Takeaways & Reflections | Intuition & Pulling the Weeds

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:

We come into this world knowing how to grieve. We naturally know how to express ourselves to get our needs met. Then life happens, along with generational teaching that creates the perfect storm for adult issues.

So much of what is wrong in our lives, as adults, can be traced back to our childhoods. That goes for possible health concerns, as well as our mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

Adulthood is a childhood re-enactment. And, considering that research suggests that our brains develop in response to the environment in which we are raised or in as children, it makes sense that we find ourselves resorting to those points of reference in adulthood. And often, they’re not very healthy points of reference.

I look forward to digging into this topic more deeply and, explore this further with future experts. In the meantime, listen to this week’s episode and see if you can connect some dots of your adult life experience to your childhood.

As long as we are medicalizing mental health, we’ll continue to see the same issues repeated in our society. We must pull the weeds. And the roots, I believe, are in our childhoods. And, I don’t care if you had the most idyllic upbringing. Because no parent is perfect, and every last parent resorts to what they know. And, in my experience, when it comes to grief, there’s a lot of misinformation and myths playing out in the world.

RESOURCES:

This is Episode 48 takeaways and reflections from Episode 46, with Rachel Pozzesi the grief and impact of chronic illness, and Episode 47, with Crystal Partney, finding hope after the loss of her sister by suicide. And I’d like to start out with Episode 46 with Rachel, I have actually happened to know some people who deal with chronic illness who well, even at one time myself, I had felt like something was wrong. I had physical symptoms. This was probably the start of 2014, hindsight, I know what the problem was then. But at the time, I felt like what is happening with my body. It felt like my body was retaliating against me. I had hair loss, fatigue, body aches that were really unexplained. Yeah, and I was doctoring and trying to figure out what the world was going on. I had weight loss. In one month, I had lost like nine pounds, I was dealing with bloating and constipation and just so many different things. And when I look back on that time now, I can tell you that it was grief. It was just all grief for me. I had my youngest was starting kindergarten. And I had come to the decision that I was going to close the business that I had poured all of my blood, sweat, tears and money into for the past.

That time, it was probably close to seven or eight years of just MMA actually closer to eight, eight years, nine years, eight to nine years of just learning and education and then just kind of establishing the foundations of what I would need to run a business or photography, business. And any anyone who endeavors to be an entrepreneur, recognize the work and the effort it takes, and the stamina, and the ambition, all of those things. And it can take a lot out of you. If you don’t have the support and mindset for it right? And early on, in the beginning of my business, I didn’t have a lot of support in terms of a guide or mentor or anything like that this was you know, Facebook was just kind of becoming a thing and even years into my business, I didn’t even have a Facebook page until one of my wedding clients was you know, prompted me to start a page. And anyway, it just takes a lot out of you and I loved what I was doing. I felt really energized working with my clients. And I learned so much and in those years, things that I use today that I’ve that really helped me become the entrepreneur I am today truthfully, nothing is wasted. That’s what I say nothing is wasted and but in hindsight, coming to that decision.

Dealing With Chronic Illness

From the time I made the decision to when I actually implemented the decision was another year. It really was not an easy decision for me to make. I mean the decision itself was but the person process of actually letting go and and doing that. It was a grieving process. It was a grieving process. It’s like you that was my baby that my business was my fourth baby. And you know, Rachel has a business herself she coaches, women, particularly I believe in helping them really live their best lives and her education and knowledge, of course comes from her personal experience, which often does often people in business, create businesses out of their own personal experience. And she dealt with chronic illness for much of her later teen life into adulthood still currently, obviously, with chronic Lyme disease. I mean, there’s a bunch of different things mentioned, I mean, I just couldn’t even listening to her. I’m just like, that’s a lot, you hashimotos it’s like one thing led to the next thing to the next thing, mold, toxic toxicity, all these things, and it took her years to, like, really pick apart what was really happening. And the grief that she experienced during that time of people in her life and, in her circles, and who didn’t believe that, you know, who didn’t validate really, what, what was happening and what she was experiencing.

And, you know, at the time when I was going through my bout of what I call midlife crisis, which is what I boil it down to is that what was happening with me physically, I’m sure there were people who were like, Oh, my gosh, here we go again, there’s, you know, another issue another doctor appointment or whatever, and, there were validating things that were found. In fact, I had colon polyps that were removed. So maybe the midlife crisis kind of saved me too, you know, because my dad passed away of colon cancer when he was 44. So, and it’s very prevalent in my family, although it’s not genetically tied to the family, so that’s good. But anyway, I also found that I had epstein barr, reactive I was epstein barr reactive. And my research led me to understand that it’s like mondo, epstein barr is mano in its mano in your body, that’s reactivated but it’s not mano itself. So it’s like your body thinks you have mono. So honestly, there isn’t a whole lot of information on that, that I could find and, and what to do about it and how to manage those symptoms or, really what it is. I think it’s still one of these things that is not an anomaly, but just really not really researched. So that’s kind of where that stands. I really don’t know anything else about that. other than that, I related to parts of Rachel story in that I felt like I was going crazy, and she did too.

Listen To Your Intuition

And then you feel invalidated. And when you feel invalidated and when you feel like you know what you’re not getting, you know, you know, in your gut when the doctor you know, they don’t know everything, right? And you know, when your gut like, No, I think I need another opinion or that just doesn’t sound right to me. I just encourage you to listen to that Rachel does too. It’s if she would not have listened to her intuition. She would have her appendix would have ruptured and she would have been much more in a in a much more dire situation than what she found herself in which was emergency surgery. But just listen to your intuition. When it comes to your body, your health only, you know best. I don’t care if the doctor has 18 years of education and experience or 28 years or whatever. They don’t know you like you know you. And so I would just encourage you and I think Rachel would to to listen to your intuition. If something doesn’t feel right. investigate it. Get another opinion. And I actually there was an episode I did with. And she’s 17 years out with metastatic breast cancer, and she’s shared the same message, you know, she’s listened to her intuition and really helped her like going through living with cancer really has helped her to really tune into her intuition, and do the best thing that she can for herself and do her research and find the best option for her. One thing I’ve learned, through conversations with good friends who are more on the natural path train, and through Rachel and just my own personal experience, my own life, is that the one thing that the medical field doesn’t really address when it comes to like women and women’s health is this, the whole picture is the whole picture. And, you know, when it comes to the hormones, like hormones are huge for women, of course, men too, but they’re an essential part of our bodies, like they’re so much a part of every system of our body, that it pays to investigate what’s happening with our hormones.

And, you know, with women, we have all these different options for you have the birth control pill, which actually a friend just recently shared with me as she was reading the book, beyond the pill. And the information that she’s gleaned from that is, wow, the changes that it creates in your body and the things that it does to your body. And what I’ve personally learned in that regard, too, is, you know, how do we really know what’s happening with our body? If we’re taking this artificial thing, right? this thing that’s supposed to be part of our reproductive health, but yet, how healthy is it? And so anyway, I think it just comes back to doing your research and finding the best viable option for you. And that goes for women’s health that goes for just health in general health and wellness, mental health, everything, all of it, it’s a human being, you got to see the whole picture. And one thing I know that a good another good friend recommended is to have your levels checked by a naturopath, who, I mean, they’ll check everything, the stuff that the regular doctors will not check for, but again, plays such a vital role in what could be happening because of those levels being low, such as magnesium or calcium. Well, they check your calcium, but there’s just so much more, there’s just so much more that they can look into like just by checking your spit, you know. So, anyway, listen to your intuition. That’s the main message I got from Rachel.

And really, you just never know what people are dealing with. When you walk when you pass by people on the street people in your family who seem like they’re not like they’re struggling, you know, it’s, it could be their health and health. If we don’t have our health, nothing else matters. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, it doesn’t matter your zip code or your address, or your yeah, it doesn’t matter your economic status, your skin color or anything it if we do not have our health, nothing else matters. And I think it’s very important to look at the whole picture of our health, mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, all of it the whole picture. So that is my takeaway that I would love to that I wanted to share from Rachel’s episode so much more. Check her out at rachelpozzesi.com. That’s r a c h e l p o zz e s i.com for more information on everything that she can help you with, and that she is working through herself and coaching women. I will also put in the show notes, a link to her previous episode. And more you can see all the links in the show notes from her episode, because there were several Especially if you have Lyme disease, if you’re dealing with any other issues that she may have shared in that episode, a lot of good resources that came out of that episode. So check that out.

Losing A Sister By Suicide

So next up, I’d like to share some insights from Crystal’s episode where she shared about the loss of her sister by suicide. And if you don’t recall, or if you haven’t listened to it, back in November, there are two as a two part series, two part podcast episode with David Woods Bartley, episodes, 21 and 22, which I’ll also link in the show notes. But he specifically talked about his experience with attempting suicide, and talked about suicide prevention. And it was a really good conversation, it was quite lengthy. So that’s why I split it up into two podcast episodes, but highly recommended as well. In addition to Crystal’s episode, she shared her personal experience again, like, as, you know, losing her sister and but there was more of lost than just her sister, she had also lost her father and a nephew who was stillborn, I believe. And so a lot of loss in a short period of time for her, which I often find, not necessarily in a short period of time. But in doing these interviews over the past year, almost now, I’m approaching Episode 50, and my one year anniversary of this podcast, so again, thank you for listening.

But what I’ve learned to be true with most guests is that it’s not just one loss they’ve experienced several or many losses. And, you know, if you think about your lifetime, and you think of all the different ways that loss happens in our life, whether it’s moving, or your parents get divorced, or you get divorced, or let’s say both, let’s say, as a child, your parents got a divorce, and then you had to move and do all those things that what happens when your parents get divorced. And then you get married, and you get a divorce. You know, like all of these life events, create grief in our lives. And this is why I’m so passionate about grief education, because people don’t see their life experiences causing grief they don’t see the the patterns in their lives of what they’re doing to feel better, as being caused by grief has been motivated by grief motivated to feel better but because of the grief right? And I see this, I’m really looking forward to having some conversations coming up. One in particular with he’s a retired lieutenant colonel and greenbrae. And he’s a TEDx speaker. And he’s been on all kinds of TV programs and everything, but I really look forward to talking to him about mental health in the VA community, the veteran community, because there’s all this talk about mental health, mental health, mental health, and in 2019, I’d gone to a VA mental health summit, and had a booth there and listen to the speakers and I was in rooms full of social workers. And not a once was the word grief, even spoken. Everything was about suicide prevention.

The Truth About Suicide

Let’s talk about suicide. But what is the truth about suicide is that when there’s suicidal ideation, there is more likely to be grief in that person’s life. And so if we can address the grief we take care of the suicidal ideation if it’s because of grief. Now, granted, there are chemical things that happen within the brain, and I’m not a neuroscientist. I’m not a PhD, whatever. And I haven’t like done all those research or whatever. But what I know about grief is that when we pull the weed, and we get to the root of the problem, all of these other things in our lives seem to fall into place. And in fact, I mean, I just think of one client I had, who lost her father, all through COVID. And she could not even before grief recovery work. She could not even get within a block of his house. Not even within a block without breaking down crying And being emotionally upset for hours, maybe even days at a time. And it wasn’t until after grief recovery, that she has been able to go into the house. And she’s actually going through, and cleaning and going through his personal belongings and things and, you know, organizing and doing all those things that the children are left to do when the parents pass, right?

So those are things that she really struggled with before grief recovery. And as long as we attempt to medicalize, and drug grief, we will have these issues, we will have the issues of mental health, we will have the needle not moving forward. And we will continue to see these problems that we’re seeing. And because this trickles into addiction and all sorts of other things. Granted, like I said, there are medical conditions, and mental illnesses that, you know, obviously need and require medication. That’s not what I’m talking about here. What I’m talking about, is what so many millions of Americans are dealing with that is normal and natural. That is causing anxiety that is causing heart problems that is causing heart disease and strokes. And these it’s this extended long period of grief that is unaddressed that is debilitating people in their lives. And so that’s why I’m so passionate about this stuff. Because I see grief everywhere. It is everywhere. It is everywhere. And it impacts every area of our lives.

And so when I see stories or hear stories of suicidal ideation, I want to ask, What happened to you? What have you experienced in your life? What has gotten you to this point? And is there a way we can get beyond this that doesn’t include medication? like can we address get to the heart of the problem? Can we get to the root of the issue and pull out the weed. If we think of our heart as a garden, let’s tend our gardens. Let’s pull the weeds. That’s what I’m saying here. Let’s pull the weeds. One aspect to of our conversation is that I want to highlight and bring up is she mentioned her three year old daughter because this was you know, her aunt that passed away and before that it was her grandpa and and so she has children I just want to share this reflection is that as children, we come into this world knowing how to grieve. We do we cry when we’re hungry, we cry when we’re sad, we cry when we’re in pain. We know how to share our feelings, like it’s natural to share what we’re experiencing in the moment we’re experiencing it. And it’s life itself. The evolution of getting older and growing up and being in our environment and learning from our caretakers how to respond to the world around us.

Adulthood Is Childhood Reenactments

And what I have learned about the brain is that the brain actually responds to its environment. The brain actually develops as when we’re children, the brain develops around what is in our environment. The environment shapes our brain, like literally like wires, our brain as a result of the environment we are in. And I’ll have to look for the book that References This. And there was a podcast episode I listened to with this doctor who has been doing this research. And I just found it fascinating, but it makes total sense. And this is why I believe adulthood is childhood reenactments. Because all of these experiences in childhood are wired in our brains. And our brains are us, right? Our brains are a part of us all our lives. And so it makes sense to me that adulthood would be a reflection of what our brain experienced as a child. And it’s a file Bank of resources and mental references and things that we fall back on the belief systems the everything that we take in the information that we take in shapes, our beliefs, and our patterns of thought and our experiences shape our thoughts and all of these things right? and so it’s all stored in there and as children and that’s what we fall back on as adults.

And so, before life gets a hold of us as children, we naturally know how to grieve. It’s just that we lose that instinct, we lose that ability because we, our brains get reshaped, we get formed. Well, I guess this is how it’s done. I guess this is how we talk about grief. I guess this is how we deal with it. We don’t talk about it. We stuff it down. And we get angry and all but anger isn’t okay, so we can’t get angry. So I’m going to stuff anger down, you know. And so the this is, how like our childhoods. Our childhood is where we need to start when we’re thinking about the problems we are experiencing in adulthood. And so that’s my riff on that. But it is a great episode. She’s very much about suicide prevention and helping families after loss by suicide. And additionally, we got connected because she was putting together a panel of speakers to discuss mental health. And I believe she was going to get me a link for that if, because this was held back in March. But I think it’s all wonderful information. So I’m going to see about getting a link for that again, and I’ll put that in the show notes of Episode 47 of Crystal’s episode, and then also in this episode, as well. So that is my episode today.

much love, victoria

P.S. Thank you for listening again, as I approach Episode 50. It’s very exciting. It’s so exciting. Definitely a labor of love. And I’ve learned I’ve greatly greatly enjoyed this. So thank you so much for tuning in. And if you loved these episodes, love grieving voices, I hope that you would take two minutes to review and rate. I would greatly appreciate it. So remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.

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