Divorce, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Q&A, Widowhood |
Q&A | When Is It Too Soon To Start a New Relationship?
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Victoria Volk: Hey. Hey. Hey. Thank you for being here and for pushing play on this episode. Today, I’m going to share a Q and A episode about a topic I think Tom Dickerry and Harry and their mother has an opinion about, including myself, which I had personal experience with this as a child, and knowing what I know now. I know why. What happened, happened?
Victoria Volk: But anyway, let me get into the question and into the answer, and I’ll share a little bit more on my personal experience with this question. But today’s question is, “When does it too soon to start a relationship after the death of your spouse or significant other?”
Now, there’s no correct air quotes correct answer to this question, but there’s all kinds of estimates. There’s even an absurd mathematical equation that you’ve maybe heard that says that you need to wait a year for a year that you were married or with that person.
Victoria Volk: So along with our personal experiences, is that time is not the key factor when a person should start dating after the death of someone they love. We know that time doesn’t heal emotional wounds, and we also know that many people have waited a year or two or five or ten or even twenty years after their significant other has died. And this next relationship still failed. And the majority of those failures were not necessarily because the two people didn’t belong together. It was that the widow or the widower or the person left behind was not emotionally complete with their significant other who had died. And absent that kind of completion, the new relationship is almost guaranteed to fail. So the other danger is that a person can feel, air quotes, feel ready to date or start a new relationship relatively soon after the death. It will actually say estrangement too. I mean, someone doesn’t have to die. You can just relationship can end or you can become estranged. But I’ll just say death for clarity and just for conciseness of this episode, but I’m also talking about those strange relationships as well or those that have ended of their significant other, but that feeling can be predicated on loneliness. And other factors, not necessarily because they are emotionally complete with their significant other who died.
Victoria Volk: So let me say that again because there was a lot of information in there. So even though you can feel ready, for a new relationship, that feeling can be predicated on loneliness and also other factors. But not necessarily because you are emotionally complete. So the time to start a new relationship is only after, air quotes after, having taken actions to discover and complete what was left emotionally unfinished in the earlier relationship. And you’ll notice that I’m not saying any time frames at all, and that’s not to say that a week after your significant other dies or the relationship ends that you should start dating, it’s meant to indicate that it’s the actions of completion that will dictate when you are ready to start a new relationship. So that you don’t mix the old relationship in with the new one and sabotage it in advance. So it’s only after you take grief recovery actions that you’ll have a clearer sense of whether or not you’re ready and truly only you the person left behind can answer that for yourself.
Victoria Volk: But it’s, again, we can easily confuse that feeling of being ready. And yet when we start that new relationship, we’re seeing the same patterns repeating themselves. And why is that? It’s because we haven’t become emotionally complete with that previous relationship. And so as you’ve listen to this podcast for any period of time, you’ll see and you’ve heard and understood by now, that we drag our baggage with us from the past into the present, unless we look at it, unless we unpack that baggage and unless we look at that luggage that we’ve been dragging around. This is why when people say, I don’t have to dig up the past. I don’t have to look at the past. I’ll just forget it. I’ll bury it. I’ll sweep it under the rug. This is why these patterns keep repeating in your life. You can have failed relationship after failed relationship because you’re not consciously aware of what those patterns are. And the only way to become aware of what those patterns are that are repeating is to understand them, is to have awareness about them. Where did they come from? Where did they originate? Nine times out of ten, I’ll even say ten times out of ten, it originated from your family of origin. Because when we are our backs are against the wall and we’re feeling challenged and we’re feeling like we’re in an uncomfortable position, we will resort to what we know in those situations. And what we’ve learned in those situations in the past is how we’ll respond in the present and in the future unless we have an awareness and acknowledge that the past is influencing our present and then we choose new tools and new awareness to change those patterns of behavior. And this is why grief recovery is very much an educational process as much as it is a transformative one.
Victoria Volk: And I say grief recovery because that’s the program that I facilitate in my program do grief differently. So you’ll hear you would have heard both terms used interchangeably. But that is essentially what I’m talking about when I talk about do grief differently is grief recovery as well as the Youmap, which is another component of do grief differently, which answers the question when you’re kind of when I just had a consultation just a while ago and that I finished and what you learn through grief recovery. It’s like you’ve addressed all this grief and you’ve addressed all this stuff from the past. Now what? Well, the Youmap is the now what? It’s how you move forward. It’s becomes your lighthouse for moving forward. Which is why both programs together are so transformative and impactful on people’s lives.
Victoria Volk: And so coming back to this question, my personal experience in this is that As a child when my father had passed away, my mother quickly remarried within a couple of years. She was in within a couple years, she was in a new relationship and remarried. And at the time, there was no communication about why that was or, like, I wasn’t privy because of my age, I suppose, to why my mother was in my mind, jumping into another relationship so quickly when I really didn’t even have personally an opportunity to grieve my dad here on thrown into another huge change that we didn’t even talk about. Like, I was no I had no part of that conversation. It was, this is what’s happening, and you just accept it. And in my mother’s defense, she was doing what she thought was best. Like, she wanted she herself was lacking the confidence and security that she felt she needed. To raise my brother and I who he was a teenager and I was eight at the time, nine, ten going, getting to those pre-teen years. And she felt I believe that she needed that support financially and emotionally and just that companionship and her and my dad were married for seventeen years when he passed. She thought they were gonna grow old and die together. And so and she was very young. I mean, she, you know, my father was forty four. She was forty three. When he passed away, still young. And you just don’t expect that when you’re that young. And while you have young children, and I know many people listening to this probably are themselves in this situation, or you were a kid that was in this situation where your parents remarried or got into another relationship.
Victoria Volk: And so I think knowing now what I know about grief and the why behind without my mom even having to say it. Right? Because we have not had that conversation, but specifically about why, although she is kind of sprinkled in what I just said the fact that she didn’t know what to do. Well, how am I supposed to raise two kids on my own and I have this house and the law needs to be made and what if repairs need to be made? And I think she was just very overwhelmed with all of that and felt like she needed somebody to support her. In moving forward. And was he the right person for her? I don’t know, but that marriage failed. Right? And I think it’s because the reasoning for going into it was not the right reason. Right? Like but I think everything’s learning. Everything is learning. And he did end up passing away of emphysema quite a few years ago. But he was a big part of my life in all my teen years. He taught me how to drive a stick shift. He taught me how to drive a car. And he was a big part of my life. But I think when you are a parent and you’re in that situation and you’re unsure what to do.
Victoria Volk: One of my guests a long time ago had shared that and I think this is great advice, and I’ll add on to it. But I think she had shared something to the effect of she made the conscious decision herself to not make any big decisions for one year. No big moves, no big career changes, none of those things, no big changes or moves or anything like that, no relationships or anything for the first year that after her spouse had passed away. And I think that’s great advice. I think how do you even find your does it take a year to find your bearings? I mean, maybe for some people, it takes five. Again, there’s no timeline to when you should when you are ready for another relationship. But again, it comes back to have you emotionally become complete with relationship so that you’re setting up your next relationship or your future relationship for success. And that’s really the goal isn’t it, is to have a successful relationship. Like, we don’t go into it thinking, oh my god. I’m just however long we’re together, I’ll just, you know, it is what it is. I think we hope for the best when we embark on sharing our life with somebody.
Victoria Volk: And so I think there’s a lot of and especially if you have children, there’s a lot of decision making that needs to go into that as well. It’s not as cut and dry as if you’re single and alone and, you know, it’s just you, you’re responsible for yourself. But I think we all come to those conclusions in our own time and people can raise an eyebrow at no matter what you do, they’ll think it’s too soon or it’s you should be dating by now or whatever other people’s timelines are. But they don’t see the personal work that perhaps you’re doing that’s unseen. Right? They might not know that you’ve gone through grief recovery with a counselor or a therapist or that you’re even seeing a therapist. Right? Like, not everybody dishes everything to everybody.
Victoria Volk: And so we can make these decisions for ourselves and still that we feel are positive and healthy and other people still aren’t going to fully understand our decision making and you owe no on the next explanation either. I wanna say that. Like oh, no one an explanation. My mom didn’t owe me an explanation, but would it have been nice? To be a part of the conversation. Yeah. Would it have been nice to have to feel heard and what my thoughts were even if my mother didn’t agree with them? Yes. But it was suck it up, buttercup. It is what it is. And so adaptability became one of my huge strengths from a very, very, very young age. And it’s still in one of my it’s actually one of my top ten strengths. Because I’ve had to learn to adapt to my environment many times over.
Victoria Volk: And so all these experiences that we have I’m, you know, I’ll bring up the Youmap is what changes our strengths over time. It’s our life experience and the things that we go through and endure and that help us build our own resiliency in challenging times, including death of a loved one or a spouse or a significant other or an end of a relationship because we’re taught how to acquire things and acquire people, but not what to do when we lose them. Right? And so grief recovery is the what to do when you lose them. And we’re simply not taught those skills and those tools and that knowledge from a young age. We’re just, we’re not.
Victoria Volk: And so that’s part of my mission here and why I started this podcast is so that we can talk about grief like we talk about the weather. So if you found this episode helpful, please share it leave a review if you feel so inclined to. I would love I read them all. I would love to hear your review. Share it with my audience as well and share it with a friend who you think is could find this information helpful. Maybe he’s in this situation and maybe just needs a little hug with words because I want this episode to feel like a hug with words that it is possible to move forward It is possible to enjoy a life of fulfillment even after death of a loved one spouse, significant other the love of your life, it is possible. And again, thank you so much for listening and pushing play. And I hope you come back next week. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Death/Dying, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Spirituality |
Dr. Amirah Hall | The Aftermath and Awakening of a Near-Death Experience
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
This week’s guest is no stranger to death. By the age of 20, she had attended 20 funerals. As an adult, she buried her father while, at the same time, her marriage was ending and her health was deteriorating. Little did Amirah know at the time that all of that loss would lead her on a path of self-discovery, understanding, and acceptance of the gifts she had been given.
Dr. Amirah Hall had always believed she came from a typical, ordinary, normal family, where love and support were the cornerstones of their interactions. But she didn’t realize she grew up in a dysfunctional family. Dysfunction runs deep in families. However, in the midst of Amirah’s life unraveling, she felt a spiritual pull that set her on a path of seeking and understanding.
Like many of us, we experience death as a child, are around it, and are exposed to it, but most don’t become communicators with the dearly departed. What set the ball rolling for Amirah was a trip to Egypt she felt a calling to take. On that trip, she would be surrounded by people she didn’t know in a foreign land who were on a mission to save her life. She would later understand that she was transported far away from her body and back again.
This is Amirah’s story of her near-death experience.
If you or someone you know is struggling with the darkness of life or has experienced the grief of death and want to find the answers, I encourage you to listen to this inspiring episode.
Subscribe to Grieving Voices to hear a Part 2 conversation with Dr. Amirah! She will be back for another episode where we will dive deeper into spiritual practices, sharpening our tool of intuition, all things energy + more!
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CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today, my guest is Dr. Amirah. She is the founder of Seoul Mystic School, a modern mystery school for psychic development and energy mastery. She’s the author of five books including manifesting miracles one on one and love up your life and was featured in the documentaries to death and back again and angels among us. She’s been practicing psychic medium, spiritual mentorship, and quantum healing after having a life changing near death experience while traveling in Egypt. She’s the past host of lessons from the Light Radio podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. I’m excited to have this conversation with you.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Thank you. It’s my pleasure. I’m super excited to be here.
Victoria Volk: We were talking a little bit before we started to record, and I had to stop us because there’s so much I wanna get into. But where I usually start interviews with guests is your story and how you’ve become, come to be Dr. Amirah.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, thank you. It’s been quite a journey. I’m gonna give you the reader’s digest version. Okay? So don’t even know if reader’s digests around anymore. But I grew up in Canada. I grew up to a in the conservative family. I was raised Catholic. Went to Catholic school for twelve years. I never got in trouble all the way through school. I was an honor student and a hard worker. And I was always very, very sensitive. I had a father that his brother committed suicide. I believe I was eight.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And I’ll never forget that was my first experience of watching or seeing my dad cry. And I remember just standing there just feeling so painful and not being able to help him. My mother was holding him as he was grieving because he found his brother who had shot himself basically in the head.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So then my dad was an alcoholic. I thought I had a normal family, which I guess at the time it was a normal, dysfunctional family. My mom was an enabler and I was one of those people as a young sensitive, I was always trying to keep the peace. And yet, I was so sensitive I would often be said, stop crying. Stop crying. I’ll give you something to cry about. Or why are you crying now? I mean, I would be upset if you know, kid at school played a trick on me and threw a water bomb on me. Well, that any kid would probably be upset with that.
Dr. Amirah Hall: But I was the kid that my mom knew when I walked in that it wasn’t a good day. Right? I was always looking for friends I was always curious. I always found myself going out and building relationships and building friendships. So what happened was I think at least a little of ten, my mother had a brother and sister that died two days apart. Now my aunt was a nun in the Catholic church. And my uncle, well, he was only thirty years old. My aunt was twenty-four. That was pretty significant because it was sudden for my aunt. Well, we knew about a month before my uncle was sudden he was died of cirrhosis of the liver, but he was a non drinker. So it was a a real a moment in time where I remember the chaos and I remember people coming over with with casseroles. And again, I was sort of numb. Like, what is this? I didn’t know what it meant. She went to heaven.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And my and then the nuns or the hot the convent all descended on our home. And it’s funny because they told us that my aunt wasn’t part of our family. So they only informed the family a month before she passed. And so there was a lot of discussion about family being upset with this. Right? We didn’t know. And their comment was she was part of their family. At God’s family, she wasn’t part of our family. So we didn’t need to know.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And so that was pretty significant in terms of me even trying to understand one of the nuns befriended me because I was so sensitive and I was crying. She would write me letters for years. And she was so graceful and peaceful and supportive. She was the first really mentor that I had, that reminded me that I was pretty or this, that I was smart. And so that was my first experience with religion shutting us down. My mom stopped going to church. And by the time I got to high school, I would go with friends to their churches. I was curious.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I remember the first time I thought if I go in that church, I might not come out. I’m like, die. Like, what’s gonna happen? It was so ingrained in me that this was a really bad thing to do, a bad idea. But I went and I lived and so enough about that because that was I think my quest that began for finding out who is God who is Jesus and wanting a connection.
Dr. Amirha Hall: My grandfather died. I was having connections and visions with my aunt but I didn’t know what to do with it. My grandfather passed from the same family, and grandpa gave me a dream before he passed. And then he showed me on the path. We were both walking along. We were holding hands. And grandpa just dropped my hand and he didn’t speak. He spoke to me telepathically. It’s like, I’m going this way. I’m taking this fork in the road. You’re going this way. And I just knew. That his journey on earth was gonna end.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I went camping with some friends that weekend, and we were sitting around the campfire, and I just blurred it out. Am I going to wear to the funeral? They’re like, what funeral? What are you talking about? Got home and my mom met me at the gate and mentioned that my grandfather passed. I knew in the moment. And so that was my, I guess, you could say, curiosity was death that continued to build and I continued to By the time I was twenty, I had been to twenty funerals. And Catholic funerals were not anything I mean, everybody just cried. And so, but I was starting to feel like there was something more. There was something beyond this, and so I held on to that fascination. Until well, no. I guess it was really a pivot point of my dad’s death.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And when I went home, I was living in San Diego at the time and I went home to Canada for my dad’s funeral. And well, he was in the process of making his transition. And it was gruesome. It was painful. And he was in ICU for two weeks. So that was back in nineteen ninety. So you can just imagine we didn’t have Internet, we didn’t really have anything to communicate, but or to understand what was going on. They had hooked them up with life support but it was just pushing his body up and down. The forcing air into the lungs to make it look like he was alive. Meanwhile, his whole body was shrinking. And we were waiting talk about crazy.
Dr. Amirah Hall: We’re waiting for my ants to arrive from Florida. California, respectively. And so the rest of us just kind of suffered watching this. It was just incredibly painful. Like, gold moment just cry and sob and it was torment for me. The doctors kept saying any minute, any minute, now it went on for two weeks. So I empathize with people that with families that send to Alzheimer’s or a long-delayed death and is it feels like torture. So at the same time, I was going through divorce.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I had just started my divorce. In fact, Yeah. It was I don’t wanna go down that road, but it was something that was in process. So after dad’s death, I was at a real low. And I was going home. I was flying back. I picked up this book. I think it was in the Vancouver airport. “Many lives, many masters.” And that was a first glimmer into yes we do go on. Because that my internal question is, what happens when we die? Where do we go? What where what is all this? So it was really driven home with my dad’s death, and it was like my wake-up call.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And by the time I got back to my job, my health was failing. I was not going to work. And back in those days, they could candy for that. So they did. They fired me. So I was going through a divorce, my dad died, and now I have no money and no job. And at the time, I was making a very high six fees. Not six figures. I was high-five figures. And back in the nineties, that was significant. Right? But then nothing and no support from anybody.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I was in a real talk about dark night of the soul and then having no energy. The doctor told me, yeah, well, you look like you’re dying. You go on or prepare your affairs. You’re either gonna die or you’ll end up in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. Well, that’s not good news for anybody. That’s the worst thing possible that I could have heard at the time.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And so I went home and I to use your word grieve. At the time, I would call that a holy hell. I was just miserable. I was falling apart at the seams from every angle, didn’t know who to talk to. I had no I was new in the states. I was only here about three years by then. And so I didn’t have strong relationships. I didn’t have a good support system.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So when everything hit the fan, after crying for two weeks, and a friend said, you need acupuncture. Try this, Amirah, that’ll help your health. So, God bless her. I had no other options. The doctor threw me to the curb. Right? It was just like, Okay. Well, this is some hope. Let’s try this out. So that’s when I started down the avenue of alternative care.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So again, back in the early nineties, there was it was almost like you were doing back office an abortion or something when you talk about acupuncture, like, mama was the word, no way, oh, that was horrible. But I had no other options. I went in for it. And so that progressed and I got better and a little bit better and a little bit better. And I built some businesses, some entrepreneurial endeavors, and I started working with gemstones and making custom jewelry. I started expanding that to an international market.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I was doing really, really well. But not making enough money. But my health was restoring and I started feeling and stronger and I felt like there was something missing in my life. Like, I had the money now, business was in my well, I got hired in the tech industry. My health was getting better. The divorce was finished. I had more money coming in and I’m like, fine. Okay. I’m good. But something’s missing.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I told a friend that I was feeling a sense to go to Egypt. And she gave me a brochure. And I found myself a few months later with soon as I said, well, I’ll go if I get my tax return. And I got to pay for this. Sure enough, it manifested this tax return refund.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And so I go to Egypt, which was an incredible spiritual journey. We meditated in temples. When I landed in Egypt, it was the strangest feeling. I know this sounds weird, but I felt like I was home. And it was a sense of being so familiar yet I had never you know, I didn’t study Egypt. It wasn’t on my bucket list. I wasn’t somebody that was fascinated. I did it maybe science report in school or something, but that was it. Book reporter, what did they call that social studies project? This was an amazing experience of learning about the ancient teachings, learning about the mystery schools, and I gravitated towards that. It just made sense to me.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, I met someone there and I extended my stay after the trip was over, went down to Luxor from Cairo, where the tour ended, went down to Luxor, and hung out for a week and I said, I’d really like to get some antiquities for the jewelry that I make. Some beads. Well, this was a very very primitive village right outside the valley of the kings where all the ancient pharaohs twos are buried. And so this little village, people their homes are perched up right at the backside of this mountain where all the tombs are. And so people would be digging through their back wall, so these houses are literally built on the mountain. Right? They’re digging at night and they’re trying to find tools or antiquities or any kind of treasure. So they’re trying to work ahead of the you know, the ministry of antiquities, digging. And so they would have these, Arabic carpets hanging on the back wall cover off the tunnel. So I knew from that that there’s a high likelihood some of these people would have beads. We’re just talking some small beads. Nobody’s gonna notice this ant colony leaving the country. Right? That was my logic.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And so anyway, we found a guy. And he showed me the beads, and I think there was a handful. And he’s one in three hundred bucks, and I didn’t have that much cash at the time. So I went, I said, come back tomorrow with the cash, go to the ATM, come back. Now that was the day I was leaving. So it was about noontime, minus heck. And we go back to pay, we’ll have it his money. And when you visit when you have a transaction like that or your friend, especially I was a special guest because my friend, Jude, who was brought me there. They bring out cocacola or a tea, coffee, water, you sit and visit. You it’s very polite.
It’s not just a slam-bam. Thank you, ma’am. Pay and run. It’s not like that at all.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So here I am, the only female, and they bring out this green garden lawn chair. Right? I’m sitting on this plastic chair. And all of a sudden, they bring out this joint. And Mohammed says, you know, it’s the best. It’s the best. And he’s screaming and I’m coming from this dysfunctional family, I’m feeling agitated myself, and I’ve disturbed the peace, so to speak. He is shouting. And Arabic’s Egyptians are very vocal and loud and expressive. Let’s call it that way. And I said, I don’t smoke. And I had tried a few times. It didn’t really do anything for me. And I just was like, No. No. Thank you. And then the shouting continued. So I’m thinking, oh, god. I’ve insulted the man. I’ve gone against their protocol. And now I’m the only woman here. I should mind, do something here because this could escalate.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I thought, okay, it’s not done anything for me in the past. Maybe I’ll just acquiesce, be a graceful guest, and I’ll be on my way. Nothing will happen. Right? Okay. Didn’t happen that way. The joint went around twice. And all of a sudden, they have these workers that are chiseling Alibaster outside the factory entrance. And so they all of a sudden showed up in this showroom. And so there’s like eight or ten of us in this room. So one joint goes around, the circle, twice. And everybody bounces up. They’re ready to walk out the door except for me. I can’t get out of the chair. I’m sitting there. Only I find myself standing behind myself and I’m witnessing all the people that are in the room and it’s like they have an individual television and I’m why watching this video play out on their on your screen. And I’m just horrified and I’m like, what the heck is this? I need to stay in my body. I need to get back. I need to come back. And so I thought to myself, I so I was coming and going coming out in and out, it was sort of a subtle phase. I must have said something. I don’t recall hearing myself verbalized, but I definitely had my hands out in front of me. And I just thought I need water. If I could splash my face with this water, I’ll stay here. I won’t leave. I just knew I needed to stay. And so obviously, they’re laughing, and everything’s in slow motion at this time for me.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And my friend Juju must have either sense that I need water or they also were aware that a lot of westerners get dehydrated. So that was a part of the front and center for their awareness. So he comes towards me with the water bottle and he pours water in my hands and I remember getting it right about, you know, six inches from my face thinking, oh, shit, my mascara is gonna run. That was the last spot. And I blacked out.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Now, what they informed me and filled in the points at this point, my body stiffened. And according to my friend, juju, my breathing stopped, my heart stopped, and he was pounding my chest with all his might to get my heart going, call that jokingly, Egyptian CPR. And he was just going to be, beat the drum so to speak. They drag me out under the arms, drag me out into a pickup truck. So the pickup trucks there are the taxis. They’ve got benches along the back of the box, but they stuck me in the cab so my there’s the driver and juju’s in the middle, and I’m on the outer edge. They’ve got my head propped up outside the window. Trying to give me air, some oxygen. And they’re barreling down this dusty, sandy road to nowhere as far as I know. So I’m out of it.
Dr. Amirah Hall: The next thing I remember is coming through the night sky and curling through the sky like I was a comet. And towards a familiar blue ball way off in the distance. And I’m like, oh, that’s where I’m going. And that little ball got bigger and bigger and bigger and it was like so massive. And I’m like, oh, how am I gonna find myself? And then the next thought was, well, I heard this talking language, but I had no clue. And I’m like, I don’t know that language. I don’t know where that is. And then it went, that’s Arabic. I’m in Egypt. There was like a GPS beacon that was just directing me to where my body was. And then it felt like I was trying to put on wet clothes. Have you ever put on wet clothes after going swimming or getting thrown in the lot. It’s miserable. It’s cold and yucky in. It’s just awful. So I felt like I was struggling to get in my body, like putting on my clothes for about twenty minutes. It wasn’t that long, but felt like that. At the same time, the bright light was incredibly painful to my eyes, and it hurt almost to coming into my body. At the same time, I felt this incredible overwhelming bliss and love and peace. And so it was a peculiar experience and Juju stayed with me. Basically, what happened, this then I realized I’m in my body and I’m hearing these voices and I can’t open my eyes and I reach over and I touched his arm. Well, he just law like the dead man coming alive or the mummy or so he was very animated. And I’m thinking, I don’t know what the problem here. Well, I said, where are you taking me? And he blurted out something in Arabic, which then he realized she doesn’t speak Arabic. I have to speak English. So they were highly excited. You know, this was extremely difficult. I said, well, I need a bathroom.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Now, here’s another problem, Victoria. Back in those days, there were no western-sized type toilets in the Valley and the Kings in that primitive village. There were holes in the ground. Okay? And there’s these little porcelain markers where you put your feet. I couldn’t stand, and I didn’t know that. And I didn’t even realize there was something problem with toilets. Okay. So I’m saying, they said, well, we’re taking you to the hospital, and I’m thinking, Oh, shit. A hospital, I mean, primitive country here. That’ll kill me. If I go to some gerund lights in the bone docs, so that was where I was at. I’m like, oh, I just need a toilet, please. I’m fine. And so there was some they can Arabic, and so they finally figured it out, oh, their brother, his brother, had a flat that was europeanized. Okay? And so the facilities were appropriate for a woman. That’s another issue because in that culture back at that time, that a man cannot go into a private space like that with a woman. This is the worst. This is like the worst crime known to man. I mean, they were it would stone a woman probably for doing that openly. So here I am in their flat their apartment. And I won’t let him leave me in the bathroom. They carry me up the stairs. He’s on this edge of this bathtub sitting next to me and his tiers are just streaming down his face. And I’m blissed out. I’m thinking I’m so proper. I’m modestly covered my legs, so nothing’s exposed. And I’m thinking everything’s cool. The sister-in-law’s beaten down the door. She’s frantic because a man and a woman are in the bathroom. She’s thinking they’re having sex. That’s their primitive mindset. That’s time. Well, nothing I could say or do, and I didn’t realize what all was going on. I’m completely blissed. And then he just said, you die. You don’t understand. He said, you died.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So fast forward, I was on the bed. I’m they brought me into the bedroom. I’m laying their recovery. They brought me water and yogurt and an orange. And it was the strangest experience because the orange it was cut orange. They also knew as a westerner, I couldn’t have any other type of food. It needs to be peeled or it needs to be boiled or something like that. So the yogurt was safe. And they suspected I was dehydrated or something was a miss with my electrolytes. Right? Because they’ve seen it. And westerners are just not. Oh, and I failed to mention, I had done a thirty day detox prior to going to Egypt. So I was primed plus I had this two-week spiritual journey prior to that. So I was primed and hypersensitive to all of these types of things. Right? But I was oblivious to it.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So what happens is I start seeing this being, this entity. Her name is Sekhmet. She’s a lion’s face with a female body. She was just a statue to me going through Egypt I didn’t relate to all the Egyptology and all the beams and the deities. It was overwhelming. Right? When you first go and you just okay, it’s a nice story or that’s their religion and it just didn’t resonate, but I’m seeing her in the wood grain of the arm war and I’m thinking I’m losing my mind.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And there’s a window with Nile Valley there and there’s these sheared draperies fluttering inside the room, the wind was or the breeze was coming into the room, and I see the bright blue sky and this brilliant evergreen Nile valley. I’m looking out there. That’s real. I can’t look at this. This is not real. And from that moment on, I have been seeing beings and entities. At first, it felt like I stepped into a scene in the Star Wars movie, the Cantina. You know, or all these strange beings and deities and actually it was overwhelming But so the first part of it, I was still blissing out and denying I was seeing that. I was trying to focus on something that was tangible. And Juju escorted me to Cairo. I got my tour guide was there waiting in line, and I remember I asked girl, who’s that lion goddess with female, you know, body? And she said, oh, that’s Sekhmet. Sekhmet is the healer of healers. She was the patron saint in Egypt. She was known by all the doctors. They would pray to her. Okay. That’s nice information.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I get on the plane, I sleep all the way back to JFK. It’s like an it was an eight-hour flight, but it probably had been fifteen hours to this point by the time I get to JFK. And I get there, I get off the Jet Way, and all the people look like black and white paper dolls. And I’m freaking out. I’m all by myself. And I’m like, this is horrible. I’m horrified what I’m seeing. And I don’t wanna come back here. This place America is horrible. It’s angry. It’s depressed. It’s grief-stricken. It was just it was very low vibration. It’s like literally I stepped off a JetWay into another dimension and I went, and I kept looking at my book. I know it was I realized at one point it was upside down. I couldn’t read it. But I wanted to focus on something that was real and none of that out there was real.
Dr. Amirah Hall: That continued until I got to San Diego. I got off the plane, so it had probably been about a twenty four hour journey, the whole thing. Get off the plane and that moist air hit me, and it was like, Okay, I’m back. And and and and that noise stopped. However, for about nine months, I was stuck in a very deep depression. One, I didn’t wanna be here. Two, I didn’t know what the f happened. I was confused in ninety, so this was in nineteen ninety-eight. There was no internet. There was no resources. There was no.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I started going to psychics and healers or anybody. I definitely didn’t wanna go see a psychologist because I’m like, they’re gonna lock me up and throw away the key. There is no freaking way I’m going to those people. I know something happened. I am different. However, I haven’t lost my mind. I was that hardworking student. I was that type a personality responsible and honest. And so I went to all these healers and you know what? I got really ticked off because they told me something different every single one because they didn’t know. And then I finally got the message, okay. I gotta figure it out myself. I get it. I get it. Okay.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I found a friend brought me to Mexico. I found this healer. She reads cards, but she wasn’t a healer. She was a card reader. And she’s saying in Spanish to my French I don’t understand the cards. It says she died. This card should be over here in the future of this death card, but it says she died. So we kinda looked at each other, like, yep. Okay. That thanks a lot. That validates something like that happens.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I went back to Egypt the following year and my friend Jude brought me to see a holy man in the far south of Egypt in s one. And he was just a guy that would hang out in the in the market in this little cube, not a kiosk, but they have these little shops, right, with all these shawls or whatever it was. We brought him a very luxurious gift. And I said, what happened? Of course, to do is explain or translating to this holy man. And he said, She didn’t die in in in Arabic, you know, in their mind, their level of understanding. He said, but she went very, very, very far away. So, technically, my body wasn’t buried and I wasn’t, you know, tuned, but I went very, very far away. So that helped me understand.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And then when I came back, I continued asking a friend of mine that was on the trip referred me to another healer. And this healer, he he was looking at my energy, and he said, oh, he said, you’ve got some stuck energy. And I’m like, okay, that’s something to do. I get to undo that stuck energy then. Right? It seemed pretty simple to me. And I did. I began starting to understand the nuances of my energy. And what that all meant. And within about six months, I well, I started feeling happier I started feeling sleeping better. I was more inspired. My creativity was coming back. I wasn’t a bitch on wheels. You know, I because that when though I first came back, I fired all my friends. I stopped all my hobbies. I got fired from my job again because I was just miserable. It wasn’t fun to be around. It wasn’t fun to be anywhere. I wanted to go home. I didn’t want to be here at all.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I figured I gotta write about this story. So I go to the book expo. And I’m trying to think I can hook up with an agent or a publisher. I didn’t know how this whole thing worked. And only to be rejected. But, you know, people looked at me like, you gotta be crazy. You know, this you were just hallucinating girl. You know, you’re just this is cuckoo crazy. And they give away all these books. And so I’m I guess I was a glutton and I fill these two linen bags with these big heavy, hard bound books. And so I was my back was breaking.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And I said, I need a massage desperately. So I found this Chinese massage place. I go to the massage and this guy’s walking on my back and it hurt like hell. And I had a spontaneous out of body experience. So, those whole year was less than a year, maybe about nine months. I had been asking, where did I go? What happened? I’m different. I’m different. And I’ve been searching. Where did I go? I know I’m different, but what? You know, now what? So that’s when I had this out of body experience and I was transported, teleported, I was greeted by this being. It was almost like my body appeared with this being that was just like an egg-shaped, fuzzy, white energy, a presence. And my body literally melted, and I created this life form, light form, and the guide said to me, I’m gonna take you on a tour of the hall, but you can’t stay. And so there I was escorted into this place. It was this grand, incredible building. I struggled to this day to describe it. It was ultimate perfection and beauty. The precision was beyond anything that Earthwards can describe. And I was merged into a conference room. And my sense is there were twelve people. I didn’t count them, but it felt like there was a board or a committee of twelve. And they were all dressed identical. Very three d like and like suits and proper and formal. And then their heads were glowing And at the top of their head, it was like a lid open, like a teapot. And there was this glowing ball of light that just streamed into my head, right into my third eye, I guess, I could say. And it’s and they said to me, you you can know anything you need to know, whatever you need to know it.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And instantly, I was teleported out of there and I was standing with my guide. It was, like, not visible. There’s a presence with the guide communicating. And there I was standing in front of this corridor that went on for infinity.
And there were doors on either side of the corridor that sat at east my guide said, you can enter any door that you choose. You can’t stay. So I went to the easiest route. I took the first door of my right. It was a gold door. And I stepped through it. It was like I merged through it. And I stepped into what felt like a kaleidoscope of color. And it was moving patterns. And it was incredibly rich, warm, comforting embracing in ways that the only way I can describe it was, like, going back into momma’s room and feeling the love and the support and the safety. And I said, what is this? And the voice said to me, This is the fabric of all creation. This is love. And I was just so immersed into it and so still and so full. And then I was full of gout. And I’m like, I don’t know, rude. I was liking this. I wanted to stay there. And then I went across the corridor. I entered this the store across the way. It was pink. And I merged through that door and it was a solid green Emerald Green Energy. I said, well, what’s this? And they told what I then saw was my life review.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And I saw a timeline of my own life, all the places where my emotions had gotten stuck or interfered with what I was creating or my flow. I could see that I created my I created the dysfunction and the decease in my life with my emotions. And being highly emotional, that’s how I did it. And those emotions weren’t flowing and I was very attached to them and that way of being. I knew in an instant I needed to go home well, at home. I needed to detox. And the detox was not only the physical body, It was mental, emotional, spiritual. And I realized in that moment that that was my purpose. And to understand who I am and that everything was energy. I had stepped into the quantum field. I understood it at a level. That was beyond my words or my vocabulary at the time. I think, finally, when I came across Doopak Chopra, I’m like, oh, I get it. This is where I went. This is what it is. And this is the explanation that and my guide told me that meditation was crucial. For all of it, for all of our disease, all of our dysfunction. And that there is tools to practice, but it was a it was a journey. And so for twenty three years now, I’ve been doing this work. And yes, I still see beings. I connect with loved ones on the other side because they are just changed forms, and I’m able to access that and receive information. I’m also have the ability to heal them. If there are a sense of being stuck. So Victoria, I feel like I’ve just firehosed you here with the story and didn’t take happen. I apologize.
Victoria VolK: That’s okay. And I don’t do you have to go soon?
Dr. Amirah Hall: No. No. I’m good. I just I feel like when it starts coming the stream of information, you know, it’s like I get so excited to get it out and to share that often don’t take a breath myself. So
Victoria Volk: Well, I felt like I was listening to an audiobook. Like, it was just I was envisioning it as you were talking and just felt like I was kind of experiencing it with you in a sense. There was a couple of questions that I thought of on the way as you’re speaking. Can you speak to a little bit what when you were feeling it in your darkest place? Physically when your body was starting to break down, what did that actually look like?
Like, what were you struggling with physically?
Dr. Amirah Hall: I can remember driving to work after my dad died and having to pull over to the side of the road and just overwhelming tears and sobbing. And I had healed my I had already started personal development work, and I had been healing my relationship with my dad. So I thought we were good. And when he died, I was so freaking mad. I was he was a dirty rotten bastard for dying and leaving me. You know, that we just got going in terms of healing what we had. And I just felt so jipped, you know, losing both men in my life and that that were significant and my the divorce and my dad. And, yeah, I’ve become I became completely dysfunctional. Like I said, miserable. I was I was heavy. I was negative. I was so over time, that built up. And then, well, the doctor told me I had chronic fatigue syndrome. So, you know, they don’t know how to diagnose that. They lump that in with everything.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And it’s my belief system that fibromyalgia you name it, you name it. In fact, I can see the beginnings of cancer. In fact, before the show, we were talking about a client that had recently lost one client lost her son to suicide a year ago. Another client her friend wasn’t my client yet. She lost her son seventeen years ago. Now that woman seventeen years is hanging on to that energy of the loss. And her fear of letting that go is that she’ll lose connection with her son and perhaps, you know, be a bad mom as a result of that. You know, you just have to Whereas the other lady who has been healing those energies of loss and pain and just incredible separation, that feeling of separation. She’s thriving.
She’s doing things that she hasn’t done in years. She’s having a great connection with her son now. She can actually feel him come and give her a hug. And so there’s I find the contrast so fascinating, not not as a judgment, but as an as I think as hope or as an as a lesson, as a possibility that there are other ways that we can still have that connection with our I talk to my dad all the time and when I pull out his hunting knife and I’m cutting something, I always feel him coming like, watch your fingers young lady. It’s like every single time he comes in for that. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: I think that’s a great I’m glad this came up because I think people tend to focus on that separation, like you said. Like, the focus is just the separation. Like, I’m never gonna see them again. I’m never gonna speak to them again. Never gonna hug them or touch them or pick up the phone and call them again. It’s that the focus is so much on the separation. That you can’t even fathom the idea that the relationship is continuing. Right? That’s still a relationship that’s continuing, but it’s so unhealthy and dysfunctional and — Right. — and not self-serving at all.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yeah. And only turning other people too because
Victoria Volk: Exactly —
Dr. Amirah Hall: You’re affecting the entire family or friends and your all your other relationships suffer. So you have to, you know, if we can have a moment and just think in terms of I know when we’re grieving, we’re not thinking of anybody else. We’re really self absorbed. Most of the time, I was. And it was all me and my pain, and I didn’t have the bandwidth for anybody else. But I can honestly say I’ve been divorced over thirty years now. My ex-husband committed suicide in COVID. And I know there’s a growing number of suicides and depression that people are experiencing. And what I’d like to say to that is I couldn’t connect with him for a very long time. And as a medium, as somebody that does talk to the dead, I thought, well, this is interesting.
Dr. Amirah Hall: When a client comes to me, for instance, my client, whose son had committed suicide a year ago, I couldn’t connect with him at first. And what I the first impression I got was his energy let’s call it a package of energy. And he was stuck in an elevator, and he wasn’t going up or down, and it was confined And I could see that there was drug-induced and so there was a question of was it accidental or was it intentional? But I also saw the depression. So, you know, it all sort of came together. It wasn’t it wasn’t a place of blaming one thing. You know what I think is those of us grieving or left behind, we wanna have a reason. We wanna pinpoint what exactly it was that I don’t know as if it’s gonna help ease our pain or maybe your guilt? That we should have known something. So when we connected with him, I’m trying to remember. See, because I’m in a slight trance when I look and connect. So I don’t remember my story’s crystal clear unless we talk about it.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And so my client and I, we’ve talked about it many, many times as it comes up. But So we I I can see the energy where they’re stuck, and I can move the energy. So, like, I understand in religions, they talk about limbo. Or purgatory. Mhmm. And I would say that’s probably the zone. It’s like a zone. Like when I came back from my near death, I think I was stuck in a limbo that was freaking depressing. It was horrible that zone. And so just like when we leave the body, it’s my understanding that we can that can happen also. Now I’ve also connected with loved ones on the other side who committed suicide, who weren’t stuck. Okay? So it’s not a it’s not a blanket statement. It’s not It’s so in my own husband, I did some clearing and I did all the work and connect tried to connect because this was a man. The reason we got divorced is I couldn’t be me. I couldn’t I couldn’t express my need to connect with spirituality. He wasn’t having anything about it. So that was the sort of the breaking point for us. Well, he was just a whole life atheist, and he didn’t believe in anything. So that’s why I think I’m such a advocate for, you know, increasing our self awareness and and awakening our consciousness to all that we are because guess what? That’s the only freaking thing we take with us. Is our consciousness. And I’ve been witnessing that and communicating with that. And yes, we can affect those loved ones that seem to be stuck. Okay? For some reason, it’s like our energy is a soul in this human body has seniority. At some for for, I don’t know, the heirarchy, but it’s my understanding and from my experience.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So in doing the work for my ex-husband, Dave, I cleared the energy, then one day I was walking on my path where all the cardinals come to say hello to me. And this one day, all of a sudden, I felt Dave. And I’m like, wow. I wasn’t looking for it or expecting you know, and he just he had the attitude of, you know, your first love like, when you’re a puppy love and you’re so sweet on somebody and you’re kind of embarrassed or shy and that’s how he was. He was like a young soul that didn’t really know how this worked and that he was just beginning at his level of comprehension of what love was. And he was reflecting to me some of the things he did for me. Like, I didn’t think it was very funny or nice for a vacuum for Christmas. And he thought that was loving. Okay. And so back in those days, I was, you know, that was meant to be done. And, you know, so I was getting to laugh at some of these ridiculous things that I got spun up over, but he was showing me that he really, really did love me. And that was incredibly healing for me, spent all these years and a surprise. And it’s been it was two years after he passed that I was finally able to connect with him. I didn’t I didn’t work on it and intend on it, you know, and make it like I had to. But that’s what happens when we heal. It’s us that needs to heal, then the communication. They’re right there.
Victoria Volk: Oh, is that your tip? Is that people work on healing themselves? If —
Dr. Amirah Hall: Absolutely. —
Victoria Volk: so that they can connect?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Absolutely. We are we’re always like you and I are telepathically connected. And, you know, it’s just because they’ve left changed forms doesn’t mean they’re not communicating or they’re not able to communicate. It’s us. It’s the receiver. That’s been dumb down or doled out. And, you know, just a little the frequency, we have to raise our frequency to have that connection. It’s just like sometimes you can call somebody and add all the static on the line or it’s intermittent and you go, you know what? Let’s just hang up. You call again and boom, it’s good. Right? And that’s like that with communicating with spirit. So you don’t need a medium, but you need to get clear. And I find one of the very basic tools that I teach people because people don’t know how to be presence. Because if they’re stuck thinking about how their loved one died or some things they didn’t say, or they wish it could be different. They wish Johnny was with us at Christmas or it’s his birthday today, then you’re stuck in the past. Your energy is literally in that past experience that moment in time. And what that does overall is it reduces your frequency and you’re stuck in what I call depression. And so in the work I do is we learn to really accumulate, reaccumulate our own energies, our lives, and raise that so that we can be happier. So we are more inspired. So we are more motivated and fluid. And then, it’s like when opportunities open up, set new situations, you present yourself in ways that you couldn’t have expected. You know, my client that I was sharing when we cleared her energy and she was able to have that communication with her son, she started wearing shorts for the first time in thirty years. Right? And she would she said, I’m cutting up and I’m goofing off and I’m just she goes, my daughter doesn’t even know me like this. So parts of herself that she’d shut off, maybe when she decided when she became a mom. That’s the moment to come. Okay. Now I gotta be serious. I gotta grow up. And those aspects to our personality or what’s in our heart kinda get lost? Yeah. So it is work. It’s being a raising our awareness to being present. Having the appropriate tools, how can I do this? You know, if it’s I’m not a subscriber to talk therapy because in my own moments of grief, I just I got sick and tired of just talking about it. Like, I’m a bottom line girl. Give me some freaking way to get rid of it because I like this feeling to be caught in this loop.
Victoria Volk: Exactly. And so, like, even for what the work that I do with grievers, it’s action based. You’re always taking action. There’s steps. There’s it’s a process. Right. It’s evidence-based. Yes. I’m totally and it’s Transforms my transform my life and my grief too.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yes. Yes. And, you know, like, we were talking. I mean, you can be sacked from your job, and that’s grief.
Victoria Volk: Mhmm.
Dr. Amirah Hall: You know, you can, yes, losing a loved one is is probably the ultimate, but losing a relationship, that’s a heavy grief. And
Victoria Volk: Loss of health.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yes.
Victoria Volk: And all of it
Dr. Amirah Hall: I had all
Victoria Volk: of you. Yeah.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And I’m not alone. I know there’s millions of people doing the same shit that I did. And because we’ve not been taught, we’ve not been taught the nuances of our energy. How our thoughts are creating?
Victoria Volk: Can I ask you a question? Because something came up when I because in my in my own personal experience with my own energy. Right?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Uh-huh.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I think, you know, as time, we can go through periods where, you know, like, for my for me personally, like, I’ve been on and off the health wagon for many years on and off on and off. What I have discovered just in the last month is nutrition and how food is fuel. And food is cheap. Right? Energy?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yes.
Victoria Volk: Everything you eat is energy. The plants animals like it, this is energy. And if you are consistently and especially in grief or if you’re depressed, stress, can be a big one? Like, what are you reaching for? The sugary cake? or
Dr. Amirah Hall: of course.
Victoria Volk: Probably not the salad. Right? So so what she do you want? If you are ready or low vibe and you’re already down and out and you’re feeling in the dumps, that sugary cake is not gonna bring you up. Right? It’s not gonna bring up your tea. So when you are going through like that deep depressive period in your life, I imagine you are probably terribly under eating and not caring for wrongly eating, I actually heard something not that long ago about vegetarians. About how vegetarians can actually come off as very angry people, because they don’t they don’t eat protein. But what they don’t realize is that they’re still eating they’re still eating living things. Right? So it’s like they don’t wanna eat meat. Like, because it’s because it’s animal.
Victoria Volk: But a plant is a living thing too. Right?
Dr. Amirah Hall: I know. They have no problem killing that.
Victoria Volk: Right. So let’s bring it with poison. Yes.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, here’s you know, we could that’s a whole another podcast because back in those days in the nineties, and when I’ve discovered with chronic fatigue, I started colon cleansing. I started doing detoxes. Like I said before, one year before I went to Egypt, I started doing thirty day detoxes twice a year. And I was into juicing, and I was into enemas, and a coffee enemas, and you name it. Well, at one point, I was vegan then I went to a mix. Right? So I’ve seen the journey across the board. Now, because things were so compromised as a young girl with my emotions and eating all the carbs growing up and sandwiches every day to go to school. And I believe while my immune system is still compromised. So now we understand about leaky gut. We understand, hey, I’ve been in the process of healing. It’s a big it’s a long journey. And I’ve recently switched the carnivore, which I have to say, I don’t tell many people and I don’t admit but I am absolutely loving it and I’m shocked at my own self because there was one time, I would say to you, if you’re eating animal, you’re, you know, going to the hell or the you know. But I as a vegetarian, complete vegetarian for a number of years, I got very sick. I got anemic. Right? And so all of these you know, broad range and scope swings that I’ve done to do desperate to heal myself. I think the biggest most important thing I’ve done is my energy. And when we have energy that’s stuck, that will make us crave carbs because today, even though I’m now carnivore in like six or nine months, I know people that have been a carnivore for fourteen years. And the thing of it is is their that cow is eating all the nutrients and pre-digesting it is going into the meat. So that’s the argument. So my health has improved. Inflammation has been reduced and cravings have pretty much stopped. Yeah. So it’s a shock to me and I’m delighted. However, I’m as I said, I’m working on it and I’m actually gaining weight. Now is it because my body still you know, a lot of things, adrenals, etcetera. But one thing I notice is I when I’m teaching a class or working with clients, two days before I’m like, shit. And I find myself driving to the store and getting that butter pecan ice cream. I’m like, what the I don’t I don’t need this. What is it’s somebody’s energy, literally, plugging into me. I get on the call, I said, you know, like, buttered pecan ice cream by any chance, do you? That’s my favorite. No. Unknowingly, I’ve been affected by this person’s energy that was seeking me and looking for their answers or their healing. And so it does affect us, especially ultra-sensitive people. So if all of a sudden, like the other night, I was craving chocolate, That’s not normally on my list, but I’m like, okay, somebody’s energies permeated my space. We can’t completely stop energy. You can’t stop energy from moving. It’s just the nature of it. So we have to learn tools. We have to learn how to be grounded, how to protect, not protect because that’s a sense that you can actually control energy. You can’t, you can manage it. So learning all of that is key.
Victoria Volk: It can only be transformed, moved, or transformed.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yes. Yes. And so whether it’s grief, whether it’s, you know, gaining around your waistline, whether it’s a new job, whether it’s a relationship, we’re creating all of that with our energy, with our thoughts, with our consciousness. And so we start, we gotta start somewhere. Right? So let’s start with being aware. Grounding, being present.
Victoria Volk: Gosh. We could talk so much. I mean,
Dr. Amirah Hall: I know I know it’s so exciting because I’m
Victoria Volk: so glad you like, that that the conversation went with the with the carnivore and because I beat I’m eating more protein than I had in years. I — Right. — I spent years trashing my metabolism.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Right.
Victoria Volk: But and it’s a vicious cycle, you know, and then you have the cortisol and the middle section where they can
Dr. Amirah Hall: And you believe all the doctors. Well, listen, I’m there is a lot of cardiologists now and other mainstream doctors that are starting to go this route. So I’m just open. I’m just open to exploring. And I didn’t tell anybody for the longest time because I’m my own labrat. Like, I’m gonna try it. And then if it works for me, then I’ll share it with other clients. But, hey, I’m shocked. And I’m just like,
Victoria Volk: But I think one of the key things you said was when the pendulum swings so far one way, you know, where you’re just a vegetarian and that’s all you’re doing. Any one way isn’t balanced.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, and the thing of it is I’ve met so many vegetarians. They’re completely ungrounded. They don’t. They can’t get their life together. They struggle. In in most cases, not all. But they struggle in some ways and that is being present or you can just see the, like, the life force energy isn’t strong or bright, usually with them. Oh, again, I’m not talking about the, you know, the monk or the guru from India. I’m talking about Western and live in this lifestyle. So Yeah.
Victoria Volk: I definitely wanna have you back because there’s so much more I want to talk about with you if that’s okay?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Oh, I’d love that. Thank you
Victoria Volk: too. Okay. Yeah. And I do wanna give you an opportunity to share what you have coming up or where people can find you or reach out to you if they wanna learn more about you?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Great. Yes. I’m hosting a twenty-one-speaker series with incredibly brilliant and amazing experts. And so you can go to intuitivesuperpowerssummit.com Intuitive superpowers with an s summit dot com. And, yeah, go to my website. I’ve got a free gift It’s called stress buster. And you go to my website, amirahhall.com forward slash stress buster dot com.
Victoria Volk: And I’ll get those links in the show notes as well.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yeah. The yeah. So stress buster, and that’s agood energy shower, and you can start clearing your energy and moving in the direction of coming into alignment and connecting with your loved one.
Victoria Volk: And where can people find you just your website? Are there social media?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yes. Amira, A M I R A H H A L L. COM. You can read all about me there.
Victoria Volk: Sounds wonderful. Thank you so much for this great conversation.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I just want to invite people if something triggered something within you reach out to me on my website. There’s a link and you can book a twenty-minute consultation. And we’ll just talk about maybe what your next step is or where you feel that maybe you need help. Okay?
Victoria Volk: Sounds great.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Thank you so much. It’s been such an honor. Thank you for opening your heart and doing the work you’re doing. It’s truly amazing and I’m I feel very blessed to be connected with you.
Victoria Volk: Same. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast |
6 Tips For Getting Out of a Slump
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
In this week’s episode, we dive deep into self-improvement and personal growth.
Today’s episode is about:
- Exploring the dynamic between motivation and determination and why determination is often more potent in overcoming challenges (including grief).
- Discovering the key differences between these concepts and how harnessing determination can lead to more success and empowerment.
- In this episode, I also share with you how determination played a role in me becoming the person I am today.
Motivation and determination play vital roles in the pursuit of success, but determination is often considered more critical in the long run. While motivation can provide the initial drive and enthusiasm to start a journey, it tends to fluctuate over time and may not always be present. In this episode, I explore motivation and determination and the role of each in our lives, even in times of challenge.
On the other hand, determination embodies a relentless commitment to achieving goals, even in the face of adversity and challenges. Determination keeps individuals going when the initial excitement fades away, and obstacles threaten to derail their progress. Determination fuels resilience, perseverance, and unwavering focus, pushing people to overcome setbacks and stay on track toward their objectives.
While motivation can ignite the spark, determination keeps the fire burning. Combining both elements can be a powerful approach, as motivation can be the catalyst for building determination, creating a resilient mindset that propels individuals toward their dreams and the will to reach the other side of adversity.
RESOURCES:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hey there. Thank you so much for tuning in to this week’s episode, which is episode 153 five tips for getting out of a slump and I can’t tell you how many times I have been there. Probably just like you as you’re listening to this, saying, raising your hand, saying, yep, that’s me. I’m in a slump, whether it’s physically, emotionally, mentally, all the ways we find ourselves feeling like our feet are planted in quicksand or concrete. Right? Like we have a really difficult time putting one foot in front of the other.
Victoria Volk: We lack the motivation, right, to get ourselves out of this pit we find ourselves in, and it can be in relationships too. Right? Like, there’s so many ways that we find ourselves in a slump. So this is not going to be directly correlated with any type of slump whether it’s physical or mental emotional, relational, anything like that, this is going to be a very general overarching episode about getting out of a slump no matter what that slump is.
And it’s inspired by my coach actually who my it’s she’s actually my fitness and nutrition coach. I am a coach. I’m a grief coach, grief therapist, whatever you want to call me. I do energy healing work, but I’m someone who recognizes that I need support as well. And any coach or therapist or anyone you choose to work with who doesn’t themselves have a coach, not saying that’s wrong or bad, I mean, I’ve gone through phases where I didn’t have a coach or a mentor or something like that. But in the areas of my life where I know, I’ve needed support. I’ve sought it out.
Victoria Volk: I currently have a speaking coach. And mentor and like I said, I just recently started with a nutrition and fitness coach and it’s pushed me beyond my comfort zone for sure. I am learning so much about food and reading labels and shifting my relationship with food which stems from my childhood. I can talk about that later in this podcast, not in this episode, but I think after I’ve been at it for a while, I’ll share my experience with you all, but I just think these what areas of your life could you use some mentoring or support or coaching. It’s not wrong. It’s not bad. It helps you grow. It gets you out of your comfort zone. It helps you to evolve and develop yourself. And really, I mean, the best version of yourself is the best version you give to others. And so I’m one of my values is growth. So that’s me living out my value of personal growth or growth in development. That’s very important to me. And when I stop doing that, I will be dead.
Victoria Volk: So I’ll get into values a little bit. In this episode because that does play a role and what motivates us. But this episode is a little bit about motivation versus determination and as well. And so I’m gonna touch on a lot of different things here, but there will be six tips that I will provide you. I think I said five, but I think I actually wrote a six one, so this is six tips for getting out of a slump.
Victoria Volk: I’d like to start out talking about motivation. There are things that we do to get ourselves motivated. We may have grief over our body image. And so if we have grief over our body image, we might put pictures of the physique of people that we don’t even know on our mirrors or inner lockers at work or in our cubicles or on our phones or places where we can see them to inspire us to keep going. We might not even know those people. Right? But it’s just a visual cue. Like, this is what I want. And it can be effective and I suppose like manifestation and having what do you call those boards, vision board, so to speak. Or you can put a picture of yourself when you were younger. There are many people who do that too. Like, your younger self, your slimmer, trimmer, healthier, fitter self. Right? So that’s another thing that people often can do to keep themselves motivated. Right? But you’re not the same person you used to be. And especially if you are a female and you’ve had children, you’re definitely not going to have the same body composition and look that you did when you were twenty, it’s not going to happen, most likely.
Victoria Volk: When I look back to after I had my third child, and I was nursing her probably at eighteen until eighteen months. I was a photographer at the time, and I had to go to Montana. It was quite a drive to get there, and I had to quit nursing her cold turkey. When she was eighteen months to get to go photograph this wedding. And that I look back now at that time and that was probably one of the smallest I had ever been as an adult.
Victoria Volk: And I’ve had to let go of the fact that that is not what I will be like ever again, most likely. But the thing is, I wasn’t was a healthy, this is what I’ve learned too in my program is that you can be a hundred and forty pounds of softness or you can be a hundred and forty pounds of muscle. The body composition will be very different. And this is where we focus so much on the scale, and that is the wrong caliber of health. From what I’ve learned. And the least reliable resource that we have to gauge to gauge our health. So that’s just one aspect of how we get ourselves motivated in terms of like like physical. Right? If we have grief over our physical bodies.
Victoria Volk: But motivation is fleeting. Right? Like, how do you stay motivated to keep going at something? Whether it’s bettering your physical self or your mental health or your emotional or relational aspects of your life. How do you keep motivated? Is motivated, is quick, it’s fleeting, it comes and goes. You can’t rely on it. It it’s exciting at the moment, and it lives in emotion. Whereas determination, when I think of determination, I think of grit, I think of power. I think of being a fighter. I think of not giving up, resilience, we can be motivated or we can be determined. And determination to me is when you have your mind set on something.
Victoria Volk: And often for me, what I have had to do is put myself in the way of suffering. I say suffering, but I mean really discomfort. And challenge to prove to myself that I could do what it is that I thought I couldn’t do. For example, I was 20 years old when I enlisted in the military. I was one of the oldest people at my basic training, boot camp. Most people are, like, eighteen when they seventeen, eighteen when they go to basic. So I wasn’t that much older, but I was not. I was not an athlete growing up. I had two left feet I did not have the strength to do I barely squeaked out one push-up. And that’s what you had to do in order to be accepted at the military processing, what they call it, maps.
Victoria Volk: And so I squeaked out my one push-up. And by the end of basic training, which was around eight weeks, I did my training at Fort Leonardwood, Missouri. Same place. My dad had actually been for his army training. And I did the most push-ups of all the females by the end of my basic training. Seventy-two in two minutes. Will I hit that again? I don’t know. It is possible. I think with this fitness and nutrition program I’m now doing, but I didn’t think it was ever possible for me. And so determination was what kept me going. Because there were plenty of other females and males, to be honest, that had to be recycled. Recycled meaning, they start from the beginning. And it could have been from an injury, but sometimes it was just because they could not pass the physical aspect. We did a two-mile road march with forty-pound rucksack. I think it was it might have been more than that. I can’t even remember what the rucksack weight was, but that was grueling, I remember, but I did it. I finished. But that was the greatest challenge for me physically that I have ever put myself in.
Victoria Volk: But I tell you what, it wasn’t motivation that was keeping me going. We need to regularly recognize our small wins and our strengths to keep us going and recognize what is going well and understand that there is no shame that no one has motivated all of the time. And what I really have come to know is that determination has a really strong why. Why are you doing what you were doing? Why do you want to happen? Why do you want this thing to happen happen. Right? Like, for me getting out of my slump of my grief, right? I had never really addressed it in my forty-plus years of life. And I was determined to figure out why I felt the way I felt. And I took action and that’s what we need to do. Determination leads us to taking action. If you are going to sit on your couch and wait to be motivated to get out of a slump, you’re you’re gonna wait for a very long time. With motivation, you’re just going through the motion.
Victoria Volk: So the first tip I would give is to not overwhelm yourself. When you feel overwhelmed in life, lighten up your goals and simplify. What’s one thing you can do today or daily to get out of the slump and add as you go day by day. You need to crawl before you walk. Right?
Victoria Volk: Second tip, lose the shame in the guilt. As we build our confidence, the shame and the guilt subside or lessen. And coming back to recognizing your wins and your strengths, think about what’s going well. These are ways that we lessen the shame and the guilt. Not everybody gets it right the first time. You’re gonna fall, you’re gonna fail, you’re gonna feel like you failed.
Victoria Volk: But there was a my son Russel, when he was an elementary school. And there was a wrestling team that had a quote on the back of their t-shirts and I’ve never forgotten it and I probably am not gonna say it exactly how it was on the shirt, but you don’t fail there’s no such thing as failure. There’s only learning. And that’s absolutely true in the sport of wrestling, but it’s true in the sport of life. Right? We’re gonna be learning constantly. There’s always something more to learn about ourselves about each other, about our grief, about our physical capabilities, about our resilience. There is so much to learn. Life is the gift that keeps on giving in that regard.
Victoria Volk: Three, share with a trusted loved one or a friend, seek support and a cheerleader. And maybe accountability if that’s what you need. I know for me personally, I need accountability because I have zero executing strengths. I am someone who okay, let me come up with the plan. Someone else executed. Right? Someone else, If there was if I were to ever build an app, it would be I would come up with the ideas. I would structure it out. Someone else would execute. I am the builder of things, of ideas. The builder of the ideas but someone else does be executing. And so I know for myself that accountability is huge for me. To keep myself in check and to recognize that probably more so of a cheerleader. Right? And I think, again, this comes back to being our bet being our own cheerleader. And how we do that is recognizing what is going well. What are we accomplishing? And I think when you look for that trust and a loved one or a friend, maybe they’ll have similar goals to you that you can hold each other accountable and be that support for one another. And if it’s an area of your life, where a friend or a family member is not the best person. Say, like, when it comes to grief, for example, maybe that’s where you bring someone like me into your life to help you support to support you through those things as you work through those losses and the traumas that happened in your past that are probably weighing you down today that are contributing to this slump that you’re in. And that was the thing if I’m really connecting some dots here because connectedness is in my top five, is a lot of my slumps we’re connected to grief in some respect in some way.
Victoria Volk: Tip #4. Be open to stepping outside of your comfort zone. Try something new. Don’t have this all or nothing idea or mindset that, well, I tried that so now this isn’t gonna work. I did that. That didn’t work. Well, she tried that and that didn’t work for her, so it’s surely not gonna work for me. We tell ourselves these stories even before we begin. You have to put yourself in the way of struggle and challenge sometimes in order to grow and that means getting out of your comfort zone. The moments I have done that in my life have been the most rewarding experiences of my life. Like I said, my military service, the basic training, deployment, becoming a parent, opening a business, writing a book, starting this podcast, so many things applying for a job that I never should have probably gotten, and I did. But I was open to learning something new. I was not coming in as a know it all. Like, I love to learn. And so I am always open to learning something new. My clients are always teaching me something new about myself too.
Victoria Volk: Tip five. Set time aside to self-reflect. I cannot stress this enough. That we are constantly going going going going going. How do we ever possibly recognize what’s going well? Celebrate our wins if we don’t pause long enough to acknowledge them. So at the end of the day, while you’re driving in the morning when the house is quiet, build it into your day as a habit. Anchoring it in another behavior. So like I said, as you’re driving, no music, no podcast, get out your voice recorder. There’s voice memo apps that you can put on your phone. You can take notes in the notes app. Capture some thoughts, and it doesn’t have to be long ten minutes, just capture some thoughts. Just self-reflect and capture those thoughts somehow on a posted note, in a voice memo, in your journal, in your planner something. Because if we can look back, there is I tell you this. Like, so I use the passion planner. I absolutely love the passion planner. I will put a link to it in the show notes where you get a discount by using my link. But looking back at my wins and things that went well each week. When you do that at the end of the month, it’s like, wow. A lot of things really did go well because we so easily focus on the negative. We so easily focus on what went wrong. It takes, like, five seconds of someone just saying the wrong thing and it spoils your entire day. It’s like that one rot that one moldy cherry tomato or the moldy cherry in the bowl? Or the rotten apple, it just spoils the whole bunch. Right? So we have some say over that. And how we can nip that in the bud is by pausing long enough to celebrate our wins and look at what went right and what’s going well. So maybe you get get a cup of tea and you self-reflect. You drive and you self-reflect. You take a walk, you self-reflect. These can become moments in our day that become a habit.
Victoria Volk: The sixth tip is clear your space declutter, throw, save, donate. I have a rule for myself that whenever I’m buying anything new, like new clothes for example, stuff that I haven’t, if I have not touched it in six months or a year or more, it goes. I need to get rid of it. In fact, I’m due for a purge in my closet as we speak, and I do intend to do that. But decluttering, there’s something about our space. When we feel overwhelmed in our life, and we leave the house in the morning and we go about our day and we go to work and we do all these things and we pick up the kids and go grocery shopping. And then we come home and we’re in a space of clutter That is not relaxing. How do you relax? You can’t. And if life itself, if all the rat race of life and your schedule is overwhelming, maybe you had a look at your schedule, But if that aspect of your life is really full, and you don’t know where to start and that part of your life, the things that you do for others and being the CEO of the family, if that’s you, then start with your space. That’s what you can start with. And I’m telling you, when you come home, and you’re able to actually relax. That will translate into your day. Trust me. Life is hard at times, but we often are our own worst enemies. Only making life feel harder. How about we get back to the basics? Slow down our minds, re-evaluate our schedules, and take a hard look at our priorities, which if your life isn’t aligning with your values, you are making your life harder for yourself than it needs to be.
Victoria Volk: Did you like this episode? Six tips for getting out of a slump, If you found it helpful and you liked it, please share it, leave a review. It takes five seconds, and it helps the show reach more hurting hearts. And keeps my determination going and helping humanity talk about grief like we talk about the weather. Until next time. When you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Podcast, Mental Health, Mind/Body Wellness, Podcast, solo episode |
The Grief of Burnout and Not Knowing Yourself
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
In today’s episode, I will cover the other two pillars of YouMap®: Skills and Personality. If you listened to last week’s episode, I discuss the first two pillars of YouMap®, which are the Strengths and Values.
This week, I’m diving deeper into:
- The difference between Preferred and Least Preferred Skills
- The 6 Personality Interest Types (as they relate to career/life satisfaction)
- The 3 Levels of Coaching
According to Korn Ferry International, 85 percent of skills can be transferred from one job to another.
This means the expertise, knowledge, and abilities gained in a specific role can be applicable and valuable in a different job or industry. However, many individuals might not fully recognize the potential of their transferable skills, often underestimating how their existing competencies can be leveraged in a new position they have not previously experienced.
Understanding and acknowledging these transferable skills are crucial in maximizing career opportunities and navigating job transitions successfully. Emphasizing transferable skills can empower job seekers to present themselves as versatile and adaptable candidates to employers, expanding their possibilities in the ever-changing job market.
Why does this all matter? Considering we spend the majority of our lives in our careers/work life, isn’t it more satisfying when you’re doing something you enjoy and maximizing everything about you that is expressed through your YouMap®?
RESOURCES:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE. Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hello there. Thank you for tuning in to this week’s episode of grieving voices. This is going to be continuation from last week’s episode where I’ll be talking about skills and personality type as they relate to what’s called the Youmap. If you did not listen to last week’s episode where I talk about the Youmap more in-depth like an overview. And the first two pillars, I cover more in-depth, strengths and values, then I highly recommend you go back to that episode because it’s going to lay the foundation for what I’m going to cover today.
Victoria Volk: So today, we’re gonna be talking about skills and personality type. And skills are important to know just because, you know, we might think we know what we like to do, or we definitely know what we don’t like to do. But just because we are good at something doesn’t mean we like doing it or enjoy doing it or just because we think we might like something, and then we actually go do it that might not be the case either. We can actually be really good at something too and not enjoy it, and then overuse that skill. And then it becomes what’s called a burnout skill. And so it’s very important to discern for ourselves what our most preferred and least preferred skills are because we can really hone in on opportunities that may come our way.
Victoria Volk: We can find a resume or an application or things like that, organizations or any even volunteering, we can apply this knowledge about ourselves to these opportunities and make a more informed decision as to if that opportunity is really for me. And again, this is one aspect of the Youmap. Strength also plays a role and what you value is huge as well. Because if you are working for a company that lacks integrity, but you are integrity is very important to you. Probably not gonna be very happy in that work environment.
Victoria Volk: So, anyway, today, skills. We’re gonna talk about skills. And skills are the abilities and expertise that contribute to an individual’s capacity to perform competently in a role and those skills are usually portable across many jobs. According to Korn Ferry International, 85 percent of skills are transferable from job to job. And many people don’t even realize how their skills can transfer to a role they haven’t even held in the past. We see this a lot with veterans military people, personnel, often find themselves in law enforcement. Now you wouldn’t think that someone who was in the military, like myself, let’s say, as a medic, would end up in, you know, as a police officer, but that happens. Because there are so many different skills that we learn in that environment, you know, going through the different training and things like that are transferable to civilian world in, let’s say, law enforcement. And so understanding what skills may be transferrable is important too if you’re wanting to make a career change or you’re like the military, you’re coming out of the military. Well, what are you what are you gonna do with that experience and skills, and knowledge that you learned from the military, how are you going to translate that into the civilian life? If you are a veteran or you are in the military and this as part of you’re finding yourself in that process right now. I encourage you to reach out to me. The military offers so many opportunities to learn.
Victoria Volk: And I think there’s a lot of really intelligent and motivated people out there whose skills were utilized in the military, but maybe they’re being underutilized in the civilian world right now. There are as many companies that love hiring veterans, and so I’ve actually come across many resources. So if this is you and you’re struggling to find work, I encourage you to reach out to me because I have a lot of resources I could share. In that regard. But anyway, the most preferred skills are defined as a skill that you are good at and enjoy using. The keyword, “enjoy using”. A skill, a client hasn’t had a chance to use yet, but believes they would enjoy using also. So like I said, you know, you may not have had the chance to do that certain thing, but you believe that you would enjoy it. So that’s a preferred skill as well. A least preferred skill is defined as something you’re good at, but you do not enjoy using. It is something you are not good at and do not enjoy using. And it’s also something you may haven’t had the chance to use, but you believe you would not enjoy using that skill.
Victoria Volk: Now, you can have a skill that you’re not good at, but you believe that you would enjoy. Could be something that we would work on or could be flagged for development. So then we would assess, well, what could you do to build your knowledge around that skill and gain more experience and things like that? Especially if it’s a leadership role, you know, what are other ways in your community that you could get more familiarized with leadership roles or things like that, for example. So anyway, we have these we go there’s a whole list of these skills. And then we do some math, and we figure out the total number of most preferred skills. And we figure out total number of the least preferred skills and we calculate a percentage and and this percentage will tell us if you are a specialist or if you are a generalist where you like to wear many multiple hats at work. And then we can also determine based on some calculations, if you are using burnout skills, too many burnout skills, or if you’re being underutilized. So we really glean a lot of information from this part of the Youmap assessment. And you can actually see in different categories as well.
Victoria Volk: For example, let’s say most of your preferred skills might be for example, expedite or make arrangements, manage time, plan, or organize. That tells me that you love and you love managing processes and projects. However, if you don’t enjoy adapting to change or customer service, or multitasking, these would probably be burnout skills under management process under managing processes or projects. So those are things important to know because if you’re going into a certain job, a new job, or you’re looking to transition and customer service is like one of their main things. And that’s part of your job description and but that’s a burnout skill for you that might not be the best role for you to take on.
Victoria Volk: And so all of these, it’s not just a matter of spitting out this information and now you know what your skills are and things like that. There there’s so much more to this and it’s a really deep assessment compared to probably many others that you’ve taken. In how and what we do with the information. So it’s not just it’s like, okay, now I know this stuff, but now what? And for the work that I do with grievers, it’s not enough to just know themselves. It’s and for anybody in general, actually, it’s not just grievers, but it’s not enough for us to just know ourselves or know these things about ourselves and see it in black and white on paper in the u map, but it’s what do I do with this information? And so this is where the coaching comes in. And there are three different levels to the coaching. You can just get the Youmap, which involves no coaching whatsoever, or you can get the u map and a mini debrief, which is a brief overview, or you can go through the full coaching that goes through every pillar more in-depth specific to your u mab. And so that’s where they differ a little bit, but just having this knowledge is great. And but again, it’s how do you implement it in your life? How do you use this? Information as a guide moving forward. As, you know, what’s the word I’m trying to think of? A roadmap moving forward. And on something to fall back on to discern opportunities as they come your way or even to assess relationships in your life. If you know, maybe your loved one, maybe you want him or her or, you know, someone special in your life to take the u map and you can gain a better understanding of each other, right, before you dive into marriage or, I mean, it’s a really great way to talk about what it is that you bring to the relationship individually. And I did touch more on a lot more on that on in the last episode.
Victoria Volk: So again, I’d encourage you to go back to that one. So now that we’ve talked a little bit about skills. Let’s move on to personality. So the fourth pillar explores your personality and the interests aspect of the personality is determined by the person’s traits. So in the u map, we use a personality inventory, and there are six different interest types, realistic, which are the doers, investigative are the thinkers. The artistic type are the creators. The social type are the helpers. The enterprising type are the persuaders and the conventional type are the organizers. Now for example, I am artistic investigative. So those two together makes what’s called the idealist. I am the creator and the thinker. So how the Youmap uses the descriptor words for artistic investigative are intensely verbal, private, opinionated, somewhat antisocial, highly idealistic, perpetually thinking, extremely perceptive. And the idealist is most fascinated by the work that is in their head exploring ideas and creating They are soulful, deep thinkers, and they are also passionate. They need intellectual challenge and creative stimulation or their minds tend to wonder. And you would be amazed when you actually get your Youmap, how spot on it is. And this is me to a t. They have very high standards and ideals and crave being alone, which I do. They need autonomy to think and create, which I do. They tend to work long hours to see an idea through to completion I do. Idealists are intellectually curious and need to be challenged. And any work that involves repetitive tasks is bad fit. So is highly technical work or anything that involves working directly with customers, which I work directly with clients, but working in customer service when in my younger years definitely taught me a lot. But I definitely need and it’s not that I hate customers. I don’t it’s not that I dislike customers. I’ve seen my clients as my customers of course. But it’s those short-term interactions where you really don’t get to connect with people I’m much more of a let’s connect more deeply one on one or in a small group. And, you know, it’s just very different dynamic So what the u map personality type gives you is kind of, like, really what what is your best match for the type of work that you could be doing? So we take these six interest type.
Victoria Volk: And I’ll go over just each of them briefly again, more in-depth sold the realistic or the doers. Individuals with a realistic career code tend to prefer work that involves practical hands on solutions to problems. They value things they can see, touch, and use. They’d rather work with their hands than sit behind a desk for example. Well. And then we also get occupation samples or, you know, different ideas for occupation based on the different interest types. So the realistic or the doer would be the ambulance driver, the EMT technicians, veterinarians, elect things like that, investigative, the thinkers, those with an investigative career code are intellectual, curious, and reserved. And they like to solve problems and engage in challenges in their work. They do not like routine work that forces them to check their brain at the door. In fact, their work often involves ideas and heavy mental lifting. So they also tend to avoid careers that involve leading or influencing people and selling. So some ideas for the invest gate of thinkers are fire investigators, registered nurses, software developers, analysts, market research, analysts, database, architects, things like that. I which really is funny because I really geek out over like kitchen gadgets and like any any types of gadgets. And I love learning new software. So That is totally me. Artistic creators, this type of code, they’re imaginative, creative, original, independent, and expressive. In general, they tend to avoid work that involves highly structured or routine activities. And these individuals are inspired to create weather through activities such as music, writing, drawing, dance photography or art, which in my previous years, I had a photography business. So it’s kinda interesting, you know, reading through these and recognizing, like, oh, I used to do that. And, you know, it’s like, it’s not that we don’t know ourselves.
Victoria Volk: It’s like we know these things intuitively, but it’s like we don’t understand ourselves. Like, why do I do the things I do? The Youmap helps explain that. Moving on to social, the helpers, individuals with a social career code are interested in serving society and making a difference in people’s lives. They like to help people and their work is often centered around people. Like social careers, nonprofits, education, healthcare. They are helpful, friendly, loyal, generous, you know, these are our teachers, dietetic technicians, midwives health educators, patient representatives, for example. Moving on to enterprising, the persuaders, these individuals you’ll often deal with business, leadership or politics, involved in making decisions, starting up and carrying out projects, selling ideas or things. They are generally energetic, ambitious, dominant, outgoing, and and competitive. So think about financial services, sales reps, CEOs, judges, human resource specialists, supply chain managers, people in charge basically. The conventional, the organizer type are the glue that holds organizations together. They provide structure, process, and order that all organizations need to run smoothly. People with this career type are generally methodical detailed oriented, cautious, organized, responsible, and quality oriented. So for example, insurance claim clerk or medical secretary’s accountants, pharmacy tax, loan officers, research assistance, or financial analysts, So these six personal personality types provide a glimpse into a person’s internal, interpersonal and environmental preferences. And when we hone in on their two strongest codes, for example, like I mentioned, mine are artistic and investigative, more specific preferences are then revealed. And so then we take this information, all of this information, your strengths, your values, your skills, and your personality inventory type. And you have what’s called a workbook.
Victoria Volk: And the workbook is where you really answer questions that integrate this information more deeply. It helps you gain a better understanding and assimilate all of this information because is a lot of information that you receive in a u map. We also have what’s called dealmakers and breakers. It’s a worksheet for that. We have an ideal day worksheet.
Victoria Volk: There is so much information that you receive with the Youmap. It’s not just this assessment you take and you get this printout and then it goes in a drawer and it sits for years and years. This is something that you can use in your daily life, like I said, in your relationships for better understanding, and probably nurturing compassion because in understanding that we’re all different, you can be more compassionate towards others in your grief. Like, if you’ve lost a breadwinner in the household, like, what are you gonna do now? Right? Like, if you have to go out and get a second job or you have to get a job maybe for the first time after many years of not being in the workforce because now you have to go to work for whatever reason. Or you’ve been a stay-at-home parent and now you’re gonna enter the workforce again after being home with your kids for a while.
Victoria Volk: There are so many different scenarios where we find ourselves having to reinvent our lives, reinvent ourselves. Maybe you’ve had a change in health. In their the career that you had, you can no longer physically do that. But what can you do? There is something else you can do. You can still contribute to the world, you can still make a difference in people’s lives and as long as you’re not dead, you still have something to contribute You can still contribute to the world, you can still contribute to your life, and you can create your life with this information armed with this information, how you see it, how you want to see it, that fits you, who you are, and where you are in your life. And how you want to move forward. And this is the whole goal of Do Grief Differently and the Youmap together is moving forward, onward, and upward in a positive direction and creating lasting transformational change that leads you to have a fulfilling, soulful, self-honoring life.
Victoria Volk: Because when we honor who we are, what we get back is joy. How can it be any other way? If you’re interested in the Youmap, you wanna learn more there’s a link on my website where you can email me [email protected]. If you are interested in working with me and receiving your Youmap and diving deeper. If you’re a veteran or you’re in the military and you’re gonna be sitting soon, coming into civilian life, and you’re kind of feeling overwhelmed. Like, what are you gonna do? This is perfect for you.
Victoria Volk: We actually have a specific workbook that is specific for military personnel. If you’re an entrepreneur, or if you one that’s geared more towards life coaching, there’s a specific workbook for your specific situation. If you are looking for employment, there’s a workbook specific for that.
Victoria Volk: So lots of information to share and help help you process. And I’m more than happy to do that and be there for you in that journey. And I hope this was helpful and maybe you understanding, yeah, there really is a lot more to us as human beings. They’re we’re complex. We’re so complex. And any tool that can help us better understand and just kind of make sense of everything, the better off we are for it and those we love. I encourage you to go back and listen to last week’s episode if you haven’t yet and check out my website for more information and reach out to me because life’s too short to be staying in a cubicle you don’t wanna be in or doing something that is sucking the joy out of your life. Right? And perhaps like me, you’ll receive the Youmap and it’ll be life-affirming like I am doing exactly what I meant to be doing. This is a perfect fit for me. And that’s what the Youmap did for me. It was very life-affirming, but what it also did then was it gave me the language to articulate what it is that I really do. Thank you for listening. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, solo episode |
The Grief of Not Knowing Your Strengths and Values
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Grief puts this veil over your face. When you’re bogged down emotionally, it can feel like a chore to make it through the day, much less connect emotionally with others (or yourself). Once you address the emotional weight, little by little, you see potential where you saw heartbreak. You feel connection where you once felt disconnected. And you recognize the only limits placed on yourself, or others are those imposed by the mind.
*This episode is connected to last week’s episode, which is titled Ep. 150, What It’s Like Working With Me*
In today’s episode, you will learn:
* How YouMap was the missing piece in finding the language for who I am and what I offer, but more importantly, in my work with clients and understanding them better.
* How YouMap can help you find your purpose in life.
* Grief Recovery and Youmap are a beautiful marriage of transformation.
Did you know that only 1 in 33 million people will have the exact same five strengths as you? Yes, that is a fact.
In this episode, I discuss what the YouMap® is and how It helps individuals understand their unique strengths, values, interests, and personality traits and guides their career choices and life goals accordingly. By clarifying these aspects, individuals can make more informed decisions and find greater fulfillment in their personal and professional lives – thereby experiencing less (self-inflicted and unnecessary) grief.
If you are looking for YouMap® Coach to help you discover your unique gifts and skills and how you can show up to the world, I am here to help and guide you.
RESOURCES:
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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.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hello. Hello. Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. I am your host, Victoria. And today, I want to dig into a topic I think is not really talked about as it relates to grief. One thing that I’ve learned in the years since becoming an advanced grief recovery specialist and working with clients in those first couple of years, there was a piece missing for me. People would work through their deepest losses and it was kind of like this now what feeling? Even I felt it or had that sense. And so I was looking for something to that could be kind of this roadmap for people moving forward, like moving beyond.
Victoria Volk: Okay. I’ve addressed all this icky stuff and I’ve swept my doorstep so to speak. And now what? What do I want for my life now that I’ve addressed how this very important person has passed away from my life or the relationship came to an end, whether it was divorced or estrangement or whatever it may be, there’s this once we repair this gap and this hole that we have felt. What do we fill it with? We can fill it with purpose. With meaning, things like that. That’s what I was looking for as a missing piece for my clients that I was working with.
Victoria Volk: So when I came across Youmap, it was the answer to that very question for me. I went through it for myself and it was very life-affirming that I’m doing exactly what I am to be doing in my work with grieving clients in energy healing. I’m utilizing my strengths and really honoring my values of personal growth. And bringing that to other people’s lives to make lasting transformational change. And that’s really what the Youmap helps us do. It becomes our lighthouse. Any opportunity that comes our way, we can put it up against our Youmap and say is this align with my values? Is this going to get me into the shore? Is that going to guide me where I’m ultimately wanting to take my life? Based on my values, based on my strengths, based on what I really want to be doing based on how I’m wired, just who I am as a person and as a human being with all of those things combined.
Victoria Volk: And so much misunderstanding happens among relationships, especially and it can be, I was gonna say, especially family and friends, but I was going to say even in your work relationships like people that you don’t necessarily wouldn’t call up at three o’clock in the morning, but you see them every day. Just having this background knowledge and information of how different we truly are. And but yet how grief is the commonality for us all? Like grief is it knows discrimination. It doesn’t matter what your skills, values, and strengths and all of that are. It doesn’t care. Grief doesn’t care. But when you understand these things about yourself, it can really help pull you out of a deep hole that you feel that you’ve been in. After we address the root of the issues of your emotional dis-ease through grief recovery.
Victoria Volk: And so this is why these two combined brief recovery and Youmap are such a beautiful marriage of transformation for my clients and why I believe that they needed to be together. And so I put them together in my program Do grief differently, which is twelve weeks long. And it flies people. Like that twelve weeks, it goes so fast. But it really has shifted how my clients move through grief recovery as well because they’re making these connections for themselves and through my assistance of course, making these different connections to how these misunderstandings are happening, why they’re happening, and how to move forward with them. Right? Because as long as we have people in our lives, we’re going to have grief. And that’s just a fact.
Victoria Volk: So today, I just want to dive deeper into two of the four pillars of the u map, four pillars are strengths, which is I mentioned last week in the episode briefly, but just for a recap, Strength is pillar one and that’s it’s what we prioritize. It’s how we work. So the there’s different kind of buckets that the strengths fall into, and we use the Clifton Strengths guide for this, that assessment as part of the Youmap assessment. So it’s not secret knowledge or anything like that, but it’s the Clifton Strengths, the values, the skills, and the personality type that all combined make the Youmap.
Victoria Volk: So yes, knowing your strengths is great information to have, but by itself, it’s not giving you the whole picture. And what’s really mind-blowing about the Clifton Strengths is that only one in thirty-three million people will have the exact same five strengths as you. Isn’t that crazy? That is absolutely bananas to me.
Victoria Volk: So it really just speaks to how unique all of us really are. And how we bring different things to the table in our relationships in our jobs or careers, in our philanthropy work or in our volunteering work, And again, in our relationships. And so it’s important to understand ourselves in this way because as you can see if you haven’t figured it out already, it can cause a lot of grief, not knowing who you are, what do I want? We often ask ourselves for so many years, what do I wanna be when I grow up? Sometimes even in our thirties, we’re still asking ourselves that, or it feels stuck in our career because we followed a life path that someone else paved for us. Maybe both of our parents were doctors or had construction business or something. And so we felt like we had to follow on their footsteps or keep the family business going it can be the same for farming operations. Maybe you don’t wanna farm, maybe you don’t wanna come back and take over the farm as an adult.
Victoria Volk: And so there’s a lot of grief that can come about as I’m sharing with you today in not understanding ourselves or sacrificing who we are in order to please other people. And where does this all happen? Why does that happen? Maybe somebody’s bringing their own values. They’re pushing their values onto you. They’re projecting what is important to them. It’s important to me, so it should be important to you. Right? Or this is how I do things, so this is how I want you to do things. And yet, we all do things differently because we’re different because we bring different strengths. Because we have different values, because our skill sets are different, because our life experience has been different. And we’re just uniquely ourselves that we are unique in our own right based on our personality, like, when we were born. Right? So there are so many influences that affect and have an impact on who we become and what we do with our lives.
Victoria Volk: And why we do them? What’s motivating us? So this is why this stuff is so important. And again, if you can’t tell now, maybe you’ve related to some of the things I’ve already said and you’ve experienced grief as a result, This is why I am encouraging you as a listener to take a look at understanding. Be open-minded to understanding that maybe you don’t know yourself exactly as you think you do. Or you don’t know how you don’t have the language to communicate that. Right? And so often too, that’s where misunderstandings happen is we don’t have the language to communicate why we do the things we do, how we do the things we do, why we do it that way. Right? So what the Youmap also does and through grief recovery is you find the language to express to others why you do what you do. So for example, like, I’m one of my top five strengths is strategic. And but not only do I have strategic, but I also have input and intellectually. So input, intellectually, strategic, three thinking themes.
Victoria Volk: So I spend a lot of time analyzing the world in my head. So I’m not necessarily gonna be the person that’s going to be openly communicating my thoughts or being upfront about what I think about something I’m going to read the room. I’m going to take in what everybody else is showing in their body language and what they’re saying. I’m gonna read the room and assess and reflect on what I think about that before I communicate. And when I do communicate, I’m gonna communicate with connectedness and empathy. I’m going to that’s how I relate to people in relationship. That’s how I create relationship building is through empathy and connectedness, helping other people see the connections. Right?
Finding helping other people see the purpose.
Victoria Volk: So often, I have felt grief or experienced grief in careers and different jobs or in with other relationships with people because I didn’t understand why I was doing something. I need to know, tell me why I am doing this. If it doesn’t make sense to me or if I don’t see a point or a purpose with that connectedness again. If I don’t see a purpose to the madness, I’m going to not be a very happy employee or a happy friend or what have you. Right? So I need to and so it’s helping me know that about myself so that I can communicate that because I know that not everybody has three thinking themes like I do. Right? And so, again, this is why this stuff matters.
Victoria Volk: So today, again, we’re gonna talk about strengths a little bit more and then values. Values explain our why. It’s based on what’s most important to us. It’s why we work. Again, tell me why I’m doing this. Right? So if I value personal growth like I do, I’m going to want clients who also value personal growth. That is going to be aligning with my values. And often some values are reciprocal. Right? So honesty is almost always reciprocal. If I’m if I value honesty, which I do, I expect honesty in return. Sometimes that doesn’t feel good. Right? But I would rather there was a quote once I heard. I would rather take an ounce of truth over a pound of lies any day. And that’s absolutely true. Tell me the truth, chances are with my empathy. I can kind of pick up on BS anyway. But again, it comes back to reading the room. Right? But or the body language or the tone of voice or what have you, those social cues that because of how I grew up in an environment that it was really and you can go back to the last episode where I talk about this a little bit, but when you grow up in an environment that’s kind of chaotic or emotionally charged like you really learn especially if you have empathy as a strength or you’re empathic because not all people have both. Like, you’re not you can be empathic but not have empathy as your top. Strength.
Victoria Volk: So I just want to make that clear. But as an empath or highly sensitive child, this is it’s no surprise to me that I developed empathy as my strength because I see I grew up seeing many different emotional responses from people in different scenarios and situations and learn through my own, right, that became not healthy responses to life because that’s what I was around, that’s what I learned, and so that’s how I responded to life. In life’s challenges sometimes in an unhealthy way. Emotionally. Right? So Anyway, I’m kind of all over the place I feel like, but I get really excited about this because, again, it comes down to knowing yourself? And what grief does is that I’ve said this so many times to clients and this podcast, and I’ll say it again. Grief puts this veil over your face and you really have a difficult time seeing yourself clearly. And because you have this veil over your face that this mask that you’re wearing your whole self isn’t shining through. Right? Because you’re burdened by grief. So you’re not seeing yourself clearly. You’re not living your life fully. So, therefore, you’re not seeing other people clearly either. You’re not seeing what they’re bringing to the table. You’re not understanding that they’re trying to support you maybe or what have you. Again, it comes down to misunderstandings, which are oftentimes at the root of a lot of grief too in relationships is just misunderstanding. Again, because we all do things differently. And view life differently and have had different life experiences that shape our personality and shape our skill set.
Victoria Volk: So there are again four buckets of strengths. The relationship-building strengths which explain how people build connection with others. There are influencing strengths which explain how an individual moves. Others to action. And there’s executing, which is what pushes an individual towards results. And then the last bucket is thinking. And it explains how a person analyzes the world.
Victoria Volk: And so let’s say you’re married to somebody who has more executing strengths than you do. Let’s say you have none. I don’t have any. I have zero. I have zero executing strengths. But let’s say that person has discipline as an executing strength. And you have harmony okay? So as a relationship-building strength. But the person executing doesn’t have harmony. Someone who is has executing as their strength. They are going to be diligent about time frames and deadlines, take a vacation with someone with discipline. It might be great for some people. Like, yep, handle it all, take care of it all. I don’t want anything to do with all of that. But then at the same time, let’s say you have adaptability. For example, adaptability might show up like when things don’t go right, For this person with discipline, things don’t go as scheduled. They might be struggling a little bit. But here, when with you and adaptability, you can come in and swoop in and kind of put out the fire a little bit. So this is how in marriage, in particular, it’s really great to know each other’s strengths because you can understand why certain conflicts happen the way they do. And for someone like me, I have a lot of thinking themes. I’m not going to necessarily be the let’s sit down and communicate. Like, my every thought right now and share every thought. That’s not me. That is not how I operate in the world. But someone who has more relationship-building strengths, let’s say my spouse had more relationship-building strengths, he was he’d probably be more keen to share every thought he has upfront.
Victoria Volk: It’s also important I think I just wanna mention. It’s great to know all of your strengths because it’s great to know your bottom strengths because we can also look at the and there’s you can think of these as weaknesses, but when we talk about Youmap, we don’t discuss them as weaknesses. These are just strengths that just are not ours. Right? But when we’re building a team, let’s say you have a business and you’re building a team, you probably want people on your team who have some of those other strengths that are not yours. This is where it’s also important to know about Youmap. And implementing Youmap, especially if you have a business or, you know, a large company, a lot of conflict can be resolute. I don’t know if that’s a word resolute. But you can really eliminate a lot of those issues if you are placing people, first of all, in their strengths and skill sets in in the right role, first of all, if they’re feeling like they’re in the right role for them in within a company, they’ll be happier employees. And that’s good for everybody. Right? That is good for everybody. So if you can match your future spouse, exactly who you are, what you’re looking for in someone else, you can become a really great team for the long term, for the long haul because and I’m not saying that if you don’t match with some maybe I should do matchmaking with Youmap. It was an idea. Anyway, it’s just so important, and I think you may have gotten the point by now.
Victoria Volk: But relationship building and influencing together these are what we call people-facing strengths. And the executing and thinking themes are the inward-facing strengths. They’re the task-oriented people. And so a lot of executives, you’ll see a lot of executives or CEO’s probably have either executing or thinking themes. They’re more of the top the person that comes up with the ideas and it’s the purse the people below that implement them. Or see them through to through to fruition. And, again, your strengths, your skills play into that as well. And your personality. So again, it it it it all ties together. All there’s this constant through line in the Youmap. And when people are telling me different stories that, you know, they’ve experienced as a grief client, Actually, I’ll just say this real quick. So someone, a client of mine, valued honesty. And so we’ll get into values right now because I’m gonna share the story. But again, values are why we work, like, why we do the things we do. But she valued honesty and yet she didn’t have honesty on her list of values. But I heard enough stories and enough, she shared enough with me through working with me in the grief work that I’m like, well, there’s honesty again. Like, you value honesty, but yet you don’t have it listed as one of your values. And that was a big aha for her. And the thing about honesty is, again, it’s reciprocal most of the time. If we value honesty, we want to receive that back. And so we can dishonor our own values. And this is exactly what she was doing. She was dishonoring her own value of honesty. And a part of it too is not being honest with herself, so you can dishonor your own values, yourself, if you value personal growth and you’re not doing anything to grow as an individual, you’re not learning and taking in information to become better than you were yesterday, you’re dishonoring your value of personal growth. That was a lot. Well, that was a lot of information within twenty-five minutes. And I feel like I barely scratched the surface. I hope you can see now how important this really is.
Victoria Volk: Let me just share a little bit more deeply about each of the some of the examples from each of the different buckets of strengths. So again, relationship-building strengths explain how people build connections with others. So people with this theme or mostly have strengths in this theme, build connections with people one on one, but those connections are made very differently depending on which strength you have. So the relationship currency that you have with people is largely based on your theme. But if you don’t have relationship-building themes, you can compensate with some of the other strengths. So some examples of how some of these relationship-building strengths can play out is Like I mentioned, empathy. Empathy understands where they get people. Harmony, they’re the peacemaker. They find common ground. So if you got a bickering table of, you know, employees, you’re and you have harmony, that’s a wonderful strength to have on your team because you can that person can help the team find common ground.
Victoria Volk: Individualization. I love this one. This is great for like coaches to have, but they appreciate the differences in people and they recognize individual strengths. Relator, they’re real and genuine makes connections easily with anyone. This is like the friend of the friend, like, there’s they know a they know no stranger anywhere. Like, there this is where a lot you might see a lot of people, especially because again, this is a people-facing strength. So you’ll see these are the people that exude warmth and inviting energy, I would say. So connectedness, they help others see purpose and believe that we are all connected, which I do. I have connectedness, and I totally believe that. Another influence or excuse me, another people facing strength is the influencing strengths. And these explain how an individual moves others to action. So some business people, business owners, might be just appointed like I was at first that I had no influencing strengths. I have none. There’s one in particular Woo, which means winning others over. And people with Woo, it’s almost like they can sell ice to an escomo. It’s yeah. So a lot of business owners can feel discouraged when they don’t have some of these influencing strengths.
Victoria Volk: But people with influencing strengths persuade or move people to action differently, based on the strengths that they have. They tend to work through people to accomplish goals like unlike relationship-building themes who form deeper connections. So again, you know, the relationship building, they want deeper connections. People with influencing strengths often prefer working with a variety of people. They tend to prefer a broader network versus fewer deeper connections like the relationship-building themes. And people with a lot of influence and strengths may tire of working with the same team of people day to day. So if you have a lot of these themes in your top five, maybe this is you, maybe you are kind of burned out from working with the same people. I do have maximizer in my top 10. But people who lack and I I think this is important to note. People who lack influencing strengths tend to be uncomfortable influencing or persuading others such as sales or fighting to have their voice heard, raising my hand or influencing people without any authority.
Victoria Volk: So for example, project managers are accountable for the results of people that don’t report to them. If project team members are missing deadlines, Someone without influencing themes likely not would likely not enjoying, enjoy motivating others to complete their deliverables. Right? And so when you see this translating onto a team of people at a company, that doesn’t bode well. And so this is where it is. Again, I come back to under standing yourself and understanding the importance of understanding others because as a manager or as a CEO of a company, it’s so important to have people in the right roles and this is why. This is a huge reason why because it does affect your bottom line. Right?
Victoria Volk: So the next bucket is executing strengths, the inward facing, the first of the inward facing. Or explains how an individual pushes towards results. And some examples of those are Achiever, arranger, belief is actually my sixth strength. I think, yeah, belief in maximizer are after my top five. Consistency, discipline, focus, responsibility. So responsibility is huge too because if you have responsibility, you are likely a someone who has takes that that takes responsibilities very seriously. Who probably, to their detriment can be a yes man, yes woman, yes a yes person and over commit themselves and then burnout. But people with executing strengths are the doers. Who like to get things done and put plans into action. Again, you’re motivated differently based on the strengths but you tend to be internally motivated since executing strengths are an inward, task-focused strength. People with several executing strengths may prefer to work independently to accomplish a goal and may also struggle to delegate. Some and but not all executors are not interested in strategy and may focus more on implementation unless they also have the thinking themes.
Victoria Volk: So people with discipline, for example, like planning as well as fusion. And last but not least, my favorite, the strategic thinking strengths, explain how a person analyzes the world and views the world too. Some examples are analytical, context, futuristic, ideation, input, intellectually, learner and strategic. So people with these thinking themes prefer mental work, particularly if they have two or more thinking strengths. So I like the mental game. I like the mental work. People with thinking strengths are often quietly effective. Because their most influential work occurs in their head. And this is also called the executive bucket because as people move up the career ladder, they are paid to think more often than they are paid to do. And so that’s where I said, you know, the CEOs and the executives are often have mostly thinking themes. And so this is just a really brief overview of the strengths and values and I didn’t go too much into depth, into values. But values are also so important because of what I said earlier if you are dishonoring your own values, you’re gonna experience grief. If you have people in your life close to you who you love and love you who are dishonoring your values, there’s going to be grief. And values vary so widely. Therefore, it’s important for a person to reflect on what’s most important to him or her. For example, like, listening to the advice of others can be helpful, but you have to understand that when taking values-based advice, it’s not necessarily advice that’s right for you. So people, for example, with who value security, will steer a person away from bold or adventurous risks. Others who value wealth and status might encourage someone to pursue a career simply because of the salary potential. And this comes back to again, let’s come back I’m circling back to, like, taking over the family farm or taking over the family business or, you know, choosing a career path because you’re that’s what your parents did and that’s what your parents want you to do and things like that. So a person’s work must align with their values. Not the values of others. And there’s exercises so along with Youmap you get a workbook and there’s exercises that really help you deepen this knowledge and apply it to your life and really look at and also too in the coaching with working with me, we actually go over each of these. In the Youmap and Do Grief Differently too and so into more depth.
Victoria Volk: And it’s individualized because you’re an individual and you’re unique and your Youmap is unique. But to define the values, there’s actually a whole list and you choose from this list because there can be a lot of values out there. But these values are kind of broken down to it takes it weeds out the similar similar ones. And so it’s a really easy. It’s not like you’re pulling words out of the sky. And what you do is and because I have three thinking this was probably one of the hardest exercises for me because in my mind I have to, like, like, it’s almost, like, pitch one to the other. Like, I have to do I value honesty more than I value growth. And you kinda have to weigh them out, like, especially if you have thinking themes. Like so this is kind of a difficult exercise for me to choose and weed out, but it’s doable. And some people just look at the list and like, yep, this is Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. This is what I value. But then through working with me, they miss some or realize that they didn’t have a value on their list, or they feel like, you know what, that isn’t necessarily true for me. I’m more so I value this aspect of myself more. So it’s all part of self-discovery, and that’s a lot of what Do Grief Differently is. It’s a lot of self-discovery. That’s what Youmap is, but it becomes once you’ve gone through the assessments and we’ve talked about and applied it to your life and you have some connections made through real life examples of how your Youmap is playing out in your life. It’s a lot easier to assimilate the information because it is a lot to take in even just for this episode I think I feel like it’s a ton of information at once, but and this is just too. This is just strengths and values. I haven’t even talked about skills yet or personality type. So that’s gonna come up in the next episode.
Victoria Volk: But in the meantime, think about what you bring to the table. Is it Do you feel like your life is aligned by your values? Do you feel like you are living out your strengths? And you can also overuse your strengths too. That is that is a possibility. And like, with empathy, for example, If I overuse empathy, I can seem like I’m too invested in someone’s life. Like, too invested in how they’re feeling and how they’re doing and almost take on this, save your role. And I know there’s a lot of people that can do that when they come into relationships with other people that they feel like they can rescue them. And that’s not your job. That’s not my job. And so that took a lot for me. It took a lot of personal growth and reflection and in doing the work that I personally did on myself to realize that I can only save myself. And you can only save yourself. It is your job, no one else’s.
Victoria Volk: And so I hope this information sparked some self-reflection in you and made you realize, there’s a lot to know here. And if you’re interested in learning more, just check out my website there’s a Youmap tab on there. You can check up more information about Youmap and see my Youmap on there as well. Or if you’re interested in combining it in grief work. There’s Do Grief Differently, and there’s information on that on my website as well. But it’s when I’m working with clients, it’s so much inform it’s educational. It’s not just let’s you know, dig up all the dirty laundry and talk about how I failed at life or what I’m doing wrong. It’s none of that. It is none of that. It’s or how this person hurt me. We don’t get wrapped up in the story because when you’re working with me, it’s action-focused, it’s action-based, evidence-based, educational based. We lay a foundation and you learn so so much about yourself. More than I think most of my clients bargain for in the best of ways.
So, anyway, I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day wherever you are. I hope the sun is shining. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, solo episode |
What It’s Like Working With Me
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
In today’s episode, you will learn what I bring to the table when choosing to work with me. I use aspects of my YouMap® to illustrate what’s in it for you as a client and more.
Today, there are far more options for grief support than were available five, ten years ago, and beyond. There are several training programs online that one can take to work with grievers, hang up their virtual shingles, and work with clients in exchange for money. However, not all grief coaches have done their own deep dive into their past losses and trauma, making it challenging to know who to trust, where to look, or where to start.
By the end of today’s episode, you will learn the specific skill set I bring to my work with clients and why it matters. Being the only certified grief specialist (who continues to apply the tools and framework I share with clients) and YouMap® coach worldwide does have its perks. Want to learn what they are? Check out this episode!
If you’d like to learn more about YouMap® and Do Grief Differently™️, check out the links below. Click HERE to schedule a no-obligation, free consultation!
I will not tell you how you should feel because you already know. – Me
RESOURCES:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hey. Hey. Hey. Thank you for tuning in. It’s another episode of grieving voices, and this is actually episode one five o. And today, I’m doing something a little different that I’ve not done yet on the podcast, and that is to talk a little bit about what it’s like working with me. And I’m going to start with some Youmap stuff. And if you’re not familiar with Youmap, check out the show notes because I have a link to my website where it has more information on what I’m talking about. So I’m just gonna give a very brief overview of what my Youmap is in this episode, but I do have another episode I’m planning to put out in the coming weeks which is all about the importance of knowing yourself because if there’s anything I’ve learned through my own Youmap and working with other clients and their Youmap is that the more you know yourself, the less you look to others to tell you who you are and I am sure listening to this. You have plenty of people who have told you who you are in your lifetime and the grief that that’s probably caused you. So be on the lookout for that episode coming up.
Victoria Volk: However, today, what it’s like working with me. Let’s start there. So I’m gonna start out actually with my number one strength and which is found by going through the Clifton Strengthfinder, which is a part of the Youmap, that is one of the assessments. And the Youmap actually is just for a brief overview, is a holistic assessment profile and framework that is a foundation of self-awareness for endless personal and professional use. And the framework is based on four key pillars of view. So the first being your strengths. And this is the “How”. This is what we prioritize. It’s either our relationship building, influencing others, getting results or thinking. Strength explain how we work.
Victoria Volk: Our values is pillar two, and this explains why we work. So values explain our why based on what’s most important to us.
Victoria Volk: Pillar three is all about skills. It’s what we like doing. What skills are we motivated to spend our time using?
Victoria Volk: And the fourth pillar is personality. It explains our interests, who we are. Who are we? Are we a blend of the doer, the thinker, the creator, the helper, the persuader, or the organizer? And so all of these together combined create what is called the Youmap. And the Youmap radically reduces the time it takes me to get to know my clients who go through my program, which includes the Youmap and Do Grief Differently, the twelve-week one on one program.
Victoria Volk: And I included this, the Youmap program because it was actually, to me, what was missing in the grief work I was doing with clients. And so for me personally to learn my Youmap was life-affirming. My number one strength is empathy. And empathy is a relationship-building theme. And according to Youmap, it is how we’d define it. You can sense the emotions of others, feel what they are feeling, see the world through their eyes. You hear unvoiced questions, anticipate their needs. For this reason, others are drawn to you. So the thing about empathy and all strengths for that matter, there’s thirty two strengths in the Clifton Strengthsfinder, but they all have, like, healthy or productive descriptor words, but then there’s also unhealthy or barrier descriptor words. And so if I’m using my empathy well, my strength of empathy. I create trust. It brings healing. I know just what to say or do. I can customize my approach to others. But if I’m overusing empathy, I can appear to be soft, or as a child, a crybaby, I can be moody. And seem overly involved, which actually was a problem for me many years ago. I would overuse empathy and it would be to my dutch treatment because I was always there for other people and yet it seemed like when I needed someone there, for me, emotionally, people were unavailable, and I had some resentment around that. And maybe listening to this, you can relate to that. When you have the strength of empathy, people are drawn to you because you’re like the counselor in their back pocket. However, if without boundaries, without knowing yourself, this, you can see where this would create some issues for your life, which it did for me. So that’s the empathy strength.
Victoria Volk: The other relationship-building strength that I bring in working with my clients is connectedness. And that’s how I build relationships with my clients is through connectedness because I’m able to connect the dots of what they’re sharing with me. And the definition for connectedness is having faith in the links between all things. Like, we are all connected. You believe there are a few coincidences and that almost every event has a reason. You are a bridge builder among people who share differences. And so healthy descriptors of the connectedness theme would be spiritual. Doesn’t sweat the small stuff, has strong faith, always looking at the big picture, helps others see purpose. And an overuse of connectedness would come off as being passive or naive or too idealistic or wishy-washy, which I’ve been accused of being naive in the past.
Victoria Volk: And so you can see where these are just two strengths I’m talking about that are my strengths. But, you know, these are just two. Right? But we have five in our Yoump that we that combine to create strength assessment piece of the Youmap. Okay? But there’s thirty two that you can have and there’s different combinations. And I can’t remember the exact statistics. I mean, one in like a billion people have the same top five strengths as you if you’re listening to this. So we literally are snowflakes people. So anyway, using empathy and connectedness, this is how I build the relationships with my clients.
Victoria Volk: My other three strengths are input, intellection, and strategic, which are all thinking strengths. And so using those three, that’s how I absorb and analyze information to inform better decisions. Now for my clients, that means asking inquisitive and curious questions. Sometimes probing questions. To facilitate deeper reflection of my clients. And again, I’ll get more into the strengths and values and skills and personality in that future episode.
Victoria Volk: But today, I wanna tell you why this matters in working with me. I am not going to tell you how you should feel because you already know. But I will be able to feel into and sense how you feel, again, with my strength of empathy and connectedness often by your body language alone, or your tone. It’s those nuances of communication that I picked up personally as a child that became a necessity in an environment of chaos, and heartbreak, and extreme highs and lows of emotions that were exhibited by those around me. Also, I will challenge you. To see your experiences and yourself differently. This will naturally unfold to in the work that we do together. However, you’ll feel supported in the process. For some people, I may be the very first person who truly listens and hears you, and allows you to be a safe space – to be open and honest. As I briefly mentioned, through my strength of connectedness. I help clients connect the dots and patterns of the past to the present. And it’s one of my superpowers in grief coaching. But these themes emerge to me and often clients have aha moments and revelations that even surprised them. And also, I’m laid back and easygoing, but I hold my clients accountable to themselves in a loving way. I’m all in with my clients and I expect them to be also that for themselves. I know I’m not the grief coach for everyone and each person has to discern that for themselves. But that’s also hard to do when you don’t know yourself, which is greatly affected by grief and overwhelming emotion. It’s really hard to know what you need or where to start. If you value honesty, growth, inner harmony, compassion, authenticity, and curiosity, I’d say we’re a good fit to work together.
Victoria Volk: If you felt unsafe to express your emotions honestly most of your life, I’d again say we’re a good fit. And if you’ve felt misunderstood most of your life, then I’d say you’d get a lot more than grief coaching in working with me because I am the only certified grief specialist and Youmap coach in the world. So if that hasn’t convinced you yet, I highly encourage you to schedule a free consultation with me. I will put a link in the show notes if you are interested and diving deeper into your past and healing and grief and understanding yourself and knowing yourself better and where you need boundaries and where you’ve never had them and all of that goodness and more. And in a specific time frame in working with me, twelve weeks, I can guarantee that from week one to week twelve, you will have softened your heart and transformed your life. And I say you because that is the truth. You are doing the work. I am just holding space. I am the facilitator. And if you feel that I am a good fit for you, then I encourage you to reach out and learn more. And in the meantime, remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Child Loss, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Q&A |
Q&A | My Son’s Death is the Elephant in the Room
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Today’s Q&A is a great reminder for all of us that we express our grief differently and in our own timing. However, when emotions run high, and the loss seems unbearable, as is often the case with child loss, more grief will often add to the pain and heartbreak within family dynamics.
We must remember that 75% of how we respond to life’s challenges is learned by age three. By age fifteen, we’ve learned the remaining 25% of how to respond to life’s challenges. These are impressionable ages, and the lessons in our youth are what we fall back on as adults.
So when life hands a family a devastating loss, everyone brings their unique perspective and feelings about the person the family, as a whole, is grieving. This is why family dynamics have the potential to create more togetherness or more grief and separation in the wake of devastating loss.
However, less would be taken so personally if we all took the time to understand our loved ones better and honored each individual where they’re at in their grief experience.
RESOURCES:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hello. Hello. Welcome to grieving voices. Today is episode 149, a Q&A episode. But before we jump into the question today, I just wanted to share that this is the start of season 4. It is absolutely bananas to me that I’ve been doing this going on four years. I never anticipated that I would be having this podcast this long. I really didn’t know what to expect. It took me a good year to even really just decide and do it and learn along the way and it’s been an amazing experience of connecting with people from all around the world hearing people’s stories and being able to connect with people in a way that still truthfully blows my mind because I have clients that find me through this podcast who listen to my podcast and it’s a great joy that people feel connected to me in this way.
Victoria Volk: And can feel connected and supported even if I’m not working with you listening one on one. I hope that this podcast first and foremost helps you feel supported and that you’re not alone. And also is a resource of information that you can count on to be true and helpful and yeah just not more of the myths that society seems to perpetuate. So thank you again for being here and for just supporting the podcast, for sharing, for liking, for leaving a review. And if you’ve never left a review, but you love the podcast, that would be I would be immensely grateful if you took a few minutes to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Share your thoughts. I would love to hear how the podcast is helping you. If there is something in particular you want me to address, you can send in a question just like others have at [email protected] or reach out to me on social media. And I will bring your question to the podcast. And you can be anonymous if you prefer.
Victoria Volk: So anyway, with that being said, let’s move on to today’s question which comes from Amy and she asks, my twenty eight year old son died unexpectedly five years ago. Many people say I shouldn’t be so emotional after this long when I talk about him. His brother and father don’t talk about him because it makes me emotional. I tell them they just need to give me a box of tissues, but we’ve never had a talk about him as a family since his death. Is this unusual?
Victoria Volk: First of all, I can’t imagine what it is like to lose a child and you know, we had a scary moment with my son where we didn’t know what was going to happen. And I can speak to that fear but to actually lose a child. I imagine that as a heartbreak that any parent never really truly gets over. Right? It’s like it I don’t know that that phrase is even honest. Right? It’s not even an honest phrase that you need to get over. A death of losing a child. And really if people say that, it’s quite hurtful and harmful. Grief is unique and the pace that people experience, the emotions of grief, there’s a direct relationship to how they normally react emotionally to other life events. So this question is great for anybody listening because you may have people in your life who seem unaffected. Or they may not be as expressive emotionally about a loss that was maybe close to both of you. We all display our emotions differently too. And our grief is unique because our relationships are unique. And so this is where a lot of misunderstandings can happen within family units. But for Amy, if it’s your natural inclination to be more emotionally expressive and that’s your natural style to be open and emotive. It would be normal for you to still have feelings five years later. As it will be in ten or twenty years. If that’s true, then that’s great. This is a normal and natural response to the death of someone important to you as a unique individual.
Victoria Volk: And I want people listening to keep this in mind who may not be as emotional may not react to life in a more emotionally expressive way that just because people in their life do doesn’t make them wrong or bad or, you know, just like they should be over it.
Because I can actually speak to this even as a child. I’m very much a feeler. I’m a feeler. I feel things. That’s how I actually make a lot of decisions. How it makes me feel And so when something tragic happens, I’m really wound up in my feelings and especially children can be said that told that they’re cry babies or this is where this whole, like, if you wanna cry about something, I’ll give you something to cry about and this is where children who are emotionally more expressive who maybe wear their heart on their sleeves, are shut down as children, where we’re not allowed to speak to the fear, speak to the anger, or speak to the sadness, or express it. And so you can be a very emotional person, but if you’re shut down as a child, imagine what that does to you as an adult when you’re shutting down your natural inclination of how to respond to life’s challenges. Do you think you’d probably experience manifestations of physical nature like migraines or overall body pain or gastrointestinal issues, things like that. So I just want to highlight that because the way that we express ourselves and emote as adults is probably what we learned as children.
Victoria Volk: But back to the question, we can become sad by the nonactions of other people in our lives, in this instance, the brother and the father, in not talking about the sun, even in their incorrect belief that they’re protecting you from your own feelings. They actually rob you and themselves of sharing the very emotions that are helpful for you to feel and express. So that’s not to judge them because grieving people need and want an opportunity to talk about what happened. And their relationship with the person who died. But sadly, that’s not unusual for families to avoid or ignore the emotional pink elephant in the living room. Right?
Victoria Volk: And while I would love to encourage you to suggest to the brother and the father that you have an evening of memories about your son who meant a great deal to all of you. I don’t know that they’d be at all receptive. And then there’s that feeling of being rejected, right? Of not feeling like you’re in how do I say that? Like, in communion of grief with your loved ones, like, it’s not it doesn’t feel like it’s this shared experience. And that’s another brief experience after the loss, right? That so many of us can experience within a family unit or family dynamics So if that’s the case, if you have loved ones who are apprehensive about their own emotions and are afraid to let it all out. And if that’s the case, and they don’t want to have the joy and the sadness and other feelings in relation to the person who passed, then you need to look around your extended family. For people who know you, who knew your loved one, in this instance, your son, who might be open to sharing stories and feelings. Because it is important for those who are more expressive to not isolate and don’t shut other family out just because you’re grieving differently. Your life experience has shaped how you respond to life’s challenges. This is where we honor each other’s grief because all grief is unique in individual, and all relationships are unique in individual. And it doesn’t make one person right. It doesn’t make one person wrong. It’s honoring what your needs are as the individual in your grief experience.
Victoria Volk: And I’ll tell you many times, you will not find that person within your family unit. So I really highly suggest that anyone listening to this to try not taking it personal because we all just express ourselves in a way that we’ve been taught or we’ve learned and there’s no right or wrong of that. It’s just different. And so even just accepting that can really ease the pressure and expectations that we place, not only on ourselves and how we grieve, but on others too and others that we love within the family who mean be going through their grief differently than we are. And so I hope this was helpful in helping you, Amy, and others listening understand that there is nothing wrong with you, that there is nothing wrong with those that you love who just simply don’t express themselves in the same way.
Victoria Volk: So I hope anyone listening can find that person who can share in the love and in the joy and in the challenges of their relationships, mutual relationships of someone who has passed. And if you are struggling to do that and you need to heart with ears, where you will not experience judgment, criticism, or analysis. Then I am here to support you whenever you are ready. I actually have an opening for a one-on-one client right now in my Do Grief Differently program, which is 12 weeks long. And in this program, you work through two of your most painful relationships. And not all relationships give pain, right? Many do. And in fact, most do. I mean, I’m sure you can find things that or ways that people have hurt you in your life even if it was a loving relationship. But through Do Grief Differently, we work through all of that. And I would challenge anyone who thinks they don’t need to dig up the past to move forward. I challenge anyone who believes that because I guarantee that there are many aspects of your life where the past is dictating your present and will highly influence your future. And so it’s only when we become emotionally complete with the relationships of those we have loved and lost. Or who may be challenging to love and are still in our lives, whatever the case may be. Right? Because all your relationships are unique. That this is a wonderful program to address those things in a safe and in a safe way. So I hope this was helpful. And if you have any further questions about this topic, please reach out to me. And in the meantime, remember when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Miscarriage, Parenting, Podcast, Pregnancy & Infant Loss, Where Are They Now? |
Patti Herr: Where Are They Now? | Grief, Grace & Gratitude in Motherhood
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Patti was my second guest on this podcast back in 2020. In our first recording, Patti shares more about what it was like being a young widow and later dealing with infertility with her now husband.
In this follow-up episode, Patti shares some wonderful surprises God had in store for her in the last three years, including the impact working through her grief with me has had on her life and parenting in the time since she participated in one of my grief recovery group programs.
Patti’s story proves that there are rainbows after storm clouds, how impossible it is to know God’s plans for us, and how beautiful the outcome can be.
Motherhood isn’t easy. However, handling the grief that inevitably comes along the way is possible with a little grace and gratitude.
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CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of grieving voices. Today, my guest is a recap episode. A Where are they now with my second guest of grieving voices when I first launched in 20202, Patti Herr and thank you so much for being here and catching us all up on the past three years. Can you believe it? Almost three years.
Patti Herr: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. It’ll be three years since September since we initially recorded. That’s wild to me. The original episode was episode 13 and it was titled widow, miscarriage, and IVF. And a lot’s changed. Yeah. So let’s go back in time and talk about a little bit about that struggle with becoming pregnant and in your life at that time and what has happened since?
Patti Herr: Well, I it was kinda it wasn’t fresh but the being a widow was still fresh, I guess. And when I got pregnant, I was like, oh my gosh. How did this happen? I mean, obviously, you know how, but why, you know, I couldn’t give my husband my first husband a baby, and now I’m pregnant with someone who isn’t my husband. And so it was that was a struggle to do, but Now looking back, it’s crazy how I feel like he placed every single child into my life. He knew.
Victoria Volk: You had a struggle getting pregnant and you went through IVF. How and I know your last child though,
Patti Herr: You wouldn’t be. It was a surprise.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. It was not that idea. So can you explain a little bit? Like, what you’ve learned about infertility and about all of that, you know, experience?
Patti Herr: I questioned it. I was like, did we need to do IVF? Did we need to spend all this money? Like, why, you know, how did we get pregnant so quickly after knowing blah blah blah. But, absolutely, secondary infertility is still a thing. And I don’t think had anything to do with stress or anything. I just think that when you have a baby and when you get pregnant, like, your body almost, like, resets And I think that’s kinda what happened. I think my body reset and I ambulated one month and surprise surprise. And we didn’t think we could get pregnant. So
Victoria Volk: Divine timing, I suppose. Right?
Patti Herr: Yep. Yep.
Victoria Vokk: So how far are you
Patti Herr: They’re 23 months apart because she’s December and he’s November. So
Victoria Volk: Okay.
Patti Herr: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: That’s so fun. You know, my older too are 18 months apart. And I wouldn’t change it. I wouldn’t really change it. No.
Patti Herr: It’s hard for me. Enorous kind of hard. But
Victoria Volk: yes. It my last one was a little hard
Patti Herr: In there.
Victoria Volk: But they’re the girls are two years apart. Mhmm. So but I did have them all within four years. Yeah. But I
Patti Herr: don’t know how you did it
Victoria Volk: I wouldn’t change it. It was it was crazy. It’s you know, those years are blur for sure, but now I wouldn’t change it, you know.
Patti Herr: Yeah. I think when they get older, it’ll be better because they’ll have to stay at each other and but right now it’s life is crazy. My house is messy. My house is lived in and Yeah. Life is good.
Victoria Volk: Grace.
Victoria Volk: Grace. Grace. Grace. Yeah. Lots of grace to go around.
Patti Herr: I was born people in, like, just or you know? I have three kids and it’s a mess in here.
Victoria Volk: And why do we think we need to apologize? Right?
Patti Herr: Yeah. I don’t know.
Victoria Volk: I know.
Patti Herr: Because some women have their lives together. I do not.
Victoria Volk: Well and you know, it’s like a lot everybody’s circumstances and situations are different too, you know. It’s, you know, it’s I think in this day in age too where you’re working outside the home, and then you come home and, you know, they call that the second shift. That didn’t exist for a lot of women way back when, like, for
Patti Herr: Well, I’m not working right now.
Victoria Volk: But you are.
Patti Herr: Well, I am. Yes. You’re right. You’re right.
Victoria Volk: You are. You are.
Patti Herr: But we’re home all the time, and I think that’s part of it is, like, when you do work, your house stays a little bit cleaner for a little bit longer because the kids aren’t in it.
Victoria Volk: That’s true. That’s very true.
Patti Herr: When you’re home all day, they’re here all day.
Victoria Volk: There is a trade-off there. There is a trade-off. So you are also a client of mine when we first initially recorded. It was shortly before that, like the year before that, you had gone through the grief recovery program. And how do you think that that has I mean, does it still influence your life in certain aspects or ways?
Patti Herr: Mhmm. It’s still a huge eye-opener for me. Like, I still tell people about it, and it still kind of like in awe. Like, I went in to do this about my husband who passed away and I did about someone who was living. Like, it just in awe, like, how people grieve and who they grieve and it kinda just puts it into perspective. And I think it still and I still like, I don’t write letters out anymore, but I do them in my head kind of or, like, in my heart, I guess.
Because it’s been nine years. And, like, recently, June 9th was nine years for me. So But I still I mean, I still struggle with that living person every day, every single day. So
Victoria Volk: And how have you managed to have a relationship with this person?
Patti Herr: To kind of make my not my life easier, but to manage my life and my well-being. I’ve distanced, I guess, in a way I’m not close with that person. But I still have a relationship with them.
Victoria Volk: And I think that’s the gift of going through grief recovery is that you realize where you need boundaries. Yeah. Maybe where you didn’t have them. Would you say that that helped you kinda implement those boundaries?
Patti Herr: Yep. And it’s I used to feel guilty about it, like, not having that person close because, like, my grandpa’s always like, oh, we need to, like, be together on holidays and, you know, bury your family, blah blah blah. But at the same time, I can still have a relationship and have bound laundries and still saved my heart and my family’s heart a little bit. And our feelings, I guess. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: Have you experienced any loss since we past recorded?
Patti Herr: Not personally, but friends, I guess, I’m not super close friends with some friends, and then just in the community, they’ve had losses. There was just a widow last week. I guess, a lady a woman in Westlake that lost her husband to a tragic accident, and I had planned on going to the funeral and I just could not. Leading up to the funeral, I got very anxious and I just I wanted to be there, but I knew it was not gonna be good, so could not do it.
Victoria Volk: Have you thought about working on that relationship with your deceased husband?
Patti Herr: I haven’t, but It has been 9th years. You think I’d be over it by now, but it just Well, those things and it’s it was the day. Like, June 9th was the day we buried him. It was my fifth wedding like, it was my we got married on that day, like, my now husband. Like, I think it’s a really good day to do all this. But then also so that person, that lady in town buried her husband on June 9th, and I just It was too much on June 9th. And then there’s this there’s a lot in history on June ninth for people in Wishik as well. There’s just a lot of a lot of in the mid beginning of June, I don’t know why now, like, a lot of grief in the beginning of June. But
Victoria Volk: Oh. Yeah. And that’s I wanna circle back to what you said. Like, it’s been nine years. I should be over it by now. And I think we tell ourselves that even two, three, four years in, forty years in. Mhmm. You know, people would say that people say that to other people. You should be over it by now. Okay. The thing is is what that process. And you know this, what that process helps you do is become emotionally complete so that when those days come, they aren’t as they don’t feel a sharp. You know? It’s like it it kind of softens the hurt a little bit, you know.
Patti Herr: I should have done a letter that day, but, like, because I’m good with the day with Jared. Let good with it, but, like, I know how to manage it. But then when that funeral came up, it was it was hard. And I knew it was like yeah. So I took a salad and I did some things around the church, but I just couldn’t do the funeral.
Victoria Volk: And that’s okay. Yeah. That’s okay.
Patti Herr: And I didn’t even know him really that well. I just know her and her family and I still just I mean, it brings back so many memories and it’s hard for that day.
Victoria Volk: I had someone ask me yesterday, you know, what do you they’re gonna go visit somebody who is very ill and die essentially. And she had asked me, what do you what do you say to somebody? Who’s dying or what do you say to somebody who’s going through something like that? And because you had that experience of being a widow, is there anything that you would have liked to have said to her or would like to share with anybody listening who may be experiencing that right now, that that you found helpful or that, you know, from your experience that you would like to share.
Patti Herr: Looking back, during, like, the planning process, I don’t feel like I was there really because I don’t like, then a year later, we buried my husband than dad. He died, passed away the day before, a year later. And I feel like I don’t remember planning any of that stuff. I feel like I left it into a lot of the family’s hands. And sometimes I wish I would have been more involved in picking things and but I just emotionally could not do it. So I just think, like, as for as far as advice, grieve, like, how you want because and there’s no timeline. Like, I say it should be over it, but there really is no timeline. And there are some people that are quick to judge and it’s been this long, you know. But can you really put a timeline on that? I don’t know. I don’t think you can. It would children, with husbands, with anyone in your life. Like, I don’t think you can put a timeline on how long you should grieve. Because or how? Like, I just don’t think so I feel I and I have told the widow this, like, you should just grieve how long you want, how you want, don’t let people influence you, keep those people close that wanna be close, like let them in because that’s those are your true friends. I lost people. Lost friends when Jared died in. It’s not like I did anything. Like, I’m not the one that made him pass away. And I still lost friends. So I just feel like your life will change, and you’re just gonna have to learn how to cope with that. And I think your class would be a great and for that when you’re ready. I don’t think you should have to do it right away or push to do it right away, but eventually, you need to start coping and learning how to cope. I didn’t do the counseling thing. I maybe should have, but I didn’t. So but just talking to someone, learning how to do deal and cope with things is very very high up there, I think, on the advice.
Victoria Volk: And one thing I learned too, just working in the groups, having you in the group and working with other clients one on one in the since, you know, in past three years, four years is now I actually have lengthened the one on one program to twelve weeks, and we work on two relationships. Because I think yeah. Because I think that you know, it’s not this one and done. Mhmm. I think once you work on one and then you work on another significant relationship, it kinda solidifies what you’re learning. And I think it just helps to really get a hang of the process because it is learning. It’s a little bit of a learning curve. You know, it’s new knowledge, it’s new tools, and so I’m happy to report that I’ve learned that you can’t just work on one. It’s working on two can help get that ball rolling so that you feel like this really does impact me in a positive way. Mhmm.
Patti Herr: How long does it agree?
Victoria Volk: Yeah. You you kinda wish it would have been too.
Patti Herr: Yeah. But I can tell that I’ve done it not to the full capacity, but, like, I’ve done it with other people in my life. Not not probably as in-depth or whatever, but I have done it with other relationships.
Victoria Volk: That’s good to hear. How do you think it’s going through this program and as your kids are getting a little bit older now and maybe asking different questions, you know, how has the going through the program and what you learned influenced your parenting maybe, and even you yourself, like, and how you parent.
Patti Herr: So I remember specifically part of the class who made this timeline and you’re, like, your dog dying, your fish dying. Like, that can impact every little thing in your life. And so I tried we tried to explain things like eastern kind of a few years ago, went through a thing with a death. And so I got a few little kid books or whatever to be able to read to him. And now I can read those to Norrie and Will and I I think explaining things and making it so that they know, like, I feel like it was kinda taboo. Like, you go to a funeral, like, people die. That’s what goes on in life. Well, you still need to process it. Like, a dog dying, you still need to process it. We had a dog die a year and a half ago. Like, we needed to process it as a family because it was kind of traumatic. So I feel like that’s helped me try to explain things to my kids too.
Victoria Volk: Do you have any tips on how you did that with your children?
Patti Herr: Let them ask the questions and no don’t let them feel like questions are bad or any question is bad. Just, like, let them ask the questions and give them the answers that they need and don’t fuel the fire, but don’t make it taboo. Don’t make it like, you shouldn’t talk about it. Hush hush.
Victoria Volk: Right. Be honest. Help your children be emotionally honest. You know? Yeah.
They’re angry. Let them be angry about their dog dying. You know, that’s okay. You know,
Patti Herr: My oldest is very an an empath and he feels a lot. So I have to do all the emotions with him.
Victoria Volk: That’s good. I mean, and there has to be space for that especially as a child who takes kind of in everything around them. It can be very over the world can be very overwhelming. Even the news, you know, it’s like you’re watching the news and you talking to your friend and your friend maybe went through something and then your dog dies, you know, like all these sad heavy things can really be devastating to a child who is highly sensitive. And so thank you for bringing that up, that not a lot of parents really consider that their child isn’t a cry baby. Mhmm. You know, because a lot of parents might say, quit being a cry baby. Mhmm. It’s you they’re just sensitive, more sensitive.
Patti Herr: You had a half meet, they had a father, passed away a few years ago, and Well, I guess it’s been a year a year and a half. And he he said, that’s so sad. And, you know, I said, well, you just need to be a good friend. You need to be there for him. And So I think that I mean, he asked a lot of questions about that too.
So he feels a lot.
Victoria Volk: Any resources that you have found, that you have utilized yourself other than grief recovery or anything else that you’d like to share?
Patti Herr: I really haven’t. I don’t use money. If I do, I would go to, like, Pinterest and sometimes there’s worksheets or something, but
Victoria Volk: for the kids.
Patti Herr: Oh, well and so I I had put it out there because Easton was very interested on on death and everything. And so I put out there, like, on Facebook, what people did. And they I can’t I have the book in one of their bookshelves, but there is a book about death. It has it’s like dinosaurs and stuff and kind of explains things. And I think I asked my pastor to ask actually, I did. I and I said, well, can you talk to him about it? Like, is there like, can he ask you questions and but I got this book, and then he did some research and gave me some other book titles, and I don’t have those at the moment. But on me but yeah. So I did go to my pastor and ask him and We have driven around cemeteries before and talked about things too. So
Victoria Volk: And even art — Yeah. — allowed children to express themselves through art. Yeah. Play Play Doh crayons, colors, watercolors in that way too.
Patti Herr: We got memorial flowers for the dog.
Victoria Volk: Oh.
Patti Herr: Yeah. Easton and his dad saw them in the store, so they got her memorial flowers. So
Victoria Volk: that’s good.
Patti Herr: He still talked about her. He talks about the cat that passed away four years ago. So he remembers a lot.
Victoria Volk: And how old is he now?
Patti Herr: He’s seven.
Victoria Volk: Old enough to understand.
Patti Herr: Yes.
Patti Herr: He’ll he’ll say, I miss this person. I miss this person. I wish I could have met this person like he knows.
Victoria Volk: And so many adults will underestimate what children truly understand. You know, I was eight when my dad passed away and people just didn’t think I understood. You know? It’s like, okay. Well, you see your dad. Yeah. You see your dad, in a coffin, and then, you know, he’s put in the ground, and then you don’t see him anymore. It’s like okay. Well, I understand they’re not in my life anymore, and that’s really sad. You know?
It’s like, don’t tell me I don’t understand. You know?
Patti Herr: Your mind’s understanding at five six seven, you definitely were understanding at eight.
Victoria Volk: By three years old —
Patti Herr: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: — About 75% of how to respond to life.
Patti Herr: Yeah. Well, in that three, that’s when he was asking about death. So
Victoria Volk: Yes. Exactly.
Patti Herr: Very important.
Victoria Volk: And I’m glad this came up too because it’s been something that I’ve I’ve said before, I think, on a different podcast episode, but I need to put resources for books, for children, and stuff on my website.
Patti Herr: And you need to have a class for children too.
Victoria Volk: I can’t actually work with children. That is that’s creating a thing. Yeah.
Patti Herr: And you have to take another class. Right?
Victoria Volk: Well, I can work with the adults of the children. So there’s the program helping children with loss but it’s for the adults to help the adults work with their own children.
Patti Herr: Okay
Victoria Volk: And that’s through the book, actually, this might be a good resource for you when children grieve — Mhmm. — is the other companion book to the grief recovery method is when children grieve. And are helping children’s loss program is based on that book. So that would be a resource for anyone listening. But there is actually a program that I had a guest on my podcast, and she started an organization called shielding hearts. And I’m going to look, I have just I’ve told her and I plan to look into her program because this program, you actually work with the kids, but it’s not it’s kind of along the lines of art and things. That you bring it into schools, the school system. So I’m gonna yeah. I’m gonna look into doing that. So it’s I’m not a licensed social worker, so that’s where some yeah. Get get the poo poo on that. We’re having kids, but It is a passion of mine, for sure, because I’ve I’ve been there, so I understand that children just don’t necessarily have that person in their life where they can feel like they can open up and share. Because oftentimes what happens too is let’s say dad or someone close to you is dying or sick and if or passes away and your your child is asking, what about grandpa? And then you don’t want to talk about it because it makes you sad. So then your child doesn’t talk about it because they don’t wanna make you sad. So then what happens is nobody’s talking about it.
Patti Herr: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: And it’s this thing that you just don’t talk about. You don’t you don’t talk about grandpa, you don’t talk about grammar, whoever it is that passes away.
Patti Herr: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: So what are you looking forward to in the next three years?
Patti Herr: Surviving, if we could.
Victoria Volk: Giving them all in school. Right?
Patti Herr: Yeah. Yeah. One won’t be, but the other ones will be. Yeah. But just building our life and working still working on our relationships, like even me and my husband, we I mean, we’re constantly learning single day. Like, I don’t think you ever I feel like you learn about your your spouse and everything, but I feel like you just you’re learning together every single day because you’ve some things you’ve never dealt with or, you know, your kids are getting older, so then situations change and you just learn I mean, we’re learning constantly together how to handle things and how to deal with things. And I just see us having so much fun as a family. And also, I know in the next three or ten years, probably we’re gonna be seeing some losses in our family and that we’re gonna have to deal with, and that’s something that I’m dreading. But it’s just the reality, I guess, and it’s not gonna be fun for any of my family.
Victoria Volk: But, yeah, tools.
Patti Herr: Yeah. Yep.
Victoria Volk: And I gotta say too, like, just is there anything that you would like to discuss about being in the trenches of motherhood and, you know, because you can kind of feel like because you weren’t anticipating. Right? You weren’t anticipating them at all. Right? And so, like, now being kind of in the I’ll say in the trenches of it. You know, I was we’re just talking about this and friends and I just the other day. I and I said, yep. You know, people always told me that the days are long, but the years are short, and then it’s so true. It is so true. You know, and when you’re in the trenches of it, it’s like, it’s really easy to lose yourself.
So how are you doing as far as that goes if you’re open to sharing?
Patti Herr: I go through my little tips where I’m like, I can’t keep this house clean and I get my little crying moments where I’m like, I’m a bad mom and blah blah, but the last couple of days, I realized, like, the house can be messy. It will get clean be cleaned someday, and we’ve been outside all day because it’s been so beautiful. And that to me is the best medicine and that’s what’s what makes my kids happy, what makes all of us happy, and dad is busy working in the field, and so we miss him terribly, but we just we play and we have fun. And when we can be with him. We do, and we have fun with him too. And life’s just crazy, and I would say when it slows down, but it never has yet. It’s just crazy busy and I just let them enjoy life and we play and play and play and eat and eat and eat and clean and clean and clean and clean and I just think you have to just have a little bit of faith and hope and everyone tells you, like, just relax. You’ll have kids, you know, when you’re going through in fertility, and that’s not always the case. Sometimes, you just have to take life into your own hands and believe in science and god put science on this world for a reason. And I think that IVF was a beautiful thing for us and our baby was a beautiful thing for us, and the first one was also beautiful because we didn’t think we were ever gonna get that chance. So I just think life is beautiful and it’s short and you just need to really enjoy it and it’s too short to be miserable. Obviously, you go through those moments where you’re not miserable, but you’re just sad. And I feel like you have to be sad to you. It’s a balance. You can’t always be happy happy happy, I guess.
Victoria Volk: Well, and that can be exhausting too to put on that front of all — Yeah. — like, you know, it’s I’m fine. Yeah. And there it that takes effort and energy. It’s a waste of effort and energy instead of — Yeah. — it takes less energy to be emotionally honest, like, No. I’m not good today. I kinda need a mental break.
Patti Herr: Yeah. Some well, my kids need mental breaks sometimes. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: Right? And from each other,
Patti Herr: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: That’s the hard balance too. It’s like that was the hardest part I think for me too. It’s like trying to find that individual time.
Patti Herr: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: It’s like that firstborn gets so much attention. And then the second one comes along and it gets a little harder. But that third, it’s really tough.
Victoria Volk: Throws a wrench into things.
Patti Herr: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: That’s really tough to, like, to feel like you’re giving each child what they need. You know? So that you can feel like you’re failing in a lot of ways. But
Patti Herr: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: you know, you do the best you can and
Patti Herr: and lean on each other. Like, you have friends, you have other moms, or dads, or whatever, like, lean on people, you know? Because they’re going through the same thing. They just maybe don’t show it as much or you don’t think they do or, you know, you might think you’re alone.
Victoria Volk: I just heard of a cup there’s a couple of working moms and they exchange, like, their day’s off, like, they’re watching on each other’s, like, that’s how they do it. They they’re killed. They’re both newborns or new oh, they’re new parents, and they’re that that’s what they do. So they just you know, they’re raising each other’s kids. They’re doing it together, and I think that’s a beautiful thing that you can find in friendship. You know, if you have that support. And if you don’t, find it. Create. Ask. You know, how many people are so afraid to ask hey, I have this idea. What do you think? You know, if we just you know, here’s one tip that I’ll share with you. And it is something that we still talk about to this day, our kids talk about it to this day is so I don’t live on a farm. I never have. But a friend of ours did and or does. And we would have what’s called farm days.
Patti Herr: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: So everybody brought their kids to the farm and like the rest of us had, well, two of us were lived on farm two of us lived on farms and two of us were city gals. Right? But, anyway, everybody brought their kids the water, water games, whatever they did, and we just got together, like us women, moms, got to talk and catch up. The kids got to have fun doing whatever they were doing. It was the best. It was the best. And, you know, we did this in the summer sometimes. And Those are the best memories. And oftentimes, they weren’t even planned.
Patti Herr: Mhmm.Victoria Volk: Hey, let’s just have a farm day today. And it doesn’t always work, of course, you know, because things and the phases of life. Right? You go with the phases of life. Now, most of like, there’s yeah. Two of us now. Two of the four have about three of the four have day jobs outside, you know, like, we have places we need to be and things we need to do, so it doesn’t always happen. But That’s my tip. Create a farm day. Ask the girlfriends, you know, especially the other friends that live on farms. Just get together, bring the kids, make it a
Patti Herr: We have a crazy idea. Sometimes, we go to the zoo with all of our kids and we’re like, why did we do this? But then in the end, it’s really fun for them. Yeah. They might cry on the way home because they’re so tired. But
Victoria Volk: But that’s what I’m saying. You don’t even need to drive anywhere. Yeah. To, like, take them out anywhere. You need to, like, mess with the strollers and the diaper bags and just come together —
Patti Herr: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: — one spot and just let them explore and find bugs.
Patti Herr: We do try to get together with friends, but it’s I mean, everyone’s so busy. It’s kinda we just need to and that’s my thing too is, like, you just gotta make the time.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. Just ask. Yeah. And I you know, a friend of mine too. She was like, you know she’ll ask me and I’ll say, ah, I just I can’t today, but And I told her just recently too, I’m like, you know what? This was a good idea. We went kayaking. She’s like, I was like, this is a good idea. She’s like, I guess I just I said, just never stop asking.
Patti Herr: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: You know, it wasn’t it wasn’t planned. It was, like, she was she wanted to go. So she’s, like, hey. I’m I wanna go, Kaye, do you wanna go? Yeah. I’ll go. You know? It’s Mhmm. So I think a lot of the times it’s the spontaneous things that is where the best memories are made. So that’s my suggestion to any mom just get together with the girlfriends. It’s important. It matters. It makes a difference. And
Patti Herr: You need to make time for yourself too.
Victoria Volk: That’s true too. That’s true.
Patti Herr: Get a babysitter. Don’t I know it’s expensive and I know, like, oh my gosh. I have to have it babysitter watch my kids, but get the babysitter because you need to have your own time, you need to have date nights. Like, we don’t definitely do don’t do an update switch we will someday when the kids are older. Right now, we just we’re focusing on our children, but get the babysitter.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. And speaking of which, people might be listening to, like, your house is really quiet for three kids. Do you have a babysitter?
Patti Herr: This summer, I got my littles into daycare for two and a half days a week. So they’re in daycare today. And at my older one, I made him out of the house for a little while. He might come in here in a little bit. I told him a half hour, so that’s about coming up rather than that back.
Victoria Volk: Oh, so that’s good. I mean, that you’re taking your own advice. Right? I mean, it’s just one day a week. You know
Patti Herr: I do work at McTwist, the Dairy Queen in town one day a week. So I I get an adult interaction.
Victoria Volk: And that’s important. And that is kind of you time. That is mental health time.
Patti Herr: It is. Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah. It’s only for, like, six hours, but I love it.
Victoria Volk: It’s something to look forward to to get out of the house. Right?
Patti Herr: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: Just Yeah. Yeah.
Patti Herr: And the fact here, like, I need to do this and I need to do that.
Speaker 0: And leave the house without a diaper bag.
Patti Herr: Yeah. Yeah. Or I mean, could I forget a kid? Or
Victoria Volk: Yeah. Well, I’m so glad things have really just the sun has just been shining on your life and it’s I’m so happy to have been able to catch up with you today. And thank you for sharing what’s been up with you. Yeah. And you know, I do offer alumni groups.
Patti Herr: And she made it to somebody.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. Well, and I could do it online now too. I don’t have to pack a diaper bag. So yeah. So I’ll have to maybe get something like that lined up in the future. Yeah. Is there anything you prefer? Yes. there aren’t. Is there anything else that you would like to share?
Patti Herr: I don’t think so. Just live life to the fullest because it’s so short. You never know. You never know.
Victoria Volk: You never know. That’s for sure. Especially, as you just described, you know, that accident that happened. Right? You just you don’t know. You can leave your house one day and not walk in the door later.
Patti Herr: Yep.
Victoria Volk: So
Patti Herr: Yep.
Victoria Volk: All I was gonna ask you too. Do you ever go out to the farm where your husband’s work and have a picnic with the kids?
Patti Herr: We go out there because we have a horse named Marlin, and the kids wanna go see the horse all the time. So we go see Marlin quite often.
Victoria Volk: Okay? But where your husband is farming, though. Yeah.
Patti Herr: Oh, yeah. We well, we take him food, and I actually have to take him chemically. He called me right before this and said, can you bring me some chemical? Oh, so I’m also farmland. Like, I yeah. And we want to move to the farm someday. So we’ll be out there probably in a few years, I would say.
Victoria Volk: Oh, so you’re not on the farm?
Patti Herr: Nope. We’re in town. We live in his grandma’s house. We bought his grandma’s house.
Victoria Volk: Oh, my mistake.
Patti Herr: Yeah. But we will move to the farm his parents live out there, but they’re kinda transitioning. So
Victoria Volk: Well, farm days are in your future, I bet.
Patti Herr: Yeah. So women can come find out for farm days because I plan to have all the things. My husband’s like, oh, we’re gonna have funny farm and I’m like, you better believe it. I’m going to that exotic animal sale and we’re gonna have fainting goats and
Victoria Volk: Oh.
Patti Herr: Peacock
Victoria Volk: That’s really fun. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Patti, and it’s been so fun catching up with you. And I wish you a wonderful rest of 2023. It’s halfway.
We’re halfway through. That’s crazy.
Patti Herr: Time goes too fast?
Victoria Volk: Sure does. Well, many blessings to you and your family.
Patti Herr: You too. Thanks.
Victoria Volk: Thanks. And remember, when you unleash your heart you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Podcast, Growth, Mental Health, Mind/Body Wellness, Podcast, Q&A, Spirituality |
Q&A | The Grief of a Midlife Crisis
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Did you know that the term “midlife crisis” was coined by Elliot Jacques, a psychoanalyst who came up with the term in 1965 after noticing significant changes in one of his middle-aged clients?
A lot has changed since 1965; the way we eat, how we eat, what we drive, societal views about marriage and children, etc. It’s as if Mr. Jacques saw the writing on the wall back then. Fast-forward fifty-eight years, and the “midlife crisis” has become, in some respects, a societal joke. Hit forty, and you might have an affair, buy a sports car, or make some other radical, life-altering change due to aging panic…or is it due to something else?
In this episode, I explore the idea of a midlife crisis, or rather, a midlife unraveling, and the accompanying grief. Which comes first? Grief or the midlife unraveling?
I believe that we all experience a midlife crisis to some degree. The question is: what do you do about it? Well, you’ll find that there’s more to a midlife crisis than meets the eye.
Listen, reflect, and connect with me on social media – I’d love to continue this conversation!
🎙 Do you have a question you would like addressed on the podcast? Message me on social media or email me at victoria [at] theunleashedheart [dot] com with “Grieving Voices Q&A” in the subject line.
RESOURCES:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hello. Hello. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, no matter what time you’re listening. Thank you for being here. And tuning in to grieving voices. I am your host, Victoria Volk. And today’s episode is number 147 and it’s a Q&A episode talking about a topic that I think hits a lot of people. And it’s the grief of a midlife crisis. This topic came up, I believe it was during a podcast interview I was guesting on. And I want to bring up a article that I came across and I’ll put the link to it in the show notes. It was on HealthLine. And I’m just gonna I mean really this article kind of talks about midlife crisis as as we age. As being like this issue that you have when you’re aging. And there’s a part in here that says a period of soul searching is relatively common but only about 10 to 20 percent of people actually face some kind of crisis in middle age. Experts mostly consider the midlife crisis, in air quotes, a cultural phenomenon, a western myth fueled by tired media tropes. I don’t know about you but I think I personally believe that we all experience a mid life crisis or a midlife unraveling, whatever you want to call it, to some degree in our lives at some point. Their phase in our lives.
Victoria Volk: And so let’s define a midlife crisis. Typically, it is around ages forty and sixty with ten years of wiggle room according to this article. New roles and responsibilities not to mention changes in your career, family life, and health can create a perception of middle age before you reach the momentous, big four or birthday. Maybe you’ve had children at a young age, so you’re still in your thirties, when they leave home or perhaps early success prompts you to retire early, leaving you financially secure but somewhat dissatisfied at loose ends. In short, midlife can begin at a different point for everyone.
Victoria Volk: And actually the term midlife was developed by Elliott Jaques, a psychoanalyst who came up with the term in 1965 after noticing significant changes in one of his middle aged clients. According to Jacques, this crisis prompts feelings of depression, anguish, and loss related to the approaching end of life. He also noted that it often involved a loss of creativity and confidence along with the first inklings of mortality, the transition of middle age is often suggested to involve other emotional turmoil. Such as declining happiness and life satisfaction, aimlessness or loss of life purpose, self-doubt, frustration with changing life roles and responsibilities, boredom and dissatisfaction with your relationship career or life in general, concerns about your appearance and how others perceive you, thoughts about death, the meaning of life, and other existential, that’s a hard word to say. Existential concepts, changes in energy levels from increased restlessness to unusual fatigue, less motivation or interest in pursuing goals and activities you use to enjoy. Mood changes, including anger, irritability, and sadness, and changes in sexual desire.
Victoria Volk: Well, I don’t know about you, but I think all of us experience some of this to some degree. So the fact that experts air quotes believe that this is that a midlife crisis is a cultural phenomenon and a western myth ought to wake up and smell the coffee because why do we see people resorting to behaviors to feel better if they were so satisfied with their lives. If they did not feel self-doubt, if they didn’t lack purpose, if they didn’t have thoughts of death in the meaning of life and purpose, or if they’re bored, not dissatisfied with the relationship career life in general. Like, are these surprising reasons? Like, are we surprised that most people that we know, maybe even new or ourselves, like, I know I have experience this sense of a midlife crisis or midlife unraveling, which I like to call it. Because I think, especially like turning 40. It is like this midphase. Like, you’re you’re looking to the past you’re thinking you’re reflecting on the past, you’re thinking about all the life that came before you, all the experiences, maybe there’s been a lot of hurt and a lot of pain and a lot of sorrow and grief and loss. And you’re thinking ahead, well, what do I have to look forward to? What do I want my last however many years to look? What do I want to produce in the world? How do I wanna show up for myself or my loved ones or my family and friends? What legacy do I want to leave? Like, it’s overwhelming when we think about having maybe thirty years left to live or twenty years left to live in the fact is that we don’t know how many years we have left to live.
Victoria Volk: And so especially as we get into the 40s, what happens when we start to get into the 40s? We’re almost we become like this sandwich generation. We’re still raising kids and yet we have aging parents, so we’re taking care of the young and the old. We’re having to transition from being the child, to being the caregiver and the caretaker, and the responsible one for the care of our parent, an aging parent maybe. We’re having to make big decisions, big changes possibly in our lives. This is a huge transitional period. And for anyone that says that the midlife crisis is a myth I do wholeheartedly wholeheartedly wholeheartedly absolutely disagree. I think it’s something that we need to talk about more. I think it’s something that we need to less stigmatized as being something that this period of time, or you have an affair, or you spend all your money, or you buy the race car or the fancy car or you go have liposuction or BOTOX and it’s not just an aging. It’s not just about aging. Yes, that has a lot to do with that, I think. But at the same time, like, what is the bigger picture? What has happened to you in your past that makes you reflect and bring into your future. Like, what has happened in the past that you’re bringing into your present moment that you will take into your future. That is affecting you right now.
Victoria Volk: Because I guarantee you you’ve had experiences in the past that are coming up again, especially if you have become the caregiver to your parent. I can bring up a lot for someone. It can be a very difficult position to be in. When maybe it was a less than loving relationship. Maybe you’re struggling with your child. Maybe your child is struggling. So your relationship is struggling. Maybe your marriage is struggling. Like, there’s so many things. This is the period too where you know, the friendships might change. As your kids get older and maybe move off to college and things, like the things that connected you with your friend group, the children. Right? You connected with these people because of your kids and now your kids are gone or now your kids are older and leave the house and go to college and what have you, those friendships can change. You can lose friendships because now there is not that commonality, that common ground that brought you together in the first place.
Victoria Volk: And so it’s a really huge time of transition. And in all of these signs and symptoms of a midlife crisis that I mentioned earlier, decline in happiness, self-doubt, frustration with changing life roles, responsibilities, mood changes, changes in sexual desire, etcetera, etcetera. It is par for the course. Like, these are things that we will experience in our lives, all of us, no matter what your gender is or how you identify or what have you. Like, we all go through these things. Not all of them may be necessarily, but many of them. Right? Like, we can have boredom and dissatisfaction with a relationship career or life in general because maybe we’re looking back and the things that we used to love to do we haven’t had the time or made the time because maybe we are that sandwich generation of now caring for small children or getting children that are growing and a parent at the same time. So it’s we’re put in these different roles as we get older and our roles change. And with change, can comes grief. Because grief is a change in familiar pattern of behavior. And so during this huge time of change, in midlife, we’re going to experience grief. No doubt about it.
Victoria Volk: They say that this that happiness is a you. Research has found some evidence this article says to suggest that happiness or general satisfaction with life takes the shape of a you. It begins to decline by early adulthood, eventually reaching its lowest point in the mid to late 40s. But then it begins to rise once more. This finding is pretty much universal. It holds true for people in a hundred and thirty two countries around the world independent of any outside factors that might affect life satisfaction and happiness. Experts don’t yet understand why this dip happens, but some believe it could represent an evolutionary stage. In any case, it may help explain some of the distress you experience in midlife. And offers some reassurance that these feelings aren’t permanent.
Victoria Volk: I would agree with that too. They don’t have to be permanent. But I think that a lot of these things that people experience self-doubt, aimlessness or a loss of life purpose or declined in happiness or life satisfaction. These things can take root. They can take hold and they can impact the remaining years of your life. If you allow it because I think too, coming back to reflecting on the first half of your life, maybe a lot of loss and grief. And all these things can resurface with life experience and midlife. Again, with aging parents, it can bring up a lot of stuff. Even having kids can bring up a lot of stuff, especially getting when they get into the teenagers, kids bring up all of our insecurities. Maybe you’re venturing into entrepreneurship and that can bring up a lot of insecurities and things from your past, belief systems. Again, I’m going to say that I believe all of us experience a midlife unraveling to some degree or another. And I do believe that it can be something that can help you evolve and grow if you’re willing to embrace the change. Embrace the transition because it really is a phase of transition and transformation. It can be. And it can really knock you on your ass at the same time.
Victoria Volk: This article goes on to say, well, how long does it last? Well, there’s no set timeline for supposed midlife crisis. There’s no timeline for grief either is there. Everyone experiences it differently, processes it, differently. But at the same time, everyone has different stressors. Everyone is experiencing a different trigger, I guess in their lives that catapults them into this midlife unraveling. And So I think everyone’s situation is very unique to them. But again, I will say that how you respond to that midlife unraveling, definitely I think plays a role in how quickly you rebound from it as well. And that’s the same for loss. If you’ve experienced a lot of loss in your life and you’ve never really looked at it and never allowed yourself to feel everything that you’ve experienced, processed it emotionally and with your body, you’re probably holding on to some junk. In there, and it’s probably manifesting as some physical symptoms, fibromyalgia, or hypertension, or migraines, things like that.
Victoria Volk: But a midlife unraveling can also lead you to behaviors that kind of exasperate those things that are already existing. Those behaviors that you already are participating in, a midlife unraveling can exasperate that. You can, like, go deeper into the alcohol. You can dive deeper into prescription drugs or promiscuous behavior or risk ski behavior or gambling or shopping, it comes back to the grief. Again, the grief of a midlife crisis, the grief of a midlife unraveling. It’s all tied together. And so, like this article says, how do you handle it? Well, how do you handle grief? Right? You gotta acknowledge it and acknowledge your feelings. I like how this article says to remember that your life is expanding and not shrinking. And I think it can be really easy to look at our age or if we’re looking at a midlife crisis as an age-related issue, which I don’t necessarily fully believe it is. I think we can have a midlife unraveling kind of at any point. I mean, you can be 30 years old and have had a really traumatic life up to that point where it feels like you’ve lived five lifetimes. Where you’ve experienced more in your life than most people experience in a lifetime. And so I think it is unique to you. I don’t know that I don’t fully believe that it has to be that it would be in your 40s necessarily. But again, it comes back to that societal just how society looks at midlife and the midlife crisis and the getting the fancy the midlife crisis car or things like that. But I like how this article says how you recognize that your life is expanding and not shrinking. And I think that’s where gratitude comes in. It’s really looking at the past for what it is and looking ahead with hope. And not like that with this idea or this belief that the best years are behind you.
Victoria Volk: And it reminds me of a guest who said Quandell. He was a recent where are they now episode and he had shared. What if everybody lived their lives as if the best years are yet to come? And I think that’s where this whole idea of when we think about the midlife crisis or midlife unraveling is thinking about our lives in that way, that the best years are yet to come. It’s not in the past, it’s and not necessarily the past was may be good to you either, you know. So I think it’s giving gratitude for the lessons of the past. And looking ahead to the future of asking yourself those big questions, the deeper questions, getting more curious about what you want your life to be like at the end of life. There’s an opportunity there to expand rather than look at your life as if it’s shrinking.
Victoria Volk: And I think this is where too as the article shares, to take stock of your relationships, how important relationships are, friendships are. I’m gonna mention in this episode again, I’ve ahead and episode. My guest shared this and I’m gonna share it again about the four people to have in your corner. This refers to women women friendships, but men can apply this to their lives as well. But you always want that wise person. You want the wise friend. You want the emotional support who only listens. And you want the go-getter. And four, you want the late-night talker. So those are the four types of friends or four people to have in your corner. The wise person, emotional support, the go-getter, and the late-night talker. And I think that’s an important aspect to have in relationships as a part of your life especially when you’re going through a challenging time such as grief or loss or midlife unraveling, right, which can be triggered by many many number of different things. And the importance of your taking care of your mental health. And I think if we’re addressing the relationships and we’re addressing gratitude in looking at our past with thanks and appreciation for what it was and what it gave us. And what we experienced and looking ahead to the future with opportunity, with opportunistic eyes and potential, seeing the potential that we yet have to bring joy and light and love into the world. I think the mental health will follow suit. I think that life becomes more like. So be the light, be the love, and you’ll get more of that in return. And maybe that’s the cure for a midlife unraveling is making those things a priority. And seeking support wherever you need it.
Victoria Volk: And I’m gonna have an episode coming up or I’m gonna talk about more about life satisfaction as it relates to grief. I’m finishing up with a Do Grief Differently client and we had our second to last session recently, and she was sharing all of these amazing basically testimonials of what she’s experienced the past eleven sessions with me and through the program itself and the importance of having Youmap as a part of the program. It’s not just about working through your grief. It’s looking ahead to the future, which she does now, which she does now. And it’s such an important topic to talk about because what I do, it’s not talk therapy. It’s taking action. And action is where it’s at. Action is where transformation happens. And so I’m gonna be talking about that in a future episode coming up real soon.
Victoria Volk: And in the meantime, I want to leave you with something that I’ve never brought to the podcast before or shared, but I kinda like Oracle cards. And I don’t read them, you know, like, it’s not a session I offer. Like, I don’t, like, pull a card for people as an offering or anything like that. But when you work with me, it is something that if I feel called to, I will ask if you know, at the end of a session, energy healing session or end of a, you know, Grief Recovery, Do Grief Differently session. I’ll ask if the client wants me to pull a card. And generally speaking, I don’t choose the deck that I pulled the card from. I let my pendulum decide. But today, just for funsies, I decided to pull a card for you, my audience, and it’s from postcards, from Spirit. It’s a 52 Card Oracle Deck by Colette Baron-Reid. She’s the bestselling author of the map and Uncharted. I have not read the books, but I absolutely love this Oracle deck. And so I’m gonna read this card. I’m gonna leave this with you today because this is it’s absolutely perfect for what I’ve just shared, which I pulled the card, and then I recorded, so this is interesting. But perfect for the topic today.
Victoria Volk: And the card is reads. Dear you, There are times in life when taking a risk is better left for another day. Other times are perfect for taking that leap. No matter how dangerous it might seem. Well, hold on to your parachute strings for today is leap time. Realize that no matter what, we will not let you fall, drown, get lost, or hurt yourself in any way on this one. Even if it may feel like you are in a free fall, we are here for you, and you can stop freaking out about getting hurt and relax into this transition to something new. All the elements are in place and your soul is ready for a new experience. No matter what you’re asking about, it’s time to take the risk and do that thing that scares you. No matter what happens, you will land softly right on target. Don’t worry about the outcome. Spirits got that covered. It’s taking the leap itself. That’s the point. We love your courage, embrace it.
Victoria Volk: And thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. If you loved it, I would love to hear about it. And if you would like more cards, shared with you at the end of these episodes. Let me know. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Childhood Grief, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Healing, LGBTQ+, Mental Health, Mind/Body Wellness, Podcast, Where Are They Now? |
Jordan Brodie: Where Are They Now? | Redefining Success & Grief with Best Friend and Brother Loss
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
This “Where Are They Now?” episode with Jordan is a follow-up to the first conversation we recorded on 01/19/2021. Jordan’s first episode went live as episode 44 on 4/27/2021. You may want to check out that episode first, then come back to this follow-up episode.
In this follow-up episode, Jordan shares about the devastating loss of his older brother to a fentanyl overdose only a week after we recorded his first episode. In the time since, Jordan has been able to maintain his sobriety. However, in this episode, he goes into more depth on the impact the loss of his best friend, followed by the loss of his brother, had on him – and his sobriety.
Sobriety aside, Jordan also shares how his spiritual beliefs have been shaped by the loss of his best friend, Chase, and his older brother, Josh. And what he looks forward to in the future. Jordan is currently traveling Europe after living in Los Angeles for 11 years. He shares how leaving the glitz, glam, and city life has offered him the opportunity and experience of a lifetime. And maybe, for the first time, the time and space to discover how he wishes to define what success means to him moving forward.
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today is a Where Are They Now episode. And it is a follow-up with a guest who I originally spoke to on January 19th, 2021, Jordan Brodie. And his episode went live on April 27th, 2021. It is episode 44. And it is titled Growing Up Gay, CODA, and with Addiction. And so if you haven’t listened to that episode you might wanna check that one out first and then come back to this one but I am so excited to catch up with Brodie. There has been a lot going on in his life since then. And also, actually, the week after we spoke, his brother had died of an overdose. And so that is where we will start today. But first of all, Jordan, thank you so much for being here. And you’re all the way over in France. So thank you so much for joining me from France. And I love the idea of following up with people after a couple years and because if I’m wondering how you’ve been, what’s what you’ve been up to, what’s changed in your life, I’m sure other people are too, And so thank you so much for taking the time to catch us all up.
Jordan Brodie: That’s so nice. You’re welcome. Thank you. Victoria, and so grateful to be back here today. So much has happened since Chase Guy. And even after that podcast, we recorded eight days after my older brother died. And, God, I think speaking with you, and, like, having been prepared from losing my best friend. It really helps me, I think, because Joshua’s death, my older brother was even more difficult for me emotionally. And Chase is definitely very difficult. I think, kind of, like, having this platform to tell my story I think it really helped my grieving process. And I just wanna thank you because it really did help me to talk about it right away. It really did. I don’t I think I really think I breathed well, and I’m still grieving. Chase and Josh and another’s losses in my life. Like, it’s a continuous thing, I think society prepares us to get things. Like, we’re in a consumer capitalistic society where we’re, you know, get get get we want this, we want that, we want new things, we want a new dog, a new puppy, a new bike, a new car, a new house, a new boyfriend, a new girlfriend. We always want new things. We gotta get that new iPhone every year. Our society doesn’t teach people how to lose things in a proper and healthy way. And you know, when some when you lose something, a lot of times people are like, oh, well, don’t worry. You can get another one. And that really invalidates the emotions. I’ve learned it’s not good to say that to people don’t say, oh, well, you can get a new cat, you can get a new dog. It invalidates the emotions. And also, I don’t like even people offer me, like, tissues or phoenix when I’m crying. Like, I don’t like being blocked. I want to just let it flow because I think it’s healthy. We have such a shame around crying and and losing things. But it’s a part of life. It’s inevitable getting on here here with you. It was about two years ago really helped me, like, with my grieving process because if I keep things bottled in, I go crazy. I really do, and I need to talk about what’s going on with me. And everyone does, not just on a podcast. We don’t just need to be on a podcast to talk to people who can talk to our friends, our family, our therapists, but I think it’s important to talk to someone and He really helped me, so thank you.
Victoria Volk: Thank you so much for sharing that because I really had no idea. I mean, I know we had kinda just talked over social media a little bit after I had heard that your brother had passed, but I had no idea. Those are the very things that we talk about in the program Do Grief Differently. Like, you know, when I try and educate people, like, don’t hand a tissue, you know, that stops someone from crying and so just the fact that you’ve re you remembered those things and that you found them helpful and you’re probably actually helping other people too and educate dating other people along the way in the past two years just based on what you’ve learned in our first conversation.
Jordan Brodie: Yeah, I really hope so. I really hope to be just a light inspiration by being vulnerable on social media, on the Internet, on YouTube, in public with people just being open and honest and authentic. I really hope it helps others, and I know it helps others. I’ve had people say, they look up to me. I do know I have people that looked up to me and I’m really grateful for that. It used to make me feel uncomfortable, but I’ve worked through my impostor syndrome and I think everyone, not just me, everyone can help anyone with their story. We all have a story to tell. You, Victoria, have a story to tell. All the listeners on here have a story to tell, and it’s important and it’s valid. And it doesn’t matter if you’re just a grocery store clerk or you’re just a farm Boy or you just you’re just a high schooler with no extracurricular activities or you are the football player or whatever you are, you have a story. Everyone has a story. It doesn’t matter who it is. You don’t have to be a royalty, a rich person, born into a rich family, a celebrity. It’s not just the celebrities that have stories to tell. It’s the little Joe’s and Bob’s and Dina’s and Susie’s in the middle of America, in the middle of Europe and then in middle of France. Everyone has a story and I love your podcast because you do interview everyone. It’s not just celebrities, it’s not just these people, it’s normal average job people dealing with free and everyone deals with Green in their life and it’s something we need to talk about. I don’t think any topic should be taboo. In this world because we’re all human. We all go through the same feelings and emotions and desires maybe different ways. But why should any topic be taboo or shameful when everyone is experiencing that?
Victoria Volk: In church recently, the priest had shared, we should not hide our wounds. When we hide our wounds and we don’t talk about our wounds, they kill us.
Jordan Brodie: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: And that speaks to what you’ve just been sharing.
Jordan Brodie: It’s very, very true. So since Josh and Chase died, by the way, Joshua’s death very difficult, and he actually died from the same death as Chase, a similar death. It was a fentanyl overdose. I don’t know the exact details about Chase, and I don’t even really know the exact details about Josh, but I know that he had COVID and had been isolated for two weeks, and then relapsed and it was an overdose on fentanyl. I did similar thing with Chase with Chase. I was like, how can I give service to his mother, like and being of service throughout Chase’s death process, like, after he died and asking his mother, like, how can I help? Like, I love Chase so much. Like, how can I help? She asked for help putting together his because it was during COVID, his Zoom memorial service for friends and family because COVID, we could she couldn’t have a big open funeral. It was only close family members, no friends. So I did that. I put together, I found a pastor, to run the services. And I got the made invitations. I invited a bunch of people. Like, It is really hard to do, but it helps me stay focused and help me stay safe. I had some friends donate money to pay the pastor because he was on Zoom and he was a friend from the Unitarian University of Church. We did this service. It was a beautiful service. I think I sing and my other friend saying and read a poem and it was very beautiful. Chase would have loved it because Chase was an artist, he was an actor, he was a performer, I still think about him. He’s still a superhero to me. He was obsessed with SpiderMan. When the new SpiderMan movie, came out. It was on I think it was on Joshua’s birthday. Josh’s birthday was February 18th, and he died from January 27th. It was somewhere around his birthday that the new SpiderMan movie came out and Chase was obsessed with SpiderMan. Chase where he had all these furnishings with him. It was kinda silly. It was like an adult child that became this part of that. But I would just the message of that SpiderMan movie. I don’t know if you saw it. Let’s just see the new SpiderMan. It was I don’t wanna ruin too much of the story for but for those who saw it that are listening, there was a message of forgiveness to those who have done you wrong. Because it’s a long story, but I don’t wanna ruin the plot, but there was a character in the movie who hurt SpiderMan. And SpiderMan had a choice to be to he had a choice to make. And he would have done something wrong if he wouldn’t have chosen to forgive And the thing about Chase and Josh is they go back from a fentanyl addiction, which drug dealers are lacing drugs of fentanyl. So I was angry. Like, at drug dealers, when Chase moved to LA, he was a very handsome he was very handsome and fellow people all the actor agents said he looked like the next action cooker. Sorry, handsome. And everyone just so many old guys came around promising him fame and fortune and I’ll be your agent. A lot of them just fed him drugs and got him high and took advantage of him. Like, it’s true. And it happens to so many people that move to LA. So many people I’ve seen it happen. I’ve been I was in LA for eleven years, and I saw so many people get chewed up and spit out And I’m so sad that she’s happened to be one of them. I luckily kind of avoided that. I avoided the drug part because I already got it up that out of my system in high school, but Chase fell into that. All these old gross men I was always so I was so protective of Chase. I mean, I knew him since I was eight years old. And I had a big crush on him. I didn’t realize that he was kind of my high school crush, but he only liked older thighs and I wasn’t necessarily as type. And I think we were both kind of afraid of each other in that way. I’m afraid of intimacy and being hurt and I was afraid to be honest with him about how a truly felt for him, and that was one of my biggest regrets. When she died. I was always so angry with Chase. I was like, Chase, why are you hanging out with this guy? You just want to fuck you. You just want systems like, oh, yeah. That he helps me with my scripts when I have auditioned. And I was like, I can help you with this script. Someone else can, but this guy is not confused. There were so many of these to be fair, like, one of these guys that I’m talking talking about, I don’t wanna say his name. He like, two years ago. He’s a really fit a popular agent in LA. And he literally got me tuned and canceled, and that he actually died from cancer, like, a few months ago, this guy in particular. And I was always like, Chase, why are you hanging out with this guy? Like, he’s not promising you anything. He’s just using you. He’s getting you high. He’s leading you on. And, you know, this is good. To share because I heard of the superficiality of LA. I’m tired of seeing it. It was so heartbreaking to me. And all these influencers, all these people are coming every day, every year, and falling from this trap. And so many people get caught into drug addiction. Think about the amount of famous people you know with drug problems that, like, goes spiraling down. For every famous person, there’s probably like ten thousand not famous people who never make it, who die from an overdose in LA because they get stuck in that whole trap. It’s really dark. And messed up. And I think people should know, like, when they move to LA to have boundaries and not lose their backbone, like, keep your morals and your standards or you will get lost. Like, I got lost. Thank god. I got back on track. Chase actually helped me get back on track. He was my eskymo of I went to anonymous twelve step programs at first to support Chase. And then I stuck with it. And now, yeah, I have six years sober. I’ll have seven years on January thirteenth. So help me God. But
Victoria Volk: Congratulations.
Jordan Brodie: Thank you. It’s just really heartbreaking and I’m tired of seeing people just fall into this superficial chase of fame and fortune. I have different dreams now. I still want I still desire to be famous for my music and well-known or successful and be paid from my art and my music. Fame represents success for me as an artist. But I don’t it’s not if I’m making a living as an artist or even if I am still making art, but I have all my needs met, like I have a home, a place to live, food to eat, As long as I’m doing music recording, I don’t care if a thousand people are listening or not. I just want to have a place to sleep some food to eat and be doing music. And I realize I don’t like big cities. I feel anxious in big cities. So I’m actually traveling Europe right now. I’ve been in Europe almost for two and a half months doing work away. I’m traveling right now around the world. I’m gonna probably be doing this for, like, a year or two. Until I figure out where I wanna live. Getting European citizenship to my grandmother. She’s born in Estonia. It’s not guaranteed, but we’re starting the process to apply for my citizenship. And, yeah, I love Europe. I’m loving it. And I feel like Chase and Josh are with me and but, yeah, for everyone that’s planning on moving to LA or New York, any big city. It doesn’t matter. Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, London. All these major cities have huge drug problems. So it’s really important to stick with your morals and ethics and your backbones. Like, wherever you’re going, think about find a role model from your childhood, like, maybe it’s a grandpa, like, or someone that you really admire that has good qualities of integrity and service and love. They don’t have to be perfect. My grandpa and some of my role models are not perfect. They have mistakes. They’ve had flaws. But I admire their good qualities, and I aspire to be like them finding role models in my recovery has been what’s helped me. And I think going back to the SpiderMan thing, that’s what Chase’s well one of his role models was SpiderMan because he was he’s such a positive hero. Like, I think he’s such a great world model. And when I watched that movie, God, I’d boggled so hard in the theater. But Like I said, the moral of that story was forgiveness to those who have done you wrong and hurt you. If you watch it, you will know what I mean. You will see this message. It’s pretty clear. And it’s exactly like, I was so mad about Chase, like, I blamed basically any old gay guy. This sounds really brief is a seductive kind of messed up it can put some messed up voices in your head, like my ego. And any, like, older gay guy, I was just angry at. I was, like, everyone’s a predator. I hate all of you guys. Like, just so many people I was so mad at, and I was blaming all these people and it was really hard. I was so angry at everyone. I was just angry at the world, like, for just being not understanding of my friend and not respecting his humanity because he was a very handsome person and just so many people, like, threw themselves at him and try to take advantage of him and I was just, like, always there on this side, like, supporting him with my love, and I was, of course, hoping one day. Well, no. I appreciate him as a friend and I was content with their friendship, but I really was and love on him. Looking back at it, I was very much in love with him. Like, I was too disassociated for my own addictions. To know that it was, like, what I was for. Like, he was always when I went in high school, I had a big crush on him, I had a huge crush on him. He’s so charismatic. He’s so funny. He’s so handsome. And I had a big crush on him. And then I always did, and he knew it. Like, he liked older guys.
Victoria Volk: How do you honor his life today?
Jordan Brodie: As I’m traveling, going to things like that SpiderMan movie is very helpful. I got to see Demi Lovato perform at Avida, like, the week before I left for Europe. And Chase was the biggest Demi Lovato fan. Like, I wasn’t that I love Demi, but, like, I’m not, like, I’m not obsessed. Like, she’s not my diva. I love her. I love her music. I’m obsessed. That like, I do love her. Okay? But Chase was obsessed. Like, the biggest demi lovato fan. So I felt like he was there with me and, like, he was so happy and like, I just felt him there. And then I just feel his energy a lot, and I talked sometimes I’ll reach out to his mother, see how she’s doing. We talked on social media a lot, and she’s just really supportive of me. And I know she still misses him a lot. And Chase was very, like, he was, like, very risk-taking, very adventurous. It’s on my list of things to do to go skydiving with some of his friends, like, in Chase’s memory because Chase was such a risk-taker. So I wanna get some of his friends and I wanna go skydiving because I am so scared of how it’s and like, Yolo and his memory. Like, I wanna jump for him and, like and then I and then I worked my program my recovery programs and my sobriety honors him. Like, I feel like when he died, I don’t know if I talked about this in the podcast, but I I didn’t handle it the best when it came to my recovery in some of my behaviors because I still, like, I acted out like, sexually, like, to, like, cope with the emotions I was experiencing. And like, because I’m an addict, but I’m not just, like, a drug addict, an alcoholic. Like, I also struggle with sex addiction, and love addiction and emotional anorexia. When Chase died, I just I kinda I relapsed. I really did. I don’t I didn’t talk about this. When we did the interview, but I did relapse, like, when he died. And it took me, like, a week or two, like, get back on track, and that was really hard. Like but when Josh died, I think since that had already happened, I didn’t relapse when Josh died. I was ready. I was prepared. And so that was really hard. And my sex and love addiction is still very difficult. I do still get really lonely. And I have a lot of pain, like, anxiety, emotional pain, and I think it’s good not to latch onto someone when you’re grieving or you’re sad, but it wasn’t ready for that. Like, no one prepares you to lose your best friend or, like, to lose your older brother, like, I had never experienced any significant loss like that in my life. It was the first. So I was not ready for that at all. At all. Like, I wasn’t that close with my grandpa. When he died, I was, like, it wasn’t that big of a deal for me. I mean, he’s a grandpa. He’s older. You know? It’s part of life. And he was kinda angry towards the end of his life. So I was kind of relieved for him because he had cancer and he was in a lot of pain. It wasn’t very nice to me. My little brother’s, and I didn’t, like, carry through to my little brother’s. So when he passed, I was a little bit relieved for his pain because I knew he was in a better place. He was in so much pain. Presented his life. And I don’t know. But Chase, like, I thought he was doing good. Like, he had just gotten six months sober. And Yeah. I still really miss him a lot. And honestly, like, I was really delusional about their dads like, I don’t know, like, last January. I was this January, I was, like, oh my gosh. It’s almost been a year. I was texting my stepmom. I was like, it’s almost been a year since Josh died. And she was like, Jordan, it’s been two years. Like, that’s how, like, disassociated I’ve been when it comes to my brother and she it’s, like, I was still in denial about his death for a really long time. Like and I’m still a little bit in denial. About it. Like, I really am. Like, I delusionally, I’m a fantasy addict, so I live in fantasy. I live in my head a lot. And I escape into these fantasies of being all these different characters. It’s something that I do. It’s kinda crazy, but it’s normal for artists. Like, I guess, a lot of us do this, you know. Like, Nicki Minaj has her personal. Awesome. I have mine. I’m just not as vocal about it. It’s all in my head, but I escape into fantasies of them still being here. Like a lot of the times, which I don’t think is very healthy. No one prepared me for this. Like, having this platform being able to talk to you also, my recovery community, I do gratitude list every morning. Doing that gratitude every morning when Josh was when after Josh died and after Chase died, really helped me keep, like, a glimmer of light and hope as that dark period went. And I don’t wanna say, but my sponsor in one of my recovery programs was, like, one of the first people I called when I found out Josh Knight. And he was the first person I called. And he, like, helps me, like and so many people helped me. And, you know, it’s really important to know that shit’s gonna happen in life. People are gonna die. And there’s gonna be people there for you. Like, no matter what, like, and it’s important to let them help you. My best friends all kind of, like, kidnapped me too, like, when they found out Chase and Josh die. They kind of just, like, kidnapped me and, like, took me. Like, and, like, I stayed with them in Orange County. For a few days. Unless all my friends came around me, I’m so lucky. I have really good friends. And Yeah. But it’s really hard. Gosh. I was not expecting to cry like this. I guess because, like, doing work away, so I’m how I’m doing Europe is I am doing work away, so it’s an exchange. I’m here at this house that’s on a farm in Normandy, France. And ex and the guy who owns it’s a single gay guy. And in exchange for a house, to stay and food to eat. I help him twenty hours a week with whatever he wants. Like, I help to make a costume, like a gay he has some of that this weekend, so I may help them make a gay alien custom. And I helped him. We’ve I’ve they have been weeding. I help cook. I help with this animals, like, clean up donkey poo. Each job is different. I was in Switzerland before this for three weeks, and that was I was, like, an assistant to the housewife. I was, like, picking up the kids from school tutoring, and the first one was similar to this. So but these last three days, it’s really scary. Out of my element, these last three days have been hard for my sex and love and mix gen, I guess. Like so I think that might be why I’m crying a little bit because I just didn’t reminded how difficult it was, and I really I relapsed when Chase died. And I know it’s pretty common. A lot of people relapse in recovery programs when a loved one dies. Or they break this is why it suggested not to get in a relationship the first year of recovery. It’s not a requirement. It’s a suggestion because it cannot get iteration or end up get out because significant changes in our emotions. We use drugs in alcohol effects, our addictive patterns to numb our pain and our sadness. So if we shift things and we experience big changes, the chances as of us relapsing before we have the right tools are higher. So Yeah.
Victoria Volk: May I ask
Jordan Brodie: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: May I ask if so how long have you been doing work away? When did you leave the US?
Jordan Brodie: Oh, the end of March. So March, like, 29th, and I started my first position, like, April second.
Victoria Volk: Do you feel as though I mean, because It’s one thing to, like, leave your home country for a couple weeks and knowing you’re coming back and knowing when you’re coming back. But in doing work away and having the intention that you’re gonna do it at least a year, maybe even two years, and being away from you know, it’s one thing to, you know, we have the devices. We can stay connected in that way. But to not physically be in proximity to those we love and our family and our friends and things like that. I’m just asking, do you feel like potentially a part of this resurfacing for you is just the fact that you are away from your home. You are you’re I mean, this is a huge change. If you think about it, I mean, this is a huge change. You’re you’re plopping yourself in
Jordan Brodie: That’s a good question. That’s a good question. And I think that might be some of it. But the thing is I don’t feel like I actually miss anyone. It’s kinda weird. Like, I miss people. I would love to see my friends, my family, like, if they showed up or if I went and visited them, I would be elated. I’d be so happy and excited to see them. But I don’t feel like a yearning for them. I might go, it’d be nice to see them. I feel like I don’t I’m just having so much fun. Like, it’s so exciting for me. I’ve never been to Europe. So I’m so excited. I’m so inspired. And also, I’ve been in LA for eleven years, and my mother lives in Montana. All my loved ones live in New Mexico and Montana. And then I have friend all over the country and the world that I grew up with, so I’m always missing someone. Like, at what I have a really big family and they live all over. Like, I’m always missing someone. I’m used to this feeling because I’m kinda spread out a little bit thin. It’s, like, the perks of having a lot of people you love in your life. Like, I have a big family a lot of friends. I have a big community around me of people in real life. It’s not just social media, like most of my friends and family and loved ones have a large majority of people that don’t even use social media. So, like, I just always missing someone. So I’m used to this. So the truth is, yes, I do think that’s part of it, but I thoroughly enjoyed the host here, and I’m here with two other workawaiters. And I go out on walks a lot I pray a lot and meditate. I do outreach calls all day long with fellows and thank god for technology. Like, you’re out North Dakota. I’m here in France and we’re able to talk. I’ve been able to call my friends in LA. New York, in New Mexico, like, I’ve been able to call people still and FaceTime them. It’s not the same as personal connection, but I get that from them. I guess I’m a little bit lonely and the fact is, like, I think also Chase served he wasn’t my brother. He wasn’t family. Josh was my family. It’s different. I didn’t have, like, romantic feelings for Josh. It’s for my older brother, you know. I didn’t he was my brother, we were blood, and but chase, I kinda had some intimate romantic feelings, and I didn’t really fully understand that until he died. And it’s really sad. I think it’s really sad that I didn’t know. Because, like, I knew I liked him and I was kind of obsessed with him. I didn’t know they were those in feelings until he died and I felt those feelings. I think that’s why I relapsed. When Chase died and my sexual live addiction is because I didn’t know how to handle those feelings. That feeling of loss, that feeling of grief. I’ve had a few other, like, guys, like, people that I’ve had these really intense feelings for, like, since Chase died. And it’s weird because I feel like having him die kinda gave me permission to, like, move on. I guess, I’ve spread myself out too thin emotionally and sexually because of my past as a sex worker, because of my promiscuity, emotionally, I was a little bit of an emotional horror. Like, just my emotions are all spread out all over the world. So, like, having Chase died, like, kinda help me reel it in. My emotions I have better boundaries now. I don’t hoard or myself anymore, emotionally. I don’t I don’t I tried to I’m way more conservative than I thought I was, like, emotionally and sexually. Like and it’s new to me, but she’s gonna help me with that. And, yeah, I’ve been able to forgive those guys that I mentioned that I was mad at because of Chase’s death. I kinda blamed them certain characters in West Hollywood that I know was I really angry at? And they’re still doing the same shit. These old older men that work in the industry having these parties, inviting all these young new gays, giving them drugs, giving them alcohol, telling them they’ll do this, they’ll do the app, but they really just wanna get laid. It’s still happening. The same people are still doing the same shit. As eleven years ago when I moved away. This same shit. It’s not different. And I’m like, how do these people sleep that night. But I don’t think they’re fully aware of what they’re doing. It’s kinda like if they knew they knew and they would stop doing it. But it takes two sides. So so but I’ve been able to forgive them. Like, you know, I don’t and I’m leave I’ve left LA It’s a new experience for me. I do wonder am I escaping? Am I doing escapism by being out here? But I’m really enjoying Europe. I don’t plan to, like, move here and get a house here and, like, be here. But I plan to go back LA. But back to New York, back to New Mexico to my parents, back to Montana, I still plan to stay connected to America. I’m always gonna be an American Like, even if I get my Estonian citizenship and I so, like, I don’t know.But yeah. I think I am feeling a little bit lonely. But last night, I made a friend. I made friends with this local girl. She was really nice. And I’ll go to Paris in two weeks and see one of my friends, and there’s a big recovery convention that week. So I’ll see people that I’m only, like, three hour train ride from Paris right now. So it’s pretty cool.
Victoria Volk: Do you think a part of this too could be a little bit of being ready maybe to settle down? Maybe just wanting someone to share this experience with?
Jordan Brodie: Definitely. I was talking about this last night with someone. Okay. I so part of this too, I thought that it’s so funny because Miley Cyrus on Flowers came out on my sobriety birthday, which is January 13th, like, the album was released. And my it’s, you know, the the theme of the song itself, love, like, a renaissance flower was I can grab my name and the saying a quote directly from Chase. He always told me this. He’s like Jordan, God provides music always at the exact right time when they need it. Like, that was Chase’s little quote. That was one of his quotes that he always told me, and he always said if it’s not nice, don’t say it at all. And he would always tell me that because I was kind of more of a bitch than he was. It was always very, like, snarky and he and saying these things. And he was like, my mom always taught me. It’s that nice, don’t say it at all. So he kind of has this consciousness need to, like, be a nicer person. Anyway, So it to me, it was God. It was Chase. It was, like, music. Also, on the year so on so his death was December 27th, I think, or December 1st. December 1st. It was the day of the Equinox when the bright star, the north star, whatever was brightest. So in some ways, I’m like, chaste must have been like Jesus or something because he died on that day. What a great day to go out was the day that the whole world did that international meditation together. Everyone did it. He died that night. The North Star was the brightest. So I think it’s a beautiful night to pass. The energy was amazing. And okay. So a year later on the year of his passing a year prior. It was either the week before or the week after a few weeks. Tim Petris, one of my other favorite pop stars put out a song called Coconuts, which Coconuts, you know, it’s like it’s tropical themed in the middle of winter. So random. She’s the queen of, like, putting things out at random times. Chase and I, five years before he died, We were very silly together and played together. He wrote a song. We wrote a song together called Coconuts. Chase and I did. It was just a joking stupid song. We were obsessed with coconuts. We were like, anything coconut, coconut oil. It’s good for your skin. It tastes good. It’s good for cooking. It’s good as lube for seg. Like, you can do anything with coconuts. You can eat it. You can do anything with coconuts. So so the fact that that song came out like near during a year from his passing was God to me. I was like, Chase is on the other side manipulating shit. Kim Petress has put out a song called Coconuts. And that song is really stupid. It’s a dumb pop song about her boobs, basically, coconuts, Mac, coconuts, it’s, like, totally random, which is also chases humor too. So to me, it was God, like, that song is spiritual to me. It’s funny because everyone’s like, oh, this is a dumb pop song. But that song is spiritual for me. Like, whenever I hear that song, I it’s like, god speaking to me. And then similar things like on Josh’s birthday this year, pink put out her single to her next album, trustful, the song closed, your eyes, and leave it up behind, go with love. It’s on our side, and it’s stressful. And I remember, like, I was playing it on repeat. And that evening of I was going to someone’s birthday and I was in West Hollywood. I was in the Candle Delirium store and I was buying a candle for my friend. And at the register, the guy I will see him there. He owns the store or whatever, but he was, like, Are you okay how are you, by the way, are you okay? And I broke down crying in the store. Like, in front of I it wasn’t, like, I because I was, like, I’m and then it just kinda cracked. And I was, like, crying because I couldn’t hold it because I was just I was dealing with it was I was just listening to music and I was alone. And then I just told him, I was like, oh, on today’s my brother’s birthday, he died, like, two years ago, and I really miss him. And so, yeah, I’m kinda sad, but thank you. And then they, like, they, like, gave me a big hug and they gave me, like, a really big discount on the candle that I was buying. And, anyway, that it was, like, really sweet. So it’s always good to be honest. Like, we don’t wanna get vulnerable when we’re doing bad. But if you just say if someone asks you how you’re doing, you’re not feeling good, there’s nothing wrong with saying, I’m not feeling good. I’m not doing good today. How are you? It’s good to be honest about what we’re feeling. That’s been the biggest lesson with all this and Yeah. And the best way I can honor my brother and Chase is by continuing to work on myself become the best version of myself. I feel like they’re here with me. I pray to them all the time. I talk to them. I danced with them. I, like, I went to EDC last year, and
Victoria Volk: What does that stand for?
Jordan Brodie: Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas. It’s the biggest wave in the United States. It’s a big music festival, like, all the big big DJs, like Calvin Harris, David Geta, like, than even NASA, like, Gorgon City, Zoo, Grimes. All these DJ’s, like, perform. There’s, like, hundreds of d j’s five hundred thousand people in Las Vegas at the speedway from all over the world to go and I’ve been wanting to go for a really long time and it was my first time going and I went with two of my best friends, and it was so much fun. And there was a moment. Okay. So my friend Phoenix and Sean both really love this artist. His name’s excision. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, but He’s a electronic music producer. His music has a lot of heavy metal references in it. So it’s not Like me, I’m candy pot. Like, I love pot stuff. I’ve always been great name Adzana, Michael Jackson and Paris Hilton and Christina Aguilar. If it’s gay, shiny, and sparkly, I’m all over a girl, and I’m listening to it. Like, I don’t even like horror movies, dark I’m the sugar to my friend’s spice. Like, I’m the bright one that’s very gay and happy. I do have a dark side Don’t get me wrong. I have a dark, angry, evil, twisted, bitch side of me too. Sorry. I don’t know if I can cuss back.
Victoria Volk: It’s okay.
Jordan Brodie: But okay. So so here we are. And I Josh and I wrote music together. We had a business together, my older brother. We made his songs together. Josh produced classical music He played the guitar. He played the bass. He played the saxophone. He played the piano. He played he taught himself all these instruments. He never had, like, probably, like, a few lessons when he was younger in piano, but he was a musical genius. He produced hip hop music. Classical music, hot music in the end. He was so talented. And I kept trying to get Josh to move to LA. Like, to, like, for us to work together, but he couldn’t ever his addictions problems and stuff would always get in the way of are working together, and it really frustrated me. And I don’t know if he was an addict or not. It’s not fair for me to say that, but Some of his behaviors would get in the way of us working together. Music was our bonding thing, my older brother and I. And same with Chase. Chase and I whenever we were driving in the car, it was like it was like you’re in a concert. Chase and I were jamming out. We listen to music all day. Chase was always messaging me songs. A lot of my favorite songs. I have a whole playlist with Chase music, Demi Lovato, just chase loved music. And he really helps me grow my love of music as a consumer because Pace wasn’t making music. He was an actor. He wasn’t interested in writing. He was interested in being an actor, but he had a love and a passion for it as like a fan. So I was writing music. Chase loved my songs. He was one of the first people to buy, like, the physical copy of my first, like, single make it right. Like, he bought it online when he could stream it for free. And, like, he was just so proud of me and he loved my music. And so it meant a lot to me because I moved he moved to LA a year before I did from my hometown, and he let me stay with him for a few weeks, and he helped me get start up because he moved there to pursue his acting dreams. And I moved to LA to pursue my music dreams. So anyway, at EDC, it’s a music festival, so it’s all about music. Of course, I was thinking about Chase and Josh the whole time. Like they were there with me. There was this moment. And Josh also was in heavy metal bands. He played heavy metal music, and I loved all kinds of genres, but heavy metals not really my cup of tea. Like, I love metallica, I love whole you can still understand the lyrics, but heavy metal, screamo music. I love the guitars. I love high-intensity guitars and music and rock music. Like, I love Ramstein. I’m obsessed with Ramstein. It’s because they’re really hardcore. But they speak German so it’s like, I already don’t understand German so it’s okay. But screamo music. I don’t know what they’re saying. I don’t I’m not the biggest screamo fan. I will go to a screamo concert. I will go to a heavy metal concert. I’ll address the part, and I will have a blast. And I’ve done it. And I supported Josh was obsessed with Bingo. I think it helped him presses emotions. He was in so many metal bands. He was, like, producing metal music, blah blah blah. Had all these things going for him. And so Sean and Phoenix both love excision. I’ve never heard him. Has a lot of heavy metal influences. We’re, like, up at front. All jammed out look like Barbie dolls. Like, headbanging in the front of the excision, like, looking gay AF in front of all of these because excision, people are they what’s that called, mosh, they mosh pit. Like, you know, it’s EDM, but people are mashing. Like, It’s aggressive energy. It’s not really me. Like, I’m not that like, I was the little gay boy on the in ballet class on this side. The boys ballet class watching the other boys who were just there because their sports coaches made them do ballet. They were all tackling each other, and I’m there rolling my eyes. Like, I’ve never really been the type to, like, do that. So anyway, we’re, like, head-banging. There was a moment where excision because it’s, like, hard more metal, like, idiom. And then all of a sudden, he he saw us, like, in the front row. I where he did this for the three games on the front, because he played a quote on Britney. He was, like, it’s Britney Bitch. And then it just went back to the And then there’s a moment where he slowed down the music. He was like, I just wanna take a moment. I just recently lost someone that was really close to me, like, a few days ago or a year ago. I can’t remember the exact time period, but he was like, tonight, I’m really thinking about him and I’m really honoring him. And if there’s anyone out there in the audience, that’s like experience is significant loss recently. I just want you to know that you’re not alone and I don’t remember what else he said. But it was just I started crying, like, during a heavy metal EDM, set because I knew Josh was there, like, with me. Like like, your loved ones are always is there with you and your memories and your heart. And I am someone who believes in afterlife. I don’t believe in energy. I don’t know if it’s actual heaven or hell, I don’t really believe in that. But I do believe that our loved one’s energy, like, is there and guiding me. I feel like I have this, like, this, like, team of, like, almost, like they’re, like, in the van of, like, the spy van. They’re, like, up there. I can just, like, be, like, yo, guys. Hey. What’s up? Like, I just feel like I have access to all these people in the spiritual realm, and they’re always with me. So whenever you’re getting Jordan, you’re getting all it is. And to add go back to your question about eye flowers, Miley Cyrus song music. When I always thought I would need a boyfriend, a husband, a partner, before I came to Europe. I would need a rich sugar daddy. I would need this. I would need that.
I can’t go alone. It’s romantic to go to Europe. You know? So the fact that I’m out here by myself without a man or a partner, I haven’t even I’m still not ready to date yet until I finish my steps. So I haven’t gone around any dates. I met some guys, and I was kinda trying to meet up with this guy that I met in Brazil, like, in Switzerland, but he goes to me. So I haven’t kinda sad about that, but you said it would wouldn’t it be nice to share this? In the past, I’ve always thought, yes, it would be so nice to have a partner to share all these amazing things with. But you know what I’ve been realizing lately is, yeah, that would be nice and that will happen eventually. But right now, I’m sharing my life with you, Victoria. I’m sharing my life with these work away hosts. I’m sharing my life with my family, my parents. They’re so excited for me that I’m traveling. They’re so supportive of this. My dad started sending me money to help with this adventure, which I was not expecting. And then a lot of my friends are so supportive and so proud of me, like, I am sharing my life with people. Like, I’m sharing my life with amazing people. Like, I don’t I already am sharing my life with an amazing beautiful community. Like, I really am. It’s not I’m not missing anything. I have everything I need right now. I have food to eat. I have a house to sleep in. I have friends. I have family. I have love. I have animals. And, yes, it would be nice to have a intimate, romantic, love partner to share all this with, but it’s just gonna add to what I’m already sharing with other people.
Victoria Volk: I absolutely got full-body chills with you sharing that. And I think that is the most beautiful message. Anyone listening to this can hear today. And that and that is self-love. Right? That is self-love. Opening yourself up to share what you have with where you are right now. Yeah. And that’s what you’re doing. And so thank you because you just It’s such a gift. Like, you’re our share in your life with me and to not want. Right? Isn’t that, like, the isn’t that what peace really is? What other peace feels like is to not have a feeling of want, like to be at peace.
Jordan Brodie: That in Buddhism, they always talk about the four pillars of Buddhism. Buddhism is always about It’s all about the relinquishment of suffering. And suffering is defined as wanting something else outside of us. That is suffering. So when I’m sitting there, yearning for Chase to come back or yearning for Josh to come back or yearning for this guy or yearning for this or yearning for anything that’s not right here physically in front of me right now. I’m in a room by myself talking to you sitting on this bed. This room’s really pretty. It’s I’m this is my present moment. This is what I need to be an acceptance about. This is exactly where I am right now. It’s exactly where I need to be. It’s exactly where I’m supposed to be. This moment has never happened before ever. In this new time, it’s happening right now. This instant present moment. And that’s the present moment is where amazing things happen. It’s where really bad things happen. The present moment is where we need to be. And it’s all that matters because the future will give us anxiety if we obsessed about it and the past will depress us. So so, yeah, it is piece to let go of the wanting. It doesn’t mean we can’t have desires, but when we have desires, I’ve learned it’s important to make a plan of action and set some goals, and then start working towards those goals, but not obsessing about when they’re gonna happen. Because they’re gonna happen if they’re supposed to happen, we can’t control that. And I have my goals and do you have everything I want? And Yeah. Sometimes when I’m sad and lonely, I yearn for a romantic partner and sometimes I’m sad about why Chase, like, why Josh, like, why my why this why the and sometimes I have to stop myself and be like, well, it happened. It is what it is. It did happen, and I have to be in acceptance. Because if I’m not in acceptance, I get depressed, I get sad, I get kiss them. I know my brother and Chase and my aunt Julie and all my loved ones. They loved me so much. And they wanted me to be happy. They really did. They wanted me to have love they wanted me to be free. Josh was very supportive of me as a gay person and very protective. Actually, when I was acting out promiscuously, Josh should be, like, Jordan, that’s not who you are. Like, what are you doing? Like, that’s not my brother. Like, and he really loved me. And Chase too. Like, Chase was really trying to help me get closer to God because he could see how lost and broken I was. An eye cutting. It was a light in a dark place. And my aunt Julie, she was always like Jordan. Don’t hide from us. We know how gay you are. She’s like, you are fabulous. And she’d be like, why are you hiding from us because I was still hiding from everyone. I was the one who needed to accept me and love me. Everyone loves me and loved me so much. They love how gay I am. They love how feminine I am. They love it. I was the one who didn’t love it yet. And I’ve done some work, and I’m still working on that every day, loving myself and accepting myself as my daily journey. And my point is, Julie, Chase or Josh, would not have wanted me to be sad and miserable. They want me to be happy. They want we just celebrate life. They want me to be successful. They want me to be extra. They want me to dance around. They want me to make billions of dollars. They want me to have that a nice guy who takes really good care of me, they want me to be happy. I know that. It’s not a question. And so I know whenever I’m starting to feel sad and I get sad about them, I’ll say, guys, I’ll, like, kinda say I miss you. I’ll express to a friend that I miss them or I’ll write something or I’ll allow myself to cry or this song has been really helpful to me lately. The next right thing from Frozen two. Oh my gosh. That song just gets me. I listen to it every day sometimes. It just really helps with these emotions because that’s all we can do sometimes. Is the next right thing? What is the next right thing? I know after this, I got some stuff to do. That’s all we could do is the next right thing. And, yeah, I know that that they would be happy and mad with me. I’ll say one more thing too. I’ve learned this recently. There’s a great docu-series, by the way. On Disney plus that Morgan Freeman does called God, and he talks about lunch of different religions and their views, not just Christianity. He talks about Buddhism. He goes to India. I forgot the name of the city. It’s like Varnasse or Varsini India, which is one of the spiritual capitals of India. And he talks about in Hinduism, how they celebrate. They celebrate death. It’s not a taboo. It’s not this grim, sad thing. They believe and after life, they believe it’s a journey into a new thing, a new place. So they is a passage. They’re excited for their loved ones to go on and continue. It’s a celebration for them. And I kind of I have in American culture and eastern western culture death is seen as this morbid sad thing. Taboo talk topic, it’s awkward. We don’t know how to handle grief. We bat we don’t know how to handle it. We don’t have these social systems in place. Whereas in Hinduism, it’s celebrated. They’re like, hell yeah, like, I loved one died. They get to go on. They could have a new experience. It’s like going to college or something. I’m like, we’re getting a new job. It’s like in a new thing. It’s citing. So I’ve been trying to think about that with Chase and Josh and Julie and my other loved ones. It’s like, I make I’m excited for them. What are they doing now? They’re probably having so much fun. Like, who knows? Like, what? Yeah.
Victoria Volk: I had a psychic medium on my podcast, her name’s Siri Burnson, and she spoke of a client of hers at one time who hurt this the client’s son had completed suicide. And the mother was just so concerned that her son was not in heaven. And he came through through the psychic and Derseri and she said he wants you to know that he’s in school. Mhmm. He described to through to Siri, like, where he is at, it’s school, that whatever lessons he didn’t learn in the three d he is learning now. And I’ve actually heard that different said a different way multiple times through other psychic mediums or through people who have had near death experiences or people who have actually died and come back who have talked about it like, looking like this experience or being this experience of, like, school.
Jordan Brodie: I love that. So where I’m at in Normandy, the host he teaches yoga and chi dong, Chinese like it’s kinda like tight. And then he does acupuncture. I did she gong on Monday with him Monday morning, and I had a spiritual experience. It’s like she energy and Chinese spirituality is God. It’s the energy of life, it’s the electricity, the spirit electricity, the realm that runs through you. And Shi Gang is just, like, movements like this. It’s just It’s not a hard exercise, but the whole point of it is the connectedness between heaven and earth, like the sky and earth And I had an epiphany during on my day. Because they always say the spirit realm. Right? It’s like energy. It’s not heaven. It’s whatever you believe it. It’s the afterlife. It’s it’s not tangible to the like you said, the three d plane, the this plane that we’re in right now. It’s another realm. The earth the real realm that we’re in right now is you know, tangible. We can touch things. Our blessing humans serve a huge placed in the universe because we’re the only creatures and animals I believe too that are the conduit the middle the middle ground between the spiritual realm and the real realm. We get to experience both. We get to experience the physical pain in existence and the spiritual pain. When we tap into God energy and we tap into our loved ones or past, it’s a blessing. It’s a huge honor to be human. And I had an epiphany that that’s what it means to be human. To be human means to be a conduit from this spiritual realm. And the and the physical realm. It’s a blessing and we have a purpose here to take care of each other and to take care of the animals who aren’t as advanced as us, I think it’s our responsibility to care for the animals, the and for the people that’s fortunate, the people that aren’t born with legs, the people that are born with diseases, if you have a privilege and you have legs or you have money you have resources, it’s our responsibility to take care of them. I had just had this whole epiphany during qingong, which is like so that’s why it’s good to be open-minded too. Like, I was raised, Christian, I read the bible. I do believe in Jesus. I do pray to God. I do believe in that. But I do think it’s important to be open to other things that aren’t out of your comfort zone to, like, new cultures and new things because the Chinese have been around for way longer than Americans have, so they’ve had plenty of time to think about things. They’ve I’ve so it’s, like, I had this a mate. I highly recommend Xevon for anyone. You really feel like the energy. Like, I felt you can feel it. Like, you can feel God. It’s so cool. I love it. Anyway, it kinda got off a tangent, but yeah.
Victoria Volk: I recently did Tai Chi at a retreat women’s retreat and I really phoned. Okay.
Jordan Brodie: Takes you off.
Victoria Volk: I really like that too. Can you just share a little bit for those listening? How does work away work? Because First of all, it’s amazing that you had that experience. You had that epiphany because of work away. Like, you’re experiencing all of these things and meeting all of these people because you took a chance on this opportunity to do this. So can you just explain a little bit how it worked? Like, you know, do you have to pay obviously, you probably have to pay to get yourself overseas and, like, how does that work?
Jordan Brodie: Yeah. I’ll explain. Okay. So this is something I’ve been wanting to do for, like, seven years. I don’t know how I discovered it, but there’s a website called workaway.info. It’s the website workaway.info, not .com .info. It’s been around for a really long time. It’s a social media platform. You can make a free profile, but in order to message host or message people, you have to pay fifty-six dollars or sixty dollars for the whole year. It’s like a subscription. And what that pays for is basically like, it helps filter out, like, kind of shaving people.
Victoria Volk: They’re vetting the people that get on that platform.
Jordan Brodie: Exactly. Because And then I there’s some type of background check process. I don’t know, actually, how that works. I don’t know if I don’t remember filling out a background check form, but they might do that. They do some type of thing verification process. I don’t remember. But It’s just a website anyone can apply for an e make a profile. I put on my profile. I’m good with children. I can cook. I’m good with animals. I worked at the doggy daycare. My grandpa had a farm when I was little. He told me to work when I was fourteen. I was always working on the tractor and the grass, this kind of stuff. My parents would always have me do tasks. I explained all of this and I explained my interest, and I’m learning French, and I know a little bit of Spanish. I put all this in my profile. You just make a profile. And then there’s workaway hosts. So people all over the world. There’s some in Austin, Texas. They’re all over the world. Every country, South Africa. There’s this really cool one near Cape Town. This guy has a Safari company where she takes people on Safari tours. And he just needs people’s help. The maximum hours you’re supposed to work is twenty hours a week, by the way. They’re not supposed to ask for anymore. And so for me, it’s usually about four to five hours a day, five days a week, Monday to Friday. I work about. So it’s not much. And this guy in South Africa wants people to help do marketing on for his safari business. There’s people who want nannies for their kids. There’s people who have the in Switzerland, Bern, I was helping her Flyer for her. She was starting a high school in her area. I was helping pass out flyers in the city center. And they help them cook, can I help them clean, and help them go shopping? The first work away, she could I was helped She broke her leg last year as older lady. So I was helping her with things she couldn’t do because of that her leg pain. And there’s all kinds of jobs, all of it. So you just make a profile, you pay for it, and then you message place you you can search by country where you wanna go, and then you just start messaging host. You say, hey, I’m interested in this and it’s completely volunteering. So it’s a way to get around. They want people to stay for longer than two weeks, usually two or three weeks, a month, two months, three months. One girl is staying here for eight months because they have long-term projects and they want someone to stay for a while. And it’s a lot of very interesting people that do the hosting. And you’re helping out. You’re like, living in, like, living and helping. And you get food, you have access to food, and a place to stay, but you’re volunteering so you I don’t have to get a special visa. Like, if you if I get paid from someone, I’ll have to get a work visa in this country. Wherever so I don’t have to get a visa because I’m volunteering. I when you come here, I say I’m I’m traveling. I’m a tourist because I technically am still traveling. I’m a tourist, but I am working in exchange to stay here. It’s just kind of a loophole. I feel like I found like hitch hiker’s guide to the galaxy, and then come on. What was my thumb? But I am offering some ands it’s pretty scary, but you just wanna make sure you message them. And I’ve made sure to have video chat with each of the host before going and seeing if I got along with them. There were some people I said no to because I didn’t feel comfortable. I didn’t want anyone that just wanted me to crash and pooch because I knew that would harbor it with them in them. I wanted to work. I have to work twenty hours a week. Because I don’t want to freeload. And, yeah, that’s what I’m doing. It’s a great way to travel because I’ve always been wanting to do this for seven years. I was terrified to do it. I almost canceled this trip. So many times, I had just lost my job. I was in limbo. I used my last bit of unemployment money. To buy my plane tickets out here. And you can get some Gritty cheap tickets to Europe. What you do is you type your city in the US, in flights dot Google.com. Type in your city. And in destination, you can put Europe. So you don’t have to put the country, and it’ll show you what the cheapest flight to fly into. And I found a really cheap flight to Norway. It was only three hundred dollars. And then and then from Norway, there was, like, ten dollar fight from Norway to London. And then March, that’s how I got here. So so you can do that. Like, you just find the cheapest place to fly to. And once you’re over here, they have a airlines called Ryanair, which is kinda like Spirit Airlines in US. It’s just really cheap flights and ten dollars, twenty dollars, thirty dollar flights. It’s two other like, my flight to Edinburg was, like, forty dollars. Like, I’m going at the end of this month or next month. Wow. So So, yeah, my next workaways in Scotland. I can only be in Europe for ninety days because I don’t have citizenship and I don’t have a visa. But in the UK, you can be there for six months without a Visa. So I’m gonna go to UK for at least ninety days and then come back to Europe, and I’m just gonna bounce around between UK and Europe until I get my citizenship. Once I get my citizenship, I can get a job out here I can get an apartment, get a house. So so that’s what I’m doing. And it’s a great way to travel. I recommend it for anyone. Because you get to have a cultural experience, you get to meet locals, you get to hang out with some I’m not just in a hotel and going to guided tours. Like, I’m meeting locals. I’m experiencing the culture. I’m experiencing the history. Like, I’m in a small town. You get to feel what it’s like to live in another country. And I’ve always been very interested in how of first generation American feels like an immigrant, someone who moves to America without like, knowing the language. I’ve met people like that and they’re so inspiring me for me. They’re such hard workers they barely know the language and they have to build an entire life and they’re usually sending money back to their family. They’re just inspiring amazing wonderful people to me. I’ve always been fascinated with what with them. So I think that’s why I’m so attracted to being here in Europe and kind of being an immigrant here. I don’t like the word expat. It sounds too I technically am, but I don’t I’m not yet, but I don’t it sounds to, like, like, boosie, whatever.
Like, I’m an immigrant. I’m an immigrant as someone who migrates to another place. Like, It’s there’s no bad terminology about it. Alright. Nextiva, whatever you wanna call me about. World traveler. World traveler? Jitsi. Jitsi. An Experiancer. Listen to ladyaga Jitsi a lot.
Victoria Volk: This has been so fun catching up with you, and I’m excited to see how this experience will change you. Over the next year. And I am actually, like, let’s plan a catch up maybe not as long as two years, maybe in eighteen months or something like that. I would love to see. Yeah.
Jordan Brodie: I’d love to see you another one in a year. Yeah. It’s exciting. I’m I’m curious to know for the listeners, like like, what people what their experience with grief is and traveling and I’m really curious to know if I’m the only one who feels this like connection with, like, with my loved ones that have passed. Like, if you will if I’m just kinda delusional about all this or.
Victoria Volk: No. I can even tell you just people who I’ve talked to and had who have been on this podcast that that’s not true, that you’re not alone in that.
Jordan Brodie: Are thinking about them a lot. And, yeah, no one really prepares me for it. And it’s kinda like a splinter. Like, you just gotta rip out which just happens.
Victoria Volk: It’s very true.
Jordan Brodie: Well, thank you. Yes. So wonderful.
Victoria Volk: Yes. Thank you so much for being here and for catching us up on your life. And I look forward to seeing what workaway brings to you in the future? Because I think it’s
Jordan Brodie: I’m still working on music. I’m actually looking for recording studios right now because I have I’ve have a song written that I want to record And so I’m still doing my music stuff. Like, I haven’t given up on my influencer music artist’s dreams. I’m just trying to make a more deeper, more personal brand than just, like, like, some candy, pot, like, superficial, like, three d like, just two-dimensional person. I’m just trying to be authentically myself, but I’m still gonna do music and stuff. One thing I haven’t done, sadly, since Chase and Josh died, I haven’t really written about them. Or about their death or about any of that. I want to. I’ve been kind of procrastinating and printing it off. One of my favorite artists is Grimes. I don’t know if you know her, but she’s amazing. I love her. She’s so wonderful. And I learned this that her first album of Libya was written in Vancouver, Washington, her best friend died from a drug overdose, and she was to deal with her grief. She locked herself in her apartment for, like, a week and wrote oblivion, which was her first like, landmark album that, like, blew her up. And I’ve been wanting to do this. But I haven’t known how. I have actually brings up some pain like mention like, I’ve been afraid my impostor syndrome says, I’m not good enough to produce all the songs by myself. That I need a microphone. I need this. I need that. I need this. Like, there’s all these excuses that I have. And I really hopefully, by the next time we talk, I will have done a lock-in for a week and written about Jason. Josh, and Julie, and my other loved ones. I’ve written about Julie. She is my aunt. I didn’t really mention that. I mentioned to her a little bit. Right? She died, like, a while ago, something overdose. But, like, I didn’t I still haven’t written about Jason Josh, and I really I think I need to. I’m kind of waiting for the right time. It’s gonna happen when it’s supposed to happen. And but this next song I’m doing is called it’s it’s gonna be like a chill kind of pop song like asking people to get to know me because I want people to get to know me. That’s why I love doing this podcast because I really hope some of my friends and loved ones watch this and it helps me connect with more people because I want an audience that’s real and not superficial. Like, we all have a reason why we’re connected. It’s not just because I’m hot or just because I have good music. It’s like, they have a reason. You know?
Victoria Volk: Well, and I imagine that the loss of your loved ones aside that just traveling over the next year or two that what you experience will inspire your writing for sure.
Jordan Brodie: Oh, definitely. And I haven’t really written about traveling yet. I’d like to, but I’ve been writing. I’ve written a few songs yesterday. I’ve been writing. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. Let the environment inspire you because it sounds like it is, so that’s wonderful.
Jordan Brodie: Well, thank you, Victoria. Bye now.
Victoria Volk: Thank you. Love you too. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life, much love.
