Takeaways & Reflections | Be Open to Receiving
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
What is grief?
Grief is the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations.
Grief is anything we wish would be different, better, or more.
And, no one has to die for you to grieve.
Also, because there are more than 40+ losses, it’s a safe bet that you and every person you meet is or has experienced grief.
We are taught how to acquire things (or people). We’re not taught what to do when we lose them. Today’s episode is about the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations, and how our individual beliefs play a role in how we respond to grief.
Today’s episode is also about seeking the truth and the evidence of what we don’t fully understand, and how our findings can lead us to the most impactful life lessons.
Be open to receiving the message in today’s podcast and, I encourage you to explore, more deeply with self-love and compassion, whatever it brings up for you.
RESOURCES:
- Ep 76 Katie Carroll | The Best Things in Life Aren’t Planned
- Ep 77 Bob Ginsberg | A Quest for Truth
- Ep 40 Dr. Chris Kerr | Death Is But a Dream: End-of-Life Experiences
- Ep 65 Sirry Berndsen | The Spirit World Walks Among Us
- Ep 75 Takeaways & Reflections | Grief Shared is Grief Diminished
Thank you for tuning in to another episode of grieving voices. Today is the takeaways and reflections episode, and I’ll be talking about episode 76 with Katie Carroll, the best things in life aren’t planned and episode 77 with Bob Ginsberg a quest for truth. I’d like to start with episode 76 with Katie Carroll, I titled it “The Best Things in Life Aren’t Planned”. But I would also say that the worst things in life aren’t planned either. And that’s been my experience in my personal life, as of late and I talked about it in the November 30th takeaways and reflections episode, grief shared his grief diminished.
Disappointments Gives Us an Opportunity to Grow
And what I shared was, my son had had a weight bench pressing accident. Well, it’s been five weeks now as of today recording this. And he just got out of the hospital a couple days ago. I guess basically, out of the five last five weekends, he’s been in the hospital, a portion of four of them. So, we’re hoping to be done with hospitals for a little while. He seems to be doing really well. We won’t know for a couple more weeks if he will need surgery or not. But in the meantime, we’re hoping for an uneventful time in between. And just a really nice time with family, which, after the month, little over a month that we’ve had. I could go for some more boring, to be honest. So, I’m hoping that the next few weeks are just incredibly boring.
But you know, when we talk about plans, and we want to make plans. That’s one of the things that Katie mentioned in her episode, she said, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”. And that’s one of the things that I’ve really had to learn myself as of late last, as I shared because I’ve had to basically plan week by week, essentially, even sometimes day by day. Everything with my business had kind of gone on the backburner. Although, I have maintained this podcast, but with the help of my VA have also maintained some sort of presence on social media. I’m not active on it, but I’m still getting content produced and my newsletters still going out. But I’ve stepped away from the blog for a little while, which I’m thankful for, that little break from that. But we don’t know or learn how to acquire things, maybe even people, we’re not taught what to do when we lose those things, or we lose those people. And I think that’s a part of plans too, is that we’re not taught how to deal when our plans don’t go as we hoped, or the hopes and dreams that we have for our lives if they don’t work out. We’re not taught how to deal with those things. We’re not taught how to process those emotions that come with the loss of those experiences.
And for Katie, she’d always felt in her heart that she’d be a mother. As a child, she loved pretending that she was a mom, and always aspired to be a mom. And when she thought about her future, she saw herself as a mother. And when she found herself single at 42, she still had this hope that it would possibly happen. And she did meet somebody, but she had equated not ever getting married to not ever having children with an unworthy life. And I’m incredibly sad that we sometimes put so much emphasis or weight on an identity that society places on us or that because of the societal pressures we place on ourselves. And just like she said, everybody would say, your time will come when she was always a bridesmaid never a bride. I think that there is a lot of growth that she experienced because of these constant disappointments. I think that she experienced, when she realized with every relationship that didn’t work out the way she had hoped.
That it really just brought her closer to who she truly knew who she was. And that she was a caring, loving individual that had so much love to give. And she realized this, “that I can give all my nephews, all of the love”, like the nieces and nephews in her life, she can give them all the love that she has in her heart. And in the work as a pediatric nurse, she can give the children she cares for, all of the love in her heart. And my son was several times now he’s been on the pediatric floor in the hospital, and the nurses just have an unbelievable sense of care and are so good to my son. And I just had so much appreciation for nurses. They genuinely seem to love and enjoy working with kids and in doing the job that they’re doing. But I can see too where burnout can be a real have a real impact on on that career.
But I just want to give a shout out if you’re a nurse, and to Katie, if you’re listening to this, thank you for being a nurse, thank you for giving your love and care to the rest of society and to someone else’s children, as if they were your own. So that’s my gratitude that I have today. And I wish all you nurses out there I very, very merry Christmas, as this will be airing the week of Christmas.
Expectations are Planned Disappointments
But I do encourage you to listen to Katie’s episode, because I think even if you don’t identify as a single person, or someone who’s looking for love. I think that there is a lot to her story. In these expectations we place on ourselves or on our lives. And often there’s disappointment that comes with that. We say in Grief Recovery that expectations are planned disappointments. At least I think that’s where I first heard that, but it’s very true. We don’t necessarily learn the tools and aren’t equipped with the tools to deal with these expectations that ultimately become disappointments. I do hope you listen to episode 76 with Katie Carol, that best things in life aren’t planned. And I believe that you will maybe hear a little bit of your own story in what she has to share. And if you don’t, well then, I think you’ll have a little bit more compassion for those who may not have children. And we don’t know the story behind everyone’s eyes. We just never know what people are struggling with and, you know, we see the world through the lens of our own personal experience. And so maybe just express and have a little compassion for those that may not have children and don’t make assumptions and don’t make judgments. And we just don’t know the story behind people’s lives. So, listen to that.
Grief Changes Shape, But it Never Ends
And then also episode 77 With Bob Ginsburg a quest for truth. We talked about looking for the evidence of the afterlife and how he was on a quest for that truth. After the death of his daughter, what struck me about his story was how he shared that his wife actually had a premonition about something terrible that was going to happen the day that their daughter and son had been in a serious car accident that claimed their daughter’s life and landed their son in the emergency room. He did survive. But he said, you know, very often trauma and loss are a trigger for self exploration, you reevaluate everything in your life. And that’s essentially what happened to Bob and what he shared in his story. He was very materialistic, he said, he was all about the success in his business and career and his life. And they had the toys, and they took the vacations and all of those wonderful things that helped to support their lifestyle. But he said, when she passed away, none of that mattered. Absolutely, none of it mattered. He couldn’t care less, basically, is what he had said. And he really dives deep into what that exploration was like for him. He was all about the science. He wanted the science to prove that he wanted the evidence. He was looking for the evidence and the truth that his daughter was still somehow consciously here. He knew, obviously, she wasn’t in the physical form, but that there was something after death that would help him to connect and feel connected and to know that he was feeling connected. And so, we really explored what that has looked like over the years for him, and how that really shaped the work that he does today.
Even after the path passing of his wife in 2020 to cancer, he shared a perfect golden nugget of wisdom that he feels his wife, or that his wife actually did share when she on her deathbed. And just in the moment he shared, it just really got to me, in an emotional way. So, you’ll have to listen to that episode to know what I’m talking about. But it really touched me what she had shared with him on her deathbed. And I just really enjoyed learning more about the Forever Family Foundation, which is a not for profit that educates on the evidence that we are more than our physical bodies. And it wasn’t really an area that I explored until essentially going through Grief Recovery. And probably even more so after Reiki, like the spiritual aspect of energy and the afterlife. And all of those things.
Everyone Grieves Differently
I had Sirry Bernsen, she is a medium that was certified through the Forever Family Foundation or are vetted to the Forever Family Foundation. And if you want a vetted, medium, the Forever Family Foundation website is the place to go. So, check out that episode to look in the show notes to find the links for all of that, but I just really hope you listen to that episode because I think that a good medium like episode coming up Corchele Smith, we actually talk about her experience a little bit about seeing a medium, that can be very healing for some people in grief. And it’s not the end all be all. It’s not necessarily for everybody, and that’s okay. And if it’s not for you, I hope you don’t judge those that seek that for healing, because we are all on a journey that is unique to us, and that includes our grief. And we find relief, and we find solace and healing that is very individual for each of us. And so just I hope you listen with an open mind. And that’s really what I think Bob mentions that set him apart in a way that he was open minded. He really was septic in a way, but he was still open minded. He wanted the science and the evidence and he followed the evidence where it led him. He was part of the Forever Family Foundation, which was a part of the Netflix Docu series “Surviving Death”, which I’ve had Dr. Chris Kerr on who is an end of life, hospice physician, and Sirry Berndsen was also on featured on that Netflix Docu series, I think, as part of the Forever Family Foundation’s part of that.
But again, I think that we can be skeptic, but we can be open minded. And I just think that there is much that we don’t know, and we don’t understand. And if we can open our hearts to possibility, we might just be surprised by what we find. And we can often find ourselves being led to healing in ways we least expect. You don’t know what you don’t know. But also, we don’t know that we have an opportunity there if we don’t open ourselves to it. We have to be open to a new experience or a new belief or a new understanding. I think sometimes we can challenge our beliefs and be pleasantly surprised, or we can walk away feeling affirmed. But either way we’re learning right? So, I don’t think there’s any anything lost in having an open mind and an open heart. I hope you keep that in mind as you listen to that episode, and maybe perhaps, exploring the other podcast episodes that I mentioned.
But I do agree with Bob, that trauma and loss are the catalyst for self exploration, where we can really have the opportunity to, again, challenge our own beliefs, look into our own selves. And what we find is important and what matters. I’ve had my own moments as of late, just given what we’ve experienced with our son. But yeah, it’s a journey for sure. I want to leave you today with the knowing that regardless of what life throws at you, there are tools out there, there are means of support. There are people out there who are loving, who are caring, who care about you, who love you, and who are invested in helping you to become an even brighter, lighter version of who you already are. That is what my hope is and my work that I do with Grievers. That is, I believe what you will find and working with, you know, a certified medium, and it is what you might find and discover within yourself that even when things don’t go as planned, beautiful things can still find their way to you if you’re open to receive. So, maybe that is the message for today being open to receiving the dark and the light, because without the dark, we really don’t know the light. And that is where I think we dig deep and find what we’re really made of. So, digging deep and finding what we’re made of.
P.S. That’s today’s episode. Please reach out to me on social media. Find me on Instagram at theunleashedheart, send me an email [email protected] if you do share with me what your experiences are, I would love to hear it. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.