structure. And she had placed them like right in front of both sides of our front door.
Victoria Volk
00:19:25 – 00:19:25
Mmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:19:26 – 00:19:28
My husband, I saw him really throw himself into work, so he chose the, like stay busy.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:19:28 – 00:19:53
And, also, life is really short, so I really wanna provide for my family. I really want us to be okay. I see my wife really sub me, you know, really suffering physically and going through all this. So he would work late hours. He would he would listen to me when I wanted to talk about it, but not as much talking maybe more of just needing to stay busy.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:19:54 – 00:20:27
And for me, I think I did pretty much anything I could get my hands on. So I remember looking for a postpartum doula, looking for a grief or some sort of pregnancy loss practitioner to help me through. I did some emails with one of them. I did hire a postpartum doula. They urged me to do all of my creative things or new creative things, so drawing, painting.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:20:27 – 00:21:14
Well, some of those came later, maybe like a year or 2 later. But I did do some photography or even just like, mindless distracting things, like puzzles or little phone games and watching lighthearted TV to help with you know, those moments where it’s just like, oh, I’ve been thinking about this all day and just going over and over and over and over in my head about it. And no thoughts are going to fix these emotions. No thoughts are going to bring her back or help us go back in time and make sure that the egg and the sperm were the perfect quality, and then she wasn’t sick for whatever reason. You know?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:21:14 – 00:21:38
I couldn’t go back in time to fix those things. I had to feel just a little bit more okay in that moment. I did a lot of sitting in the grass with my shoes off, my feet in the grass. So grounding just and I would just sit there. And then sometimes I would I would do, like, meditative walking, but I was so angry.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:21:38 – 00:22:04
You know, I remember walking around my garden, and I live in Mexico, and the flowers bloom all year around here. And there was this amazing, like, huge red like, bigger than my head, red flower. And I would walk by it, and I would just get so angry. Like, why are you blooming and my baby isn’t here? Like, I’m walking by this beautiful flower, and it’s just in my face, and yet I knew, well, I just need to walk.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:22:04 – 00:22:13
I need to walk by it. I need to feel this anger. I need to sit with it. But then it would be like, okay. Time to go pick up my daughter.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:22:14 – 00:22:23
So it was hard to manage, you know, all the time and space that grief asks along with daily tasks.
Victoria Volk
00:22:24 – 00:22:28
Yeah. It’s like the stoneward spiral thought wheel was like you know,
Sabrina Fletcher
00:22:29 – 00:22:29
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:22:29 – 00:22:58
It’s like a tornado of thoughts, and I can just I was imagining it as you were walking around this flower and just I can feel from you. It’s just so important for people to hear that in those moments like you were you how you were able to just allow yourself to feel the anger. And I think so many people just don’t allow themselves to feel the anger because growing up, you’re taught that anger is wrong. It’s bad.
Victoria Volk
00:22:58 – 00:22:58
And
Sabrina Fletcher
00:22:58 – 00:23:02
Yeah. Even grief too. Like, push it down. Go to work.
Victoria Volk
00:23:02 – 00:23:06
But it is an element of grief. Anger is grief. Really.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:23:06 – 00:23:06
It is.
Victoria Volk
00:23:07 – 00:23:12
Did you like for your husband, you know, I meant not talking about it.
Victoria Volk
00:23:12 – 00:23:26
And you said he kept himself very busy. Did he, did you see him? Did you view it as a stuffing down or did he find, did he eventually, did he start talking about it more or how did that change for him over time?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:23:28 – 00:23:48
Mmmm. He would have to come on and share his whole story because it’s pretty intense the way things ended up showing up for him quite later. But I guess I could say, eventually, he had some therapy, and I think that helped. So he was able to talk.
Victoria Volk
00:23:48 – 00:23:48
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:23:49- 00:23:54
And he’s also, a sweat lodge.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:23:55 – 00:23:58
He runs a sweat lodge,
Victoria Volk
00:23:58 – 00:23:58
Oh
Sabrina Fletcher
00:23:59 – 00:24:09
He runs a sweat lodge,
and he has a spa. And so he works with crystals and massage. And so he so his work, I think even going to work and helping others
Victoria Volk
00:24:09 – 00:24:09
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:24:10 – 00:24:14
Or sometimes they’ll, like, trade massage. So he was also working through things at work.
Victoria Volk
00:24:14 – 00:24:15
Yeah. I can see that.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:24:15 – 00:24:23
And he would go and he would go in the sweat lodge. He also sings. So he has his outlets. They’re just different than mine. Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:24:24 – 00:24:28
Mhmm. And honoring that for each other. Right?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:24:28 – 00:24:28
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:24:28 – 00:24:28
But like you said, he was able to he would listen to you and that’s sometimes all you need really is someone to just
Sabrina Fletcher
00:24:30 – 00:24:30
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:24:31 – 00:24:43
try and fix, just listen. And so I’m glad he was in that line of work because that probably actually is what helped him find his way eventually to therapy.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:24:43 – 00:24:45
Yeah. Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:24:45 – 00:25:27
I was gonna ask too the question I had thought of earlier and then forgot. So growing up, what was, what were the messages? Because I how you articulated when your daughter was going through this, when you lost your baby, and then you’re talking about how it was important for you, for her, that she recognized grief and you had a lot of grief going on at the time, but how to allow her to channel it and honor her feelings and things like that. So what were what was your experience with grief growing up in the beliefs that you had about loss and like because in, you know, especially in my area, like German
Sabrina Fletcher
00:25:28 – 00:25:30
Right.
Victoria Volk
00:25:30 – 00:25:34
Like or talk about our grief and what happens in the house?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:25:34 – 00:25:47
Yeah, stiff upper lip and all that and like, You know, pick yourself up by the bootstraps and carry on. No. That’s definitely my lineage as well.
Victoria Volk
00:25:48 – 00:25:48
Okay.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:25:50 – 00:26:31
And I understand more now about what I experienced with grief than when it was actually going on. There really weren’t any close deaths until my grandmother died when I was yeah, I was already in my twenties. But she had a brother who died in World War 2. And, I mean, that would have been so many years ago, but my mother told me that on certain days you know, I don’t know what days. Now I imagine, oh, it was probably his birthday.
Victoria Volk
00:25:26 – 00:26:31
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:26:31 – 00:26:52
Or it could have been some milestone that her children were reaching and her brother wasn’t there to see it. Maybe it was even her own birthday. You know, the passing of time is really hard, especially since he would have died so young, like a very young man. And then here she was, like, living a full long life, and he’s not there.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:26:52 – 00:27:22
Well, my mom would say you know, she would go in her room and cry. So in a way, you know, behind closed doors That’s my grief legacy. So why I decided to be so open and why I felt like it was so important? I don’t know. Maybe it’s a reaction to that like, seeing how it was so closed and not really talked about and like, get on with your life and just move along.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:27:23 – 00:27:30
I felt like it was important to talk about it and be open about it. And I saw my daughter hurting. I didn’t I didn’t want to just say, oh, just go to school. That didn’t feel right to me.
Victoria Volk
00:27:30 – 00:27:30
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:27:31 – 00:27:37
You know, just get back to school.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:27:37 – 00:27:48
Just throw yourself into your schoolwork. I never said anything like that to her. So maybe it’s a reaction to what I grew up with and felt like it wasn’t enough.
Victoria Volk
00:27:49 – 00:27:57
After all the people I’ve talked to, the 4 plus years I’ve been doing this podcast, I am like almost 190 episodes. Not all.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:27:57 – 00:27:57
Yeah
Victoria Volk
00:27:58 – 00:28:18
So not all not all interviews, but I think there’s 2 camps of people. And like you just said, I think there’s people that grow up and learn these things about grief that are unhelpful and hurtful and self-sabotaging. And they see that contrast when they’re met with something in their lives.
Victoria Volk
00:28:18 – 00:28:29
And they remember that contrast of that experience. Like, we didn’t talk about it. And I felt shamed for or you know, if you have feel shame for bringing up the person’s name
Sabrina Fletcher
00:28:29 – 00:28:29
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:28:30 – 00:28:40
because, you know, it makes other people uncomfortable or angry or sad or whatever it is. So there’s no room for your feelings. You know, you can grow up that way with no, there’s no room.
Victoria Volk
00:28:40 – 00:28:54
So then you step down and you don’t talk about it. Right? And then that continues through generations. And that’s what happens. But sometimes there’s camps of people, though, the other camp that sees that contrast and breaks that cycle.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:28:55 – 00:28:55
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:28:56 – 00:29:17
So congratulations on doing that because you teach your daughter how to respond to grief by how you respond to grief. And I think that’s the message that I want to get across and why I started this podcast is because I’m a child griever.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:29:17 – 00:29:17
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:29:18 – 00:29:21
My dad died when I was young, and there was like,
Sabrina Fletcher
00:29:23 – 00:29:27
yeah, it’s like resources. No talking about it.
Victoria Volk
00:29:27 – 00:29:30
Yep. Or well, in my case,
Victoria Volk
00:29:30 – 00:29:35
it was there was a lot of talking about it from my mother. Of course, she lost her husband, but just no room for me.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:29:35 – 00:29:35
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:29:36 – 00:29:48
That’s what I was getting at is that even though it is talked about yet, it’s not where you feel you can share. Like, you can’t share.
Victoria Volk
00:29:49 – 00:29:57
There’s no open sharing. And that’s there’s all kinds of family dynamics and how that plays out and different scenarios and circumstances. And we could sit here all day long about all of those. But
Sabrina Fletcher
00:29:57 – 00:30:02
Oh, yeah. I’ve been the stories about that too. Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:30:03 – 00:30:16
Condenses down to either you learn these things and you continue that pattern onto your kids or you break that cycle because you see the importance of what you would have wanted for yourself and then create that
Sabrina Fletcher
00:30:16 – 00:30:17
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:30:17 – 00:30:17
for your children
Victoria Volk
00:30:17 – 00:30:32
for the legacy that follows behind. So that’s I think that’s a very important takeaway for people listening to this, who have children who are going through grieving experiences too, because like you said, it’s she lost her sister too, even though she was 4
Sabrina Fletcher
00:30:32 – 00:30:32
Yeah
Victoria Volk
00:30:32 – 00:30:43
years old. And it’s very easy for parents to assume that, oh, they’re so little. They don’t understand. Anyway, I was 8 and people were saying that I see 8 year olds now. And I’m like, wow.
Victoria Volk
00:30:43 – 00:30:52
Like, I don’t know if I was that articulate or that I was that smart, but I would hope I was., Like, 8 year olds understand. Come on. Like, really?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:30:52 – 00:30:53
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:30:53 – 00:31:54
And so do 4 year olds. So
Sabrina Fletcher
00:30:55 – 00:30:55
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:30:55 – 00:31:02
Thank you for sharing in that as much as you did because I think it’s important for people to hear. No matter the loss.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:31:03 – 00:31:30
Thank you. Thank you, Victoria. Yeah. I even said to my daughter a couple days ago, I just said, I really appreciate how you opened up to me and what you shared about, you know, your sadness. And, you know, when Clara we named her Clara when Clara died and how we went through that together.
Victoria Volk
00:31:31 – 00:31:35
And in the work that you’re doing today, you can share that experience with people too.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:31:35 – 00:31:35
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:31:35 – 00:31:54
If they have other children that are experiencing that loss as the fam, you know, with along with the family unit. And so, or when did you start doing the work that you’re doing? Because the loss happened in 2018, but when did you finally feel ready to, support others?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:31:56 – 00:31:59
Mmm. So, symbolically, I feel like I started while I was in the recovery chair.
Victoria Volk
00:31:59 – 00:32:01
Mmm. Like many people do.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:32:01 – 00:32:19
You know, after I had had my I guess we could call it a d and c, And I was like, where’s my doula? Like, there’s no one here saying, how are you feeling? Or I’m sitting here beside you.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:32:19 – 00:32:32
Can I hold your hand? Would you like water? Something like that. You know, just those simple, caring things that we need, especially in very early grief. And with pregnancy loss, it’s a grief through your body.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:32:32 – 00:33:00
So there’s, like, the physical recovery that needs to happen. So I was thinking, where is she? And then I realized I’m going to be her. That’s what I wanna do. And then I also realized, and I need to go through my own healing process first so that I can fully show up for other people from a healed place.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:33:02 – 00:33:40
So it was mid 2020, the fall of 2020. By the time I created an Instagram account, the TFMR doula, and just started bringing people together. And we would, you know, talk in stories or in the comments and making connections with other pregnancy loss spaces. And then I created a Facebook group for us to go a little bit deeper and have more conversations in a place where no one else is coming in and being like, well, I wouldn’t have made that choice. It’s like, thank you.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:33:40 – 00:33:41
That’s unhelpful.
Victoria Volk
00:33:41 – 00:33:42
Mmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:33:42 – 00:34:18
You know, just like people who their loved one has died by suicide, you know, they deserve to have a special space there because there’s certain layers that only they will be going through. Or if they’ve been a long-term caregiver for Alzheimer’s or cancer or something, and then their loved loved one dies. You know? They have all that anticipatory grief years to to talk about and being in groups where where people just understand, you know, the hardships and the things that other people say to you when you’re going through all of this.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:34:18 – 00:34:34
It’s good to have those specific places for people who have been through it with other people who have been through. I mean, I can’t say exactly. All of our cases are unique, but, yeah, exactly that type of loss.
Victoria Volk
00:34:34 – 00:34:34
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:34:35 – 00:34:37
And that was, like, during COVID started
Sabrina Fletcher
00:34:37 – 00:34:39
It was.
Victoria Volk
00:34:39 – 00:34:40
So how did that, like I mean, there’s grief in that too. Like, you just
Sabrina Fletcher
00:34:40 – 00:34:40
Oh,
Victoria Volk
00:34:41 – 00:34:7
so much. Thing. I know. I started my business doing grief work and stuff 2019,
Sabrina Fletcher
00:34:47 – 00:34:47
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:34:48 – 00:34:49
early 2019.
Victoria Volk
00:34:49 – 00:35:14
And I gained so much momentum. And I was doing in person talks and things like that and doing in person groups. And then COVID hit, and it’s like but that’s when I took, you know, the opportunity to just get a lot more training and certifications online and just build my toolbox. And so that’s what I did during that time. But what it how did you kind of deal with that?
Victoria Volk
00:35:14 – 00:35:24
Because there’s this thing here. You just birthed out, and then it’s like, oh, I mean, no pun intended. That was a terrible pun. Like, that I’m sorry.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:35:25 – 00:35:25
Oh, gosh.
Victoria Volk
00:35:25 – 00:35:26
I just thought that
Sabrina Fletcher
00:35:26 – 00:35:28
But yeah. No. But it’s a birth. Right? It is.
Speaker 2
00:35:28 – 00:35:31
It’s a Mother. Yeah. It’s birth from love. Right? Because you you birthed
Victoria Volk
00:35:31 – 00:35:33
it out of your experience.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:35:33 – 00:35:35
So It is. It is.
Victoria Volk
00:35:36 – 00:35:36
Yeah.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:35:36 – 00:35:45
It is. And so I was unable to do the in person pregnancy loss doula work that I wanted to.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:35:45 – 00:36:19
You know, I really wanted to be the sit by your side in that recovery chair and hold your hand and say, yeah. It’s okay to cry because you’re a bereaved mother and all the things that I needed to hear. And I also knew that I wanted to do the bulk of my support services online, So I already knew that I wanted most of it to be virtual. Like, the big community aspect of it, I always had in mind that it was going to be virtual. So whenever when everything went virtual, it helped in a way because then other people were open to receiving support in virtual ways.
Victoria Volk
00:36:21 – 00:36:24
That’s true. Yeah. That’s a good point.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:36:25 – 00:36:35
But that was that was my specific situation where I always knew I wanted, you know, most of it to be virtual so that we can meet internationally. Right.
Victoria Volk
00:36:35 – 00:36:39
It’s more accessible. Right?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:36:39 – 00:36:39
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:36:40 – 00:37:01
And that’s the thing I think that came out of COVID is that so many of these resources that exist today are because the virtual and people are more open to that because that is the way of the world now.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:36:58 – 00:36:58
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:36:58 – 00:37:01
So there’s more availability, but there’s also, like you said, more buy in where people are more apt to give it a chance and see if it’ll work for them.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:37:01 – 00:37:12
Yeah. So when I started doing live workshops or like little support groups and it was on Zoom, I knew that people already had that program at least.
Victoria Volk
00:37:12 – 00:37:12
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:37:13 – 00:37:16
They were familiar with it, so I could just say Zoom. I didn’t need to explain what it was.
Victoria Volk
00:37:16 – 00:37:16
Right.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:37:16 – 00:37:53
Because before 2020, anything that was online, if you weren’t already like an online entrepreneur or something, you didn’t know all of these programs and the terms and the things. But now, we’ve all been educated on doing it all online, which it can get exhausting too in some sense. And now that, you know, COVID is not at its height, we do wanna do in-person annual retreats as well because it is important to meet. It is important to get those hugs.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:37:53 – 00:38:18
It is important to, you know, see people face to face. And I wanna have those experiences too, where we can really see I’m really not alone in this. Here’s another flesh and blood person who has made this choice, who loves their baby deeply, who is grieving just as deeply as I am. And here we are sitting together.
Victoria Volk
00:38:19 – 00:38:20
And in Mexico. I mean
Sabrina Fletcher
00:38:20 – 00:38:28
Yes. I mean, great. So come and come and get some sun. Come and spray. Yeah.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:38:28 – 00:38:34
We we may end up doing the next one in in the US, though, because a lot of my community members are in the US.
Victoria Volk
00:38:36 – 00:38:53
So what were some of the ways I mean, I know that there was a lot that wasn’t there for you, but what were some of the ways that other people supported you that you found helpful, most helpful during that time and either for your daughter or for your husband or for yourself or as a family? Like, what would you share with people?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:38:54 – 00:39:13
For myself, the biggest resource, the most helpful resource was a another Facebook group. And they were the inspiration for me creating my own as well. And they and they’re still functioning. They’re a great community. They’re called ending a wanted pregnancy.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:39:14 – 00:39:41
I think it’s just ending a wanted pregnancy dot com. And you go through this application process, and then you’re in the Facebook group with only other people who have been through it or their immediate partners. You know, there are no health professionals who just wanna know how to help other people. There are no grandparents or siblings who you know, wanna like, look in.
Victoria Volk
00:39:42 – 00:39:42
Mmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:39:42 – 00:39:44
It’s completely closed.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:39:44 – 00:40:08
And so because I knew that that community was so highly screened and closed and I think even secret. So at that time, Facebook had secret groups. They’ve changed their settings. It’s something else. I mean, it still kind of exists in that way where no one else on your friend on your friend list can see that you’re in this group.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:40:08 – 00:40:23
No one else can even, like, search for it and see, like, who the members are. It’s unsearchable. It’s secret. So I knew this was a safe place. I was able to bring all of these emotions and feelings that I couldn’t talk to anybody else.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:40:23 – 00:40:59
I had a place to bring it to, and I could read what other people were feeling and thinking and going through and struggling with and ways that they were honoring their babies and you know, how they were taking part in broad pregnancy loss spaces as well. And I remember thinking, oh, I can do that. Oh, I can help myself in that way too. Oh, I can honor my baby in that way. So that was a really beautiful experience finding that group and taking part.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:40:59 – 00:41:15
You know, I’ve made amazing friendships through people in that group. And like I said, they inspired me to open another Facebook group. And since then, we have more. There are more. I mean, not that many, maybe like a dozen.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:41:15 – 00:41:34
But more than at the time when I went through it, it was basically just that group and maybe some anonymous forum that was visible to the public on baby center at that time. Now people tend to go to Reddit for that sort of anonymous experience, which has its place too.
Victoria Volk
00:41:36 – 00:41:42
Would you mind sharing your Facebook page, what it’s called? Can is it searchable, or is yours also private and
Sabrina Fletcher
00:41:42 – 00:41:59
Well, it my mine is searchable, but it’s closed. No one can see that you’re in it. But I do also do a application process. So it’s on my website, thetfmrdoula.com/facebookgroup. All one word.
Victoria Volk
00:42:01 – 00:42:04
And I will put the link to that in the show notes as well.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:42:04 – 00:42:13
Thank you. Yeah. It’s it’s a a wonderful space. And it’s a community space. You know, I started it.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:42:13 – 00:42:34
I run it. I facilitate. I facilitate the space for people to come and share their stories and give and get support and ask the questions that they can’t ask anywhere else because other people just say, oh, well, just be grateful that you have 2 other living kids
Victoria Volk
00:42:35 – 00:42:35
Mmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:42:35 – 00:42:39
Or like, you’ll get pregnant again. It’s like, what? Like, can you imagine?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:42:39 – 00:42:47
Well, you’ll get married again. Or, like, you still have your mom. You don’t need your dad. Like, okay. The things that people say.
Victoria Volk
00:42:49 – 00:43:55
Without thinking. Really. I mean, like, if you say it back to them like, did you I mean, just let me say that back to you out loud so you can hear it.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:42:56 – 00:42:56
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:42:56 – 00:43:00
Does that sound okay?
Victoria Volk
00:43:01 – 00:43:09
I mean, what’s what about that sounds okay? It’s almost like, you know, I’m I, I just developed a pet loss program.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:42:10 – 00:42:10
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:43:10 – 00:43:17
And, it’s not launched yet, but it’s it’s like people so commonly especially with pets, like, you can just get another pet. And it’s like, okay. So
Sabrina Fletcher
00:43:17 – 00:43:20
Well, yeah, you can, and it’s not that pet that you
Victoria Volk
00:43:21 – 00:43:25
Right. It’s like people don’t say that too, like, when your grand when your mom dies.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:43:25 – 00:43:25
Right.
Victoria Volk
00:43:26 – 00:43:28
Well, you can just get a mom. Just get another mom. I mean
Sabrina Fletcher
00:43:28 – 00:43:31
Just get another one.
Victoria Volk
00:43:31 – 00:43:32
It’s, yeah, it’s one of the myths
Victoria Volk
00:43:32 – 00:43:33
of grief is replace the loss and,
Sabrina Fletcher
00:43:34 – 00:43:34
Mmm
Victoria Volk
00:43:34 – 00:43:42
You know, it’s one of those things we all learn to do. Right? We learn how to acquire things and people, not what to do when we lose them. You know?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:43:42 – 00:43:45
Oh, that’s a really good quote, Victoria.
Victoria Volk
00:43:45 – 00:43:50
It is. It is. There was something on you I was gonna ask you.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:43:50 – 00:43:51
Sure.
Victoria Volk
00:43:51 – 00:43:56
What advice to other grievers desiring to create meaning from their grief?
Victoria Volk
00:43:56 – 00:44:12
And, you know, when I say create meaning that can that kind of rubs some people the wrong way. Like you have to create meaning, you have to do something big, but you don’t. It it’s I think it, I think a part of creating meaning or finding meaning, not that everything happens for a reason. Like, sometimes
Sabrina Fletcher
00:44:12 – 00:44:12
Yeah
Victoria Volk
00:44:13 – 00:44:17
that can ruffle people’s feathers too. Rightfully so.
Victoria Volk
00:44:17 – 00:44:42
Acceptance is a huge part of creating meaning. Personally, I think that you know, once you get to that place of acceptance of like, you can’t change the past, right? You can’t, but you can, you have a choice in how you transmute the emotions and the feelings that you experienced and move forward. And you’ve done that in a very beautiful way and enough service to others. And not everybody has to, you know, take on something like that.
Victoria Volk
00:44:42 – 00:44:42
Right.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:44:42 – 00:44:43
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:44:43 – 00:44:45
And not everybody is capable of that.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:44:45 – 00:44:45
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:44:46 – 00:44:59
Like, you know, it’s a it’s not a burden. And that’s the thing I think where people shy away from seeking help to is they don’t want to be a burden to other people. And that’s a lot of what keeps people isolated in their grief.
Victoria Volk
00:44:59 – 00:45:13
But I’ll get to the question here. But what advice would you give to others who desire to do something like you have done? And maybe a different way, but just do something with their grief.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:45:14 – 00:45:32
Mmm. Yeah. I like to talk about not thinking of it as, like, look for the what do we call it in the cloud? The silver lining. You know, we’re not looking for you know, there’s no silver lining in my baby dying in such a horrendous taboo way. There’s no silver lining there.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:45:33 – 00:46:21
There just isn’t. And I like to think of well, I have this little mini framework that I share with my clients and that I need to share with my community on a whole. It’s like this cycle of holding and honoring our emotions. And I think this can help people get to this place where they’re even doing tiny things that can help. And it may help them, you know, create meaning, find meaning, or it may help them, you know, just that day feel a little bit closer or feel more connected to their baby or even feel more connected to themselves or feel just a little bit more calm in the storm of grief.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:46:22 – 00:46:28
There are 3 steps, but they go around and around. You know? Just like grief is a cycle. Right?
Victoria Volk
00:46:28 – 00:46:30
Just like you did a lot of meditation around the flower. Right?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:46:30 – 00:46:42
Yeah. Yeah. We just go around. We go around, and then we come back to the same place, but we have a little bit more knowledge this time, and we’re gonna go a little bit deeper. It might be even more like a spiral too.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:46:42 – 00:46:46
Although, you know, I don’t want you to spiral out. Not that sort of spiral.
Victoria Volk
00:46:46 – 00:46:47
In a good way.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:46:48 – 00:47:19
Yeah. Spiraling deeper into the meaning or the love or the connection. So I start with acknowledge, just acknowledging that you’re having this body sensation instead of pushing it away. And also being very very gentle with this stage because I would say, with early grief, it’s very intense. And early grief can be a year, 2 years for people.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:47:20 – 00:47:35
So we just take, you know, like, one little sensation like my heart. You know? It’s tight. Just noticing that sensation. And even trying to notice without putting any labels on it yet.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:47:36 – 00:47:55
Even without saying it’s my heart or it’s this sensation or it’s this name of the thing. We don’t even have to put a label on it. So just acknowledging that it’s there. And I stayed in this place for a really long time. All of those things that I was talking about, like, with my with my feet in the grass, it would just be like, I’m just feeling.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:47:56 – 00:48:26
I’m just feeling, and I’m just you know, it’s just like flowing down into the earth, or I’m I’m walking, and I’m just feeling all of these sensations. And, like, my brain can’t even put a label on it yet, and that’s fine. It’s okay to stay in this acknowledging place for as long as you need to. And then if you feel ready, you can move to the part of the cycle that I like to think of, as a sign. So then you can begin to assign it an emotion name.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:48:26 – 00:49:02
So like I said, like anger, you know, is feeling so angry at the world and life and you know, even mother nature for screwing up my, you know, somewhere in the genetics or the creation or the, you know, the way that she was forming or maybe, you know, there’s something wrong with my own uterus or whatever. I was just so angry at all of those things and just, like, feeling the anger. And it and it’s okay to label it, like anger. You know? I’m feeling the anger.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:49:02 – 00:49:22
I’m actually feeling this emotion. And then and then if that feels okay, if you’d like to move to the next part of the cycle, I think of this part as a, oh, so we went or assign. Now we’re at align. And you can align in different ways. This is gonna be unique.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:49:22 – 00:50:01
This is gonna be your own self-care that works for you, whatever you need in that moment or maybe the first tiny step for something bigger that you want to do. You know, a lot of people do advocacy in TFMR. Like, they want to write a letter to their representative and tell their story and say, you know, the laws really hurt me and my family and my baby in this way, and this is what I went through. So maybe when you get to a line, maybe it’s like, okay. I’m gonna take out a piece of paper, or I’m gonna open a blank document on my computer and give it a name, letter to my representative.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:50:02 – 00:50:31
That could be your align. So it’s doing something for the sensations and the emotions that you’re having, and then we’re gonna transform, transmute. I like to think of transmutation and transformation more than finding meaning because we’re taking these sensations and emotions, and then you can do something with them. Emotion, e motion, it’s movement. It’s it wants to move.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:50:31 – 00:51:03
It wants to move through you. It wants to move through and even out of you. But we were never taught how. I, at least, I was never taught how. I had to, you know, figure it out on my own through doing it and through, you know, being in a relationship with my husband and like, seeing my own daughter’s grief and then being in these grief communities and being in these TFMR communities and talking to other pregnancy loss parents and seeing the ways that they were aligning.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:51:03 – 00:51:22
You know? Sometimes I would only see that part of their cycle because that can’t be outward. It can’t be inward. So maybe I was seeing how they were, aligning in a way in their life. And then once we align a little bit, then maybe new sensations come about in the body.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:51:23 – 00:51:44
And so that’s why it’s a cycle. So then you can begin to acknowledge those sensations or those feelings as well. And you can go through the cycle as, you know, we’ll go through it an infinite amount of times in our lifetime if we’re lucky, if we get the time, if we get the chance to do it.
Victoria Volk
00:51:44 – 00:51:57
And the key thing you said there is connecting with ourselves and our emotions are in our body, because it is what you went through and what other women go through in this experience is very much a body experience.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:51:58 – 00:51:59
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
00:51:59 – 00:52:04
So it’s connecting back to the body to heal the body from within out.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:52:04 – 00:52:04
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:51:59 – 00:52:28
I’m curious if because the work your husband does, if you utilize some of those things and have considered or maybe you’ve already done this where you’ve had brought in women who have experienced this into his place of where he works and to experience these tools that he has to help women connect with themselves in that way.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:52:28 – 00:52:31
Oh, it’s definitely going to be a part of the live retreats.
Victoria Volk
00:52:31 – 00:52:32
That’s for sure.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:52:32 – 00:52:41
For sure. For sure. And I’ve been thinking about well, since I set everything up virtually, I just continue to do everything virtually.
Victoria Volk
00:52:41 – 00:52:41
Right.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:52:41 – 00:53:19
I don’t have a local group yet, but, there is a midwife in town who would like me to run a group and I would definitely invite them, you know, after, you know, 6 weeks or after a few months of coming to these circles. Maybe we’ll do, you know, a quarterly sweat lodge experience. And my husband actually gets a lot of people who come to him, maybe not right after a loss, but in that time, you’ll understand the time period. About 3 or 4 months out or, like, a year out.
Victoria Volk
00:53:19 – 00:53:19
Mhmm. Yeah.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:53:20 – 00:53:39
With a big loss or life transitions, and then they go and they want to really mark that transition with a ritual, which is something that the sweat lodge can help you do or take partaking in a sweat.
Victoria Volk
00:53:41 – 00:53:51
Very cool. I think you’ve got a lot of amazing things brewing and I’m excited to see what, what comes of it for you.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:53:52 – 00:53:52
Yeah
Victoria Volk
00:53:52- 00:53:55
I am curious. Did you have any more children?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:53:55 – 00:53:55
Yes.
Victoria Volk
00:53:55- 00:53:56
Okay.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:53:56 – 00:54:23
I was able to get pregnant again after my loss. And I would say that pregnancy is really was the second hardest thing that I’ve done in my life after you know, going through the termination, after going through losing my baby.
Victoria Volk
00:54:23 – 00:54:36
That’s why I asked because, it’s like when people wanna replace a dog. Right? It’s like, how do you know you’re ready? And people often just don’t even think about that. They just replace the dog and you’re not replacing the loss by having another child. That’s not what I’m saying. Although people can have that perception.
Victoria Volk
00:54:36 – 00:54:42
Right? Like, you wanna feel better, so you just you can just have another child. Right?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:54:42 – 00:54:45
That’s what people say. Yeah. The people say that.
Victoria Volk
00:54:45 – 00:54:46
People say that. You can have more kids.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:54:47 – 00:54:48
Not everyone can.
Victoria Volk
00:54:49 – 00:54:50
Right? Exactly.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:54:50 – 00:54:52
Exactly. And then
Victoria Volk
00:54:52 – 00:54:55
so the when they say that, they’re making the assumption that, yes, you can too.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:54:56 – 00:54:56
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
00:54:56 – 00:54:57
Can you speak to that a little bit?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:54:59 – 00:54:59
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:54:59 – 00:55:02
Like, howdid you know? Like or how did you come to that? And
Sabrina Fletcher
00:55:02 – 00:55:27
Well, I think of my the loss of my baby as the primary loss, the primary death.
Victoria Volk
00:55:12 – 00:55:12
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:55:13 – 00:55:27
There are also other things that were lost. So I lost this vision of having 2 children in my family. I lost this, you know, the hopes and desires to have my oldest daughter not be a only child.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:55:28 – 00:55:55
I wanted to have, you know, more than one kid. I wanted to have 2 or 3. I guess I do have 3 now in a way. But 2 living and then the one that died. And I knew that it was going to be hard, and the desire to have another child was stronger than the fear.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:55:56 – 00:56:27
That was when I knew that I was ready to really go back into battle. Most people who go through a termination for medical reasons do develop, like, full-blown PTSD. You know, it’s like going to war. And so if you think of it like we’re warriors who have been to this battle or war and lost. Now we’re being asked to go right back to the same battlefield.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:56:29 – 00:56:55
You know, it’s the same sensations. Maybe you pull out the same, you know, pregnancy pants. Maybe it’s even, like, the same season. Some people, you know, just the dates, like, all line-up and they’re going to their 12-week scan on March 12th again the next year. So they’re very crazy feelings that you that you go through.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:56:56 – 00:57:14
Because you’re going through it again. And then the anger too, you feel very I remember being very angry throughout the 1st trimester and thinking, you know, I feel so tired. I feel like crap. You know, I feel like I’m gonna throw up all the time. I already went through this.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:57:15 – 00:57:53
You know? Why do I have to go through this again? And of course, I was so thrilled to be pregnant again and to hopefully, you know, have a baby, have a have another sibling and to hopefully have those experiences that I was dreaming of you know, to have 2 kids or more than 2 kids and to have, like, a bigger family. I mean, it’s not a big family to have 2 kids, but, bigger than 1, bigger than just parenting 1. And I mean, I had EMDR therapist.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:57:53 – 00:58:23
I had my acupuncturist. I had different doctors. I had the high-risk doctor that I was going to. I had the same doula that I my postpartum doula then became my doula through that pregnancy. In the pregnancy loss spaces, I found, like, specific monthly threads or places where people were talking about being pregnant again after loss or even more specifically being pregnant again after TFMR.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:58:25 – 00:58:43
I had a really good friend who we would check-in every day. We were like, I don’t know. Our dates, like, lined up we were already in contact, and then we were both trying to conceive, and then we, like both got pregnant probably on, like, the same day. And so, you know, it’s like, here we are in week 1. Now we’re in week 2.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:58:43 – 00:58:59
We checked in every single day with each other, and it would just be in the morning, I’d be like, oh my gosh. I’m so scared. And I would open, you know, my Messenger app or whatever, and there’s her message saying the same thing. So I didn’t feel so alone.
Victoria Volk
00:58:59 – 00:58:59
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:01 – 00:59:03
That was how I got through that pregnancy.
Victoria Volk
00:59:04 – 00:59:06
With a lot of support, it sounds like.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:06 – 00:59:15
A lot. I needed a lot of support. I needed all of it, and I really pulled on all of it. And it was really hard on my husband too. You know?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:15 – 00:59:19
We were scared every single day that we would lose her too.
Victoria Volk
00:59:20 – 00:59:21
And what’s her name?
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:21 – 00:59:23
Her name is Aya.
Victoria Volk
00:59:23 – 00:59:25
Oh, that’s beautiful.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:25 – 00:59:27
Thank you.
Victoria Volk
00:59:27 – 00:59:37
It’s like the, what you said, it’s holding on to the both and
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:32 – 00:59:32
Uh-huh
Victoria Volk
00:59:32 – 00:59:37
it’s the feelings of fear and an excitement at the same time, enjoy,
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:37 – 00:59:37
right
Victoria Volk
00:59:37 – 00:59:42
It’s the both and like, it’s like holding the feelings and the reality at the same time.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:43 – 00:59:43
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
00:59:43 – 00:59:53
And that’s a tricky thing to do. And so I thank you for sharing that aspect of your story, because I think it’ll be helpful for people who are going through that.
Sabrina Fletcher
00:59:53 – 01:00:03
Yeah. And I have a monthly thread in my Facebook group too, and I started a monthly live Zoom for us as well.
Victoria Volk
01:00:03 – 01:00:05
Awesome.
Sabrina Fletcher
01:00:05 – 01:00:19
Mhmm. Because I remember how hard it was. I mean, she’s 4 now, and still even around, even around her birthday I start thinking about you know, everything that we went through just to get to that point.
Victoria Volk
01:00:20 – 01:00:34
On your form, there’s a question I ask. I don’t know if you remember what you answered, but I wanna share it if you don’t remember. But it’s what would you like to scream to the world in the past or recently in which people knew about your grief?
Sabrina Fletcher
01:00:35 – 01:00:40
Did I write TFMR is pregnancy loss?
Victoria Volk
01:00:38 – 01:00:38
Yes
Sabrina Fletcher
01:00:38 – 01:00:40
TFMR is pregnancy yeah.
Victoria Volk
01:00:40 – 01:00:45
Yes. And then you added something else. You said treat me gently
Sabrina Fletcher
01:00:45 – 01:00:47
I don’t read it. Can you read it?
Victoria Volk
01:00:47 – 01:00:50
Yeah. Treat me gently as you would any grieving parent.
Sabrina Fletcher
01:00:52 – 01:00:55
That’s it. That’s the one.
Victoria Volk
01:00:56 – 01:01:10
I thought that was beautiful. And so I think it’s a great place to tie this episode up with a bow for people.
Sabrina Fletcher
01:01:06 – 01:01:06
Mmm.
Victoria Volk
01:01:07 – 01:01:10
Grief is grief, no matter the circumstance. And we all agree that 100%. So treat each other gently.
Sabrina Fletcher
01:01:11 – 01:01:11
Wonderful.
Victoria Volk
01:01:11 – 01:01:16
Thank you so much for sharing. Is there anything else you would like to share though that you didn’t get to?
Sabrina Fletcher
01:01:18 – 01:02:09
I think I shared what was on my heart today. And maybe one more thing, just if you’re going through this or if you’ve been through this and you’re and you’re just finding the acronym and you’re just finding these places or you’re still looking for support around this type of pregnancy loss, just know that it is out there. And I know it’s really hard, like the onus is on the grieving person to go out and find support in a time where you’re just so exhausted. And it’s so worth it. It’s so worth it to keep searching until you find the space and the people who can really support you because it will make all of the difference in the world.
Victoria Volk
01:02:10 – 01:02:14
And if you’re a helper, sometimes helpers need help too.
Sabrina Fletcher
01:02:14 – 01:02:15
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
01:02:16 – 01:02:18
That’s what I’ve found even personally.
Sabrina Fletcher
01:02:19 – 01:02:27
Mmm. Oh, yeah. No. I have a lot of therapists, teachers, nurses in my community.
Victoria Volk
01:02:27 – 01:02:27
Mhmm.
Sabrina Fletcher
01:02:27 – 01:02:27
Mhmm.
Victoria Volk
01:02:28 – 01:02:52
Well, thank you so much for all that you shared today. And, I look forward to sharing this episode and I will put all the links to what you shared in the show notes for people to quickly and easily find support if they’re needing it. And thank you for listening today. And remember when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Emotions, Grief, Grief Tips, Grieving Voices Podcast, solo episode |
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
RESOURCES:
Early episodes that may interest you…
_______
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.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Navigating Friendships in Times of Grief: Understanding, Communication, and Self-Care
When we face the stormy seas of grief, our friends often serve as anchors—keeping us grounded amidst the tumultuous waves of sorrow. However, it can be disheartening when those we count on seem to drift away just when we need them most. Today at Grieving Voices, let’s explore this delicate dynamic and offer some guidance on how to navigate friendships during times of loss.
The Unpredictable Nature of Support
Grief is a profoundly personal experience that reshapes our world in ways others may not fully comprehend. As much as we hope for unwavering support from friends, their reactions can vary widely. Some may envelop us with empathy and understanding while others might unexpectedly become distant or even disappear.
It’s essential to recognize that each person has unique emotional capacities and life experiences that influence their ability to provide support during such times. For some friends, your grief may evoke unresolved feelings about their own losses; they might fear saying something hurtful or simply feel unequipped to handle the depth of your pain.
Communication: The Bridge Over Troubled Waters
Open communication can be a bridge reconnecting you with friends who seem distant. If you’re up for it, initiate an honest conversation about what you’re going through and express what kind of support would help—whether it’s a listening ear or someone to share memories with.
Conversely, give space for your friends to communicate too—they may have valid reasons for stepping back that are unrelated to your relationship or situation. By fostering dialogue, both parties can gain clarity and find common ground even amidst discomfort.
Managing Expectations: The Compass Guiding Your Emotional Journey
While reaching out is important, managing expectations is equally crucial in maintaining inner peace during these trying times. Not every friend will respond as hoped—and that’s okay—it doesn’t diminish the value they’ve added to your life nor does it lessen your worthiness for support.
Consider expanding your circle by seeking additional forms of assistance like therapy or joining a grief support group where shared experiences foster connection and understanding amongst peers navigating similar paths.
The Evolutionary Dance of Friendship Through Grief
Friendships ebb and flow like tides influenced by life’s changing circumstances—including periods marked by loss. It’s natural for relationships to evolve; some bonds strengthen while others fade into memory’s backdrop—a bittersweet part of life’s journey.
In this dance with change comes an opportunity for self-discovery—you learn more about who shows up when storms hit shorelines unannounced; likewise discovering new depths within yourself capable of weathering solitude if needed before finding community anew.
Handle these shifts with grace—for yourself and those around you—by practicing empathy towards everyone involved including oneself. Remember self-care isn’t selfish—it ensures you’re emotionally available not only for others but vitally so—for yourself first.
As today’s exploration concludes remember—the absence felt from lost connections makes room for growth both within one’s heart-space & social circles alike leading potentially towards deeper more resonant ties ahead.
If today’s insights resonate please consider sharing them across platforms where fellow travelers journey through grief could benefit from solidarity found within shared words spoken here today—or leave thoughts behind via reviews aiding further conversations yet untold across grieving voices everywhere.
Should questions stir within soul-sands untouched reach out directly allowing continued dialogues underpinning future episodes crafted here among collective wisdom gathered together beneath healing skies above all else take care nurture tenderly knowing full well—in releasing heartfelt truths freedom follows suit unlocking boundless possibilities lying dormant awaiting breaths freshened anew much love until next time dear listeners goodbye.
Episode Transcription:
Victoria Volk
00:00:03 – 00:00:16
Hello. Hello. Thank you for tuning in to Grieving Voices. I am your host, Victoria V. And today, we’ll explore a question that many of us may grapple with during times of grief and loss.
Victoria Volk
00:00:17 – 00:01:06
The question we’ll be digging into today is, I am grieving the devastating loss of my sister, among other things, and I feel like some of my friends are becoming distant. Why aren’t they supporting me? So we’re just gonna dive right into the answer for today’s episode, which is about feeling ghosted in your grief, and why some friends might become distant and why they don’t support you. When we experience loss and grief, it can be incredibly challenging to navigate our relationships, particularly with friends. It’s not uncommon to feel a sense of disappointment or confusion when we perceive that our friends are becoming distant or not providing the support that we had hoped for.
Victoria Volk
00:01:06 – 00:01:47
It’s important to remember that everyone processes grief differently. While some friends may naturally step up and offer support, others may struggle to know how to navigate this unfamiliar territory. And remember, a large part of why I created this podcast is to educate because most of us are raised with myths and misinformation about grief. And to learn more about what I mean, I encourage you to check out the first ten episodes of this podcast where I share all about the misinformation about grief we grow up with and bring into adulthood. And with this in mind, it’s helpful to approach these situations with empathy and understanding.
Victoria Volk
00:01:48 – 00:02:33
One possible reason for your friend’s distance could be their own comfort with grief. Society often struggles to openly discuss and address the topic of loss, which can lead to friends feeling ill-equipped or unsure of how to provide support. It’s also possible that they may be avoiding the topic out of fear of saying the wrong thing or making things worse. It could also be bringing up some of their own grief long buried that they may not have given much thought about until lately. To not feel their own pain, they disengage themselves from anything that activates those long ago buried emotions that they just as soon as prefer to forget about.
Victoria Volk
00:02:34 – 00:02:59
Additionally, people have their own lives and challenges they may be facing. It’s important to recognize that your friends may be dealing with their own personal struggles, which could be impacting their ability to offer support at this time. It doesn’t mean they care any less about you. It’s just that they may be managing their own emotional load. Communication is key in navigating these situations.
Victoria Volk
00:03:01 – 00:03:41
It’s important to express your feelings and needs to your friends in a gentle and open manner. Letting them know that you appreciate their friendship and would value their support during this difficult time can help bridge the gap and foster understanding. However, it’s also important to manage your expectations. Not everyone can provide the level of support you desire or need. It’s essential to seek out additional sources of support, such as support groups, therapy, or other individuals who have experienced similar losses or who have the capacity to hold space for you and the however you feel you need.
Victoria Volk
00:03:42 – 00:04:17
These resources can provide the understanding and validation you may be seeking. And lastly, it’s crucial to remember that friendships evolve and change over time. While it can be painful to see a sense of distance from friends during times of grief, it’s possible that these changes are a natural part of the ebb and flow of relationships. This doesn’t mean that the friendship is over or that it’s reflection of your worth. It’s simply a reminder that friendships, like people, are dynamic and subject to change.
Victoria Volk
00:04:19 – 00:05:03
In conclusion, if you feel like some of your friends are becoming distant and not providing the support you desire, it’s important to approach the situation again with empathy, understanding, and open communication. Recognize that everyone process their grief differently and that your friends may be dealing with their own challenges. And seeking out additional sources of support and being open to the evolution of friendships over time can help ease the pain of those relationships changing. So that concludes today’s episode, short, sweet, and to the point. I hope this discussion has provided some insights and guidance as you navigate the complexities of friendship during times of grief.
Victoria Volk
00:05:04 – 00:05:35
If you found it helpful, I’d be so grateful if you shared it or took a minute to leave a review or rate it on Apple Itunes or a quick star rating on Spotify as this helps others see that this podcast is worth a listen and for others to find it as well. Additionally, please reach out if you have any further questions or topics you’d like me to explore. I thank you for joining me, and until next time, take care, and remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Educational, Grief Tips, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, solo episode |
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
In the quiet moments of early morning, as the world stirs awake and you’re left with your thoughts, do you ever reflect on what self-love truly means? How often do we pause to consider that perhaps the most enduring relationship we’ll ever have is with ourselves?
As Valentine’s Day approaches, hearts and flowers flood our surroundings, reminding us all about love. But amidst this celebration of affection, a deeper connection often goes unnoticed – the love we give ourselves.
This week on Grieving Voices, I’m peeling back the layers of what it means to cherish and prioritize yourself truly. As Valentine’s Day approaches, let’s shift our focus from external expressions of affection to cultivating an inner sanctuary of self-compassion and care.
The key takeaways from this episode include:
- The significance of daily self-love practices such as affirmations, gratitude journaling, self-care rituals, mindful movements like yoga or walking, engaging in creative endeavors, eating healthily, taking breaks from digital devices, and honoring one’s emotions.
- How these practices create joyous avenues toward hope and emotional liberation.
- The importance of establishing healthy boundaries for overall well-being.
Conditional or self-sacrificial love isn’t sustainable. True empowerment comes when choices are made free from the weight of others’ expectations—when they spring from a well of genuine self-regard.
How do we cultivate this kind of self-love? Daily affirmations remind us of our worthiness. A gratitude practice opens our eyes to life’s blessings amidst pain. Self-care days aren’t indulgent—they’re necessary retreats for rejuvenation. Mindful movement brings us back into harmony with our bodies, while creative expression unlocks inner worlds waiting to be explored.
Proper nutrition fuels not just the body but also the spirit—and sometimes, what we need most is simply disconnecting from digital noise through detoxes that allow quiet reflection and growth.
This Valentine’s Day, let’s shift the focus inward. Celebrate by embracing your internal reservoirs of love so that every other day is enriched by your own heart’s abundance.
RESOURCES:
_______
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.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Embracing Self-Love: A Journey to Healing and Hope
In the labyrinth of life, where loss and grief often find their way into our hearts, it becomes essential to engage in a dialogue that not only acknowledges pain but also fosters healing. Victoria from unleashedheart.com has been instrumental in leading this conversation through her podcast “Grieving Voices.” With an empathetic voice and deep personal understanding, she reaches out to those grappling with grief and offers solace through shared experiences.
As we approach Valentine’s Day—a time typically associated with romantic love, I shift the focus towards a different kind of love: self-love. In a society that frequently glamorizes external affection, it is crucial to remember that the foundation of all love starts within us. This episode serves as a gentle reminder that while flowers may wilt and chocolates will be consumed, the nurturing of one’s own soul is perennial.
Self-love isn’t just about pampering oneself; it’s about acknowledging your worthiness despite your struggles. It’s about setting aside time for morning affirmations which anchor you into positivity for the day ahead. Gratitude practices remind us of what blooms brightly in our lives even when shadows cast long lines across our paths.
Moreover, self-care rituals are acts of kindness we bestow upon ourselves; they could range from an indulgent bath to simply turning off your phone at dinner. Mindful movement such as yoga or walking can reconnect us with our bodies—a home we should cherish regardless of its imperfections.
Creative outlets like painting or writing allow emotions a canvas on which they can be expressed without judgment—an important aspect when navigating through grief. Nutritious eating fuels both body and mind while digital detoxing provides much-needed respite from constant connectivity which can sometimes amplify feelings of isolation rather than alleviate them.
But perhaps most importantly, addressing one’s feelings openly—acknowledging sadness, anger or confusion—is critical for emotional freedom. By confronting these emotions head-on rather than suppressing them, individuals create space for joy and hope to re-enter their lives.
I reinforce this message by integrating these principles into her 12-week program Do Grieve Differently—it’s designed not only as support during times of sorrow but also as guidance toward achieving emotional completeness beyond periods marked by loss.
This holistic approach underlines how integral self-love is in finding purpose after pain—the ability to establish healthy boundaries stems directly from how much respect we afford ourselves internally first before extending outwardly towards others.
The beauty lies not only in embracing self-love on days dedicated to affection but making it an intrinsic part of daily living—for resilience grows when nurtured consistently over time.
To close her heartfelt episode, I extend gratitude towards listeners who share their journey with her on “Grieving Voices,” reminding everyone that unleashing their heart equates to unleashing potential within every facet of life.
For those grieving or supporting someone who grieves—remember you’re never alone; there exists community spaces like my podcast offering comfort amidst chaos—a testament that compassion knows no bounds nor does the quest for understanding ever cease.
Listeners are encouraged to pass along this message—to spread compassion far & wide—and remember always: Your feelings are valid indicators reflecting real experiences—they deserve recognition & care.
Episode Transcription:
Victoria Volk
00:01:29 – 00:01:44
Welcome. Welcome. It’s another episode of Grieving Voices, and I am your host, Victoria V.
Victoria Volk
00:01:44 – 00:02:36
And today’s episode is inspired by Valentine’s Day because in the US, that is tomorrow on February 14th. And I know for a lot of people listening, this might not be perhaps a happy Valentine’s Day. And so, in the spirit of broken hearts and less than loving feelings, I thought I would share today’s episode on the topic of self-love. But I wanna start by saying, first of all, I love you. I love you for being a part of my community, for being a listener, for just being you, and sharing whatever gifts you have with the world, if you are and if you aren’t, and you just haven’t discovered them yet, that’s okay.
Victoria Volk
00:02:36 – 00:03:41
I think we feel so much pressure sometimes to do some big things in the world. And I know personally, I’ve felt a lot of pressure within myself to do that, to leave some sort of legacy and that can cause us a lot of grief. And I know finding your purpose and waking up every day and when your feet hit the floor and feeling like you have purpose or not feeling it can bring a lot of grief into our hearts. I think what’s so important when you find yourself in those situations or when you’re feeling that way, the best thing you can do for yourself is to give yourself some love because really that’s where it all starts. I think we can only love others to the depth that we love ourselves because otherwise, it could be conditional or it could be self-sacrificial And maybe we have these expectations of something and receiving something in return, which makes it conditional.
Victoria Volk
00:03:41 – 00:04:23
So I just wanna talk a little bit about self-love today and then offer some practical things that you can do to nurture some love within yourself. And so, let’s get started. I think as a teenager, I had a very difficult time loving myself. I don’t think I really truly started to love myself until after I addressed a lot of the anger and resentment I was holding within myself with that my body was holding onto and I’ll get more into that later but I can say now for the most part, of course, we all have our days, We all have our moments,
Victoria Volk
00:04:24 – 00:04:52
We all have that comparisonitis, which I used to have it so bad. But when you can get to the point where you Where you walk to the beat of your own drum, then you know you’ve gotten to a place of self-love and there’s always more More to do in that department, I think. There’s more that I could do for myself, I know, But I will say as of today that I love myself. I love the person who I am.
Victoria Volk
00:04:52 – 00:05:20
I love the person that I’m becoming each and every day. And I wish the same for you, but for a long time, I didn’t feel this way. I remember being a teenager and trying to make myself throw up. I was only successful one time. I quickly realized that Strong foul orders caused a stronger gag reflex for me. But man, didn’t it suck being a teenager?
Victoria Volk
00:05:21 – 00:06:16
Like when you think back, I know a lot of my listeners are probably 35 ish or my age, 25 to 45. Being a teenager sucked, and I think it’s just much harder now to navigate being a teenager As a parent looking in, and just in the conversations I have with my kids and how much technology has progressed. But today, self-love is a bit of a buzz phrase, and I just want you to contemplate though The importance of self-love in your life. Maybe it’s not even something you’ve given much thought to, but Valentine’s day is the perfect time to remember that love does start from within. This year, let’s shift the focus from external relationships to the most important relationship of all, The one we have with ourselves. 1st, I wanna make some distinctions.
Victoria Volk
00:06:17 – 00:07:15
Love is the willingness and ability to allow others the right to make their own choices for themselves without any insistence that they Satisfy me. Let me say that again, The willingness and ability to allow others the right to make their own choices for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy me. Loving myself is the willingness and ability To allow me the right to make my own choices for myself without any insistence That I satisfy others. Again, loving myself is the willingness And ability to allow me the right to make my own choices for myself without any insistence that I satisfy others.
Victoria Volk
00:07:16 – 00:07:54
So how do you cultivate love within yourself? 1st, and I think above all, we have to open our hearts to receiving it. And this starts with cultivating it from within to become softened enough to be open to first recognizing it and then receiving it from others. The more love you cultivate for yourself, the more you will understand where in your life you have been self sacrificing to satisfy others. Self-love is the ticket to realizing your boundaries, and self-love is the ticket to laying down the armor you’ve worn to protect yourself.
Victoria Volk
00:07:55 – 00:08:25
Embracing self-love is a beautiful way to celebrate Valentine’s Day, and today, I’d like to share some practical self-love rituals to get started in nurturing your heart and soul. Number 1, morning affirmations. Start your day by speaking kind and loving words to yourself. Look in the mirror and affirm your worth, beauty, and strength. Repeat positive affirmations that resonate with you, such as I’m deserving of love and happiness.
Victoria Volk
00:08:26 – 00:08:44
Or I embrace my uniqueness and shine my light. 2. Gratitude practice. Take a moment to reflect on everything you appreciate about you. Write down 3 things you love about yourself each day.
Victoria Volk
00:08:45 – 00:09:15
It could be your resilience, your creativity, or compassion. Cultivating gratitude for your own qualities and accomplishments can boost your self-esteem and foster a deeper sense of self-love. 3. Self-care spa. Treat yourself to a luxurious self-care spa day. Draw a warm bath with your favorite bath salts and essential oils, Light some candles, play some soothing music, and indulge in a nourishing face mask or body scrub.
Victoria Volk
00:09:15 – 00:09:39
Allow yourself to fully relax and pamper Your body, mind, and spirit. 4. Mindful movement. Engage in activities that make you feel connected to your body and Promote self-love. Try a gentle yoga or meditation session to cultivate mindfulness and self compassion. Focus on your breath and listen to what your body needs in the present moment.
Victoria Volk
00:09:41 – 00:10:01
5. Creative expression. Tap into your creative energy as a form of self expression and self-love. Engage in painting, writing, dancing, or playing an instrument. Allow yourself to explore your passions and express your innermost thoughts and emotions. 6.
Victoria Volk
00:10:02 – 00:10:33
Nourishing nutrition. Show some love to your body by nourishing it with wholesome foods, Or treat yourself to a trial of a home food delivery kit, like HelloFresh. They are not sponsoring this episode, but I would just wanted to share. But I think this is a great idea for people to give themselves their time back. Take off some stress, Those busy weeknights when you just don’t know what to make or you haven’t had a chance to run to the store, this is a gift you give yourself.
Victoria Volk
00:10:34 – 00:11:02
I think it’s a great idea for lunches. You know, if you have to if you’re working from home or if you take lunch with you, just it’s It’s one less meal that you have to think about that’s also nutrient dense. 7. Digital detox. Take a break from technology and social media to create space for self reflection and self discovery. Disconnecting from the digital world allows you to connect with your Self, and your desires, dreams, and aspirations.
Victoria Volk
00:11:04 – 00:11:37
And last but not least, Address your feelings. And I think this is one of the most important. Whether you are angry at someone, holding on to resentment from long ago, Or experiencing feelings of guilt, shame, or sadness, all of these hold a deep well of wisdom for you. Our feelings are what drive our behaviors. Change the thoughts that create your feelings, which drive your behavior by learning new knowledge and new tools, and what you get is emotional completeness.
Victoria Volk
00:11:38 – 00:12:11
In other words, More joy, hope, and emotional freedom. All of which you receive when you go through my program, Do Grief differently, which will be linked in the show notes. But remember, self-love is an ongoing practice That requires patience and compassion. Be gentle with yourself and embrace the journey of self discovery by prioritizing self love, you are cultivating a strong foundation for all other relationships in your life.
Victoria Volk
00:12:12 – 00:12:37
So this Valentine’s Day and every day, let’s celebrate the love that resides within each of us. Embrace these self-love rituals and make them a part of your daily routine, not just on Valentine’s Day, but every day. You deserve love, care, and kindness. It all starts with loving yourself. Again, Thank you so much for being here, for listening.
Victoria Volk
00:12:38 – 00:13:07
I wish you a wonderful Valentine’s Day filled with self-love and joy, and every day. Because remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Educational, Emotions, Grief Tips, Grieving Voices Podcast, Pespective, Podcast, solo episode |
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Today’s episode of GrievingVoices takes a deep dive into the complex emotion of anger, especially for us Human Design Manifestor-types navigating loss and trauma. I open up about my battle with anger following life’s curveballs and how it can be misunderstood or mishandled.
As someone who has walked through the fire of personal loss and trauma, I’ve learned firsthand how anger can be both destructive and transformative. It’s not just an outburst; it’s a signal calling us to introspection.
Why does this affect me so deeply?
What boundaries have been crossed?
Many turn to short-term fixes or STERBs (short-term energy-relieving behaviors) like anger to cope with grief. But these are merely band-aids on deeper emotional wounds. The key lies in processing anger constructively. This isn’t about suppressing emotions but rather understanding them—identifying what needs protection or restoration within ourselves before we react impulsively.
Key Takeaways:
-Anger should prompt introspection rather than projection onto others.
-Short-term coping mechanisms like STERBs provide temporary relief but do not address underlying emotional pain.
– Constructive processing of anger involves self-protection and restoration efforts.
– Emotional intelligence grows through understanding our reactions and setting healthy boundaries.
Establishing clear boundaries emerged as another critical theme. The absence of boundary-setting skills during childhood can lead to adult challenges such as unchecked anger. To navigate this complex terrain, the book “Boundaries” is recommended for those seeking guidance on creating and implementing boundaries.
Engagement with our emotions in real-time fosters balance and wellness. Tools like visualization and mindful breathing are practical strategies for dissipating anger without confrontation. We pave the way toward transformative life changes by embracing self-awareness and actively managing our emotions.
Join me in embracing self-awareness and mastering emotional management as pathways toward transforming our lives after loss.
RESOURCES:
Episode Sponsor: Magic Mind | Use the code “GRIEVINGVOICES” to receive one month free with a 3-month subscription. This special promotion is only for January!
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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.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Navigating the Stormy Seas of Grief: Understanding and Managing Anger
Grief is an ocean of emotion, vast and unpredictable. For many who have lost a loved one or experienced significant life changes, anger can be a tempestuous wave that crashes over them without warning. On today’s episode of “Grieving Voices,” hosted by myself from theunleashedheart.com, I delve deep into this fiery aspect of grief.
As not an only advanced grief recovery method specialist but also as someone who has weathered my own storms of loss. With over three decades under my belt navigating personal grieving experiences—including the loss of my father—I bring both professional insight and heartfelt empathy to our discussion on dealing with anger in grief.
Why Does Anger Manifest in Grief?
Anger during grief often arises from a place within us that feels violated; it may stem from feelings of injustice or powerlessness following a loss. It’s important to recognize that anger isn’t inherently negative—it’s a natural response to pain and can signal areas where we require healing or change.
However, when misunderstood or repressed, anger becomes unhealthy. It festers like an untreated wound, leading potentially to bitterness or even physical ailments due to the stress it imposes on our bodies.
The Pitfalls of Short-Term Energy Relieving Behaviors (STERBs)
In trying times, grievers might turn towards behaviors such as outbursts of rage—or STERBs—to momentarily alleviate their suffering. While these actions might offer temporary solace by releasing pent-up energy, they do little for long-term emotional well-being.
The real challenge lies in confronting what remains emotionally unresolved within us—the core issues beneath the surface-level expressions of distress—and addressing those directly.
Establishing Healthy Boundaries
A key factor contributing to feelings like resentment is poor boundary setting—a topic all too familiar for many individuals brought up without an understanding of healthy personal limits. Without clear boundaries, you may find yourself slipping into roles that don’t serve you well: becoming overly accommodating at your expense (people-pleasing) or struggling with asserting your needs effectively (difficulty saying no).
For those eager to learn more about establishing healthier interpersonal dynamics—which can significantly reduce instances where anger stems from feeling taken advantage of—I recommend reading the book *Boundaries* which provides profound insights into this critical skill set for maintaining emotional health.
Embracing Your Emotional Compass
As we wrap up today’s conversation on “Grieving Voices,” remember that each emotion carries its message—one worth listening to if we are brave enough to face it head-on. Whether through acknowledging our hurt openly instead of masking it behind aggression or learning how to better manage stressful situations using tools like Magic Mind—we must strive toward understanding ourselves deeper.
In facing these challenging emotions related specifically to sadness & fury associated with w/losses big & small alike, let’s take heart in my closing mantra: Unleash your heart so you may unleash your life! Share this podcast episode if it resonates with you & continue spreading compassion simply by being “a heart with ears.”
Episode Transcription:
Victoria Volk
00:01:29 – 00:01:51
Hello friends. Welcome to another episode of Grieving Voices if you’ve been listening all along. Today is episode 179, and that seems crazy to say.
Victoria Volk
00:01:51 – 00:02:16
This is the 179th time that I’m sitting down to record for you. And what a blessing and what a ride it’s been, and so thank you for being here. And if this is your first time listening, I hope you come back for another episode. Today, I wanna talk about anger. And the question is, that a lot of grievers have.
Victoria Volk
00:02:18 – 00:03:19
It’s something that I’ve personally struggled with a lot of my life. And, you know, in learning about human design and being a manifestor, our not self theme as a manifestor is anger. And so every time, you know, when I reflect on my past and my life up to this point, there’s a lot of moments where I can distinctly remember where my anger got the best of me. And particularly with a grieving experience, you know, after my dad had passed away and then being molested, a year later and subsequently, later after that, I was holding a lot of anger in my body. There was no way for me to channel it.
Victoria Volk
00:03:19 – 00:03:47
And actually, it wasn’t really an emotion that I learned was healthy. You know, so many of us grew up in homes where anger is expressed but yet we’re shamed for it or, it’s like something to keep to yourself. Right?, like, it’s, you know, don’t express it to other people because, I mean, it’s hurt it can be hurtful too. Right?
Victoria Volk
00:03:47 – 00:04:46
Like anger projected onto other people can Inflict emotional wounds on others. We can be very, what’s the word? Victimizing of others with our anger, and also, we’re also suffering when we do that because I believe that we are all sparks of love and light, and, you know, we come into this world in love, and I believe we go out of this world in love and so I would say anger is a not love theme too for all of us, but it’s there to serve a purpose, I believe, as well. Anger shows us where we have some work to do on ourselves. Not where other people need to work on themselves or where other people need to heal something within us.
Victoria Volk
00:04:47 – 00:05:30
I think when anger comes up, it is like a stop sign like, woah, hold the bus. Why is this upsetting me? Why do I feel activated by you or this conversation or this thing you did or the feelings that I’m feeling, why am I feeling fired up inside? Why am I feeling passionate about this that, you know, it can come up as anger too when we feel like this injustice is being done or I mean, there’s plenty of that around the world right now, and we can feel angry about it. We can feel angry at God for the suffering that we experience in our lives, like I was for many years.
Victoria Volk
00:05:32 – 00:06:03
Why would God allow such, you know, things to happen. Why would God take a young child’s parent away? Why would God allow sexual abuse of children. There’s so many questions that come up within our grief and our trauma, and the anger can be so overwhelming and all consuming. We have nowhere to put it.
Victoria Volk
00:06:03 – 00:06:52
We don’t know what to do with it. And I can’t talk about anger without talking about STERBS or short term energy relieving behaviors, which is what we call them in grief recovery. These are things that we do as gravers to relieve or dispel this overwhelming build up of emotional energy that is caused by the death of a person for whom we are grieving or something someone did to us. And the problem with STERBs is that that’s their short-term. There’s no long-term relief when we just use up energy to distract ourselves from our pain.
Victoria Volk
00:06:53 – 00:07:23
It doesn’t make the pain go away. And one of the most common short-term relievers is anger. And the problem with anger is that you can never finish or complete it. It’s like this key it keeps looping like a hamster on a wheel. And the more time you spend using your energy to express the anger, you know, and lashing out to the other person or even taking it to the gym.
Victoria Volk
00:07:23 – 00:08:08
Right?, And just was going to town on a on a punching bag, the less time you spend on what would help you discover and resolve what was left emotionally unfinished for you, either by the death of a loved one or by not addressing what is really at the crux of whatever loss it is that you experienced. And the other issues, with STERBS, we can, you know, related to sterbs and anger is, you know, we want we wanna get rid of that anger. We don’t know what to do with it. We wanna get rid of it, but so what we do is we just kind of attempt to disassociate ourselves from it.
Victoria Volk
00:08:08 – 00:08:44
Like, I just need to get away from the situation. I just need to try and forget about it. And so we start, we might actually slip into these other these other emotions come into play. Right? And then we can feel depressed about where we are in our situation, and we might be sleeping more and spending endless hours watching TV or reading novels that help us escape from our day to day lives and our emotions that we’re experiencing such as strong emotions of anger and, of course, grief.
Victoria Volk
00:08:45 – 00:09:33
But those nonaction activities do nothing to help you discover and complete what is emotionally unfinished for you? It’s with action that you can turn things around. Being able to find the language and articulate what it is that you are angry about. And often, so often, anger shows us, and doing the the steps of grief recovery show us where we don’t have boundaries or where a boundary has been violated. Before we get on the topic of boundaries, I have a shout-out for my sponsor of this episode, Magic Mind.
Victoria Volk
00:09:33 – 00:10:15
You take it alongside your usual morning coffee or tea for 7 plus hours of flow. It benefits will build up with consecutive daily use, and most people feel 90% of the effects by day 3. And if you have a sensitive stomach, you can take it with a bit of food or a glass of water. And if matcha taste is not for you, you can try it with your favorite milk or add it to sparkling water. I personally enjoy the taste of Magic Mind, I think it’s got just a hint of a sweet taste in this little 2 ounce shot, but it’s filled with magical twelve active ingredients scientifically proven to provide sustainable energy, improve focus, and decrease stress and anxiety.
Victoria Volk
00:10:16 – 00:10:40
One shot gets you into your most productive flow state. Customers report a 40% boost to productivity on average. They say athletes have gatorade and now creators have creator aid. And so I just wanna give a shout out to them. And if you are listening to this and you wanna give it a try, they have a special promotion right now for my listeners only in January.
Victoria Volk
00:10:41 – 00:11:15
You get 1 month for free when you subscribe for 3 months at the go to the website, magicmind.com/jangrievingvoices. That’s magicmind.com/jangrievingvoices and use my code grieving voices, and that gets you an extra 20% off, which gets you to a total of 75% off. And remember, this only lasts until the end of January, so hurry up before this offer goes away. And I hope that you find it just as useful for you as I have in my morning routine. Alright.
Victoria Volk
00:11:15 – 00:11:52
Back to the episode and talking about boundaries. Alright. So far, we’ve talked about anger as being a stirr up, a short-term energy relieving behavior. And I’ve mentioned how when anger arises within ourselves and we feel it coming up in our body and rising up, it’s usually in response to something someone did or something someone said or something that we’re really activated by. It could be something even we’re passionate about, maybe even in injustice in the world, and when we feel this coming up within us, it’s coming up for to be in within our awareness.
Victoria Volk
00:11:53 – 00:13:31
And, really, the question we could be asking ourselves when we are feeling anger is, a, what must be protected, and b, What must be restored? These are two questions you can ask yourself when you’re feeling activated with anger. And you can choose to either respond to the other person if they’ve said or done something towards you, but really that’s not going to resolve anything that will probably make that other person just feel defensive and, you know, unless they’re emotionally intelligent and have worked so much on themselves and have addressed so much anger in their life, they’re likely to respond like most of society would respond, and that would be in a defensive pattern, with probably more anger back towards you. And then not only is it something that you’re angry about what they just said or did, but now It’s even severed that relationship or hindered or wounded that relationship even more. So we deepen these wounds when we don’t stop long enough to think about and have some introspection about why we’re angry and what is it that is bringing up so much disease within us, this fiery response that we feel in every cell of our our bodies that, you know, we feel like we just gotta punch something or we want to we have to like we have to do something with this activated energy.
Victoria Volk
00:13:32 – 00:14:24
And so we can either move it physically or you can move it with your mind. Right?, like, energetically. Like, I’ve learned a lot about this just in the energetics of emotions and The energy healing work that I’ve been doing and for my personal my own personal emotional hygiene is we can our minds are amazing, miraculous things and a tool that is sorely underestimated, but because we give it so much power that in circumstances like these when we’re feeling angry and it’s like poop, the monkey mind just takes over and we have this initial response and we don’t pause long enough to and we don’t pause long enough to check-in with our emotional body. And it is our emotional body responding to, like I said, these a boundary or something that needs to be protected or something that needs to be restored.
Victoria Volk
00:14:24 – 00:15:15
And so asking ourselves those questions can lead us to better answers. And so if you want to you can either physically move that energy with your mind or your body and then through your breath, which is underestimated as well. Like, we can you can take your your mind through this mental process of putting imagine when you feel activated by someone or something, imagine this fiery energy just surrounding you. Feel feel imagine yourself as like this flame and allowing it to intensify, allowing those emotions to intensify this flame that you’re feeling, it seems counterintuitive, but just stay with me. So you feel this energy building up and this the fire within you and this boundary fire.
Victoria Volk
00:15:15 – 00:15:31
Right? Like, it let’s let’s think of it as active energy. Right? Because again, what needs to be protected? There’s something within you that is being activated because there’s a boundary being dishonored in some way.
Victoria Volk
00:15:31 – 00:15:52
You know, maybe it was you’re bound you’re maybe you value honesty, and this person just lied to you. That’s gonna activate some anger within you, don’t you think? Like, if that’s a real high value for you. And the thing is honesty, and we talk about this in Youmap when we talk about values. Honesty is a reciprocal value.
Victoria Volk
00:15:52 – 00:16:20
We expect that other people are going to be honest. It’s a typical reciprocal value, and so when others aren’t honest with us, we get activated with anger. And so a response to that could be not spewing anger back at the person, but taking that energy and letting it just kinda rise up within you, see your energy field putting up this protective. This protective wall. Not a wall.
Victoria Volk
00:16:22 – 00:16:46
Barrier. We’ll call it a barrier. Protective barrier around you. And see that energy building up, and then you can do it in your mind, or you can really walk away from the situation and do this or reflect on it later and do this on the situation. But through your breath, put out that fire.
Victoria Volk
00:16:46 – 00:17:08
Like, imagine you’re, like, spitting water on this fire, And you can literally dissolve that anger that you felt in that moment that is built up within you, that you’re feeling this energy. Put it out with your breath, but imagine that breath as water because what does oxygen do? It stokes a fire. Right? We wanna put it out.
Victoria Volk
00:17:08 – 00:17:53
So imagine you’re just blowing water onto this fire, this flame. It’s crazy how these visualizations can shift your energetic body in a matter of moments. The mind is so capable that we underestimate it so much. A visual I use a lot of visualizations in the energy work that I do just because it helps people connect to a part of themselves they don’t normally connect to. We just don’t take that, and that’s where meditation is huge in disconnecting, you know, our monkey mind from our body and tapping into the body and tapping into the emotional body.
Victoria Volk
00:17:54 – 00:18:48
So then after we’ve done this, we can then recognize what are the boundaries that were being violated we’re dishonored. I think it’s so hard for people to articulate what their boundaries are because so many of us grew up without our autonomy, without our boundaries being respected, for example, let’s say you’re at a family function. Let’s say when you were a kid, you’re at a family function, and I see this I’ve seen this myself a lot. And at first, I did this when my kids were young too. Oh, give so and so a hug, or let grandma give you a hug and kiss on the cheek, or whatever the case was, and they didn’t want that physical touch in that moment and said no, or I don’t want to give grandma a hug, or I don’t want to give my uncle a hug, or aunt, or whoever it is, it doesn’t matter.
Victoria Volk
00:18:49 – 00:19:15
And the child says no, and the parent dishonors that no, and makes them do that anyway, that is a violation of a boundary that a child had and where their no wasn’t respected. Now if you’re listening to this and you’re like, oh my gosh. This happened to me all the time Think about if you’re a parent, have you done this? Like, this is something we learn.
Victoria Volk
00:19:15 – 00:19:50
Right? This is a pattern that we continue through time, but we don’t think of these things as laying a foundation of not respecting our own boundaries. So then you become an adult who becomes a people pleaser to make others so others feel better. So it’s almost as if, well, go give grandma a hug now because she’ll feel better. She’ll be happier, regardless of how you feel about it.
Victoria Volk
00:19:50 – 00:20:21
Now how does this translate as an adult? Saying yes when you mean no. It’s a violation of your own boundary of protecting your personal space. And sometimes you might feel just fine giving the hug or showing the other person affection, but maybe there’s a moment where you don’t. The last thing anybody wants is to be forced to do so and to not have our no respected.
Victoria Volk
00:20:22 – 00:21:21
And so then when you think about sexual abuse or things like that, well, that’s a definite violation of personal space and safety and all of these other things that create these traumatic emotional wounds around boundaries. So many of us don’t wouldn’t know a boundary if it slapped us in the face. And then when we have others in our lives who start having this awareness around boundaries, who know themselves well, and who know their needs and desires and where they draw the line well and start implementing boundaries to others and communicating those, what do you think people are met with boundaries? Or when it’s perceived as well, what’s this change about? Like, what when you start Implementing boundaries in your life?
Victoria Volk
00:21:21 – 00:21:30
You’re gonna have people that are gonna be activated by that. Right? You’re changed. There’s something different. I don’t like this.
Victoria Volk
00:21:31 – 00:21:58
Why aren’t you letting me walk all over you like you used to? Right? I used to be able to control you, and now, you have these boundaries and now you’re standing up for yourself and I don’t know what to do with this. This makes me angry. So we can meet anger too just by creating boundaries, and how are we gonna be prepared for that?
Victoria Volk
00:21:59 – 00:22:42
When it comes to boundaries, I highly recommend The book “Boundaries”, I’ve actually it’s been several years since I’ve read it, but, I think I’m going to actually, read it again. I actually, I read it after I went through grief recovery. Because like I said, it’s a great follow-up to grief recovery because you realize in grief recovery where you did not have boundaries and where your parents did not teach you about boundaries because, you know, they probably didn’t even have their own. Right? It’s like, you know, parents with a date night if parents never have a date night, and they’re always with their children 247.
Victoria Volk
00:22:42 – 00:22:55
And then, all of a sudden, they decide they’re gonna have a date night. What do you think that child’s gonna feel? Maybe some anger? Maybe some abandonment. Like, why are you doing this now?
Victoria Volk
00:22:55 – 00:23:14
I want you to stay with me. You’ve always been with me. Now all of a sudden you’re gonna go out and you’re gonna spend time alone, and I’m gonna be here by myself or with this babysitter, and it’s probably gonna bring him some anger. But that’s a good thing. This is how we learn how to work with our emotions, that all emotions are valid.
Victoria Volk
00:23:14 – 00:23:49
So it’s not to say to the child, well, there’s nothing to be angry about, and dismiss the anger. Rather, explain to the child about boundaries. Rather, teach the child how to breathe through their anger, how to channel it physically or, you know, with their breath or physically with their body to rid themselves of that energy. These are practical things that we just are never taught in school. Right?
Victoria Volk
00:23:49 – 00:24:11
About boundaries, about anger, about our emotions. I mean, we are so complex when it comes to our emotions. This stuff isn’t taught in school. So I hope you check into the resource, the book boundaries. It has a little bit of a Christian spin, but it’s not like shoved down your throat or anything.
Victoria Volk
00:24:12 – 00:25:28
But I hope you check out that book Boundaries., I will link to it in the show notes. And Just one final thought about anger is that and just like grief, you cannot relate to another person, if you don’t know who you are or where you began and that other person ends, just as you cannot nurture peace or honor the needs of others until you understand and meet your own needs. And that relates to anger, that relates to grief, and that relates to just any emotion that you’re experiencing and the boundaries that you may or may not have. And I think that’s been I think that’s one of my missions too, along with changing the conversation around grief and talking about it like we talk about the weather is the mission of knowing yourself, understanding yourself, and putting yourself in the way of resources and people and tools and maybe guides or therapists or modalities that can get you closer to knowing yourself, identifying your emotional climate when it comes up, whether it be, well, this is grief, or this is anger, and what do you do with it?
Victoria Volk
00:25:28 – 00:25:54
You know, you can run away from it. It’s gonna come up eventually, or you can just you can face it. You can address it, and you can do something about it. So it doesn’t impact your life moving forward, because how many times have you had an anger outburst or an interaction with somebody that it left you feeling angry after. And you’re thinking about it days later.
Victoria Volk
00:25:54 – 00:26:19
Days later. That’s no good for you. That’s no good for anybody. You know, so then you have these this emotional incompleteness with this other person now, and it’s almost like this contract of anger that you have with this person, and I’m here to say that you can blow that up. You can do something about it without having to confront them.
Victoria Volk
00:26:20 – 00:26:35
And you can do it with your mind. You can do it with visualization. You can do it with writing and burn it. There are ways we can physically move through the emotions that are there for a reason. They are there communicating with you.
Victoria Volk
00:26:35 – 00:27:12
It is your body communicating with you, whether it’s grief, whether it’s anger, joy, sadness, everything in between. There are resource resources out there. You just gotta look for them and be open to learning. And that’s what I will leave you with today. I hope you are curious now about the book “Boundaries” and about what boundaries might you not have and might you need and learning more about, you know, really just emotional equilibrium.
Victoria Volk
00:27:13 – 00:27:56
Right? It’s not about stuffing down, controlling, or disregarding or minimizing or running away from, you know, we faith when you face this stuff as it arises, not like, oh, I’ll deal with that later once I get this, that, and the other thing done, or I’ll deal with that later once I just sit down and have a drink. That’s not gonna help you, my friend. Your mind is a miraculous tool and a thing that I think most of us waste in a lot of ways. So, yeah, I’m just sharing some things that I’ve learned along the way, and I hope you find it helpful.
Victoria Volk
00:27:56 – 00:28:25
And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.