Educational, Grief Tips, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Life with Human Design, Pespective, Podcast, Resources |
Amy Douglas | The Manifestation of Grief Through Our Human Design
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Amy joins me for a second recording, and this time, we’re digging into the energy centers of the Human Design tool.
According to MyHumanDesign.com, where you can discover your Human Design, it’s a roadmap for living your life. It can teach you to recognize that not all advice is the best advice for you. Additionally, Human Design can help you realize your innate gifts and traits to embrace who you came into this life to be.
Like all tools, it’s information, and what you do with it, if anything, is entirely up to you. Information is just knowledge. However, applied knowledge is wisdom.
Human Design has personally helped bring to my awareness my blind spots, areas of relationships, and my being that I couldn’t see from an outside perspective because I wasn’t aware of them until Human Design helped me realize them. Do you see how this tool can be the mirror you’ve been looking for? Or perhaps your spleen is running the show, and you’re too afraid to look?
In today’s episode, you will learn, head to root, about the 9 Human Design Energy Centers and how grief often manifests and shows up in these energy centers, whether you have been defined (colored in) or undefined (white).
Before listening, and only if this resonates or you’re curious (listen to your HD authority on that), go to www.mybodygraph.com first to get your Human Design body graph, then hit play and prepare yourself for some a-ha moments, friends!
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
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If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. If this is your first time listening, thank you for joining me and my guests today. And if you’ve listened before, thank you for tuning back in. And actually, if you listened before, you may have heard my guest today, she appeared on episode one sixty four, which aired on ten seventeen, twenty three, from betrayal and loss to manifesting joy. And today, we’re gonna dive deep into human design, and I’m so excited for this conversation because I wanted to be able to provide listeners who are curious and interested in learning their human design what that means for them and apply it to grief because that’s really what this podcast is about. And so that you can have another tool in your toolbox for information and knowing yourself. And I think that’s really my personal mission for myself for several years now since probably twenty fourteen. And I’m all about any tool that helps me to better understand myself, my tendencies, how I’m wired, how I show up in the world, where I might falter, what my my blind spots might be. Right? It’s information and we can’t change something we don’t know or acknowledge. Right? Isn’t that what Dr. Phil says? We can’t change what we don’t acknowledge. So anyway, thank you so much for coming back to the podcast. And I’m excited to dive in. So let’s do it.
Amy Douglas: Yes. I’m so happy to be here again and talking about subject obviously that’s very near and dear to my heart. I see so much to be offered to your listeners, to the collective, to anyone who is ready to take a deep dive into their own personal journey. And while if you’ve listened to the episode, that we aired together on the seventeenth of October I shared parts of my journey that has led to different periods of time where I’ve experienced, grief and trauma and loss and just and I think once I really shined the spotlight on myself, you know, when you’re going through things, I I can only speak to you, Victoria, and your listeners about my personal experiences. Of course, I can with any clients I’ve worked with as well. But my journey is the most the one that I can be the most vulnerable and authentic in sharing. And I think there were a lot of years where I would project what was happening in my life onto someone else or something else like, there was very much a very conditional cause and effect of how I was operating in the way that I was allowing myself to experience life. And I think it’s a those words are important allowing myself because we all get to choose how we are experiencing life. And until we empower ourselves to create awareness on what we’re doing, wow, blame, and projection, and all that seems pretty simple. But when you turn and put the focus on yourself, and say, alright, what role am I playing and what’s going on? And I think that was a huge catalyst in twenty sixteen for myself of what I started doing. I was just like, alright. I can only control. And again, anytime I use that word, it is in the highest vibration because as I shared control as a manifestor is one of the four core wounds. So I don’t wanna be controlling and I don’t wanna be controlled, but controlling this scenario is I am only responsible for my actions, my beliefs, and how I am choosing to be. And when I brought human design; well, when it came to me and I was ready to allow myself to dig into it, it shined so much of that spotlight on how I was allowing myself to show up in the world. And because my belief system is we choose this for ourselves before we’re even brought into the world, I could see where I was not empowering myself to align with what I chose. And that can really hold energy in the body, the body graph is very much about the body. And grief can be held in a lot of areas if you’re not aware. And so the gift is once you become aware, then you get to do something about it and you can no longer be unaware.
Victoria Volk: Mhmm. And I think that’s where the challenge is and the fear is for a lot of people to do really deep introspection and reflection work because you can feel powerless and you can feel like you don’t have a choice. But then once you realize you do, not doing anything is a choice too. Right?
Amy Douglas: So, yes. Yeah. Oh, yes. Anytime somebody tells me I’m stuck, and please, there’s no disrespect for you. I’m not diluting what anyone is experiencing. But stuck is also a choice. Mhmm. Right? And so it and it’s okay if you’re choosing that, but let’s just not choose it forever. Right? Let’s really tune ourselves to what we can do for ourselves. And I think oftentimes we look outside of ourselves. For other people? Are there systems? Are there something? Are there to quote unquote fix? And while I am happy to have as many tools in my tool belt toolbox as there possibly can be, it really starts with me. It’s always me versus me. And so, human design just gave me language to where I could look, for how I might not be an alignment for what I chose for myself, which in the world of grief, can be, where am I not letting myself deal and process or where am I inviting myself to escape from? One of the gates has the potential for addiction.
Amy Douglas: And so that’s very real if you’ve something traumatic and you don’t wanna feel it and you don’t wanna deal with it. I have some of the energy in my design because I shared in the last episode I’m a thirty five year recovering binge eater. That was my go to. I do. I have that activation in my design. So it’s almost affirming. Okay. I’m not, it’s like, okay, I see where this shows up. But now that I know when I get activated by something, I then have I have power to choose what I do with that because it’s and I almost I’ve done it so much of my work. It’s like, I almost laugh at it now, like, there you are again.
Victoria Volk: And that’s gate thirty-five with addiction.
Amy Douglas: Well, gate twenty-four is the addiction gate. That’s ashna. Yeah. And it’s a processing thing. It’s like, oh my gosh, there’s so much mental processing in the ashna. That’s one of the center of the nine centers in the human design body graph. And that I must make sense of this. I must do this. There’s something that has to be done. It’s an awareness center. Awareness centers do not mean that you have to do. It is about being aware. And so if you’re tired of not knowing what to do about it, does that constant spinning, then we see sometimes people choosing to numb out from it. Right? And that’s very real. So there’s no shame in it, but the awareness is important of it. Because I’ve heard so many times from all the beautiful people in my life that I’ve been able to work with, they’ll say something like, again, I’m not diluting this, but something was modeled for them. My dad was an alcoholic. Such and such was this and this. And so they feel like because that was modeled, that’s what they chose. But when I can show them that there’s actually something in their charts, get all of a sudden, they feel like, okay, then it’s something that I can manage and navigate. And that feels different than what has been conditioned upon us. Because conditioning happens from everything outside of us, all of our experiences, everything we witness hear, see, feel, all of those things. And while there’s a lot of gifts and a lot of that, it also shows us and tells us how we’re supposed to be or what we’re supposed to be doing, and we actually get to navigate that for ourselves. We’re all so incredibly unique.
Victoria Volk: And that can be that’s where the those belief systems come in. Right? Like, I believe that I must be destined for this life because that’s what always been. Like, my father, my grandfather, my great grandfather, they were all alcoholics. So I must this must just be just part of the ancestral pattern that continues. Right? And I wanna come back to something you mentioned with the Ashna, the head center, like the hamster on the wheel, the spinning energy.
Amy Douglas: Yes.
Victoria Volk: Just in biofuel tuning, that often shows up on the other, depending on which side of the head it’s on, the spinning, the masculine or the feminine, the right to the left, people generally can have hip issues on the opposite side. So the spinning, that spinning pattern can show up as this energy of manifesting itself in the hips. So I just wanted to share that briefly too. That biofuel is connected.
Amy Douglas: Everything is connected. I had biofuel tuning done for the first time when I was in Costa Rica doing my human design reader training, which was magical. And I was blown away by that experience. And boy, you were spot on. You were beacon right to me when you shared that because I do. I carry a lot of that in my hips. And she spent a lot of time with me. And then, of course, I was so what’s the word I wanna use? Naive. I was like, oh my god. I feel fantastic. Like, this is great. Like, I’m so grateful for you. I think I joked not even knowing that I was joking that I was fit and she just kinda laughed at me. She’s like, so this was just one sis.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. Exactly.
Amy Douglas: You’re gonna go back to your ways and it’s all gonna be what but it just it was really it was very enlightening and so brilliantly, Orca’s rated for me to learn more about myself. So, yeah, that modality is no joke. Very powerful.
Victoria Volk: And it’s all about science too, which I geek out on. When people are looking for their at their human design, which they can get at mybodygraph.com, then I’ll put a link in the show notes. When they’re first looking at their body graph for me too, like, I think I looked into it maybe over a year ago and it was a lot. It’s overwhelming. It’s like, okay.
well, great that’s I’m a manifestor. So what? You know? But I think what I’ve uncovered as I’ve been diving back into it recently, is how it’s impacted my relationships, like learning about how my design rubs up against others people’s design. Right? Like, how we show up in relationships. That has been a like, that’s been, like, mind-blowing for me to have certain awarenesses. Around my energy of, what’s the word, initiating others, and the impact that can have and not really understanding that power that my energy holds. Two, and how as a manifestor, like yourself, how this aura that we have, it’s not easily penetrated and which explains why my circle has is very small. Right? Like, I surround myself with, like, small quality relationships rather than quantity. So I’ve been personally learning a lot, which has been what which has been really fun. And it really is an experiment. Right? It’s an experiment. Like, once you know this stuff, like, experimenting with it and seeing how it shows up. So someone, I’ll shut up now, looking at their human design. What are some areas that you can you speak to the different energy centers, whether they’re defined or undefined and how that relates to grief?
Amy Douglas: Yes. Yes. So there are nine different centers. So everybody has a body graph that holds nine centers. What’s different and unique is what your activations are and what that means is if you have certain things quote unquote lit up or defined, there’s color to them in your design. And so of the nine centers, each one holds us very specific energy within it. And I love to get people really in tune with the energy that’s offered in each of the centers. If that’s something that you’re just wanting to take on and get just your beat wet with. That’s a really good place to just kinda start understanding it because language can be used that you understand. So we’ll just stop start at the top of the house, the head center. The head center is a pressure center, and it’s a very curious center. Whether you’re defined or not. If you’re defined, you’re very you have consistent clear access to the energy in that center, and this is where inspiration and our questions come from. And so I want you to think, you, Victoria, have it defined. I do not. So oftentimes, you don’t necessarily need to pay. You’re not observing necessarily what’s going on outside of you and how this speaks to grief, where I am very attuned to what’s going on in my world because it’s where I get inspired. Your inspiration comes from within you.
Amy Douglas: So I want you to hear how grief can get trapped. This is, again, my perspective, this is not the law each person. That’s what I love about design. It’s your own experiment. It’s your own experience. But the way that I see grief can get trapped here or that you can present with it is, again, it’s this I must like, I have all these questions. And for you, you’re stuck in your own sense of questioning, and there’s a loop that happens. And for me, it’s like, everybody else must know the answer to this. Everybody else, it’s so either you’re looking outside or you’re trapped within. And that’s kind of where grief can sit there. And this is going to be a pattern you’re going to hear as I go through these nine. So then we’ll move down to the ashna.
Amy Douglas: The ashna is the center that answers the questions that come in the head and it’s an awareness center. So it’s not the same pressure that’s in the head. I must do the thing. I must get the answer. This is oh, I must conceptualize everything that’s coming through. You, Victoria, have it defined. I do not. So you’re just spinning with concept realizing, you know, like, why do I have this Greek? Why is it still here? What does this mean to me? Why can’t I move past it? And I’m pretending to be certain about, well, this is why and this is what I to do. Right? Like there’s I’m kind of, like, glossing over it, not letting myself sit with it as much. And the awareness of it, I’m not sure what the hell to do with it. That’s that’s just through truth, and you know what to do with it. And yet, what you’re doing with could be on a spin cycle. It could be that energy of stuckness. Okay?
Victoria Volk: Is this where that pollyanna kind of Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Amy Douglas: Yeah. So then the throat center, is our manifestation centers, our communication centers, how we let out what’s going on in our body to the rest of the world to know what’s happening. This is such an important center as it relates to grief. So whether you’re defined or undefined. Defined we often have a very consistent way of our articulating what we’re experiencing. As manifestors, sometimes it’s gonna come out as anger, especially when we’re misaligned. And so just watch out for that. We don’t It’s not personal. Right? And especially if we have emotional authority, and I’m talking layers on, you hear some conditions to this, but it’s just there are layers to this system. I’m trying to make it just really user friendly and digestible.
Amy Douglas: But if someone has this undefined, they are great speaking on behalf of others, but this is really important to empower yourself that it’s safe to share. Find the platform. For me personally, with my design, I want to process it myself a lot before I’ll let someone else in and whom very much to your point, we keep a very small circle of Victoria and that’s okay. It’s okay. It’s important. It’s how we protect ourselves. And that’s our unique, org type as a manifestor. A manifesting generator would have a million people they’re gonna talk to it. Right? There’s just like the more the merrier, right, type of thing. So there are layers to helping you identify how you can empower yourself to move that energy, that emotion out of your beautiful communication center to allow you because oftentimes what happens is when we hear it come out We’re like, we can then have an opportunity to have a reflection. No different when we’re sharing it with someone else. It empowers them to have an objective perspective. So really choose wisely. Right? You don’t want someone that’s trying to manipulate your situation. Oh, you just need to get over it. That is not the person that you wanna share this with.
Victoria Volk: So can I ask quickly then, is that is that the splenic? Speaking, because, you know, the very emotional. I’m an emotional authority. You’re an emotional authority. So when we hear, you should just get over it. Is that a splenic authority speaking? With the deep mind, throat or not necessarily?
Amy Douglas: I think it’s just somebody who’s deeply conditioned and it’s not okay to speak your truth and what you’re going through. And so I don’t want to because someone who’s splenic could also just be such a beautiful presence for them to reflect something back to you. In a very safe space container, splenic authority, people are just like super in the moment, but they’re not gonna be someone that’s gonna necessarily spout out something that could potentially be just like limiting. That feels limiting. Just get over. It feels very limiting. Like, you’re not even giving me the space. To want to share what I’m experiencing. So I don’t wanna label it as because I’m sharing that that feels hard and harsh. Right? And that design our designs have the opportunity to have low vibe and high vibe. That’s just all there is to it. And so while someone could express it either way. I don’t wanna put parameters necessarily around, you know, where the definition is.
Victoria Volk: That makes sense. I almost I almost feel like a splenic. It would be it’s almost like they’re almost the type that they may not speak all the time or they may not be the one that’s always talking, but yet when they talk, people listen.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Definitely. And again, the worst thing we can do for someone that does have splenic authority is ask them, are you sure? Because it’s so in the moment. And you and I who have emotional authority asking us, are we sure? It’s kind of like a joke. Well, hell, I don’t know. This is just kind of how I feel. It feels really real really I feel really sure about it at the moment, but let’s check back with me. That’s why we say there’s no truth in the now. But it feels very true for us in the moment. So that communication center is so important. Now, if you have this undefined, it’s important to surround yourself with people that will give you the spaciousness to not limit how long it takes you to get to what you’re wanting to share. You and I, Victoria versus Saint. We’re probably gonna whip it out in no time. But someone that has an undefined throat has a lot that they’re they may, you know, come around and dance around it a little bit and then come back. And that’s okay and it’s beautiful. But again, it’s really empowering yourself just surround yourself with someone that is aligned to listen to what you’re allowing yourself to get out. And then you’re gonna have aha’s from it. And if you have that safe trusted person, they’re gonna have some really, you know, deep reflections for you. That’s why talk therapy, coaching scenarios, that kind of thing, helps you I can’t see inside my own glass. So journaling, inviting myself to audio, you know, file what I’m going through, helps me see it, but it’s still my glass letting someone else help shine the light on what I’m experiencing is so important. Such a big piece of releasing grief. Right?
Victoria Volk: Oh, that was good. Okay.
Amy Douglas: G Center. G Center is all about your sense of direction, sense of who you are, where you’re going. And grief here can be trapped in I don’t know who I am now that I don’t have this person in my life or I’ve had this, loss or breakup or fill in the blank with whatever it is, and I’m lost without them. And I do not have a defined g center nor do you Victoria and we’re kind of meant to quote unquote feel lost. And that’s okay because it, there are breadcrumbs that lead us to the next thing that we’re meant to experience. But this is where we could get locked into that cycle of, like, oh my gosh, I can’t exist now. I can’t do this, and that is so not true. It’s just It’s not true. It’s a story we’re telling ourselves. And so when we you start to hear that kind of thing, it’s like, oh, okay. And then for someone that might have it defined who’s always been on a certain path and always know who they are and express themselves that way, and then they get jolted out of that reality they could be in a spin cycle too because now they don’t have their own sense of self. And this is where I’m gonna come back to. This is the deep self-work that is necessary. Like, I know who I am. I know where I’m going. I love myself. Those are the things that come out of that beautiful G center. So really inviting yourself to connect back to that and whatever practice feels the mind for you. Then we move on to the beautiful, powerful, heart center, The heart center one would think this is where holds all of our emotions. No. This is our will power. And this is our enoughness. I like to call the enoughness center. And so just think about that. I mean, we could just put a pin in it right there.
Amy Douglas: If you already are experiencing something in your life that is emtronic or whether it’s loss, whether it is just anything that just feels really, really hard. Somebody that doesn’t have this defined like me, Victoria, you do. My go to is, well, I wasn’t worthy of it or I didn’t deserve it or I’m not enough type of energy. I must prove myself for that to be my thing. And that could be a really shitty spin cycle. For someone who’s experiencing grief and trauma and trying to move through something, where for you that has it defined. You could go in a bit of a spin cycle too of this is not what I wanted for myself. This is not what I desired. How did I allow this to happen? Right? Like, it’s that control thing. There’s a lot of control, energy, controlling of resources, that kind of thing, controlling of my community in the heart center. And so if you feel out of control of it for someone who has that defined, you can start telling yourself stories with that too. And I hope what everybody’s hearing, I’m here now in the fifth of nine centers. Again, so much is this of you. What you’re empowering yourself to believe about yourself. And guess what the gift of that is, the only work that has to be done is on you because we cannot control anything around us. We cannot control the media, which I don’t even listen to. I’m not even on social media hardly ever. So that I mean, and I would we could have a whole episode on what those things do to get trapped in someone’s body.
Amy Douglas: So if you wanna start somewhere, shut that shit off in your life. And allow yourself to be with you, period. My sister, my oldest sister, who’s a splenic manifestor, just went on a seven night silent retreat. To shine the light on herself for what she’s like, I’m fifty six. I’m done with this. I’m gonna work on it. And I gave her some little pointers, which was fun, but it’s important that we give ourselves the spaciousness to focus on ourselves And so with every center I’m going through, I want you to hear this is what you can do for you. I want so many of your of the anybody that’s willing to listen to understand this work can be done on yourself to heal. It’s so important. And so while we look outside of ourselves a lot, when you shine the light within, it’s important that we give ourselves the spaciousness to do that.
Amy Douglas: Then we move on to the emotional solar plexus, such a fun center. Fifty one percent of the population has this defined, so you’re either defined. Or you’re with somebody around somebody that’s not. Right? So this is where all those emotions and those feelings and those moods and just it could be very a very tumultuous center. It’s packs a punch for sure. And so what I wanna say here is, first and foremost, if you’re defined, I want you to celebrate it. I definitely resisted celebrating it because you are wired and mechanically built to process your emotions. You are built for this. If it is undefined, it doesn’t mean you’re not built for this. What I want you to do first and foremost is to check-in with yourself if the emotions that you’re feeling are even yours. Because when you’re undefined in the sender, you are feeling it. The magnitude of it is amplified by anyone around you that does have it defined. So think about a grief cycle if there’s a loss in the family. And you’re the only one that doesn’t have that center defined. And that people around you are processing their emotions. They’re spitting them out, sharing them, that kind of thing. And you’re it doesn’t feel safe for you to do that. But then you’re feeling the emotions of everyone else amplified.
Amy Douglas: I have a perfect example of this I shared in the last episode that my beautiful sister’s husband passed away right after my dad did and her precious at the time sixteen year old daughter was the one that found her dad in the shower gone, lesser heart. And this precious my beautiful precious niece has, really had a road to go of because she was and her daddy was everything. Right? And she is the only one in her little immediate family that has a defined solar plexus. My sister and her son. So, my niece’s brother do not have a defined solar plexus. Okay? So every time something was happening in her life and what she was experiencing when she was going to express it. My beautiful sister was there just holding her with it. But my sister was amplifying what she was experiencing and her daughter felt as though she had to comfort her own mom Right? Because it was just like it was so much for my sister. And because we are built to navigate it, then we kind of take over the soothing and comforting.
Amy Douglas: And so another way for you to look at and shine a light on how am I moving through my emotions. Am I sure that they’re mine? Am I taking on that of others? Wow, in a grief scenario, I mean, if we could shine like there’s two centers and that I want to touch on, and this one is a huge one that to do with feelings and moods and emotions and what you’re going through. So knowing this could be a huge catalyst for how you allow yourself to process what you’re going through. And there are so many ways to allow yourself to move through it, is the awareness alone is gonna be really key.
Victoria Volk: Do I have it defined?
Amy Douglas: You too. Yeah. Because that’s what makes this that makes this emotional. Yeah. We have that beautiful thirty-five, thirty six.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. So I mean, what you’re saying in a nutshell is those that have it defined become the emotional caretakers?
Amy Douglas: Because we’re kind of built for it. But then but then can you imagine the person who does it and what they’re feeling they’re feeling it like on steroids. And it’s not like those of us aren’t feeling it that way too. I’m not trying to minimize it, but we’re mechanically built to allow ourselves to process it. And someone that doesn’t, they’re not consistently wired to process it, and then they’re feeling the impact of everybody else around them that is consistently wired. So then they’re like, it’s really important to identify. Is this mine? Must I carry this? Or can I lovingly put it on that soft little fluffy cloud and let it move on by? And then I can sit with and be me again. And so it’s like allowing yourself to truly physically move out at the energetic space of those that have it defined so that you can check back in with yourself. Am I okay? Is this mind to carry? Is this mind to process? Do I have to do anything with this? Because you don’t. And by the way, those are how this undefined, this solar plexus undefined, you really avoid conflict and confrontation anyway and sometimes truth because it’s hard. You don’t like, well, what do I do with it? Where those of us haven’t defined aligned, deconditioned. We’re like, I’m hitting this head on. Right? Mhmm. And I avoided this. You guys I’m not trying to make this sound so simple. I avoided my emotions for years. I stepped it down with foods deliciously so I didn’t have to deal with it. And I’m grateful that that was a tool I had in my tool built to provide me comfort. And now I want to do it in a way that feels so much more empowering and not filled with guilt and shame because anybody that has had an eating, a challenge, a challenging relationship with eating and food, don’t want to feel shame or what they choose to feel their body with. Right? So it’s there’s a lot of letting go there as well. I had a lot of grief of letting go of my relationship with food, for sure, because it had been such a tool I’d use to comfort myself for so long, so then it’s like crap, what do I use now?
Victoria Volk: Well, and look at where the the solar plexus is. Right? Yeah. The whole gastro into
Amy Douglas: Oh yes,
Victoria Volk: It’s a little stomach. Like, you know, the organs that are there. Right?
Amy Douglas: Yes.
Victoria Volk: Yes. Is this where is this the center where we see projection manifest too? Is this word
Amy Douglas: Say more?
Victoria Volk: So, like, if I’m projecting my feelings onto other people.
Amy Douglas: Oh, yeah.
Victoria Volk: Is this word that coming from. And is that Yes. More app to be someone who’s defined as undefined? Okay. Yes.
Amy Douglas: Yes. Yeah. Because undefined is just kinda, like, like, I’ll have my undefined people in my life reach out to me and they’ll be like, are you feeling? How are you feeling today? Even my son who is also defined, but our designs are so similar. He’ll, like, send me a text. Mama, how are you feeling today? Anything going on? Because he’s because we, like, channel each other’s. My daughter, my son and I, we channeled each other stuff. My son was nauseous, like the whole time my daughter was pregnant. It’s just like you can’t make this stuff up. And so he’s just checking in. Even though all three of us are emotionally defined, we can still feel that. It’s just we have a more consistent way to process it especially once we’re more aware. That’s that’s the key. Right? Awareness
Victoria Volk: Can I ask to like, is this where someone would think that they might be highly sensitive? Or
Amy Douglas: Yes. Like, empathic. Empathic. Yes.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. So Okay.
Amy Douglas: So highly sensitive empath typically equals not defined. Right? Because the theory although, I would say, I’m very sensitive. I’m quite seasoned.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. I think. Yeah. That’s why I’m asking
Amy Douglas: I would say that I’m definitely an empath. Hello? I’m here. I’m a healer. I’m here to help others. I know that. And yet, of course, I am because I’m not so depleted. Because I have the consistent, you know, way of allowing myself to process it. Now, it took practice of, please, if you’re listening to your I did not feel that way, neither did I in the beginning.
Victoria Volk: I didn’t either.
Amy Douglas: Right. It took practice. But the person who has this undefined is just like, and they feel it and they take it on and it can manifest as things in their body for sure. Like, adrenals can just be go shot. And it’s just it’s important to really check-in on, is this yours to carry or not? And I really empowered myself to create a practice when I was done with the client session of just it’s this isn’t mine. I’m gonna send them some energetic love. They are fully equipped to handle this and move through this. And I’m here to support them, but it is not mine to carry going forward because they were in the beginning, I definitely carried it. Definitely carried it.
Amy Douglas: Okay. A beautiful sacral center. So seventy percent of the population has this defined. Victoria and I do not. Okay. So this is a powerhouse. This is the life force energy, the generational, let’s go go go type of thing. I can do the thing. And so someone that has this defined, which is likely, the dominating, parts of your listenership. I mean, that’s just, the population, that’s how it is. They often where how grief can set with them is I shouldn’t be still dealing with this. Right? Like, I must do the thing to move through it. This is where escapism can often set in. From my perspective, this is what I have witnessed, and I shared very briefly, but my partner lost his son in twenty one, his middle son, to an ATV accident at the young age of twenty. And my partner has a defined sacral. And so you kinda just wanna go and do just do. Just use that energy, do do do. And my invitation for someone is while I want you to move through, but I don’t want you to escape from it. And so just really checking in with, am I using this energy, this fuel to my highest good? Am I using this in a healthy way? And those of us that don’t have it defined, it’s this feeling of, I’m not doing enough. Another enough center. And so just checking in. I’m moving through what I’m experiencing at my pace and it’s beautiful. And then for the person that has the equipped energy, are we trying to escape from anything here? And am I just constantly being busy? So I don’t have to deal with this. And I would say, I showed up on my life as a manifesting generator until I knew. I was very conditioned to show up that way. And this is exactly I dismissed my emotions and I just stayed busy. Because if I stayed busy, I didn’t have to deal with it. Right? And so I was very misaligned with how I was using, you know, my beautiful design.
Amy Douglas: Okay. The spleen, we touched a little bit on, but this is that second center that can really, really impact how you’re processing and empowering yourself to move through grief because the spleen is a primal instinct. It’s your health. It’s your well-being. It’s what must I do to survive? And the spleen is with the area that we tend to hold on to things that are no longer serving us. So I want you to think about this from the perspective of if you’re holding on to the light that you had before the traumatic experience occurred, then you’re not letting yourself move forward. And whether it’s defined or not, we can definitely hold on to things, but it is a lot more common for someone who has this undefined to be living in a very fear-based state. And not letting themselves move through what’s no longer serving them. It’s great to hold on to the memories, but it’s just time to live in the present, and the spleen is very present moment to moment. And so it’s inviting you to process where you are in the exact moment that you’re at. And it’s another awareness center. It’s a very powerful awareness center because it can empower you to shine the light on what am I doing right now? Is the serving point me? What can I do to empower myself to move forward? Like, one of the gates, is like fear of repeating the past. And so if you’re stuck in a spin cycle of I created this trauma in my life that I’m now grieving from, but I’m afraid to do anything else, because, what if I repeat the same thing that I just did? And the thought processes is your spleen is there to tell you in the moment to moment what is best for you? Are you willing to listen? Can you shut off your head center telling you, you must do this, you must do that? Can you shut off if your emotions? Can you not shut them off? But can you navigate those long enough to allow yourself to hear what the spleen is telling you? Because it’s always guiding you to your highest truth. The low vibe of this, and you don’t listen, we dismiss it. It’s that sixth sense you guys. It’s the one that we’re taught to dismiss. It’s the one that you’re like your hair stands up and you’re like, why did that happen? But we we don’t we can’t describe, we can’t defend it, and this is the area that we don’t wanna ask, are you sure? Right? Because it is it is so it’s intuitive, but it’s also very like I said, it’s just it’s in the moment. It’s instinct. It’s primal. And so if you’re holding a lot of grief in this area, forward movement probably isn’t occurring. So what’s not serving you? What could I do different in this very moment? And am I letting whatever is going on in my head dictate what I’m doing because we’re not meant to make decisions anywhere above the throat.
Victoria Volk: Oh, and if you haven’t defined ashna, and then you have an open solar plexus. Like, that’s like a that’s a triple threat.
Amy Douglas: Yes. Yes. Again, we chose this, so we’re not trying to say, oh, god if anybody’s looking at the design, like, shit. No. I have that. No. No. This says awareness. Okay. No. No. No. And I’m not gonna do this going forward. Right? Yes. Everybody’s design it was beautifully orchestrated the way that you chose, and it’s so unique. And so let’s let’s empower ourselves to attach to it in a way that invites us to move in the direction of the alignment that we, you know, really ultimately created for ourselves.
Amy Douglas: The last center is the root center. Anybody that knows anything about the shock resistant, this is that grounding center, but it’s also a pressure center. It’s the pressure to do. It’s the pressure pressure pressure pressure pressure. And what I see as potential grief in this center and the body parts that it’s connected to definitely has to do with not taking any kind of action. No for no, like, I’m gonna just stay quote unquote stuck. The pressure is there for me to do something different, I don’t know what to do with it. And if you have it undefined, you’re likely feeling pressure from everything outside of you, and if that doesn’t feel aligned, that’s because it’s not your pressure again. Anything that’s not defined is coming from outside of you check-in if it’s yours and this root pressure to do to be to act to whatever. It’s meant to be for your highest goods, so just check-in. And this is another one of those kind of timing things. It’s it’s a timing center. I have it defined. I feel pressure all the time, but mine is connected to my spleen. So mine is not talking to my solar plexus at all. And so mine is connected to my spleen, which is moment to moment. And so, oftentimes, my pressure is truly movement to move through things to take action on things. And from a grief perspective, I can also share that I felt like this would because I didn’t have the define I don’t have the define sacral. This is kind of probably where I felt the moment to moment. I must do something because whatever I was doing wasn’t serving me, and I was aware of that from my spleen. And so I might let’s let’s move let’s move this move. Or maybe giving myself the spaciousness to sit in some stillness and process what I was experiencing before I just let myself jump and go do something because there was a little bit of escapism in that center for me, within the absence of the sacral. So I know that was a lot, but it just just the energy of understanding that can be such a catalyst for your own healing. I mean, it’s such a beautiful journey anyway. And I’m giving yourself this spaciousness to learn some of this can be a real game changer. Just I mean, I can. I’m living proof.
Victoria Volk: And can you speak to a little bit of the gate was it thirty six sixty four? Or is that oh, no. The gate of crisis, which is oh,
Amy Douglas: Thirty six. Yeah. That is a gate thirty six crisis.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. Can we speak to that a little bit? Because if people are, because this is oh, grief. Right? So
Amy Douglas: You know, I mean, it’s gate thirty six is my main sun gates. And what that means for anybody when they’re looking. It’s it’s the most prominent energy in my design. K? It’s what I chose for myself and it’s in the solar plexus and I have the solar plexus defined. Because you can have your main sun gate in a center that’s not defined. That’s that’s beautiful too different journey. And so even like I shared in our past episode, it’s not that I feel like I just navigated a ton of really tumultuous, chaotic crises in my life. But then when I go to share them with people, they’re usually just like blown away and I’m like, oh, but I’m really built for this. What’s important for me is to share my emotional experiences, how I have navigated them with others. That is literally what I was that’s what people need from me. Your main sun gate is the energy that people need from you. And so my thirty six, what they need is for me to share what I have experienced and navigated, which by the way, I didn’t do. I didn’t even tell anybody in my family I was getting divorced. Right? Like, I am one that I kind of hermit when things are going on. And I’m really, while I know why I do that. It’s my twelve twenty two energy, which is also an emotional wave. But that’s important for me to kinda glean what I’m experiencing before. I’m ready to articulate it to the other. And then once I do, it gives permission to others to navigate their own. Because when we’re silent about these things and remember, I had built a facade that made it look like I had everything figured out and everything was fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Everything’s always fine. You know, I can handle this. I can do this. I mean, that’s the energy I held, which was so not true. I was completely broken on the inside. But now I see that this thirty six, this gate of crisis is really important for me to share what I have gone through. So if you have this activated in your design, you’re built and you’re wired for these things. And you often may not feel like it has been a perpetual crisis in your life. I joked with Victoria before we started today, morning started out with a couple of crisei, and I literally just gave myself a moment of, okay, cool. That’s how we’re starting today. You know, I see you. I’m gonna put you on a bookshelf and I’ll come back to you, because I have things. But that has been so much work that has empowered me to get to that point. If recognizing acknowledging, this is what I’m built and wired to do. So if it is defining in your body graph, you’re wired for it. If it’s not defined, you’re probably gonna feel it a bunch more when you’re around somebody that it is. And it probably feels harder, you know? And that’s okay. Okay, that’s what you chose. So let’s find a way to help you navigate through it.
Victoria Volk: So if someone is looking, if let’s say, someone’s listening, and they’re looking at their body graph, and they’re looking at their spouses. Mhmm. So what are some things that you look at as a body graph reader when you’re looking at relationships?
Amy Douglas: Oh, it’s one of my favorite things to do. It’s so fun to help someone really shine a light. We call them connection charts. Okay? So that’s where we have the opportunity to put two body graphs together and see how they relate, interact, connect. And when we do that, you have the each individual on each side, you know, so that we’re all individual. But then when we come together, you get to see the gift of what happens in that dynamic. And I like to tell people that there are what’s called like attraction channels, there are these electromagnetic sparks. So it’s like, you have a gate that marries to a gate of mine that then we connect, and then it lights up to centers. And it’s just like, hey, we feel like you can clean me, that Jerry McGuire bullshit. Right? Like, when it completes us people, we’re all complete humans, but it can really feel like, oh my gosh. Get me. And then, like, you and I, Victoria, we both share a channel. So you and I both have the thirty five, thirty six, so, like, we get each other. We can talk about that.
Amy Douglas: But then there are ones that can be more dominating, so you’ve got the whole channel, or the compromise where you’ve got the whole channel and I just have one part of it, not the whole thing that compromise is where I really like to pull people and just help them create awareness. I know I’ve said that word we could probably put a counter out there for this is where friction could occur. Because you’re dominating in this area and I have a snippet of it, but you’re trying to pull me to believe your way of seeing this. And while I’m happy to witness the way that you see it, but it doesn’t have to I don’t have to see it your way. And can you imagine the conflict that happens in just that area. And then, like, with those electromagnetic and the things, it’s, like, all of a sudden, if your partner didn’t have a defined spleen, but being with you, they do. They’re probably gonna feel really safe with you. Like, it’s just it’s trying to light on how we support one another. And then wears their potential for our own growth in our journey. And I always offer it like as soon as I learn design, I did my son and his girlfriends and my daughter and her now husband, and I was like, okay, you guys now look, I am helping shine a light on potential friction in the future. But now that you have awareness for it, there doesn’t have to be any friction. And I’m not trying to be like polyana sunshine and puppies. Right? We still are humans. But oftentimes, the conflict that arises is based on our conditioning. It’s like, oh, we had a core wound there.
You just hit on it. This is where we get that opportunity. Communication is everything in relationship. And so when you can see this, like, I do I often do this as gifts, for people that get married, like, okay, people this is what I see. And so I’ll just do a recorded thing. Now some of them wanna do it live, which is great because they wanna ask questions. But oftentimes, the husband is not nearly as intimate nor offense to any of your male listeners, but they’re like, look, I got this figured out. But then the ahas that come out of it are just I did it for one couple and literally she was like, she sidebar, she wanted me to find all these things. She’s like, oh my god. This annoys me about him and this and this. Can you touch on these things so he’ll stop doing that? And as it turned out, she was such a controlling force and he had an undefined throat and hers was defined. She was speaking over him for him all the things and so I shined a light in a totally different way than what she was asking me to. She said they stayed up all night talking about the reading because we did it live and that I still check-in on them. And their their communication is so much better. She no longer speaks for him. Like, the things that you can glean from what you understand that’s the gift that I see so much in human design is that it offers us to see why someone is the way they are.
Amy Douglas: Now we can’t always see all the conditioned stuff. But it’s like, oh, I understand. It’s okay. You’re beautifully different than me. And that’s beautiful. And it’s okay. But boy in a connection chart, you’re like, when we bring pull together, it’s important that they see those differences and start instead of trying to forever and always change someone. I don’t wanna be changed. Why am I trying to change anybody? Right? It has empowered me to see my partnership. It’s such a more beautiful light. And then you can even do it for the whole family dynamic, which is called a Penta, which is just layers and layers Victoria.
Right?
Victoria Volk: Well, and I can see the value in that as for a parent and a child. Yes. Especially getting to those teen years maybe, probably even before, maybe, nip stuff in the bud. Right? Do it when they’re
Amy Douglas: Oh my gosh. And those are some of my favorite mini readings. Like, I’ve done it for moms with their kiddo. They’re like, what? You just tell me tell me what’s going on.
Their designs are so different And this one instance, I just did that little twenty five minute audio file for her precious little daughter. And the mom listened to it a couple times, and she got her husband to listen to it. And finally, they listened to it as family totally changed the dynamic in the household. I mean, twenty five minutes, guys. Like, are we kidding?
Can I get that simple? Yes, it can. Just showing and highlighting the different ways that we show up in the world just removes a lot of conflict, you know. And therefore, probably a lot of grief in a relationship and, you know, what you’re navigating in your life, how you’re processing. It’s like, oh, I see how you’re doing that. I want to give you space to do that. You don’t have to do it my way. You know, I was raised where the way they it was done was the way to do it, like, from, you know, a hierarchical perspective. I dropped the hierarchy once I got divorced. I said, nope. We’re all equals here, you know, and everybody gets a voice. This is before I even knew design. I’m so grateful I did because that hierarchy while I get it, I hear parents out there going, well, wait, then who’s in charge? Well, sometimes my I mean, my kids have been my greatest teachers, so maybe sometimes they were more in charge. Even though I was the head of the household. And that’s okay.
Victoria VOlk: I just had an idea. So if I had your knowledge, and your know how, I think this would be super fun. To host, like, a people would register, pay, and register to have you would get their body graph, individuals who are looking for their match. Looking for love. Looking for like, looking for the real deal. Right? Mhmm. And you a host like this It’s like speed dating. Right? Except you’ve paired them based on their body graph. Like, wouldn’t that be amazing?
Amy Douglas: Oh my god, I would love to see that unfold. That could be so much fun because really I’m just saying from what I see because I have no controller of how they’re conditioned. Right? Right. And so I cannot see, what has happened from that perspective.
I’m literally just looking at their blueprint. Right? Their body graph, but And so based on that, there was, like, electromagnetic sparks and how they could see and support one another. That could be so fun. But outside of the conditioning, then they take it from there. Right? They take it from there.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. The body graph matchmaker.
Amy Douglas: Oh my god. That’d be so fun
Victoria Volk: I just, like, gave an idea to the masses so you better know. You want me to edit this out later? Just let me know.
Amy Douglas: No act. No. Maybe someone will get us get on board with us to do it. That’d be great. You know, we’re the initiators, Victoria. We don’t see this thing.
Victoria Volk: That’s true.
Amy Douglas: He’s gonna build this for us. You just drop that out as magically as you’re meant to, and now somebody else can get in touch with this and say, alright, we’re ready to do this.
Victoria Volk: Oh, couldn’t you, like, matchmaker cafe? Like, body graph matchmaking cafe, like, seriously, like, I’m just, like, oh, yeah.
Amy Douglas: That could be so fun. That could be so fun. And again, there’s no it’s there’s no absolutes to this. What you do with it from here is up to you, you know, because especially if you’re not truly living into your design.
Victoria Volk: That’s true.
Amy Douglas: Could be really different. Really different.
Victoria Volk: So what are some examples that you’ve seen? I mean, you don’t have no names or anything like that. But examples of how someone’s graph was manifesting as grief in their life, like areas of challenge and things like that, like different examples. Can you give a few?
Amy Douglas: My goodness. Yes. Yes. Yes. So I had a beautiful client who was navigating a divorce and when we started working together, it wasn’t she wasn’t to the place yet where she was ready to allow herself to believe that divorce was the right path. Mhmm. And she’d experienced a divorce already. So can you imagine you’re letting yourself believe that you’re not enough? I did this wrong again repeating the past, you know, those fear centers and that was the heart and the spleen that I just touched on, those two centers, you know. God, I’m just gonna do this again and then again. And we looked and navigated the energy in her design and what she was holding on to that was no longer serving her. And really inviting her to get out of her head, you know, that definition up there she was defined and it just believing that logic and was the way to make decisions for herself which was not at all the way and where she did was dismissing her emotions because she’s emotionally defined and where she was just dismissing those completely, which had so many messages oh my gosh, you guys, like, what we’re feeling, what our body is navigating, those pings, those, like, oh, those are just crystal clear messages that we get to tune into, but our mind wants to shut them down and dismiss them. And she really allowed herself to go deep, really, really deep, and the divorce was hard. And we looked at his design and it made a lot of sense of where he had a lot of stuckness he was very, very well defined, almost all centers defined. So those people don’t have a tendency to be as flexible. And so and he and he wasn’t willing to listen or change or really have open communication. And so it was important for her to move past that and not carry the things that he wasn’t willing to change. As if she did something wrong or wasn’t enough. Oh my goodness. She is flourishing now. She is such a beautiful aligned human and an amazing relationship that is so so aligned. And I think empowering herself to see so much of how she was trapping. Like, she had a lot of body pain. We talk about the hip, but those kind of thing. She had a lot of that, and that is stored grief. I am a firm believer that, like, Fibromyalgia has just stored grief. And I’m not minimizing. I’m not saying that if you can invite yourself to find practices to help, like, whether it’s cathartic, whatever it is to move through it, you’d be amazed how the body will respond to that, and hers has responded beautifully beautifully. So it is possible. It’s so possible.
Amy Douglas: I had another one who had just more of a traumatic childhood Open heart, energy were not enoughness. And she had what we refer to as sacral authority, that life force energy. So it’s that gut response. You know, you know in the moment what the thing is to do. And that’s the center you can ask, are you sure? Like, okay, just checking in. Do I have enough information? Is this right? She wasn’t operating from that. Again, head definition, she was operating from okay. So I have all these stored experiences. I was always told I wasn’t enough. I know I have to prove myself because my heart’s open. Right? So, I must prove I’m valuable and I’m worthy, and I’m not trusting my gut responses, so I’m navigating, I’m getting all the sources out side of me to tell me what’s right, and then I’m checking in with my logic and my head telling me if that is right. So she’s dismissing all of her body wisdom. So we kept coming back to does that feel in your body? What is your body telling you? Bringing her back to her body wisdom? Oh my goodness. How she operates is such a different human now? It’s just so you could hear it in her voice in the way that she breathes, and having to completely open solar plexus, she’s not taken on the shit of the people around her. You know, that’s what she was doing. She was really caring that and harboring that and not having a defined spleen. She was scared to death about a lot of things. Like, she didn’t have to be. That’s a choice. It’s a choice because fear and excitement are born in the same place in your body. Your mind is the one that labels it as such. And so you guys, once you can see what you chose for yourself and how you’re operating outside of it, taking the steps and the decommissioning to move into the alignment of what you chose for yourself helps you move it out of you, that grief the traumas, the stuckness out of you.
Victoria Volk: Oh, this was so good. So good. Jam packed with information that I know will serve so many people who listen to this. So if you’re listening to this and you found this helpful and beneficial. And you’re curious and interested in human design. I highly recommend you check out your own body graph and listen to this episode again. If you’re, listen to it and I’m like, oh, I’m gonna check out my body graph and then come back and listen to it again because will listen to this as I edit it, but they’ll probably listen again just because there’s so you always hear something new, I think.
Amy Douglas: So you ready for it. Right? Like, you integrate in chunk sizes. That’s why that’s why when I do readings, I start with the foundational one. And then we can go deeper.
But it’s important you empower yourself to integrate what you have learned so that you’re available to learn the next, you know, snippet. And we all do that. And again, that’s an awareness thing too. So and I would love to offer any of your listeners just like I did on the last one that twenty five percent off of any of my readings using the coupon code “Grieving Voices”.
Victoria Volk: Yes. And I will put that information in the show notes as well. Anything any other final thoughts? Anything you’d like to share?
Amy Douglas: Well, I also have a podcast. So if you’re curious, you did about hearing about lived experiences. We, my podcast co-host and I, our podcast “Love Human. Be Spirt. And we share all of our lived experiences and a lot of minor emotional folks, okay, through the lens of human design, but we do it in a very like, we don’t we try not to use a lot of the human design words because they’re weird, but we try to share with you just our lived experiences while we’re reflecting on where that might be found in your design and it’s we have a lot of fun doing it. So we try to make it lighthearted. We have a lot of great guests. Victoria. We need to have you on there. So Yes. Yeah. It’s just it’s it’s a safe place to land. We’re not teaching and preaching. But we’re just sharing what we’ve experienced. And I think that is the gift of inviting you to move through things. It’s hearing inviting yourself, I can do oh, they navigated this. I can too. It’s like it’s giving permission to to move through what you’re experiencing and shine the light on bright might be holding on to something that’s not yours.
Victoria Volk: So good. And that’s where we create change in our lives. Right?
Amy Douglas: That’s right. Yes.
Victoria Volk: Well, thank you again for coming back on. Again, we could we go into more layers of this and maybe we will down the road. We’ll see. Because I I have I actually have more work to do with you, and so perhaps I can do another episode and of what I’ve all learned Right? Maybe at that point. So that would be kind of fun. Yeah. Thank you so much for this.
Amy Douglas: Oh, welcome. It’s my pleasure. Yes. I’m happy to be here.
Victoria Volk: And where can they find you?
Amy Douglas: My website, amyadouglas.com.
Victoria Volk: And I will put that in the show notes as well. And in the meantime, remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Mental Health, Podcast, Resources, Suicide |
Bill Gross | Farm Rescue: Planting Seeds of Hope
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Bill Gross, the founder of the non-profit Farm Rescue, has been traveling the world with his career as a UPS pilot for the past 30 years. However, his heart never left or forgot the farm he called home in ND.
He knew he wanted to give back to ND farmers once he retired; however, a chance conversation prompted him to ask himself: “Why wait?”
We don’t know what our future has in store for us. Why put off for tomorrow what you can do today? Thoughts like these prompted Bill to not wait for Farm Rescue’s creation.
Established in 2005, Farm Rescue is now in eight states in the midwest and will serve their 1,000th family this year. Whether a farm family experiences a medical crisis, natural disaster, mental health challenge, or death of a loved one, Farm Rescue can help.
Giving back fills Bill’s heart with so much joy. Through Farm Rescue, Bill can also live out the family values passed down to him.
Learn about Farm Rescue, the hope the organization plants in the hearts of many, and more about the man behind it all in this episode.
RESOURCES:
CONTACT:
_______
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.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk 0:57
This episode is sponsored by Do Grief Differently™️. My 12 week in person or online program that helps Grievers who have suffered any type of loss to feel better, and do grief differently. You learn new tools, education, and a method you can utilize the rest of your life. In this program and with my guidance, you remove the pain of grief. The sadness will always be there because even in complicated relationships we love but it’s the pain of grief that keeps us stuck. Are you ready to do grief differently? Check out my website www.theunleashedheart.com to learn more.
Victoria Volk 1:37
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. today. My guest is Bill Gross. He is a North Dakota native who spent his childhood surrounded by agriculture. Like many farm kids before him Bill realized at a young age it would not be possible to continue his family’s farming legacy due to financial constraints. His parents encouraged him to seek higher education in pursuit of a better life. So Bill went on to attend the University of North Dakota to secure an undergraduate degree in BBA and was later awarded an honorary doctorate degree from human letters. During his time at UND he also secured several pilot ratings and an airline transport pilot certificate. This career path sent him to places around the globe. The Bill’s heart never left the farming and ranching community in which he was raised, which is what brings Bill to my podcast to talk to you today about his organization that he started called farm rescue. Thank you so much for being here today. Well, thank you, Victoria, for having me on. So let’s take it from there. From when you left the farming community, and pursuing your degree and, and, and all of that, and what, what brings you to the podcast today?
Bill Gross 2:54
Well, yes, I did leave the farming community, my heart never left it. My parents were not in a position to help any of us children get started in farming. And so they encouraged us to seek higher education, which all of us five children did. And as a fourth generation farm now, and we went on on our career paths and myself as an airline pilot, for UPS Airlines now for 30 years flying around the world. I’m speaking to you today from Cologne, Germany. And
Bill Gross 3:34
you know that I I always believed in helping people that you should help others in need and went on mission trips over the years through the church to Croatia, Romania and such, but I thought there’s people right, in the United States that need help also. So you know, I had that that thought in my mind all the time, but I didn’t know how I could help in the United States and flying with the CO pilots on long flights, oftentimes 1214 hours out over the Pacific Ocean, they would say what are you going to do when you retire? And that’s I was still in my 30s but I would say that I’m going to be this random Good Samaritan get a large John Deere tractor and then help farm families in my native state of North Dakota. And they actually chuckled at that they thought that was kind of a crazy idea actually. And I said you know, it’s not so crazy i I envisioned myself showing up at six in the morning and telling the farmer that you put fuel and seed in the tractor and planter and I’ll plant a few 100 acres and and I’ll move on and people say there’s this good samaritan going around just planting crops free of charge and, and I told a friend of mine years later, even after I had this idea, I hadn’t started it yet.
Bill Gross 4:46
That that I was going to do it when I retired Chaplain friend and him looking at things in a very Christian sense. He says, why wait until you retire? Bill, you don’t know what tomorrow will bring? And, and he says, Furthermore, instead of being this random Good Samaritan, he says, Isn’t farming and ranching very dangerous occupation? I said, it certainly is. It’s one of the most dangerous occupations. And he said, you know, you should, you should have a screening process, you know, to help those that maybe have an injury or illness or such and, and then, you know, furthermore, he encouraged me, he said, You should start a nonprofit, he said, instead of you doing it yourself, you should provide an avenue for other people to join in on your dream on your mission to help farm and ranch families. And so, after I left dinner with him and his wife and driving home, just about a 30 minute drive, it all came together to me, I thought, yeah, this, this is it, I’m going to start farm rescue now as a single man at the time, I can do this. And there’ll be other people that are like minded that grew up on a farm or their ancestors were farmers or ranchers, but they never stayed, but yet, they still have a love for it. And and I thought, you know, how would we get those who’d be the volunteers, right, that people would come back, some would be retired farmers, some would be younger people that just didn’t stay on the farm. And, and also that, you know, where would we get funding for it to support a mission like this, and I felt that surely there were businesses and individuals and foundations that they would like to see family farms, you know, continue, and agribusiness is a big business, one of the largest businesses in the United States, that it would be
Bill Gross 8:08
And sponsors and donors that support our mission. And again, I’d like to clarify that we don’t give money out to farm families. This is not a handout, or such as we call it a handout. It’s for a farm family that’s had a major injury, illness or natural disaster. And they just can’t get the work done themselves through no fault of their own. They just had a crisis happen. And so we come in, it’s like a big mobile farming operation and plant hay harvest or even provide livestock feeding assistance until they can get back on their feet. And so we’ve will be helping our 1000s case soon. And and thanks to all the good hearted donors and business sponsors and volunteers and media and and people like yourself, Victoria that help us raise awareness of our mission at Farm rescue so we can help more farm and ranch families and in small towns across America.
Victoria Volk 9:10
Do you list the states that you assist on your website? So
Bill Gross 9:15
we assist in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Illinois.
Victoria Volk 9:24
That’s amazing. Yeah, spot right.
Bill Gross 9:28
That’s right. It’s amazing what you can accomplish with a lot of like minded people and a altruistic compassionate mission to help others in a time of need.
Victoria Volk 9:41
How has this changed you this experience this house farm rescue changed you?
Bill Gross 9:48
Well, you know I had a heart for do have a heart for farming and ranching Of course, like I mentioned, but you know when you’re growing up like maybe in any one of us Yes Are parents just living in the farming community encouraged us to help other people and I saw my own parents help other neighbors also, but, you know, that’s not as prevalent nowadays, just because the farms are larger, and there’s not as many children on the farm and, and there just isn’t the resources available to, to help as many people. So that’s where farm rescue comes in. But what I want to say is that as you grow up, I think anyone is a teenager or, or such, you got to focus on your own accomplishments, or you have goals in your own life and, and you get, you get focused on where you are going.
Bill Gross 10:42
And some people learn this sooner than other people. Some people go through their whole life that way, but but it made me realize that there is so much more than your own goals and accomplishments in life. Yes, you need to be a productive citizen. But there’s a lot of people that you need to help along the way. And when I say along the way, I don’t mean that you say that someday, when I get to this career level, or when I have this much money, then I’m going to help people know, you know, make it a lifestyle that you help people all along the way. When you’re a teenager, when you’re in college, when you’re an adult, even if things aren’t so good for yourself, you know, it all comes around for good. And that’s what how it has really changed me the rewards I’ve gotten in starting farm rescue, and I still am the chairman of the board, guiding farm rescue forward leading it that the rewards have gotten from that are 100 fold from any any reward I would have gotten from just focusing on my own life. Right. It’s, it’s truly amazing. So I would encourage people if they if they want to help, don’t wait till Sunday, and you don’t know where that path will lead you in helping other people. And the rewards will surprise you.
Bill Gross 12:19
You know, just the gratification in knowing that you’re doing something good in life. And and the difference you’re making in other people’s lives is has has a multiplier effect.
Victoria Volk 12:31
I firmly believe that one way that we can help people to understand even like depression, like depression, right? Way out of depression is by helping people. It makes you feel good. Like it brings about feel feel good feelings, right? When you’re being of service, you’re helping someone else. So even if it’s just opening the door, and I think we can just small acts of service. It doesn’t have to be starting a nonprofit, we can do it in smallest of ways that if you’re struggling, I can help you to feel better just by helping someone else feel better.
Bill Gross 13:13
That’s correct. You know, when you take the focus off of yourself and focus on others, it’ll lift both of you up is just what you’re saying Victoria? And then again, people that you know beyond that the person you’re helping you know, that will help the people they know also.
Victoria Volk 13:32
Did your parents get to see this come to fruition?
Bill Gross 13:37
No My parents never did. My dad died in 2000. I started it in 2005. My mother passed away in May of 2005. She never did.
Bill Gross 13:51
She never did see any farm rescue cases are such during their time on this on this earth. Did she know about it though? Because he had started it in 2005. But you know, yeah, you know, I, I may have mentioned it to her as you know, she was in very poor medical health and in a hospital on such and such in the last days of her life. They don’t know if, you know, she fully comprehended was what what I had started so
Victoria Volk 14:25
I’m sure they’re very proud of you. They were very proud of you.
Bill Gross 14:29
That’s good.
Victoria Volk 14:30
Can we talk about that, that maybe the grief that comes about of you know, the family farm, dissipating and not continuing on and how many people many farm families find themselves in that situation? And it’s that intangible grief that, you know, can continue through the generation right because you as a child of your parents who had the family farm, I imagine that you kind of carry some of that and and this is Is your way to come back to the farm and in a sense, so can you speak to that a little bit and maybe what you’ve seen in your, the farm rescue experience of helping farmers?
Bill Gross 15:11
Well, Victoria, that’s that’s a very valid point. And that is true. I can speak upon my own family and some of the families that we have helped at Farm rescue, I’ll start with my own family. And that, yes, there was five of us, children, I was the youngest. And due to financial constraints, none of us were able to start farming, like I mentioned, the folks were not able to help us, they just didn’t have the financial resources to do such. And, you know, this family farm on my folks, and now that myself and my brother on is a multi generational farm. And I think what I’m saying here holds true for a lot of farm families that they would like to see their children continue on their legacy, like I said, in a multi generational farm, but yet, they know that maybe they can’t financially, or it’s going to be a great struggle for the children. And they encourage them to go on to seek other careers, or in my case, higher education. And I would encourage anyone to always seek higher education, it just gives you more opportunities. So my parents encouraged that. But of course, they always said, you can always come back, you know, as you can always come back the children, any one of you are welcome to come back and farm if the farm is still here, because of financial challenges. And, you know, at that time, none of the children of us children came back and farmed. I, I bought a little bit of land, and so did my brother from, from my parents. And I remember when a neighbor would stop by, and they, my dad, there was such pride in his voice, even though he was in his 70s. He’d say, Billy, they used to call me, Billy, Billy bought this quarter of land over here. That’s all he’d say, you know. So I think it was his glimmer of hope that maybe I would come back and farm, that there was a connection still to the farm and carry on his legacy. But my dad passed away in my mom, without any of us children truly coming back, and, you know, farming farming the land as a whole. And I won’t say it disturbed my dad or parents, but it gave them grief. I mean, I think there’s a form of grief, what I’m trying to say. And in all farm families, when they don’t see their legacy go on, they maybe took over the farm from, from their parents, and, and then they worked hard and raised a family. And then now they see it so often, the children go on to another career, and they’re not able to continue that legacy. And that can only think going through my father and mother’s mind or and along with these, any farm family that maybe they failed somehow maybe had they done things differently, they would have had different, you know, financial resources to help the children or maybe they they didn’t foster the, the farming legacy not for such or, or maybe they were too hard on their children. They didn’t want to, you know, work hard, you know, as that hard going on, you know, I’m sure there’s all kinds of thoughts that go through a farm or ranch family and, and there is a grief, I’m 100% positive, especially my dad had grief in feeling like it was his doing that the family farm legacy of the multi generational farm wasn’t going, going to continue.
Bill Gross 19:00
And you I see that in cases we help that farm rescue also they don’t say it, but I can see it in between the lines. So it really is just the mom and pop whose whose whose they’re trying to make a go of it.
Bill Gross 19:43
Yes, you may have your spouse and such but you’re you’re alone there. That’s the nature of their work, right. They’re prideful, independent people. God bless them a lot. A lot of farmers and ranchers I mean people wouldn’t want to do that type of work. Most people in the united states out there in the in the In the elements in the cold weather and, and all that work day and night, but God bless them, but it is a work a lot of times in solitude, and then with financial challenges and such, maybe they took on a lot of debt over the years, and now they’re, they’re struggling to pay that it can become overwhelming is what I’m saying. And we see that and we have helped in, in mental health cases at Farm rescue also, it just becomes overwhelming. And we have seen suicides, of course, and that’s a upward trend among in the farming community. And what I’m saying is, it quickly can overwhelm a person, this grief, of being alone, your children are gone, that you’ve, you know, maybe think you’re you’ve failed this, and the land is going to be gone, that’s been in the farm family for generations. And, and you’re alone, and there’s there’s no way out in order. That’s, that’s how it always is right? When people take some action, be it in, in drugs or suicide or such they feel like there’s there’s not a way forward. So when farm rescue comes in, we’ve had many people tell us that it just lift the burden off of them. And they had a new look on outlook on life. And even the fact that all these volunteers came and were around them and the camaraderie and that they see a way forward has made all the difference in them not not only just getting the fiscal work done the planting or harvesting for their livelihood, but for their emotional well being also, farm rescue gives them hope. Yes, we then sometimes we plant seeds of hope.
Victoria Volk 21:42
Oh, that’s wonderful. And that should be your slogan. Yes. Because here’s the thing. It’s like when you think of the farmer, right, when when I just living in Greenville, North Dakota, right, I and I see it and my, my day job is in crop insurance, I see it, you know, they’re independent people that have a really difficult time asking for help. And I think it can be very humbling. When you see these, this army of support coming in the form of combines and tractors and the equipment and things to help them. It can be very humbling. And I think that that alone, it’s like, people do care. There is hope. I think it yes, you plant seeds of hope. I 1,000% agree with that. And, you know, to kind of circle back what you had shared earlier. You know, it’s this intangible grief, right, that you can’t, most people don’t have the language for that, to express what they’re feeling about the legacy not continuing the farm family, not continuing things like that. And we’re all whether we’re farmers or not, we can be one medical setback from homelessness. I mean, there are so many veterans that have become homeless because of mental health challenges, or physical or medical issues you had mentioned. And before we started to record that your dad was a world war two veteran, he didn’t get a college education. I have a really soft spot for veterans. And so just thinking about your dad and the toil, right, the day and night toil for him to build what he did for the family. And to not see that I imagine that like you said, there was some heartbreak in that, but also pride to every one of you went and got your degree and pursued a career. I just think we can all be fragile in that, that we aren’t guaranteed what’s going to happen tomorrow. And so whether it’s farm rescue that comes in to help us or even the neighbor, the main thing is that we have a hard time asking for help. And help is out there. Whether it is your neighbor, or whether you’re not a farmer and you just had, you’re the breadwinner of the family can’t work anymore due to cancer or whatever the case is. I think there’s a lot of organizations and support out there, nonprofits like yours. And that’s why I’m devoted this season of grieving voices to highlight these nonprofits that are doing amazing things that are bringing hope to people in times of great distress. So thank you for following that spark of an idea. And for that friend who shared his wisdom with you, because farm rescue wouldn’t be here today.
Bill Gross 24:43
That’s right. You know, and you really said it. Well, Victoria. The grief is not spoken by these farm families or a lot of people you don’t have to be a farmer. It’s you can see it in them. It’s an unspoken it’s there. It’s a deep.
Bill Gross 25:00
And it humbles them when we come in help. They’re just so grateful. They’re not the type of people to ask for help. And a lot of people are that way, of course. But I think what if you said, how this has changed me. Another way it’s changed me is it’s made me realize that we all need help through life at one time or another to one extent or another. There’s no shame in asking for help. It’s actually a good thing. I view it as a form of strength actually, that you need to know what your limitations are, when you’re down and out. And when the appropriate time is that ask for help. And I think a person that can see that actually, is displaying a form of strength. They’re not only asking for help, but they’re, they’re showing that they’re using good judgment. And, and so it’s made me a much more humble person, and compassionate person. And also that, yeah, through the grace of God, we’re just, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re one, any one of us are one step away from something devastating happening to us, it could be cancer, it could be a car accident, it could be anything, and, and the sooner you realize that life, how fragile life is, and the more you appreciate life, and and want to help other people going through a challenging time. And lastly, I’ll say, sometimes I’m asked but inspires you to keep doing farm rescue to keep keep going on. And, and I say, you know, it’s, it’s actually, all the people that come from around the United States, all the other volunteers, and all the people that I see that are so passionate about what we do and and that they’ve come forward with a good heart to help our mission. How can you not get caught up in that, and just build upon that? So yes, I mean, it’s inspiring to see other people help others, it really is and inspires yourself to do the same. And we’re going to help a lot more people at Farm rescue, and then we’re going to continue to grow farm rescue, and we’re going to do as much good as we can. As far as I’m concerned, in my lifetime, we’re going to touch as many families as we can. And you know, the families and their children and such and, and maybe we opened doors by helping that family, maybe their children can now go to higher education. And they go on to do things, you know, like I did, that they wouldn’t have been able to do before. You’ll never live to see all the dividends of your good works in your life.
Victoria Volk 27:44
You know, I always say there’s ripples of grief. But I think there’s also ripples of hope. Yes. So just as you mentioned, the children see it, too. And who knows how the impact that that has on them? Which guarantee bar none it does because when you lift that burden of the parents, you are lifting the burden of the children.
Victoria Volk 28:06
Yeah, so most of the farm families that you do help it’s generally a medical crisis of some sort. I mean, because it is one of the most dangerous occupations as you mentioned,
Bill Gross 28:18
The majority of our cases are medical you know like any one of us there’s there’s a lot of medical things that can happen to you you know, we see a lot of cancer cases both for the husband or the wife and or we even had some cancer cases in the children unfortunately have young children but we see a lot of you know, cancer and every every type of medical thing you can imagine any one of us could, could have you know, brain tumors, cancer, you know, broken legs, arms, severed limbs, car accidents, equipment, accidents, a lot a lot of medical and and injuries. Those are the of course the injuries and illnesses are by far the majority of our of our cases and then we have a small percentage that are natural disasters, right so we help out also if there’s like a drought and I think we hauled few years ago 300 Semi loads of hay into western North Dakota during a drought that to help ranchers in such a way that was donated all over the United States and then we have a fleet of semi trucks and mobilized it and and and so in, in droughts in floods, wildfires we’ve helped down in Nebraska and Kansas and and all sorts of you know, tornadoes Of course, places destroyed by tornadoes and, and such. So any kind of natural disasters is somewhere in our eight state region. There’s always a natural disaster every year it seems like so that’s a percentage of our cases also.
Victoria Volk 29:59
So you I’m discussing how it may be difficult for people to ask for help. If someone listening to this farmer friend of a farmer or something, and they’re going through a mental health challenge, you don’t have to have a limb severed, or you don’t have to have a terrible diagnosis. Maybe you want to just be able to take some time to focus on yourself and in work through your mental health challenges. That’s where you can come in to write I mean, I don’t want people to think that they have to have this, like, oh, well, my my situation isn’t as bad as theirs. You know what I mean? We can kind of have that mentality to where we compare our despair to others.
Bill Gross 30:44
You’re exactly correct, Victoria, we oftentimes get foreign families that call us in, and they say, Well, you know, I don’t know if I should apply. I’m just calling But surely you have people that are, you know, more seriously, or worse off than I am. And, and one example I’ll give you of how, how prideful and independent farm families are. Farmer years ago, called us up out, he was south of Dickinson, North Dakota. And he, he was during harvest time in the midst of harvest, and he was inquiring about our program, and he said those very words, but boy, you must have a full schedule helping people and then there must be people more, you know, in serious conditions than me and, and I said, So what what happened to you? He says, Oh, I got my hand cut off. He says, you know, a few days ago, in a Columbine, I said, so he said, you got your hand cut off. And you feel there’s other people that you shouldn’t apply for assistance that have more serious things. So land just really, really goes to show that how prideful and independent these people are. And yes, they always think that there’s someone else that is more deserving than them. So we don’t want anyone to think that you can call farm rescue talk to us. And in Yes, we help in mental health issues, mental illness, mental health, you can call us or a family member that’s listening to this, oftentimes, it’s the person who has, you know, is dealing with a mental health challenge. They’re not the person who’s gonna call, it’s usually a family member, it may be a spouse, it may be a child,
Bill Gross 32:37
or maybe a neighbor, or such a friend. So go ahead and call us everything is kept confidential. And yes, we have helped in many mental health cases where the person with the mental health issue just needed some downtime, maybe they need some to go for some counseling or treatment. And we free up that time by getting the work done. So they can get back to a good state of mind. And so yes, we do help in those cases.
Victoria Volk 33:10
And I just think of the impact that that has on their mental health, again, just circling back to the planting the seeds of hope. So I think that’s yeah, I love that you include that too, in your, in your assistance for farmers, because especially like you touched on it earlier, but the suicide rate is climbing in the farming community, and I see it just in my area, do you find that it’s older population? Or is it getting younger and younger you think,
Bill Gross 33:39
you know, I used to think it was just the older population. But what I’ve seen over the years at Farm rescue is it’s becoming the younger population where we see suicides also. And, you know, we cover an eight state regents so, you know, a lot of times like you said, all you, someone knows of someone around their area where they live, but when you look at it on a bigger footprint, we see a fair number of suicides on a fortune, unfortunately, in a larger geographical area. And, and it’s it’s a younger group, it may be a younger farmer, unfortunately, and sadly for anyone, but sometimes it may. Nowadays you hear it in the national news and stuff, it may be one of their children, you know, through bullying or whatever other reason, such it’s just, it’s just sad the whole way around. I can hardly talk about it. You know, unfortunately, I think in in our society nowadays. Again, people don’t don’t see a way forward, you know, be it as a young person or as a 40 year old or such and it just becomes overwhelming and they don’t feel like there’s anyone to turn to, or that there’s not help, or they don’t, they don’t speak up. And that’s a big message we need to get through to people that, that there is always help. There is always hope you may not feel there. There isn’t. But there is there’s always that sliver, that glimmer of hope someone will help you through a difficult situation you should never ever turn to the thoughts of, of suicide. So there’s, there’s always help.
Victoria Volk 35:34
Do you ever recognize your dad going through things that maybe he didn’t even talk about? You kind of knew that he was maybe, you know, going through some stuff. I mean, being a world war two veteran, I can’t imagine what he saw. Right? I’m a veteran myself, but I’m just curious how you saw that maybe translating into his, the way that he lived his life and into farming and how maybe that showed up for him. And, and maybe it didn’t maybe he was very good at at hiding it. You know, I think just being where I live, we they call it the Iron Curtain. Very German, very German, stoic German, we don’t ask for help you pull yourself up by your bootstraps type of mentality. And so I just, you know, wanted to kind of touch on that a little bit of just in the Midwest in general. I mean, that’s just kind of, I mean, we live in the northern climate look at where we live. Like, you have to be kind of, I mean, we’re in a snowpocalypse right now. It’s like, it’s just never ending, it seems, but with the cold and the snow and all of that, so it kind of hardens you, I think, just living where we live.
Bill Gross 36:44
You know Yes, my ancestry is German with the last name Gross, and my dad being in World War Two. And yes, he was a hearty individual and, and grew up in the area that you’re talking about, you have to be, and so on, it’s it’s not an easy life, no matter if you’re a person working in town or or out in the farm, it’s just the geographical area lends to some challenges that you don’t normally have. But from World War Two, you know, my dad was a very quiet person, like a lot of that transit didn’t really talk about things he saw. And, you know, toward the end of his life, he talked about a couple of occasions where, and we didn’t know this until someone looked at his military orders later and told us so my, my dad was the equivalent of like a, like a sniper, like Special Forces reconnaissance, and he would go ahead of the front line and conduct his mission, and sometimes by himself, or a very small team, and then they would come back to the front line and, and he talked about how they went around. And I don’t know all the details, but went ahead of the front line. And then when he came back, his buddies were all killed, that were on the front line there. And if you saw my dad cry over that, and such, you know, I think he felt responsible that he wasn’t there to help them. Right. And, but yes, how hearty person and wouldn’t talk about hardship? Should we say,
Victoria Volk 38:24
And I think it comes back to that solitude aspect you’re speaking to earlier, and it can be very easy to isolate yourself in your own feelings. And, you know, because like you said, farming can be a very a solo experience, right? You’re, you’re just you and nature, and you’re just a lot of alone time, right. And so I think, what do you do with all that alone time is think and think and think and think right? And so I think that can be not the best situation for for some people. And so I think just being able to have finding someone that you can talk to and feeling that it’s okay.
Bill Gross 39:04
You have a lot of time on the farm, like I said, in that solitude to rethink run things through your mind over and over. And like any one of us, you know, you don’t want to have regrets in life. Regrets are a hard thing. You know, there’s most things in life, you don’t have a redo, you can’t change them. And you have to find a way to move forward and deal with that.
Victoria Volk 39:31
And with your organization, you plant seeds of hope. That’s one way that people can experience the love and support of their community. So encourage anyone who is a doubter if this applies to them or could help them to, to rethink that solo mentality and ask for help.
Bill Gross 39:53
That’s right. That’s right. There is always someone that cares and will help and you know, never think you’re alone. Be that a teenager a child or, or a middle aged or elderly person, there’s plenty of people that have love and compassion and want to help and will help make things better.
Victoria Volk 40:13
I will take that as your one tip for hurting heart. Is there anything else that you’d like to share about farm rescue? And anything you have coming up? If applications are always open? Or do you have an application window for timeframe like how does all that work?
Bill Gross 40:28
People can apply at any time of the year. But yes, we’re accepting planting applications for the spring, and people should just contact us at farm rescue.org or at 701-252-2017. They can call and ask questions and apply or you can even nominate a, it doesn’t have to be for yourself. If you know someone, like we said that needs help.
Bill Gross 41:31
And it opens the door for us to help them. So I highly encourage people to refer or nominate a family that’s going through a difficult time. And in the vast majority of those cases, we end up helping that farm family.
Victoria Volk 41:48
I love that I did not know that. So thank you for sharing that. And I will put the phone number and the website in the show notes how people can reach for rescue. And are you looking to expand further?
Bill Gross 42:01
We are we are you know, as funds allow and and, you know, through donors and sponsors and such. And as long as there’s a legitimate need. Yes, we are looking to do that. But you know, we always need funding for just what we have the irons in the fire right now to help throughout North Dakota and in South Dakota, Minnesota and the states we’re in and if anyone wishes to donate, they can donate online securely. Or you can mail in a check to farm rescue peal box 28, Horace North Dakota 58047. And, you know, the board members are all volunteers. We work primarily with volunteers have a very small staff. We use our funds efficiently. And we don’t hand them out to people like we said we do it just to get the job done. And many places have said you know farm rescue is a true nonprofit. And we would greatly appreciate any donations to help our cause and admission so we can so we can help more farm families.
Victoria Volk 43:10
Thank you so much for sharing about farm rescue. I’m so glad that I followed my nudge to bring farm rescue to grieving voices to share your mission because I feel like it is a beautiful gift that is available to people where I call home in North Dakota. So thank you so much for for sharing today. And thank you for being my guest.
Bill Gross 43:35
Well thank you, Victoria, thank you for having me as a guest and thank you for for what you do to help people go through, you know, grieving times and to show that there is hope and, and to talk about it when what you’re talking about is is oftentimes things that people don’t want to talk about, right. So thank you for bringing that to the forefront.
Victoria Volk 44:01
It is my this is my mission in my work. So thank you for being a part of my mission to and remember when you unleash your heart you unleash your life. Much love.
Childhood Grief, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Resources |
Susana Morell | Hearts Matter Project: “Bad” Children or Hurting Children?
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Susana is no stranger to grief. As a young child, she was a victim of sexual abuse. As a young adult, she lost her mother, later becoming her father’s caretaker, only to eventually lose him. The death of her nephew to suicide was when she realized that she could do something – that she needed to do something.
Susana would put her strengths, skills, training as a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist, education in Clinical Psychology, and, more importantly, the pain of her past into purpose by serving the most vulnerable – children.
Three out of four children, ages 6-17, have experienced the loss of a loved one, a loved one becoming terminally ill, or anger due to changes within the family dynamics. Susana wanted to create and provide tools for children, parents, and school districts, to help them understand themselves and their grief experience better.
These tools would be developed and communicated through her book, The Hearts Matter Project, eventually becoming the curriculum, Shielding Hearts.
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- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
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CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk 0:08
This is Victoria of theunleashedheart.com and you’re listening to grieving voices, a podcast for hurting hearts who desire to be heard. Or anyone who wants to learn how to better support loved ones experiencing loss. As the 30 plus year graver and advanced Grief Recovery Method specialist, I know how badly the conversation around grief needs to change. Through this podcast, I aim to educate gravers and non gravers alike, spread hope and inspire compassion towards those hurting. Lastly, by providing my heart with ears and this platform, Grievers had the opportunity to share their wisdom and stories of loss and resiliency. How about we talk about grief like we talk about the weather? Let’s get started. This episode is sponsored by do grief differently. My 12 week in person or online program that helps Grievers who have suffered any type of loss to feel better, and do grief differently. You learn new tools, education, and a method you can utilize the rest of your life. In this program and with my guidance, you remove the pain of grief, the sadness will always be there because even in complicated relationships we love but it’s the pain of grief that keeps us stuck. Are you ready to do grief differently? Check out my website wwwtheunleashedheart.com to learn more. Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today my guest is Susana Morell. She is a master level clinician and grief expert who transformed her heartache into a curriculum for children to learn how to process their grief and loss in a unique and healthy way. Her education and experience has molded her into a patient empathetic and nurturing grief counselor. She herself has been affected with how heartache grief and loss can create internal conflicts and multiple stressors. As a working professional in her field, she has been given the opportunity to become a certified Grief Recovery specialist through the Grief Recovery Institute. Her passion lies with supporting Grievers who allow themselves to become oriented with the effects of grief and loss so they can return to their routines and move forward. Thank you so much for being here.
Susana Morell 2:27
Well, thank you for having me.
Victoria Volk 2:29
I’m excited to highlight Shielding Hearts as a nonprofit, for the podcast, because I feel it’s near and dear to my heart especially I’m a child Griever, my dad passed away when I was eight. And there weren’t resources or services in the late 80s. For me, or other children for that matter. I didn’t know anybody else who had experienced that. So I felt very alone and very isolated. And people, truthfully, staff and friends didn’t know how to to be around me or to support me. And so I’m really excited to learn more about shielding hearts, I was reading through your paperwork, because we’re both certified Grief Recovery specialists through the Institute, which is another reason why I was excited to highlight your organization because you have that background. But also Furthermore, you have that clinical psychology background as well. And so they’re bringing you bring another element to that work. And so let’s start with your story, though, in how this really came to be for you.
Susana Morell 3:42
So in 2017, and I had already been a year after I lost my father and I was my father’s caregiver. So I think that was the hardest thing to see your hero become a weak and then eventually, you know, to lose him that was very, very difficult within itself. And I was the I’m the youngest child. So being his baby, it was very, very difficult. So you’re trying to get your footing and trying to get back into mainstream of life. And you just your heart is so heavy. And that’s when I found the Grief Recovery method. And it helped me to be able to really process and understand how the loss was affecting me since I had also just lost my mom two years before. So I’m losing my two constants in my life who have been, you know, my compass helped had been co parents and I was a single mom at the age of 19. So these two individuals that just were just everything to me, it was very, very difficult. But as I mentioned on 2017 I lost my nephew to suicide. And that really broke my heart on on so many levels. So I was determined to put pen to paper and to say these children are are hurting, they’re suffering in silence. I know that we have amazing counselors, we have a lot of support and resources. But what if the parents can’t get them to those resources? So I channeled that hurt and frustration and anger. And I said, I don’t want anybody to ever have to be on the receiving end of that phone call, you know, he was only 17. And just for him to believe that that was his only out. It’s just I don’t I know that other children are feeling this way. So I created these modules to where children are able to come in ages six to 17, they get identified because first a caregiver, a guardian. Or, you know, a parent will come to the campus and ask the counselor, do you have any support here at school? And so I’m very proud that now the district that I am in can say we actually do, we have a grief expert that works with the children, and this is my fifth year being in the district. So it goes to show you that it has been the outcomes have been amazing. And the way that we set it up, you know, from the daytime is so much easier to be able to have access to the children because they’re they’re already on the campuses. So what I basically do is, for example, I’m going to go over what is really common that is said to children, that affects them. So any age range, but specifically with the children I work with, when they are asked, Are you okay? This really annoys them and makes them angry, because they’re seeking for an understanding of what just happened to them. They’ve had a huge disruption in their life when they lose a mom, their dad, as you mentioned yourself, so you feel very alone, isolated, your friends can understand. And if all an adult, a teacher counselor is offering friends of the family, other family members, are you okay? It kind of makes them feel like they’re being kicked while they’re down. Because what they want to say is how can I be okay, I just lost somebody very special to me. So I explained to them, I know that this, you know, is very hard to hear. But I’m going to go through the rest of the questions. And then at the end, I will share with you what I how I explained to them how they can have these questions to be stopped or statements to be stopped from being said to them, because they’re not helpful. When they’re also told I’m sorry for your loss. It makes them feel like what are you sorry, for? You weren’t responsible for taking my loved one from me? Why do you keep telling me you’re sorry for my loss. And it feels like people are taking pity on them. And they’re, they’re not wanting to feel that they’re they can’t cope. So that is a statement that, you know, really doesn’t help. The next one is your grandma, grandpa, mom, dad isn’t a better place, sweetie. They mean, no disrespect, that this may be a glorious place. But what their heart is desiring and what they are yearning for is for their loved one to be physically here with them. So it’s like they’re being force fed this idea and their feelings are being minimized when they’re told this. But they’re in a better place. They’re not suffering. I’m they’re not negating that, that they want to feel acknowledged. And so I allow them to be able to understand why that’s bothersome to them. The next one is you have to stay strong. Your mom would have wanted you to be strong, your dad would have wanted you to keep it together, you’ve got to think about, you know this that that’s you know, that’s not fair to say that to a child because it is nothing about being strong or weak. They are, they are hurting, they are going through an array of emotions. They tell me it’s like this vortex that they’re just out of their body and, and they just they say it feels horrible. I said I and the everybody always asked me so what should we say to them? I always say, we don’t know exactly how this has affected them because grief affects everybody differently. So try just starting the conversation with I couldn’t even imagine. You know how you’re feeling? Would you like to talk about it? I’m here for you. That’s so much healthier than these statements. The one that hurts the most is when they’re told you have to accept that your mom is gone. You have to accept you have to move on. What if they’re not ready to? You know, so I tell them, you will never hear that from Susanna. My goal is that I’m going to teach you to adjust and adapt to the huge loss that you have experienced and to be able to understand that. So just in that first session, I Tell them you don’t like these statements, you don’t like being asked these questions. No, I don’t, then guess let advocate for yourself, you have a voice for a reason. And you need to tell your aunt that the next time you’re in passing with her and she asks you Are you okay? For example, you need to tell her. And you know, Auntie, please don’t say this to me, it does not help. Because children, they’re, they’re coming from a perspective that you’re the adults, you know better. And so surely you will not say this to me every time you see me. And I tell them, This is what you think. But they don’t know what’s gonna help you, and what’s not gonna work for you. So this is when you have to advocate for yourself and say, Please don’t say this to me. And it changes the dynamic. And then the person knows, the last thing I’d ever want to do is hurt you, or make you feel sad, or bring up the thought of the loss. And maybe you weren’t even thinking about it. So then it helps them to be able to understand that. And to get away from that. With my high schoolers, what I do is I tell them, how frustrating is it that you go to the dictionary and you look up grief, and it says deep sorrow due to a loss? So what are you supposed to do with that? That’s so insensitive. It doesn’t give you any guidance, it just helps you to validate that your heart is broken into a million pieces. So I I am the first session have them confront with grief is and they get to write out their own definition of it. And we throw out words like grief to them is feeling misunderstood. They can’t breathe, they’re in a lot of pain. They’re frustrated, they’re losing hope, loss of trust, depression, anger, anxiety, sad, guilt, shame, no energy, and stuck.
So that’s the definition that they formulate. And I can’t imagine what they’ve been doing with these feelings before they came to the sessions. They’ve been walking around with this. And this is why they’ve been reactive. And they love how I addressed that. Before you came to grief counseling, not your finest moment, you’ve identified a lot of these feelings and how you can see how they can be hurtful to you and your relationships. So you’ve been sabotaging yourself. I said, so moving forward. Now you know that this is what’s caused that reactivity, with you cussing with you sabotaging your grades with you losing interest in your after school activities, baseball, football, cheerleading, you know, the debate club, anything. Now you know that that reactivity has taken over your life, and it’s basically speaking for you grief has been speaking for you, because that’s not who you are. And they’ll cry with me. And they’re like, No, that’s not who I am. I’m not a rude person. I’m not somebody who loses, you know, you know, side of what they need to be saying in the moment, and it overreact. That’s not who I am. It’s, you know, the grief has driven you to this. And you almost feel like you look in the mirror, and you don’t even know who you are anymore. So it’s being able to let them know, I know, you feel like you’re at a, you know, the edge of the cliff. And you’re like, that’s it, I don’t want to live like this, I’m ready to jump. And I, I would like to believe and the feedback that they’ve given me is that they feel like I’m tucking them away from the cliff. And they eventually are so far from it, when we’re done with our sessions, that they’re like, I can’t even believe I was once there. And I don’t ever want to get back to those feelings, because they get to process with me week to week for six, sometimes eight weeks. And it’s consistency. And they’re so proud of themselves that they’re having this opportunity for self care and to recover. And then they evolve and there’s so much healthier now feeling equipped, and now knowing what to do so that they don’t fall into, you know, into the grips of grief moving forward.
Victoria Volk 14:18
One thing I want to come back to circle back to a little bit is, first of all people who listen or listening adults who experienced grief or trauma as a child probably are identifying with everything you just said and are probably seeing those same things manifest in their life as an adult. That was my story. I’m sure for many Grievers. That is the case for child Grievers because you grow up with it. And unless you learn these tools, and gain new knowledge and how to respond to it, you’re going to continue those behaviors into adulthood. You and I both know this, right? Yes. One thing I want to highlight though is that And something that’s been on the forefront of my mind lately is that we do all there’s like, and as a grief recovery specialists, you know, this too is that we all respond to grief. Similarly, not the same. But similarly, like we have these STURMS, the short term energy relieving behaviors, these things resort to to feel better for a short period of time, or we might have angry outbursts, you know, we implode or we explode, we all do these things, some of us do one or the other, or a combination of different ones. But we all tend to respond to grief. Similarly, the reason why I would just want to highlight, we respond differently to our loss is because the relationship is unique. So it’s the relationship that we’re responding to, as in effect of that loss, right. So you can have two children who had the same loss, but they’re responding differently from the relationship, maybe one felt really loved. And the other one felt like they were the, you know, discarded or not cared for as much, or maybe they weren’t the favorites, you know, some siblings can feel that way. And if they lost their father or mother, they’re experiencing their grief in response to the relationship, so I just wanted to highlight that, for those listening, why you may have two children or kids in the classroom who’ve had a similar loss, but are responding differently, might be exhibiting those same behaviors, but yet, maybe one’s angry, and maybe one’s like I, I really internalized it. And I think your personality has a lot to do with that too. I was very much an introvert, I am an introvert. And so I, I was I didn’t have the angry outbursts, but I was tardy a lot. Fatigue was huge for me, as a child, you know, having accidents, things like that. I was also a child of sexual trauma, after my dad passed away, so there was a lot going on in my life as a child. So I just wanted to circle back to that for to clarify that. But I love what you’ve created, because it is so needed, desperately needed. So if someone is listening, who, oh, gosh, that sounds so cool, I want to bring this to my school, or I want my school to know about this does it have to be somebody who is a trained school counselor, or, you know, someone with a clinical degree psychologist who does work with the children in the school district to provide this program.
Susana Morell 17:48
Now, I’ve been very successful and training parents, so they can do the online training with me and I go through the workbook with them, it’s so the goal is to you know, improve the dialogue with children, the grief dialogue with them. And so, of course, the preference is that within the schools, you’d have the counselors train, and I’ve had a few train with me, and I love the you know, how they feel that they have more insight, they feel like they’re having a better understanding of the perspective of the grieving child after my training. So that’s huge, that’s key to be able to say, I feel like I can support this child, as to where you and I growing up, it was probably like, you know, you could tell the adult was uncomfortable, it didn’t know what to say, you know, and so it’s kind of like the blind leading the blind, you know, and when that needs to stop, we need to be able to, you know, be on the on the forefront, and to be able to say, like, we know that you have this huge emotional wound, and we want to help you heal, and we want to return peace and tranquility, so that you feel composed and get back to your life. So, you know, anybody who is works with children, whether that be a teacher, administrators, the counselors, you know, the crisis aides, just anybody in general, that, you know, I shoot for the stars, and that was my goal that, you know, people would catch on to this and say, you know, wow, and these modules, I mean, they’re, they’re so unique, they’re so different. It’s a lot of play therapy, it’s working with playdough, it’s working with Legos, you know, it’s doing all these exercises, but while the child is engaging in the activity, you’re being able to help them connect to this is why we did this activity to help you understand how to minimize anger, how to minimize hurt, how to minimize disappointment, how to minimize everything that you’ve been going through, and they feel that relief, like, oh, what you taught me today is something I can actually do, because they have all this potential, but they’re buried underneath all their potential when they’re grieving because they don’t even know right from left. So when you start, you know, being able to introduce this to them and they start feeling like they’re better informed, and that this is working for them, that they’re just they’re eager children are so eager to learn. And they, they, you know, there’s they desire this guidance so that they can navigate out of this situation.
Victoria Volk 20:16
ow did this become a nonprofit, because I know that there might be people listening that would like to start something similar or have something burning within them that they would like to bring to the forefront.
Susana Morell 20:33
So, um, as my individual office, you know, when you’re calling a school, or you’re calling an agency, or you’re calling just anybody in the community, and you say, I’m calling from Suzanna morale, counseling services, this is what I’ve done, this is how I’d like to help and you don’t get many phone calls back because they’re like, I don’t know who this person is, right. So everybody kept saying, you may want to consider becoming a nonprofit. I mean, you have your curriculum, you have great outcomes, this does work. And so this way, you’d be able to maybe reach more masses. And it’s just something about being an entity that’s very different than just being a person. And I said, okay, the, you know, I wouldn’t know the first place to start, I was very fortunate to have great mentors and to be able to say, Okay, this is how you license your curriculum. This is how you get the paperwork established, get lawyers involved, you start feeling very overwhelmed. But you know, you’ve got that passion, and you’re, you’re dedicated to this, and you’re like, if this is what I’ve got to do, to be able to support children, that’s fine, I’ll do it. And so it got established. And it’s very exciting. When you do receive, you know, being aware or receipt, getting your letter saying you are now you know, a 501 c three, and you’re just just so excited, because you’re like, I’m off to the races. And clearly, you know, this will be the answer that districts have been looking for and agencies and community support, and it doesn’t work that way. You just have to have a lot of patience. You have to just let people know you’re out there posting on social media, you know, being able to be on podcasts, and being able to just people to know what you’re doing. So they have a better understanding. I post videos, I have some of the activities that have been done when I’ve gone to go speak to campuses. And so it’s really, really hard to when I do a presentation to show how this works, because I can’t bring a child in and have them share their story due to confidentiality. So I can show the metrics and the goals that we’ve achieved. And the you know, the outcomes and how it’s evidence based. But that’s where it gets so frustrating Victoria, because people are like, Well, how do we know this really works? Well, I’m showing you start to finish I can bring in case studies and show you how the child enter telling me that they’re not sleeping their grades are, are you know, not what they should be. They’ve lost interest in everything. You’re talking about the fatigue Enos, you know, where they’re sad. They can’t talk about their feelings. They’re not, you know, they answer this questionnaire. And when out of these 10 questions, they have all these, you know, areas of their life that are being negatively impacted by grief. And they almost answer yes to everything. And then when they exit, they’re giving feedback saying yes, I have a better understanding of my feelings. Yes, I can talk about my feelings now. Yes, I feel like I have relief. Yes, I have a better understanding of grief. And I’m better informed. You know, yes, I’m eating better. Yes, I’m back to my activities. And then they share, you know, in their own words, can you please write us, you know, a sentence or two about your experience. And they say, I learned how not to hate the world. I loved this program, I learned that, you know, I was being misunderstood. Now I know how to be able to say how the grief affected me personally, I feel that I can, you know, be a support for my family. Now, I can help them to understand how we can improve the communication change dialogue. So when you get that back, you would hope that you know, I’d be doing more than just one district but once again, just to be patient, because it does have the potential it does work. And so that’s where I’m at right now. So 2022 Now starting during a pandemic, you know, that was scary. But the support is there. Recently, I was very fortunate to go into a family shelter. I approached the executive director at a community meeting and I said, I know you do you have a great program for rehabilitating the parents and for them to get back on their feet. What are you doing for the children while mom and dad are going and learning job seeking skills and financial literacy and you know, being able to work on themselves? What are you doing for the children and they were like, well, you No, we have someone who babysits them and they watch movies and they play and I said, you don’t think the child would like to process what has been like to be, you know, relocated overnight, be sleeping in a car now being a shelter being a program. And she’s like, we never thought about this at all, I’m sure their heart has a lot of things to say about this, you know, it’s a lot of changes. I mean, they can’t tell their friends where they’re at. I mean, so then I have been working with this family shelter for a year and a half now. And they have seen significant improvement, the children come in, you know, reactive, they’re rude, they’re, they’re feeling just very uncomfortable. They’re, you know, nitpicking at everything that they don’t like anything. Once they go through my program, they’re just like, they’re better adjusted. They trust the process. And most importantly, I remind them that at this current time, I know, this isn’t the ideal environment, this isn’t your home, but you’re safe. And at the end of the day, that’s more important than anything, and you’re surrounded by a lot of support and great volunteers. And so being able, the goal is for shielding hearts to be able to do more of that work, because, you know, the, the shelter, that they don’t have the funding to bring in someone to pay them, you know, what they could so through the donations that we have, were able to come in, and we’re able to give them, you know, a reduced rate to offer this support.
Victoria Volk 26:28
That’s amazing. And so for those listening to where where is shielding hurts based out of Hema, Texas. So right now, it’s just in Texas, but you’re looking to explore. Oh, absolutely. So I know, as a grief recovery specialist, you know, we the Grief Recovery Institute has the program, helping children with loss, and with the hearts matter project, that helping children with loss program is the foundation of that, and then you have incorporated other things that you’ve gotten from your training, is that accurate? Correct?
Susana Morell 27:05
Yes. And things that I created, when I Yeah, so when I was in grad school, I created a therapeutic game that would help children be able to feel that they could speak from, in a fun way, take on, like, speak through like, a character that they they really admired. So that in this moment, since you’re Ironman, for example, and we’d go around the board of the game that I invented, and they’d be able to speak well as Iron Man, this is what I think about divorce. And as Iron Man, this is what would have hurt Iron Man, and this and that. And so and then once, and then we’re able to say so Now eventually, in the game, we would put Iron Man aside, and we would allow the child to say what that was like for them to be able to, you know, hear that narrative and see that journey through Iron Man’s eyes, but now be able to feel comfortable enough to take the lead.
Victoria Volk 28:03
That’s brilliant. And actually, because, you know, children are imaginative, of course, but I can remember wanting to be anywhere else, but where I was, and to be anyone else, but who I was. And so to roleplay I think that’s brilliant. That’s a brilliant idea. And, you know, I think to like, what, what are your I don’t know why I’m thought of this, but like, with children with imaginary friends? Do you think that that is an aspect of their subconscious to or away for that they sometimes that children sometimes cope with stressors in their life of maybe that’s them role playing with an imaginary friend, like, you know, it’s almost as if like, they can’t, they don’t feel like they can communicate with the adults in their life, right? So they have this imaginary friend that they talk to, and do you? I don’t know, do you? Have you found that in your work that that’s sometimes a way a child is coping with stress?
Susana Morell 29:13
Absolutely. It’s so therapeutic for them. It works for them, the adult may become alarmed because they’re like, why are they talking? What Who are they talking to? What are they doing? And I always like to let parents know because I did write a book. That’s how you know I wrote a book and then I transformed the book into a parent guide. And I stress in the Parent Guide, mom, dad, caregiver, Guardian do not become alarmed. This is therapeutic. Because at the end of the day, who is the child hurting by having their imaginary friend, so not hurting anybody? They’re in their safe space.
Victoria Volk 29:50
You know, it’s not to say that they aren’t seen spirit and we aren’t going to go there. This podcast but I fully believe that that is the You know, children are unfiltered. Right? So they’re more likely to see spirit. And that’s what I believe anyway. But I love that you have written a book. And that’s what kind of created the curriculum. And so can you share a little bit about what that process was like for you?
Susana Morell 30:20
Yes. You know, I had always wanted to put, you know, you have all those years of experience. I’ve been in so many situations where I was over the crisis situations for children and families. And so you have all this knowledge, and you want to be able to break this down to help parents because they do they feel embarrassed, or they feel like why don’t I know what, because you’re not taught this in school, you know, and so I want I wrote the book from the perspective of like, being able to feel like you have some life skills, like you’re you feel more comfortable with it, to be able to engage with your child and to be able to speak to them through care and concern. Because when children tell me, my mom yells at me, she gets really angry at me when I’m crying. And I don’t understand that Miss Susanna, and I help the child understand, mom is, she is sad for you, she feels frustrated that she can’t take this hurt from you. And I wish she would just tell you that and instead of allowing herself to be reactive, and to be yelling at you, but that’s really what’s going on, I said, but rest assure mom is reading my parent guide, while you are here in the sessions with me, and you’re gonna see improvement, because if, if I’m helping you to better understand, you know, this grief process, I need mom to be on board to have a better understanding of how it’s affecting you. So they’re collaboratively you know, I wish I could have sessions with the parents too. But all the feedback from the parent guide is Oh, my gosh, that was that was written. And I never I could see what I was guilty of, and I love how it was broken down of what not to do. And to be able to feel like I have the support and written from from a standpoint of just being very, you know, yeah, therapeutic techniques in there, but not feeling like I needed to have a degree to understand this content, you know, just very just Elementary, just, you know, just something to wear. If I, you know, pay attention to the words that are written here, it’s to wear the same thing of what I give to the children I’m giving to the parents, like, oh, I can do that. I love that suggestion. I will apply that. And then they start to see the difference. So that’s what, what really drove me to be able to create that.
Victoria Volk 32:47
And what is the book called?
Susana Morell 32:48
The Hearts Matter Project.
Victoria Volk 32:50
Okay, perfect. And I’ll put a link in the show notes to that. Thank you. So what is one tip that you would give someone listening, whether it is a teacher, a counselor, a child, perhaps, maybe children, teens are listening to this, or a parent? Maybe your advice is different based on age, I’m not sure.
Susana Morell 33:18
Well, just in general, you know, I appreciate when someone wants to be empathetic, that wants to take that extra step to be able to be a part of that support system for a Griever. And I just always say, you don’t have to say anything, sometimes you don’t have to be you know, the expert in this. And just be honest with the child or, you know, with your co worker with anybody and just say, you know, I’m gonna be very honest, I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do. But I care about you. And as a human being, I can see you’re hurting. So is there anything that I can do to be able to help alleviate that hurt? Like, Are you overwhelmed, here at work? Are you this Are you that we can come together as you know, co workers and we can rally behind you and don’t We don’t want you to feel alone and we can offer the safety net. So to I encourage anybody to have that conversation, especially with children, you know, they’re not going to come and say to an adult, because they don’t want to feel that they’re disrespecting them. They appreciate everything that their parents are doing for them. But if you’re going to be nagging at them, because they haven’t taken the trash out, three days after they buried someone that was very important to them, you know, to pick and choose your battles. You know, they’re not deliberately trying to disobey you or it’s not that they forgot what their chores are. It’s just that right now, that’s not really a priority. So, you know, I would just really ask them to just be a little bit more sensitive to the situation. I’m not saying that excuse for a child to be running away crashing the car stealing money cussing? No, it does does not excuse that behavior. But if we can be more sensitive, and if we can address, you know, those behaviors with, I know that this cannot be, this had to be very difficult for you. And this is probably why you’re thinking that this is the only thing your only option for you. And I don’t want you to think that because you’re better than that you’re smarter than that. And what what can we do to be able to get you to eliminate those bad behaviors? And so just to be able to let them know, you know, we care about you too much to see you to sabotage yourself. Because that’s not the answer. And if you continue with this behavior at a 10 1217 into your 20s and 30s. You know, it’s it’s such a cliche, it sounds like a cliche, but it’s the truth hurt people hurt people.
Victoria Volk 35:57
I think so I guess yes, I think the biggest takeaway in what you just said is we can sum it up in a nutshell is for people listening, is that for parents, like you said, hurt people hurt people, but learn that learn how to be a safe person, a heart with the ears for the child and your life. And secondly, that those behaviors are a symptom. They’re a symptom. And so if you can learn to be a safe person and learn the tools, you might discover and uncover really what’s at the root of those symptoms of behavior. So what were you doing, I’m curious, when, at the time when you experienced your losses and loss of your nephew, were you on a different path and this like totally, like those losses, just change the trajectory of your life?
Susana Morell 36:51
Know, in 2015, when the court appointed me, my father’s guardian, I said, I know this is going to be really hard. I don’t know how long I’m going to have him for. Because he is deteriorating, they gave him three months under my care, he was with me 11 months. So I feel very honored that I was able to do that. But I was convinced, and him and I had lots of conversations. And he just told me that I have so much passion, I was such a great caregiver, I wanted to make changes, and I needed to believe in myself and I needed to get out there and do it. And I told him taking a big risk. And he said, It’s not about risk. It’s about you know what you believe in, you believe in that you can make a change, then do it, I know you will succeed, I have no doubt that you will create something beautiful. And so when I lost him, I really said, you know, this is the best way that I can honor them for supporting me for believing in me. For you know, just never allowing me to let any type of hurt or disappointment derail me from who I was destined to be. And I really feel like I’m serving a purpose. And it’s so unfortunate that you have to go through so many losses to discover that, but I feel so blessed. I feel like I’m living my best life. And when I can turn these children’s lives around. It’s just indescribable, to be able to be a part of that.
Victoria Volk 38:27
I just got goosebumps. It’s a beautiful, beautiful story and beautiful share. Would you like to share about your nephew, Lewis?
Susana Morell 38:36
Absolutely. Lewis was a young man that, unfortunately, he struggled being bipolar. And you know, within our mental health field, I just I wish there was more of a follow through. I know, they get assigned a caseworker and they have their psychiatrist and they’re good, but I really wish that there was more support for family when they don’t understand the mental illness. And so he I just feel like he got lost in the cracks. And he tried so much to get bounced back and it got harder and harder. And I’m, you know, my brother has never been a responsible father and he was just, he made fun of the disease and he made him feel, you know, demeaned and worthless. And, and I could come in and visit and I could, you know, pour so much love and remind him that, you know, because trust, I’m in the, I’m in the field, I’m trained in this trust that you will be okay, you’ll be able to cope. But you know, I live six hours away. So, you know, I can only you know, bring that to his life so often and so, but he would walk into a room and he’s just he was shy. He was so playful, but his smile was just it was just infectious and so sweet. He had a beautiful heart. And so, you know, one can The only thing that you know what, who he could have been what he wanted to study art, he was looking into art schools. And so yeah, we will never know. And that’s so unfortunate, but just a beautiful spirit. And I’m sure he’s so proud of me. He’s so proud of me, because I did. I did have for a moment to think, you know, you’re angry and you feel like, you know, did did the mental health field let him down? Did did? Did, did we not show up? Did we not do this. And through this work, and I help children and adults that I see in my office when they lose their partners to suicide. I help them to understand that at the end of the day, it breaks our heart that this is a choice that our loved one made. And it’s not for us to take personally.
Victoria Volk 40:51
Thank you for sharing. Well, and I want to there is an episode I had on my podcast a gentleman named Bob coolish, and he struggled with bipolar for well over 20 years before he was actually diagnosed. And he really educated me on bipolar. And he said that they call it the illness of loss. Because it is so often undiagnosed. But the one thing that he shared with me that blew my mind really, is when people go to a physician for support, right? When you when you’re feeling down and you’re feeling depressed, you don’t go to the doctor when you’re feeling amazing, right? You go to the doctor when you’re feeling like something’s wrong, or you’re feeling down or you’re sad, or, you know, you want to feel better write, that’s when you go. And as as a physician, if they’re not doing the proper screening for mental illness, including bipolar disorder, if they prescribe somebody who is depressed, an antidepressant, when in fact they have Bipolar, and they do not also prescribe a mood stabiliser, that essentially send someone with bipolar into mania. Someone with bipolar has to be on a mood stabilizer and an antidepressant. And that one decision of a physician causes harm. He told me that, and I have never forgotten that. And I’ve shared it with anybody who’s spoken to me about bipolar or anyone who has suspected that someone they love his bipolar, it is so important to be evaluated by someone who is trained in mental illness. And it just blows my mind that a regular physician, family physician is able to even screen for that. Or do so in a way that’s not they’re not trained to screen for that, right. They’re not given the proper tools and the training to actually screen for that. Because I think it’s great that people have access to a physician who can screen for that. But if they’re not properly trained, or they’re not doing that, they can do more harm. And someone will be in mania until they get proper treatment. And it just blew my mind. So if that’s an adult, going through that imagine now a teenager, who’s still whose mind and brain is still developing at a rapid pace and isn’t fully developed. Right? their frontal lobes are not fully developed until they’re 2425. So it’s educate yourself if you are suspecting mental illness of any kind, so that you can be an advocate for your child.
Susana Morell 44:00
Yeah, because I can’t imagine, you know, if there’s not this thorough understanding, you know, being able the child, you know, my nephew trusted these professionals, that they were always changing things, they’re always this, they’re always just wanting to admit him to psych units this that, I mean, a child starts thinking like, you’re I’m like an experiment. I’m a human being. And so why can’t we be able to get to the root or be able to give me the relief that I so desire instead of just, you know, well, that doesn’t work now, let’s reevaluate it doesn’t work. And so now you’re this and you’re getting in trouble at school and you’re doing this and you’re doing that now we’re gonna send you to the psych ward, and it’s just like this constant, you know, revolving door and I can see how it can just exhaust somebody, and then you go into mania and you just lose all hope. And it’s just, it’s a recipe for disaster. And it’s, it’s unfortunate that the children that children have to, you know, suffer in this manner.
Victoria Volk 45:00
Imagine the weight of someone as an adult going through that I just cannot even imagine the teenager how isolating that feels. I’m going to link to Bob’s link episode in the show notes too, for anyone who is interested in learning more about bipolar disorder. So thank you for, for sharing about that. So we could talk about that, because I think it’s very important. How did you come up with the name?
Susana Morell 45:27
Oh, thank you for asking. So the hearts matter project curriculum, I came up with that name, because I want the children to know that their hearts do matter. Their hearts are angered by so many feelings, and they feel stuck. And I want them to know that they do exist, they are one individual, their names may be very common, but the child that I have in front of me is one and only. And because they exist, I want them to exist in a positive way instead of a negative way. And that’s why it’s called the hearts matter project. Now, the logo for shielding Hearts is actually a picture of me as a little girl, I was in a cute dress. And I thought, How wonderful to be able to connect that image that that little girl as I’ve since since I can remember, I was always very nurturing, very caring, very loving, very sweet. And here she is this adult, you know, doing this work. And so I just love how it came full circle. And they were when they were like, Well, you got to find a logo, but nothing to where you would get copyright infringement or the you know, the legalities. And I said, I have the perfect logo I have this picture of, and I can just, you know, I would love to just jump into that picture and be that little girl again, because she hadn’t experienced the dysfunction, the heartache hurt, you know, everything. And so it just to be able to let her know that here, that little girl is now an adult and she is healed, and she only can what we’ve evolved to.
Victoria Volk 46:56
I love that. Had you experienced loss and grief as a child?
Susana Morell 47:01
Oh, yes. My goodness, yes. Probably the most hurtful and as loss of myself, you know, having sexual trauma. And so not knowing, I remember feeling like, you know, dirty, guilty shame, I don’t need to exist, I would hope that a car would hit me or an illness would take me or I wouldn’t wake up and, and until I was able to disclose that in junior high and get to counseling, and to be able to have somebody support me. And that’s when I said, you know, wow, this person and the supportive counselors, you know, throughout my life, before I decided to study counseling, I just said, I think I think I know what I want to do, because it almost feels like, it’s not the traditional, you’ll be okay, you know, you don’t have to talk about it. No one knows, it was, you know, that’s what family’s gonna say. But I needed more than that, because it was just so deep rooted and so much hurt. And then I was born with half a year on my left side. So having this, you know, defect and just everything that dysfunction of that and those surgeries and, and feeling like an alien and just, and then losing my grandpa that was very close to him. And then losing my aunt that was my one of my favorite aunts to cancer. So it just feels like I remember for myself as a child, every time I wanted to get back up and keep going and like life just would knock me down again and knock me down and knock me down. And you just eventually just feel like I don’t know what more I have to give. And if this is life, I don’t want to live it. And so, you know, um, I did have a suicide attempt at 18. And I tried to overdose, and I’m so glad that, you know, it was not my time. And that was not the answer. And through that recovery is where I was like, No, instead of sabotaging myself, I want to learn about this. I want to go get educated about this. And I want to be able to help people. And I think when you have that experience, you can help people and they feel very connected to you because I’m not having to tell them what I’ve been through. But they were like, Wow, you really do understand. And yes, I do. Because if I can recover, I want to encourage them and I want to help them get back to their lives and feel fulfilled. Because we’re given this life not to suffer. We’re given this beautiful life so that we can be amazing. And you know, and that we can just, you know, just feel like accomplished and just feel like we are you know this beautiful human being and we deserve to be able to live that life.
Victoria Volk 49:55
My heart is with yours and goes out to you on your life experience, and I feel like that is an origin story to be shared of shielding hearts. And I don’t recall reading any of that on your website. So I just wanted to encourage you to share that story. Because I love that image of use the little girl that you are the little girl in your logo. I think that’s beautiful.
Susana Morell 50:31
Thank you. And I appreciate you giving me that suggestion. Victoria. I’m just I think I felt like if I were to put that on the website didn’t want it to be about me. No, I wanted it to be about the health. And so now that you given me you know that feedback, it makes it feel no, it’s not about you. It’s about being having people to understand why you cared so much, why you wanted to make a difference, because you personally have been affected by it. And so I will definitely have to bring that to everybody’s attention and do an update to the website.
Victoria Volk 51:07
Definitely. I mean, that that. I didn’t know that that was you, the little girl. And so I think that’s a beautiful, like I said it’s beautiful origin story of your full circle life. Because had that suicide attempt and successful, there would be no shielding hurts. Right? That is correct. You wouldn’t have impacted over 700 children. It’s important. Thank you. What is the difference? Do you feel between? Because I think it’s important in distinct in sharing the distinction of how the hearts matter project is different. In that it includes evidence, evidence based content, right of, you know, the helping children with loss program, how have you felt, in your training personally, like the training that you were going through, you got your master’s in clinical psychology, but you actually went even with the knowledge that you had, you went through the Grief Recovery method. And I just for people listening, I just want to want you to share why that was so impactful, and why that was different than any training that you had received and why as someone who was training as a clinical psychologist, you felt that that was important for you to experience.
Susana Morell 52:33
I had never experienced the opportunity to obtain the apologies that I deserved. And that changed everything for me. You know, the person who sexually abused me as a family member, he went on to marry have daughters, I always cringed when I knew, you know, I, you know, he’s living his life. Like if like, if he didn’t, he’s done nothing wrong. And that has always killed me to be around family members and to hear his name spoken and what he’s doing because I’m like, you don’t know what monster this person is, and what he robbed of me my innocence. And I had never really fully recovered, until I did this work at, you know, the Grief Recovery method and my training, and to be able to, he’s not going to surface, he’s not going to reflect and he’s not going to redeem himself, and this lifetime with me, and knock on my door and beg for forgiveness, that’s not going to happen. So being able to hear that apology that I deserved, and that I desired allowed me to be at peace with it. And I just felt empowered. I felt just ready to just take this on and just start thinking like, How can I have others do this. And so that’s when I was just really determined. Once I acquired those skills, and I love being able to do that, in my private practice, when Grievers reached out to me and they said what will be different with this program than any other program and I explained to them, you are going to feel acknowledged, you are going to obtained these coping skills and learn a method that is really going to help you heal and to be able to help you recover. It’s not about a quick fix about putting a bandaid on it. Let’s have the emotional wound. Let’s heal once and for all so that you can feel, you know, compelled to want to get back to your life because they do they feel like they’re stuck. They feel like they’re that hamster on that wheel. It’s okay and then sometimes it gets bad and then it’s okay and sometimes it gets bad and I’m like, Let’s get off the wheel. Because that’s not where you belong. And so being able to do that in my office, I love it.
Victoria Volk 54:51
Same it is the most rewarding work that I have ever, ever done in My life as well, I Yeah, wholeheartedly 1,000% agree because being a child of sexual trauma abuse to, you will never get that apology and, and oftentimes to it, especially if someone who’s died, of course you will never right like so we we take this anger and we just we see inside. And this work really helps to soften, soften our hearts.
Susana Morell 55:31
And not just with grief and loss, I’ve now convinced the district that I’m at right now to let me work with the children that are demonstrating some inappropriate behaviors. And so you know, they get to come to the program, and come to find out that the disruption in their life is divorce, big sister Big Brother moving away to college, right, you know, moving from my house to an apartment because of financial hardship. And so I’m like, let me allow let me give these children an opportunity to process this, this could not have been easy for them. You know, it’s not that they’re ungrateful, it’s not that they’re ill mannered, they’re hurting. They want to know, how is it that one day I had a family dynamic and togetherness, and now it’s split. And this just catapults them into this, you know, just this emotional roller coaster, and they want it to stop. So I’m so glad that I’m able to work with those teams that are on probation, maybe did something on social media, that they didn’t have no idea how that would affect them. Never wanted to be on probation and the juvenile detention program. And so being able to give these children these skills is it’s, it’s amazing, because I don’t want them to be walking around with that anger, and then unresolved hurt. And so I’ve really advocated for that as well. So the program when counselors or teachers say, but I thought you were just grieving loss, a child anytime they experience any type of disruption. That is grief, it does not have to be just because it’s due to them burying somebody, it is their heart experiencing that hurt not having any reference to it. What just happened to me, that is grief and trauma for them.
Victoria Volk 57:21
And that is a huge part of our work, isn’t it? It’s just the education of of correcting that misinformation that grief is just about loss, which we know is not right. We know as an adult, you go through divorce? Well, of course you have grief with that, you know, what, who then why is it not normal, that a child would experience grief as well. So thank you for mentioning that. And I feel like that is a great way to conclude. I feel like it was a very good point you made, I love what you’ve created. And and it is my hope that it expands. And it just continues to grow. And is there anything else that you would like to share about shielding hearts, or about the hearts powder project or anything else that you would like that you didn’t get to
Susana Morell 58:12
Now I feel very comfortable with being able to explain the journey, the concept and who we are today. And I have a really great board that believes in the program. And like I said, it’s just being able to just tackle this one day at a time. And I’m not, I’m gonna stay determined, that’s what got me here, I’m gonna stay determined and just hope that this will grow because it really should be seen as life skills that these kids are just really searching for. They want to be able to feel that they can cope and move on. And they deserve that. And so that is just my hope that any any listener today will want to learn more, we’ll be able to see what resources we offer the book, the parent guide. And so just anybody who would love to be able to acquire these skills, we are here to support you.
Victoria Volk 59:08
So it is only in person, the curriculum, correct?
Susana Morell 59:12
No, the curriculum can be done online, we do have a virtual office and we can be I have been tapped in through video into classrooms and being able to offer this so we do have that virtual aspect of it as well.
Victoria Volk 59:27
Oh, glad I asked. Okay. All right. Well, there you have it. And if people want to learn more about you, or about Schilling hertz, where can they find you and reach out to you.
Susana Morell 59:38
We have it set up on the website to where if they’d like to schedule a consultation, they get to select what area they’re interested in, and then we’ll be more than happy to be in they actually have the calendar on there in the time. And then once they are able to do that, then we will be more than happy to follow up and be a able to reach out to them and see the reason for their inquiry and to be able to see how we can support.
Victoria Volk 1:00:07
But where can they find you? Online?
Susana Morell 1:00:10
Yes at www.shieldinghearts.org. And they can also find the book is on a susanamorell.com. And there’s a link there to purchase the book, it’s an E file, and the curriculum is available for purchase as well. And then when somebody does purchase the curriculum, then we can set up to where they can do the training, and they can learn how to utilize the modules. And the training is usually about 45 minutes up to an hour and 15 of your time. So any parent, any teacher, any counselor, Administrator, anybody working with children or just for personal knowledge to be able to expand on it to have this new skills, unique skills that are so beneficial, then we’ve been more than happy to set that up as well.
Victoria Volk 1:00:58
Amazing. Thank you so much, Susana, again for sharing all that you’ve created. And I love it. I love it so much. So thank you for being here today. Thank you, Victoria. All right. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love. From my heart to yours. Thank you for listening. If you liked this episode, please share it because sharing is caring. And until next time, give and share compassion by being hurt with yours. And if you’re hurting know that what you’re feeling is normal and natural. Much love my friend.
Cancer, Childhood Grief, Death/Dying, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Resources |
Dan Goldberg | Finding the Glory
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Was your childhood filled with joy and surrounded by love and support? There may have been some challenging times for your parents or even for you, but what if you indeed did have the ideal life?
Dan’s childhood was amazing. So when grief hit home hard, and hard it did, he was ill-prepared. He had experienced the death of his grandparents, but even then, there was little discussion about death or grief. His parents did their best to shelter him and his siblings from the sorrows of life.
So when his father was dying of cancer, there was a strong message shared by his father and other loved ones that his father would get through it, that he would beat cancer. And when the next cancer treatment worked, they would take that amazing family vacation. However, that family vacation never happened.
Before Dan turned 20, his father died. And, before his 25th birthday, his mother would also die of cancer, the kind that’s hard to pronounce and little known about. What are the odds?
Rather than taking those odds and allowing them to destroy his life, Dan took the advice his mother gave him before she died that shook him straight and went on a quest for healing.
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.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk 0:00
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. today. My guest is Dan Goldberg. He is a serial entrepreneur and host of the bits of gold podcast, where he explores thought provoking topics, navigating tough circumstances, and ultimately, how you can build a purpose driven life no matter what. On bits of gold, Dan discusses waking up to who we truly are finding our purpose and the importance of building our dream life through unfiltered conversations, personal experience, and inspiring interviews. Thank you so much for being here, Dan.
Dan Goldberg 0:34
Thanks so much for having me. It’s great to great to see you again.
Victoria Volk 0:37
And I was a guest on bits of gold. And I just love that whole bio. I love how you describe the podcast. And I just I think the name is really clever, too, because I think so often, in our stories, there are bits of gold that we can’t really see when we’re in the thick of it, right, but we can eventually see once we’re to the other side of it. And that’s why you’re on grieving voices. Because somehow, some way you have found the other side of what you’ve experienced, in a lot of ways, you’re probably still going through it because grief is like that it kind of shows up when we least expect it. So what brings you to grieving voices?
Dan Goldberg 1:19
Yeah, I was gonna say still still moving through it. I think that journey is, is is a journey. And it is there’s, there’s never really a destination, right? Like, I think you’re constantly on grief, grief, once you experience grief, it’s with you forever. And it morphs. It evolves, it takes shape in a new life and a new light. And as as you get older, and as more time moves on. But I think grief is something that you always carry with you once you experience loss, regardless if it’s regardless if it’s a traumatic loss or not.
Victoria Volk 1:54
And so what was your first experience, even in childhood, with loss?
Dan Goldberg 2:01
Yeah, so I’ve actually I feel like so I’m 28 years old. And I feel like, by the time I turned 25, I experienced actually a pretty significant amount of loss in my life. The two most the two most traumatic ones, my my dad passed away when when I turned 20 A couple of months prior to me turning 20 years old, my dad passed away. And then my mom passed away a month after my my 25th birthday. So within a five year period, I lost both my dad and my mom. But prior to that actually growing up I I had lost a both my grandparents, my grandma and aunt and a dog. So I feel like I’ve actually had like a pretty wide a lot of loss at a at a fairly young age.
Victoria Volk 2:51
And how can I ask how your parents address those losses? Because often we just don’t know as parents what to do or what to say?
Dan Goldberg 2:59
Yes. So I would say the first the first. The first loss that my grandma was the first person that that passed away in my direct family. And I was like, so young, I really don’t have any memories with her. I don’t even remember how that was handled or how my family navigated. I really don’t remember that my grandma was fairly older. So I don’t have any memories there. When my aunt passed away, that was completely unexpected. And she died in the middle of of of the night. And I want to say it was days before or maybe even on her 50th birthday. But I remember my parents came home and they my parents were out to dinner, my parents came home my sisters and I were on the couch and they told us that tell us something and my aunt my They said my aunt passed away. And we were caught we were close with this. And and similarly, you know, like I just didn’t really I wasn’t at a point in my life, from an age standpoint that I can really understand comprehend. What what that actually meant. Yeah, you know, it’s, it’s, I really have never spoken about my end. But it is. It’s interesting now looking back, just like how limited my understanding was of what it meant that she had died. And I remember my parents telling me that but I really remember not being able to comprehend or understand and I’m sure we’ll get into it later on this podcast. But I’m very involved now in an organization experience camps, which is a free one week camp for kids that have lost loved one, ages nine to 16. And it’s only a five day camp I go every single summer and I think about that a lot while I’m at at the camp volunteering as a counselor, just like when I’m with kids who are 910 Even 11 years old, how they’re, what they’re processing and how they’re able to try how they’re trying to understand or what it really means the person is dead and gone. forever and what that means, physically, obviously, I’m speaking.
Victoria Volk 5:04
Do you remember how old you were when your aunt passed?
Dan Goldberg 5:08
Um, let’s see. I was definitely before maybe 10 or 11. So, but yeah, it’s like it’s even my memories with her are very blurry. But I just vividly remember really not understanding or comprehending, a comprehending death. And, you know, I could I could actually speak to that a little bit just to get off my aunt, specifically with my dad. So my dad died when I was 20. The leading up to his death, I had just transferred into a new college, my parents dropped me off parents dropped me off in August, and Parents Weekend was around Thanksgiving around November time. And my dad traveled a lot for for work. And he had just gotten back from a trip overseas. And my dad was like, I’m not feeling too well. He’s and he said, I’m not sure if we’re going to come up Parents Weekend or not, but I want to see you. So I said, do whatever you need to do, if you want to come up, come up if you can’t come up, because you’re not feeling great. Whatever you want to do, he ended up saying, You know what I really want to see you so he ended up coming up. And when he got there, he looked completely different. He was very, like his skin color was very, very pale. He looked a lot skinnier than he then he was. And he just didn’t look well. And we went out for we I hung out with him and my mom during the day we went out for dinner. And the next morning, he woke up and he said, You know, I’m really not feeling well. So my parents decided to go home, they didn’t stay the weekend, they only say that one night, they drove home. But instead of going home, they made a detour and stopped to the hospital. And originally they thought maybe he had maybe he got something from traveling overseas, maybe it was the flu, something like that. And they were running all these different tests. And about like a week and a half later, they called me and they said that has cancer. And it was even in that moment that and at that point, I was 20 years old, I really couldn’t comprehend, or understand that, like death was even a part of the equation. When my parents told me my dad was sick. My dad called me and he said, You know, it’s not I we have to tell you something, we have to talk to you. I I have cancer, that I’m going to see the best doctors in the world and I’m going to be okay. And I have I have actually a lot of a lot of my uncle’s are and answered our doctors or work in the hot but hospital or health system. And my my uncle called me after. And he sort of just reassured me you know, my dad’s gonna get the best care. And he’s gonna He’s gonna be okay. And we’re gonna get through this that was sort of like the the messaging that my parents sort of told me from the get go that my uncle sort of told me, and seven short months later, he passed away. And as as that as through those seven months, my dad was progressively getting worse, and I was away at school, but I’d come home for the holidays. And I’d come I’d make some trips to come home just to see him. And every time it was progressively worse and worse. So when I first saw him he looked very skinny pale. Next time I saw him he was using a walker. Next time I saw him he was using a wheelchair. Next time I saw him we put this like the electric chair in the on the stair so we get up from the first floor to the second floor. And the next time I saw him he couldn’t really move from his bed to the bathroom without being completely out of breath. And then it was like he was just sort of stuck in this chair. And toward towards the end he was really just like stuck in this chair. And we got like one of those reclining chairs for him. And he would just sort of stay there drink a lot of liquids and he was going to get chemo treatments. And even throughout that entire process. There was never truly a point in my mind where I said, my dad is going to to die or that that was even sort of a that was even a part of the the possibility in the realm of possibility. And actually days leading up to his his his death. My dad, my dad ended up not being able to really walk towards the end. And he had a lot of hip pain. And he ended up going to the hospital to get some radiation to his hip. And I was supposed to be traveling for for like the weekend to go to Boston for for for work. And this was this was Friday, and I went to the hospital to see him. And I said that Should I cancel my trip. I’m just going to Boston for the weekend. But I don’t mind I could stay here. And he said nothing’s going to change between now and when you come home on Sunday. So he said go on the trip. And it was at this point that my dad sort of in that same at that same day earlier in the day my dad had told me there’s nothing more that doctors can do from a chemo standpoint. But they’re going to raise my hip. And I’m going to be able to have a lot more movement after. And we’re going to do like one more big family trip. And I’m going to be okay. So, you know, I saw I said, Okay, do you want me to stay and he said, Go go to Boston, everything’s going to be fine. And I ended up giving him a kiss, and went to Boston. And Sunday morning, my mom called me and she said, Come home as soon as possible. got in the car first thing in the morning, drove right to the hospital. And at that point, they had like, my dad’s pain meds, and he wasn’t, he was, he wasn’t really he wasn’t really lucid at that point, he was just sort of sleeping and making some uncomfortable, like, just noises, you know, it was clearly he was, he was clearly going to die. And the doctor had come in and just said, you know, he’s, this could go on for a couple days, several hours, they didn’t really know, but that he was going to die. And that was, it was really in that moment that, like, I collapsed, and I ended up going leaving the room going to the waiting room. And I just remember like putting my head in my hands and trying to understand or comprehend that my dad’s going to die. And it really wasn’t up until that point where I really had even, there wasn’t even a thought or imagination or possibility in my mind. And part of it was definitely that my parents tried to shelter me or protect me from it’s funny, like the Protect me, but protect me from, you know, the, just the painful, the painful truth and the painful destination that we ultimately ended up at. I think my dad definitely tried to shelter, shelter me a little bit. And that was by choice. And that was his decision. But it definitely, but that was really like the first time that I realized that, hey, people, people do die. People do die young. And it’s funny, just since we started talking about my aunt, it’s even funny, having had those experiences and having lost my aunt and grandparents. You know, you understand obviously, as a young person that death is, death is like, one of one of the few guarantees we all know is our inevitable destination. But I really do think so often. And I would say that this was very much my life previous previous to experiencing significant loss and losing my dad, my life was really, everything’s good. Probably the things that weren’t of significance, I thought were of significance. And although you know that death is a part of life, you’re not really constantly living with that on your mind, thinking about people die, or those around me can die or those that I love die, or I can die you don’t really think of those things I really believe is someone who’s young, naive, and unfortunately, or unfortunately, unfortunately, hasn’t really experienced anything significant. You don’t really, I don’t think you’re walking around, really holding that, that weight that death is a real part of life and that it can strike in a moment’s notice with no warning, no rhyme nor reason. Things will happen and that sort of life. And I think that’s an you know, I’m sure we’ll get into it. But that’s definitely something that I carry near and dear to me now. It’s like that is so physically, spiritually, emotionally, it’s, it’s such a real thing at this point in my life. And knowing that that’s what’s that’s sort of like the bouncing board that enables me to think about life with this unique perspective, which has sort of been the guiding light in my life now now ever forward. But yeah, I just, I just don’t really think that we think about it as young kids, even young adults, even maybe adults, if you haven’t really experienced significant loss, I think, you know, I don’t want to say necessarily my, my dad, because his his sister died when later on in life, that was my aunt, but like, my mom really didn’t experience significant like growing up, we lived in such a happy household. And there were things obviously, where there were challenges or life circumstances that my parents had to navigate. But I have such a happy childhood and life as we knew it as a family, I would say was so happy that like we really didn’t experience the significant shitstorm that would come in my early 20s and mid 20s.
Victoria Volk 14:31
And I want to speak to that a little bit because we are a product of our environment, right? And so you can have two different homes where they can have all these different experiences, negative, impactful experiences, and it’s all negative and the worst always happens to us. And here’s another challenge and it’s really heavy energy, or we can grow up in a home where it’s even if there’s a challenge it’s, well you know what we got we’ll get through this And it’s there’s this positive outlook versus this negative outlook. And so although that served you well as a child growing up, and you know, it might be some people might even say, well take those rose colored glasses off, right? Because the reality is, is that crap happens. But it’s the outlook that your parents gave you. Right? That partially may have resulted in this inability to think about death as like this finality or like this, like this could ever happen to me. So it’s like, where’s the balance? Yeah. You know, because you can go, it’s like the pendulum swung very much the positive way, instead of the negative way, but yet, it didn’t prepare you. For what, for the challenges when they really did when it was really big. Right? When it was something really big?
Dan Goldberg 15:54
Yeah, well, so it’s definitely it’s, it’s interesting. When I look back at when my when my dad was sick, I had this extremely naive perspective thinking, Oh, my dad’s not gonna die. Honestly, there was one conversation I had with a friend who had lost his that young and he had told me, you know, maybe half of the conversations with your dad that you want to have. The advice was have these conversations you’ll want to have with your dad that you might want to questions you might want to ask him later on in life, but it’s like now I sit here as a 28 year old when I was 20. The questions I would ask him now, versus the questions I would ask him that are so drastically different than you know, it was sure we sat down we, I would we would talk about things. But obviously, he’s he’s not here to answer those questions today that are now on my mind. But anyways, that was my one friend. That was that was I had that one conversation with a friend. And that was the only time where like, death really was part of the conversation. So I had this extremely naive, and just like very innocent mindset around life and death when my dad was sick. On the contrary, when my mom was sick, it was a very different experience. My mom got sick when I was coming home from a 25. I was coming home from sorry, 24, I was coming home from experience camps. This was in August, and weeks prior, my mom had gallbladder surgery. And they said some they said that she had she had gall stones, and she ended up getting gallbladder surgery. And she she didn’t really like make a full recovery. I ended up going to experience camps. I volunteer for a week, I’m driving home from Georgia to New York. And when I get home, I get home pretty late at night, I go to sleep, I wake up in the morning, and I’m very excited. tell my mom about the week, all the kids that I’ve connected with the incredible stories. And my mom, my mom slept later than me, which like very, very much was not like her by any means. And I was sitting on the couch, waiting for her to wake up and she had no coming down. And she was she was in her pajamas. And she sat down on the couch next to me. And she told me that I’ve been diagnosed with cancer, but they don’t know what type of cancer, but we’re gonna get through this and everything’s gonna be okay. Sort of like, you know, the same very positive mindset around that we’re gonna get through this. My mom was having a tough time eating and keeping food down. And they were waiting for these test results to come back to try to identify what cancer it was what treatment she’d be getting all those things. And in the five days that were waiting, she really started to experience a lot of significant pain. And she ended up going to we ended up taking her to the hospital. And she checked in and from the moment she checked in, she never ended up checking out she was in the hospital for a little over two months. And they weren’t able to identify what cancer she had until the very end of her time in the hospital. Originally, they said she had soft gel cancer, then they couldn’t really identify it. She ended up actually switching hospitals then going back to the original hospital. And she had three major surgeries while she was in the hospital where they said we don’t know if you’re going to live through these surgeries, but we recommend going through with them. So with my mom’s experience, it was really the only words that I would use to explain the experience that we had with her was just like absolute hell torturous how like she went through these three major surgeries in a very short period of time. She was only in hospital for two and a half months. She had like a tube in her nose. That was how she was she was getting nutrients. She made it to one chemo treatment. And again, they didn’t really have a sense of what cancer they were trying to treat. And like I was sitting in the room with her and at the end she ended up being in excruciating pain, yelling in so much pain and you know you want to you want to do something to help the person but there’s nothing you can do. So, you know, I’m sitting in the room and they come in they’re trying to give her some some medication to try to ease the pain. It was just really hell. And she ended up being diagnosed with a cancer called undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma. And the sort of inside joke with my mom was my mom said if you if you end up get always like for a long time that if you ended up getting cancer, you want some, you want something that, you know, you know, typically the cancers that you hear of are the ones you want it, you’re gonna get a cancer, you want that cancer, because they know a lot about it, there’s a lot of money, there’s a lot of research towards it. And there’s more treatment to help those cancers to help people who have those cancers. So I was sort of like the the inside running running joke with my mom. And my mom ended up being diagnosed with undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma. And my mom made some joke when they finally said that sort of towards the tail end, just like, of course, this is the this is the one I got. But that so she was in hospital for these two and a half months diagnosed with his cancer. And really, after that first chemo treatment, very quickly, after they said, there’s nothing more that that we can do. And she ended up staying in the hospital, but moving into hospice care, and it was at that point that, you know, we knew she was days, weeks, months prior before she would die, but it was turned out to be about 10 days or so. But it was in that moment. It was in that journey with with my mom, where I had a completely different mentality and perspective around cancer and loss and death and all that, I would say that with my mom, I was hopeful. But I was very realistic that this story didn’t have a happy ending. And, you know, my, my one of my uncle’s, again, I have a few uncles that are doctors, I spoke to one of my uncles that stalked her. And he said, you know, with cancer, it’s like, his advice was don’t start Googling, don’t start researching. Because cancer is a one or a zero, you’re either gonna live or you’re or you’re not, there’s not, there’s not like, Oh, I could be in the 76% that will survive. You know, so he said, there’s no point to Google to start spending your time Googling and trying to figure things out, your mom’s either gonna be okay, or she’s not. But with this specific cancer, I knew that from the beginning that that was a real part of the equation and that, in the best case scenario, my mom was going to live for another couple of years. And I accepted that from the very beginning that life as I knew it, was has has changed once again, and my mom, she might live longer, but she’s going to die in the near future. And I accepted that really, from the very beginning. You know, some people I remember having a conversation with my uncle, and this isn’t to get into religion or spirituality. But My other uncle just kept saying, we have to be hopeful, we need to pray, we need to be hopeful, we need to be hopeful. And, you know, I told him, you know, if that’s what’s working for him, I support it. But I’m going to be supportive, but also realistic, that there’s nothing that any of us can do to change the outcome, the circumstance, and we need to accept that. And I definitely like, you know, I gave him an example, sort of, like, if you’re, if you’re on a plane that’s going to crash, you can pray, you can be hopeful, but the planes still ultimately going to crash. And you’re going to die if you’re on that plane, right? Most most likely. So you know, I gave him I sort of just gave him this example. And I said, this is my mom’s on on the plane that’s going to crash, there’s no, there’s no positive, there’s no happy ending to the story, we need to sort of accept the reality and be supportive. And that’s, that’s it. And that’s sort of where my, my mentality went through in that moment. And that’s sort of how I navigated those two months. Now, I was also, you know, I went to an extremely dark place where it was very hard to be to feel happy, and my life just revolved around waking up, going to the hospital, sitting in the hospital, going to sleep, going home, going to sleep, doing it again for two and a half months, and watching my mom progressively get worse. But, again, my personal experience and my personal ability to just be realistic about the situation and the cards that we were dealt was very pinpoint, I’d say.
Victoria Volk 24:02
Well, I’m just to your point of what your uncle had said to you. He’s saying this to someone who had already lost a parent to cancer, you know what I mean? Like, so it’s like, Do you realize who you’re saying that to? You know, it’s not just like, this is your first rodeo? Yeah, absolutely. You had already been through that. So did you feel almost kind of jaded or, like, and I, you know, I think this spirit spirituality or not even religion, but just like the relationship to God, or that that relationship that either you have it or you don’t. And personally, when my dad died when I was eight, that went away, like I didn’t have that sense of spirituality or anything like I was angry with God. And so did you find yourself feeling that way, especially after your dad had passed where, you know, you had this hope and you have this naive approach, in a way, did that change for you?
Dan Goldberg 24:57
I would say that with my dad, you My focus really didn’t become so much me it became much more helped my mom support my mom. And I sort of just followed almost like followed my mom’s footsteps, I would say my mom turned a little bit more in the spiritual direction, I was just like there to be with my mom, but not necessarily turning into God or religion or things, things of that nature, with with my mom when she died, would carry me after my mom died. So this will get get back to your question around spirituality and what sort of carried me through. But when my mom died, like leading up to days before she was she was going to die. Although I accepted that she was going to die, I was in a very dark place. It looked at my blinds are closed, but it looked like a day out like today, it was beautiful outside the sun was like beaming down. And I remember I was walking to get lunch with a friend. And so my friend had lost his dad growing up. So he had experienced a significant loss in his life. And this, this specific friend of mine is just like a very good listener. And when we sat down, I told him, You know, I don’t want to, I don’t want this to just be like me venting to you. You don’t need, I don’t want you to feel compelled that you have to say anything. He’s like, I’m just here to listen, you know, I’m not here to share my opinions. I’m just here to listen, I’m here to just literally say whatever you want, I’m here for you. And I really felt like I was in such a dark place I could not. And I’m really a happy person, I could not feel any sense of happiness. Again, it was like beautiful outside. And normally I’d go outside and be like, Oh, it’s a beautiful day. This is this is great. And in that moment, I like everything was gray. That’s really the only way that I could explain it. It’s almost like when you if you wake up and you just, you don’t want to get out of bed. It’s not necessarily you don’t have any aspirations. It’s just that there’s I felt almost as if there was no point there was there’s there was no point to get out of bed. There was no point to to do anything during the day because life life kind of suck. That’s how that’s, that’s, that’s really the feeling that I was feeling. And after that lunch, I went back to the hospital. And it was at that point that my mom told me that there was no more there was nothing more that they could do, and that she was going to move to hospice care. And I remember telling her life so unfair. First, the world took that from us. And that’s already enough. But now we have to lose you too. My mom said life is unfair. But life’s also glorious, she said you have to go and find the glory. And that was really the big thing that like instantly changed my entire mentality where my mom almost pressed it into my mind, it was it really was like in that in that one conversation where I was in this place where not not where I was suicidal, but definitely where I just was not feeling a point to get out of bed to to just go about my life at that point, like the lowest low the darkest place that I’ve personally ever done, was in that moment where like, I accepted that life is filled with hardship. And that’s, that’s life and you need to sort of accept it. But there’s also plenty of beautiful things. Plenty, as my mom said plenty of glorious things that you need to go and find embrace, and life sad balance of, you know, painful, but also yet so beautiful. And that was really like the, the shift. And when my mom had died, and in the eulogy that I gave at the funeral, I had said that I’m not going to focus on the why. You know, and I might spend some time thinking about why why is this happened. But ultimately, that’s not where I’m going to focus my time and energy, I’m going to focus on the what, what I’m going to do now as a result of the circumstances as a result of what I’ve lived through. And I’m going to focus on finding the glory despite, despite the unfair despite the shit, I’m going to focus on what I can do now as a result of the circumstances I’ve been put in, and that that I’d say is really was really the where I went to after my mom died and sort of, you know, in many ways what what led us to, to this moment now.
Victoria Volk 29:15
And you starting your podcast?
Dan Goldberg 29:19
Yeah, it’s starting the podcast getting involved in experience camps I’ve been involved for almost a decade now. And you know, I feel like I am on such a mission to help others who have lived through significant loss know that, you know, loss is unfortunately, a very real part of life but that it doesn’t need to destroy your define us and that it very much can, you know, people who experienced significant loss can still very much go on to live happy, healthy lives that they that they enjoy.
Victoria Volk 29:50
So you were a part of experience camps even before your dad passed?
Dan Goldberg 29:55
No. So I only I got involved. I’m almost so this is going to be my ninth summer So once my dad passed, I went, I went, I, I grew up going to summer camp. And once I had the opportunity to like, go back to camp in a more meaningful way, I sort of jumped at it. So once my dad got sick, I went I once my dad passed, I got involved right away.
Victoria Volk 30:16
Yeah, I’ve looked up the organization. I’ll put the link in the show notes. And that is something that I that would be an amazing way to spend a week in this. Yeah, you should come. I would love that. I’m in the sticks, though, of North Dakota. So anywhere I would go, I’d have to hop on a plane. And
Dan Goldberg 30:34
We have we have some people who come from last year because I COVID. But north from London, Australia. Oh, wow. Yeah. But we have we have we’ve grown a lot. So there’s camps all over the US, California, outside Chicago, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Georgia. I think they’re opening up one in DC now and Maine.
Victoria Volk 30:54
Yeah, cuz that was not I remember I went to I went to one summer camp, and it was, it would have been four years after my dad had passed, I think it would have been about 12 or so. But it was a church camp. Okay. And I had an amazing time. I still remember that time, but it wasn’t for grief. You know, it wasn’t for, for me really my grief and things like that. But that, you know, and I talked about this on other podcasts, I’ve been a guest, but there wasn’t room for me to grieve, you know, as a child, so I internalized all of mine. And so, for you, you know, having that happen when you’re a little bit older, you have that maybe ability to you know, your approach is very different. And your outlook is very different. But I imagine though at that age, too, it’s very difficult. Like you mentioned your one friend, but wasn’t that difficult to find people your age that you could, that could relate to you or you could relate to them?
Dan Goldberg 31:59
Yeah, I would say definitely after my dad died, it was extremely difficult. I was going into my senior year of college, then everyone’s focused on partying, getting drunk. I’d say very limited schoolwork. Going out. It was it was an extremely difficult year for me. And I really didn’t I wanted to drop out so badly. I had like, my body was telling me drop out, go home, help, help around, help around the house, help your mom out. That was really all I wanted to do. One of the last things my dad told me, because I voiced to my dad numerous times while he was sick, I want to drop out I want to drop out. And he’s like, just get the damn degree that was sort of like, and then there was never any discussion. So that’s, that was sort of my dad’s wish. And I, I listened to it. But yeah, it was it was really challenging. I would say I’d wake up, and I’d wake up away from my mom. And I did not know. I did really didn’t understand like, why I was even at school, I wanted to go home and help help my mom. And that’s, you know, when my dad died, and I know I already mentioned it, but so much of my personal focus and and life became around, how can I help my mom, I really was not thinking so much about like, what does Danny need? What? What do I need to heal to move forward? To keep going in my life, it became how can I sort of not necessarily replace my dad, but help as if my dad was still alive. That was really where I went. And when my mom died? I would say almost in like five years, it was truly the first time where I took a step back and started thinking about like, what does Danny need? What does Danny want? What do I want my life to look like? And that’s where I started to really go on this, like, very deep introspective journey of how do I become more intentional and what what do I how do I make sense of what life is and all all those questions that you know, are sort of the every journey we’re all on trying to think through as as we build our own lives. But yeah, it was it was really hard to find that community early on. And after my dad died, that I was I really feel extremely lucky and fortunate that I did find community very quickly by volunteering at experience camps, and I ended up I remember the first time I spoke about my dad, it was I was terrified. It was extremely challenging. I would break down and in tears and you know, I couldn’t even it was very hard and challenging to just say my dad died. You know, it’s like almost funny looking. I’ve said it now so many times that it’s it’s just like, good more. Good morning. Can I have a coffee? You know, it’s almost like the same thing. It’s very matter of fact at this point, but I remember that being extremely difficult and even in like a small setting, even with my closest friends. Even with family, I’d say actually with family there’s there’s a You know, families are different. But I would say for the most part, like, my family and I, we acknowledge, and we celebrate, like death of bursaries or things like that, and we say we missed the person, but we’re never going beyond sort of that surface level. And you know, even in many ways with friends, it’s it’s rare at this point that we do that. But there are moments or times like add experience camps, where going there is very acceptable in the norm and things of that nature. So I ended up finding community in that and ended up sort of throwing myself at other opportunities, I don’t know if it’s still around. But there, there’s was an organization, that dinner party, which did grief parties for people who have experienced significant loss, and I went to a bunch of those and met a bunch of people who, you know, had lived through a significant loss. And, you know, it was actually funny, I went to that only a few times, but I remember going to this dinner party. And I was definitely I think the youngest, both times, I was the youngest person there. And this was only after my dad had passed. And I had already from from volunteering and experience kampsen, from sharing my own story, and from helping others who have lived through loss at this dinner party, I must have been maybe 22 years old, 23 years old, and everyone else, maybe it was like late 20s, early 30s. And a lot of people, there was the first time sharing their story. And that’s the point is you everyone brings something to the dinner party, and you sit down and you talk about your people, or the person that has died. And you’ve sort of built community through through this network. And I remember, like, really, there were so many people there who was the first time they were sharing their story. And my friend and I went with a friend from experience camps, we almost ended up like leading the dinner party and getting the conversation going and trying to make it an environment in which people felt like comfortable to sort of go there. But it is it is very difficult, I think to to find that community. But I really do feel like there are a lot of organizations now that exist, if you if you seek them out, where you can find community and find people who are who have lived through something similar or going through something similar. I can’t really speak obviously as much to what it’s like being a child. But I can only imagine how difficult and challenging it is to lose someone significant when you’re so young, because it’s I think the processing, really understanding and comprehending is the challenge there. And I know so many people now who have who have lost someone very young, and you know, they deal with all sorts of different not necessarily problems, but just their their own grief journey is very different, where maybe they don’t have memories with the person. And they have different challenges as it relates to how they grieve for their grief journey, as opposed to my own grief journey, where it’s like, I have so many memories with both my parents, but you know, they’re, they’re not here, etc. So it’s very different. Obviously.
Victoria Volk 38:00
When this happened to you, at a really, I’ll say ripe age, like you’re just on the cusp of going on your own into adulthood. And and I know that, like you kind of described just the college years, it can be a crazy time and things. Did you find yourself going down this slippery slope? Were you using alcohol? Were you using other things to soothe you during those years?
Dan Goldberg 38:27
Yeah, I wouldn’t say that. I was definitely drinking but I would say more like any other college student who’s excited or living for the party. I was not I was not like drinking necessarily. I wasn’t drinking though like to numb the pain that I was in, I would say the college was sort of just like my senior year of college was a tremendous block sort of, of me getting to where I wanted to get to go, which was I want to get out of here. I want to get this degree because that’s what my dad wanted. For me. And I want to I want to get out of here so I can help take care of my mom. But I really didn’t use I wasn’t using like drugs or alcohol as a way to numb numb the pain I was in. I started seeing a therapist for the first time my life like right, immediately after my dad died. And I think that that really helped. I did I did. You know I think grief manifests itself in different ways. And I think physical is one of the many ways that we experience grief and early on like when I was 21 right after my dad died. I couldn’t again like I had I really had to and I just spent I know. We’re talking now for like 45 minutes about grief and I feel now I’m at a point where I really can discuss in depth my emotions, how I feel what I felt, but right after my dad died, I definitely couldn’t. I couldn’t. I still was having a difficult time comprehending I remember the night he died going in the car with my mom, my uncle and They were driving home. And so I remember driving home and just like, again, my hands, my head was in my hands. And I just, I remember both when my mom and dad died, like, specifically, I guess when my dad died, just like, sort of just sitting there shaking my head, trying to really comprehend, you know, what, what had just taken place. So my dad, like thinking, so my dad’s gone now forever, how, why? It’s so unfair, I’m so angry, but I couldn’t even like, you know, I couldn’t really put like, for example, I’m so angry, I couldn’t put the emotion onto the feeling. And for me, when my dad died, the grief really manifested in physical ways. So like, my dad had all this hip pain. And then I was like, I think I have all this hip pain too. And I would find myself really in more of like a panic state. And I remember having a lot of panic attacks and being absolutely terrified that I was also going to die. And, and all that was because I, I really had an inability to, to feel like I had, and it wasn’t like I was I was numb to the loss it was that I didn’t know how to physically, emotionally express what I was feeling. And I would say, really, that’s, that’s what, for me, going to therapy like, right away helped with. And I think, in many ways, like finding community, going to go into the third therapy, which I’m still doing now like, that’s enabled me to be able to openly share and discuss and actually feel these feelings were in the past, especially at 20, where I really couldn’t, I really, like I really had such an inability. And it’s almost funny looking back now, because who I was eight years ago is so tremendously different from who I am now. But it’s definitely funny. I think as a whole, like society is definitely getting better with discussing grief and having it be a part of a normal, a normal part of a conversation. It’s not so taboo anymore. But you know, thanks to shows like yours and the work that a lot of people are doing in this space. But I definitely think it’s still a very uncomfortable one where people don’t know what to say, people don’t know how to support the people that are going through it. I do think like, when you’re so young, it’s very difficult for even you, yourself to, to like self advocate for yourself and to understand and that that was really where I struggled after my dad died, and especially being in that college environment. Like, I wasn’t sitting down with a friend over lunch discussing that my dad just died. And I want to, I just need someone to listen, or I want to share some things and I’m feeling you know, like, I wasn’t at a point where I could could do those things.
Victoria Volk 42:47
Because you probably didn’t feel safe to.
Dan Goldberg 42:49
Yeah, I’d say that. And I really think I had like a knee didn’t have the language. Yeah, you know, and it’s, it’s,
Dan Goldberg 42:57
I don’t know if it’s necessarily a gender thing, but I think also, it is challenging for like, to put the emotion to the feeling, right. Like I actually do feel angry right now or actually do feel sad right now. And, yeah.
Victoria Volk 43:10
And it’s not bad. It’s just and you can feel joy and you can feel anger. Yeah, absolutely the same. Within the same minute, right. Yeah. So I’m curious too. Are you an only child?
Dan Goldberg 43:24
I have two older sisters as well.
Victoria Volk 43:26
Okay, I mean, have you been through the years like with those with the loss of the parents has that in I mean, I don’t know if you’re okay, sharing, but has that brought you closer together?
Dan Goldberg 43:38
Yeah. So my, my family is like, we’re very close. My sisters live. Like only like, 40 blocks away from me and Manhattan. So we grew up and like I said, like, when we grew up, we, my family knew no, we didn’t know like sadness, really, as a family. Like, we only knew happiness. And, you know, I feel so fortunate, grateful lucky, like, blessed that that was that that was how we grew up. And that was, that was all we we knew, like how, how freakin lucky were we? And I would say we really even became closer after my, my dad had passed, and just like wanting to be there for one another. And, you know, I know that you know, we’re very lucky to that that is sort of where we all went to and after my mom passed that that stayed the course and you know, I think we all want to be there for an in each other’s lives. And obviously, we can’t fill fill the void and not having our parents be here but at least be there as as much as possible. And I really I feel so this this is this definitely isn’t something that I’ve openly voiced before, but I actually really feel so grateful for my like, Send a family, my cousins, my aunts and uncles, I think about that a lot. After my mom had died, you know, after my dad had died, my mom’s still there. So she’s sort of like the glue that kept everyone together. And after my mom died, my family like my aunt’s my uncle’s, my cousins have stepped up big in every which way, in every which way imaginable. Like, my uncles that live across the world will fly in one of my uncle’s is coming here in a couple of weeks. And to see us to be there for us to be there with us. One of my both my sisters recently had baby, their first baby wants to start identical twins, so she had babies, but you know, my, my, my family stepped up big. And I’m really so like, moved and grateful that that is what they did. Because, you know, when you wake up in the morning, no one forces any any of us to do anything. And they’ve all consciously made a decision, an effort, and a choice that, you know, I’m going to step up big and, and be there despite my sister, right, their sister or their brother not being here, I recognize that I’m like, so freaking lucky that that is the situation. And that that is how things are in our life. And yeah, it’s like, honestly, I sometimes have to like, pinch myself, because I’m like, Wow, I’m lucky. I’m lucky in this situation, because I do know that, you know, after you live through significant loss, families, it’s very easy for families to be torn apart from lack of communication from high emotions from for all for all different reasons. And I think that I don’t, I don’t think that in and just in any family, you know, the, that the uncle or the aunt steps up big and he’s like, I’m gonna be there when you have your first kid or I’m gonna be there when you go through that milestone in your life. And I really feel like, yeah, just I know how lucky I am to have to have that.
Victoria Volk 47:03
Yes, you are. Yeah, that wasn’t my experience. So yeah, it is, it makes a huge impact. And so thank you for bringing that up. Because anyone listening to this, if they’ve lost a sibling who has children, to keep that in mind, the impact that they still can have, in that person’s life, the child’s life, their niece or nephews life?
Dan Goldberg 47:27
Yeah, I’m getting chills here thinking about it. But you know, I think I think also, I think about it, sometimes it’s definitely been like a thought that’s popped into my mind, where now with my sisters, what if that they have kids, you know, it’s like, if God forbid, something happened to them, and they, and they passed, you know, I see that you can now step up big, and I see the impact that it can have. And, and, you know, I think about it as it relates to other people, right, it hasn’t really been my my personal situation, but I’ve definitely had my own challenges or friction points within my own family, with navigating things with my sisters and things like that. And that will have to be fun for another podcast, you know, because it’s, it’s difficult when you when you have no parent, to be in the situation and to help resolve things and say, Hey, this is a dumb argument, let’s move forward, let’s move beyond this. Hug it out, your siblings, you’d love each other, let’s let’s move forward. So you know, there’s, there’s absolutely challenges. Where the, because we don’t have any parent that’s alive to to be to be the parent, right? There’s no one to say, let’s just move forward from here. So I do think you know, that communication after you, you live through someone, significant loss is so important. And also, you know, that because I know that they happen, that you know, these, these the arguments that you could have with a sibling, a parent after you live through something, after you live through significant loss. It’s just like, you know, that’s life and those things will happen. It’s inevitable. But the communication, having a good line of communication is just so important. Because in the end, like, there’s no there’s no argument, there’s no friction point, that’s, that’s worth it. Because, you know, we’re all we’re all going to die eventually. And I think that having being able to navigate you know, those difficult conversations after or just those friction points is so important because in the end, I really believe that it’s, it’s more worthwhile to be there for each other than have some argument calls from whatever it may be, but as a result of your loss or grief and to be able to sort of move forward and whether you know, I’m speaking very broadly here but whether there be resolve insight, but be able to just accept the differences and move forward and still be there for that person. Regardless if you don’t see eye to eye and things like that because that’s what’s so important after you live after you lose someone to You to be there for the people that you love and be able to support them and, and move forward with those people.
Victoria Volk 50:05
Well, and the key thing to remember is that everybody lost. And everybody had their own unique individual relationship to with that person. And so yeah, bring their own personal pain and their own personal perspective.
Dan Goldberg 50:21
And with friends as well, you know, because I think, I think sometimes with friends, it’s like it’s not looked as the same, but I think it’s a little bit like discredited where sometimes people don’t put as much weight on it, like, oh, you lost, you lost your friend, you know, but that person might have such an that person might have had such an impact. This this woman that I was close with, while I was in college, she had cancer, but she didn’t really let anyone know. And I was on Facebook, well, like this is last year scrolling and I found out she had passed away. And I was really close with her. I actually, she was an older woman. Her name was Barbara and she lost her dad growing up young. And she ended up her husband ended up passing on earlier early in life. And I went to Syracuse and she was head of like alumni relations. And she was she was an older woman, I want to say maybe late 60s, early 70s, I ended up telling her all about experience camps after my dad died. She really like was there for me while I was in school. And I had this very unique special relationship with this woman. And I ended up bring her to, to experience hands on like, You got to come you got to come and she actually, one year, she just came to like, see what was going on. In the following year, she ended up volunteering, and she was like an out of bunk, cabin counselor, but she got the full experience. And she was able to help the kids who who were there. And we had a special relationship. And I ended up finding very unexpectedly that she had passed. And it it really it really like it was like sort of like a someone hit me in the back of the head with a hammer I wasn’t expecting it, I sort of we would we she would let me know if she was in New York City. And we try to find time for like, grab a coffee or something like that. But we weren’t talking as much as we used to just because life right? And not not to say that, you know, I’m experiencing, I was I was I was grieving again. And I was experiencing this loss in that moment. And for the days to come, maybe the weeks come I felt it. And I was I was feeling the pain associated that I had lost this person and we sort of lost touch. And I would have loved to check in more. And I wish I had said hey, how you doing more often and things like that. So you know, it’s like, I definitely think that the grief is early like grief with friend sometimes is discredited, or there’s not as much weight on it. But that’s, you know, there’s there’s loss and grief in so many ways, obviously outside of just physically, the death of someone. But you know, I think that that’s something that people need to I hope people can understand and be there for people who have lost a friend because they have, like you said, their own their own experience with those people as well.
Victoria Volk 52:58
Well, and we all have like our person, right? Or maybe our group of people who are in our inner circle who know our dreams who support our dreams. And those are important people in our lives. And so to your point, well, it’s just a friend, you have plenty of friends, you know, people can say sensitive things without really understanding what your relationship was 100% I’m interested in learning now, how all of these experiences has shifted your perspective and how you live your life now.
Dan Goldberg 53:33
Yeah. So I would say that. I feel like we definitely got into it over the last hour around how I evolved and how my life evolved. After from when my dad died when my mom ended up ultimately dying. And I know I already touched upon it, but my mom’s eulogy, I gave this whole talk around, you know, sort of finding your glory, finding the glory in life and not focusing on the Y but focusing on the what, what, what are you going to do now as a result of the circumstances that that you’re in. And I would say in many ways, that is the guiding light, it’s sort of is the guiding principle in my own life. I wake up every single day, and I think about knowing that I too am going to die. How do I want to spend the limited time that I’m given on this earth? And I focus on mapping my life towards those things, to doing those things to prioritizing those things. And it’s very interesting how we actually started with the beginning of the conversation talking about my aunt, and talking about like the how when your child when they’re young, it’s very hard to comprehend that and understand what death really is and that it’s that that the person is gone forever and that it’s it’s very hard to understand and comprehend all those things. Now, it’s like death is death is a piece of me and it’s that something that I carry with me every single day. Where I really focus on knowing like knowing that I too am going to die. How do I want to spend my time knowing that I am going to die, like, put my phone down and be present be in this moment, knowing that I am going to die, appreciate the fact that I just woke up and was had the ability to put my feet on the ground when I woke up and that I’m alive, healthy, and able and that I have opportunity in front of front of me knowing that I too, am going to die. Where do I want to spend my time? How do I want to focus my time and all that, and that that’s sort of like, like, death is sort of the guiding light in my life almost, you know, knowing knowing that death. And it’s not, it’s not in a panicky way. It’s not in an impatient way. Just that knowing that like, in a very real authentic way that death is a part of life. It’s sort of the thing that it is the thing that makes me question like, is the day I’m about to live, the day I actually want to live, and if not, I’m going to make the changes. But if it is then great. And that’s sort of how I now map my life. And the things I want to do, and the impact I want to have, and where I want to spend my my time professionally. Personally, how I want to impact the world, it’s all comes through the lens of just knowing that that death is a very real part of life.
Victoria Volk 56:30
So what do you look forward to?
Dan Goldberg 56:33
Everything, everything. I mean, I think, I think that it’s like, I look forward to everything, it’s like, I have this deep appreciation for the smallest things. And I have, I have like a little gratitude practice where I write in the journal every day, three things I’m grateful for. But I would say even like the, like, the first thing I write every single day is health, just like a given. But I really do like when I wake up in the morning, and I’m able to turn over and put my feet on the floor. I’m already like I’ve won today because I know that there are people who can’t do this, and I’m lucky and I’m blessed. And I’m, I’m fortunate that I’m that I am capable, and that I’m able to do this and I’m, I’m I’m I’m so lucky that I don’t have to think about my, my white blood cells, my red blood cells, I’m so lucky that I have. And you know, it goes beyond just cancer like Lucky. I’m so lucky that I don’t I have a safe place to sleep, I have food that I can that I can go and eat at any point I have safety, security, food, friends, family like life is life is good. I have I had a friend who lived through significant loss. And he wants told me you know that he believes that life is rigged in our favor. And it’s because of things just like the fact that we’re able to have this this podcast right now that we’re both over zoom, we’re not physically together, where we’re doing this from different parts of, of the country, and we’re able to sit here and we both live through significant loss, we both have lived through our own our own tragedies and, and but yet, we’re still here having this like beautiful conversation around the worst moments in our life and how they shaped our life and how they’ve shaped our perspective. And it’s because of moments like that, that, you know, that we are we are in many ways lucky, you know most besides the human race, I don’t think any any other animals capable of sitting here and actually understanding and comprehending and having this conversation this dialogue around the worst moments in our life and how they’ve shaped our perspective. And that in and of itself is like a beautiful thing. And I think that since he’s told me that it is something that I really do embrace and believe that life despite what I’ve lived through the fact that I’m still here right now having in this moment is all it is like enough and it’s that and it and it’s moments like these where I realized that life truly is rigged in my favor and that there is so much to be grateful for and that there is so much to live for. And as my mom put it there’s so there’s plenty of glory and that doesn’t mean you know that I’m walking around sitting here like all sunshine and butterflies and life’s perfect Whoo. It’s you know, there’s there’s plenty of hardship and there will be more hardship i remember turning my mom when when we when she moved to hospice care of telling her like, you know, life is at least now I this was the lowest low I’ll never hit a lower low again. And she told me don’t be so naive. There will be there’ll be worse things in our life that will that can and will happen. And you know, I think that true and it’s funny too. Now looking back even just from saying that, how different that is from when my dad first tried to shelter me from the painful realities of life. But, you know, it’s like, there’s so much truth to that, just because you’ve lived through one loss just because you’ve had heartbreak, whatever your losses, whether it be a job or relationship, there will be worse things in our life that will ultimately come. And that’s just a part of that’s a part of living. But there is plenty of there’s there’s so many beautiful things and so much to wake up and live for. And I think that death has given me this perspective that there will always be bad. It’s inevitable, but there’s equally so much good, and so much, so much great to live for. And that sort of I guess where that is, that is where I, I sit, I guess now, looking back on what I’ve lived through, and how I how I live my life today,
Victoria Volk 1:00:52
That can be a really depressing thought, you know, when you think of people, I just want to elaborate on this. Because when people have experienced something that they think is the worst, right, the worst has already happened. And can get really wrapped up in that emotion of that thinking the worst has already happened. And they can get very depressed and down and things like that. But to have the awareness and the cognitive understanding that, well, gee, there really could be other worse things that can happen to me. It’s like, well, what’s the point of living? Right? But the importance of that. And I think the distinction of your story is that it’s who you surround yourself with. And that is why it’s so important to find community that you don’t grieve alone, so that when those future things happen and occur, you have a foundation of support. And you sought out therapy, which is which is amazing for a 20 something to choose that for himself and a young male, right. So it’s, it’s the action that you’ve taken, and the love that you’ve allowed yourself to receive, that will help you face those future challenges.
Dan Goldberg 1:02:07
Yeah, I really, you know, I said it before, like my, my extended family, but certainly without a doubt the, the community that I’ve found and surrounded myself with is I wouldn’t be where I am today with without, without those people and without that community. I definitely, I definitely would say though, I could see how it could be depressing, you know, but it is it is very, and it’s not to say that there’s like a right way or a wrong way. I think with grief loss can’t like can’t like any of this stuff. You know, it’s like it’s messy. Yeah, it’s very messy. And I think that there’s no right or wrong way. If if if when someone you love is diagnosed with cancer, if you want to turn to, to God and religion great, like you need to find what will what will give you the support that you need to sort of support those people and move forward. And there’s like I said, there’s no right or wrong way. But I do think that there is Yeah, I just think like I rather live in grounded in reality, knowing that life Life is messy. Right? There’s no, there’s no guarantee that tomorrow will come for any of us. And I think I think that and I know we didn’t really touch upon it on this episode, but like, I think the intentionality and intentional with your life is so important. And I think that that’s one of like the greatest gifts that grief has shown me or given me. I think, again, like it’s not like I’m over here thinking, life’s sunshine and butterflies and everything is amazing. But I’m also not down here where it’s like, this sucks, and there’s no purpose and it’s, it’s that I’m very intentional with how and where I choose to spend my time now as a result, knowing that, you know, tomorrow’s not guaranteed I think about it with like, even my my dog or my, my wife, it’s like, put the phone down and go out on go out on a date. And just be with one another because we have this moment here right now. And we should embrace this moment because it’s it is just the reality that we don’t know that there is no guarantee that that moment will be available again next week or tomorrow. And you know, that’s that’s why it’s very frustrating when you see people who are so focused on you know, maybe stuck stuck in their phone just texting away, and they’re not physically wherever they wherever they are, whether it be a wedding or a hike or with friends. Or if you’re getting like stuck on focused on little things in life that don’t really have grand that don’t have like significant impact in your life and you’re so focused on the stupid the stupid thing. It’s like, you know, we don’t know that tomorrow is a guarantee. So just be physically be be be here, be here right now. And embrace them embrace this moment and You know, going going back to just be be intentional. That’s like the one thing that I try to encourage anyone and everyone, if you’re, wherever you are in your life, I really don’t believe that, like, age has an impact with intentionality. I think if you’re in your early 20s, try to try to develop a way to become intentional with how and where you want to spend your time. If you’re in your early 50s Like, and you’ve been living your life a certain way for the last the last 50 years, you if you want to make changes, because you now recognize something, you know, be the intentionality I think is so important in in our own lives. And I think that that’s, that’s like the, that is one of the biggest things that grief has has shown me.
Victoria Volk 1:05:38
I love that. There’s a quote I actually just wrote came across it yesterday, and I wrote it down, it says, if it’s out of your hands, it deserves freedom from your mind to like that. I even knew Ruth said that. And that’s just like, that’s with worry, that’s with, you know, anything that’s out of our hands, right? Like, what will happen tomorrow is out of our hands. It’s what’s going to happen is going to happen. And but we what we have control over is the actions we take. Right? Yeah, intention we bring to each day. Intention has come up a lot for me lately.
Dan Goldberg 1:06:18
Yeah, like intention where? I, you know, I, I’m curious if you see this or from like, I think a lot of people especially, I think both young and old, I don’t think it really skews one way or another. I think older people, I think young people aren’t intentional. I think prior to my dad dying, I certainly wasn’t, you know, like, the most important thing in my life prior to my dad dying, was going to that college party getting drunk and having a good time. I had zero intention in my life. After my dad died. It sort of opened things up. When my mom died. I became Mr. intention that was really like my focus. And I think if you’re young, and you start to focus on like, how do I want to spend my time on this earth, it can sort of push you in a direction because I think when you’re young, you’re told typically, like, You should do this, or you have a teacher, a professor, a friend, a family, friend, a parent tell you, I did this. So you should do that. So there’s, there’s not really this intentionality when you’re young, because you’re just sort of following what you’re told. And I think as you get older, you have your sort of mindset set up that this is how life works. This is, this is what my life looks like, I’ve done this for the last this all you know, I’ve done this for the last two decades. I’m not going to change my life now. And I think as you get older, you don’t necessarily have that intention as well, because you get set in your own ways. So I think like everyone can do a better job at being more intentional. And, again, for me, it’s like, that was the gift that grief gave me this understanding of intentionality, and how it can shape my life differently now as a result, but I think everyone can, can do a better job with being more intentional.
Victoria Volk 1:07:51
I almost think intention might be the antidote for fear. Because how many of us, us, I’m in my 40s, you know, 40s 50s and older, don’t make those changes, or are afraid to make those changes, right. I think fear is a huge driver for a lot of people. And so would you rather have fear be your driver? Or would you rather have intention? Be Your driver?
Dan Goldberg 1:08:20
Yeah it isn’t. You know, that. The other thing? That’s funny, is that just just about fear specifically about fear, it’s like, then you think about it through the lens of of grief and loss. You know, it’s like.
Victoria Volk 1:08:32
End of dying, right?
Dan Goldberg 1:08:33
Yeah. So you know, that’s, that’s where I go back to where it’s like, well, knowing that I could die, what do I really have to lose? What am I really scared of? Is there really, should I really be fearful right now? Or is it or, and, you know, it’s, it’s like, I don’t think there are things that are scary, and you, you shouldn’t be scared. If you want to make some drastic change in life. It might be it would be weird if you weren’t. But you you need to be able to get to a point where I’m scared, but I’m going to do it anyways. So I think that’s, you know, it’s like, those are the things those are the little, the light, I think that grief sort of gives you.
Victoria Volk 1:09:07
And if you change your intention to getting out of your comfort zone, I need to stretch myself, I need to expand like this is going to stretch me this is going to grow me this is going to elevate me in some way. Right? We don’t grow. And if we stay in our comfort zone 100% I think that’s what grief really does is it it just it blows us up. It just blows up our world in our life. And it’s just a matter of gathering up the pieces and putting it back together but with intention of what we want that to look like going forward.
Dan Goldberg 1:09:42
100% agreed.
Victoria Volk 1:09:44
Yeah. Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Dan Goldberg 1:09:48
No, I think I really enjoyed this conversation. And I think we covered we covered a lot over the last hour plus and yeah, any other questions you have for me?
Victoria Volk 1:09:58
Where can people find you if they’d like to connect with you and listen to your podcast.
Dan Goldberg 1:10:02
Yeah, I am on Instagram @danlevgoldberg, D A N L E V Goldberg, G O L D B E R G. And you can connect with me at bitsofgold.com.
Victoria Volk 1:10:02
And I’ll put the links.
Dan Goldberg 1:10:19
Awesome, and I’m on LinkedIn as well. I think it’s just, I think, I think I’m just Daniel Goldberg on LinkedIn.
Victoria Volk 1:10:24
I’ll put the link in the show notes.
Dan Goldberg 1:10:27
Okay, cool.
Victoria Volk 1:10:28
All that you mentioned. And I thank you so much for being here and for living with intention and bringing that intention to the work that you’re doing, at the camps to wherever life takes you moving forward. So,
Dan Goldberg 1:10:44
Appreciate that.
Dan Goldberg 1:10:46
And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Child Loss, Educational, Grief Tips, Mental Health, Mind/Body Wellness, Resources |

Suppose you have been dealing with mental health issues or been going through an emotionally challenging time lately. In that case, you may have thought about or even been recommended to go to therapy or counseling. If your first reaction is to deny or deflect this thought, you wouldn’t be the first person. Counseling can seem intimidating to some, but this fear often isn’t rational and might hinder your ability to live a healthy future. Here, we’ll examine what you can do to overcome this fear.
Self-Inflicted Stigma
Many of us have an inner voice, and those of us experiencing depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues that can affect our self-esteem might find this voice can be our biggest critic. It can introduce worries about stigma and labels that can be applied to us if we go to counseling or therapy. We might want to think of ourselves well enough not to need it and also judge ourselves for needing that help in the first place. It’s essential to address that these subjective qualities that we attribute on our own (with some help from society) are different from objective facts.
Research Counselors/Therapists
When you’re looking for a therapist or a counselor, you might think that you don’t have much of an idea of what you need, which can introduce a bit of choice paralysis. How do you choose the right one? Some people will get recommendations from a doctor or another trusted individual. Still, you can also research services using the five qualities you should be looking for: qualifications, specialism, listening skills, a passion for helping others, and reliability. You can ease worries about your counseling experience by making sure you’re choosing the right help for you.
Help Doesn’t Have to Be Face-to-Face
Counseling has become much more accessible, thanks to the internet (and as a result of Covid-19). This can, in turn, make it a lot easier to arrange an appointment. Some people can feel a better sense of security when they’re in the comfort of their homes receiving virtual counselling, whether in Canada or the United States. You don’t have to be in an unfamiliar space, nor do you have to worry about the logistics of how you reach your appointment if that would typically be a concern. And, for those that don’t know, I also work with clients online and specifically on the topic of grief. I currently have a program called, Do Grief Differently™️, and in late November, I will launch an online grief recovery group program. If you’d like to keep up to date when registration becomes available, sign up for my newsletter, The Unleashed Letters, below this post.
Afraid to Tell Others
You might want to tell your friends and family about your choice to seek counseling because you want the people important to you to know or because you would like their support, one way or another. Having that conversation alone can be intimidating, but there are scripts that you can follow that can help make it easier to explain your situation. That way, you can ensure you’re effectively putting your side across.
Some trepidation as you go to counseling is to be expected, but many people find that this fades away quickly when they start going. Hopefully, the tips above can help you feel more confident as you make a new choice for yourself and your future.

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If you are struggling with anxiety, depression, grief, or another mental health challenge, it might be appropriate to seek the support of a therapist.
You don’t always have to be going through something to get therapy. There are a plethora of benefits to seeking therapy. However, therapy can allow you to open up about it and speak to someone when you are struggling. Ignoring or repressing your emotions is unhealthy and often leads to unhealthy behaviors. The sooner problem areas are addressed, the sooner one can pivot, make necessary changes, and gain positive momentum.
Seeking therapy will help you in the short term by providing someone to air your problems with while gaining valuable insights and tools to help you manage your emotions and struggles. And usually, but not always, family and those closest to you, aren’t the best options because they are too close; they have “skin in your game.” Meaning, that if you realize that you need to make necessary changes in your life, it is likely those changes may have an impact on friends and family, too. And change, by human nature, isn’t something we’re always comfortable with within our lives. By using discernment in who you choose to be your “heart with ears,” you will likely find yourself more open and honest.
Therapy will also help you in the long run, as issues often persist over time. As you develop tools to deal with your struggles, you will learn how to utilize them in everyday life and properly deal with any other curve balls thrown your way. Information and tools are great, but if you’re not integrating them into your life and taking action, information is just information. A therapist can assist you in maintaining an onward and upward momentum toward the life you desire.
We don’t get to the place in our lives where we finally seek help overnight. Therefore, we can’t expect one session to take away all the pain and hurt. Accountability with a trusted therapist is a wonderful investment in you and your future.
All this to say, therapy can only be as effective as it can be if the therapist possesses the qualities that align with you and make a great therapist. Your therapist needs the qualifications and experience to help you with your struggles and the compassion and listening skills to make you feel comfortable enough to open up. But also important is that they bring comfort to the room and you.
A therapist who is burned out will not be the best match because they are bringing that energy to you and your life, too. And, if they’ve managed to compartmentalize the problems in their own life and aren’t addressing their struggles with therapy themselves (if needed) and self-care, then you’re not receiving the best therapy possible either. This is often not talked about, but I think it’s important. In doing the work I do with grievers, either in a counseling-like session or in energy healing, I have become keenly aware of my mental health, self-care, and the importance of managing my energy. If I’m not tending to my needs first, I am no good to anyone else.
Five Qualities to Look for in a Therapist
Here are some top qualities you should look for if you are looking for a therapist.
#1 Qualifications
You must hire a therapist who has the qualifications to be able to work with you. Therapy deals with sensitive issues, so you want to make sure you are in safe and capable hands. Therapy is supposed to help you, not make you feel worse. Don’t be afraid to ask for your therapist’s qualifications and skills; check that they are a regulatory body member.
As an Advanced Certified Grief Recovery Specialist, I have been trained and certified to work with individuals (and groups) both online and in-person in the area of grief specifically. People are surprised to learn that traditional textbook study programs do not prioritize grief. It’s not studied much at all. So many therapeutic studies, from my understanding, focus on everything but grief. This is great if you are looking for a diagnosis that will end up in a prescription. However, if you are depressed, it’s likely because, as a child, your anger was repressed. And, in grief recovery, you learn how anger is important and a valid emotion that needs to be honored and expressed.
#2 Specialism
If you are struggling with something like drug or alcohol addiction, it can be helpful to find a therapist specializing in this area, for example, Pathways Real Life Recovery. This approach is because a specialist will have skills beyond a typical therapist and invest time and money into learning more about your particular issue. A specialist can help you develop and progress in therapy and tailor the sessions to your needs.
This also applies to grief. If you know that the emotional pain and suffering you’re experiencing is due to grief, that’s where someone like me can offer an evidence-based approach to address it and not with years of talk therapy. Rather, in 8-12 sessions (depending if you choose to work with me one-on-one or in a group), you will have addressed the most painful relationship(s) of your life.
#3 Good Listening Skills
Listening skills are key when it comes to finding a good therapist. When you speak to a friend or family member, you may find that they have something to say or provide unsolicited advice. And, advice, I might add, is based on what they value.
A good therapist will not try to tell you what to do. Instead, they should have been trained to listen to what you have to say carefully and reflect and paraphrase what you have said back to them. They should strive to understand what you are saying, ask you plenty of good questions to deepen their understanding, help you see what you are going through from a different perspective, and help you draw your conclusions. A good therapist can also hear the things you don’t say, connecting the dots that, for most of us, are difficult to see ourselves.
We are so deeply tied to our stories, and by the time we get to the point where we seek therapy, we have likely repeated our story more than a hundred times. Or, perhaps have never spoken it before because there wasn’t anyone with which we felt safe to do so.
A “heart with ears” will never criticize, analyze, or judge. If you feel this way leaving a session, they are not the therapist for you (and probably shouldn’t be practicing).
#4 Passion for Helping Others
The role of a therapist is to help a person struggling with something. Most people will enter the profession because they have a passion for helping others, and this should be obvious during the sessions as they work with you to resolve your issue. You will be able to tell straight away if they lack the passion or enthusiasm to help you, as you will find it difficult to open up to them, you won’t be able to relax, and you will be able to sense it.
When a therapist is burned out, that passion will also dwindle. This is where it’s important to listen to your body’s cues. Your body may tense up. You may make yourself small in your seat rather than opening your shoulders and sitting straight. There might be physical symptoms; headache, upset stomach, and emotional shifts. These body cues may also respond to what is being discussed or fear of discussing difficult topics, too, so it’s important to discern between what is a response to the therapist and the topics of discussion.
It’s best to pay close attention at your initial meeting; before any parts of your story come up and feel into the vibe of the therapist. If you feel a sense of support, comfort, and openness, you may have found a great therapist for you.
#5 Reliable
Therapy is an ongoing thing. It is not something you do once, and you are fixed. This is why it is important to find a reliable therapist. A reliable therapist is an important part of your journey, as you need to be able to work with someone long enough to trust them, and you need to work with someone consistently to make progress on the things you are struggling with. If you work with a therapist who doesn’t feel fulfilled in their work, they may suddenly become disengaged in conversation, be difficult to reach, or lack empathy in their approach, their reliability will show itself.
Finding a good therapist is vital if you want to progress in your life. Follow these top tips to help you find a therapist with the right qualities. And, if you know that grief is holding you back, please reach out to me; I am here to support you – you are not alone.

P.S. I will announce an online group program soon, at this writing (Sept. 2022). If you’d like to be kept “in the know,” you may find it helpful to join my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters. My newsletter is where I share personal aspects of my life, content not shared anywhere else, and business news. If you know you’re ready to move forward and get beyond the emotional pain of grief (due to any of the 40+ losses), click the link to learn more about my one-on-one program, Do Grief Differently™️.