Grief, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Parent Loss, Podcast, season 5 |
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Today, I’m sharing my conversation with my former Do Grief Differently client, Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer, a dedicated research associate at UT Austin’s Texas Center For Disability Studies.
Delyla shares her transformative journey into special education and advocacy after initially struggling to find direction in life. The conversation is especially poignant as it marks the second anniversary of her father, Fred Boyer’s passing—a pivotal moment that led Delyla to seek help with me through my one-on-one, 12-week program, Do Grief Differently. This dialogue illuminates how grief was once an unspoken topic in her family but has since become a source of personal growth and healing for Delyla.
Key Takeaways:
Embracing Change: After living with her mother in Houston, Delyla transitioned to a new career and community in Austin, strengthening familial relationships.
Understanding Self: A significant revelation came when she discovered she was on the autism spectrum—a realization supported by her sister—after years of being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Building Resilience: Through vulnerability and resilience, Delyla faced grief head-on with therapeutic tools like Do Grief Differently, tapping, and supportive friendships at work.
Honoring Legacy: She finds unique ways to commemorate her father’s memory, such as bike rides where she spreads his ashes, highlighting how accepting emotions can lead to clarity.
Delyla’s story is one of courage and transformation. In sharing her experience working with me, she highlights the positive impact of structured support systems in navigating loss while fostering personal growth. By embracing adaptability and compassion identified through tools like YouMap and learning from cherished memories with her father, Delyla continues to advocate for others facing similar challenges. Her message encourages engaging with community resources for healing while maintaining hope for future endeavors within special education advocacy.
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CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Embracing Grief as a Catalyst for Personal Growth
Grieving is an inevitable part of life, yet it often remains shrouded in silence and misunderstanding. In the latest episode of “Grieving Voices,” host Victoria delves into this complex topic with Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer, a social science and humanities research associate at the Texas Center For Disability Studies at UT Austin. Delilah’s journey through grief offers profound insights into how embracing emotional pain can lead to personal transformation.
A Journey Into Special Education
Delyla’s path was not straightforward; she initially struggled to find direction in her life and education. However, once she discovered her passion for special education, everything changed. Her dedication led her to prestigious fellowships and advocacy roles, including participating in the Council for Exceptional Children’s Inaugural Diversity Leadership Academy.
The Impact of Loss on Life Choices
The podcast recording date holds particular significance—October 21st marks two years since the passing of Delyla’s father, Fred Boyer. His death became a pivotal moment that propelled Delyla towards seeking help with grief management through Victoria’s program “Do Grief Differently.” She reflects on how growing up in an environment where grief wasn’t openly discussed shaped her initial struggles but also highlights how therapeutic tools like tapping have aided her healing process.
Navigating Relationships Through Grief
Moving from Houston to Austin marked another significant transition for Delyla—both professionally and personally. This move allowed her relationship with her mother to flourish despite physical distance while working on mending ties with her sister using skills acquired from the grieving program.
Episode Transcription:
Victoria Volk: Hello, and welcome to this week’s episode of grieving Voices. Today, my guest is Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer. She is a social science and humanities research associate three with the Texas Center for Disability Studies. At UT Austin. After nine years of not taking life or college seriously, Delilah graduated with her bachelor’s degree and went into special education. This was a path that was challenging and rewarding. And it also opened doors to education policy fellowships and a love for advocacy. She continues to advocate and look for opportunities to serve, and she is also a part of the council for exceptional children’s inaugural diversity leadership academy. And she was also a participant in my program to grief differently in April of twenty twenty three, which is like a year and a half ago already. And that where does the time go right?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: I know.
Victoria Volk: And so thank you so much for coming I know we talked about you being a guest on my podcast a few times even back in twenty twenty three. And so I’m finally glad to have you as a guest. And today is also a very special day, and maybe we can start there.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes. Thank you so much, Victoria. Yes. Today is a special day, October twenty first. This marks my dad’s second year of his death anniversary. His name was Fred Bowyer, and he was a an educator at heart and a leader as well in the public education setting.
Victoria Volk: And it’s also the loss that brought you to do grief differently as well. And it was obviously, it’s only two years today, and so it was quite raw for you at the time when you first came to work with me.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes. I found you actually just doing a search because I knew that I needed some help with grief and that’s where my journey started. With I never knew what grief was until I met you, Victoria. And when I went through with my dad just seeing him in the hospital and being there for him. So I thank you for helping me on this journey.
Victoria Volk: It was my pleasure. And I want to rewind the clock a little bit though into your childhood and just share with people what you were taught about grief and learned about grief before and growing up. And then how that changed for you in what you learned through through do group differently?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: As a child, I remember my first time, I was in fifth grade, and I heard that my grand my grandmother passed and my parents ended up going to the valley and told me to stay at school. And I did. So I I really wasn’t sure what was going on. I just knew somebody did pass and that I was supposed to continue to do my school work, be there, get good grades. So as a child, I don’t think I was really talked to grief really did was talked about it. And it was kinda I feel like it was maybe swept under the rug. And even when my grandmother did stay with us, it was like the doors were closed when she was when she had leukemia. But it it was something that was there. That I just didn’t know how to I didn’t know how to cope.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. We’re not taught the language either of how to express that sadness that we’re feeling or the uncertainty and and the unknowns. Yeah. And and because grief affects all areas of our life even as children. Right? Like, even as children, like, it can affect your friendships and excuse me. You know, you’re not showing up as your true self when you’re feeling burdened. You know? Yes. So how how did that change for you then in in what you have learned about grief through the through the process of do grief differently? And and how you kind of process those feelings even today, like, on this anniversary?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: It’s taken a lot of therapy, and I’m grateful for therapy I mean, even finding you, Victoria. But how I process it more is, like, for instance, today, I took the day off work, and I decided to just do things for myself. Go for vicryde. I’m gonna go for vicryde, and I’m gonna spread some of these ashes. And I guess, how I process it throughout, you know, the job? Because, you know, it does sneak up. It has snuck up a lot throughout the job. I I’ve learned tapping mechanisms. So I’ll do some tapping. But when I do feel that overwhelming feeling coming on, And I have great coworkers that understand my body language, which is so amazing. So they ask if I need a break or if I need the lights off or you know, so I really think that they’re a safe place for me. And it’s talking to people. I think that’s the major thing. Talking to people and telling them, No. I’m not okay right now because I believe that grief can be swept under the rug and I believe that’s what happened during my childhood and even when my dad did pass. It was like that. But I had to learn to use my voice and the tools like you, Victoria, and my therapist, Stephanie, and that’s where it’s changed. I’m like, I am greedy. I need to show these feelings. I will show them.
Victoria Volk: What was the biggest takeaway do you think that you got from the program? And Yeah, just what was the biggest takeaway for you?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Oh, gosh. I told everybody that I didn’t realize that grief wasn’t just losing somebody. I think that was my biggest takeaway. Grief is loss of a job. I mean, Grief is starting a new job. I mean, I feel like I grieved so much during since August. Since I did start a new job and everything.
Victoria Volk: And you moved? Yes. I moved neighbors, new community, new city.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes. So I that’s all grief and one. And So, yeah, you’ve taught me that, Victoria, that it’s just not losing my dad. It’s it’s losing a whole eighteen years of being a special education teacher and, you know, that was my decision. That was my decision for my mental health to say, I need a change.
And yet even with that, I grieve my students. I I wonder where they are and I know in August, I saw these bus all the buses coming out, and I was just like, I just felt sad. I was like, you know, by this time, last year, I was a teacher. I was getting my room set up. So, yeah, grief is not just losing somebody, and that’s the biggest thing that you’ve taught me.
Victoria Volk: How has the transition been for you into this new career, into the new community, and and the tools that you’ve leaned on to work through those transitions?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: It’s been difficult. I I it’s been difficult with the transitions. I really don’t like change
Victoria Volk: Oh, does.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Exactly. Who does?
Victoria Volk: People don’t.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yeah. But I just talked to my therapist, like, maybe a couple of minutes ago, and I was just, like, you know, I’m gonna embrace it. And what I’m doing is embracing the changes and maybe the yuckiness that I don’t like. And with my tools, with my tapping, with making sure I’m grounding myself, even taking a break at work, like going outside and walking, it’s really helped me to come back. To what I need to do. Like, even if it’s getting back on the computer and, you know, doing my data my data abstraction or, you know, getting on a meeting, It’s a challenge that I work through it.
Victoria Volk: Now, when you live you you lived with your mom in Houston. Are you living by yourself now in Austin?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes, I am.
Victoria Volk: That’s another big change. Right? So it has not been going. Like, it’s almost like you’re like, yeah, you you were with somebody. You know, you were with your mom and now that how has that changed? As it bedded your relationship, sometimes sometimes we aren’t meant to live with our parents, you know, and that clash especially, you know, when you’re as an adult, you know?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yeah. Well, she was the one that said, I need my space. So I wanted to Okay. That yeah. If she I wanted to honor her and acknowledge her and get her space, the space that she needed. And so, you know, I was ready. I was I was ready to make the move and everything I missed home this weekend, so I did go home and I got some long time. So I I really wanna say that our relationship has grown stronger since we’ve really been apart. Yeah. Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: Distance makes the heart grow fun or they say. Right?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yeah. It does.
Victoria Volk: Maybe it was something you didn’t I mean, do you look do you look back now, like, the time that you were with your mom, and then now the time that you’re are more on that you’re on your own? And have your own space, like, have you found that that you did too need it?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes, I have found that I’ve needed my space, you know. That’s all I ever knew. I mean, since we did take care of dad and and then afterwards, I mean, she was all I ever She’s all I ever knew. And I was just like, okay, time to cut the cord. And it’s been wonderful for us.
Victoria Volk: You know? Do you almost feel like because you both were caring for your dad? That you maybe there was a part of you that was finding it difficult to let go of caring for her, like, when your dad passed and then this tendency to wanna care for somebody else. You know, we can kinda replace that loss Right? You know this from the group differently. You know, if someone passes away, maybe we or moves or whatever, like my child started kindergarten, my last one, I got a dog. I replaced that loss. To put that love somewhere else. Right? That love and care somewhere else into something else? Do you feel like that’s kind of what you were trying to do after your dad passed and and caring for your mom and maybe too much? And she was like, wait. Wait a minute. You don’t need to do this.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yeah. I do feel like I was doing that. And I wanted to protect her, you know, I wanted to care for her, I wanted to protect her I didn’t wanna leave the house that, you know, I grew up in. I thought, you know, maybe Dad would come back and it was just, you know, being there for her. Like, I felt like I needed to be there for her, but she was the one saying, Okay. I gotta beep by myself. I gotta learn how to live by myself because this was my husband for, like, thirty five plus years.
Victoria Volk: Very true. And again, like, that’s a perspective. Maybe as you the grieber, aren’t really thinking, you know, it’s like I need to be there for her, but yet at the same time, you know, we often don’t think about the other person’s perspective or what it’s like their experience and their shoes. Like, no, I I need to learn what it’s like to be on my own because it was her first now it’s her first time too, really.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yeah. That is yeah. I mean, at our risk, I love her so much for saying that when she needed to. Like first, it was like You wanna get rid of me? But I think I’d go back to, you know, it kinda makes me think of when my dad did pass and everybody was telling me to, you know, go back to work right away and she gave me the space that I needed. I was like, mom, I can’t go back to work. Like, I need to grieve and she she was the one that just said, go to your aunt’s house. She has an empty room. Go. And And I don’t know why I connect those two, but I do.
It’s just like, you know, she gave me the space that I needed, and so I guess that’s why it connects. I’m giving her the space that she wants and needs. So, yeah.
Victoria Volk: I’m glad it’s been a beautiful experience for you both and that it’s ultimately brought you closer together. And I think that’s a beautiful thing because you very well could have been like heartbroken and sad that, you know, and maybe even resentful that she’s now kicking you out of the house in a way. You know, like, you could have taken it that way. Like, she’s kicking you out, but really, it was from a place of love and and her communicating her needs and that that’s I’m so glad that you were both honoring that for each other. That’s a beautiful thing.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes. She’s amazing.
Victoria Volk: Through the program though, you also work on another relationship. Mhmm. You know, it’s a twelve week program. So what was the other relationship that you worked on? And what would you like to share about that?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: The relationship that I worked on was with my sister, Caitlyn. And I chose that relationship because my sister and I have never had a really great bond, not sisterly, you know. It’s like we call each other or we text each other, but that’s about it. So I worked on it because I wanna grow closer to her. And right now, she has a baby. I’m a I’m an aunt. And so it was important for me to work on it to grow closer to her.
Victoria Volk: And how has that changed your relationship? Do you feel?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: It’s I mean, we talk more. I call her more. She calls me. She sends pictures of the baby. You know, she’s helped me with work a lot. I have a meeting coming up, so she’s helped me tweak some of my thought point my thinking points up. So I would say that the bond’s growing in a direction that I want you know, I saw her in September, her and the baby, and she just let me take charge of the baby. She was just like, you’re in charge of cleaning the diaper, go ahead, and he’s feeding. I was like, okay. And, I mean, I even saw her in mother mode. Like, I it was just amazing. Like, what she was doing. She she’s so detailed and so, you know, just loving with the baby. That detailed in, like, she knows what he eats. She wants to know how much he eats. And, you know, I just I love seeing in her in action and she’s she even called me and said that she knows I’ve been having some difficult times and she’s, you know, she’s here for me. So it’s grown stronger since I’ve worked on that relationship.
Victoria Volk: I love that for you. Because I know she was a huge advocate for you too even before you met me.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes. Yes. She was a huge advocate. And she was a huge advocate in in stating that I needed to get diagnosed with autism. You know, this is probably the first time that I’m actually saying something like this. But in the past, I was I was misdiagnosed with bipolar. And over medicated. And I felt like a robot in my entire life until until in my thirties, you know, I saw a different psychiatrist, and he went through everything with me. All the questionnaires, everything. And he was just like, yeah, I’m not seeing. What the other person is in.
Victoria Volk: How many years were you medicated for? Kermit’s diagnosis of bipolar, which is crazy to me.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yeah. Probably fifteen years.
Victoria Volk: Wow.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Until my thirties, like, when I was fifteen, you know, fifteen years.
Victoria Volk: When you started to question and your sister was kind of encouraging you. Is that kind of
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yeah. I started questioning probably in my late twenties because I kept on saying I’m a robot. I feel like I’m not in my body. Mhmm. And then I did see that. It was It was just an amazing person. You know, he heard me. I forgot his name right now, but thank you. And he just listened to me and he unchecked all the boxes of thigh fuller, and he said something else is going on. And then that’s when my sister in my thirties, I remember. She sent me a video of women being misdiagnosed and being misdiagnosed as bipolar, schizophrenia, a lot of different things. And then finally in their forties, late thirties being diagnosed with autism. And it just really hit me. It it hit me in a good and bad way. I was just like, what? I was like, no. This can’t be it. But then I was just like, maybe this these are the answers to why I had such a difficult time in school and why it was difficult for me to communicate with my parents. So Yeah, Adi, how are you – how are you
Victoria Volk: – I know you mentioned you had to have a therapist now, but how have you – does this therapist believe that you are on the spectrum? And then also how are you managing now your mental health and that in that way?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes. She does believe that around I am on the spectrum, and and she has given me she really doesn’t have that expertise. So what something new, Victoria? So on Friday, I believe that was October eighteenth. I actually got officially tested. Oh. So I don’t know the results, but We’ll see in, like, three weeks what the results are that I think I don’t need that validation. I know who I am, what my past was, how my childhood was, and even talking to my parents, the difficulties that I did have. It just validates what my sister has been advocating for me.
Victoria Volk: I’ve had other guests who have, you know, had questioned mental health diagnosis for many years and then received that diagnosis. And for some, it can it surprised them of how impactful it was. Then at the same time, it’s like, well, it doesn’t change anything. Right? Like, it doesn’t change my heart, it doesn’t change who I am, and you know, you’re still gonna be Delyla. Right? You’re still gonna be highly functioning. Right? I mean, you can you got your bachelor’s degree. You’re working in research and you’re living on your own, like, you can still have an amazing quality of life regardless of whatever diagnosis you have.
And I think that’s an inspiring thing for people to hear.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes. Thank you.
Victoria Volk: So I’m glad you shared about it here.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Thank you. Yes. I am too. Some of my coworkers do know, but not everybody. And I’m just, you know, My sister said it best. Embrace it. Don’t hide yourself because it is very tiring, you know, trying to just grow go with the crowd and everything, but I that I’m gonna change that perspective, you know. I’m Delilah. And like you said, nothing’s gonna change that.
Victoria Volk: How have you seen that as being a challenging thing for you though in in terms of in terms of relationships and connecting with people, how has it been challenging for you? What have you learned that can might be helpful to others?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yeah. Gosh. I guess, with friendship relationships. It’s been very challenging. I will trust the wrong people. Yeah. And I’ll give them a second or chance. And than that their chances enough. You know? And I trust a lot. And it’s really hard when that trust is broken. It it hurts. And so I’ve lost a lot of friendships. And, yeah, like, I lost a friendship over a misleading conversation that one of their friends said something differently that I was, like, hitting on them. And I was, like, I’m not hitting on you. Like but it was, like, my friend didn’t trust me. And I was like, can you give me the proof? Like, that I’m doing this? And they couldn’t. And I was just like, well, I I’m not doing what you’d think I’m doing. And after that, it was just a realization that, okay, we’ve been friends for two plus years. And this is gonna be the end of it because you can you don’t believe me and they went on their own way and I’ve gone on their own way. I It was hard, but I guess it was better that’s for the both of us. So within that, that friendships are really hard. Like I said, I
Victoria Volk: can’t for anybody. Yeah. And let’s be real.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Right.
Victoria Volk: Even as in your forties, which happy belated birthday, by the way, which was in September
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: though. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: It’s it’s no different. It’s like you still feel like the kid on the playground you know, that was traumatized because somebody said something and, you know, assassinated your character or made up rumors or lies and, you know, you know, you feel like this defensive little child on the inside, you know. Right. Yeah. It’s no different in your forties. I think that’s the, you know, mean girls, elementary school, become mean girls as adults. I mean, let’s be real.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes. I mean, they really do. And I guess now in my forties, I guess that’s when they say, you kinda know what you want and, you know, And I and I feel that. You know? I I do know what I want. I I think I’ve always known what I want, but it’s just like, you know, enough playing around. Like, if you’re gonna be my friend, like, This is how it’s gonna be, and I’m gonna have boundaries. And I do have those boundaries. So I have I have my coworkers, Ida and Adriah. They’re amazing girls, and we weren’t as co workers, but we’re friends as well. And like I said, they they’re just amazing. You know? And I believe that they’re a friendship that will last, and I would like it to last. It is very difficult to make friends.
Victoria Volk: But Especially in the new place. Right? New place, like, job, like, know, you like that kid on the playground again. Like, yes. And the the new kid at this, you know, that moved to town and
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: yes. Or the one I remember soccer. Like, I was a big soccer player on the field. And I was just like, I was one enough who’s gonna pick me. So, like, yeah, it’s just that whole thing over again. But I think that’s what just makes me, you know, grow grow. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: It’s like you you grow through your insecurities and putting yourself in uncomfortable positions, which is what you’ve done. And and I just wanna commend you because do you feel like before you went through the program. And I’m not saying doing the program was the only thing and the one thing that changed everything. I mean, it did for me, but that might not be true for you. What do you think is true for you though? The Delyla before do grief differently in the Delyla now?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: It is true that with doing grief differently. I had to go head on with the messiness. I literally had to be the lotus that grew in the mud. And before then, I wanted to escape. There’s still an inkling nummy that sometimes wants to escape, but like even today, I told my therapist I said I wanted October to be over, but then I embraced it. I was like October. I’m here. The Delyla before would shut the door on her parent and cry underneath her blanket and or maybe scream. Today, I’m doing grief differently. I’m embracing it.
Victoria Volk: I love how you threw that in. Because that’s what it’s called. Right? Let’s do this differently. Let’s do this differently. That’s the whole point. I’m just so happy for you that you’ve had this lowest moment in your life. This it’s a chapter that is going to unequivocally impact the rest of the chapters in your life.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Mhmm. What do
Victoria Volk: you look forward to most? Oh, gosh. What gives you hope for the future?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: What gives me hope is the work that I do. You know, I started out as a special education teacher, and I’ve always worked with students on the spectrum and various abilities. And now I’m embracing my own uniqueness. So I guess that just that was in itself knowing that it’s never too late to do something. That gives me hope for the future and just knowing that I have a lot of love to give and I know I can do hard things. That gives me hope for the future. I used to not like the word resilient, but I’m always hearing that from my mom. She’s just like you’re resilient to dilate. And you know, I am, but I can also be vulnerable. And vulnerability might get me in trouble a little, but or it just may scare me, but I think that’s what the world needs. Vulnerability. Love caring me. Yeah. Just life in general. I don’t know. I’m ready to have I’m just ready to enjoy life.
Victoria Volk: I wish I had a clip from our first session together in early twenty twenty three
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: And do a side by side. It’s like night and day.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: I know. It is
Victoria Volk: because I don’t record the sessions. And there’s a reason for that, but, you know, because it’s like, you know, for your privacy and all of that, I don’t record sessions. But I think one of the I don’t know if it was with you that I started it, were you write yourself a letter? Mhmm. Beginning.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yep.
Victoria Volk: Did we circle back to that at the end? I don’t think we called now. We didn’t.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: I know I wrote a letter to myself, but I’m not. We circled back to it.
Victoria Volk: I don’t think we did. And it’s it was just for you. Right? It was just for you, but I’m curious, do you remember anything from that? And and like Oh, no.
I I hate to put you on the spot.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: No. It’s fine. No. I I think
Victoria Volk: it’s like, do you feel like that letter you wrote? Resonates with the you now. I really do.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: You know, I I feel it does resonate, you know, with because I was so lost back then. And I wanted better for myself. So, you know, I’m going out of my comfort zone. And, you know, I I I told a guy that I liked them. And it didn’t like and didn’t go the way I was planning on doing it or how I wanted the outcome, but I did it. And that was my first time that I ever did that. So yeah. And I’m doing acrobatic stuff. So I wanna say that that letter was to enjoy life and do something different, which I did. You know, I I said goodbye to teaching and got a research job. So, yeah, all in all, I think that letter I’m living that letter. I’m living that letter to myself, and now I really wanna find that letter.
Victoria Volk: Yes. You should. It’s it’s like a time capsule. Right? Yes.
And it was with you that I started that. So every client now I have them do that because I think it sets the intention for who you who you want to be and where you want to be to twelve weeks following, you know? Yeah. And an aspect of the program too was you map where we look at your strengths and skills and values? And how has that what role did that play in you transitioning and finding this other role? And what you learned about yourself? That you didn’t, like, really it’s so easy for us to point out the great things in other people. Right? But to own what we bring to the table. And so how did that help you?
And that how did that part of the program help you?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: That program really helped me see that I am truly worthy of you know, something different, something challenging, you know. I’m a data abstractor, so I’m behind the computer, analyzing various things. And it was just like, I have to say when I went into the interview, I didn’t think I had any of the qualities, but I Victoria, doing that work with you, the values and made me realize that I had a lot of skills transferrable to from education to a research associate. So it just gave me the to, like, ace that interview and just be, like, Okay. I may have some weaknesses, but I can learn. Mhmm. And it has it has been a learning curve. I I wanna say that I may not be given a lot of tasks, but it’s because I’m still new at the job, so everybody’s trying to figure out figure me out and I get that. So I’m just I’m being there and I’m being a helper. I’m being I’m being honest. I’m being open. And I’m saying, you know, these are the skills that I have. This is what I need to work on. And, yeah,
Victoria Volk: I just pulled up your u map because I wanted to to just share with listeners. And you and just a reminder to you, your top five strengths are adaptability. Like, whoa. You’ve totally been doing that. Right? Deliberative. Which isn’t executing strength. So adaptability is a relating strength. Deliberative isn’t executing strength. And so you take serious care in making decisions or choices.
You anticipate obstacles. So that’s a great quality to have. Mhmm. A great strength to have. And then you have two thinking things, intellect and input, which are wonderful for what the job that you’re doing. Right?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: And then developer is your final one, and that’s a relating strength. And you recognize and cultivate the potential in others, which is great for team building and working as a unit with other people. And also the adaptability piece in relating to other people. Recognizing that, you know, your strengths may not be the same aren’t not gonna be the same as other peoples. And so adapting to the strengths that other people bring as well. Right. And I love I’m just looking at your top values too. Authenticity and adventure. Mhmm. Community, boldness, compassion, trust, respect, leadership, determination, balance. And you have a lot of the your most preferred skills. I see in what you’re doing assess, observe, research study.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yeah. What?
Victoria Volk: Yeah. Speed others, initiate change. Yeah. Collaborate. It just seems like a lot of what and and you’re the doer and the helper. It’s getting the job done, but in community with other people. Right. And I’m so happy for you that you found a nurturing environment in order for you to grow in as well. Thank you. I’m so happy for you.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: That’s good. Thank you.
Victoria Volk: I just wanted to share with people listening that this is how your grief differently. The impact it can have on someone’s life is we don’t just look at the grief itself. It’s not all sad and gloom, doom and gloom. Right? Like, it is because it has to be. We have to look at the past because it’s influencing and impacting your future in your present day. You would agree with that. Correct? I will It was impacting your life tremendously.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes.
Victoria Volk: So you have to look at it. And work through it. And now, like, today, you took today off, you’re honoring your energy, you’re honoring any sadness that comes up for you because even going through the program, you’re still gonna feel sad. Right?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: That’s yep. It never stops.
Victoria Volk: But the difference now is, can you articulate now for listeners how that how that is different today than it was before you did this program? That exactly, like that pain that you felt Yeah. What that would do to you? And now what happens? Like, today instead?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Oh, today or before the sadness would overcome me. I wouldn’t wanna get out of bed. I would I basically wanna just shut the world out.
Victoria Volk: How’d you feel physically?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Tired, exhausted, mad at the world.
Victoria Volk: Probably not ready to go on a bike ride.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Oh, yeah. Never. Yes. I I definitely put on you know, physically, I was putting on weight, and then it was not only affecting me, but it was affecting my mom. Again, we were living together. So me being mopee around the house or not coming out of the room affected her, and then she was worried about me. So she couldn’t do her own grieving. So that’s back then. Now, I’m living on my own. I am I honor him in different ways. Like, I’ll take his ashes and we’ll go on a bike ride and I’ll spread him somewhere that I really enjoy. Now, I can talk about it. I don’t. I’m not so depressed. You know? It doesn’t it doesn’t feel so heavy on my heart anymore. Like I felt I’ve really felt Victoria that I felt so heavy. Like, I was I consumed all this stuff that I couldn’t communicate, but I can communicate about it now, whether it be journaling or to my mom, I’ll call my mom, and I’ll just be like, this is how it is, or I’ll call my sister, or I’ll talk to my coworkers, my very close coworkers. So now it’s I can talk about it and it doesn’t weigh so heavy on me. And I have this, I guess, more light in my in my face.
I mean, I guess if you were to see me back then versus now, like, I definitely can tell that there’s, like, a different energy going on.
Victoria Volk: You’re permeating. You know what I mean? It’s grief is energy, joy is energy too. Right? And so if we’re feeling that heaviness within ourselves.
That’s what we are projecting. That’s why you said your that’s why your mom was feeling that too and and she couldn’t grieve because of course she’s your mom and she I mean, that was a perspective that I don’t you didn’t draw that connection. When you were going through the program with me, like, that wasn’t even something you were considering.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Right?
Victoria Volk: And so it’s like now she can breathe maybe. A little bit, you know you know, because now she can focus on herself and her grief.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Right?
Victoria Volk: And you can work on thriving. Yes.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes.
Victoria Volk: Which it seems like you’re doing. So I’m so happy for you. That’s exciting. I love the Delilah that has now been expressed that was always there. Right? Like, this Delilah was always
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: there. It
Victoria Volk: was just you know, like I said, it’s like a veil that you wear. Right?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: You
Victoria Volk: know, you can’t see yourself clearly, so you don’t see others clearly.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: And now that you’ve worked through all that stuff, you can look at your mom and you can see the impact that that was having on her. You see things more clearly?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes.
Victoria Volk: And you see what you bring to the table in relationships, and what you need in response to others in connection with you.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Mhmm. Yes.
Victoria Volk: And you have the language?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes. I do. I do have the language. I it’s it’s amazing, you know. And I You know, I still do the work every single day.
It never stops.
Victoria Volk: And as soon as that was my next step, I was gonna segue into that.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: No. I mean, Victoria, I think you said it as like it never stops. He continued to do the work. And so I do do the work. I see a therapist every other week, sometimes weekly, and I’m the one that voices it. I’m like, I need to see you next week. Can we can we open this face up? And she’s always been grateful to do that. So, yes, it’s always doing the work. I may have a hiccup, you know, go back to, well, what about this? Or what if this? You know, maybe with my dad. While he was in the hospital, but then I’m just like, okay, do I want this has happened, you know, do some journaling, or maybe write a poem about it, and I do. And then I think about how he’s not in suffering anymore, how he’s not in pain, and how I’m not in pain anymore. I mean, I know pain will always come back in some aspect that it doesn’t weigh so heavy, so much on me where I just shut the world out.
Victoria Volk: Sadness and pain are very different. Right? And that’s what I said. You’re still gonna feel sad today. Of course, it’s not gonna be pain, settings from the pain. Yeah. Yeah.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yeah. That isn’t. So yeah.
Victoria Volk: What would you tell people who are not sure what to do. I mean, because I you were that was you at at one point. Right? Like, you didn’t know what to do. Like, what what was the thing that told you? I I just gotta do this. Like, that kept that because people can come up with all kinds of excuses. Right? I don’t have the time. I don’t have the money. I don’t have the mental bandwidth. I got so much going on. I’ve got kids. I gotta do this. I gotta do that. We don’t make the time for yourselves. What was the thing that helped you to just make that decision to invest in yourself and do this?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: I think it was me and my mom how much of an impact I was, like, my depression and everything was impacting her and just being so closed off and wanting to sleep. So, like, I think it was just everything. Like, the the sleeping, the crying. I was just tired of it because it was even making me more tired. I was like, when is this gonna stop? And just the thoughts of, like, it should have been me instead of him. Because I remember saying if I could have given my heart to him, I would, you know. But it was, like, I want to say it was that moment that I was like, I need to find somebody. I need to find some help. I I need a wrap my head around this. I need somebody to guide me because I don’t know what I’m doing. And if I went if an eye and if I kept on going down that hole, it would have been bad. But, I mean, I’m so grateful that I found do grief differently. And I was given the tools to help me, myself, and my family. Because again, Victoria, I think you said it best. Like, I didn’t realize how much it was impacting my family until now I think about it, I reflect, and it was.
Victoria Volk: What would you say to somebody who’s sitting across from you a friend and they’re considering this? What would you say to them?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Do it. Do it. It’s worth it. You’ll learn a lot about yourself. You’ll break down some barriers.
Don’t cry. You’ll get angry. But all of those emotions and feelings are validated. And I, you know, if it was a close friend sitting right next to me, I would be there. I would tell them I’m holding your hand throughout the entire way. I’m gonna be here for you. So if it’s for anybody, like, Zoom people, I’ll be here for you. You know? Yeah. Just do it.
You’ll see
Victoria Volk: if there was? Yes. If there was anything you could have changed about the program or anything that was missing, what would you say?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Oh gosh. I I really feel like the program was just great. Everything was great. I do I do love the addition to the letter to yourself. So keep on doing that. No. I I wouldn’t change anything. I I loved it. It helped me. So
Victoria Volk: Yeah. And these questions were not rehearsed by the way. Yeah. I did not send you these questions. So No. He did it. I wanted the true honest, you know, response in the moment. So thank you so much for sharing. And, again, I know what it did for me. I know what it’s done for you. I know what it’s done with the countless people who have gone through it. And so I I appreciate you so much for sharing your story of the Delilah before and the Delilah now. And I’m I love this is what I love. It’s transformative. And this is You are a perfect example of of how it transformed your life. What you put in the work? I give you the credit. The credit doesn’t go to me. Sure. I resuscitated it. I held your hand, but you did the work. And everyone who goes through the program, they do the work. And it’s it might seem cookie cutter. Right? Like, your friend, if you have a friend that would go through it, they’d go through this exact same process you did. But It’s different because it’s your unique story. It’s your unique grief. It’s your unique process that you’re taking yourself through. And that’s why it’s not cookie cutter.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes. It doesn’t. Every thought story is different. Definitely.
Victoria Volk: Is there anything else that you would like to share that you didn’t feel you got to?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: I just I wanna say, Vivek, thanks to my mom, my mom, Olga Boyer, just for you know, be in there. She’s always been there. And I know she will. Just and I I think everyone on this journey It’s been a journey. There’s been ups and downs, but I am holding to the ups. And I know there will be some downs sometimes, but like my mom said, I’m resilient and I will continue to do my work, my advocacy work, my research, I’m a big researcher. And, you know, in the future, I hope to continue my political advocacy work was special special education children because those children are very deeply connected to me even though teachers out there. So even though I’m not a teacher anymore, I always think about my teachers. So, yeah. Thank you.
Victoria Volk: And thank you for the work that you do in your advocacy work and for to be in the voice for those children. The future children that I have no doubt that you are going to advocate for. So thank you so much for being the light in this world that is so needed too.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Thank you, Victoria.
Victoria Volk: And I have one final question. Yes. What has your grief taught you?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: My grief has taught me. That it’s my grief. It’s nobody else’s. I can sweep you off your feet whenever whenever you at least expect it to,
Victoria Volk: and not in a romantic way.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Exactly. Not in a romantic way. It is I can sweep you off your feet where you’ll get stuck in the mud again. But I can’t wanna say that I just sit there with it. And I’m just like, okay. Let’s do this. Let’s okay. I’m feeling some crying. Let’s do this grief. Let’s do this together. And why are we doing this? Oh, because something, you know, because that memory of dad came up, you know? Or, you know, you were vulnerable. So Okay. And it didn’t turn out the way you wanted it too. Let’s just sit with it. So it’s it’s taught me not to bury it because if you bury it, it just gets worse.
Victoria Volk: What is the lesson your dad taught you that comes to your mind, you know, daughters and their dads, you know,
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Oh gosh. I wanna say when he decided to take the morphine, he did it himself. He made that decision. And he asked us each one. Or he told me he was like, don’t be mad if I do this. I was just like, why would I be mad? You know? You’re in so much pain. I don’t want that from you. Do I want to be selfish and happy forever? Yes. But he taught me me, bravery, he taught me how to be courageous. The many times that I was with him in the hospital. He taught me even on his less thigh and breath. You know, I my whole family just stood there around him. That death is a part of life and that he did it when he needed to go. So he taught me love and compassion even those last seconds when we were just there. Those last minutes, hours. You know? He he taught me breath free even though I was crying my eyes out and everything. And he taught me that he’ll never leave me even though he’s not physically here, that he’s guiding me along the way. So, yeah, he he taught me a lot.
Victoria Volk: What’s your favorite memory of him if you have one?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: There’s so many. But I guess one that really pops out right now is he was a stickler for just getting me to school. Like, he wanted me to have perfect attendance throughout the entire elementary school year. So it was raining and the rainwater was up to his knees. So his car stalled. And what he ended up doing is he was determined again to get me to school. So he put me on his shoulders. And he walked me, like, maybe, two blocks just to school, just to get me to school. And he did, you know, he was all wet. He was trrenched. And I don’t know why that memory popped up, but it was just like him being determined. Like, you’re getting to school.
Victoria Volk: This summer hell or high water.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes. Exactly that. Come home or high water he has. And so, yeah, that memory just pops up, I guess, as well because it’s he was determined and he he always knew I was determined. So and somebody can say no, but you keep on going or, you know, you just keep on paddling, whatever it takes.
Victoria Volk: And never miss school. There’s no excuse. Like, you get your degree, you get it done, you do it. Yes.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes. So much. Yes. Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: There’s a lot of lessons in that. One one event. Right? Yes. Oh, that’s a great memory.
Thank you for sharing.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Thank you. I wish you
Victoria Volk: a beautiful rest of your day of honoring your dad and honoring your your grief and the sadness. However, it comes up and I hope this expression of your love for him has helped you feel connected to him today and feel a little lighter Yeah. And to be an advocate for other grovers that there is hope There is hope.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: There is. So thank
Victoria Volk: you so much for your time today.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Thank you, Victoria.
Victoria Volk: And if anyone wants to connect with you, how can they find you? Are you on social?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes. Social. I have a LinkedIn at Deliloh Avaya Boyer. You can find me there. I do have an Instagram delightful Deliloh.
Yeah. And I have a Facebook Deliloh Avaya Boyer. So yeah.
Victoria Volk: I will link to those in the show notes if anyone wants to connect with you. Maybe there’s some collaboration as far as children with special needs.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes.
Victoria Volk: See work? Things like that, maybe opportunities that can flood your way to, like, padalila?
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Yes. I I am working on some cohorts right now, so political advocacy cohorts. So, yes, anything. Oh, thank you.
Victoria Volk: I’m happy to share that in the show notes. So thank you so much for your time again today, Delyla.
Delyla Ovalle-Bowyer: Thank you, Victoria.
Victoria Volk: And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Childhood Grief, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Mental Health, Murder, Parent Loss, Podcast |
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
In this week’s episode, I am honored to host Susan Snow, a beacon of hope for anyone navigating the treacherous waters of trauma and loss.
Susan is an inspiring figure as an author, international speaker, and resiliency coach. Susan bravely opened up about her experience following the tragic death of her father, an LA police detective. Her candid discussion on coping with PTSD before it was widely recognized sheds light on the silent battles many face.
In this raw conversation:
- Susan shares her firsthand experience dealing with PTSD following the violent loss of her father at age 17.
- She discusses how the lack of mental health awareness in the ’80s left her struggling alone with grief.
- We delve into how witnessing gun violence impacted Susan, leading to sleep deprivation and suicidal ideation.
- The podcast touches upon how trauma can affect familial relationships, highlighting Susan’s strained dynamic with her mother post-tragedy.
- We learn about Susan’s path to resilience: from wearing an “emotional mask” to eventually finding a therapist who understood severe trauma.
- A pivotal moment occurs during our discussion when she recounts watching coverage of the Columbine High School shootings in 1999, which triggered flashbacks — illustrating how PTSD symptoms can persist over time without proper help.
Susan’s tale teaches us something vital: In sharing our stories openly without fear or shame, we permit others to do the same. We foster conversations that might be someone else’s lifeline or inspire them towards help they’ve been reluctant to seek out themselves.
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
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NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Healing Through Trauma: The Journey of Resilience
In the labyrinth of life’s challenges, few experiences cut as deeply as trauma and loss. For Susan Snow, this journey began on a fateful Halloween night in 1985 when her world was shattered by the loss of her father, an event that would shape her understanding of grief and resilience for years to come.
Susan’s story is not just one of heartache; it’s a beacon for those navigating the murky waters of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), mental health struggles, and personal growth. As we unpack Susan’s narrative, we find invaluable lessons embedded within—lessons about vulnerability, self-care, and the transformative power of therapy.
The Silent Battle Within
Imagine carrying a weight so heavy that even your closest loved ones can’t see it. This was Susan’s reality following the traumatic death of her father. In an era where conversations around mental health were scarce at best, she found herself isolated with emotions like guilt and shame while dealing with PTSD—a term barely recognized at the time.
For many like Susan who have faced similar battles silently amidst family dynamics fraught with complexities such as narcissism or addiction issues—the path to healing can seem dauntingly out-of-reach.
A Trigger Point Towards Recovery
It wasn’t until another tragedy struck—the Columbine High School shooting—that Susan’s suppressed traumas resurfaced intensely enough to push her towards seeking help. It highlights how external events can trigger deep-seated emotional responses from past traumas—an important reminder that our journeys are ongoing rather than neatly concluded chapters.
Her husband played a pivotal role in advocating for therapy—a step which led Susan to eventually connect with a therapist specializing in severe trauma. This partnership became foundational in validating her experience and providing hope during what seemed like insurmountable times.
Breathing Life into Healing
One practical tool that emerged from therapy was box breathing—a technique that helped regulate Susan’s nervous system during anxiety spikes. She emphasizes allowing oneself to feel anxious moments instead of resisting them; employing controlled breathing as both an anchor and compass through tumultuous emotions serves as practical advice for anyone grappling with anxiety or stress-related disorders.
Box breathing represents more than just breath control—it signifies taking command over one’s internal state amidst external chaos.
Episode Transcription:
Victoria Volk: Welcome to another episode of Greeting Voices. If this is your first time listening, thank you for being here. And if you’ve listened before, thank you for coming back. Today, my guest is Susan Snow, she is an author, international speaker, and resiliency coach. Her message of hope and healing through trauma and loss comes from her vulnerability, which allows others a safe space to tell their own story of trauma and loss. And thank you so much for your time and being here today and sharing your story.
Susan Snow: Thanks for having me.
Victoria Volk: And your book title is very to the point Can you share that story, please? But also, I have a quest a follow-up question to the book title.
Susan Snow: So Sure. Absolutely. Well, the book came out and that title was specific because I am the daughter of a Los Angeles police detective who was ambushed while picking up my then six year old brother on Halloween of nineteen eighty five. And my mom and I were called to the school and witnessed his body in the aftermath. So the other side of the gun It was my side. It was my side of what gun violence, you know, takes away from you. Without getting political, you know, it was more on the mental health side.
Victoria Volk: And when you when this happened, you were seventeen on the gas of adulthood. And you’re old enough to recognize that what happened. Right? And process what happened to some to some degree?
Susan Snow: I really struggled. You know, this was the eighties. It was mid eighties. There was no talk of mental health back then. And there definitely was very little known about PTSD. What I witnessed was horrific. And I didn’t know how to process. And unfortunately, that night was so chaotic. There was just so much going on. And when we showed up, there was so much going on, but we still didn’t know until we actually saw this scene. All I saw were officers coming towards me with tears in their eyes. And I didn’t know what that meant. I mean, even when I’m the one that received the call at home, I was getting ready to go a Halloween party or hoping to go to a Halloween party, and it was a week night. So my dad had already said, nope. Not doing it. But I was bound to determine being seventeen, and I got that call from a woman from my brother’s school. And all she said was there was a drive by shooting, and my dad was involved. So even at that point, I didn’t know what to expect when we arrived at the school. And even that night, after I witnessed what I witnessed to the officers, you know, my mom was screaming and Iwas focused on an ambulance that was did still in the street, and I couldn’t understand why they weren’t helping my dad. I just it was not processing at all. That what I was seeing was that he was gone. It was it was a a very surreal kind of feeling like an auto body experience kind of And then when we got into the school, we went into a office. And I sat down and my mom was kind of ushered out of the room. I believe was some detectives. I didn’t know where my brother was.
I didn’t know if he was hurt. If he was at the hospital, like, I knew nothing. And as I was sitting there, there were two ladies that were talking. And the one said to the other, yes, unfortunately, mister Williams is deceased, and that’s when it hit me and my world cracked. And I just wanted to run out of there. You know? I talked to a lot of people who have had loss. And this seems to be kind of a feeling of I just wanna run away from this nightmare, especially when it’s something that happens. And occurs quickly, but you just wanna run. And I wanted to run and run and run and run and not stop. But my legs were like cement. I couldn’t move. Physically, could not move. And my mom came back into the room and she said, I’m sending you with a neighbor. And even though I wanted To leave, I wanted to run, the seventeen year old girl needed my family. I needed to be in a space where I felt like I wasn’t alone. And instead, I got sent to the neighbor, and I don’t blame her. I mean, there was a lot of chaos, like I said, going on. And people handle things differently in chaos. But that night really impacted me because I felt like I was not important in this family unit situation and all the focus and so be it was on my brother because my dad’s last thing that he did on earth was to save his life and tell him to duck down in the truck because he knew what was coming. So, you know, for me, I was having to go to this neighbor and this poor neighbor had known my parents forever. So she was trying to wrap her head around what was happening. And my environment changed because my quiet street now was covered in media vans and police cars, and we had helicopters we could hear over the house. And it was crazy, you know. So I didn’t get to grief. By my like, I had no privacy on the grieving process at all. Like, There was always people around. People I didn’t know. And you know, I had my boyfriend at the time who I’m now married to. And he was nineteen. So we were both children, you know, and we’re trying to figure these things out. Like, how do you navigate this? So Yeah. It was it was a huge pivotal pivotal time in my life. And Yeah.
I
Victoria Volk: did I wanna backpedal to my statement about that you can process it to some degree. And what I meant was when I said that because I’m a child of loss. My father died when I was a kid and
Susan Snow: You get that. Do that.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. So I get that. And when people say, oh, children are resilient, they’ll bounce back. Like, that drives me crazy.
Susan Snow: Me too.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. So what I meant when I said that and I should have said it differently was as opposed to like a younger child. Right?
Susan Snow: Oh, yeah.
Victoria Volk: You have a greater understanding
Susan Snow: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: Of the weight
Susan Snow: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: Of what’s happening. Yeah. Right? I still really under like, a child mean, like, I understood when my dad was dying of cancer. Like, Iand when he died, I knew he died.
Like, Iunderstood that. Like, he was gone forever. Right? But to understand, like, the impact that that was gonna have, the rest of my life, that I couldn’t even run my head around. Right?
Susan Snow: Right.
Victoria Volk: But as a seventeen year old and you know you’re going into adulthood and you you have an understanding of this is changing everything for me. Right? And that’s that’s the weight of the trauma and what you witnessed and all of that. Did your brother survive?
Susan Snow: He did. He survived. I didn’t see him until the next day. What I was told was that he was in he was questioned by police immediately. So he was still at the school when I got sent away. But I didn’t get to see him. I could hear him crying. In his room, but there was nothing left of me. To be able to go and console him. And I just assumed my mom would be there and do it. And he would be surrounded with people because he was so little. So I really didn’t see my brother until the next day and I was able to hug him. And, you know, just let him know that I was there for him and I love him and you know, dad loved him and, you know, so but it was it was a hard time. It was, you know, I My relationship with my mom was not a hundred percent when this happened. We had a strained relationship for many years.
And I didn’t realize that until I started to write my book. You know? So when all this happened, my dad was always like the go between the mediator. The voice of reason, and now he’s gone. And so not only was I processing the fact that my dad was gone, but then I was processing the fact that how was I going to manage that relationship with my mom?
So it was just a lot. It was a lot for me and, you know, I was living, as you well know, with grief, you live in a fog. I was living in a fog. I couldn’t sleep. I was total sleep deprivation.
And I ambeknownst to me, I had suicidal ideation. I wanted to be with my dad and I didn’t know how that would happen. But I longed to be with my dad. And I had days where I just couldn’t get out of bed, so the depression hit me. My sense of security was gone because they didn’t catch the men. So the men who were involved in this in my dad’s murder. My dad was a detective. So he had testified that day in one of his criminal court cases, and the guy who was the defendant was out on bail. And it gave him an opportunity. But it didn’t it took them six days to find them. So for six days, we had police presence all over our house, front yard, backyard, everything. I had bodyguards. So anywhere I went, I had bodyguards. And it was just crazy, like a whole different world. I had a pretty normal teenage life before all of this. And that was gone. And I had to grow up very, very quickly. So it was just it was a lot to process a lot. And I didn’t have the tools, you know. Ijust I didn’t have the tools at the time to manage my anxiety.
So I always felt like I was I even though I wanted to be with my dad, I was always, like, I felt like, you know, I’m having a heart attack because the panic attacks and and the feelings of it. And I would have to just try to squash him most of the time Iwould just talk myself out of it. But now I know not to do that because it just extends the attack. But it went on for a while. And I you know, and my mom now that I realized my mom has a narcissistic personality, And so her focus was totally her. And you know, we all process trauma and grief differently. And she chose to drink. And so that felt alienating to me as well. But that was her coping skill, and I’m not, you know, like I said, everybody deals with trauma and loss differently.
Victoria Volk: That’s another level of grief. Right? And then your younger brother is growing up in that environment too.
Susan Snow: Mhmm. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, it’s a it did take them about a month. I was at the point where if you pointed me in a direction, that’s the direction I would go. You know, Ihad no advocacy for myself. Ididn’t know how to verbalize. Ididn’t even tell anybody what was going on in my head, and I didn’t know how. I had guilt and shame and felt like if I put more on someone else, it was too much, so I just kinda just dealt with it. You know? And My mom came to me about a month after my dad was killed, and he she said that the Los Angeles police department the advocate said that they wanted to put us in therapy. And I didn’t know anything about therapy. In fact, in the 80s, I thought if you went to a therapist, You were crazy. But being, you know, subservient, I was like, Okay. Because that’s that’s the direction that you’re gonna push me. That’s the direction I’ll go. And I met with this therapist. I had this feeling like, oh my gosh, this is gonna be the adult. This is gonna be the one that’s gonna help me, that’s gonna make me feel better. Right? But unfortunately, I think that the trauma that I experienced was too much for him, he wasn’t, what I call, trauma competent. And he didn’t wanna ask the questions, and he didn’t. For an entire year, Ali talked about every single session was my relationship with my mother, my relationship with my brother, my boyfriend in school. And that was it.
Victoria Volk: And in the room.
Susan Snow: Nothing. And people like when I tell people that they go, What? And I said, yeah, because I think, honestly, he was afraid to ask the questions. Right? Because, you know, maybe he didn’t have the answers or he didn’t know what to do.
So
Victoria Volk: So have you ever even asked you, are you having thoughts of harming yourself or others? Not at once.
Susan Snow: Not once. And every session I’d be like before the session, I was like, today’s the day. Today’s the day. He’s gonna figure it out because Iwas a mess. Like, I was a mess, but I just didn’t know how to verbalize. Most seventeen year olds back then didn’t know how to verbalize our feelings. And most of the time, you know, at Gen X, we were we were told to, you know,
Victoria Volk: suck it up buttercup.
Susan Snow: Buck it up buttercup. Yeah. Exactly. It wasn’t it wasn’t an open conversation. So an entire year went by, and the last day that I saw him, he looked at me and said, Susan, you’re a well rounded young lady, and you’re gonna be fine for the rest of your life, and I don’t need to see you anymore. So that was that. And I walked out of that last session thinking, okay, I am so I’ve cracked I’ve cracked. I’m I’m crazy. I I’m just gonna have to live with this pain for the rest of my life. Even a professional can’t help me, and that was my mindset.
You know, I lived in fight or flight from then on? It was just that’s how it was. And, you know, and and and my my boyfriend, he didn’t He didn’t know what to do either. So I just I struggled a lot. And then on top of that, you know, as the years went on, you know, the the time with my mom and living with my mom became very unbearable. I couldn’t do it anymore because I watched her spiraling and couldn’t do anything about it. And I had this feeling of, like, I’m the oldest, and this is my responsibility. And I just had to, like I think even back then, I knew a little bit about boundaries without knowing about boundaries. And I just drew a line in the sand and said, that’s it. At eighteen, I’m moving out. I can’t do this. And I did it. I moved out.
Victoria Volk: What did your early twenties your life look like after that into your early twenties?
Susan Snow: I you know, I had some peace being out on my own even though my mom told the local police department, so they were constantly driving by my apartment. Which, you know, you just can’t get away from it. But I married my boyfriend when I was twenty one. And in hindsight, you know, both of us agree that we were too young to get married. But because we had been together for so many years and we’d lived with each other for a little bit, that that was the next step. But even you know, all these years, like, I was living in fight or flight. So is he? He may not have witnessed what I saw that night, but from the moment I told him that night when he came because the the neighbor called him and told him to come to her house. The minute I told him, that was trauma. He’d only known my dad for three months. We’d only been dating three months. Three months and this nineteen year old guy, most guys would have been like, bye bye. This is too much. Too much. But he stuck it out. And I think he stuck it out because he knew my mom was going to do what she did, which is kind of turtle within herself. And I needed a friend. I needed some sort of support. And I’m grateful for that. You know, but it was, you know, it was it’s our journey too, you know, and it’s I don’t think I would be here if my husband wasn’t. In my life, especially at that point. You know? So but, you know, we’ve we’ve been together almost thirty nine years now, and it’s just nuts to me. I mean, we’ve had our we we it’s it’s if you read it in the book. If you read it in the book, there was a divorce in the middle, but we are together. And married in for the second time. But yeah. I mean, it it’s just you know, grief is is a crazy thing because it you know, it it comes and it goes. And the nice thing about having my husband is that he now knows my triggers. I hate that word, but he knows he knows and he knows when that’s gonna send me into the grief. You know, so it’s helpful. I have the tools now, but he he does too. Through watching me through the years. And that’s really important.
Victoria Volk: When I think you raise a good point in that the ripples of grief, it’s the impact it has on you, but also I mean, the people around you, when you don’t have the tools, right, and you can combust at any moment or, you know, explode into a fit of rage or anger. The people around you feel like they’re living and walking on egg shells.
Susan Snow: Yep.
Victoria Volk: That’s the ripples of getting And so when people think, oh, it’s not affecting me. I’m dealing with it. I’m just sweeping it under the rug. I’m not gonna talk about it. If you are getting angry about someone not replacing the toilet paper roll or, you know, refilling the salt shaker, whatever it is. Right? Like these silly things that can make us angry when we are just like you said, walking in a fog. Well, and yet it’s like these a thousand paper cuts. Right?
Susan Snow: Exactly. Well, I will tell you I got really good, and I talk about this all the time. Igot really good with wearing my emotional mask. And what that is is, you know, when I was young, after it happened, people would say things like you’re strong. You’re brave.
You’re gonna be fine. And that’s what I wore. So anytime anything came up, I was like, put on the mask, I’m fine. I’m strong. I’m this. Right? But underneath, I was a mess. But what I put out outwardly was something that was different. And so that’s why I call it the mass. Because nobody can see what all the turmoil is inside. My husband had a way of knowing when that mask was coming on, and that was the difference. But it took me many, many years to get rid of that mask. Many, many years. And you know, fourteen to be exact. We we were married. We got we had two children. We had two children. We decided we were gonna leave Southern California. I always lived with this safety issue. Because it was my dad’s death was a planning of his death for months. Before he died, before they killed him. I always looked behind my shoulder all the time. Nighttime was extremely stressful for me because my dad was killed at night at the night at the, you know, like, five forty And when we got an opportunity to move to Denver, Colorado, that’s we jumped on it. And we moved in ninety seven and then I was working as a hairdresser at the time. And I was working at a salon that was close to Littleton, Colorado. And I on April twentieth of nineteen ninety nine, I was working and I took a break, I went into the backroom and turned on the TV, and all the coverage of the Columbine high school shootings. Were happening. And as I sat and I watched it, obviously, my colleagues were having a reaction to it. Shock you know, sadness, all that. But for me, I saw the school. I saw the kids that were my own age. I saw the ambulances. The police cars and I started to have flashbacks. I turned pale white. What is a ghost? Started getting clammy. I could feel my fingers tingling. I knew it was happening. I was having a panic attack. And I did not tell my colleagues my story so they had no idea why I was having this visceral reaction, and I didn’t either. Because I was told I was gonna be fine for the rest of my life, and that stuck with me. So as this was all going on, I tried to calm myself down and then I did what I always did and I put that emotional mask gone. And I went out and I did my clients and everybody was obviously very upset. But I went about my day like it didn’t affect me. The minute I walked through those doors, though, to drive home.
All of those emotions came flooding back. And I was I spiraled. I was terrified now because now I’m a mom of two small kids. And I wanted to leave this planet. Part of me did. The other part of me was terrified to leave my children. And this happened for two days. And when I got home one day, my husband met me at door and he said, you have two choices because he knew it was a slippery slope. He knew it. He said either you get help today or I’m putting you in a hospital. And I threw up the white flag and I said, okay, I’ll I’ll go to the doctor. And I went to the doctor, and a regular physician, and he immediately put me on antidepressants because that’s what they do.
Victoria Volk: Of course, they do. They’re not trained psychologists or therapists.
Susan Snow: No. And then he handed me a card. And he said, I want you to make an appointment for this therapist. And I literally laughed at him in his face. And I said, I did this fourteen years ago. And it didn’t help me then? What makes you think this is gonna help me now? And he looked me and he said, you have no choice. You have no choice. So I said, okay, fine. And I made the appointment, and I’m so grateful I did because this therapist specialized in severe trauma, and she knew all about PTSD. So in five minutes, of having a conversation with her. She looked at me and she said and I described everything I went through at seventeen and everything that I was currently dealing with. And she said, Susan, she said everything you’ve gone through since you were seventeen years old. Is a hundred percent normal because you have PTSD. And I kind of like sat back in my chair because I was confused. I went, wait a minute. I’m not in the military. I didn’t go to war. And she said, well, She said anyone who has gone through trauma can experience PTSD. But what you what you need to know is that PTSD isn’t something that goes away. It’s something you learn to manage. And those words were like, Oh my goodness. I always describe it as the sky opening up and rainbow shot shooting out of him because I felt like I wasn’t crazy, and I had hope, and I had it. An adult that was gonna guide me in this journey and help me heal. And I just I felt so grateful in that moment. But she had her work cut out for her. Definitely.
Victoria Volk: Thank you for sharing that. And I think one thing that came to my mind as I was hearing you talk about your experience with the PTSD and stuff is and let me ask you this from what you’ve learned about PTSD. Is it kind of like the pendulum can swing where you’re maybe it’s like all the cells in your body are just like all at once, like like you’re it’s almost like you’re how do I wanna explain this? Like, your energy is really amped up or the pendulum can swing the other way where you’re completely detached. Yes.
So Pete, I just want to
Susan Snow: Answer is yes.
Victoria Volk: I just want to clarify for people listening who are unfamiliar with the symptoms of PTSD. It doesn’t just look like your experience.
Susan Snow: Oh, yeah. And everybody like PTSD is not a one size fits all. Right? So everybody has different reactions for different things. So for me, for example, anytime there was like a shooting of some sort, It would take me right back to that day and all the feelings I had. So the anxiety, I would be extremely anxious and then extremely sad. Right? Some people just get very anxious or on edge. Some people just go into a deep depression. Some people become suicidal. There’s just a a very variance of things that happen to you. And so for myself, when I say she had her work cut out for me, is she decided that it was going to be beneficial to start out small. And not overwhelm me. So the one thing that I was struggling with at that very moment is sleep. And if you don’t have sleep and you have PTSD, It just exacerbates everything. So she really wanted me to get rest. But I told her nighttime was the worst because and I’m sure there’s people out there that are, like, Yep. When you start to rest, your brain just turns on. My brain would turn on, it would go straight to the darkness. So I would be terrified to shut my eyes. Because I thought I was going to be enveloped in the darkness and would not be able to come out of it. So she said, okay, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to journal at night. And I kinda looked at her funny because I’m like, that sounds a little dumb. Like, Really simple too. Right? Right. Yeah. Like, really, this is gonna make a big difference for me. And she’s like, you know what?
Just give it a week. I’m gonna give you a couple of prompts to write. If you wanna write, you can do it through music. You can do it through art. I don’t care how you do it, but just get all that stuff out of your head before you go to sleep. And I said, okay. So for a week, I had a little a little tablet next to my bed. And I would write down all the stuff that was swirling around in there on the paper. And at first, I was like, oh, but my spelling was wrong, and my You were judging it. Yeah. And, you know, when I called her, she’s like, Susan. This isn’t a lesson of like English. You just have to write. Right? Just like write it. It doesn’t matter. If it’s spelled right, it doesn’t even it doesn’t matter. Just get it on a paper. I said, okay. Fine.
So for an entire week, I did that. And And the crazy thing that happened is I fell asleep. I started to sleep. Because I was no longer anxious, I was no longer in that, you know, darkness when I slept. And I thought, oh, this stuff works.
Victoria Volk: And typing it I’ll say this too. I’ll just add this for people listening. Handwriting is the key.
Susan Snow: Yep.
Victoria Volk: Not typing on a laptop or anything like that. Yeah. Right? That’s what connects the brain to your heart.
Susan Snow: Absolutely. Yep. And yeah. So I physically wrote it. I physically wrote it.
But like I said, you know, some people people can do art. They can draw pictures. They can pick up a guitar and start writing a you know, like, just singing it out, like, whatever you have to do to get it out. And like I said, there’s no one’s size fits all. And so that was the first thing that she started me on.
And as we started attacking every single symptom, My next symptom that I dealt with was anxiety, and I had dealt with this forever And, you know, and I told her, I said, it’s exhausting, physically exhausting to my body. To continue to have a panic attack after panic attack after panic attack. So she started to teach me breath work. And breathing techniques. And the first the very first breathing technique that I learned was called box breathing. And I still do it to today. You know, I actually teach it. So, you know, it was changing my nervous system and it was changing my state, you know, state the state of my my being. And so I started to learn as I felt the triggers of anxiety, I would know. Okay.First, I gotta let it happen. I can’t fight it. Because when you fight it, it doesn’t go away or it’ll stop and then it’ll start and then it’ll stop and it’ll start. So I’ve got to just tell myself, I’m okay. You know, this is gonna be alright. I’m gonna live through this. And then so that I don’t go into another one then start the box breathing and really change the state of mind. And so she just each thing, she just kept attacking each thing that I was dealing with. And it was unbelievable. But here’s the really important thing that is over and above all it is the most important thing in the lesson that I learned. Was I had to be able to one trust her because I had to be the most vulnerable that I could be in order to do this work. And if I didn’t feel that, I wouldn’t have healed in the way that I did. And that’s really important for people to understand is that if you go to a therapist, when They need to be trauma competent. They need to understand your type of trauma and know how to help you heal through it. But you have to have that feeling of safety, of you can be a hundred percent vulnerable and go there with those people. And know that they are going to respect you, that they are going to guide you in a way that you need to be guided. So because I hear a lot, people say, oh, therapy didn’t work for me. Well, it’s because you didn’t find the right therapist. Because when you do and the work is done, that’s that’s when you see the real healing.
Victoria Volk: Well, in the distinction too, and look at the contrast of the first therapist versus the second therapist. The second therapist was giving you like homework. Right? Yep. You had action to take. Yep. That’s the difference. That’s why support groups, if you’re not taking action, they don’t work. Yeah, it make you feel better for a short period of time, but it’s not long lasting. It’s not moving you forward in a positive way in your life. Like therapy, like talk therapy, continually talking about the same things as you shared, it makes you feel better for the short period of time. Right? But then the next time you’re talking about the same things again. Right? But I think the difference is this action. Taking action.
Susan Snow: Yeah. Actually, yeah. Because she would give me something to do And then ask me, like, how did that affect you? What it you know, how did you feel after that? You know?
Did you feel relief? Did you not? Like, do we need to tweak something? You know? And it was and that’s why I tell people it’s not a one size fits all. What happened for me and what I used worked for me. It may not work for you. There’s so many modalities out there right now. You know, and you just have to find what works for you. And don’t be a soul
Victoria Volk: resonates with you. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
Susan Snow: Yep. Absolutely. So and I tell people, like, you will know in the first five minutes of meeting someone. Especially a therapist if you feel comfortable. If you don’t, find another one.
You know? This your healing, and your journey is your journey. It’s not theirs. And so it’s important for you to be your own advocate. And if you feel like you’re not getting the right help or you’re frustrated because you’re not going in the right direction, then find another therapist. It’s okay. Everybody has to find their right fit.
Victoria Volk: I’m a certified grief specialist and what I learned in my training is that and me personally my story is that and maybe you resonate with this. Is that trauma Trauma happens, but grief is what’s left.
Susan Snow: Yep.
Victoria Volk: The grief that’s left.
Susan Snow: Yep. And you’re grieving a lot of different things. Like a lot of different things. I mean, for me, I was not just grieving my dad. I was grieving my life. I was grieving my relationship. I was grieving my childhood. I was grieving not having a mom in the way that I need it, you know, the support system. I was grieving watching my both of my, you know, my mom and my brother took a different road than I did. Now my brother is doing amazing now. But when he was younger, he took, you know, a rough road, and I was grieving that. You know, I was grieving not being able to be the sister that he needed because I had to put boundaries down. You know, and so there was just the grief evolves actually, you know, as time goes on, you’re grieving for different things. And so things will come up, you know. And I, at this point, I have no contact with my mother. And it’s okay. Because what I realized was that that relationship was very toxic. And I spent a lot of time in shame and guilt because I was healing and she was not. And I felt like as the oldest and as the daughter that it was my responsibility, to help her heal. But what I had to realize and my book actually helped me realize is that It’s not my responsibility. Everybody is their own individual person. And so even though she’s my mother, it’s still her own responsibility for her own life. And the choices that she makes. So when I wrote the book, I figured, you know, I was doing this to heal myself, but also in the process of it because I had so much fear. It was terrifying to be this raw and this vulnerable with strangers. I’m putting it out there, but I had fear of safety, repercussions, you know, because I’m putting myself out there. Are these men gonna find me kind of thing? I had fear about, you know, is this going to somehow blow up my marriage again because I talk about some very serious things that we went through. In the book because it was traumatic. And the relationship with my mom Is it going to open a conversation, or is it going to completely destroy whatever is left of the relationship? And it did the latter. But in all of that fear, I had to find a purpose Why was I writing this book? Who was it going to benefit? And that’s who I put in front of me. The faces of the people that need to hear my message to know that they’re not alone and that other people go through things and they find resiliency through it. Brief doesn’t go away. It comes back in weird ways. But when you have the tools to move through it, and you know the people to look forward to help you support you, it makes a huge difference. And so that was what I did is I just focused on the people that were out there in the world. That needed to hear, hope. And I, you know and so with it having this effect on my relationship with my mom, I actually feel at peace and I feel okay. And sometimes that is the best thing. And I tell people, you know, if you’re in my situation, if you’re in that situation, sometimes best thing for you is to find your peace and protect it.
Victoria Volk: Well, and make peace with the choice that you made. Right? It’s making peace with the choice that you made.
Susan Snow: Yep. Chaz two. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: This relationship and I’m going to make peace with that.
Susan Snow: Yeah. And actually, she’s the one that severed it.
Victoria Volk: Oh. Is that Is the last with your mother, is that the other loss that you were describing on your website?
Susan Snow: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s, you know, it’s It’s hard because that night, I felt, and even my brother says the same thing, that we lost both parents. Because we lost our dad, but my mom lost her identity. And she She just turdled. She just she to this day, if you meet her, she’ll tell you in the first five minutes who she is. That she’s the widow of my father because that’s her end all be all. Right? That’s that’s her identity. And that’s fine, and that’s the choice that she makes. But I feel like watching that both of us watching that all these years has been hard because it’s like we always wanted my mom to be happy. We always wanted my mom to have this beautiful life, finding love again, finding happiness again, and and we watched her. Exactly. And, I mean, she has no relationship with my kids.
Victoria Volk: And that’s another layer of grief.
Susan Snow: Mhmm. So that’s, you know and what let’s and I say, like grief comes up in different ways throughout your life. And so now I literally, last year, realized that my mom was a narcissist and that, you know, narcissistic abuse is very difficult. To heal from, but it’s something that I’m doing right now. And I’m the helping my brother as well just have he still has a relationship with her, but I’m trying to help my brother to be because he always wants to fight her over me. And I’m like, no. You protect your peace. I’m protecting my peace. So, you know, it it it took me I’m fifty five. It took me fifty four years to figure this out and writing my own book and reading my own book and seeing the patterns throughout my life where my mom had opportunities to step up and be a mom and give me the support that I needed. And it didn’t happen. And so instead of living my life like having this fantasy, that one day my mom is gonna wake up and be some hallmark holiday mom, I had to let go of that and that is another grief. Of letting go of that fantasy. So yeah. I mean, brief is not something that you you heal from it at one point and then it goes away. Because there’s always gonna be things throughout your life. That you’re gonna grieve over always. It’s just a matter of how you wanna do it. So I choose to learn from my experiences. And in learning, I find the resiliency.
Victoria Volk: And even if that takes thirty plus years, Absolutely. Did you and me?
Susan Snow: Absolutely. It’s not too late. There is no timeline. There literally is no timeline. I think the the craziest thing that drives me bananas and it probably does you too being grief counselors. When people say, oh, it’s been x amount of time, get over it, or you should just move on Right? Why is it still bothering you? Mhmm. Well, because you didn’t have the relationship with that person that I did, That’s just like when someone loses some when someone dies, I never say I know how you feel. Ever because I don’t. I didn’t have the same relationship with that person. As the one that’s grieving. So Same. Even your brother. Even my brother relationship. I tell my brother that all the time. I don’t know what it felt like for you. You had a whole different experience than I did. And I would not pretend to know what that feels like. I just know how it felt fermi. You know, and and the experiences I went through, which is what I wrote in the book. These were my experiences. And, you know, and and, you know, everybody just everybody goes the other The other thing is is, oh, your trauma is worse than mine. Really? No, it’s not. I mean, the the story, the, you know, the actual situation, yeah, not everybody goes through that. I get that. But everybody’s trauma is different. Does it mean that it’s not important?
Victoria Volk: There’s no hierarchy?
Susan Snow: Or there’s no hierarchy exactly. There’s no you know, well, my dad was murdered and you’re, you know, you’re just dealing with whatever, you know. No. Well, and
Victoria Volk: what people are doing when they do that is they’re minimizing their own gap briefing trauma.
Susan Snow: Absolutely. And it’s crazy because I’ve had conversations with people that here’s the other side of that is that I’ve had conversations with people who have gone through trauma, but because it was an everyday event or an environment that they lived in constantly, they felt like everybody, you know, everybody’s family was like that. And so it wasn’t it wasn’t traumatic what they went through. It wasn’t abuse that they went through. And when I bring it to light, I had a woman who I was driving for Lyft for a little while last year because I’m a real estate agent now and real estate was a little funky last year, so first time in fourteen years, I had to have a side gig. So I went out and was driving, and I had my book in my car her one of my riders who was, like, why isn’t your book in your car? So I had a yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I had my book in my car and I picked up this woman and she pulled out my book and started to kind of read it. And she says, oh my gosh, you went through so much trauma and this and that. And I’ve never had trauma in my life, but she was going into rehab the next day. And I said, really? And so we started talking about her sobriety. And I said, well, what? You know, first of all, we talked about the fact that this was her third time in rehab. And that she had three kids, and that this time she wanted to do it for herself, the other time she did it for her kids, but failed. And in talking more with her, she said, well, I haven’t had trauma like you have had trauma. And then you said, well, you know, everybody’s life is different and maybe you did and you don’t recognize it. She said, well, you know, when I was I lived with my mom, my mom raised me and my brother, and my mom was abusive you know, she yelled and screamed at me and whatever, but she said she had these boy this one boyfriend and, you know, he he would touch me from the age of three to seven. And I was like, touch you, and then she started to elaborate. And this woman was sexually assaulted and molested. From the age of three to the age of seven, she was made to have relations with her brother, and this was ongoing. And so for her, it was normal Like, this this was how you showed love. This is, you know, but then the mom would be jealous when the boyfriend would give more attention. To the child. Right? And I almost crashed my car at this point because I was like, you don’t think this is trauma? I said, here’s what I’m gonna tell you. What happened to you wasn’t your fault? That was his fault. That was her mother’s fault. You had adults that did not protect you. As a child, did not protect your brother as a child, you one hundred percent went through trauma. And I said, and I don’t know how or why, but stuff flies out of my mouth and I go, where did that come from?
But what I said, was this. I said, if you really want to get sober, that is what you need to attack. Because what you went through was severe trauma. And I said, you have been To rehab, three times. Have you ever in those three times told any of your counselors? This story. And she said no. And I said, this is why it’s your fourth. So here’s what I’m gonna tell you. When you go to rehab tomorrow, and by this time she’s, like, in tears, like, in tears.
She’s sobbing. And I said, listen to me carefully. When you go to therapy or when you go to rehab tomorrow, Please tell your story. Tell your story. Because when you do they’re gonna get you the right people. They’re gonna align you with the right people. Because if you don’t attack this, now S sobriety is gonna be so much harder. And she was just like, oh my god. I can’t believe I’m this lift and this is what I was yeah. But it just it it opened my eyes. It really gave me an aha that there are people that are walking around on this earth. Who have had experiences that it was so common that they don’t even realize that it was traumatic. And
Victoria Volk: Or no one ever even asks, what are you trying to cope from? Right? Like, what happened to you? Right?
Susan Snow: That’s a very simple question. Even physicians and doctors offices don’t ask that. What happened to you? Right? And, you know, and and it again, it shocked me that she said she wants to rehab three dives and she said all they did was talk about the sobriety.
Staying sober not feeling guilty for, you know, whatever. I get all that, but unless you really attack the true whether it’s abuse or whatever it was, it’s harder to get sobriety because Down deep, that is what you’re hiding from. Mhmm. I watched my mother do it. For years.
That’s what she was she was hiding from was the reality, you know? And hurt people, hurt people, whether it’s themselves or the people around them. So I told her, I said, look, with me healing for myself, the ripple effect is it’s helped my kids. It’s helped my husband. It’s helped my brother. Right? The people that are open, but you have to work on you first. You know, you have to be the priority.
Victoria Volk: And Remember your follow-up?
Susan Snow: I didn’t. And it kills me because I would really love. I center with my book. I said, read my book while you’re in rehab. Maybe it’ll give you some hope and maybe some some kind of healing. She didn’t wanna get out of my car, but you know, I’ve met many people like that, and I feel like I’m living in my purpose. You probably feel the same way, being a grief counselor. Iknow I’ve made a difference in people’s lives. I’ve seen it from other riders that I have gotten a follow-up with. But with her, you know, she is always on my mind. Maybe one day, you know, we’ll run into each other again. But I really hope that she’s able to heal all the terrible things that happened to her. And how it’s affected her mindset all these years, not believing in herself and not, you know, feeling like that’s the only way that you can show love with a man in making the making wrong choices with men. That kind of thing. But, yeah, I mean, it’s it’s important to make yourself the priority.
Victoria Volk: So what has your grief taught you?
Susan Snow: Oh my goodness. My grief taught me to learn from what I’m grieving about. There are lessons in grief if you pay attention. So when I feel like I’m grieving something, Ilook at it a little bit differently and say, why am I feeling this way? What is it that triggered me to feel this way? And what can I learn from it? Because the other side of grief too is that It’s the universe trying to teach you something. You you gained something out of it.
Victoria Volk: That’s a really hard thing to hear. You know, at first. I know
Susan Snow: it is. It
Victoria Volk: is. Listening to that or, like, oh, I didn’t ask for this lesson. Right?
Susan Snow: Right. But again So
Victoria Volk: it’s a
Susan Snow: It’s all timing. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: Well, and and it it’s all part of our own evolution.
Susan Snow: Absolutely. And it’s it it is. It’s all in timing. It’s it’s, you know, what is that that saying, you know, when the when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
Victoria Volk: Mhmm.
Susan Snow: Yeah. I mean, that is a hundred percent real. And, yeah, in the beginning, it is it is hard. It it is. And I think in the beginning of grief, like, the best thing you can do is take care of yourself, just the littlest things. Just making sure that you’re that you’re remembering to to give yourself love in your in your self support. And that’s, you know, that’s something I had to learn to do really early on, is I had to figure out, okay, how do I love myself? Since I didn’t have adults around me that were giving me the support I needed at the time. So I had to learn to do the things. And as a kid, you know, what is that? Oh, well, that’s getting my nails done. You know, feeling pretty, getting my hair done, you know, spending time with my friends just like sometimes it was forcing myself to spend time with my friends because all I wanted to do is sit in my room. As a kid, you don’t know what you’re you don’t know what you’re doing anyway. So I was just like, I’m just going to envelope myself with friends and my boyfriend and, you know, the things that I know that even though they walked on egg shells around me, they still I could find a little bit of joy in spending time. With them. But, you know, as an adult, when I tell people and they’re going through grief is, I know it’s hard sometimes, but find something that makes you feel better even if it’s for five minutes. Whether that’s just a good cup of coffee, or a tea or just sitting outside and feeling the breeze on your face and the sunshine. You know, taking a bath, listening to your favorite music, just something. That gives you a little bit of comfort.
Victoria Volk: Very good. Very
Susan Snow: good. Yeah. Scream into your pillow. Cry your eyes out. And I think people get really scared. Like, oh my god. If I cry, I’m gonna cry for days. Like, I’m never gonna stop crying. I’m I’m just it’s just not gonna happen. You know? And so I know women who are like, I allow myself to have ten minute cry and then that’s it. I’m like, really? I think you should just go for it. Just just let it all out. And it’s okay. Actually, it’s a positive. It’s not a negative. But, you know, I still think that there’s that little, like, that little myth in the back where people think if I cry. I’m weak I’m showing weakness, and it’s the total opposite. It is so the opposite.
Victoria Volk: Well, you can get outward attention from your anger, or you can get outward attention from your tears. And which would you for it to be.
Susan Snow: Exactly. Would you like to go to jail or because I’ve had those days too where I was like, Oh, man. I, you know, I have to rain it in a little bit, find other ways.
Victoria Volk: And speaking of that, as a mother, dealing with all of this. Like, your children, how old were well, I have two questions. What’s sparked the idea for the book? Was it the therapy? That kind of helped you get to that point? And then also, like, just, you know, the mother you were before you started to do this work in the mother that they have now?
Susan Snow: Well, the book, when I turned fifty, I was mentally at a place where I knew that telling my story when things came up I would have the tools to help me get through it. So that’s why the book came around because I was like, oh god, I’m fifty. I gotta get this done. And I honestly feel like it was my dad kicking me in the rear end. Because he knows what my work is. You know? And my purpose isn’t is through him. And I had this like I drew a line in the sand that was like, that’s it. I’m fifty years old. I’m getting this book done. It took me four and a half years to write it. And it’s because I did. I had to dive and relive and, you know, I had repressed memories come up. All kinds of things happened. It was a journey in itself.
As I was writing the book, I feel like as my kids have gotten bigger, and now they’re adults. I won’t tell you how old they are because it makes me feel old. But they’re all adults, and I have three now. And you know, I think they see the resiliency. They see that I’ve had these days where I’ve been so sad. They’ve seen my sadness. I never hid it from them. I never, you know, think the only time I hit any of my emotions is when my husband and I were divorcing. And there was a you know, there was just a lot. And I was really trying to be the supportive parent through that. And I felt like they needed they needed to see a strong mom. They needed to see a supportive mom. And so my closet saw all my tears and heard all the bad words. You name it. Right? And but, you know, my husband as as well was very No. Very loving or, you know, tried to be as loving as possible through everything with them. He was going through his own stuff, his own mental stuff. But as they’ve seen me progress and they’ve seen me heal, My kids struggle with their own mental health things, and they have a mom that can help them through their own struggle. They have a mom that was a big proponent of them getting therapy. And finding the right therapist. So I was able to utilize my own experiences even with my own kids. And making sure that they were going to be okay, no matter what. So you know, I think that was the biggest thing. I wanted to leave a legacy for my kids of you can go through horrific things in your life. And you can choose to be a victim or you can choose to rise up and be a survivor. And my hope is that I’m teaching my kids to be survivors.
Victoria Volk: You had mentioned that you gave your clause at all your tears and you wanted to be the strong mom. And I imagine that comes from your own personal experience of with your own mom. Right?
Susan Snow: Yep.
Victoria Volk: One thing I wanna highlight for listeners is that I think there’s a distinction that needs to be made. There’s a difference between being strong, but also allowing yourself to grieve with your children and showing them how to grieve. Mhmm. Because again, that goes back to what you shared, like you learned to, like, put your mask on. And what happens is, as children learn that, writing, we learn that.
Susan Snow: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: Either and it can go the pendulum can swing both ways. Right? I had a similar experience. There wasn’t room for my emotion because there was so much from my mom. Same for you. Like, there was like, Iagree that My mom died the day my dad died. Right? Like Mhmm. So there wasn’t room for my emotion. So I had to be strong. To I didn’t wanna rock the boat. I didn’t wanna upset her. Right? And so I think you can learn. You can be in a situation like that where you either learn to put the mask on or you learn how to grieve in a healthy way. And a part of that involves showing vulnerability, showing tears. Yep. Talking about what you’re experiencing. Yeah. Having space and room for everyone’s feelings and emotions.
Susan Snow: Yep. Well, I tell you
Victoria Volk: What would you do differently now? Right?
Susan Snow: Yeah. I mean, I think the funniest story for me was I was speaking. My kids had never they’ve never really heard my story from my perspective before. And I invited them in twenty nineteen. I spoke. I was a keynote speaker. And I wanted to have my kids there. So they came to watch me speak. And I had asked my middle son to video me. And so I did my I did my talk and I came off the stage and my kids were just like blown away. And they were like, I’ve never heard yours I’ve never heard it like that before. I I’ve never, like, Oh my gosh. Like, they didn’t know what to say, but my middle son said I said, did you get did you get anything on, you know, an ego’s mom? I got so caught up in your story that Iforgot to record you. I’m so so sorry. I was like, it’s fine. Because for me, it was like, okay. That sucks. But you know what? It was so much more important for my kids to be a part of that experience.
And to hear my story from their own mother, from my own lips, and to see where I was and where how far I’ve come because I felt like that was a really important lesson for them to learn. As young adults. And they have been on this journey with me, and Ithink I have such a close relationship with my children and even my I have a I have a stepson. I have a really great relationship with him. He is my kid. A woman another woman just had her had him. I’ve been blessed to be able to have this experience with my children and teach them exactly how to grieve, and that it’s okay to grieve, and it’s okay to to show your emotions. And you know, it’s not a weakness, and I’m here for you, and your dad is here for you. And we have always been very very much about showing support for our kids, not only our kids, but my friends make fun of me because they say I collect children, not in a weird way. But generally, kids who have challenging home lives themselves, who don’t find the support system themselves. Have found my husband and I as secondary parents. And I feel like that’s all coming and stemming from my own experiences. And making sure that other kids have the support that they need. And so now those kids are getting married and they’re having children, which is giving me grandchildren, non biological grandchildren, but You know, they see me as a positive person in my in their lives, and I am so grateful for that. So grateful for that, that they too have read my book and said, Wow. Like, when you say to me that you’re gonna get through this, or when you say to me those times where you say just let it go or if you’re feeling, you know, depressed, here’s Here’s some things that maybe might help or whatever. You get it. You literally get it. I said, yeah, I’m not just pulling this out of the sky folks. Like, I’m taking my own, you know, my own experiences and my own lessons learned and and just helping you, like, almost like giving you you know, they don’t even know what this is, but cliff notes. But most kids are like cliff notes. What are cliff notes? I don’t wanna talk to you anymore. If if you were around in the eighties, you know what a cliff note is. So yeah. I mean, that’s and I think that you know, as adults, and adults who have gone through things or have felt things sort of, you know, I feel like it’s important for us to impart our wisdom, our positive wisdom on to the younger generations because I feel like they have personally, I feel like they have a lot more. On their plate than even we did. The differences is that there is talk of mental health. And there is a lot known about PTSD, and there is a lot of conversation around trauma. And create
Victoria Volk: new free tools
Susan Snow: and loss. Yes. Absolutely.
Victoria Volk: It’s so much more accessible.
Susan Snow: It is accessible. It’s just you know, people still need that little nudge. You know?
Victoria Volk: Yeah. You don’t wanna DIY your trauma and
Susan Snow: No. No. You still need the nudge.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. It’s you know, you’re only like you said earlier, you know, we I think and I did it too. Like, you you’re only extending the suffering by not bringing in the support that you need to move forward. And you know, we don’t know we don’t know. And Exactly.
People that know a little bit more and are a little bit further along. And those are the people you want to seek out. So
Susan Snow: Yep.
Victoria Volk: Thank you so much for sharing all that you’ve shared. Is there anything that you didn’t feel like you got to share?
Susan Snow: Oh my goodness. No. I think this was great. I mean, I hope I hope I’m putting it out there. I’m I’m throwing that energy out there that there’s someone listening who I just want you to know that you’re not alone. You’re not, and that there are people out there that care about you. And that, you know, there are resources available to you. And, you know, I’m I’m out there. You know, I’m accessible. I am open to talking to anyone heck, you know?
Who knows? If you’re sitting in my left ride what you’re gonna get. But, you know, Ijust hope that someone out there is able to resonate or connect with with this conversation, and it just shows them that there is hope and there is healing. That can happen.
Victoria Volk: Yes. Mhmm. Iwould love to dove into the divorce and the reconnection. Oh. When I say it’s hard. A self and everyone else would just have to read the book because I’m assuming that’s in the book?
Susan Snow: Yep. Okay.
Victoria Volk: Pick up the book if you wanna know more on that. We’re so about all our other podcasts. Interviews maybe?
Susan Snow: Yeah. Yeah. No. Italked about it more in the book than anything else, you know. Because the divorce is the divorce. The lessons out of it is is what’s important.
Victoria Volk: Right? Mhmm. Well, thank you so much again. And I will put links to the book, the your website, Instagram, and the show notes. I’ll also find a really good box breathing YouTube that I can add in there.
Susan Snow: Yeah. Absolutely.
Victoria Volk: Yep. And
Susan Snow: Yeah. Thank you. Wonderful. And did you say the name of the book? I don’t know remember if you did or not.
Victoria Volk: I believe you did. The other side of the gun.
Susan Snow: Yeah. The other side of the gun, my journey from trauma to resiliency. Yep.
Victoria Volk: Yep. I’ll put the link in the show notes for that.
Susan Snow: Perfect. Yeah. Awesome.
Victoria Volk: And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, LGBTQ+, Mental Health, Podcast, Suicide |
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
This week on Grieving Voices is a mental health discussion with Lisa Sugarman – a multifaceted advocate who has overcome personal tragedies to make an impact. As a suicide loss survivor and crisis counselor, her insights are invaluable during Mental Health Awareness Month.
Lisa’s journey is one marked by unexpected turns. From being a content creator in the parenting space to confronting the harsh realities of mental illness following revelations about her father’s death, she exemplifies resilience and strength. Her story highlights how secrets can shape our lives and the importance of community support in healing from grief.
Key Takeaways:
- The power of listening over advising when it comes to parenting teens.
- Balancing work-life as an entrepreneur involves recognizing limits and practicing self-care.
- The transformative experience gained through crisis counseling at The Trevor Project.
- The connection between unresolved pain and suicide.
- Community is a crucial element for those dealing with mental health issues or contemplating suicide.
Lisa reminds us that connection is vital and perhaps lifesaving for those struggling silently. This episode encourages open conversations around mental health while providing solace and understanding for those touched by suicide loss.
As a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community and as a crisis counselor with The Trevor Project, Lisa passionately advocates for providing hope to young people facing crises.
Through sharing her own experiences with vulnerability and resilience, she reminds us all that transparency can aid in coping with grief. Self-care strategies are vital for navigating these tough times effectively.
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
In today’s blog post, we’re going to explore the profound insights shared by Lisa Sugarman on this week’s episode of “Grieving Voices.” As part of Mental Health Awareness Month, it is crucial that we amplify voices like Lisa’s – voices that have turned personal tragedy into a beacon of hope for others.
The Unseen Battle
Lisa’s journey wasn’t always centered around mental health advocacy. Originally focusing her writing on parenting advice, she was thrust onto this path after experiencing suicide loss within her family. Losing her father at ten years old left a mark on Lisa; however, it wasn’t until 35 years later that she discovered his death was by suicide. This revelation not only brought clarity but also propelled her towards helping others navigate through similar pain.
Listening as an Act of Love
One key message from our conversation with Lisa resonates particularly strong: when raising teens—or dealing with anyone who might be struggling—it’s more important to listen than to lecture. Creating spaces where open dialogue can flourish without judgment is essential in fostering trust and understanding between parents and children or any two individuals for that matter.
Self-Care Isn’t Selfish
As someone who balances parenthood and professional life herself, Lisa underscores self-care as foundational to effective parenting and productivity. It isn’t selfish; rather it allows us to recharge so we can be present for those we care about most.
The Power of Secrets Revealed
The discovery about her father’s cause of death strengthened the bond between Lisa and her mother while highlighting how complex grief could become when shrouded in secrecy during times when mental health discussions were taboo.
Pain Shared Is Pain Divided
Lisa emphasizes that while each case is individualized, extreme pain seems to be a common thread leading people toward considering suicide. She advocates strongly for community support systems as critical safety nets for those battling suicidal thoughts—reminding us all that love alone may not always suffice in preventing such tragedies but connection can make a significant difference.
Addressing Suicide Directly
Discussing suicidal thoughts openly can prevent these dark considerations from growing unchecked in isolation. Asking someone directly if they’re contemplating self-harm opens up lines of communication which are often vital lifelines themselves.
For example, organizations like The Trevor Project provide crucial support networks specifically tailored towards LGBTQ youth—a group close to Lisa’s heart due both to personal losses tied to suicide within this community and identifying as LGBTQ+ herself.
Embracing Vulnerability Through Transparency
Throughout our talk with Lisa Sugarman, one thing became crystal clear—the power inherent in sharing your story transparently cannot be overstated. Not only does it serve therapeutic purposes for yourself but also helps guide others through their healing processes.
Moreover, resilience grows from vulnerability; allowing oneself time and space to heal fosters strength over time.
Lisa encourages everyone—to reach out proactively within their communities because sometimes those suffering wear no visible signs.
And finally—always prioritize maintaining your well-being so you remain capable enough to offer meaningful support where needed.
To conclude our discussion:
*Seek Therapy Early**: Don’t wait until you feel overwhelmed before seeking help.
*Offer Specific Help**: When supporting someone grieving or struggling mentally – specific offers tend better than vague ones.
*Remember Children Aren’t Therapists**: Parents should avoid burdening kids with roles beyond their emotional maturity level.
If you want further insight into navigating grief or wish simply connect with like-minded individuals advocating mental health awareness—you’ll find solace under the guidance offered by experts like [Lisa Sugarman](http://lisashugarman.com/). Her books provide practical wisdom while being laced throughout with heartfelt empathy born out experiences many will relate too intimately yet rarely discuss openly.
Thank you once again for tuning into “Grieving Voices” — together let us continue making conversations around grief less taboo so healing becomes accessible universally!
Episode Transcription:
Victoria: Thank you for tuning in to this week’s episode of grieving voices. Today, I am happy to address a very important topic for mental health awareness month. I have Lisa Sugarman with me. She is an author, a nationally syndicated columnist, a three-time survivor of suicide loss, a mental health advocate, and a crisis counselor with the Trevor Project. She’s also a storyteller with the national alliance of mental illness and the host of the suicide survivor series on YouTube. Lisa writes an opinion column. We are who we are and is the author of “How to Raise Perfectly Imperfect Kids and Be Okay With It,” “Untied: Parent Anxiety.” And “Life, It Is What It Is.” All all of their available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and everywhere books are sold. Her work has appeared on health line, parenthood, grown, and flown. Today parents Thrive Global, The Washington Post, little things, and more content now. Lives and writes just north of Boston, and you can visit her online at lisa sugar mint dot com, which I will put a link to the show notes to your website and your books and all of your things. Just poking around on your website, you do have a very extensive mental health resource hub. Mine is quite modest compared to yours, and it is. It really is. I mean, if you have a few moments to check it out, I highly recommend you you do so, and you also have a lot of just quick, like, kind of cheat sheets, if you will Mhmm. On there as well. And is this the work that you always thought you’d be doing?
Lisa: One thousand percent, no. Nope. I never imagined myself doing this kind of work in this space as an advocate, as a counselor. I mean, everything that I’m doing right now has has come as much of a surprise to me. As I think it has to everybody who is close to me kind of, you know, in my immediate world, but it was just the most natural transition for me.
To fall into this space in light of just my story that I know you and I’ll talk quite a bit about. But my story and some some pretty powerful revelations in my life that have come out in the last decade. And just, I guess, my need to do something to make an impact in the mental health space.
Victoria: Ten years before, you found yourself in this space. What were you doing?
Lisa: So I’ve always been a writer. That that hasn’t changed. I’ve always created content and I’ve been many different types of writers. I’ve been a newspaper journalist. I’ve written for magazines. I’ve written for publishing companies, done lots of marketing and PR, and and that sort of thing. I’ve been a columnist for many years. I’ve written books. And so I I did all of that in the parenting space predominantly. It’s just the place I found myself in.
You know, I I my husband and I have to they’re now grown daughters almost twenty four and almost twenty seven. So we’ve kind of cycled through that whole parenting stage of life with little kids and college kids. And that’s what I was writing about. I mean, that was the space I was in. It was what I was doing day to day. I was writing about the work life balance, and I was a working mom, and my husband traveled a ton, and and it was really just about that family dynamic, and that’s where everything’s centered. And it was really I think it was really almost kind of an overnight gift about ten years ago that kind of brought me into the space. But I’m in that.
Victoria: We’ll put a pin in that piece
Lisa: if it’s a pin.
Victoria: I we will. I wanna rewind just for a moment because Mhmm. I just wanna touch on what you were sharing about, writing about parenthood and that was the space you were in and you wrote books about that, you know, how to raise perfectly and perfect kids and be okay with it. Can you share a little bit just because and you mentioned balance. So I just for mental health awareness month, Can you share a little bit about mental health raising teens?
Number one. And today, particularly as in hindsight with what you know now. And then also, there’s a two part question. For entrepreneurs listening, who have kids who are doing all the things. What has balance been for you?
Is there such a thing?
Lisa: Too per question. I guess there’s balance, but there’s like a precarious balance as far as I’m concerned. So the first the first question. I think that the best advice I could give or the best comment that I could make about being a parent of a team or, you know, a young adult child is keep your mouth shut. Keep your mouth shut in large part, not always.
At the right times if you can, and take a step back and do at least as much listening to your kids as you’re doing talking to your kids. When I kind of arrived in that place of understanding that they had as much to share with me as I had to share with them. It was kind of a game changer for me, if that makes sense. Like, I you’d as parents were just kind of hardwired to wanna talk to them and teach them and guide them and advise them and do all the things and and at the end of the day, that is what we’re supposed to be doing. But we’re also supposed to be allowing them to kind of do the same thing.
Like, we’re figuring out how to be parents when our kids are figuring out how to be humans. So there’s a whole bunch of figuring of things out that we all have to be, I think, a little gracious to each other when we’re in that position. So that’s what I would say, you know, to to a parent of a child in in that space and time is just spend as much time as you can listening to your kids than creating space for them to have those conversations because they have an awful lot to say. We just don’t think they do. The second part of your question is a little more complicated for the balancing part.
So, look, it’s like trial by fire, you know. I think that when you keep your own self care as kind of an anchor in your life, recognizing that you’re absolutely useless to yourself, your family, your extended your immediate failure extended family, your friends, your job, your useless, if you’re not okay inside. If your mental health and your physical health aren’t good, there is no balance. There’s no such thing as balance. I don’t think or I haven’t found.
And it’s only when the there’s harmony with those things and you give yourself again giving yourself grace. To do what you need to do. Take the time you need to take, you know, focus on what you need as a human being. And then obviously, of course, what your kids need, what your partner needs, what your family needs. I think the rest, I think the balance part comes a lot easier when you do that or when I’ve done that for sure.
Victoria: And I think for myself personally, it’s like recognizing my limits Mhmm. What are what are my limits? And then where can I fill that gap? And where can I ask for help and support?
Lisa: Mhmm. Yeah. That’s big.
Victoria: Also found too, like, with because I’m I’m in the trenches of college and teen pre college years. And Well, what a what a tramp.
Lisa: Yeah. That’s an understatement.
Victoria: But I think one thing that I have found personally you know, we we have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Right? Like, to touch on what he shared, but I have phoned because I can go into teacher preacher mode. You know, I’ve been there. I’ve done that.
No. We always wanna share Yeah. So which way to them? Just Listen to me, you know, just I I wanna spare you. But I also recognize that the hard lessons are where growth is.
And so Mhmm. What I found personally that’s helped for me is when I feel like I I want to give advice or I want to, yeah, give advice. That may be unsolicited. Rather, I propose it as a question, get very inquisitive and curious. And so I pose it as a question.
Like, well, what do you think about this? For example, just for example, let’s say they’re, you know, dating relationships. Right? If they’re dating somebody, you know, are you talking at her or are you talking with her when I’m recognizing something that I’m hearing or seeing. Right?
And so it’s not telling him what to do, not telling my son what to do or how to communicate with his girlfriend, but being inquisitive about how he’s going about that.
Lisa: Mhmm. You
Victoria: know, and he’s his response. Fair, fair point. Like, yeah. Like, he got it. I didn’t have to lecture him for an hour about how to communicate with someone.
You know? So I think it’s just posing things as a as a curious question.
Lisa: Yeah. I, you know, I love that you do that because it allows your son or our kids to kind of retain agency over themselves and where the conversation’s going. And what advice they’re getting and and not getting and how they’re getting it. I’ll tell you something interesting, and I I know we’ll probably chat about it later, but it that just made me think of how much my capacity for holding space has changed our capacity, but I guess my skill set with holding space has changed since I became a crisis counselor with the Trevor project. Because the way that we are taught to hold space as crisis counselors involves basically completely removing ourselves from the conversation.
We’re part of the conversation but nothing is ever about me. Nothing I we don’t disclose our real name where we are in the world. Whether we’re gay, straight, or otherwise, whether we have families, what our opinions are, like absolutely nothing, no anecdotal, hey, that happened to me and I understand or I can relate or nothing. And that was a really, really big mind shift for me, but it was all focused on once I got it, and I understood that it was all about helping the person on the phone maintain that agency over the conversation and over themselves, it it completely, I guess, revolutionized the way that I have a conversation with someone and hold space and and the same applies. It’s very similar in nature, I think, to what you’re saying, about how you’re engaging with your kids because it’s a game changer too.
Victoria: I just connected the dot for myself. So thank you for sharing that. In that because people would ask me all the time. That’s one of the big questions I get because I I work with Grievers. Right?
I I hear and I talk with Grievers all the time on my podcast and, like,
Lisa: how can
Victoria: you listen to all that sadness and heavy stuff all the time? How can you work with brivers and deal with all that. And I always thought the answer was, oh, all this energy work that I’ve done personally on myself, but to be it just hit me. It’s like, I’ve done a lot of work on myself Yeah. To be able to hold space for other people.
Including my kids
Lisa: Mhmm. To remove
Victoria: my just exactly what you said. So I really I think it’s giving credit to I think the deep work that you’ve done for yourself to be able to be there for other people and also for myself. And I’ve, you know, and I’ve said it to other people, like, you can only sit with others in their pain to the capacity that you’ve worked through your own. You know, to the depth that you’ve worked through your own.
Lisa: Mhmm.
Victoria: But I never got it until you just shared that.
Lisa: So Well, it’s all perspective. Right? It’s that’s that’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to, you know, to make each other a little wiser.
Victoria: And I’ll let that be kind of this motivation for people, especially parents, to take the time to work on themselves because you do become a much better parent than your that your child needs you to be than what you think they need. You know,
Lisa: it’s true. It’s very true. And it’s necessary. And it’s part of that whole learning curve, that whole process. That’s, you know, where we’re supposed to get a little snappier every day, a little bit stronger every day.
Our skill set is supposed to deepen a little bit more as we as we go on.
Victoria: So what shifted ten years ago? I know it. I know it shifted.
Lisa: You know it shifted. Yeah. It
Victoria: What a way to change the topic.
Lisa: Yeah. Right. Right. So ten years ago, I learned Well, I’ll back up. Before I give the, I guess, what would be a pretty big reveal?
I’ll back up and say that I lost my father when I was ten years old. So I’m fifty five years old now. I lost my father forty five years ago. I’m an only child. My dad was everything in the world to me.
And he passed away very, very suddenly of what I was told was a massive heart attack. My dad was a really he was very active, very physically fit but he was also a very big smoker. And so that was not a hard that was not a hard narrative to digest because it was awful. And it was life changing, but it made sense. Like, he had a Mastercard attack.
He was a smoker. I connected those dots and there was no question. Fast forward thirty five years until I was forty five, which was ironically the same age that my father wasn’t passed away. I discovered very much by accident that my dad had taken his own life. And that was just that was a that was a time.
Yep. That was a time. For me that everything just imploded because it was nothing I ever suspected. It was nothing I ever even remotely considered. And I just, like, bumped into family member I hadn’t seen in years and we were talking.
And my husband and I was I was having lunch somewhere at an outdoor cafe. She sat down and we were catching up and she asked me about my kids and my girls were teens at the time. And she asked me if I got out of the blue picked for it, like, out of the blue asked me if my kids had any of the same depression and mental illness that my father had. And I did not know what in the hell she was talking about. And it but but that being said, I as puzzled as I was by the conversation.
I I didn’t ask her anything about it. I think I was too stunned in that moment. I didn’t know where it was coming from. I kind of let the conversation come and go and she left and I turned to my husband as what in the hell was that? I have no idea what that was.
My mom and I are extremely, extremely close. We talk multiple times a day he’s my best friend in the world. I didn’t run to her after that thinking, mom, what am I missing? Like, well, I didn’t do that. Surprisingly.
Kind of the next time she and I were together, which wasn’t too long after that, we were sitting or having lunch, and we were just doing like a normal reminiscing that we would always do. Nothing out of the ordinary. And very much in a in a spontaneous moment, I I asked her, my father had been depressed. And she said, yes. And before I knew it, was coming out of my mouth.
I had never thought about it. I had never asked myself the question. Certainly was not prepared to ask my mother the question. Never crossed my conscious mind. All of a sudden, I don’t know where I blurt it out.
Did dad take his life? And she said, yes. And she explained to me that he had taken his life and that in that moment when she was, you know, considering everything that was happening Now going forward, me and I was ten at the time and had no siblings and it was just the two of us, what would she do? How would I react? What would that do to me?
Losing him, what would that do to me? But then finding out it was a suicide, what would that do to me? And so she she made that decision in that moment to shield me from that truth and to tell me that he had died of a heart attack and never spoke about it with anyone anyone ever. Until he and I talked about it forty well, I was forty five. So that’s what that was that was the that’s my why for doing what I’m doing.
And it it unfortunately was not just my father dying by suicide. A cousin of mine took his life a year before my father. And that I didn’t know was a suicide at the time. That was my first experience kind of understanding even just in general terms what suicide was. And then three years ago, my husband and I had a very, very close childhood friend.
He took his life very unexpectedly. So we’ve kind of had that trifecta of suicide in our life. And I just I needed to do something with it. I needed I needed to kind of change it up and and take whatever I went through or whatever I learned from it. That lived experience and just pay it forward.
So here I am.
Victoria: Did it change your relationship with your mother?
Lisa: It made it even not that I ever thought that this was possible, it made it stronger. My mother is a force of nature. My mother is one of the most remarkable humans that I’ve ever known. She is incredibly resilient and so kind and generous and supportive in every way. And I knew instantly I mean, I was a mom.
I had already been a mom of teenage kids by the time I found out about dad. So I in that moment knew immediately didn’t need an explanation. I understood exactly why she kept it from me. And and to hear it from her, she would say, you know, then you were going off to, like, middle school and high school. And I didn’t wanna lay that on you.
And then you were going up to college and then you were getting married. So it was like there was all there were always these these, like, mile markers that these big you know, kind of inflection points in my life, and she didn’t wanna hit me with it when I was already dealing with, you know, a big transition in life. And so then she just kind of resigned. She never just say anything. Like, why did I need to know?
Victoria: Did she ever share with you what keeping that secret had done to her or what it was doing to her or how it affected her or impacted her?
Lisa: My mom, as I said, is one of the most resilient humans that you’ve ever met. She’s that this this amazing capacity. She’s just the most content person. And I think my my mom she says this all the time. She said this my entire life.
Is one of the most social and loving and outgoing people you’ve you’ve met. She’s also she also considers herself her own best friend. So she I I remember she would always say to me, you know, I’d be in the car and I’d be talking to myself than having a conversation and kind of working through things and, you know, or if I was off at school, she would do things like that. You know, she he just she never harbored any ill will toward my father at all. She said, I never since the day I learned that it was a suicide, which was, you know, the day he died, there was a note was found, so it was it was pretty clear.
He said I never have had a single moment of any dealings of anger. Or dad. I I’ve always understood. Okay. She knew the kind of pressure he was under.
It was really my father’s family. We don’t know what was going on under the surface. We know that my dad started seeing a psychiatrist maybe a month before he died. Because there was so much stress on his side of the family. My parents came from two very very different families.
My mom’s family is pure love, pure love and joy and kindness and support, and my dad’s family was I mean, I you know, I don’t I don’t even wanna say what my father’s family was was like, it was not an awful lot of love to be found. My dad’s side of the family. And that was it was obvious. I was a little kid, and I knew it. And it weighed on him.
He did everything he possibly could. To help his family. Nothing was ever enough and there was a lot of stress. And I don’t know what kind of mental illness he had, like, layered on top of that. But without knowing the actual why, which we don’t know.
I mean, the note that he left was more of just an apology. I just can’t I can’t go on anymore, and I love you both. And I’m sorry. But we have our suspicions about, you know, kind of what the family dynamic did to his mental health. So, yeah, my my mom, it only made me love and appreciate her that much more because I’m incredibly great sold to her.
I don’t know what I would have done at that point in time without the kind of resources that they have in place today for young kids who are are trying to navigate this kind of grief and loss because it’s it’s just a shit show when you’re trying to navigate a suicide law. Like any losses such a devastating thing to navigate. But when you compound that by a suicide, like, that’s a whole different animal. And for a little kid, to have been doing that in the 70s when nobody was talking about suicide. No one was talking about mental health.
No one was being open about going to therapy. Resources didn’t exist. I don’t know I don’t know if I’d still be here, to be honest with you. So
Victoria: You know, there’s two kinds of secrets. Right? The secrets to protect and the secrets that do harm and I wonder what do you feel about people who who chose that route, who chose that route, but I think do I mean, do you feel like there’s a connection between secrets and people who choose? Choose that? Or is it Is it purely mental illness?
Lisa: Meaning suicide, people use suicide? I mean, it’s no situational. I mean, I think it’s it’s so nuanced from person to person for sure. But there are obviously all these similarities attached to suicide that, you know, that kind of connects you know, connect suicides in general. I think that
Victoria: Maybe the better maybe the better question is, how much of it do you think is unresolved grief?
Lisa: Taking your life, I don’t know if I don’t know if it’s unresolved grief as much as unresolved pain. Not that there is too much of a distinction between the two, like grief is pain, but I think that when I talk about suicide in this context. I always say the same thing. The people who have taken their lives are not taking their lives to get away from you or to get away from me or to get away from their family or their community or their friends or their life. They’re taking their own life because they cannot emotionally go on anymore.
They they there is no way that they can exist and be joyful or exist and be productive. Like, they’re in pain. And it took me a really long time to arrive at that understanding. And once I did, it was like it was like ninety day instantaneous that the kind of mind shift that happened for me personally because I when my cousin passed away in nineteen seventy seven, and that was my as I said, it was my first experience with suicide. Not because anyone implanted this belief system in my head, but because I cultivated it all by myself, I just kind of silently quietly believed going forward in my life that suicide was a very selfish act, which is a very, very common response to suicide.
You’re like, well, why couldn’t they just speak up? Or Why couldn’t it work through it or why couldn’t they get help? Not that simple, but it wasn’t until I learned about my own father’s suicide. And really started studying mental illness and the impact of mental illness and depression and the fact that it’s just it’s an illness. It’s an illness that needs to be treated the way you would treat heart disease or cancer or, you know, the way that you would try to heal after an accident.
It’s no different. And it’s beyond your control, and that’s what people don’t understand. It’s so abstract. Like mental illness seems so abstract, but it’s an illness at the end of the day. And so it took me a long time to to recognize that it was really an issue of someone being so desperate to just stop hurting.
That’s why they take their life. It’s not selfish. It’s the only it’s the only choice they feel they’ve got, which is just unfortunate.
Victoria: I had a guest early on when my when I first started my podcast. In fact, it’s a two parter because we had quite an extensive conversation, but he was on the bridge, I believe, in San Francisco, and he was going to jump and take his own life. And
Lisa: Mhmm.
Victoria: You know, he had a brief second, but this thought that came over him and and stopped himself. And I and maybe there, perhaps, someone came on the bridge. That that might have been too. I mean, that’s been quite a while since I’ve recorded with him. But it’s one of my earlier episodes.
David is his first name. But he had shared with me and this is what I remember him sharing is that you know, the connection is the anecdote to having those suicidal thoughts. Like, connection is not the cure, but it is the the bridge to healing when you’re having those kinds of thoughts. What do you say to that?
Lisa: Oh, I absolutely agree with that. I think connection and community I’m I’m reading a book right now. By Francis Well, or I don’t know if you ever read it. It’s called the Wild Edge of sorrow. And He’s just just an absolutely brilliant man and he’s doing these, you know, grief and healing practices for years.
And he talked about that very specifically that he talked about the fact that at the end of the day, It’s community that helps us heal, it’s community that helps us grieve, it’s community that helps us navigate loss or tragedy or you know, some kind of misfortune. It’s by staying together as a unit and leaning on one another. Like, we’re not we’re not supposed to be here alone for a reason. We’re not We’re not all here by ourselves. We’re here to create these relationships.
And I think that community is is that linchpin that, you know, that can keep us rounded and, you know, and keep us kind of reinforced if that makes sense.
Victoria: What would you say to people who are listening and from your own personal experience Mhmm. Where they may feel guilt because their love their connection to the person just wasn’t enough.
Lisa: Mhmm. That’s a tough I mean, I’ve been I’ve been there. I’ve been in that position. I mean, granted I give myself a lot of leeway where that’s concerned because I was ten years old. So how can a ten year old really understand what a grown up is going through, especially like in the case of my father, he he didn’t he didn’t display like he was someone who was mentally ill, like he was hurting like nothing.
We knew absolutely nothing. But, I mean, as I’ve gotten older, you know, it’s impossible to avoid having those feelings of guilt. Like, if if I had asked him more questions or if I had stayed closer to him, it’s inevitable and it’s human nature. You know, we we blame ourselves because we just we feel so helpless and we feel like you know, what could we have said, what could we have done? I mean, I know all of us in our friend group who lost our friend a few years ago, kicked ourselves for a very long time.
What did we miss? What did we not see? How could we possibly not known this was so imminent. And you gotta release yourself from that. You really have to release yourself from that, especially when you’re in a situation where you would absolutely know what idea that the person is struggling.
Like that, you don’t you you can’t help but you don’t know, which is why it’s so incredibly important for the person who is hurting to reach out, reach out to a friend or a family member, a place where you feel safe or call a lifeline, or if you’re, you know, if you’re already connected with a therapist, like be, open, be honest because that’s the only way that people can ever help is when they know.
Victoria: People might be asking themselves then listening. Is the responsibility on the person struggling?
Lisa: I think two that’s a hard one. Two point maybe to a point in terms of vulnerability, sure. I think in as much as they have the capacity to reach out and just say, if it’s only a matter of saying, hey, I’m not okay. I need help. I mean, I think it’s it’s like anything.
It’s a shared responsibility. Like, when you’re talking about, you know, when you’re talking about community a minute ago, I think it’s everybody’s responsibility to be looking out for everybody and to care for each other and to check-in on each other. So I I think it’s all a shared responsibility to a point. I mean, I think that when a person is struggling and at that, like, on the brink and that close to making that kind of decision, thinking about suicide, it becomes challenging because I don’t, you know, you don’t know how much they have the capacity to reach out or to articulate. It can be really parallelizing that kind of depression that’s always attached to that level of pain that can really mess your head up.
It can really contaminate your thinking and and your, you know, it it can create a lot of irrational thought processes and I think, you know, it’s as much of their responsibility to try and articulate just that they’re not okay, and then it’s our response validate and meet them the other half of the way and say, what can I do? How can I help?
Victoria: In my training that I have received, but mental health and grief and all of that. One of the things that I think is a misconception for a lot of people is that if they come right out and ask, Do you have thoughts or have you had thoughts of harming yourself? You’re not gonna send that person down that spiral. Right? They’ve already had those thoughts if the answer is yes.
Lisa: But I
Victoria: think sometimes they’re just people who are struggling are just waiting for someone to ask. Yeah. It’s like the elephant in the room, you know.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. What that does? I’m glad you brought that up because it’s such an important piece of of this whole equation. It is a very big misconception that by suggesting that someone, you know, is that low that you’re gonna cause them to harm themselves.
The truth of it is, there have been so many studies that have supported that it’s actually the opposite. When you address that elephant in the room right away with that line very specific language to, like, are you thinking of killing yourself? I know it’s so off putting and jarring. Even GCU and I just talking about asking that question is like people get a visceral reaction to it because it’s so intense. But what it’s actually proven is that it validates the person’s feelings.
It gives them that that that doorway to help that, you know, that opening to say, I’m actually not, okay. And, you know, people I think a lot of people hesitate to ask the question because they’re really they’re scared to death about what the answer be in, like, how the hell do I handle it? If somebody says, well, yeah. Actually, I’m not okay. What what the hell do I do for now?
But it’s not your responsibility. And I’m saying, when I say it’s not your responsibility, I’m speaking now to whoever you are, who knows someone who is struggling. It’s not your responsibility to fix the problem. So take that out of the equation because that is not the responsibility that falls on you. What you can do is empower that person who’s struggling with someone who can help.
Empower them with if it’s nothing more, then, hey, I know you’re I know you’re struggling. I can hear it. Can you call nine eight eight? Call the lifeline? Or in my case, because I I work with the Trevor project, call the Trevor project hotline.
Or reach out to your therapist. And it’s about getting that person connected with the people who can help. That’s all that someone kind of needs to have in their back pocket. It’s just that the knowledge of those lifeline numbers or even that they exist and just and just make that suggestion.
Victoria: Can you share a little bit more about the Trevor project and how you’re halfway into this?
Lisa: Yeah. That was that it’s kind of an interesting little journey for me. So the Trevor Project for for people who are listening who don’t know is the country’s largest LGBTQ centric support lifeline, excuse me, more or LGBTQ youth ages thirteen to twenty four who are crisis. So we are nationwide. We also have an office in Mexico.
And we take calls twenty four hours a day, seven days a week from youth and crisis in the LGBTQ community who are struggling with everything that you could possibly imagine someone would call it like flying with, whether it be stressed about coming out or suicidal ideation or homicidal ideation or abuse or homelessness. Any reason why anyone would call a life flight. But in a way that I got on involved with it is that it’s a for me, it felt like the natural intersection of everything that’s really just important to me, my my top priorities in the world. Obviously, I lost my father and a friend and a cousin suicide. And crisis lifeline is one of their, you know, their biggest pillars.
And the other is, you know, the LGBTQ community and my oldest daughter who is going to be twenty seven came out when she was in college. And I came out as pansexual. I guess it’ll be three years ago this summer, this pride next month. And for me, it was a no brainer to be aligned with an organization that was, you know, both supporting the LGBTQ community and supporting people who are in crisis and who are struggling. So I they came on my radar probably when my daughter came out is when I became more aware of them.
And stayed on my radar for the longest time. And then about three years ago, I thought, you know, when I started getting very public about you know, the way my work was shifting and started telling my story more openly, I thought, you know what, this now is the time. So I got involved and I trained with them to be a crisis counselor on their, like, we have a text line and a traditional phone lifeline. So I’m one of the phone lifeline counselors. And I’m on the left line as often as I can be taking calls from people who are in crisis.
Victoria: When did it originate?
Lisa: Trevor celebrated, so we’re in our twenty sixth year. Wow. Yep. Yep. It’s has a really neat little origin story.
So twenty six years ago, there the three founding members were there was a film about a little boy named a high school boy named Trevor, and he was he was struggling with his sexuality. And the movie, the little short video, was up for an academy. And they played the video during the Academy Awards because I think it was like a twelve or fifteen minute video stage. I played the whole thing and they played in excerpts. But the producers of this video and and creators of this video said, you know what?
We’re playing this thing. We really have to have a kind of a work system. We’re playing it to encourage people to reach out when they need help. We really should have something in place for people who are watching this video now to reach out. So they started a lifeline.
And along with the video being played during the academies, they had they flashed its number up on the screen, and I think they got something like fifteen hundred calls that night, and the lifeline has been in place ever since.
Victoria: Wow.
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. Twenty six years later.
Victoria: Like, what’s your latest book that you’ve written since you’ve made this transition in your work and your writing and all of that. I’m like, what the latest book? How is how is your writing shifted?
Lisa: It’s shifted dramatically. I mean, my voice and tone has always been the same no matter what I’m whether I’m writing about parenting or whether I’m writing about mental health and wellness. It’s it’s very conversational. I write like I talk. And I actually just signed a a book contract for my next book with my longtime publisher, Familias Publishing, to write a book about my my father’s story that because I’ve I’ve lost them twice in my life.
Mhmm. And I’m I’m really gonna be doing a lot of incorporating of a lot of the resources and the toolkits that you mentioned earlier that are on my website. I want there to be a huge resource section. For people to access who are struggling either with with suicide, with mental health in general, with grief and loss, And I have I’ve developed and curated an awful lot of tools. You’ve mentioned those as well.
People can download them, share them, access them. I wanna incorporate that into the book. So my story about my father will really kind of be the vehicle for having the the bigger more important conversations about surviving a suicide loss and and navigating that. So that’s what I’m working on now. And I believe the tentative publication date is twenty twenty five.
Twenty twenty five or twenty twenty six, but we’re we’re just in the beginning stages.
Victoria: What did your life look like after you found out how he died.
Lisa: If you were looking at me, if you were a friend of mine, like even a close friend. Most likely, you would not have known that there was anything going on under the surface. I I blew up I completely blew up inside. And for the better part of the first, I would say, three years, I would premise to sleep at night. My kids didn’t even know what was going on for the first three years because it was such a shock to me.
I I felt like I was dealing with my my own brand new grief. Like, I was starting day one all all over again and day one, minute one of losing my father all over again, but now under completely different circumstances. And I was trying to navigate that the best I could, which wasn’t very good. And I was trying to navigate helping my mom because remember for for thirty five years, my mother didn’t talk about this to a single bowl, and I wanted to be there for her. I wanted her to be able to somehow process things in a different way.
And so we were just very insular about it. It was just my husband Dave knew my mom and I knew. And I was very much one person to the outside world and very much a different person. Like, when the when the bedroom door closed at night, I was in pieces. And it wasn’t until I started I I started You never come to terms with anything like this fully.
You just learn how to deal with it and process it and live with it in different ways, in better ways, I suppose. Once I got to that point where I felt like I could start talking about it, I told the girls, and my husband and I said, we need to talk to them because they need to know what their DNA looks like now versus what it looked like before, because now they’ve got, you know, they’ve got some degree of mental illness in their DNA. That’s my father had some mental illness. It was a lot that came out that existed on my father’s side. And we all inherit that.
There’s, you know, that that generational trauma and that cocktail that’s you know, manifest in different ways and different people. And I felt that it was really important for them to understand kind of, you know, what was in my background and their background and and it’s ever at any point in their lives, they started having issues or struggling, which, you know, that they were of that age where that’s typically the time period where mental illness or challenges will start to emerge. And sure enough, my my oldest had a a lot of issues with anxiety and depression and ultimately went into therapy and found just incredible success in in going into therapy and going on medication changed her life. Absolutely changed her life and for the better. And once I told the girls that was it, I just immediately started sharing this the truth and never look back in sharing ever since.
Victoria: Was that the most healing that you found was in sharing?
Lisa: Yeah. I think initially that was incredibly cathartic for me just to know that I was I was embracing the truth. I was acknowledging the truth. I I was not I never felt really like it was a stigma. To me, I never felt like it.
I think I feel I feel like by the time I learned about my father, the world was already shifting in terms of the stigma around suicide. I think we went through a big awakening culturally where we’re talking about mental illness so much more and wellness and suicide and IDiation and self harm. And all of these things are so much more mainstream now than they ever were before. So I feel like that that was very helpful to me. In that way.
But writing about it has been, you know, and talking about it like this has been equally as cathartic for me. And I think one of the biggest things, every single time I go on shift, on a lifeline shift with Trevor Project, I think about my father. Every single time I pick up the phone and answer a call from someone who’s struggling every time I deescalate someone who may be higher imminent risk of suicide I feel an incredible sense of gratitude to be able to be in that position, to do that, and to be that person that can hold space for that moment in time for that person who’s struggling. So all those things combined have been healing for me.
Victoria: Thank you for that work that you are doing. By the way, welcome. You’re welcome. What has your grief taught you?
Lisa: That’s a big question. I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me. In all the conversations that I’ve had, I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that. I think it’s taught me that I’m a lot more resilient than I ever believed myself to be. And then at the same exact time, I’m a lot more vulnerable.
And affected by it than I ever believed I could be. For me, I think I’ve learned that openness and transparency and sharing my story is It’s such a valuable tool. It’s taught me that I can be of service to other people, my lived experience while it may be very nuanced. Everybody’s is very nuanced. You don’t usually need people who have lost the same person twice in their life and grieve twice, so I have a little bit of a unique story in that way.
But I’ve had a lot of experience with grief and loss and I’ve learned that the more I talk about it, the more I heal, and the more it seems that other people benefit from it. So It’s taught me that putting it out there is one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself.
Victoria: And maybe to someone you don’t even know.
Lisa: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean that. I mean that as well, for sure.
Yeah.
Victoria: What is one thing that you would share with people who are listening, who are struggling.
Lisa: Mhmm.
Victoria: And then also, what is one thing that you would share with people? Who are in support of or want to support someone, that may be something you haven’t shared already. Maybe that helped you or that in your training and things that you’ve learned along the way?
Lisa: So in terms of, you know, what I would share. If someone’s struggling, I would say just give yourself some grace. The way that you feel right now in this moment, this this heaviness, this this place of despair or hopelessness is not the way you will always feel. There is there is a change that happens. There is another side to these these feelings and this kind of desperation.
So I would say be patient with yourself. And gift yourself a little bit of time to be, you know, to to to allow yourself to be where you are at this moment. I I say it this way often meet yourself exactly where you are right now. Don’t try and get ahead because you’ve got to be where you are right now. You’ve got to sit in the feelings.
Even if they’re shitting feelings to sit in, even if they’re so painful and so difficult, it’s so important to allow those to penetrate because when we compartmentalize them and pursue them away, we try and negate them or avoid them, they’re gonna come back hard, and they’re gonna take you down when you don’t see it coming. So you know, it may not sound like great advice, but when you meet yourself where you are right now, it can be one of the greatest gifts you give yourself because you get to dictate the pace. You get to decide when you move forward and how you move forward. So that’s what I would say to that. And in terms of, I guess, coping strategies or things that that I would tell people to do, like, self care, self care, like, whatever that looks like to you, whether it’s giving yourself permission to say no, I don’t feel like socializing tonight.
Or I I think I need to spend time getting these feelings that I have in my head and my heart out. If you wanna talk to someone who is a safe person or maybe you wanna put them down in a journal or maybe you need to go in nature and go for hike or walk or maybe you need to go for a run or maybe you practice yoga and that is a place where you can kind of detach I would say, let yourself focus on on doing those kinds of things to kind of recharge, to help yourself you know, what do they say about a a radiator? You’ve got to bleed the radiator, so it doesn’t blow up. And we’ve got to do that with our emotions. So I would say whatever your thing is, that and everybody knows what their thing is so well.
Whatever your thing is, let yourself do that thing as a way of helping yourself to heal. That’s what I would say.
Victoria: I like the metaphor of using or analogy of using luggage. And so ever since we were children, we’ve been packing her luggage. Something happens. Like, I lost my dad. He would when I was eight, he was forty four years old, packed that suitcase.
My grandmother died a year before him. I packed that suitcase. Molested, packed a suitcase. You know, like, in by the time I was in my early twenties, like, I had a lot of luggage. I was dragging with me from the past.
Right?
Lisa: Yeah.
Victoria: And I think all of that luggage can just get so overwhelming to lug around. You don’t get to where you are. In your suffering and in your pain overnight. Yeah. Can’t expect that you’re going to get healed overnight.
So it’s just looking at that one suitcase. I’m gonna look at this one suitcase. What is what do I need to take from this suitcase. What can I remove one garment at a time? And that’s really I think I just started chipping away.
You know, because I felt I started with the postpartum. There were so many struggles that I had. I thought I was doomed for suffering and I just want to share with people. Just start with one suitcase. Yeah.
One thing. And a
Lisa: beautiful image. Yeah.
Victoria: Yeah. Bring some support in in doing that. Mhmm. Find the thing that you resonate with. Find the person that is safe for you.
Mhmm. Just baby steps. You don’t have you know, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Right.
Lisa: That’s right. Well, that’s right. That’s that’s why I say just you get to set the pace. Mhmm.
Victoria: You
Lisa: know, and it’s it’s very much a marathon. It’s not a sprint. So in in that context, you get to decide how you cover that ground. But every step that you take, it doesn’t matter what the pace is. Every step you take is forward motion.
That’s, you know, progress. If you wanna look at it that way. And while in the case of grief and loss, we never stop grieving for our people. Like, you know that? I know that most people who are listening to this know that.
You don’t stop. What we’re all doing here, what you and I are doing by having this conversation is giving people you know, the tools to learn how to navigate the trip a little easier. Maybe be a little lighter, maybe, you know, find hope a little sooner. That’s that’s the point because at the end of the day, for me, one of the things and this goes back to what you asked, what do I learn about grief? I’ve learned not to fear it.
I’ve learned not to try and push it away because to me, And I’ve I’ve lost, you know, we’re talking about the three people who I’ve lost, you know, father, cousin, and a friend, but I’ve that’s just a suicide. I’ve lost grandparents, aunts, uncles. I mean, I’ve lost friends. I I’ve been accompanied my grief my entire life. I don’t wanna stop grieving for those people because I love those people and those people are a part of the fabric of my life.
They’re part of that whole catastrophe of my life. So I wanna wrap myself in that quilt of them all the time. All of these people that I’ve lost So my grief while at the same time that it’s sad is also the thing that keeps me tethered to those people. So I think that was that was pretty transformative for me too when I finally kind of arrived in that place of understanding that. That it wasn’t something to push away.
It wasn’t something to barrier to fear. It was something to in a strange way in this Francis Sweller that I mentioned earlier, the author of the wild edge of sorrow writes that, you know, that’s how we keep our people alive. You know? And I think we all need to stay attached in whatever way is most meaningful to us.
Victoria: And we wouldn’t be who we are without those people in our lives.
Lisa: One hundred percent. Yep.
Victoria: Just like you listening the people in your life wouldn’t be who they are without you.
Lisa: Mhmm.
Victoria: Is there anything else that you would like to share that you feel like you didn’t get to. I mean, I think I could we could talk for hours. We could talk for hours.
Lisa: I mean, you’re all day. I love this is the kind of conversation that I feel so empowered to have. Like, I’m so grateful to be able to reach new people and, you know, in new communities. So I’m grateful to you from this opportunity. I mean, I think I would suggest to people that you take a minute and look around you at the people in your life.
There’ll be two cohorts of people. There’ll be the people who appear okay and grounded and settled and driven and joyful on the outside. And then you’ll be you can look at them and you can say, okay, I know that person is struggling. It’s because maybe they’re more vocal with it, maybe it’s their affect, maybe in a lot of different signs of signals. I would say, treat each one of those groups the same.
I would make it a point to check-in on your people. Make it a point whether it’s the people who seem great or if it’s the people who you know aren’t, back in with them. Ask them how they really are. Ask them if they’re okay. Ask them what they need.
Ask them how you can help because sometimes And this this applies especially to the people who don’t make their struggles very visible. When you open a door for someone, sometimes that’s all they’re looking for. That’s all they need. They just need to know it’s a safe ways to share what’s really going on. You know, people people like my father get very skilled at hiding what’s going on just under the surface.
And yeah, I know. I mean, it’s so common. I feel like way more people are fighting the truth of what’s going on than aren’t. And I think that we just need to be a little bit more sensitive of each other and make each other more of a responsibility. That’s how we get back to that, that have a whole sense of community, you know, back in the day when you know, my parents were young.
They lived with their grandparents and their extended families. And I my husband and I actually both grew up the same way, living with grandparents. But most of our friends did not. And, you know, nowadays these generations, you know, you you get married, you go off, you’re separated from your extended family. And people are living in these isolated little pockets.
And people aren’t there to check-in on each other and interact with each other and support each other in the ways that maybe people are used to a little bit more often. So when you get back to that, which circles right back to the beginning of our conversation about the importance of community and the importance of having support systems. So that’s what I think I would say to people. It’s just kind of be watching, be vigilant, and take your own pulse every once in a while too because you can’t help anybody, you can’t pour from an empty cup.
Victoria: Right? They bring up a good point, so you had talked about three years. You struggled, not necessarily in silence because your husband and your mother knew, so you had their support. But I’m curious if you’re daughters were, like, shocked. Once you’ve I mean, two counts.
I mean, eventually, once he said, oh, the past three years have been a living hell internally, and the people that knew you were like, whoa. Really? Like, I had no idea. And so how did you reconcile that? You know, knowing that the work you do now, you’re struggling in silence, would you have done things differently?
Lisa: Also good. You’re asking me all these really good questions that no one ever asked me before. I probably would have allowed myself to be more vulnerable earlier on. One thing that I would have done probably much sooner, much, much sooner, was start seeing a therapist again. So when I was when I was young, my first experience seeing a therapist, I was college age, and I had taken a gap year before gap years were even a thing.
And I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with my life, and my friends were already kind of established in schools and in programs and majors, and I just felt like I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I struggled with that. And so I started seeing a therapist to kind of navigate that, work through that, we only really very briefly at times touched on my father in terms of big life events that kind of shaped who I was. I didn’t know he was you know, he had taken his life, so I that was not a part of our conversation. And I was in therapy like that for a number of years, and then I kind of found my way and and got on my path and and didn’t see another therapist for three decades, three and a half decades.
And I finally got to the point about two years ago when I said, you know what, I need something for me. I mean, My husband’s amazing. He has held more space for me than anyone has probably ever held for anyone. And my mother the same, but it’s different when you have that impartial person who doesn’t know your history, who doesn’t know that the social dynamics and the damiliar hierarchy and those dynamics, and that’s something I would have done right from the jump, I think. If I could have gone back and done it again.
Maybe not done anything differently in terms of telling my children, I didn’t want to tell them prematurely. I wanted to make sure that they had kind of the capacity to deal with that. Like they were teenagers, and it was heavy. And what I was talking about was something incredibly intense that I wanted to make sure they could deal with. So I don’t I I don’t regret waiting for that.
But, yeah, I probably would have, you know, been a little bit more open about it. But to the rest of the family, and I I probably would have done therapy sooner.
Victoria: That’s a good answer. And the reason why I asked too is because you know, we can have these regrets. Right? And that’s grief. And you had spoken and touched on, like, at the point you didn’t know what to do with your life.
You weren’t sure and you were struggling, and that’s kind of what caused you to seek help and support. But how much of it do you think? Like, it’s just in hindsight now. It’s like, of course, your the loss of your father and your cousin had greatly impacted you, but I just see so many kids like today. Like, there’s divorce and there’s just the heaviness of the world and social media and kids are just mean.
Right? Kids are just mean. Yeah. It’s like Yeah. It’s it’s so can you just speak briefly to maybe the and I don’t know that a lot of young, young people are listening to this, but surely their parents or caregivers are can you speak to supporting someone who was like you?
Who didn’t know, like, who felt like a fish out of water, right, floundering and
Lisa: You know, I I really think in the same way that I was suggesting that people meet themselves where they are. I think that’s the advice that I would also give someone trying to help a friend is meet them, meet that friend exactly where they are, hold the space, in the way that the friend who’s struggling needs you to hold it. You know? I mean, like I said before in the context of being a crisis counselor, like, you’re not there to solve the problem. Especially if someone who’s grieving a loss, any kind of a loss, whether it’s the loss of a a human being who’s passed away or the loss of a a job or the loss of a relationship or, like, there’s so many.
Like you said, there’s so many different sets of losses in the world. I would say, be there to support them in whatever way they need to be supported, but don’t go into it at thinking you’ve got to fix it and solve it because in most cases it’s unsolvable. You know, in the case of someone losing someone and and someone who’s grieving, there is no turning back, back clock. You know, it’s more about just moving forward trying to maybe encourage that person to figure out what they need. That’s a big one because oftentimes when someone’s grieving, they don’t know what the hell they need.
They don’t know where to go, where to turn, who to who to ask for help, you know, ask someone to go for a walk, ask someone to go to a movie, ask someone if they need help finding a therapist, if they don’t have one, cook a meal, one of the things I learned is not to ask open ended questions. Like, what can I do to help you? You know, I’m I’m there. Just just whatever and I get caught on doing this all the time. We all we all did this kind of thing all the time.
Be deliberate. Be intentional. Can I cook you dinner? Can I take you to dinner? Can I do some errands for you?
Can I pick up your dry cleaning? Can I pick up your kids at school? Like, what whatever the case is? I think those are the ways that I know that when I’ve been grieving, when I’ve been in that situation that needed help, those were the things that were the most helpful to me.
Victoria: Is there anything else that you would like to share?
Lisa: You know, I would just say, even if you’re someone who is private and a lot of people are, I am very much very much so. I am private in spite of the fact that everything I do is so public. I write about everything I write about is, you know, out there for the world to see. A lot of people are not comfortable sharing what’s going on the inside. I would say give people around you the benefit of the doubt.
Give the people in your life, the benefit of the doubt that that they can help you. That they can somehow offer support, trust. You know who you can trust. We all know who we can trust the most.lean into that.lean into the people who are there who want to support you. In the ways that you need them because at the end of the day, we’re not meant to go through any of the stuff alone.
Victoria: And to piggyback that, I just had a thought. Your children are not your therapist.
Lisa: No. No. So if you are a parent
Victoria: who is struggling, your children are not your therapist,
Lisa: agreed.
Victoria: Yeah. Yeah. Played that role for a very long time.
Lisa: Yeah. That’s right. But it’s just made me who I
Victoria: am, I guess. Yeah. You know?
Lisa: That’s right. That’s right. And and that’s the thing. You know, I mean, you know, we all we all have things we wish we could, you know, we could redo. But at the end of the day, we’re all we’re where we are because of those things.
So do we really wanna change those things or do we wanna just, you know, use them as teachable moments and and you know, be better going forward.
Victoria: I love that. Yeah. Just give a hug. Yeah. You have your parent and you need a hug.
You know, your kid probably needs the hug too. Mhmm. My daughter gives the best hugs to seventeen and yeah. She just and she won’t let go. Like, she is like, she will not let you go.
Lisa: Oh, I love that. I love that. I probably bug both of my daughters about hugs a little too much. My so my oldest lives in Japan. So I have to ration.
Like, I have to I I can’t go in too hot when I get off the plane. I all I wanna do is hold her for, like, three days, and she’s like, look. I will give you all the hugs that you want. You gotta you gotta pace yourself a little bit, or we’ll never get out of the airport. So Yeah.
But my kids are good ones too.
Victoria: My daughter knows psychologically a minute. Needs to be at least a minute.
Lisa: Mhmm. Yeah. I like that. That’s that’s like that’s an, like, a that’s an adequate amount of time to really, like, embrace the hug.
Victoria: Gotta let those good feelings that those good feeling adorphins come up and she knows that. So
Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. That’s that’s that’s good insights. It’s it’s a it’s a child who comes from a good place.
Victoria: Yeah. Our kids teach us too. Share her. Forget that. Well, thank you so much for being a part of my podcast and the mission of my podcast, which is to make it less taboo to talk about grief, to talk about mental health and suicide and all the ways that we grieve and the experiences that shape us.
So thank you so much for sharing your story. For the work that you do. And I will put all the links to the show notes, but please share again where people can find you and connect with you.
Lisa: Sure. The best place I mean, I’m on all the socials. Lisa underscore Sugarman on Instagram. The Lisa Sugarman on Facebook, but the best place to to catch everything that I do is lisa sugarman dot com. And I know at the beginning of the show, you mentioned the resource of the mental health resources hub that I have on my website and the toolkit hub that I have.
And and that’s like a to me, that’s probably the crown jewel of the website for me. I’ve spent an awful lot of time and effort pulling together all these resources, betting all these resources, and they’re there for anyone who is struggling or if you know someone who’s struggling, please go on my website I’ve got about sixteen different categories. It’s a very inclusive website. Doesn’t matter who you are, what your background is. I hopefully have help that’s right for you, so take a peek.
Victoria: Thank you again. And remember, When you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
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:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
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.
Divorce, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Life with Human Design, Parenting, Podcast |
Amy Douglas | From Betrayal and Loss To Manifesting Joy
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
How much betrayal and loss can the heart take within less than two years?
Today’s guest shares how betrayal, loss, unsurmountable grief, and a decline in health catalyzed her personal growth.
Amy chose to empower herself by getting a life coach and learning new tools that enabled her to recalibrate her life and move forward beyond the hurt, pain, and emotional hurricane she felt stuck in for too long.
In this episode, we dabble into Amy’s experience with Human Design, what she’s learned about herself, and how Human Design became the permission slip to radically change things, including leaving her corporate job.
We have all experienced something that challenges our beliefs and who we thought others were. We may question who we are and our role in the mess, and often, fear and expectations play a role and serve a purpose in making sense of our experiences.
Listen to today’s episode to hear Amy’s perspective on fear, how learning her Human Design helped her change her approach and point of view of expectations, and so much more!
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
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NEED HELP?
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- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. I’m so excited for this episode because I’m talking with Amy Douglas. She is a human design reader. And I have been working with her as her client. But today’s episode is about her sharing her grief journey in what she’s learned through human design about herself and her grief. And I’m just really excited to bring this knowledge to the podcast because, like, one of my favorite quotes is the more you know yourself, the less you look to others to tell you who you are. And so human design is just another tool in the toolbox to help you to better understand yourself. And so Amy, thank you so much for being here and sharing about your journey today and thank you for your time.
Amy Douglas: Well, thank you for inviting me. I’m thrilled to be here. I’m excited for our conversation. Grief is not something that we all love to touch on but reflecting on it and empowering ourselves to move through it’s such a critical part of our own evolution and definitely human design. I feel like in my journey with human design. If I were to say, you know, that I have felt grief by learning my design, it was the grief of not allowing myself to be what I chose for myself for so many years. And the grief of thinking or feeling that those ways that I chose for myself and my design were wrong because they’re not it’s just sad, we’re so full of not enoughness and design hasn’t powered me to release a lot of that, not enoughness, offer some deep compassion and understanding for myself and others. I love your quote. It’s so true. I see so many people looking to others for the answers, the right ways to do things, and they’re all within us. We just really get to take the time, to sit with ourselves, to uncover that.
Victoria Volk: People might not be familiar with human design can you just briefly cover what that is? And also too, like, we are both manifestors design, which is only like nine percent of the population and often the most misunderstood. So imagine the grief that that has caused us in our lives alone.
Amy Douglas: So true in being female manifestors. Right? Like, there’s there’s so many layers to it. So human design is, another one of those architectural ways to help us discern, kind of who we are. But there are a lot of different modalities that were brought in together, but I want you to just if you hear nothing else, it’s basically the blueprint or the owner’s manual, operators manual, that you chose for yourself to tell you how you are meant to be existing in this three-d experience. And who knew? We had an owner’s manual that told us so many ways like how we’re meant to make decisions, and how we process fear, and how we’re meant to digest food and life there’s, I mean, down to so many things that it really just offers you the opportunity to say, oh, this is what I chose for myself. Very much to your point instead of looking to others to help point us in it, quote unquote, right direction.
Victoria Volk: And I imagine like me who’s just now starting to get down the human design rabbit hole again after I dabbled in it maybe a year ago and just coming back to it now. But or human design, how did you navigate life without this manual? And what was your life experience before coming into human design?
Amy Douglas: So, I think I’m probably not different than many. We use our eyes and ears. To show us what is the path that we’re meant to take. And so whether that is witnessing it from loved ones, having someone tell you how to be and how to show up. I had a lot of that in my household. I’m the youngest of three girls. There was a lot of like this, be like this, don’t say that, don’t do that, don’t be too much, did it at, like, not necessarily the Barbie monologue, but you could probably put some words to that as well. And so I was trying to run at a pace in my life that I had witnessed was the way like, there was a lot of pride and applause for being really busy doing a lot of things and not like being quote unquote lazy there. That was a really that l word was really kind of ingrained into our household. We were not gonna tolerate laziness Well, can we redefine what lazy is? Because like, I mean, we all have the opportunity to sit and be with who we are.
Amy Douglas: I think a big pivotal change for me that led to a lot of grief in my life in twenty fourteen. I had a lot of loss in my family. I lost my dad in April. He was only sixty seven and had been battling a lot of hard stuff for nine years. So, we kind of said he had nine lives. And the last one was the taker. And then shortly after that, my mom became very ill. A lot of it was grief. Let’s be honest. They’ve been together their whole life. She ended up spending the entire summer in the hospital almost lost her a couple times. She had severe ulcerative colitis and thankfully, she’s got it at bay, but it was really challenging to negotiate and navigate her being in the hospital after losing dad. And her grieving in the hospital, in a hospital bed was traumatic. And then not no sooner did we get her home and my brother-in-law dropped dead in the shower. I mean, my mom and my sister within four months becoming widows together, it just was insurmountable. And yet I was kind of the rock in the family. Like, we’re all gonna be fine. I’ll help take care of everything. And that’s kind of what I did. I never really let myself feel anything. And honestly, to be real just completely transparent, I kinda like shut off my heart after my divorce about five years before that. I kinda just said, alright, my husband of seventeen years been together twenty, father both of my children left with my best friend. I don’t know where to process that, so I won’t I’m just gonna put on the happy face and exist. Run at the pace that I know will have me running away from any of those feelings. And then fast forward losing, so many family members and just a lot of grief with that.
Amy Douglas: And then in twenty fifteen, my dog who’d got me through my divorce and was only four years old, was diagnosed with lymphoma, and I’m like, oh, hell no, that’s the one person in that note has seen witnessed everything, one person, one thing that had witnessed everything. And so then, you know, whenever I lost him toward the end of fifteen. I was like, what the hell am I doing? And sixteen just really started a deep journey of just my own self discovery and just a lot of letting go of ways of thinking that I had to be. Really giving myself the opportunity to be very curious what I was feeling in my life. Started my journey. I hired a coach. I didn’t I mean, from the Midwest. We didn’t know what those words but my good friend, Google said that’s what you need sunshine if you’re gonna pull out of this. And so I hired a coach out of the West Coast and I was still a very much a trust bit verify kind of person. So it felt only right for me to get the education myself didn’t tell Seoul, did everything under the radar. I wasn’t allowed to moonlight in my corporate life that I was still running a ridiculous pace at. And I empowered myself through lots and lots of deconditioning, lots of letting go, which is the practice that you use in the coaching modalities and just the healing spaces of the world. In twenty nineteen, the beginning of twenty nineteen, I quit my corporate life. And that’s the year that design brought itself into my experience. And I was like, okay, I know now that I’m ready for you, but I had to do for myself a lot of the layers of letting go and, you know, getting curious versus and dropping judgment and letting myself feel things again for the first time. I hadn’t done that. I really shut that part of me off. And design came when it was meant to, and I think it does for many. I resisted it first I was like, oh my god. Just another thing to tell me, whatever. But it wasn’t a questionnaire. I wasn’t answering questions, I know how to manipulate those to get the letters I want or the data that I want. This is very specific information about your birth details. So you can’t really fake those. And it just led to just a really beautiful way of me embodying and trusting myself and believing in myself and allowing me to be unapologetically me, which is what I said I was gonna do when I left my corporate life and I think human design was the open permissions slip to do that for me.
Victoria Volk: Was there a certain moment? Do you remember where you were? What you were doing? Like this was there like this aha moment or was this was there a certain thing? Or thought or experience. Because sometimes we have these pivotal moments, right, that just change the trajectory of our life. Like, because I know so many people who might be in the corporate hamster wheel, who are scared to leave that behind, who desire to venture onto something that is a more authentic expression of who they are. What do you say to those people? How did you do that?
Amy Douglas: In July of twenty eighteen, when I was still going through well, I was in a mastermind with a bunch of coaches, and we were all supporting each other and just I never thought I was gonna lead my corporate life. Like, that wasn’t even in my radar. I was a single mom raising my children on my own. Right? And I had one daughter that was in a private college that was ridiculously expensive. The labeling of it was irresponsible. Right? If I did that. It was safe and secure for me to stay where I was even though I was really it was becoming very clear that I was miserable. My body, our body is our greatest messenger. And from about twenty sixteen, and I’m sure this was very, very grief-related, I started having all these warning signs. My hair was falling now. I had extreme insomnia. I thought for sure that I was gonna have a heart attack in my sleep and my children were gonna find me dead in the morning. Just all these terrible fears, Western medicine, is like your picture health. I am an avid exercise or eat really healthy, meditate, I all the things. And yet, what was I dismissing? What was I not paying attention to? So I think for me to answer your question in July of twenty eighteen, I wrote a contract I was at a conference with a bunch of my peer coaches. And I wrote a contract with myself of what it was gonna take for me to actually leave my corporate life. Like, I’d been ruminating on that all of twenty eighteen. Like, could I do this? Is this really what I want? Can I be free? Like, freedom has been my word since my divorce and peace, which is the signature of a manifestor, okay, has been something that I have been for lack of a better word victory chasing like, okay. What does that feel like? When am I gonna know when I have it? What’s available to me when I do? And so I wrote this contract out, very logically very corporate intense. It’s like these things must be true in order for me to leave. And my peer coaches just gave me a little, a little tap. I had them sign it as my witnesses. I was like, okay, I’m making this contract. These things must come true. And one by one over the course of the next six months, I just they were all limiting beliefs and I just let all of them go. One by one. Those were things I did not have to note that did not have to be true because they were limitations. What are limiting beliefs? They’re beliefs that limit you. From the thing that you wanna be having, being, or doing. And so by December, it was just like, oh, yeah, I’m doing this. Actually, I was on vacation in November. And I said to another couple, well, I’m leaving my corporate life in January. That’s the first time I’d set it out loud. Then I was like, oh, and very manifestor like Right? Say it out loud, and then it becomes your reality. And then by the time I did it on January second, it was a transaction. It was like it was already done. And so I think the aha was actually that contract witnessing my peers going, wow, she’s still really holding herself back without saying those words. Right? Just being intuitive enough to witness their receipts of whatever I was trying to create for myself. And then doing the work to show myself. I didn’t have to have all of these things in place because again, I was creating that safety and security which is not allowing yourself to really take the leap for what you want in your life. And I finally did.
Victoria Volk: I don’t want to gloss over all of the losses that you just scribed before. And but I also wanna talk about this the idea of fear. So can we go back in time though to that divorce? And do you think that that was a catalyst for you to start coming into your own? Really?
Amy Douglas: Oh, my heavens. Yes. I used to make a joke. Like, it was and it’s very, like, I hear it in bitterness now, but it’s like, I take a vote and I always win. What I need to do for this and who gets to do that. And I used to say, but I’m like, how do you do it? How do you do everything on your own? I’m like, well, I figured out that once he left, the only thing he really did that I wasn’t already capable of doing was put the Christmas tree in the Christmas tree stands and open the pickle jar. So I stopped buying pickles. That was easy. And every time I bought a Christmas tree here, I did that, I brought the Christmas tree stand to the Christmas tree farm and had them install it because I can. So it’s just do you see, like, it was just like, did I have the avoidant attachment style. I have now I understand that I have that. And so it’s like, I didn’t need them anyway, type of energy. But it did really empower me to be like, okay, I now get to look at what I in those in those days, I was still saying what I need to do, what I should be doing, what I have to do. I don’t use any of those words anymore. Need, should, and have to, are full of resistance. It’s what I get to do. And it took me a couple years to get there, right? Because I was still really proving my open heart, proving to myself that I could do this. I didn’t need him. I’m good, losing my best friend along with it was hard. That grief is real. It still stings. And just people through your most trusted people in your life gone in a flash and that image of what your life was. It was real. It was really beautiful life. And I remember sitting in the car with my kiddos, we were getting ready to go into a movie. Same year of the divorce. And it just was somber because we used to go to the movies as a divorce, and it was one of our favorite things to do. And I just presidential. I turned the car off. And before we went into the theater, I said, I’m aware there’s only three of us in here. And yet, I’m so grateful that there’s the three of us in here. So how can we make this the best that it can possibly be? And I think that was a real catalyst for all three of us to just be like, okay, we can grieve the loss and we still do. And yet, we can create something different. And that helped us crawl out of a lot. I think because we just prescient it. We were honest about what we were feeling. We kinda did this thing of what are we sitting in the car, staying in the car. So if you’re mad about things or just it’s okay. It’s safe in the car. Safe in the car. And then it’ll stay in the car when we get out. We don’t have to take it with us, you know. We just tried to create some spaces that felt like we’re not gonna be judged for how we’re feeling. Right?
Victoria Volk: I love that. I love that idea. How old were your children at the time?
Amy Douglas: So they would have been Ten and twelve. Yeah. Nine and eleven, ten and twelve, those were some really really hard in eleven and thirteen because Yeah. Those were some really hard years. Yeah. I think, honestly, Victoria, My son just turned twenty three. He has had a major health journey this year. Oh, my goodness. And I think we are both. He’s also an emotional manifestor like us. And I think he is allowing himself to grieve the loss of his childhood, Mhmm. And I’m so proud of him doing it now. And not waiting and carrying it all these years. He’s like, maybe I should’ve waited a couple years, like, till I got out of college and I’m like, you. Happens when we’re meant to, let’s not let’s not resist it.
Victoria Volk: And the best friend. I mean, I imagine too, like, in the relationship you had an extended, like, in your friendship with her, but in your marriage with your husband, you had not just those relationships, but you had circles of friends. Right? And so it’s not just the husband and it’s not just the best friend, it’s the circle of friends, too. Like Mhmm. Was everything just gone and one fell swoop? Like,
Amy Douglas: Yes. Yes. Yes. And we were not from the town that we were in, that this happened, we were, transplants. And we hadn’t been here long enough to really I mean, you know, three or four years just doesn’t feel like long enough where, she and her husband were lifers. Well, now, ex husband were lifers and there was just a lot of scrutiny, a lot of harshness on myself and my children. And the sporting events that you would look forward to going to. Now we’re just so isolating and dreadful. And praying the kids weren’t treated differently, but both of them were. It was just terrible. It was because they had kids and their kids were the same age as our kids and the same gender and so in the same classes and
Victoria Volk: Oh my gosh.
Amy Douglas: A lot of finger-pointing, a lot of assumptions. And while I used to say I just grew really thick skin, I think it was just the epitome of learning that what other people thought about me were none of my business because what really mattered was what I thought about me. That’s the only way I knew how to keep moving forward because I knew I was a good person. I knew that I was gonna come out of this. I knew my children were amazing. And yet, man, just a lot. I tried to get them to just like, you know what? We’re just gonna travel. I’m gonna get a tutor. Run do our own lives, but, you know, too much change, just way too much change for everything. So
Victoria Volk: I’m glad you mentioned that because my next question was going to be, did you ever just consider, like, packing all your bags and just going somewhere else and starting over and making a fresh start and without all of these reminders. I mean, whether your husband passes away or whether you get a divorce or whether it’s this scandal scandalous relationship that you’re describing, where it’s two couples, families are being torn apart. It can be very easy to just, again, like you said, add on more change in things. What like, to have the self-awareness about that, like, and to have really the courage and the strength, to stand up to it. Mhmm. I don’t know a lot of people like you. I’m just gonna say that. I mean, I mean, I’ve been doing this podcast for four years and just knowing the nature of grief and the trauma that had probably on you and your life and your kids. Most people would have just ran the other way. I never think, what was it? You think that
Amy Douglas: My daughter, she’s my oldest, and I put the house on the market. I didn’t. It was a big house. We lived on a lot of acres. We had a horse farm because my daughter used to gloved ride horses, and it was gonna be a lot to just take care of and maintenance and expensive, etcetera. And she just begged. She just said, can we just not change this? And I said, okay. We won’t change the physical location, but we are changing the energy of the inside, and we just changed so many things. I repainted everybody new furniture made rooms, different rooms just to create a totally so it wasn’t like, oh, I remember sitting in here as a family. Right? I just It was like just giving ourselves a quote unquote facelift, just like, okay. If we can’t move and create a new experience somewhere else, we’re going to create a new one here for ourselves. And I’m like, or whatever color you want your room, whatever furniture you want. Like, if you had want bunk beds because you’re done with this, let’s just change it up. Let’s change everything that we can and see what it feels like. Open g center, all three of us, so that felt really good for us. And I would have escaped in a heartbeat. And yet, I really needed to honor where they were. And when they came home and wounded by something that was said. We just I pressed it for him. I just let them talk about it and shared with them kinda what I just shared it’s not really any of our business. And I know they chose to share what they were feeling, but they don’t know us. And you’re the one that gets to look in the mirror every day and lay your head on your pillow every night. So just choose how you want to feel about yourself and that little eye rubber your glue. Whatever bounces off me, sticks to you. Like hold that little childhood chant as best you can and don’t be afraid to tell others if someone has wronged you because we’re not here to take it all in and not get any support. I had them through, counseling if they needed it. I ended up with a life coach for my daughter. That’s what really counseling just was hard. And they just wanted to keep repeating what you’d been going through, and she just wanted she’s like, I don’t wanna feel this anymore. I wanna look at where I am and look at where I’m going and that’s what coaching offers. And it was so pivotal for her. I mean, she and my ex-husband were they were, like, two peas in a pod. So that was hard. She and I thought to be out the female in the We both wanted to raise my son and now we both celebrate that we both raised my son. But it was a big dynamic change in the house. It was a lot to adjust too. And while I did a lot of my own morning and grieving after they were at bed at night, I just didn’t really want them to know that I was going through that for some reason. Now they have both their twenty three and twenty five and have both said to me, god, mom, why’d you make it look so easy? And now I wish I wouldn’t have. But yet, I was doing the best I could with what I had new then. And now I’m honest and I share with them how dreadful it was. How unbelievably hard and I thought many mornings they would find me, in my bed, gone. And while I’m grateful for the ways that I have learned, I tell them all the time I raised you through a lot of my unresolved issues, unresolved traumas, unresolved grief, and I can help presence anything that you’re feeling now, and there’s nothing wrong with anything that you’re feeling. And that feels really good to just be able to have we are the closest tight-knit threesome, and it’s fun because my daughter marrying down my son. It’s inevitable. And just like building that and deepening that, it’s so fun to be a part of. But yet, there’s nothing that’s off limits that we talk about anything and everything. And I don’t know that we would have victory if we would have stayed married. I think we would have lived in that paradigm that, okay, we’re the adults and you’re the kids, and I just let all of that go. Nope, we’re all equals here. Everybody gets a voice. So thank goodness for that.
Victoria Volk: I had full body chills as you were sharing just about the, like, because what I heard what so many grievers do is they put on this armor to be strong for everybody around them. And so what I hear you saying is that you wished you would have dropped that armor in front of them. Mhmm. More.
Amy Douglas: And as I said, our body is our greatest messenger, grief is trapped in our body for sure. And I know that what was happening when my body was sending me louder and louder messages. And so finally, I started listening. I you know, before I just had the headphones on and the, like, the little of those things called the little blenders, you know, it’s like, I gotta move forward. Everything’s forward. Everything’s forward, I’ve gotta show them, you know, I’ll take on all their pain, so they don’t have to feel it. You know? And that wasn’t the answer either. But yet, at the time, it was the solution that felt most aligned until it didn’t And then once I started doing my own work and sharing it with them, you can hear it in them, you know, my coaching, what was what was happening for me, I started embodying and then there’s that ripple effect and my son just latched onto it like, Thank goodness. My daughter was a little more resistant. She’s got a little more energy in her design than I do, and she’s like, I know more than you, and they both do. Which is brilliant. My kids are my greatest teachers by far, but we were all open to hearing each other, giving each other the space to share who we were, what we were feeling And I’m grateful for that. And I’m grateful for the messages my body kept giving me. Otherwise, I would have kept up the facade that I’d built so well for myself, very intentionally because I didn’t want anybody to think that there was anything wrong. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. I’m always fine. I’ve had a friend tell me before. I never know if you’re happy. I never know if you’re sad. I never know if you’re hurting. Because you just show up and you listen in such a beautiful way. And I remember thinking, I don’t wanna do that anymore. I can be unapologetically me. That’s just the language that I knew when I left my corporate life. That’s that’s what I was choosing.
Victoria Volk: Which brings me to a question of when do you feel like it’s the manifestor type, and we’ll get into the types maybe yet in this episode or maybe not. If not, we’ll we’re gonna do a part two, friends. We’ll do a part two, and it’ll be all about human design because I love that rabbit hole, but do you feel like for a manifestor specifically anyone listening as a manifestor type, which you can find on or can you find that out?
Amy Douglas: My body graph is probably the easiest one. So and you need to know your birth time, hour, and minute your birth location, city and state, country, whatever that is, and then obviously your date of birth. Most people know that one without question. But that time and the location could be a little tricky. So those are just three important things. You plug them in and butter bing, butter boom, it spits it out for you.
Victoria Volk: So if you find out you are a manifestor, my question is, do you feel like it’s a manifestor thing that we really don’t allow ourselves to be held. We really don’t allow ourselves. Like, is it a manifestor thing? Do you see?
Amy Douglas: So much. So much. And we have what’s referred to as a closed protective aura. So we’re not easily read. We’re very mysterious. So because we’re not easily read and I had built a facade for myself that no one could see, I was impenetrable. Right? Like, unless I was sharing. And oftentimes now that I do understand that I am really, really meant to share my emotional experiences It helps others. That unlocked such as, like, wait. People wanna know this. People want to hear what I’ve been through. I thought that’s what I did for others. It just And I think, our aura doesn’t empower us to Like, we kind of we’re, like, a little bit off the, you know, like, I’m not sure. A little standoffish. Is this safe? Do I wanna be a part of this? You know? Or oh my goodness, is this gonna be exhausting once I get in? We don’t have the same level of energy as, seventy percent of our counterparts. So I think I’d always been juggling some of that, but just dismissing it, which is why my body got louder and louder, you know. A lot of adrenal fatigue, that’s not uncommon at all with manifestors by any stretch. Not knowing when an up is enough. We do not have that sacral energy that our counterparts do. And so and then you combine that with my open heart, which is, again, lots of human design lingo, but you put those two together and we just we don’t know enough is enough. And I sure didn’t, I was just like, nope, I have to do this. I have to, that’s just the way that and then I started softening and I was like, oh, no, I don’t. And I love my life so much differently than I did before. I love myself differently before because if I woulda loved myself, I wouldn’t have had to build a facade. Right?
Victoria Volk: Mhmm.
Amy Douglas: Because I wanted people to see me a certain way. And now I don’t care what people see because I know who I am and the right people I will be attracted to and will attract back to me to them.
Victoria Volk: Do you feel like there is a period of time where you were looking back at all of your friendships and relationships with people on just thinking how not fake but not authentic. Because if you’re not showing up, knowing who you are, knowing what you bring to the table, understanding what your desires and needs and wants are, you’re showing up for whatever that person wants you to be. So there’s no truth and honesty in that relationship.
Amy Douglas: Actually, I have put a lot of thought into this and a lot of my learning through design. So I have an undefined g center like you. And we’re really we are chameleons and we’re meant to’s, I did have someone say to me once, cut your suit different with your corporate people. And then with your kiddos, you’re so different. And then when you hang out with us, group, you’re so different. We’re meant to. We’re meant to because we’re trying those things on and then allowing ourselves to is this kind of like, which how do I wanna mold and what do I wanna do? So I’m grateful for the years. I allowed myself to do that. I think it felt right in the moment. I think there were things that I was craving that I thought that I could get with some of the connections I was in. And once I started doing my own growth journey that really started in twenty sixteen, I was realizing the toxicity in some of the choices once I was learning more about myself. But until then, I really do feel like my connections were genuine, but I don’t know if they were for migrate or good. I think it was because, oh, they needed something from me. And I felt good about giving that. And while I still get to do that in relationship that I have, that’s not what I’m most drawn to anymore. And a lot of my growth led to letting go of people in my life. And thankfully, I’m designed that it is relatively easy and comfortable for me, and I know it’s not for the other, but it’s not mine to carry. The longer I hold onto it, the more I’m resisting what’s really meant for me. And that has become an easier and easier process for myself, especially learning my design, and the connections that I crave and desire, but I didn’t realize how much I loved my own alone time. That’s very, very common for manifestors too.
Victoria Volk: I very much do too. Mhmm. So what was the role of fear in all of that life experience as you were going through all of that. And can you speak to, like, fear in our human design just a little bit? In your human design and just.
Amy Douglas: Yeah. So a lot of the fear is housed in the spleen, which is one of the nine centers that builds the body graph of human design. I have a defined spleen as to you. And so what when we have something and I’m using that word defined, It just means that we have consistent access to the energy that’s in that center. And the spleen is very instinctual, it’s very primal. Right? The bears coming, I must run. Okay? Let’s face it folks. We don’t have a lot of bears chasing us anymore. But we still are wired to feel that fight or flight. And I think the only fear that I feel like I have connected to in my life. Like, last year, I was living in Florida, and hurricane in came. And I had no fear for it whatsoever. And I was sitting in the eye for hours and everything around me was completely destroyed. I never even lost power, I lost connection with the outside world because we lost wifi, which was devastating for my six-month pregnant daughter. And I wish I could take that back because she has an undefined spleen. So what that means for her, she doesn’t have a consistent way to process that fear. And so it’s like, fear of not enoughness, fear of rejection, fear of repeating past mistakes. There’s a lot of that that’s housed in that center where I don’t feel a lot of that. I think my fear way back before I started my own journey was, what will everyone else think? And now I couldn’t care less, or how am I gonna screw up my kids? That’s the heaviest fear in the world. Is how can I make this easier for my children? Because they didn’t ask for this. And I’m an adult and they’re not emotionally mature enough to navigate this. Quite frankly, I wasn’t even sure if I was. Because as you heard me say early on, I just buried it down. I’m a thirty five year recovering binge eater. They never knew I was doing that. Hell, my ex-husband never even knew, but I was a binge eater. Right? I know how to hide things. But what was I hiding from? Basically, myself. And so I am thankful I’m also in my profile, I’m three in human design. And so I am just like, hey, run out there and see how this works or not. And I have done that my whole life. And I don’t have a lot of fear with like, when I moved to Florida, everybody was like, oh my god. You’re leaving everything behind. I’m like, I know is it great? They’re like, you don’t know anybody. I’m like, nope. Do you even know where you’re gonna live? Yes. I secured that online, like everybody else in the world, I have a lot of that energy about myself anyway, and I don’t go into with, like, I think that contract with myself in July of twenty eighteen has helped a lot in my journaling of flushing out any limiting beliefs that somebody might label as fear. Mhmm. And I just don’t I don’t like fear and excitement or born in the same place in our body. It’s our mind that labels it as such. And so I choose excitement. That’s what I choose.
Victoria Volk: I love that. One thing we talked about before we started recording was because you have so much loss. This is where I’m, like, where do we start? Right? And I had my losses starting very early on in my life. I was a young child. And so I feel like I’ve gotten the worst part kind of over with. Hopefully, I mean, I pray that that’s the case. Right? But before we start recording, we were talking about how we both share that. Thirty five, thirty six channel. It’s that channel of emotional experiences. And I also have what did you say? I had the incarnation cross. There’s I mean, we keep going too.
Amy Douglas: Yeah. You have thirty five in your cross. So that it’s definitely a part of, you know and thirty five is more of that element of, like, desiring change and the thirty six part of it is that crises energy. It’s like something chaotic. There’s emotional turbulence in your life. And so then that kind of pushes you to the throat center of like, okay, what can I change? The biggest part of that wave, that abstract wave is what that thirty five, thirty six is referred to. It’s very emotionally volatile, is our expectations. And think about what we have in the world of expectations. Right? Of others, of the world, of our own experiences, etcetera. And this piece of my design has been absolutely life-changing for me to connect with because I didn’t realize how much chaos I was creating my own life by having these expectations out there. I cannot have expectations of others or anything that is outside of my air coating control because I want control in the highest vibration. Control is a core wound for manifestors. We don’t wanna be controlled, and we don’t wanna be controlling. And I’ve been on both sides of those that fence for sure. And so when I learned this about myself, it’s like, oh, I can drop the expectations. Like, my partner would say something to me and I hung onto it like it was the law. We were doing this. Right? Like, oh my gosh. And then when we didn’t because he’d forgotten he’d even said it, I’m like, I made it mean something about me. Like, I wasn’t worthy, I wasn’t deserving, and of course, or going back to that attachment. Well, I didn’t need it anyway. Right, that avoidant attachment. I didn’t want that anyway. And now, I just have a lot more clarity. And when he does have all these ideas and suggestions, It’s just like a little fluffy cloud and I let it float on by and I don’t hang on to it like the law. It’s more of like wouldn’t it be nice if? Type of energy, and then any expectations I have on myself, I really want to check-in on those. Am I being hard on myself again? Am I trying to prove something? I have nothing to prove. I’m enough exactly as I am. I have enough. I know enough. I am enough. And that has been a critical part of my journey. And then sharing that with others, like, especially if I see someone like you, Victoria, who has this wave. It’s like, what are we expecting? And who are we expecting it of? And how can we allow ourselves to release a lot of that? Because then it will really, you know, that way it won’t hit a way that it could if we have these expectations. And then just noticing that we’re meant to share those experiences as well it really is a game changer for a lot of people. We’re not meant to just harbor them ourselves at all. And that was that was something that I just I thought was unheard of. Why would anybody else wanna hear my trials and tribulations? Well, because it invites others to share those too, and that’s how we move through these things. And we move grief and disappointment and disgust, all those things through us when we empower ourselves to talk about it.
Victoria Volk: And then you can weave in what kind of energy type you are. If you’d have the thirty five, thirty six. Yeah. So if you are a manifesting generator or a generator, like, go do some exercises, go work out, like, just do some high impact stuff, right, to get those emotions out. But as a manifestor, is it the same? Like, to do the same? Like, what’s
Amy Douglas: So it really depends on the mechanics of your design. I have a defined route, and my route is connected to my spleen. And so that has me being someone who is really meant for movement, but any emotionality find your practice. Some people it might be meditation, just really quiet stillness. Right? Some people it might be really cathartic, like just especially as manifestors. I had my podcast co-host get me a damn it doll. You heard of those?
Victoria Volk: No.
Amy Douglas: Oh my gosh. So it’s this little doll that’s all fluffy and it’s like I can use it to hit things. Right? Or throw things or I can act as if I’m gonna pull its legs off And at first, I was like, oh, that’s so harsh, but it is so cathartic. Like, I invite clients to, like, get their anger out on pillows. And letting yourself move through it, throw access, like just move through it, you’re be surprised, dance it out, shake it off, whatever that practice can be, there are symptoms based on your mechanics of how you might do that, that anybody that is feeling something emotional, find a way to let yourself let it out holding it in is literally the worst thing you can do for yourself. But yet, that’s what I was taught Victoria. Like, nope. Suck that back in. Do not share that. And so then I stuffed it down. Stuffed it down. Stuffed it down.
Victoria Volk: And particularly as manifestors anger.
Amy Douglas: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Victoria Volk: Don’t show your anger.
Amy Douglas: And this is my son who referenced, is an emotional manifestor. That’s something he said to me recently. Thank you mom for letting me witness your anger. Because instead of, like, my daughter had a very sensitive head, and that was not the most patient person, manifestors typically aren’t doing her hair in the morning before school, before I had to go to work, it’s like all of these things. And then she, you know, they would hurt, and I have to go slower. And more than one brushes were broken. Thankfully, I never used it on her, but I would throw them or smack them down on the counter to get my anger out. And it is important that we let ourselves do that. And my son who has a lot of that anger, certainly at his age too, like things aren’t going your way. Like, letting yourself let it out, fear of judgment or shame. There is no shame in those expressions. Let it out. It often has a great message. Right? We’re misaligned with something.
Victoria Volk: For sure. And I think about too, like, in that thirty five, thirty six, what’s been helpful for me is recognizing that when you were talking about expectations, like the grief that causes us, the self-suffering that we put ourselves through by, it’s like, like you said, when someone says something you take as you take them at their word. Right? And so we can find ourselves in these situations where, well, this is how it’s always been. It’s always been this way. We’ve always we’ve always been this way. It’s different now. You’re different now. Is it a self-practice? Or is this something to communicate with the people in our lives Like, does the human design help us find the language to communicate this?
Amy Douglas: Yes.
Victoria Volk: These things?
Amy Douglas: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, a hundred percent. And again, going back to what the activations are in your design helps you share and empowers you to share your truth. And I think it’s a you said, is it this or is it that? And I wanted to say yes. Yes and both. You have to find your own practice. Wow. I just said, have to. You get to find your own practice. Right? It is important that you find a way to connect that you feel that release. You and I, Victoria, we will feel peace with that release. Right? We also will find peace we’re sharing it with others. It’s important based on our mechanics. Our connection from where all those emotions are coming from, from go straight to the throat. They are meant to be expressed. But somebody else’s mechanics in their design might look different, and so I can help invite them in the ways that they can allow and empower themselves to get through that too. But I do believe, especially in this instance for you and I, it’s a hundred percent both. I don’t think people are meant to just keep things in. That’s not safe. And I don’t care if it is an expression of like they do it in a journal or they they write a book or they have an audio file that they add to daily. I went in December of twenty two, so almost a year ago, I moved from doing a written handwritten journal to an audio app that I speak into. It transcribes it if I wanna see other words, but then I also get to listen to the emotionality of what I was feeling and experiencing. I was a very turbulent time of my life. I was thrust out of Florida where I was loving my life because my daughter was having a terrible pregnancy and I couldn’t not be there with her. I knew I didn’t want to go to Michigan in the winter. Are you kidding me? I didn’t want anything to go north. Right? And yet I did. And it was very I was holding her and her fear and her concerns and the status of her health and all of those things. And if I wouldn’t have created that practice for myself to let it out, journaling just felt like writing it down. I felt like I was filtering it. Felt like I was like, what if she found this? What if she came over and found what I was and in the audio file, it just felt safer trapped in my phone. I don’t know. You find the practice that empowers you to let it out. That’s what I’m offering.
Victoria Volk: I love that. And I think that’s a brilliant place to and this recording today. But first, I wanna give you an opportunity. And you’ve shared so much, and I feel like I do feel like I’ve glossed over so much of your losses because it’s a lot and I feel like each one of these could have their own episode. I mean, really, truthfully, I feel like I’m doing a disservice to you and your grief and to my listeners. I really do. Like, I feel like I’m shortchanging your story here. I’m giving emotional and I don’t know. I don’t know why. I mean, I know why because I’m emotional, but it’s so much. Yeah.
Amy Douglas: And yet, you give me the space to share. And this is what I’m meant to do. Right? This is what I’m meant to do. And I’m double-barreled, is what it’s referred to.
So both of my emotional waves go from my solar plexus to my throat, our emotional center to our communication center, And so one kind of softens the other. And so the way that I feel called to share it is empowering for me. And it’s like part of my deconditioning process because you gave me the space to share it. And if I don’t sound emotional about it, it’s because I’ve done the work to let myself say, it’s okay. I’ve been through it. I’ve navigated it. And now I am meant to share it so others can have their space. And feel empowered and safe and almost given permission to do it for themselves as well. So I don’t feel like it’s been glossed over. At all. Mhmm. I felt like you’ve given me the space to share. And if it helps someone else, oh, that feels so delicious to me.
Victoria Volk: To me as well. So thank you for sharing that. And I want to give you an opportunity to share how people can the different ways people can work with you. And we’ve got, the holidays are coming up. It’s we’re still in October yet, but the holidays are coming up, and you’d shared briefly or recorded recording. One of your offerings is a great Christmas gift, so please share how people can work with you and where can they find you.
Amy Douglas: So the best place to go, I’m not a big social media person. It’s not uncommon kind of in my manifestor world. But Amyadouglas.com is my website and that has and there’s a page for all of my offerings. If you’re curious about human design, the one that you’re referencing Victoria is that little audio file. I do about a twenty five minute mini reading. It is full of deliciousness. It’s like the first glance of everything I see about your design, and it’s so fun to share. I have a lot of moms that give it to their kiddos. Also, by the way, it’s so great for the moms to hear about their kiddos. Because we think how can they be mine.
We’re so different. Hello? We’re all different and we all choose. And it’s so beautiful to witness seen a mom and a child understand each other without those that hierarchical position. Right? So you can see that I also weave human design into a lot of the ways that I support others in coaching. And those offerings are on there as well. I have digital courses. So, and you can connect with me on what I think that’s probably just the best place. I will happily offer your listenership twenty five percent off of any reading. And I’ll give you a coupon code if you want me to have the coupon code be the name of your podcast. Does that feel
Victoria Volk: Yeah. Sure.
Amy Douglas: Most recorded for you. So The Unleashed Heart will be the coupon code
Victoria Volk: or grieving voices.
Amy Douglas: Grieving voices. Okay. The Unleashed Heart is your website. Right?
Victoria Volk: Yep. Yep.
Amy Douglas: Okay. So the coupon code will be Grieving Voices which would afford any of your listeners twenty five percent off of my human design offerings. And happy to connect. I even have, like, a little thirty minute call if you just wanna chat about what might be best for you. You can sign up for something like that as well.
Victoria Volk: Thank you so much for your time today, and your strength and your courage have I just adore you. I’ve gained so much I mean, I respected you before, but just hearing all that you’ve gone through and experienced, I really, as a manifestor to a fellow manifestor, like, thank you. Thank you for sharing. We are small, but we are strong in mighty in numbers. So the world needs you and the world needs all of us to understand ourselves better because like you said, it’s the ripple effects of that. And the work that we do within ourselves that changes the world. So Yeah. It’s pretty
Amy Douglas: Beautifully said. Yes. Thank you, Victoria. It’s been my absolute pleasure to be with you today.
Victoria Volk: And stay tuned for the part two to come out. We’ll get that scheduled soon because I really am excited to dive deep into all things human design. So until then, remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.