Takeaways & Reflections | Leading Ourselves Through Grief

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY: 

Do you feel like the leader of your life?

Do you believe you are leading yourself through grief in a healthy way? You may be wondering what the “healthy way” looks like.

Take a moment to consider what leaders do at the start of their day. They don’t start their day dragging themselves out of bed, drinking a Mountain Dew, and grabbing a snicker bar for breakfast. Maybe some do, but I would wager to bet those leaders that do this are on the fast track to burnout.

How would you show up differently for yourself, and your grief, if you gave some deeper thought to how you’re treating yourself and not harnessing the grieving process as something to push you to your edges and show you what you’re capable of.

Grief pushed me to my edge until I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. It also pushed my guest, Scott Mann to his edges. And, Kristine learned how much expansion waited for her once grief entered the room.

We can lead ourselves or we can be led; one way is far more empowering than the other and helps you become the refined and evolved version of yourself after grief.

Which do you choose? I hope this episode inspires you to take your grief by the horns – not for anyone else but you.

RESOURCES:

Leadership In Our Own Life

Hey there. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I am your host Victoria Volk of the Unleashed heart and you are listening to a takeaways and reflections episode from episode number 70, with Scott man, retired Greenberet on leadership, Afghanistan and grief, and Episode 71, with Kristine Carlson, heartbroken, open a widow’s work of unmasking sorrow. And today, I want to start with Scott’s episode where we talked in large part about leadership. And after that episode, leadership was, on my mind quite a bit. And it still has been because I haven’t really felt like a leader in my own life in a lot of ways. I always feel like there’s maybe something I could be doing more or something I could be doing better. Or I just often wish that there was more time in the day where I could do so many things that I would still like to be doing, in addition to everything else that I am pursuing. And a lot of that would involve me stepping into leadership, and the leader who I believe I have the capability to be, just as I believe you have the capability to be. And I think whether we like it or not, if you’re a parent, we are leaders, in many ways, because it is up to us to raise a future generation. And that can feel like a lot of pressure. And I can feel like we’re failing a lot. I can speak for myself, I guess, in that regard. But you have your proud moments, and you have your moments where you feel like you could have done better.

And, you know, let’s face it, parenting does not come with a manual. And so we all are learning along the way. And we all are stepping into that leadership role along the way. And as our children grow and go through all the different phases of development that we too, went through. And there was something that Scott had said, and I just want to circle back to it. He said there is a path, there is a journey, where our scars that are below the surface can be repurposed. And I believe it with all my heart that I believe it’s actually rocket fuel for leadership. He says not who am I to do this? Who am I not to? Because if you don’t, what’s the cost of that? If there’s something that you really want to be doing? What is the cost of not doing that? And who are you not to try and step into the arena and do something bold, do something different? Try something new. Scott and I actually recorded at the end of September of 2021. And ever since then, like I said, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to leadership in my own life. And I’ve since signed up for to try out Toastmasters, which if you haven’t heard of it, it’s to help you develop skills and learn new skills for public speaking. And I’ve attended already one meeting and I’m kind of looking for a group or a club that I feel is a good fit for me. So that’s one way, I’ve also attended Women’s Business Summit, and also really looking and seeking mentors and teachers who are further along than me, who have a skill set or have an aspect of leadership that I am wanting to develop within myself.

Learning Leadership and Taking Opportunity

So I would ask you, what are you wanting to develop within yourself as a leader? What aspect of leadership? Do you feel like you could step into going into 2022? Do you want to learn parenting techniques? Do you want to learn how to start a business? Do you want to learn how to be comfortable talking with other people? I had an interview recently with a guest and he suggested that one of the best things people can do to become more comfortable speaking with in front of others is by taking an improv class. And I thought well, that’s brilliant. I never even thought of that. One of the other ways I’ve recently chosen to step into leadership is by taking a chance and putting myself out there to be on the news. The opportunity was presented to me from someone that works with entrepreneurs out the Women’s Business Center and shared that the local news station was doing a segment for the week of Veterans Day. on veterans voices, and I reached out to the reporter and asked for more information. And she sent a clip of a story they did, I believe last year. And I had this moment where I felt like I not qualified. I was very impressed with the story of the gentleman that they interviewed with the work that he’s doing. He has a nonprofit, really stepping into leadership in his own life. And I find myself comparing myself to him, and all the work that he is doing.

And I felt like I was not worthy. I felt like that. Although there’s so many things that I want to be doing in the veteran community and for veterans, and have been trying to do, which has not panned out in my favor. I found myself shying away from the opportunity. The reporter then replied with the, it’s just about featuring veterans, and if they have a business to talk about their business within the community, and what what they’re doing and to share their stories. And so that made me feel better about doing it. Because I also thought, you know, what this isn’t about me, or my deployment or my service or anything like that, I really wanted to, I’ve looked at this, like an opportunity to speak about the topics that veterans care about, and soldiers care about. And that’s mental health. And that’s the suicide rate, and things like that. And so, I have a service that I know changed my life. And I was looking at this, then like an opportunity to let soldiers and veterans and other people know that there is something out there that exists that can be life changing, that will change their life, if they are open to and willing to do the inner work. Because of travel and distance, we actually did the interview over zoom, and I sent her some images and things. And so the story will actually be on my local KX news on the evening. And I will actually put a link to the show notes for that if you care to check that out. But it’s again, just another example and why I share it as another example of how I’m really taking to heart this notion of I want to be a leader, I want to lead and I want to step into my potential in a bigger way. And I share this because I want to inspire you as a Griever. To reach for something that is a deep desire within yourself, and find a way, find the people find the resources, find the support you need to help you make that happen.

It’s so much harder to go it alone, it really is. And it does take support. So whether it’s going through Grief Recovery, and getting all those cobwebs and the icky stuff out of the way so that you feel more emotionally free to give yourself what you need to spend that time and energy putting it into meaningful work that you care to do. It’s much harder to do that when you are deep in grief when you are ruminating on the story of what happened, whether it’s three years out, or 30 years out, like it was for me, it’s never too late. It’s never too soon, you and I both know, we only have today, my daughter actually painted a watercolor and with a quote, and it says do it now sometimes later becomes never and I have that in my office. And it’s a reminder for me that I might not get a later. And that later may mean never. And so what better timing than now to step into my potential and I challenge you to do the same.

Heartbreak & Widowhood

Shifting gears from leadership to heartbreak and widowhood. I would like to talk a little bit about Kristine’s episode because what came about for me after talking with Kristine, was that although I’ve been doing this Grief Recovery work for almost a few years now, just thinking about my own situation, but thinking about it from my mother’s perspective, when my father passed away, she was a widow at 43 years old, almost the age that I am soon to be. And just in church this past weekend, the message was about widows and so it was so timely and I’ve found myself sitting in church. And I was listening to the passage and thinking about my mom and thinking about this episode with Kristine and thinking about all of the widows out there, who in that moment, we’re probably struggling, somewhere close to me, somewhere far away, it doesn’t matter. I just found myself feeling into my mother’s shoes, of what it would be like, if being the same age, almost as she was, what that would be like raising children, and grieving a spouse. And I can tell you like back in the late 80s, when my mom lost her husband, my dad, there wasn’t a lot of support. And there really weren’t any of her friends in her circle at the time that were widows themselves. So she really didn’t have anyone she could go to or talk to that had experienced the same thing. We didn’t have social media we didn’t have. We didn’t have a cell phone. Like, you know, there’s so many.

It was such a different time that there are so many blessings that we have today as grievers that didn’t exist back when right and resources also, and access to resources. I mean, there’s so much free content out there for people to access that can offer support and guidance and things like that, which by the way, I want to share a new resource that I came across recently. The app is called empathy. And it’s E m p a t h y just as empathy is spelled. And it’s based on artificial intelligence on the information that you input. So if you are a widow, and you were in charge of the estate, or bills, things like anything, I mean, it will pure rate, the app curates to your specific needs. I think it’s absolutely brilliant. I wish I would have thought of it myself. But I will put the link to that in the shownotes. I think that would be an amazing resource for not just widows, but any Griever. So if you’re listening to this, I greatly encourage you to check that out.

Empathy & Compassion

But, again, this episode this week was just so timely for the message I received in church. And just what I’ve been reflecting on in reading as also, like just in my personal life books, I’m reading things to help me think of that time from my in my mom’s eyes with a whole lot of compassion. Because it’s so easy as grievers to think about our own personal experience, like how we were affected and how we were impacted. But to be able to put ourselves in the shoes of someone else, which is really what empathy is. But to then shift that to compassion. I’m not owning that as not, like those feelings are not mine to own, of what she experienced or what any Griever experiences, right? In our lives. We’re not, we can’t save people. But what I can do now is I can think about that experience with more compassion, being the age that my mom almost, that I am, almost at the age my mom was understanding and listening to other widows who I have interviewed on this podcast, but for some reason, this conversation with Kristine just, I don’t know, it touched me in a different way and and I could have been to the message in church and maybe, you know I’m further along in my own healing my own inner work, things like that, which also shifts our perspective which also we grow, right, we grow or our beliefs may change as we grow. I hope they do. They should, but especially for challenging those beliefs. That’s a good sign. But again, I I can think about what my mom went through making nothing about myself. He goes gone, put aside and just send love and light to that situation and that experience that she had and light The load that I feel about my own suffering. And I think is Grievers.

If we can do that, especially as maybe adult children, where our parent lost their loved one, there’s their spouse, they’re the person, their life partner, the one that they thought they would spend the rest of their lives with. If you are an adult child, and that your situation was like mine, I would just encourage you to whether it was a less than loving relationship with that person or, or it was completely a loving relationship. Think about what that experience was like for your parent, and the surviving parent. And I don’t know, I’m just it’s a call for compassion, I guess is what I’m trying to get across here. And Kristine eloquently shared what her experience taught her but you know, and she had a lot of resources in a foundation of healing, and personal development work already in place when that when she lost her husband, but she still had children she was raising, right, she still had to learn to navigate a grief and the grief of her children, because she had she had shared in her episode, both their parents were still living when her husband passed away. And so this is truly her first real grief experience. And, you know, I can say, personally, I feel more prepared for any future losses that I have having Grief Recovery, having the tools in my toolbox that I’ve, you know, learned and and personally developed over the past few years. But when you haven’t addressed grief, specifically in your life before, and it happens to you, it’s new territory. And considering everything that her work has become in the last several years. It’s a parent that that was a catalyst for a lot of growth and a lot of the work that she’s doing today, and the books that she’s written, and that’s life, though, right? We go through life, we experienced loss, it changes us, we can grow from it, we can find the gifts in it, which, when you’re knee deep in it, you don’t want to hear about that. But there is another side that we can all get to. We just have to hold on to the hope that we can get there.

How Powerful Support Is

And again, I’m going to circle back to you can’t do it alone, it takes support, it takes a village of support around you to help you get up day after day. And, you know, she had said Kristine shared that, you know, her daughter’s helped her get up day after day. They were her reason to get up. But she also had a lot of great support around her. And I want to tie that into Scott’s episode as well. Because when he was to the point where he was ready to take his own life, he had to get really honest with himself and with his family. And again, he couldn’t walk through that darkness by himself, he needed the support. So that is the theme, I think for this takeaways episode is, is stepping into leadership in our lives, being the leader of our own lives, taking our lives by the horns, getting the support, finding the resources we need, finding that which will help us develop and grow and learn into the people we want to be the Griever that has learned from the challenges and the hardships, a Griever that has found the hope to continue and share their message in a meaningful way. And not everybody has to like use their grief and user challenges for good but there is a lot of empowerment when you find meaning in what you’ve endured, and you turn it for the good of others. There’s a lot of empowerment in that. There was a quote that Christine shared and I’m gonna really tie this up with a bow with that with that quote, but she said the circumstances of life don’t make or break you, but they will reveal you. So my question to you today is What do you want your grief to reveal about you? What do you Why your circumstances in life? To reveal about you? Do you want them to break you? Or do you want them to make you and a part of that is stepping into the leadership of your own life. Be the leader of you. You are the only one who can lead you and it is solely your responsibility. No one can do it for you. No one can take away the pain for you. It takes you to do the work to be open to doing the work to show up for yourself in a big way so that you can become the version of you that you want to be so that you can become version 2.0 That you after grief.

much love, victoria

P.S. That’s it for today, my friends. I hope this episode was inspiring. And if you’d like to share your thoughts on this episode, I would love to hear it you can email me [email protected] find me on Instagram @theunleashedheart. If you love this episode, please share it. And again, don’t forget to check out the show notes for the link to the app that I mentioned. And remember, when you unleash your heart you unleash your life. Much love.

 

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