Cancer, Child Loss, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast |
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Grief is a teacher, a harsh one, but it comes bearing profound lessons.
In today’s heart-touching episode of Grieving Voices, I sit down with Dave Roberts, whose personal odyssey through loss is nothing short of inspiring. He shares his intimate experiences following the passing of his daughter to a rare cancer.
From grappling with unimaginable pain to discovering a spiritual connection and wisdom beyond the veil – this episode isn’t just about coping; it’s about transcending grief and embracing life in its entirety.
Key points covered in this episode:
- Dave reflects on three significant dates that changed his life.
- He discusses the rarity and severity of alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, which ultimately led to his daughter’s passing just ten months after her diagnosis.
- The profound impact on Dave’s life post-loss, including how none of his professional training prepared him for grieving as a father.
- His involvement with bereavement support groups helped him feel less alone but also prompted deeper reflection on what more he needed for healing.
- He discusses a chance encounter that opened up new spiritual pathways that transformed Dave’s approach to grief, leading him to coauthor a book.
- The importance of continuing bonds with loved ones who have passed away is highlighted as an integrative process for moving forward while still honoring those we’ve lost.
Dave doesn’t hesitate to discuss raw emotions or societal expectations around male vulnerability. He dives deep into these topics, offering solace and understanding to anyone struggling silently.
Let Dave’s words guide you through the darkness toward the light—because sometimes it takes hearing someone else’s story to begin rewriting our own.
Transformative Grief: David Roberts’ Journey from Loss to Spiritual Connection and Empowerment
In the quiet moments of reflection, we often find our deepest insights. Today on Grieving Voices, David Roberts shared a story that echoes in the hearts of anyone who’s ever loved and lost.
David faced every parent’s nightmare when his daughter Janine was diagnosed with a rare cancer just after giving birth—a time that should have been filled with joy instead became overshadowed by impending loss. His journey through grief led him to support groups, spiritual guidance, and eventually to teaching others about navigating the treacherous waters of bereavement.
His story isn’t just about loss; it’s about transformation. From the ashes of profound sorrow rose an understanding that grief is not linear—it’s a complex dance between joy and pain. David learned to live with his daughter’s memory woven into the fabric of his life, turning anguish into a source of strength.
As he shares these lessons with students at Utica University, he fosters an environment where mutual growth sprouts from shared experiences. He reminds us that while supporters may come and go as we evolve through our grief, change remains our constant companion—ushering us towards new beginnings even as we honor what we’ve left behind.
David’s message resonates beyond personal tragedy; it speaks to men grappling with societal expectations around emotional expression. It challenges couples to navigate their unique paths through mourning together yet apart in their individual processes.
Above all else, David teaches us that embracing new perspectives can illuminate pathways out of darkness—not by leaving our losses behind but by integrating them into who we are becoming.
For those yearning for more wisdom or seeking solace in similar stories—you’re not alone. Reach out to David at davidrobertsmsw.com or tune into his podcast Teaching Journeys for further exploration on consciousness and healing beyond death’s door.
Remember: In acknowledging vulnerability lies great strength; in sharing your narrative resides immense power—to heal oneself and inspire many.
Episode Transcription:
Victoria Volk: Hey, hey, hey, thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today, you’re joining me and my guest David Roberts a licensed master social worker who became a parent who experienced the death of a child when his daughter, Janine, died of cancer on March first two thousand three at the age of eighteen. He is a retired addiction professional and is an adjunct professor in the psychology department at Utica University in Utica, New York. Dave has presented brief workshops at National Conferences of the Compassionate friends, as well as for the bereaved parents of the USA. He has been a past Huffington Post contributor and has authored several articles on Grief for a variety of Internet publications. He co authored a book with Reverend Patti Ferino titled when the Psychology Professor met the Minister which was self published on Amazon on March first twenty twenty one, which also happens to be or was eighteenth anniversary of your daughter’s death, which I imagine was not a coincidence.
Dave Roberts: It was that, Victoria.
Victoria Volk: So let’s start there. And actually rewind the clock to when your daughter became ill because she passed up a very rare form of soft tissue cancer called alveolar Rhabdomyocarcoma.
Dave Roberts: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: Which is rarely – it was more common in children under the age of ten, and can have a genetic disposition of it. So when did you when did she when did you as a family find you know, when did she receive that diagnosis? And
Dave Roberts: Well, at
Victoria Volk: that time.
Dave Roberts: I would have taken back to three significant dates. You know, to to set up the timeline for this. First and foremost, Janine became pregnant in September, I believe, of two thousand and one. And on May second two thousand and two, she delivered a healthy baby girl. Her name is Brianna, and she’s Brianna is now twenty two years old. And during her pregnancy, she had a freak injury to her right foot. And her foot became progressively swollen throughout her pregnancy. And we had Victoria attributed the swelling of her foot to just the normal complications of pregnancy. Adema, And, you know, we just figured it wasn’t anything. It was we figured it was gonna go away once she was once she had delivered her child. However, her foot became progressively worse. Any type of treatment that they used to treat her foot such as a walking boot or rest or elevation did not stem the swelling. So her orthopedic surgeon wanted to do an MRI in April of two thousand and two, but she needed to have said, absolutely not. I wanna wait until my baby’s born. So Brianna again was born on May second two thousand and two. She Jadine had the MRI done in the hospital and they found an undefined eight centimeter mass at the bottom of her foot. About a week or so later, they biopsied it. The biopsy came back as highly suggestive of cancer. On May twenty six, he was officially diagnosed with the Veiliar Rhabdomyosarcoma. Again, a very rare inactive muscle tissue cancer. In the week prior to her official diagnosis, I had just received confirmation that I met the requirements for my master’s in social work degree from Suni Abenei. So on May second, I became I experienced the immense joy of being a grandparent. On May nineteenth, a satisfaction of a twenty five year journey of getting my master’s degree. And on May twenty six, I found myself now the parent of a terminally ill child. In June, we went to Dana Farber Research Institute in Boston, which is one of the best, if not, the best pediatric research and treatment centers for sarcomas in the United States. Because in our area, and I’m from upstate New York, a little town called Lloydsboro, New York. We don’t deal with sarcomas. That’s not the specialty of the oncologist here. So they sent us some place that would be more probably, more in a position to to to treat it more effectively. But when we got there, we had a five minute consult with one of their one of their oncologists. Janina had stage four cancer which meant it totally metastasized and metastasized her bone marrow to her lymph nodes to her bones. They told us that there was absolutely no cure for cancer. The only hope that they were going to have for any type of gove cure was to put her cancer into remission, keep it in remission until they can find a cure. So when my daughter and I firmly heard, and what my wife heard and what Janine’s significant other heard is that. Janine is gonna die. Unless there’s some type of a miracle. So I went from this joy of accomplishment, the joy of being a grandparent to all of a sudden looking at the possibility that I was good to good possibility. I was gonna be walking a path and no parent as ever ever wants to walk. And I did my own research. I found a good rabbit on myosarcoma site. And you had mentioned in the introduction that this is a cancer that is typical to children that are tenant under. Janine got a childhood cancer at eighteen. And that was one of the mortality indicators. Is that of her chances to to have some quality of life would have been better hit she had gotten us when she was younger? But the fact that she got it when she was older, plus her tumor size, plus bone marrow and footnote involvement, increased her chances that she was going to die as I call it now transitioned to a new existence. The five year survival rate for her type of cancer, Victoria, depending on what research you were looking at was ten to fifteen percent, which meant there was gonna be an eighty five to ninety percent chance that she was gonna die within five years. And she didn’t even make it a year within ten months from from diagnosis. From her diagnosis, she transitioned at home on March first two thousand and three with hospice services. And that led me on a path that I never thought I in my life, I would ever I would ever be walking. I was a I was an addiction counselor at the time. I started teaching at Utica University at the time. It was first, it was Utica College, now it’s Utica University. And none of my education, none of my training, none of my background as a therapist or my my work with individuals who had all kinds of trauma due to addiction or not due to addiction. None of that prepared me for for what I needed to do to move forward. So at age forty seven when this happened, my version of the midlife crisis wasn’t buying a sports car. Getting a to pay, getting a headpiece, trying to reclaim my youth, and I was trying to figure out what type of a person I was gonna be in the kind of world that I was going to choose to live in. And I am paraphrasing thatthat term from a gentleman by the name of Neil Peirk, the late Craig Drummer for the Canadian Rock Band Rush who had his own series of tragedies. And he talked about needing to get to determine the type of world he wanted to live in and the type of person he wanted to be after those tragedies. And his conceptualization of his path really, really kinda mirrored mine. And really, I couldn’t have said any better than he did. So that is the background story. That’s how I’ve gotten That’s how I got to this point in my life where now every everything that I stood for, my values, my beliefs, my priorities everything was on the table now. Everything was up for discussion.
Victoria Volk: And how did that change? The David before your daughter passed versus the David after she passed?
Dave Roberts: Well, First of all, if you asked me to to to type of person I was at forty seven years old, Victoria, I couldn’t begin to tell you. That couldn’t begin to find him. He did a search priority to find him. So that person is no longer a part of me. It’s just it’s just it’s just a distant memory. What got me to this point, and it it went in steps and went in steps for me. First was fighting really adequate support, which is necessary to get through any type of any type of grief journey. I found a really good with the help of my wife Sherry, a really good bereavement support group for parents that was sponsored by a local funeral home. Because one of the things is that I really felt alone. You know, I really felt like, jeez, I’m the only person going through this because my world was so shattered and my world was so broken. I didn’t even know where I fit in with this. I didn’t even know did that did anybody else have that has anybody else ever gone through this? Now, intellectually, I figured people had but that wasn’t, you know, but it wasn’t registering anywhere else with me. I just couldn’t, you know, I just couldn’t conceptualized that anybody else was going through, what I was going through. But when I walked into that brewery parent support group for the first time, I saw eighteen other parents who were going through the do the same thing.
And then all of a sudden, I wasn’t alone. And their parents said they were longer a lot farther along in the journey than me, and it helped for me to kind of pick their brains and listen to what they did to help them get to the point that they got through, to begin to and to begin to reengage in life again. I began to do some reading and books of other found grief and other other parents who had experienced a transition of a child And then I began to get involved in doing some workshops for the compassion, friends, and later around thebury parents of the USA, two organizations and support families who have experienced a death of a child of any agent from any cause. And then in two thousand and ten, my whole and I also began to to start or help and organize grief conferences and do some other things in honor of my daughter. I was doing what I felt I needed to do at the time to try to re engage in life and to try to make sure that she was always gonna be remembered.
And then in two thousand and ten, everything changed where my perspective really got a total shot of a spiritual adrenaline?
Victoria Volk: In what way?
Victoria Volk: What do you say to people who maybe are attending such groups and are feeling like they’re not moving forward? Or, you know, because oftentimes, in the work that I do with Grievers and hearing from people that I’ve worked with about support groups and things like that is if they’re not moving you to action. If you’re coming to it’s a great place to connect with people like you said to not feel alone and to who share a similar story. But if you’re coming in and you’re sharing your story and you’re hearing other people’s stories, which can be really heartbreaking for the grieber. Right? You you do you feel better when you leave, you know, after you hear other people’s, you know, sad stories and things. If it’s not moving you forward. So what do you say to to that?
Dave Roberts: So, basically, one of the things I would do First of all, if they feel that they’re not moving forward, I would ask them to perhaps do some inventory. What do you think is preventing you from moving forward? Is it something that you’re missing within yourself? Is it something within the group? Has the group become you know, has the group that support group specifically not met your needs anymore because a support group that might be good for somebody who’s in the early phase of grief as an individual feels they’re progressing and they’re not, that support group may actually not be be be serving that purpose for them anymore.
So I would encourage them. I would ask them, what are some other things that you’ve been curious about exploring? Well, you know, both I’m looking about I’d like to explore maybe something like native. I’m thinking about it, the teachings of animals and nature. So I might refer them to the Native American teachings of Jamie Sams and Ted Andrews just to to look in to look to look at that and see how they can integrate at peace.
I would ask them, you know, have, you know, have they journaled, you know, maybe do some journaling to see exactly and you know, what they feel that their message is right about, you know, specific things that are going on and what may be triggering that and what they feel that. You know Dan’s also asking what specific culting skills do they think they need moving forward or what other perspectives. Because one of the things it’s it’s really easy to to to to feel like you’re not moving forward in grief even though you seem to be on the surface doing okay. And and that was that was for me. I think one of the things that two thousand and ten thathappened to me is that I felt that I was getting to a point where, you know, I feel like I’m doing this okay, but there’s something more than I’m missing. And the way thatmanifested is the day after the conference, I was taking three presenters up into the adiranax, up north because of the changes season up north around here in September, Victoria is really nice with the changing of the leaves and colors of the leaves. It kinda looks like just intensive water paint or oil painting. So I was they were having this intense conversation about spirituality. And I looked up at the sky and I said, I wanted to be where they are. Now, I wasn’t saying this to anybody in particular. Am I doing God or what it might have been the universe, could have been creative, could have been anybody. But I said I want to be where they are. And I’ve come to discover that intention is a powerful form is the most powerful form of prayer. So I would tell an individual, state your intention. What do you what have what do you do you see yourself now in the next phase of grief? What do you see yourself embracing? Where do you see yourself being? I said I wanted to be where they are. And I just basically wanted some some more information on spirituality so that it could give me some more tools to be able to move forward. The universe, however, conspired to give me more than I asked for and it gave me Patty. Patty gave me all different perspectives. And everything. And the work that we did together and the work that she exposed me to that helped me find peace with my daughter’s transition also helped me do some healing of the ancestral wounds over my father’s abandoned when I was five years old and my mother’s decision that to remarry and become overprotective. So all of the work that she helped me do with Janine translated to doing more work in my past to help me heal fifty five year old lives with my father and at least you know, with with my mother probably, yeah, probably about that, probably thirty five or forty years anyway. At least, well, she transitioned to nineteen ninety four, So you’re talking, yeah, probably about thirty year old ones with that. So, you know, it just opened up a world to me I never thought possible in terms of just widespread coming to peace and widespread ongoing healing. Other areas of my life that I hadn’t anticipated, all because of the work that Patty lovingly did with me for ten years to help me embrace a different perspective that would allow me to come to greater awareness of myself, my role in the world, and also to help me find peace with what had happened. Now in acceptance of the fact that I could still engage in a world where my daughter was not physically present, one of the things that I wanna mention and I wanna clarify for your listeners and for your viewers is that just because of peace doesn’t mean I still don’t grieve. I still grieve. There are days depending on what is going on in my life that I could experience the raw pain of grief And it doesn’t matter if it’s ten years later or twenty one years later. But now I look at it as an expected part of the journey I am going to be at or Beth, I’m gonna walk. Until I transition myself. And I’ve relearned to realize the joy of pain, yearning, sadness that can all call exist and we can learn from we can learn from it all. And as long as we accept the fact that, yeah, I mean, you know, we’re going going to experience those emotions that are associated with any type of loss because just because the physical body is is no longer here, doesn’t mean that the relationship doesn’t continue. The relationship goes on and love continues to endure. And with love, there’s also the pain that goes along with it because that person is not physically present. And that can that can still occur throughout throughout the life cycle of grief. Which is why I’ve always said I believe that grief is a circular in its journey and it’s not a linear journey. It doesn’t go on stages. It It’s very much can can resurface at any time depending on what’s going on at the present moment.
Victoria Volk: And for those listening who are paying attention to your timeline, of when you felt like you could that you were once moving forward. You know, it doesn’t have to take ten years. It doesn’t have to take thirty years like it did for me. Thirty plus years actually. But I think if we allow ourselves to be open to the people, to the teachings of others, to nature that truly is in higher power, whatever you wanna call it, that really is wants to nurture us. In our longing and in our sorrow. I think that we can accelerate that healing a little bit if we’re open to it. Right? If we
Dave Roberts: Or more work.
Victoria Volk: Listening more than we’re projecting, maybe, our pain.
Dave Roberts: Howard Bauchner: Yeah. And the other thing is that, yeah, as they were open to it. And the other thing is that to give ourselves permission to become empowered to say, okay, this perspective can be integrated into my core belief system. This one cannot. You don’t have to agree with everything. You don’t have to take in everything. You take what’s gonna work for you. The other piece of that is also being willing to listen to perspectives that are markedly different from yours and not to judge it is saying, well, you know, the you know, this is not the the appropriate way to grieve. It’s basically listening to it, bearing witness to it and saying, okay, what can I take away from this? What can I leave behind? Or can I take anything away from it? And it’s okay. The thing all we need to do is basically bear witness and try to understand where the other person is coming from, how they got to that perspective. With with my work with Patty, every time she would introduce me to something, my scientifically curious and I would say, okay, how can the spiritual perspective fit in with my existing core rational belief system? And then I would call her back and say, cheese paddy this work. Because I can see this. I can see where and and what happened for me is I got I got that assessed for life again because I was discovering new things that I that I never thought possible. And whenever we can discover perspectives that are novel, that work, then we think, boy, if we incorporate these this is gonna mean I’m gonna be moving forward as opposed to stagnating or moving backwards that it empowers us, it energizes us and I think it informs the service work that we do with others and makes it more rich because now we can share that. Anything that I learned learned about my own journey with with grief, I share that with my students at Utica University and my deaf dying and bereavement class. They know very much from day one, my history, including my history with Janine, and in losing a child. And anything that I learned, it’s just like I’m excited to share that with them. And then in turn, they will share perspectives with me that they teach me. So it’s just, you know, it’s just when you’re willing to be open and when you’re excited about what you have learned to communicate, it just opens up so many more doors doors. For connection, our support groups will evolve naturally, I think, based on where we’re at in our grief. People that were there for me in early grief aren’t there for me now, but that’s okay because a lot of that has been a choice that I’ve made to bring in different people in my support group who are going to be been are gonna be helpful to me now. So my support group has evolved. I have let’s see. It’s it’s it’s been fluid And that’s one of the other things I tell individuals expect that things are going to change. The early, early aftermath of a of a death, people that you thought were going to step up are No. Can’t be found anywhere because they don’t know how to deal with your grief. The people that you never thought were gonna step up do. And what is gonna be constant is change. But look at change is something that could be energizing as opposed to debilitating or as opposed to just being uncomfortable.
Victoria Volk: That’s where the growth is.
Dave Roberts: That’s where the exact
Victoria Volk: It’s getting uncomfortable.
Dave Roberts: That that’s you gotta be uncomfortable. I mean, you gotta be uncomfortable. And that is where the growth is. You know, we can’t grow without some type of uncomfortability.
Victoria Volk: And that is grief. That is the grief. And so it’s allowing ourselves to, I think, lead into into the pain first so we can really feel it. But also, like you said then, integrate it into our lives Mhmm. And follow our curiosity as to, you know, and I think too part of what you said is is asking ourselves deeper questions that grief often brings up for us that we’re afraid to ask because we are afraid of the answer. Because once we know the answer, we have a choice to make.
Dave Roberts: That’s right. And do we want to move forward? Do we want to stay stuck? And I think we do I think eventually once we we let the raw pain of grief and golfers, we do have a choice in terms of how we can move forward. I think if you look at Victoria, those individuals that I’m sure you’ve had on your podcast, those individuals in society who have transcended challenge. They did it because they made a choice to reengage in life again. They made a choice to say, okay. If this is the path that the universe or my higher power or God is going to to unfold for me. I am gonna make the best of that path for the remaining time that I have on the Earth. And other people can choose to make a choice not to do that. And there are consequences with every choice that we make. I used to tell my clients when I was an addiction’s professional. You choose the consequence of your actions. You can choose the consequences a sobriety, you can choose the consequences of of addiction. Okay? But the choice is gonna be yours. You’re gonna need to experience those consequences. I can’t do that for you. But it said, if you’re going to choose choose wisely. And if you’re going to choose consequences that are not going to have a negative or it’s not going to have a positive outcome, or could not have a positive outcome, put the accountability where the accountability needs to be, and that’s how you take responsibility for that.
Because once you take responsibility for your actions, you’re gonna jump back in a treatment sooner. Once we take responsibility for how we are going to transcend our grief we are able to move through grief. If I never use terms like closure or move on, when we move through grief, we integrate our grief, and we learn to accept we are living in a world where things are different because our loved ones are not physically present. And any loss, it doesn’t have to be the loss of a child, any loss drastically changes the landscape of our lives because we’re a person’s physical absence, physical absence, changes who we are and changes how we relate to the world. The loss of a pet as well too, depending on the nature of the relationship thatperson has with a pet, is gonna have those those same type of consequences. I’ll be at a different kind of grief. It’s still gonna have the same consequences. So
Victoria Volk: I’ve actually, some people have shared with me that losing their pet felt like they were losing a limb.
Dave Roberts: Absolutely.
Victoria Volk: Part of themselves. Gut wrenching. Like, these are the words that, you know, I’ve heard, and it is one of the most minimized losses too. Yeah. But I was thinking about as you were sharing your story about Janine and Brianna, I just I was envisioning this little girl Actually, I was envisioning Janine, like, as a mother myself, I it’s like, to hear that news and to know that this little girl you just gave birth to will not know you growing up. Like, I can’t even imagine being a new mother and having to go through all of those emotions. How did you support her? And how did she I mean, I suppose it was every day just a matter of survival and doing what she had to do to survive, while being a mother like that, I just I can’t even wrap my head around that.
Dave Roberts: What when when We had offered Branno was born. We had offered Janine and her significant other living in an apartment and their own. To come and live with us, you know, until she got she got better or until she was they were able to to and her significant other time was going to school, he was working. And he was taking full time. He was taking care of Janine. So he finally said to Janine, so we can’t do this. I said, I can’t do all of this myself. Let’s move in with your parents. So they moved in her significant other her significant other her name’s Steve. Jenny their cat moved in with our two cats, me, Sherry, and my two boys. So the joke was how many How many two leggings and four leggings could you get in two a single level ranch? And we ended up, I think ended up, I think, shattering that equation. After Janine transitioned, Janine had asked Steven, she goes, look, she didn’t say, well, she said, please stay here until Brianna’s ready for kindergarten. Stay with my parents. I don’t want her uprooted anymore than she already is. To his credit, he was nineteen when Janine became sick. To his credit, he stayed for four years. He stayed until she hit kindergarten. He stayed with us. He has since remarried. He has a disc you know, he’s he’s very happily married. He made sure that we saw a brand regularly after after he moved. And now brand is twenty two She has a little girl of her own now and she’s got another child out of the way. So I’ve I’ve become a great grandfather. And, you know, and it’s got a surreal holding Janine’s grandchildren as well too. So, you know, you take a look at all of us. And But it was for Janine, one of the things that she made sure to do is she recorded every moment that she had with Brianna. When Brianna walked, when Brianna started talking, when they did things together. And one of the more surreal experiences I had. I think it was last year of Victoria. I had the DVD of Janine’s last Christmas. And I sat down with Brianna, we watched that. So Brianna had a chance to see what kind of a mother Janine was to her for the time that she had with her and she was able to at least get an understanding of who her mother was. You wanna talk about surreal and emotional? That was that was something watching that with her. And but Janine documented everything because she knew she wasn’t gonna be around. In fact, she told me the Christmas before she transitioned and and it was just it was just after Christmas, who were sitting in the family room and we were by ourselves. And she goes, you know, Dan, I did a lot for everybody that I did for this Christmas, because I’m not sure I’m gonna be here next year. She knows she wasn’t gonna be here next year. She knew that. I think she she had a sense of that from the beginning. And I just didn’t say it to her. I just said, I understand, honey. And that’s all I said to her. She never asked me. Do you think I’m gonna die? She knew. She knew. And that’s why she did what she did. To give you an understanding of how resilient she was, When we got back from Dana Farber, and I tell the story, I had this old Jeep Cherokee, and she was in a lot of pain, you know, from her buying and everything from the tumors. And we were was a five hour drive from Boston, and I was sitting every bump in the road. She was screaming out in pain. And I tried going slow. I tried going fast. Nothing worked. So we got home. She sat out of the couch. I walked up to her all of a sudden, I start crying like a baby. I just buried my face in her lap. And I just said, honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause you so much pain. I looked up and she started having tears in her eyes. She looked at me. She goes, dad, I don’t worry. She goes, I’m peripheral. I’m that paraphrasing us a little bit, dad, don’t worry. I was just yelling because I wasn’t so much pain. You know what you said to me after that? She goes, if dad, if you can’t sleep, come and find me, we’ll talk. So I’m thinking to myself, this is a young lady who’s dying, and she’s worried about taking care of me. So I kind of figured, well, she could if she could look at it with that type of toughness, I could get through it. And I could get at least I could get through it. I could at least you know, get through what she is, get through the treatment and and and try to be strong for her through that because she was strong for me. When I was I was just a mess. And that’s the one moment that I’ll and thatwould tell you what she was probably was like as a mother. She made sure that the time that she had with Brianna was quality time. And in the summer, when her chemo was having a positive respect, they did a lot of things together. And she had that DVD so that at some point, Brandon, I can and my wife sure can look at that with her and say, here’s this is your mother. And that was a powerful, very emotional experience for me. And I think for Brann as well too.
Victoria Volk: Brings tears to my eyes, just hearing it.
Dave Roberts: Yeah. Yeah. It’s I get emotional telling that story. You know, I can I can tell when I get emotional because I start I start my voice starts breaking up a little bit? I can just feel it in here and it’s but that that’s a testament to the type of young lady she is.
And, you know, it was just the impact she had and and the type of mother she was and and it would have it it could have been and would have been had she had she’d been alive.
Victoria Volk: And to be so young, I think that’s the part that really just touches me is how young she was and just like, how quickly she had to grow up?
Dave Roberts: She had yeah. She had to be you know, it was interesting. She was talking about getting married to Steven in the backyard of her house. And any other side of the coin she was talking to wonder about whether she was gonna make it, you know, what you would also thatbut that’s that type of compartmentalization that you normally see with, you know, you’re one the one he had you thinking about, Bob, but I’m very the love of my wife and second hand, you’re thinking about chemo treatments, and you’re thinking I’m not gonna make it. But, you know, she Don, she told me right from the beginning, she was I’m not going down without a fight.
Victoria Volk: Did they end up getting married?
Dave Roberts: No. Okay. No. No. They didn’t. There was something that they she’s she had always wanted to get married in in her backyard. She already had the son to the she would she one day was she was fifteen. She goes, this is a sign we’re gonna dance to with my wedding. And she had a head that all figured out. What some
Victoria Volk: do you know?
Dave Roberts: I don’t remember. It was a country western song. It was a slow one. And I don’t remember. I never thought to ask her you know, for the type of for the science analytics. Because the time she was cancer free, I’m thinking, I got all kinds of time to figure that out. And then I think, you know, you think you got time and then all of a sudden there isn’t time. So so now I’ve learned to make sure now that when as I make sure I ask those questions, well, what sign is this now? Because not because what I’ve learned through this whole thing is that today isn’t given. Today, you know, today, you know, it’s here to go. I’m very grateful any day I get to wake up and do those. And I share that with God. The universe Thank you for giving me another day. Thank you for allowing me to get up and and, you know, make have this a day where I can make it a great day.
Victoria Volk: Maybe it’s a song about double rainbows.
Dave Roberts: Maybe. Maybe maybe, but
Victoria Volk: You’re gonna go to Google after this.
Dave Roberts: I’ve got a I’ve got a afternoon, Victoria. You got, like, you got a curiosity picked.
Victoria Volk: So who care so I imagine Steven then became her primary caregiver and, you know, and she’s Yep. After she passed and everything and
Dave Roberts: You know, Stephen, who was a state of my wife, and then my thirteen year old son, Matt, who was also involved. And that was his introduction to puberty having a terminally ill sister. And so thatwas I know he was difficult for him, but he just whenever my wife had to go to work, dad would take over. And when Steve came home, that was, you know, he would he would do the primary care duties. And he did it. I would say, nobley is probably an understatement, but he just did what he had to do because he he loved her unconditionally.
Victoria Volk: And to be nineteen too and to take that on as well and to not run away from it and face it and do what he had to do. That’s commendable as well.
Dave Roberts: And my daughter gave him an out. She goes, look, you don’t have to do this. And he looked at her. He says, where am I going? Because I got going anywhere.
And she tried to give him an out because I think she knew what was down the road for her. A body said, no. And I was a a testament to his love for her. And so it was kinda like if you look at it was kinda like a kind of our version of Romeo and Juliet.
Victoria Volk: What was the best piece of advice that you received while you were deep and grief? And I imagine maybe it was from your friends that you co authored the book with, but maybe not. Howard Bauchner:
Dave Roberts: There are two pieces of advice. I’m gonna break this down first in about probably early phase of grief, which is for me about two and a half to three years, and then nine years later, which I would consider to be kind of the beginning of later grief for me. Okay. I had mentioned earlier in our discussion that I was a member of a grievance support group. And it was sponsored by local funeral home. Their support group was facilitated by Franciscan nuns by the name of Sister Rose Trot. And she did a really, really great job. I mean, you could you could come into that group and say that you’re angry with God, angry with the universe she was she just would was not very nonjudge about it because she understood that. Mhmm. There was a time two and a half years two years into this where I said, I’m tired of being a bereaved parent. I don’t wanna do this anymore. So I stopped going to my support group. I caught myself up for meaningful support. I ended up being more miserable than ever. But I just didn’t wanna do it anymore. I wanted my wife back the way it was. I wanted my daughter back I said, I’m tired of going through this crap. And then it finally got to the point where I said, I need to talk to somebody. So I talked to Sister Rose. And I told her, I said, sister Rose, I am angry. That God. She looked at me. She goes, well, what if you put your shoe on the other foot. And it’s thought that maybe God is just as upset as you are because of what’s happened. And when I she she twisted that around a bit in which she looked at us. So, wait a minute. And I started thinking about I remember in the beginning, I told you I didn’t really I didn’t believe in science. I didn’t really But there are some really weird things that were happening to me shortly after Janine transitioned, I would have had a butterfly follow me around when I was walking my granddaughter I heard a song on the radio when I was thinking of Janine that we both had enjoyed. And I started thinking, see, something unusual is going on, but I couldn’t make sense. I couldn’t make sense of how to integrate it. But then one of the things I looked at, I said, well, Maybe if he’s just as upset as me, maybe that’s why he’s been kind of god’s been throwing out these signals that maybe she’s still around. So I was I was starting to think that maybe maybe those signals that it put the butterfly in everything were gonna be the start of something new. A new perspective. But at the time, I wasn’t ready to to see how that fit. But it it plan to save for that. So that shift in perspective. And then when I was talking with Patty about nine years couple years after I met her, the thing with cancer diagnosis is that. You I used to I remember I will remember the dates that she was diagnosed, the dates that she stopped treatment I’ll remember the date that she went into the act of phase of dying. I’ll remember the day that she took her last breath because I was there to witness that. She transitioned on March first of twelve thirty. I held her hand. I she took two swift breaths, and then she stopped breathing. And it always then always haunted me around when I came up to, like, the data for death every year that haunted me. So I told Patty that I said, you know, I can’t help but think that I was the last person to see my daughter alive, and that haunts me that I was there to witness her last prop. And Patty looked looked at me where she was around the function because what if you’re looking as you being the first person to usher into her new existence?
Is you were the person to transition her into eternal life. That was the message. And I said, wow. I never looked at it that way. And By then, I had begun to integrate the whole stuff with after deaf communication. I began to believe in the survival of consciousness. So that helped me shift my perspective and integrate spiritual practices and spiritual beliefs with science. And all of a sudden, well, I made thinking I am the last person to I sure earned to eternal life. That’s shifted to feelings that I had about her last moments of her physical existence at her. So those two or probably the best pieces of advice I gather the best suggestions or comments or seed seed planters that I that I got. Those that just planted seeds allowed me to think about things differently.
Victoria Volk: And I think it comes back to being open to be open to seeing things differently. In a nutshell. Right?
Dave Roberts: Yeah. Yeah. And and that whole experience with Patty and Long Island had helped me up. And plus, I had asked for that experience back and, you know, after the conference, I wanted to be where they are. My my intent, my prayer was answered.
And I believed everything that happened that weekend and we outlined it, you know, very, you know, very, very detailed in the book. I believed in everything that happened. I didn’t question it because I asked for.
Victoria Volk: What does your grief taught you?
Dave Roberts: Wow. Well, my grief taught me a lot of things. It taught me that life isn’t fair. That waiting a good life isn’t gonna push in you from tragedy, that the quality of our life is determined by not so much the fairness of life but it’s determined how well we transcend those challenges that are presented to us. And we can define Victoria tragedy in any way, shape, or form. But it’s how we transcend tragedy and what we do as a result of that. How do we find purpose? How do we find meaning? How can we serve others that are walking the same path? And how can we make sure that the and I think I’m paraphrase of an old Lakota saying how do we make sure that the tracks we we behind are going to to be impactful. And again, that’s a real that’s really paraphrasing that. But I think what the Dakota is saying is we will be forever known by the tracks we leave behind. And so let’s make sure the traps we leave are going to last long after we physically leave and serve.
Victoria Volk: That’s beautiful. What do you say to maybe men who are listening? Who like many men struggle talking about their emotions and their feelings. And more commonly, struggle with addiction, maybe even perhaps after devastating loss, who might say, I don’t need to rehash the past.
Dave Roberts: Well, yeah, I think one of the things I learned is that with any type of tragedy, the pass is gonna come back and look you right in the face. What I had to do. And I think Eric Ericsson had talked about integrity at the end of life where we take a look at the end of our life. We will take a do a life review and say, did we did we live a meaningful life? Well, that process started for me at age forty seven. Where I’d I mean, you you basically we have to look at the past. It’s required when I we’re taking a look at rebuilding our assumptions world. We have to take a look at those past beliefs that contributed to our understanding of the present prior to tragedy. So we have to look at the past. What I tell everybody is the past isn’t meant to be stared at. It isn’t meant to be judged. It is meant to be learned from. There is pro medicine saying in the Jamie Sam’s book medicine cards with Crow, matter the past as your teacher, out of the present, as your creation, and out of the future is your inspiration. We take a look at our past. We understand the decisions that we made in the present. We also can take a look at at and look at the tragedy we’ve experienced and say, okay. How can we learn through the past? How can and and what can we now do develop the president of our creation in the future of our inspiration based on what’s happened, what tools and what resources that we can use. So for first of all, I tell people you the pass is something that is if you don’t look at it, it’s gonna bite you right in the behind. Because you’re gonna it’s gonna come up and you need to look at it so that you can you can orchestrate the present and future of your own desires. It’s part of cocreating our own new reality with the universe after tragedy. The other thing with men and they get a bad rap for this is that, well, oh, men don’t talk about their feelings. If I had a nickel for every woman who came up to me and said, my guy doesn’t talk about his feelings. That’d be a rich man because men are equipped to emote directly. Mehta, we’re taught it early as you suck it up. You take care of those that you love. Feelings are are both make you vulnerable and make you weak. So essentially, with feelings, we learned to distract ourselves from our feelings by doing stuff. Okay? Do men feel just as intensely as women? Absolutely. We just deal with it differently. Women are more comfortable with sharing their feelings, with the molding, with with tears, where men, if they cry, they’re when they cry, they’re gonna cry privately. If they’re feeling out of sorts, they’re gonna go build something, they’re gonna go to try to solve a problem. And so I would tell men be gentle with yourself. If you wanna find out how a guy is failing, ask them what they’re thinking because we’re in our heads a lot. If you ask, Guy, what are you thinking? And this guy’s this guy says, boy, this really stinks. Well, how does that make you feel? Well, I feel angry. I feel disillusioned. I feel confused. You’ve gotten to your feelings through to his feelings through your thoughts. But if you’re asking him how he’s feeling directly, he may not go there with it. Because of how he’s been conditioned to deal with feelings. The other thing is that, I’m sure you’ve heard this word on you’ve heard probably other people telling you, well, my boyfriend gets upset when I cry over a tragedy. My husband gets upset when I cry after a tragedy. Here’s the other thing. Men of I believe have also been conditioned to take care of those that they love. And for me, when I saw my wife cry, when I saw my my boys in in emotional pain, it reminded me that I did not do my job as a father to protect my family from home. Mhmm. For two and a half years, I beat myself up because I thought I should have seen the signs of my daughter’s cancer sooner I thought I should have persuaded her to do one more clinical trial. I’ve my inadequacies as a father and a protector always brought up when my wife was crying because this reminded me of what I couldn’t do. And I realized now that I did the best that I could’ve given the situation I was dealt with, So, you know, it’s just this was just there was all of that. And I just tell you know, which I it gets we do feel. It’s just the the the the if a woman in our lives is crying, it’s not because of That’s not because of no cries because of what their peers represent. They represent a failure of us to provide our do our job as a protector for our family. And that’s and that’s why. If we can understand that, my wife has a totally different grading style than me. Once we began to understood how we agreed, we could begin to support ourselves with and give ourselves space with it and begin to understand it. And I think if I were doing couples counseling with a with a couple who was newly bereaved, I would tell them understand how each other’s grief for each other’s grief respect it and try to figure out how you can support each other within it without trying to change it without trying to change it.
Victoria Volk: Or or expecting the other person to carry the entire weight. Yes. Yep. Experience. Yeah.
Dave Roberts: Yeah. And that’s sad. You know, if you look at we’re talking about how to an orbit of relation shifts with the male and female. You know, seventy five percent of men are going to fit that type of gender ex role expectation of expressing emotions. I mean, twenty five percent won’t. So there may be some situations where you’ll see a woman who will suppress her emotions in a man who is gonna be more intuitive and can don’t come who’s a thing Thanatos well known Thanatos. Just talked about intuitive versus instrumental males. The instrumental males were the males that had through traditional male oriented expectations of expressing grief. The intuitive male were those that were more feelings oriented and were more automotive. It says understanding how do you grieve.
Just because you don’t cry doesn’t mean you’re not grieving.
Victoria Volk: Bingo.
Dave Roberts: You know, and that service everybody measures grieve by the amount of tears that they’re a pig when everybody cries. Brief is manifested very differently, and we need to understand that. When you are sad, When you’ve had previous tragedies, how has your grief come out? It may not be tears. It may be anger. It may be withdrawal. It may be being distracted. It may be your ability for a lot of individuals who suppress emotions. As you mentioned, addiction can be a real big issue. Especially for those individuals that don’t don’t have an outlet to suppress her feelings. And particularly if there’s been a family history, thatcoping mechanism of self medicating can be can be something that has gone to pretty ruddling. If there are no other alternatives for call from strategies presented.
Victoria Volk: And they don’t allow themselves to bring the support in.
Dave Roberts: That’s right. That’s right. And we have to the other thing is we have to believe that we are worthy of being nurtured. And a lot of times we may not accept help because there’s a stigma in terms of asking for help and accepting help, but we need to believe that when we can’t do it on our own, and we need to believe that we are worthy, we are lovable enough to accept that we we can be loved by others, and we can be taken care of by others. I think a teaching from the afterlife abilities finger saying, why do you believe you need to earn the right to be loved when you’ve been bored with that already? We’ve been born with that. Why should we believe that we’re not deemed worthy of being helped?
Victoria Volk: And how has this transformed your relationship with your with your wife? Like, did this bring you closer together? For a time, I imagine maybe it was very challenging like you alluded to earlier.
Dave Roberts: Oh, it was because we didn’t have the energy to deal with Chuck with with our own grief much less each others. And we were pretty much, I guess, were drawn from each other for a while. I think that was one of the net the natural consequences of grieving. But one of the things is gradually as we, you know, we we became coming together. We talked. We carved out some time for ourselves to listen to each other. And our relationship now is stronger as ever been. We’ve been married for forty two years. We have You know, I’ve got two great two great sons Dan and Matt. They’ve got four grandchildren and one great grandchild and another one on the way. So, you know, given everything that has happened, Victoria, to I feel like I’m a blessed man. And I couldn’t have said that twenty years ago. I could if I if I couldn’t envision myself saying that to you now. But one of the things that grief has taught me is is is another thing is to be grateful for what you have in your life. As opposed to what you don’t have in your life or what you can’t have in your life. There are days that I said I wish my daughter could be back here. I wish that I could have found another type of tragedy to to to find meaning from, and I have my family intact. But I learned whenever I started earring for that, I said, well, you know, I can’t continue to earring for something that I can’t have. So I immediately go back to the Okay. What am I grateful for today? And that gets me regrouted again. It gets me back to where I need to pay.
Victoria Volk: And then when you see those double rainbows
Dave Roberts: Oh, yeah?
Victoria Volk: That really crowns you.
Dave Roberts: Yeah. It does. It does. And and anytime I see a three one or here her name mentioned or I run it to somebody thatone time I made a call and I was going to a conference in Saint Savannah, Georgia. And I called to book a hotel reservation. Hey, you know, usually when you go through a Switchboard, it’s gonna be randomly get. So well, the operator picks up the phone and says, hello, this is Janine. Can I help you? Said, oh, this is gonna be an interesting conversation. And so I’d book the reservation. And all of a sudden, I got this nudge and saying, ask her how she spells her name because my daughter had a very unusual spelling for her name. It was j e a n n I n e. So I’ve stuck at a Janine, the operator on the phone. I said, Janine, I know it’s gonna sound like a weird question, but can you tell me how you spell your name? Guess how she spelled her name? Same way. So I’m thinking about, you can’t make this stuff up. So it’s that event. And the other thing that grief has taught me is there are no coincidences only serendipity. And the people that have come come into my life have come into my life at the times that they were supposed to come into my life.
Victoria Volk: I’d interviewed a minister not that long ago. Actually, David Chaka, it was one of my previous episodes, recent episodes, and he calls them divine appointments. Mhmm. And every day he asks for a divine appointment.
Dave Roberts: Well, I’ve had I’ve had I’ve had many of those in twenty one the twenty one years since my daughter is transitioned. So
Victoria Volk: You keep track of them?
Dave Roberts: Actually, I do. I don’t write them down as much as I used to anymore, but I know exactly when they’ve happened and I’ve got pictures of signs that I’ve gotten from her. I also have done I also have a slide presentation that I do in my death hunting breed and class. Right? Once this is section called Dewey survived death, and we get into after death communication. So I’ll give them some examples of signs that I’ve gotten signs that other students have shared with me. And so we have that discussion. And the whole theme of that discussion is the illusion of death. It’s death and illusion. Do we really die? Or do we just go on at a different form? And so we talk about that as well as the mainstream and the basics overview of death dying improvement. When we get into the spiritual aspects of it, with reincreditation studies, with near death experiences, with fast life regression, fast life experiences, everything. We get we get into all of it. And I tell them, Don’t confuse my passion for telling you, this is how you want to believe. This is how you need to believe. I’m giving you all this information because You may run into this with the clients on that. I wanna make sure you’re I’d rather have you over prepared than under prepared.
Victoria Volk: Or for yourself?
Dave Roberts: Or for yourself. And it’s amazing how it’s
Victoria Volk: guaranteed, probably.
Dave Roberts: Oh, oh, absolutely. I’ve had students afterwards literally. They’ve emailed me a You wouldn’t believe that they’ll they’ll email me with the sign that they got or something that they signed before we talked about class, and it gives them permission to open up about that.
Victoria Volk: Are you familiar with the work of Chris Kirk?
Dave Roberts: I’ve heard of Chris, but I’m not familiar with any of his does it a hearer shape? He he, I’m not familiar with that. I’m familiar with the name, but that does work. Howard Bauchner:
Victoria Volk: I don’t know if it’s still on Netflix, but there was a docu series called surviving death.
Dave Roberts: Yeah. Okay. Yes. That I that I am familiar with because I saw I didn’t realize Chris Curr was the mastermind behind it, but I saw that I saw the documentary. And I recommend that to my students a great overview of the non ordinary phenomenon that are part of the whole discussion of the field of fan oncology.
I think it’s it’s great.
Victoria Volk: He was on my podcast.
Dave Roberts: Really?
Victoria Volk: Yeah. So there’s an episode where he’s on my podcast. Yeah. And then Siri Burnson is psychic medium, and she’s also featured on that. And she was on my podcast as well.
So yeah. Interesting conversations. And and honestly too, like, my spirituality was greatly challenged for many years. And I think that that’s a component or a piece of healing that a lot of people maybe take the longest maybe to get to.
Dave Roberts: Yep.
Victoria Volk: In in terms of feeling like you’re finally moving forward. Because I think you with that shift in perspective and seeing things differently, seeing the death differently, I think that’s really one of the things that helped me personally?
Dave Roberts: Well, I think having placing an importance on spirituality is protective against so many different things, protective against mental illness. And I think it can improve physical and mental health care outcomes as well too. It can improve physical health. It can because that spirituality is there’s thatsense of greater awareness, that sense of connection to something greater than ourselves, and all of that, I think, can contribute to increased mental and physical health as well too? There’s no doubt in my mind.
Victoria Volk: Well, if we think about how we can even transcend our own consciousness through meditation or
Dave Roberts: Yoga.
Victoria Volk: Yoga. Adaptigens people using adaptogens to elevate their consciousness or Yep. Keep you an aspect of their consciousness that they wouldn’t see otherwise. We don’t need adaptogens to get there. We can meditate. Right? It can become a really strong meditator, but I think it’s then it’s fair to to reason that Well, who’s to say thatcan’t continue? That that consciousness? Like, what is what is the soul? You know, we are more than just our meat suits, you know?
Dave Roberts: That’s worse
Victoria Volk: than that.
Dave Roberts: Yeah. I mean, there’s another set of teaching the afterlife abilities fingers is that if we could look look into each other’s soul, it’d be one big will manifest. You know, we would look beyond the the implementation. We would look beyond the human contracts and conflicts that have kept people apart. If we could just look at each other’s souls, how we would see his love. And the world would be like one big love fest. But the human experience doesn’t allow for that to happen, and it’s not supposed to. Because any growth that occurs in any lifetime is for the greater revolution and the growth of our salt. And so we have to experience the pain and tragedies I think of the human experience in order for our souls to continue to evolve and grow.
Victoria Volk: We gotta go through the storms to see the rainbows.
Dave Roberts: Absolutely. You got it.
Victoria Volk: Anything else you would like to share that you don’t feel you got to?
Dave Roberts: Jeez, I think we we cover just about everything. I think I think we I think we covered a whole I think we covered a lot of ground.
Victoria Volk: I think so too. And where can people reach you and find you if they like to connect with you further?
Dave Roberts: Well, they could find me. They could go through my personal website. It’s david robertson s w dot com. They could go to myauthor website, which is psychology professor administrator dot com. If they’re interested in purchasing me and Patty’s book, It’s a one psychology method professor is on Kendall and paper back on Amazon. I’m also a podcaster. If they wanna take a look at the the the podcast, it’s a teaching journeys podcast, It’s on a a apple and Spotify. And they’ve they’ve had a lot of interest in guest, and Obviously, I went off I’ve talked about off camera and waiting you to be a guest out of podcast, so hopefully we can make that happen. And I’m just trying to those are, you know, email this booty and angel at gmail dot com if they wanna email me. And I’m all over the place on social media, I’m on Facebook, I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Instagram, my son calls me the world’s oldest millennial, because I’m I’m not I’m not social media, so you could pretty much find me anywhere. And I’ll have a conversation with anybody that is grieving loss of a child, any any type of loss. I also believe in meeting people where their worst losses, their worst loss my worst loss doesn’t necessarily have to be their worst loss. I can tap into the pain of my own worst loss, know what that’s like, and meet somebody at their worst loss.
Victoria Volk: And so the David Roberts, LSW, does that have links to everything that you mentioned?
Dave Roberts: M s w dot dave roberts, m s w dot com. Does it have links to everything that I’ve but the other ones that I mentioned are separate.
Victoria Volk: Okay. And what was that again? The other website?
Dave Roberts: The other website, psychology professor and minister dot com. And then if if they reach us in purchasing the book, they can find out purchasing information through the author website or they can go directly on Amazon to find it.
Victoria Volk: Alright. I will put the link to those websites, your podcast, in the book, in the show notes
Dave Roberts: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: And I thank you so much for sharing your time with me and helping us getting to know Janine and the remarkable young woman that she was in the short life that she was given and the story of your own transformation and of your grief and the work that you that it led you to do today. So thank you so much for your contribution.
Dave Roberts: My pleasure, Victoria. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. I enjoyed our conversation tremendously today.
Victoria Volk: I did too. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life, much love.
Cancer, Energy, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Mind/Body Wellness, Podcast, Reiki |
Kiki Tyler | Best Friend Loss & A Midlife Awakening
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
In the symphony of life, each person’s journey hits a unique set of notes, creating a melody that resonates with their experiences.
Welcome to another episode of Grieving Voices, where we explore the therapeutic and transformative power of sound healing. Today’s guest is the incredibly talented sound healer, Kiki Tyler, who takes us on a journey through her personal story of grief and how it led her to discover her purpose in helping others heal.
Kiki Tyler is a renowned sound healer known for creating immersive sonic landscapes that promote healing and self-discovery. She harmonizes body, mind, and spirit using various instruments through resonating frequencies. Her intuitive approach and extensive knowledge allow her to facilitate deeply restorative experiences.
In This Episode:
- Learn about Kiki’s transition from experiencing deep personal loss to finding solace in sound therapy.
- Hear the poignant tale of how losing her best friend inspired her to become a healer.
- Understand the importance of allowing oneself to grieve openly without societal pressure.
- Discover how grief evolves from sharp pain to fond memories that inspire growth.
- Gain insights into navigating friendship dynamics after loss and honoring those connections moving forward.
- Learn tips on how you can help loved ones cope with their losses based on real-life experience.
- How encountering multiple losses prompted significant lifestyle changes, including setting boundaries for better work-life balance.
- An overview of distance Reiki sessions and virtual sound baths – demystifying quantum healing across physical spaces.
Takeaways:
Kiki’s story encourages us to reflect on how we handle loss within our networks — supporting colleagues during their times of need fosters deeper connections and community strength. It also poses a question worth pondering: How do we honor ourselves and others amidst adversity?
Remember — It’s okay to feel and express emotions; vulnerability isn’t weakness—it’s human strength unveiled amidst adversity.
RESOURCES:
- Reiki
- Biofield Tuning
- Episode Sponsor: Magic Mind | Use the code “GRIEVINGVOICES” to receive one month free with a 3-month subscription. This special promotion is only for January!
CONNECT:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk:
(00:01:37 – 00:02:16)
Thank you for tuning in to Grieving Voices. Today, my guest is Kiki Tyler. She is a sound healer known for her transformative ability to weave intricate sonic landscapes that guide individuals on journeys of healing, expansion and self-discovery. With a deep understanding of the therapeutic power of sound vibrations, Kiki creates immersive soundscapes using an array of instruments, resonating frequencies that harmonize the body, mind, and spirit. Her intuitive approach, combined with her knowledge of sound therapy techniques, allows Kiki to facilitate deeply restorative experiences, helping our clients release tension, restore balance, and unlock their inner potential.
Victoria Volk:
(00:02:16 – 00:02:57)
Through her gentle and compassionate guidance, Kiki Sound Healing Sessions offer a sacred space for profound healing and inner alignment. Thank you so much for sharing that beautiful bio with me and for the work that you do because, clearly, it’s needed because who doesn’t need some inner alignment, right, these days in a world that seems very out of alignment? What I’ve come to know even for myself personally and majority of people who come to my podcast, their work is from a place of pain often from pain to purpose. Right? And, that’s what I often see.
Victoria Volk:
(00:02:57 – 00:03:02)
And so what led you to doing the work that you’re doing today.
Kiki Tyler
(00:03:03 – 00:03:31)
It was definitely from a place of pain and intense grief, and it was one that I was in denial from, very close friend of mine, we had been close friends, best friends for almost 9 years. Traveled around, did fitness events together. During 2020, she was diagnosed out of the blue with stage four lung cancer. Doctors gave her 2 weeks, and she said, I’m gonna hang around a little bit longer.
Kiki Tyler
(00:03:31 – 00:03:50)
I wanna vote this year. And she was she was stubborn. She hung around for a little over 4 months, which I got to spend a lot of time with her during the lockdown. We both were safe. She took hospice into our own hands and kind of just maintained and managed her pain, and she made it fun.
Kiki Tyler
(00:03:50 – 00:04:12)
Like, she had her own visiting hours. She used cat means, like, it was her personality through and through all the way up to the end. We’re actually coming up on her 3 year anniversary of her passing. She passed peacefully in her sleep on December 12th. And I was close to their husband and worked closely with him kind of just clearing things out, packing up for things, donating things.
Kiki Tyler
(00:04:12 – 00:04:30)
So through all of that, I didn’t realize I was in denial. I was shoving everything down and showing up for him. And plus the lockdown, and we couldn’t have the traditional funeral or life celebration or say any type of goodbyes. It was a very unique time for me.
Victoria Volk
(00:04:31 – 00:04:36)
I’m just trying to wrap my head around because she would have been quite young at the time.
Kiki Tyler
(00:04:37 – 00:04:37)
55.
Victoria Volk
(00:04:38 – 00:04:41)
I mean, I’m looking at you, and I think you look really young.
Kiki Tyler
(00:04:42 – 00:04:53)
Thank you. I yes. I’ll be 43 in March. But, yeah, she was like the older another older sister for me. We just it. It was it was great.
Kiki Tyler
(00:04:53 – 00:05:00)
She’s here in spirit. She’s actually one of my spirit guides. Purple she dyed her hair purple. It was one of her favorite colors. She was a huge Baltimore Ravens fan.
Kiki Tyler
(00:05:00 – 00:05:25)
And, usually, there’s purple, purple orbs or things when I’m doing healing sessions or when I’m working with my sound bowls. Like, I can always feel her here. So that was a beautiful transition, but, I’m kind of skipping ahead. I had all that denial, and I didn’t know what I would to do with it. I and then I went through anger, and a girlfriend had invited me to a women’s retreat.
Kiki Tyler
(00:05:25 – 00:05:37)
You know, what the heck? I’m tired of being cooped up. Like, I need to do something.
We were all safe and distanced. It was outdoors mainly, and that’s when I had my 1st reiki and sound experience.
Kiki Tyler
(00:05:37 – 00:06:05)
And we were we did a beautiful sunrise yoga world, and there were reiki walking around asking if you wanted to receive. And I was like, I don’t know what it is, but sure. And it was like the tap had opened, and I was just sobbing and crying, and it was the waterworks. I was ugly crying laying on the floor, but it was like this huge weight had been lifted off my heart and my shoulders. And I kinda opened my eyes, and there were tears coming down the practitioner’s eyes.
Kiki Tyler
(00:06:05 – 00:06:17)
Like, she was an empath, so she was feeling what I was feeling. And I remember connecting with her immediately afterwards. And what was that? How can I learn more about it? Like, I’ve never experienced anything.
Kiki Tyler
(00:06:17 – 00:06:39)
It was intense, but it was also very liberating. And the other woman was a sound practitioner, and she was doing, chakra tuning, like alignments with her tuning forks. And she was doing little 15 minutes, and I was like, sure. Let’s try it. And, you know, I had a headache from all the crying and dehydration.
Kiki Tyler
(00:06:39 – 00:06:55)
I was about a 5, 6 hour drive, so I had low back pain. I didn’t tell her any of this. She intuitively scans me, pulls out her tuning forks, and picks 3 that that she was drawn to work with and she’s playing them over me. Headache was gone. Low back pain was gone.
Kiki Tyler
(00:06:55 – 00:07:04)
I slept like a baby that night. It was amazing. So, of course, same thing. What was that? What did I just experience?
Kiki Tyler
(00:07:04 – 00:07:09)
How can I get more of it, and how can I share this with the world? This needs to be, like, mainstream knowledge.
Victoria Volk
(00:07:10 – 00:07:34)
My story too, I fell into reiki and it finds you. Right? I think when the student is ready, the teacher appears and then, that’s I kinda fell into it by accident too. I put accident in quotation. But I just wanna share this because I’m still thinking about what that would have been like for her and your your friend and to be, I mean, relatively young.
Victoria Volk
(00:07:34 – 00:07:44)
And to be told, you have 2 weeks. Like, 2 weeks? How many people I mean, like, what did she take that for an answer?
Kiki Tyler
(00:07:45 – 00:08:01)
It was hard. Throughout that period, we had just said goodbye to another dear friend of ours who passed from breast cancer who had made it through 3 different rounds of chemo. And they were also really close. She was going and she saw her friend do that. And that could have been an option, but it would have only given her a handful of months.
Kiki Tyler
(00:08:01 – 00:08:17)
And she saw what it did, and she’s like, that’s not worth a few extra months. Like, I want to be happy. I want people to remember me this way, and I don’t want them to see me whether it way like that. And I kinda wanted to go out on my terms, and we did different pop-up classes. We visited her apartment complex.
Kiki Tyler
(00:08:18 – 00:08:29)
She was just a really bright light, like, throughout the whole process. And she was there for me. She was there for other she was worried about every of it. She’s like, I’m okay. I’m not in pain.
Kiki Tyler
(00:08:29 – 00:08:53)
I’ve made my peace with it. Worried about my husband and my cats, but other than that, like, she reconnected with family, made sure that she saw the people she wanted to see, made amends with the people she wanted to make amends with. She was in a really like, I very strong. I have a lot of respect for her. I don’t think I I would handle it that way, but you don’t know until you’re in that situation.
Kiki Tyler
(00:08:53 – 00:09:19)
Between 2018 and 2020, we had lost 4 different instructor friends to cancer of some kind or another. So it’s we I always do the fundraisers when it comes around, whether it’s breast cancer, colon whatever it is. Sick. We go and we dance and we would be part of them, but that’s when I had a lot of people reach out and say, are you gonna do 1 in her honor or her memory? And the questions are, what are you gonna do?
Kiki Tyler
(00:09:19 – 00:09:35)
How are you celebrating? And a lot of people reached out to me because we were the we were the dynamic duo. Like, we would co-teach and and host a lot of events together. And I was like, guys, she doesn’t want this. She just wants to hang out with her friends, visit her, have a coffee.
Kiki Tyler
(00:09:35 – 00:09:56)
She doesn’t want like, if there are no medical bills, she’s fine. She’s not gonna need help with anything, thankfully, again, she was very blessed in that area. And she stayed at home, so she didn’t even have traditional hospice care. She had a nurse come once or twice a week, manage her pain med meds, and that was about it. But, yeah, very young.
Victoria Volk
(00:09:57 – 00:10:12)
You know, not a lot of people would have the wherewithal to choose to have a death that they want. And do you think it was just the work that she had been doing? Because she had been doing the similar thing as you, I imagine.
Kiki Tyler
(00:10:14 – 00:10:39)
I don’t I don’t know. I know she and I talked a lot when our friend Donna had passed, and it was really hard for both of us to watch and she was withering away. I mean, I don’t know the dosage of the chemo, but she was on her 4th round, and she had lost, like, 60 or 70 pounds. She would had very low energy. And I know Sonia was very much like, I don’t want that for myself.
Kiki Tyler
(00:10:39 – 00:10:54)
I don’t want my friends and family to see me go through that. I don’t wanna see me go she was just very clear on what she wanted and didn’t want, and she controlled the narrative of her exit and her final chapter.
Victoria Volk
(00:10:54 – 00:11:14)
And I think if we all can take anything from you sharing that is that if you have an opportunity to do so, to not be afraid to speak up for yourself. Right? Yes. Have the kind of death that you want to have. Because I know that can probably be very difficult for the for the loved ones.
Victoria Volk
(00:11:14 – 00:11:21)
Right? Like, do the chemo. Do the treatment. I want you know, I don’t want you to they don’t want their loved one to go. Right?
Victoria Volk
(00:11:21 – 00:11:24)
So I can’t imagine. I’m sure she got a lot of pushback maybe.
Kiki Tyler
(00:11:25 – 00:11:36)
She did. She controlled her socials and how people communicated, and I was kind of a little bit of a buffer. We talked about that. I was like, how can I help you? Even just announcing it and sharing with certain people.
Kiki Tyler
(00:11:36 – 00:12:00)
She told her close family, but she asked if I felt comfortable sharing with people and just making announcements to more of our closer circle. And I think that opened the door for people to reach out to me instead of her, but it was why isn’t she getting chemo? Why isn’t she fighting? I wish she would have changed her you know? And I know and understand now those suggestions recommend they were coming from a place of love, but also fear.
Kiki Tyler
(00:12:00 – 00:12:15)
Like, they didn’t want to lose her. And I don’t know what was going through their mind. I just knew what going through my mind. I wanted her to have the happiest transition possible. So if I can make that happen, and she didn’t want parties or she didn’t want fundraisers.
Kiki Tyler
(00:12:15 – 00:12:19)
She didn’t wanna go to chemo. Like, I wanted to honor her wishes.
Victoria Volk
(00:12:20 – 00:12:30)
Some people may be wondering after she passed in with the anniversaries and things, how do you personally honor her memory?
Kiki Tyler
(00:12:31 – 00:13:10)
I mean, she’s with me every day. It’s hard for me to teach a dance class where I don’t think of her. I actually had to take a break for about 6 months from teaching. I thought I was not gonna teach again because of how raw and real. The grief was once I finally did allow it out and up, but It brings me joy.
Kiki Tyler
(00:13:11 – 00:13:35)
It brings others joy, and that’s one of the things we both wanted to do together. And I used to not even be able to cry in public, and now I’m crying on a podcast. So progress, It’s okay. It’s okay to feel. It’s not a bad thing.
Kiki Tyler
(00:13:35 – 00:14:01)
It’s not a sign of weakness. I mean, I sat on the couch and I cried when we cried together, just absorbing the weight and the gravity of the news. I don’t think, as a society, we allow people that time to process. We kinda wanna rush through the pain. We wanna rush through the hard parts, and that’s where the most growth happened.
Kiki Tyler
(00:14:02 – 00:14:18)
I wouldn’t be where I am today. I wouldn’t have unlocked and reconnected with the gifts that I have, if I didn’t go through those experiences, not saying I want them or wish for them, but I needed to go through those shadows to really appreciate and honor the light.
Victoria Volk
(00:14:20 – 00:14:36)
That’s beautifully said, and thank you for sharing. And just so people listening, it’s not like you’re never gonna be sad. Right? Like, the sadness doesn’t go away. You still would rather be teaching with your friend.
Victoria Volk
(00:14:36 – 00:14:53)
Right? Like, that’s not gonna go away. But can you describe how it’s different now versus how the grief is different now than how it was maybe even after a year, you know, the magical year.
Kiki Tyler
(00:14:53 – 00:15:07)
Right. I feel like mine was 2 years, but that’s because I stunted my grief personal, and I was in denial. So, it does get I don’t even wanna say easier. It’s it gets different. Right.
Kiki Tyler
(00:15:07 – 00:15:18)
You look back and you remember things in fondness and the pain isn’t as sharp. You know? You miss them. Like, there are times I’ve gone to text her and I’m like, alright. I’m just gonna talk to you.
Kiki Tyler
(00:15:18 – 00:15:29)
You’re here. I know you’re here. You know? Like, I have voice memos or, you know, Facebook has the time hop or the time memories that come up. And I’m like, oh, that was such a fun dance.
Kiki Tyler
(00:15:29 – 00:15:37)
I’m gonna put that in. Like, I saw that. It’s for a reason. I miss you. I love you, and I’m gonna share it again.
Kiki Tyler
(00:15:38 – 00:15:46)
But, some days it just hits you, and you have this sharp memory and you just wanna hug them.
Victoria Volk
(00:15:50 – 00:16:22)
You know, and best friend loss, even friend loss, is something that I wouldn’t say it’s minimized, but it definitely doesn’t get the attention that other losses get, death of a spouse or significant other or a child. Yeah. Of course, a child or a parent, grandparent, or what have you., But friendships, how would you describe how what your friendship meant to you and the importance of friendship in someone’s life.
Kiki Tyler
(00:16:25 – 00:16:54)
That’s a really deep question. I have friendships on and I don’t even like to say levels. They’re just you have different people in your life, and you can go to them for different types of support, different types of advice. She was that all around girlfriend or sister that I could call, and I knew she’d support me. I knew she’d call me on my BS.
Kiki Tyler
(00:16:54 – 00:17:26)
She was not the I’m gonna tell you what you want to hear person. She’s like, I’m here for you, but we’re not gonna sit in this type friendship. And It’s been hard to I don’t wanna say replace, but to fill those shoes, and I avoided making new friends. After that, I still stayed close with my current friends, but there was this, is there ever gonna be anybody close to her? And it’s not to replace her.
Kiki Tyler
(00:17:26 – 00:17:55)
That’s not the intention. But when I started to make new friends, particularly in the the spiritual and the healing space, I realized there were more women out there like that and started to open myself up to deeper friendships and let them all back down because I don’t wanna get hurt again. And I was I was only blocking myself from those connections. And we’re we’re human. We’re people.
Kiki Tyler
(00:17:55 – 00:18:37)
We gather. We need that socialization. And as much as I love my alone time and I’m an introvert and I like to grab a book and snuggle with my cats, like, I also like to sit and have cacao with my girlfriends and, like, talk about really deep, cool woo woo stuff too and sound healing and reiki and, like, let’s feel better. What hurts? You know, and we just are all brainstorming instead of sitting watching dumpster fires and getting sucked into that lower vibe energy, and she was definitely that high vibe, alright, where you and the same she would do it with her students, and she was just genuine with every single person in her life.
Kiki Tyler
(00:18:37 – 00:19:00)
It didn’t matter if you were an acquaintance, she saw you once a week, once a month, once a quarter. Like, she would just treat everybody the same, and she’s she’s had a lot of admirable qualities. So I remember those skills and traits that she shared and showed me, and I honor her by emulating that. And sometimes think, what would Sonia do or say?
Victoria Volk
(00:19:03 – 00:19:24)
You know, so she had a spouse, has a spouse, who was left behind. Right?, Mhmm. How did what can you share with listeners on how, as her best friend, how you supported him and her family and if you have if you learned anything from that experience that you can share.
Kiki Tyler
(00:19:26 – 00:20:06)
Yeah. It was the 2 of them and their 2 cats, and her father had passed, and I believe her mother had, so I never met her parents. She was close with his mom, and she had just reconnected with her son. So he was starting to come back into the picture, and her son and husband developed a very fast friendship and started walking every week, where they spread her ashes. And I remember after we finally packed up and cleaned out a lot of her clothing and everything, and and cleared out that room.
Kiki Tyler
(00:20:06 – 00:20:43)
He as soon as his lease was up, he moved into a new apartment, which I mean, I spent 20 years in that place, so I couldn’t even imagine what it was like for him. But we had several, like, brunch dates, lunches, just messaging him and reaching out. He had a very good support system hit with his family and her son as well. And, he unfortunately passed of a heart attack earlier this year, which was they say it could be broken heart. I mean, it was tough.
Kiki Tyler
(00:20:44 – 00:21:07)
But I had reached out and we were seeing each other less and less, and I don’t know if I didn’t take that personally. I don’t know if that was too much of a memory for him, and he needed that space. But I promised her I would check in and reach out and at least do what I could on my side, but it was hard. It was hard for him. He would we try to make light of it, but, yeah, we sat and cried a bit too.
Kiki Tyler
(00:21:08 – 00:21:08)
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
(00:21:08 – 00:21:24)
After losing so many, you said 4 different friends in a short period of time, did that how did that make you did that cause you to change anything in your life or cause you to look at your health differently or your life differently?
Kiki Tyler
(00:21:25 – 00:21:47)
Yes. It really helped me create boundaries. And before that, I was very much a yes person, a people pleaser and a workaholic to the point where I wasn’t seen as much of my friends as they would have liked or I would have liked. And it was easy to say, oh, but I have work. But I could have basically said no.
Kiki Tyler
(00:21:47 – 00:22:34)
So there was a lot more no. There was a lot more, I’m not gonna sub as many classes because I’m gonna spend quality time with my loved ones, whether that be family, friends, girlfriends, what have you. More more time with myself to dial into what I felt were my priorities and really sit with, are these mine? Is this something that was planted whether it be from Parents or other parental figure society. It doesn’t matter where it came from, but just really revisiting my belief system and just kind of checking things to make sure I wasn’t you know, we talked about alignment at the beginning of this, and it’s so quick and easy to get just a little a little off.
Kiki Tyler
(00:22:34 – 00:22:51)
But if you if it goes unchecked, now all of a sudden, you’re all the way over here. But if you catch it, it’s easier to bring it back to the center line. I mean, it’s like, we take better care of our cars and our instruments than we do our bodies. Right? You get that gotta get that oil changed.
Kiki Tyler
(00:22:51 – 00:23:11)
You gotta get this the all the fluids and everything fixed. When you have instruments or a piano that’s out of tune, you’re calling somebody to fix it, so it sounds right. But we often ignore our our creaks and cracks and, like, our body sending that signals. So just slowing down was a big thing for me because I was go, go, go, go, go. 100 miles an hour.
Kiki Tyler
(00:23:11 – 00:23:15)
Right? Don’t wanna stop. Don’t wanna think. Don’t wanna slow down. And it’s easier.
Kiki Tyler
(00:23:15 – 00:23:16)
You don’t have to feel.
Victoria Volk
(00:23:16 – 00:23:16)
Mhmm.
Kiki Tyler
(00:23:16 – 00:23:46)
And feeling that the feeling can be painful. And I avoided the pain, and I avoided the darkness, and I didn’t want to do the work. I kept telling myself, I’m not ready, but things like this hit you. And like you said, there were the 4, and then with her, and then I had this denial and anger, and I just I had shut down. My partner, like, you’re wearing a lot of gray and black where I always used to wear a ton of color.
Kiki Tyler
(00:23:46 – 00:24:11)
He’s like, you’re coming home, you’re reading, like, you’re not active. You’re not seeing people, and this is when things started to open back up when we could. He’s like, I’m worried about you, and that’s kind of around the same time the retreat happened. And that’s what led me like you said, the the teacher appears when the student is ready, so I took my 1st, Reiki Practitioner training level 1. And my intention was only level 1.
Kiki Tyler
(00:24:11 – 00:24:37)
Like, I really wanted to focus on healing me and getting better. But in doing the work and tapping more into my values and my sole purpose, I’m here for a bigger reason. My purpose is bigger than me. So continued to follow that path, and now I’m teaching and then same thing with sound. Just really wanted to learn and play for myself to heal and get into a better feeling place, but then started sharing it with girlfriends and, like, can you play for me?
Kiki Tyler
(00:24:37 – 00:24:55)
Maybe you should do this. Oh, this makes me feel better. I can sleep better. I’m not stressed. So and just if I was still in the same state of a 100 miles an hour and being a workaholic, I never would have heard these pulls and these tugs on my soul to go in the right direction.
Victoria Volk
(00:24:57 – 00:25:21)
We have to pause in order to hear those things. Right? You have to be able to so I everything you shared about, like, our body alignment and getting mislined and taking care of our cars better than we do our bodies and all of those things you said I just said in a healing session just a couple of days ago, 1st time healing session for someone. It’s like we don’t understand. Like, we haven’t we are energy.
Victoria Volk
(00:25:21 – 00:25:29)
We are an energetic body. And just you go to the chiropractor. You don’t think twice. You know? Get your Right.
Victoria Volk
(00:25:29 – 00:25:31)
Neck put in alignment, like,
Kiki Tyler
(00:25:31 – 00:25:32)
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
(00:25:32 – 00:25:41)
Connected. Everything is connected. And so do you use sound bowls, or do you use the tuning forks like you initially experienced?
Kiki Tyler
(00:25:42 – 00:25:43)
Both. How about
Victoria Volk
(00:25:43 – 00:25:44)
the count?
Kiki Tyler
(00:25:44 – 00:25:59)
The weighted forks were the were the first things I purchased. I loved them. I worked with them on myself. I’ve shared them with family and friends, and I pretty much mimicked what I went through and just got better at trusting my intuition of what forks use, doing chakra scans. Love the singing bowls.
Kiki Tyler
(00:26:00 – 00:26:20)
That was my next investment. I now have added flute, gong, drum. I’ve got a list of other things I wanna add, and it’s kind of just following that intuition and what I’m drawn to, what the people need. And many of my Reiki clients asked for me to play at the end or they’re like, can we do half and half? And I’m very a la carte.
Kiki Tyler
(00:26:20 – 00:26:46)
There’s no, like, regimented or cookie cutter. It’s you may have signed up for Reiki, but I’m feeling like I really need to play this goal for you while I’m sending Reiki, and they’re like, I’m here for it. So I’m a 100% virtual. I have had the opportunity to teach some small group in person sound baths, but everything I do has been over Zoom, and My clients love that. A lot of times, they’ll turn their screen off or they’ll have their phone next to them.
Kiki Tyler
(00:26:46 – 00:27:07)
So I’m looking up at the ceiling or the van, and then they’re like, thanks, Kiki. And they, like, turn it off, and then they’re already in bed. So they have the best night sleep of their life. A lot of times, they’ll get visions or answers things that they were seeking and setting intentions for throughout the evening. And I love the convenience of it because I’m, like, right in our back pocket with the use of a phone.
Victoria Volk
(00:27:08 – 00:27:13)
So how would you describe how do you describe to your clients? How does this work over distance?
Kiki Tyler
(00:27:15 – 00:27:17)
The sound or the reiki?
Victoria Volk
(00:27:18 – 00:27:31)
Both. Right? I mean, well, the sound. I mean but you can even do sound like, I do sound healing. I do the tuning forks, but I tell clients, like, you can go about your day, and I can conduct a session.
Victoria Volk
(00:27:31 – 00:27:55)
And but explaining that is re like, how like, I had the hardest time wrapping my head around it too when I first started. And I still honestly, I like, trip over my words, and I feel like I’m a blubbering mess when I try to explain because it’s so mystical even to me. Like, it’s so childlike. Like, it’s you know what I mean?
Kiki Tyler
(00:27:55 – 00:27:55)
It’s magical.
Victoria Volk
(00:27:56 – 00:27:56)
It is.
Kiki Tyler
(00:27:56 – 00:28:05)
Yeah. It is. And that’s and I guess I don’t question it. So for me, it’s like, I get the same thing. People ask, oh, what?
Kiki Tyler
(00:28:05 – 00:28:15)
Like, it’s quantum healing, and then you get another look. And I’m like, okay. So Everything that we’re talking about is very etheric. Right? There’s this etheric realm, different dimension.
Kiki Tyler
(00:28:15 – 00:28:36)
So I do the healing in that realm. So we don’t you know, time is not linear. It’s past, present, future. It’s all happening at the same time. So I’m doing, Akashic answer sessions right now, and it really I was talking about this with a woman last night, and she’s like, it just blew me away that you can go into my records, and I don’t have to be, like, present on Zoom.
Kiki Tyler
(00:28:36 – 00:28:42)
And I said, no. As long as your higher self gives me permission. Same thing with Reiki. Like, I need your permission. You need to reach out and request.
Kiki Tyler
(00:28:43 – 00:28:58)
I can’t just arbitrarily, like, pop in and do this work for you. And I love that the energetic space is permission-based. And it has a spiritual aspect, but it’s not religious based. That’s another Mhmm. Question that pops up a lot too.
Kiki Tyler
(00:29:00 – 00:29:14)
But you brought up energetic bodies. So we have 4. Right? The shamanic there there’s the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. So in the quantum realm in the ethers, we’re healing all 4 bodies because they’re interconnected.
Kiki Tyler
(00:29:15 – 00:29:33)
Mhmm. And, yes, you mentioned the chiropractor. That’s great for your physical, but you could have trapped emotions, and that could be causing the back pain. So it could have nothing to do with your spine whatsoever, and your spine’s gonna continue to get out of alignment until you work through these issues. So that’s where the reiki energy can come in.
Kiki Tyler
(00:29:33 – 00:29:57)
And, honestly, I just invite people to have their first session because after I experienced it, I didn’t question anything. And, like, once you whatever your intention or will is, it’s gonna happen. And if you don’t want it to flow, the Reiki energy won’t flow. And I did a group, self-love event with a woman. She was teaching the gentle yoga.
Kiki Tyler
(00:29:57 – 00:30:15)
I was providing Reiki and sound healing. And chatting with everybody in the beginning, there were 2 ladies and one was really she’s like, well, I’ve had Reiki before, but I didn’t feel anything. So we thought I was like, this is great. I love that you brought this up. Are you skeptical?
Kiki Tyler
(00:30:15 – 00:30:28)
Are you open? What are you seeking right now? Because if you don’t want me to send, even though I’m sending it to the whole room, you won’t receive anything. But if you set the intention, I’m tired. This is a self-love experience.
Kiki Tyler
(00:30:28 – 00:30:36)
I’m here to receive. You’ll get what you need. That could be sleep. That could be deep relaxation. You could get images, answers.
Kiki Tyler
(00:30:36 – 00:30:49)
You don’t even have to share it with me, and you will get what you need. And she was floored. She had been sleeping for weeks. She didn’t share this with me. But at the end, after I had gone around, she was one that fell asleep and was snoring.
Kiki Tyler
(00:30:50 – 00:30:58)
And she was like, I felt tingly. I felt hard cold. Like, I actually felt it flow. And I said that had nothing to do with me at all. I’m just the channel.
Kiki Tyler
(00:30:58 – 00:31:05)
You know, I like to tell my clients I’m the faucet, not the water. You’re the healer. You’re controlling. It’s your adventure. Right?
Kiki Tyler
(00:31:05 – 00:31:24)
You want a lot. You want a little. It’s too intense. You are in control of the tap, so you decide. And I do like to give people a heads up when I’m in so they know if they feel tired or something like they get really thirsty or they, like, get their energy sapped because it it can impact people differently.
Kiki Tyler
(00:31:25 – 00:31:41)
But I did 4 sessions on Monday energetically connecting, not over Zoom or in person and everybody I sent their notes and feedback to, they were like, did you do this at this time? I felt really tired at this time. Was it this time? And you know. You know.
Kiki Tyler
(00:31:42 – 00:31:46)
Your body knows. All of them. All the energetic bodies now.
Victoria Volk
(00:31:47 – 00:31:47)
Yeah.
Kiki Tyler
(00:31:47 – 00:31:47)
So I don’t
Victoria Volk
(00:31:47 – 00:31:48)
Know
Kiki Tyler
(00:31:48 – 00:31:50)
if that helps, but that’s one of the ways.
Victoria Volk
(00:31:51 – 00:32:25)
Yeah. Like you said, you just have to experience it, and that’s that’s kind of how I end the conversation too. It’s like, you just have to experience but I just wanna share with you a little something that I’ve been trying out. Speaking about trying things like Reiki or energy healing, I’ve been trying Magicmind, and they are actually sponsoring this episode. But even though that they’re sponsoring this episode, I would not tell you or share about it if I personally have not tried it, and I personally wouldn’t recommend it myself.
Victoria Volk
(00:32:26 – 00:32:52)
Seeing how well it’s worked for me. I would really encourage you to try it out as well if you’re having trouble being at a 100%. It’s been a total game changer for me. I can, in fact, tell on days when I haven’t taken it because I’m just a little bit more scattered. I have more difficult time getting into a flow, and my energy is kind of more like a roller coaster rather than like this steady, calm, focused energy.
Victoria Volk
(00:32:52 – 00:33:18)
It changes my energy. It changes my ability to let’s just say, get shit done. So if this is something that piques your interest, right now for January, they have a or buy a 3 month subscription, and you get a month free. This is only for January. It’s like getting an extra 20% off, which gets you to 75% off, actually, and this only lasts until the end of January.
Victoria Volk
(00:33:18 – 00:33:44)
So if you wanna give it a try, again, it’s not gonna hurt you to try it. And it actually tastes good, and it’s like 2 ounces. It’s got so many good things in it. Neuro tropics, what do they call them, adaptogens, some of the things, specifically lion’s mane mushrooms, ashwagandha, bacoba monnieri. I’m probably botching those, but it actually does taste good.
Victoria Volk
(00:33:44 – 00:34:19)
And I can tell in days when I haven’t taken it when I end up doing productive things that have me on the struggle bus those days, actually, kinda like today, if I’m being honest. So head to magicmind.com/jangrieving voices, and use my code, grieving voices, at checkout. And this is, again, for 3-month subscription. You will get 1 month free, only this January, to help you gear up to crush your 2024 New Year’s resolutions and get fully focused. Alright.
Victoria Volk
(00:34:19 – 00:34:35)
Back to the episode. What drew me to biofield tuning, particularly biofield tuning, was, just the science of it. Like because it really gets into the science of quantum physics and yeah. And I geeked out over that stuff. But
Kiki Tyler
(00:34:36 – 00:34:36)
Yeah.
Victoria Volk
(00:34:36 – 00:34:55)
To, like, succinctly explain it. I haven’t found my language yet. I’m still I think that’s still a work in progress for me because it still feels like child play to me in so many ways. I feel like a kid in, playing. It’s just I get a lot of delight from it.
Victoria Volk
(00:34:55 – 00:34:58)
And I just saw your face light up as you’re talking about it too.
Kiki Tyler
(00:34:58 – 00:35:01)
I know. I was gonna say that was not a succinct explanation. I kinda
Victoria Volk
(00:35:01 – 00:35:05)
Went off by a couple’s hand. And that’s how I get. Yeah.
Kiki Tyler
(00:35:05 – 00:35:10)
Yeah. I feel like Harry Potter and the 1st time I’m going to Hogwarts, I’m like,
Victoria Volk
(00:35:10 – 00:35:19)
Where else? You know? Right? Right? We have and this is the thing, like, as the person receiving, you it’s empowering.
Victoria Volk
(00:35:20 – 00:35:40)
It’s an empowering experience because it’s like like I you know, walking clients through a guided visualization. It’s like, woah. It’s like you’re introducing them to childlike play for the since they we just don’t do that as adults. Right? We don’t we have really difficult time just imagining.
Victoria Volk
(00:35:41 – 00:36:26)
Like, our imaginations just kind of, like, just it’s like our imaginary world just gets smaller and smaller and smaller. The more grief that gets put on top, stacked on top and trauma and societal pressure and all these things that happen in life. It’s like the child within us just gets kinda squashed, and this is, I think, what helps, energy healing is what reignited that within me. And I think that’s where My face lights up when I share it with people. And I love first time sessions, but I just I it’s like I get so excited for them to experience it, and it’s like, I just don’t know how to explain it.
Victoria Volk
(00:36:26 – 00:36:30
It’s just magic. You know? Like you said, like, it’s just magical. Yeah.
Kiki Tyler
(00:36:30 – 00:36:42)
Yeah. Yes. Magic is real, and that’s what I tell people. And I have a woman, I’m working with now, and it started off as a one off session. She’d never heard of Breaky or Acacia Records or anything.
Kiki Tyler
(00:36:42 – 00:37:08)
And after her 1st session, she’s and she didn’t consider herself creative, like, didn’t have that visual. But as soon as I dropped her in, she was having her own journey while I was sending her healing and tapping into her spirit team for guidance on her intention she shared with me. And she was like, I need more of this. One isn’t enough. And then we’ve been working together now for 3 months because it was like you it’s like an onion.
Kiki Tyler
(00:37:08 – 00:37:22)
Right? You heal one thing, and then something else pops up and something. You’re like, I didn’t realize that. So and then same thing on my journey. So went through a phase and stage of healing grief and got to a point where I was feeling okay, but I was like, there’s more work here.
Kiki Tyler
(00:37:22 – 00:37:41)
And now that I’m accustomed to where I’m going, my emotional values, and what I want, I dove in this time last year to an inner child work. I wanted to reconnect with my inner children. Pros and cons. Right? We’ve all had you know, wounds.
Kiki Tyler
(00:37:41 – 00:37:53)
There could be trauma. I mean, I think I saw a TikTok where he said, you know, if you stub your toe, that’s trauma. If you got yelled at, that’s trauma. Like, we don’t need there’s no scale or level. It like, your trauma is not bigger or smaller than mine.
Kiki Tyler
(00:37:53 – 00:38:10)
Like, let’s just acknowledge it. Feel it. And that’s the thing our inner children wanna be seen and heard. They wanna be given the space to feel so they can heal. And certain inner children I’ve connected with, I’m like, I pulled out my coloring books and have been coloring.
Kiki Tyler
(00:38:10 – 00:38:24)
I love to do puzzles. I’ve re I’ve always been an avid reader, but I’ve gotten back into, like, my fantasy and fun books. A lot of my inner children love that. And then I got to my angry teenage years, and we’re a little rebellious. And that I’m like, oh, that’s you.
Kiki Tyler
(00:38:24 – 00:38:45)
That that that’s you who wants to go and get in trouble. Okay. We gotta we gotta check that at the door a little bit as we’re an adult now. But just opening that box and reconnecting to all the pieces of you because, like you said, we we tamp that down whether it’s responsibilities or adult team or we think we should or have to. It’s what mask are we putting on.
Kiki Tyler
(00:38:45 – 00:38:55)
And just being free to be yourself and surrounding yourself with people that not only allow it and it feels safe, but encourage it.
Victoria Volk
(00:38:55 – 00:39:13)
As a kid, I was told I was weird. And as an adult, I wasn’t told I was weird again until, like, the last 4 years or so. And I’m like, alright. I’m reconnected. I’m good to go.
Kiki Tyler
(00:39:13 – 00:39:14)
I love it.
Victoria Volk
(00:39:14 – 00:39:39)
Letting my weird flag fly. I mean, it’s embrace it. Embrace your weirdness. Embrace what makes you you what would you say to people who you know, I’m a Christian. And what would you say to people who think that the work that you do or I do is not like devil work, but like this, I don’t know.
Victoria Volk
(00:39:39 – 00:39:51)
Like, we should be ashamed of ourselves or you know, because I I might pull, not a I don’t do tarot tarot, however you say it. I like more, what are the other ones?
Kiki Tyler
(00:39:51 – 00:39:54)
Oracle. Yeah., Oracle. Thank you. Yeah.
Kiki Tyler
(00:39:54 – 00:39:56)
Yep. I can’t even think of the day.
Victoria Volk
(00:39:56 – 00:40:15)
I mean, that’s that’s how that’s how, like, much I follow the rules. Right? Like, it’s just a card, and it’s more play to me. I like to just draw a card and, it’s amazing, though. It’s, I have a specific deck that I took I take it to events that I do.
Victoria Volk
(00:40:15 – 00:40:21)
Mhmm. And, I talk about grief. Right? That’s my that’s my shtick. That’s what I talk about.
Victoria Volk
(00:40:21 – 00:40:44)
And, it’s I had I would ask I would have conversations with people, and at the end of our conversation, I would ask, do you want me to pull hard for you. Like, what do you mean pull a card? Like, most people a lot of people don’t even haven’t even heard of what these are what the cards are or what they the purpose of them are. And I’m like, you know, it’s nothing sinister. It’s you know, this is you’ll get a message.
Victoria Volk
(00:40:45 – 00:41:00)
I believe that you’ll get a message that you need to hear in this moment. 1 by 1, time after time, completely applicable, like tears start flowing, and it’s a healing message for them. There’s nothing absolutely wrong with that. You know?
Kiki Tyler
(00:41:00 – 00:41:22)
I agree a 1000%. So I was raised in a conservative Christian household, and I have no idea what my family thinks about me, and that’s none of my business. If they wanna share, great. And, there but like you said, oh, she’s doing weird stuff again. And the oracle cards, the crystals, the tarot.
Kiki Tyler
(00:41:22 – 00:41:32)
To me, I view them as tools. Right? Just like a hammer or a crowbar. And the tool is not evil. The person who wields the tool can either use it for good or evil.
Kiki Tyler
(00:41:33 – 00:41:47)
Yes. Just like a hammer. It can be used to destroy or to build. And I love oracle cards, and I do offer them. And I even shy away from the deck and, like or the the guidebook that comes with the deck.
Kiki Tyler
(00:41:47 – 00:42:07)
I like people to tell me what they see because it’s not me. It’s not my message. And my goal is to help them really tap in to their own inner voice again because there’s so much noise and so many people telling, yes, what we should or shouldn’t do in society. And, now you should have a white picket fence. You should have the 6 figure job.
Kiki Tyler
(00:42:07 – 00:42:13)
You should drive this kind of car. Whatever it is. Right? But what do you really want? And I had a woman.
Kiki Tyler
(00:42:13 – 00:42:29)
She pulled the same she started pulling for herself from this deck, and we were shuffling it and cutting it, and she kept getting the same card. I was like, do you not like the message? Because it’s really the universe is trying there it’s it’s trying to tell you something. Right. I don’t know what it is, but it’s trying to tell you something.
Kiki Tyler
(00:42:30 – 00:42:37)
She’s like, I know. I was just hoping for a different answer. I’m like, 3 of the same after so much shuffling? That’s no longer a coincidence.
Victoria Volk
(00:42:37 – 00:42:42)
Right? I think even after the 2nd time, it’s like, okay. Better pay attention.
Kiki Tyler
(00:42:42 – 00:42:56)
I usually pull for myself for guidance before sessions. And with 1 client, it was, like, 3 weeks in a row. She and I were getting the same card. Even though I was shuffling while we’re talking and everything and I was and I was like, I pulled this card, and she was like, do it again. Do it again.
Kiki Tyler
(00:42:56 – 00:42:58)
So then I stopped pulling before her sesh.
Victoria Volk
(00:42:58 – 00:43:00)
Because I was like, I don’t know
Kiki Tyler
(00:43:00 – 00:43:10)
If we’re, like, the mirror. We’re at different stages, but, like, the messages we were getting were slightly different. But that’s the thing. We could both hold the same card and interpret it differently. There are colors.
Kiki Tyler
(00:43:10 – 00:43:36)
There are numbers. There are words. There It’s like what you see and what I see are gonna be 2 different things. And it’s I guess, in the olden days where you would look for omens or you would look for you know, birds would say things everything meant something and not in a bad way. It was just we were more tapped into nature and or everything around us because things were not going that 1,000 miles a minute.
Kiki Tyler
(00:43:36 – 00:43:38)
Didn’t hear? Yes.
Victoria Volk
(00:43:38 – 00:43:44)
We viewed death. Death was viewed completely differently. Right? Mhmm. Like, we spent time.
Victoria Volk
(00:43:44 – 00:43:59)
We took pictures with their dead loved ones. They would that’s have you seen this? Like, when your when your loved one passed away, you would take a family portrait with your dead deceased loved one. Like, we yeah. Death was done so differently.
Victoria Volk
(00:43:59 – 00:44:02)
Everything was done differently. Right? Yeah.
Kiki Tyler
(00:44:02 – 00:44:12)
Yes. And and there is evolution, and there are pros and cons. And I don’t know. I work in the I tell people I work in the light. So it can’t harm you.
Kiki Tyler
(00:44:12 – 00:44:31)
It can’t harm me. You’re in control of it. So I never it doesn’t bother me, and it cracks me up because I’m sure everybody’s getting these direct messages where it’s like, I was drawn to your energy and felt like you needed a reading. That could be a bot. That could be who but if you’re authentically in the energy space, you’re not reaching out to offer readings.
Kiki Tyler
(00:44:31 – 00:44:57)
As a person, you seek out who you want to read your energy and go into your records, provide you Reiki. It has to feel good to you, and you’ll know. For me, I get like a visceral gut response if I’m not meant to work with someone. Like, even going in certain metaphysical shops, I’m walking around and I can I’m like, there’s something in that corner that’s bothering me. I need to go to the different part of the store.
Kiki Tyler
(00:44:57 – 00:45:14)
It could be a crystal. It could be a type of method of physical media. Who knows? But I’m just like, just gonna listen to it. But before I got into this, I would have paid no attention because there were so many different signals going on that I wasn’t paying attention to.
Kiki Tyler
(00:45:14 – 00:45:21)
And we make excuses. Oh, I’m sitting too long. It must’ve been what I ate. I didn’t sleep well. And now it’s okay.
Kiki Tyler
(00:45:21 – 00:45:33)
What is that trying to tell me? Where is it in my body? What have I not allowed myself to feel? Like, the questions and the perception, I’ve shifted the lens in which I listen and also in which I view myself.
Victoria Volk
(00:45:35 – 00:46:01)
So what would be your tip to grievers who yeah. I’m really not I don’t wanna, like, learn Reiki or do Reiki or get into that spirit sort of practice or anything like that. But what would you suggest to grievers listening who may have lost a best friend like you did. What did self-care look like? Okay.
Victoria Volk
(00:46:01 – 00:46:15)
I’m really ahead of myself with, like, a bunch of questions. That’s what I do. But kind of wrapping it around the bow of self-care, but, like, something that people can do to, like, dip their toe in. Yes. Connecting with themselves.
Kiki Tyler
(00:46:16 – 00:46:37)
Yes. And be easy on yourself, and I know it’s easier to say than do, but let yourself feel and just be okay. Give yourself permission to let it all fall apart. Like, just have those ugly cries. Cry until you don’t have any more tears anymore, until your throat’s raw.
Kiki Tyler
(00:46:37 – 00:46:57)
Like, just that is a human emotion. If the emotion is coming out, it up, it wants to come out, and I kept shoving it down until it was overwhelming. So it got to a point where I couldn’t even get myself to start crying, so I was like, okay. What movies can I watch where I know it’ll start the waterworks? Right?
Kiki Tyler
(00:46:57 – 00:47:07)
And rent’s a rent’s a good one for me. Like, I always cry every time I watch rent. Like, I can go to certain parts of it and I’m like, oh, yeah. I’m definitely gonna cry. So that was a trick that worked for me.
Kiki Tyler
(00:47:07 – 00:47:39)
A lot more rest because emotionally, you were draining a lot of energy. I was I felt a lot of energy being drained whether it was to push the the emotion down or to actually allow myself to feel it. So if you need to take a nap, if you need to sleep in, if you need to take a day off from work, it’s hard not to feel guilty that first time, but I promise you it gets easier. And putting yourself first is not selfish. We every time we get on a plane, we’re told to put our mask on first.
Kiki Tyler
(00:47:39 – 00:48:04)
Right? If anything happens, you put your oxygen mask on first. But in real life, we tend to put ourselves on the back burner and take care of everyone else and wonder why we’re passed out on the floor. And crying isn’t a sign of weakness, which is a big lesson that I needed to learn the hard way, unfortunately. Crying is vulnerable.
Kiki Tyler
(00:48:04 – 00:48:11)
Crying is, like, are you hurt? Are you in pain? Yes. But the pain you’re going through, no one can see. You don’t have bruises.
Kiki Tyler
(00:48:11 – 00:48:44)
You don’t have scars. Like, you don’t it’s not like you go out in a fight and people knew you got in a fight and there’s some sympathy there. Let’s say you’re getting beat up from the inside and putting yourself first does get easier as well the more you do it, and the shame and guilt does move away. Because by taking care of yourself, you can then show up as the best first interview for everyone else instead of half full and or pouring from an empty cup. And then I found myself in places of resentment, yeah.
Kiki Tyler
(00:48:44 – 00:48:55)
And it wasn’t because of anybody else. My choice pouring from an empty cup and not refilling my cup for so long. Bottled up anger. You know, emotions can change. It wasn’t anger.
Kiki Tyler
(00:48:55 – 00:49:00)
It was sadness, but I wasn’t allowing myself to feel to heal.
Victoria Volk
(00:49:00 – 00:49:17)
What were the messages around grief that you received as a child since you had a really difficult time as an adult allowing yourself to cry. Is that something that you witnessed as a child? Like, the people around you didn’t express the show emotion?
Kiki Tyler
(00:49:18 – 00:49:37)
Not negative emotions, not dense, heavy emotions like happiness and joy and positive things. But If you were crying, something was wrong, what’s wrong? And or I’ll give you something to cry about. Yeah. That was a lot very common for that generation.
Kiki Tyler
(00:49:38 – 00:50:00)
I know for my brothers, they got different messages like suck it up, boys don’t cry. There were a lot of different things that I heard over the years, whether it was from coaches, in the sporting events, or parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles. It could have just been mainstream media. You know? It’s hard to pinpoint where it came from and that really doesn’t matter.
Kiki Tyler
(00:50:00 – 00:50:30)
It’s more, is that what I believe now? And kind of that unlearning. So when I say, like, allow yourself to tear it all down, like, rebuild what you believe and what feels good. And on the esoteric side, the woo side, like, the divine masculine and feminine, I was functioning very highly from my masculine, and I had suppressed a lot of my feminine. The crying, the flow, the letting things be instead of, like, the assertive, the action, the force, the push.
Kiki Tyler
(00:50:30 – 00:50:59)
So I did allow myself to be more in flow for a time and not so much action, which was really hard for me to retrain my it’s okay. There was a lot of guilt of me not acting or not showing up for other people. So that’s gonna happen, but you’re still in charge of whether you say yes or no. And saying no the first time is hard, but it gets easier. And now I have boundaries over when people have access to me.
Kiki Tyler
(00:50:59 – 00:51:10)
And that’s everyone, significant other, parents, like, whether I accept or respond to text messages, whether I call people back, and it’s really about me protecting my peace and my happiness.
Victoria Volk
(00:51:11 – 00:51:13)
Amen to that.
Kiki Tyler
(00:51:15 – 00:51:17)
Yay.
Victoria Volk
(00:51:17 – 00:51:23)
I was gonna say that old, what is what movie is it? There’s no crying in baseball. You could say
Kiki Tyler
(00:51:24 – 00:51:25)
Oh, League of Their Own?
Victoria Volk
(00:51:25 – 00:51:31)
League of Their Own. Yeah. They say it. There’s no crying in baseball, and you could say, there’s no crying in grief. There’s no crying in grief.
Victoria Volk
(00:51:32 – 00:51:38)
That’s wrong. That’s so wrong. Yeah. There can be crying a baseball. Like, maybe we need to embrace that message.
Victoria Volk
(00:51:38 – 00:51:59)
There can be crying a baseball. I don’t think I asked you this yet, but I’m curious. So I’m gonna ask it because there’s probably someone listening who’s probably curious too. Did this experience of all this loss of young people, young-ish people, I imagine, make you a little scared for your own health.
Kiki Tyler
(00:52:00 – 00:52:11)
It didn’t, but I guess that’s because I’ve always been very active. I’ve definitely made better food choices. I sleep more. I drink more water. I’ve always been one to get my annual physical.
Kiki Tyler
(00:52:11 – 00:52:29)
I love get that’s like my, report card for my health, how I’m doing. Like, how’s my blood sugar? How’s my cholesterol? I could have very easily gone down, and I think old me was very paranoid. Like, try to head everything off at the past that that people please, like, try to figure it out.
Kiki Tyler
(00:52:30 – 00:52:50)
But I kinda went the opposite way. And I was like, worry isn’t helpful. Like, it doesn’t do anything but stress you out, could reduce your time here, and it doesn’t prevent what could or couldn’t happen in the future. So I’m gonna still continue with my regular checkups and stay super active. I love to move.
Kiki Tyler
(00:52:50 – 00:53:23)
I’ve always loved to move as a young kid, and I’ve definitely made better eating choices and food choices, but it didn’t. I didn’t. I’ve a few of our friends in our circle have, and they’ve started to get more mammograms and get me, like and when I say the other end, I mean, like, probably overkill just in my personal opinion. Like, the I think there’s balance to that as well because you can get too much information and, like, get to nitty gritty, but find out what works for you. Right?
Kiki Tyler
(00:53:23 – 00:53:37)
What works for me might sound a little crazy to you, so that’s cool. Like, leave it. Don’t take it. But if you don’t get annual physicals, maybe think about doing that, you know? Find a primary care physician that you connect with.
Kiki Tyler
(00:53:37 – 00:53:54)
I actually changed doctors because I wanted one that’s more open to holistic remedies and not someone that’s gonna write me a prescription right off the gate. I am not very much into big pharma. And I’m like, well, why are you just giving me something for the symptom? We didn’t even talk for very long. So how do you know that’s the root cause?
Kiki Tyler
(00:53:55 – 00:54:13)
So I’m like, I have a whole list of things to share with you that my body’s been communicating to me. And I don’t know about you, but I live in my body. Yes. You went to med school, love doctors, but they don’t live in your body. So you have very specific information that you can share with them.
Kiki Tyler
(00:54:13 – 00:54:21)
So when you find one that you connect with and who ask the right questions and that is in alignment with you and what how you wanna take care of your body.
Victoria Volk
(00:54:22 – 00:54:37)
Step 1, pay attention to your body. Yes. So you have to pay attention to your body to recognize the signs. Right? And you’ve described many of them throughout this podcast you’ve described several of different signs of that our body gives us.
Victoria Volk
(00:54:37 – 00:54:49)
I believe you have. So Yeah. Just If it wasn’t there before, it’s something new? Take a look at that. Investigate.
Victoria Volk
(00:54:49 – 00:54:52)
Get curious. What gives you hope for the future?
Kiki Tyler
(00:54:52 – 00:54:53)
The alpha generation.
Victoria Volk
(00:54:55 – 00:54:56)
Do you say more?
Kiki Tyler
(00:54:57 – 00:55:18)
So I am one of 6. I’m an aunt. I have no babies other than my fur babies, and I’m really close to my nieces and nephews. So my youngest niece is 7, and she’s part of the alpha generation. And In spending time with her, she’s extremely curious, and she teaches me so much about myself and about life.
Kiki Tyler
(00:55:18 – 00:55:42)
And I love she’s tenacious, and she doesn’t take no for an answer. But when it comes to technology, her older brother, I guess he’s Gen z, he’s the one above that, they he’ll text me at the table. I’m sitting right across from him, and they’re more comfortable with text. My niece, not so much. She’s like, excuse me.
Kiki Tyler
(00:55:42 – 00:56:08)
Excuse me. And they’re bringing it back to what I call the old school ways, like looking people in the eye, having a conversation. She wants your undivided attention and spending time and watching her with her friends. So I know this is a small sampling, but it I’m seeing patterns and ripples, and it’s just very refreshing in there. I’ve done some research and read several articles too, but they’re the new wave.
Kiki Tyler
(00:56:08 – 00:56:25)
Right? They’re gonna bring things back to, like, the humanity of it., Just the Connection., Community, the connection, all the c’s., But they’re very curious, and they’re not afraid to ask all these questions.
Kiki Tyler
(00:56:25 – 00:56:38)
Like, you think she would have outgrown her twos or threes or whenever the why phase was., I was like, oh, she’s gonna be like me, and she’s gonna be a why person forever. And she challenges me. She challenges her mother. They’re so smart.
Kiki Tyler
(00:56:39 – 00:56:56)
They’re very, I don’t wanna say cynical, but they can they challenge things. Well, why if that’s this, but it doesn’t work here. Why? And they let they really keep you on your toes. But they’re very refreshing.
Kiki Tyler
(00:56:57 – 00:57:06)
And I enjoy spending time. I’m heading there. This weekend, we’re doing our cookie bake day. And, she loves that, like, tradition. They’re very big on tradition.
Kiki Tyler
(00:57:07 – 00:57:19)
And I don’t even wanna say rituals, but family traditions, like, what we do every year. Like, we’re like, oh, I don’t know if it’s gonna happen next year. What do you need? Oh, you’re getting older, so we’re doing this forever. Okay.
Kiki Tyler
(00:57:21 – 00:57:22)
Can’t say no to her. Right?
Victoria Volk
(00:57:23 – 00:57:37)
So perhaps around the anniversary of your friend Sonia’s passing, it would be hopeful and refreshing to spend some time around that energy for you. That’s self-care too.
Kiki Tyler
(00:57:37 – 00:57:47)
Yep. Absolutely. Yes. And she loves going there’s a metaphysical shop by them. They’re in Virginia, and we go together.
Kiki Tyler
(00:57:47 – 00:58:06)
And she’s like, this this crystal is calling to me. I think it needs to come home with me. And she saw me do some oracle readings for my sister, and she grabbed the deck went upstairs, and she has an American Girl doll. And she’s I go up, and I’m like, where did she go? And she’s like, oh, I’m just giving a reading to my dolls, and she had them all lined up.
Kiki Tyler
(00:58:06 – 00:58:23)
And she’s like I was adorable. They paid attention. They’re so observant. Like, they see and hear and take in everything like a sponge, and their perspective is so fresh and innocent. Like, it has not been tainted.
Kiki Tyler
(00:58:24 – 00:58:41)
And she’s not plugged into social media, so it’s still that fresh new. She’s not bombarded. She doesn’t have all of these different voices and things in her head coming her way, telling her how to think, act, breathe. It’s she’s just like, this is who I am. Take me or leave me.
Victoria Volk
(00:58:41 – 00:59:54)
And I think that’s the message that the youngest of the young need to be reminded of constantly, that they are enough exactly who they are. There was a quote I heard yesterday, when I’m I had a call yesterday with, Fellow Youmappers, Youmap coaches, and the founder. She’s always got something brilliant to say, but she said society judges you on what you do, what degree you have, the work you do. There’s so many different judgments that people can that people will draw just based on what you do and not on who you are. And so I think the hope for the future is that we allow the youngest of young to grieve exactly how they came out of the womb knowing how to grieve and allow that to keep going and to allow that to keep happening and to express themselves and to question and to let curiosity be their leader, and just always reminding them that they are enough just exactly as they are.
Victoria Volk
(00:59:56 – 00:59:58)
Yes.
Kiki Tyler
(00:59:58 – 01:00:10)
We all are, and we forget that. And that’s an amazing point to you bring up because this has come up with a couple of my clients. We tend to overtalk. We tend to overgive. It’s a compensation.
Kiki Tyler
(01:00:10 – 01:00:37)
There’s this un layer of unworthiness in multiple areas of our lives. It’s not always business or with products or it can be in relationships too, and you deserve to be loved just for being you, not because of what you do or the gifts or skills that you bring to the table. That’s like a cherry on top. That’s the added bonus. Whether you have them or not, you’re enough.
Victoria Volk
(01:00:39 – 01:00:48)
And I think that is the beautiful place to end today unless there’s anything else that you would like to share. Oh, wait. I actually have a question.
Kiki Tyler
(01:00:48 – 01:00:51)
Okay. 6 more.
Victoria Volk
(01:00:53 – 01:01:28)
What is the meaning that you feel you have drawn from your grief. How have you created meaning from your grief? And what would be your advice to other people in creating their meaning? And when I say creating meaning, it’s not like you have to do something grandiose or you have to, create a nonprofit or write a book or it’s none of that. It’s and it’s a very individual experience.
Victoria Volk
(01:01:28 – 01:01:48)
So I’m just curious how maybe it’s even not even creating a meaning, but how have you reframed? Maybe that’s a better question. Have you reframed how you view grief since your experience?
Kiki Tyler
(01:01:50 – 01:02:31)
Well, it has evolved. I feel like in the beginning, I viewed it as pain and something to avoid. And then, in that 1 to 2 year mark, it was memories, and how can I remember her and honor her, and then it has turned into purpose? I wanted that relationship, that friendship, that whole life, to me and it did on its own. Like, it I don’t it doesn’t need to meet for me to do anything for it to be anything better, but I wanted to reframe it.
Kiki Tyler
(01:02:31 – 01:03:09)
It’s exactly the word from pain to purpose, and it has had it’s a very pivotal moment for me. Yes, it happened during the pandemic, the shutdown, everything else, but I have now reacquoined that as, like, the midlife awakening instead of the shutdown or the pan like, we don’t have to be defined by our grief. We get to choose How we define it for ourselves and it changes in each chapter of our life. Like you asked me the same thing next year, it could mean something different. And that giving yourself permission to change your mind.
Kiki Tyler
(01:03:10 – 01:03:34)
I feel like we feel like we have to lock in and and get married to something, whether it’s an idea or a feeling or we can only do one thing. And we’re so multifaceted as human beings. It can be both. It can be painful and purposeful, right, and everything in between. And telling stories like this, sharing with others.
Kiki Tyler
(01:03:34 – 01:04:05)
I mean, if you came to me a year ago, I would not have thought this is the 3rd podcast I’ve been on where I’ve talked about her and cried, and that was not something I would have pictured for myself, but it’s helping others get through it. And just talking about it is also therapeutic for me. And each time it gets a little easier. And I think I’ve cried it all out and then someone asked a question or I remember something, and it’s like, it’s fresh, but it’s still beautiful.
Victoria Volk
(01:04:06 – 01:04:40)
And I think the key point in sharing the story, right, it’s not sharing what happened. It’s not like you’re reading a recipe card of that relationship or that experience and how the person died and all of that. Like, did so many relive over and over and over, if there was a traumatic death, things like that, depending on what they witnessed. It’s sharing the story, the emotional story. That’s where the healing is, is sharing the emotional story and reframing the meaning of of what that means for you moving forward.
Kiki Tyler
(01:04:42 – 01:04:55)
Yes. And that’s a good point as we feel like we get trapped in that moment of when it happened and we forget to live for ourselves. So grief is important. They were a part of our life. It’s a way to honor them.
Kiki Tyler
(01:04:56 – 01:05:23)
And this is about how we can continue to honor ourselves and move on with their memory with us. But thinking about everyone else in our life, like, they’re gone, but how many beautiful souls presently in the future are gonna impact your life? And you might be head down right now, but when you start to look up, they’re gonna be there.
Victoria Volk
(01:05:25 – 01:05:29)
And not to mention the impact that you have on other people’s lives.
Kiki Tyler
(01:05:30 – 01:05:31)
Yes.
Victoria Volk
(01:05:31 – 01:05:36)
And what kind of impact do you want to have? And that’s the choice we all have.
Kiki Tyler
(01:05:37 – 01:05:57)
Yes. We feel like we forget choice. Like, we feel like we’re forced into it. And sometimes just hearing someone say they did this instead gives you that sign, that permission slip, whatever it is you needed to hear or see or feel to make a small shift.
Victoria Volk
(01:05:59 – 01:06:01)
And that’s why I started this podcast.
Kiki Tyler
(01:06:02 – 01:06:03)
I love it.
Victoria Volk
(01:06:03 – 01:06:07)
Thank you so much for sharing with me and my listeners today.
kiki Tyler
(01:06:08 – 01:06:09)
Thank you for having me.
Victoria Volk
(01:06:09 – 01:06:14)
People reach out to you if they wanna learn more, connect with you? Where can people find you?
Kiki Tyler
(01:06:15 – 01:06:33)
Yes. So I am Kiki Tyler, Facebook, Instagram. Kikityler.com is my website. I love connecting with new women. I also have a group for healers, spiritual people, those that wanna learn and grow in their gifts, and I’d more than welcome to come into that community.
Kiki Tyler
(01:06:33 – 01:06:43)
And, yeah, love to hear from you and support you whether you’re in grief, have gone through it, haven’t been part of it, but want that community.
Victoria Volk
(01:06:45 – 01:06:49)
I dare to say we’ve all been a part of it. Yeah. We all grieve something.
Kiki Tyler
(01:06:49 – 01:06:51)
Yeah. Yeah.
Victoria Volk
(01:06:51 – 01:07:00)
And your gifts and your light is very much needed, and, we need more light. We need more light in the world, my friends. So thank you for being the light for so many.
Kiki Tyler
(01:07:01 – 01:07:03)
Thank you for having me.
Victoria Volk
(01:07:03 – 01:07:07)
And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life.
Cancer, Child Loss, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Parenting, Podcast |
Karla Helbert | My Son, Theo, Is Always With Me
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Society will often say to bereaved parents (or guardians), “I cannot imagine your loss…” when expressing their sympathy. However, these words can feel like a thousand paper cuts to the bereaved because, if they’re anything like my guest, Karla, they want you to imagine, even briefly. As Karla shares in this week’s episode, we are all capable of using our imagination; however, when it comes to child loss, no one wants to imagine it. Karla herself never imagined she would experience such a loss in her life. And today, her beloved Theo would be 18 and off to college.
Theo means “God,” and Karla never imagined how much her spiritual life would suffer when Theo was diagnosed at three months old with a brain tumor and died six months later. She needed God and her spiritual practice more than ever during that time, and yet all of the tools and teachings in her toolbox through her therapy practice, yoga, aromatherapy, and more were of no interest to her; she wanted nothing to do with any of it. That is until she was ready to face the one unimaginable loss she could not change.
Through this episode and Karla’s story, you’ll learn two important lessons her grief taught her, as well as her insights around balancing the fear of the world and something bad happening with living, and in particular, the challenges parents with other living children face after already burying one child.
We also talk about how her practice evolved with her grief and how it’s also enabled her to sit with other grievers, including other bereaved parents and guardians, in their pain.
When unimaginable loss happens, every aspect of our lives takes a hit. But when our spiritual life is bruised, finding meaning, which Karla explains is very personal, can be the fuel needed to get up in the morning and keep moving.
Karla lives her life with one thought: to live a life that would make Theo proud.
May we all strive to live our lives to honor our departed loved ones – in even the smallest of ways. 💛
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Grieving Voices. Today, my guest is Karla Helbert. She is a licensed professional counselor, internationally certified yoga therapist, compassionate bereavement care provider, certified yoga instructor, certified hypnotherapist, reiki practitioner, and an award-winning author. Her life changed when her firstborn child died of a brain tumor in two thousand six. Carlos Therapy Practice has a focus on loss, grief, and bereavement, working in particular with those affected by trauma and traumatic death. She is also the author of Yoga for Grief and Loss, The Shakras and Grief and Trauma, and Finding Your Own Way to Grieve a creative activity workbook for kids and teens on the autism spectrum. It’s a mouthful
Karla Helbert: Fill up.
Victoria Volk: And that’s amazing because I often see that even for myself personally, grief can either crack us wide open and, like, have us go down all these different paths that we never imagined, or it can really take us down in our lives and devastate every aspect of our lives. And we never meet our potential. We never see our potential, and we don’t take chances on ourselves and go after these things that are not only healing for us in the process, but also bring healing to other people, and that’s exactly what you’ve done through your grief and experience. And so I do have questions. But, often, like, even for myself with certifications and things, like, what came first? And I know that you were a therapist for many years before your son passed, but can you describe how things shifted for you with that experience? And share about your son too, please. Yeah, sure.
Karla Helbert: Yeah, sure. And when you were talking about, well, we can either be devastated or we can have this potential, there’s like this huge spectrum and you can be any place on the spectrum at all sorts of times because it’s certainly I mean, when your child dies. And there’s lots of other catastrophic losses. But anytime you have trauma and grief intersecting, it can be really devastating. So there was a lot of devastation. And I will say, I think that I was really fortunate just to being me. And I felt like I cannot turn away from this, like I had to be in it, I had to feel it, and I had to do something with that energy. And I think that’s a a big part of it when I work with other people or when you see situations where people are not growing in their grief or developing because it is really a developmental process and when you’re not being nurtured and supported and having that really fertile ground where to put your roots down so that you can then grow people often don’t. And it’s not always their fault. I hear like, oh, the choice. There are choices to be made sure. But also when you’re in a situation where you don’t have the personal strength maybe to stand up and say no, I’m not gonna accept this notion that I’m supposed to be somewhere other than I am or that I have to subscribe to the five stages, which we don’t really have to get into that, but it’s so permeated in our culture that we’re supposed to somehow lend the early follow these stages, and they’re not linear at all, and I know you know that, and get to the place of acceptance. And that means so many different things to people and also people don’t know. I didn’t know.
Karla Helbert: I took a whole semester long. I think that just makes me laugh. Elective course in counseling and death and dying and grief and bereavement in grad school. And when it happened to me, I still was sitting there going am I going through the stages like I’m supposed to? Am I fitting in like I’m am I grieving like I’m supposed to? And I just had this moment of like, what why they’re supposed to and that notion of acceptance at the end of the line makes some people just feel it’s insulting and like you’re supposed to there’s no such thing that closure. There’s no place where you’re done with this. And if you can’t understand that and integrate it and then stand in that truth for yourself and what it means, you often feel to squash down and if you are not behaving and responding, like, our culture says you should in grief, which is ridiculous, the expectations that are placed on grieving people, then you tend to just sort of keep it to yourself and then you have these emotions like shame, and that increases your sense of isolation and you don’t share and you don’t grow. And if you don’t have access to support and help and the nurturing and the love and all those things that go along with appropriate and healthy development then you might not reach those places. Like, there’s no, we hear a lot too right now in our in our world about post-traumatic growth it’s not a promise. And it’s also not a contest. And I know I’ve done a lot of stuff. But it wasn’t immediate. I mean, it took me a long time to sort of unfold that process.
Karla Helbert: I was a therapist. And primarily, I mean, I was working in a private school with kids and teenagers, with autism, and other developmental disabilities, which were co-occurring with lists of mental health diagnoses, but severe behavioral challenges. And I did that for a long time. And then my son died in two thousand six of a brain tumor, and he was a baby. And that was just a whole the whole thing from the moment of the diagnosis through his illness and the surgeries and the treatments and his death, it was just horrific. And then he died. And I thought because I had a lot of time. Well, we had five months between the time we decided to withdraw treatment, and he went home, and we had amazing support from pediatric hospice. But I thought oh, I’m gonna handle this better because I’ve had all this time to get used to it. And I’m grateful for the time I had. I mean, I certainly know many people people who do not have time. And it’s just this sudden thing that happens when you’re in immediate shock and it’s very difficult to even process. I had the opportunity to plan what I wanted for his funeral. I was able to be with him. I was able to had a lot of processing through those times. But when he died, like, I had no idea what it was gonna be like. I was plunged into this, like, depth of despair and everything I thought was true about the universe and my belief system was just like and I did not know what to do or how to put it back together. And I started taking because I maintain my license and we need to have CEUs. I decided, well, I’m gonna try to learn about grief. I’m gonna try to learn how to figure this out for myself. It wasn’t because I wasn’t gonna be a great therapist. And for me, support groups were incredibly helpful. I’m still I’m involved with the MISS Foundation, which we’re a nonprofit organization that supports families after the death of a child. And I was fortunate enough to have had a group already here. A lot of people think that I started the chapter in Richmond, but I did not where I live. And I went to the group. Every time they were meeting. And when the facilitator at the time found out I was a therapist, she wanted me to help her run the group and at first, I really didn’t want to because I was like, if I do that, I’ll have I won’t have space. But, like, two years in, I thought I can do it. I’ve gotten so much help. I know I can do this, and so I did. And then from there, I started doing some groups with local hospices and those people were asking me, do you have a private therapy practice that we can meet with you? And I did not. I was still working in private schools. But when my daughter who was born two years after my son died, which is about when I started facilitating those groups, went to preschool, I had time. So that was like four years in that I actually started a part-time therapy practice. And started writings and things as well. I mean, I’ve always written things, but for other people to read. Although I did keep a blog throughout his illness and wrote a memoir which has never been published and I don’t know that it will. I don’t feel like I need to at this point. But I hear a lot of people feeling when they come to me that they’re not doing enough, that they need to do something big. And really, like that whole idea of the tree and your roots, a lot of people when they go through something like this immediately want to just jump into this huge project, which is okay because you have a lot of energy to put into things, but it’s also not giving you a chance to establish your own roots and see, like, what you need. And so some people can’t, like, they can do both at the same time. But a lot of times, it’s just overwhelming. And for me, like, I did it just sort of unfolded. It was not a plan. It wasn’t a thing that I said I was gonna do and that’s just how my journey has been. Although, I will say, the yoga piece of everything I do, I started my yoga teacher training before I was ever pregnant with him. And those skills really helped me through a lot of that journey. Although when he died, they felt useless.
Karla Helbert: So I had to sort of integrate that and figure out, like, well, when I wrote the Yoga for Grieving Lockbook, it really came from me spending a lot of time and looking back and seeing how all the skills that I had learned really were supporting me through all of that, and I just didn’t realize it. Like, yoga is a lot of people think that it’s depositors, and it’s so much more than that. Which is what the book is really about is the takes the branches of yoga each chapter is about a different branch of yoga and talked about how the tools within each of those branches are really incredibly helpful in grief. And the yoga postures are like this much of it. They’re only part of two of the different brands of the yoga. And the rest of it or it’s philosophy, its spiritual practice, it’s meditation, it’s self-inquiry and awareness, it’s a lot of different things that I realized later, really were carrying me through. So I’m not sure I answered your question. But it for me, that whole journey of becoming and I’m still doing it, still unfolding was a slow thing. It was not a planned thing. It’s just kind of how I ended up getting to know my own grief better. And for me, the motivation because that’s when we talk about finding meaning or creating meaning, that’s such a personal thing. And if something you have to explore on your own for me, the overall motivation is you have to help people, but I was already doing that. It’s really to me creating a life and living a life that my son would be proud of. And sort of doing things in his honor even though I don’t even really, like, talk about it so much, but it is the motivation behind what I’m doing.
Victoria Volk: What is his name?
Karla Helbert: His name. Everybody mostly knows if it’s Theo, but his name is Felinious Luther Helbert.
Victoria Volk: That’s beautiful.
Karla Helbert: It’s a big mouthful. But that Thelonious Monk, my husband is a huge fan of Thelonious Monk and the whole time I was pregnant, I really thought, well, not the whole time. Until I got the twenty-week ultrasound, I really was sure that he was a girl. And so I had only thought of girl names, and I was like, when I found out he was a boy, first of all, weird. I don’t even have a penis inside you, like, twenty-four hours. Sounds like Oh My God, I really have to adjust my thinking around it weird. And I didn’t know what to call him and we were looking at an album cover and I thought that’s a cool thing. Well then, what about Thelonious? And my husband was thrilled with that. And my dad’s name is Luther, and his father’s name is Luther. So that was his middle name. Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: Oh, it’s beautiful. Right.
Karla Helbert: Everybody mostly called him Theo
Victoria Volk: And you had shared that he would be eighteen now.
Karla Helbert: He would be eighteen now.
Victoria Volk: When was his for when will his eighteenth birthday be or when was it?
Karla Helbert: Well, it passed till this coming year, his birthday is on May Twenty-sixth Twenty Twenty-Four, it will be nineteen years. And he died nine months old. He wasn’t a year old. He didn’t live to see his first birthday. So the death date when we get there in February will be eighteen years that he’s been dead, but then nineteen years of his birthday following way though.
Victoria Volk: And when I hear something cocky?
Karla Helbert: Crazy for me to think about that sometimes, they’ll just tell me.
Victoria Volk: So my son, his name is Xavier John, and his due date was May twenty-six two thousand five, but he was born May twenty-fourth.
Karla Helbert: Oh, wow.
Victoria Volk: So we were pregnant at the exact same time.
Karla Helbert: Oh my goodness.
Victoria Volk: And gave birth around the exact same time.
Karla Helbert: Wow. That’s amazing.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. That’s never happened before in an interview. So
Karla Helbert: Wow.
Victoria Volk: I know it. So
Karla Helbert: Thank you so much for sharing that with me.
Victoria Volk: And thank you for sharing you didn’t mention it, but the Reiki, how has that served you in learning? Because I know how beneficial that has been for me just to learn about energy at self in the energy of emotions? Can you yeah
Karla Helbert: Oh, yes for sure. And emotions are energy. Mhmm. Absolutely. Well, you know, everything is energy. But it’s interesting because I’m trying to think of when it was one time and then, like, late nineties. A group of my friends all went to go get Reiki trained. And it’s totally a thing that I would be down with. I mean, I am, but they asked me to go and I didn’t do it. I just I don’t know. I really can’t remember why I said no. Because it sounds like a thing I would be like, oh, yeah. Let’s I wanna do that with y’all, but I didn’t. And I was the only one out of this group of friends that I hung out with a lot that didn’t do the Reiki training at the time. And they were all coming and breaking me afterwards. And I was like, oh, cool. And I just, like, let it go. And I really think it’s because I was gonna need it a lot more later.
Karla Helbert: But so in twenty thirteen, I guess, I went another thing that I’ve been really interested in for many years is essential oil and aromatherapy. I’m not a certified aromatherapist I’ve been working with them for a long since nineteen ninety. And a friend of mine said, oh, there’s this weekend workshop about a Aroma therapist, but aroma therapy for therapists do you want to go? And I thought, well, okay. And so for me, a lot of things after he died, just I’ve always been a very spiritual person. I always call myself spiritually promiscuous. Like
Victoria Volk: I love that.
Karla Helbert: Sort of, like, avenues and studying different religions and paths and stupid interested in so many ways. Like, I really believe that the yoga that I’m trained in, which is integral yoga, our motto is truth is one and path are many, and I absolutely believe that. So I’ve learned a lot about a lot of different things over many years. But when he died, it was like none of that meant anything. It was just that loss of my spiritual self. It’s still makes me cry. I was just like, who am I now? And the only thing that really helped me then was I and I’m again fortunate in this because I’ve worked with lots of people who say that they cannot. They hear all these things about signs and connection and communications and they don’t have it and they can’t feel their children or their other loved ones and but I knew he was around. I knew he was there. I couldn’t believe in anything else. It was all gone, but I could believe in that. And I could talk to him until the o means god, sort of male, like, okay. Well, if he’s around and I feel that, then somewhere, there must still be this divine presence. I just don’t know where it is. It was truly this dark night of the soul space. A feeling disconnected totally separate from that source. It was awful. I stopped doing yoga, the awesomeness. I did chant. That was one of the things that got me through chanting, and just being taking a lot of bath, a lot. But so many things that were who I was just were gone. And I had hundreds of dollars in essential oils. Just hundreds and hundreds just sitting on a shelf doing nothing with them. Because for me, that was also part of my virtual practice, like using them in a spiritual way and in ritual and add mixing them together and potions really, but, like, ways that for me, like, really carried the energies of the plant. And I just didn’t want anything to do with it. I would put lavender on a cotton ball vacuum. That was about it. But I said, well, okay, I’ll go to this thing with you. And it was like a turning point for me. It was really really what I needed in that moment. And the two women who were putting it together the wrong therapist was named Katiebugs. And I love her and she and I became really close over the years and she’s become like a mentor and the other woman, Barbara Davis, is a licensed therapist and also a Reiki Master. And that’s the first time I met her and she became a really important person for me and I thought, okay, it was funny because at that weekend workshop, mostly everybody there were, like, bodyworkers and acupuncturists and massage therapists me and one other person were psychotherapists, and it was like, I don’t even have them in the right place, but we had to learn some certain acupressure points and work with the oils and work with people. And one person I was working with that, are you a reiki person and I was like, no. And she said, are you sure? And I was like, well, I’m pretty sure. She said, but I can feel the energy in your hand. And then I said, oh, okay. And then I looked into it more after that and went to train with Barb Davis. And it really helped me regain a spiritual connection and a spiritual practice. And I think had I done it all those years ago with my friends that wouldn’t have happened. And I think something in me or something in the universe just new, the right time for this is gonna be later. And so that was in twenty fourteen. I did my reiki training level one, level two, and worked with it on myself a lot. And on some clients, but I didn’t really, like, get into really using reiki with a lot of other people until the pandemic. And to my reiki master level in twenty twenty or maybe twenty twenty one. It might have been, like, right at the change of the year. And started working with it differently in a way different way. I mean, for people who are who under who know about Ricky, I would use punchalization in and send it decently, like, just a prayer list? Like, I’m sending this to you. I’m sending but I didn’t start working decently with people really in session until the pandemic when we I was doing the master level and working with it in that way because I really couldn’t wasn’t seeing people in person. And it was a profound experience. And many people that I’ve worked with distantly have said, the feedback from them is even more powerful than what you get in person, which has been an interesting experience for me.
Karla Helbert: And then last year, I started teaching some people. I haven’t done tons of it, but it is incredibly powerful experience every time I do a reiki training and the right people show up. You know, once you are supposed to be there in that moment and the groups are just so cohesive and they stay in touch, and it’s just really interesting. But that part, I think that weekend was really I’m gonna know because I can feel the difference. Really profound. And then from there, the reiki journey started. And I’m really grateful for it because I think it wouldn’t have been the same. Had I done it earlier. I can’t know for sure but
Victoria Volk: Mhmm. Well, and I had similar experience, although I did my reiki master, I think, twenty nineteen. And then I did Corona Holy Fire Rakey Master. And then I phoned biofield tuning, which is his tuning fork, so I got certified in that. And so, yeah, it’s what I’ve heard you saying up to all this point is that it’s like when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Right? And it’s being open to receiving what it is that is there for you to learn about yourself, about healing, about whatever it is that is peeking your curiosity. And where I think people come into our lives too just to nudge us like they’re brought into our lives to nudge us and then we might not ever see them again or speak to them again. I’ve had so many instances of that one off conversations that just, like, change the trajectory of my life sometimes. I’ve published a book because of one off conversation with someone. It’s been bizarre. Yeah. And I think the message that I want people to hear and what you were sharing is that to be open, really, it’s important to be open to support and be open to the nudges and to getting out of your comfort zone. Because I think we can become very comfortable with our suffering too.
Karla Helbert: Oh, yeah. I think you’re right. That’s true. And then it’s scared to what is it that the devil? It’s easier to stay somewhere than to face the fear of something that’s different. And it is scary. And I think I’ll stay often to people in grief. We often feel like we don’t we don’t wanna move. We don’t wanna literally go out. We don’t want to do anything. And I’ll say, go when people ask you to do something, drive your own car so you can leave, but try. And just yesterday, I was talking to a friend of mine and we’re planning a webinar, and we’re talking about just, like, basic tips. And I said, you know, when somebody that you love and trust sent to you. Let’s go take a walk or maybe you should take a shower. Just listen to do it. Just do it. You just never know how one little thing might really shift how you’re feeling in a moment. And sometimes, just taking a shower can really, like, change how you’re feeling or going out and walking around the block and getting some sunlight. I mean, those things are so basic. But so important. And especially really early on when you’re in those spaces of devastation, we often don’t want to do anything. You don’t care to take care of yourself. Like I talk a lot about self-compassion, and self-care. And when you’re in those places, you don’t care to have compassion for yourself or take care of yourself. And so really, you’re right. Like, that just do it anyway. Like, just take this moment and listen when somebody gives you a little bit of a nudge. Because you don’t know how just this one little shift can change the energy of your emotion. Because as we said before, emotions or energy. And I’ve shared many times that word emotion comes from the Latin verb, a move air, which means to move. Emotions are supposed to move. We’re not supposed to just, like, hold them tight and just But I know because when you’re in pain, like physical pain, you just don’t wanna move, but everybody knows if you don’t move that arm that’s hurt, it’s gonna freeze up. You have to take those little steps to allow on an emotional level, also the pain to move. It doesn’t mean you’re gonna be fixed or cured or you’re not gonna grieve do grief stays with us forever? I mean I was just I can if I talk to you about it, it’s right there. It doesn’t go away. I just now am strong enough to carry it that building your emotional muscle and all of those things are energetically motivated, but it includes the physical aspects too of taking a shower, going for the walk, taking the chances and having lunch with a friend. And it’s scary because we don’t know you don’t know from one minute to the next sometimes seconds, what’s gonna just bring you to your knees any moment. A song, a look, a kid that looks like your kid or you never know and they’re everywhere, these dangers. And if you don’t make the effort to become strong enough to handle them when they show up. You never leave that safe safe circle it’s how your world gets smaller and smaller. And I don’t think that’s a good way to live. Mean, I can’t I’ve had conversations where people say, well, who are you to say? I’m I can it’s my business if I wanna keep my world that small. You’re right? You know, that’s true. You can’t ever make anybody do anything. But I don’t want to live in a little tiny box. Know, so in order to be able to expand, you have to, as you say, be keep being curious. You’re curious about something. Go find out. Like, curiosity is a very healthy place to be always.
Victoria Volk: And that’s the hardest thing I think when being, like, on the therapeutic side of it or renew assisting others in grief And for a long time, I just felt this like, I just wanted to, like, help everybody. Right? And you can only help those that really are ready to help themselves who are ready to be open, right, to the support. And that was the hardest part for me when I first started this my work of working with grievers too is being on the other side of it. Right? Like, you just you just wanna bring everybody with you. Like, there is hope. There is support. There is a path forward. There is joy and happiness waiting for you.
Karla Helbert: It’s hard believe sometimes, I mean, I remember vividly being in the space of thinking, okay, well, I’m never gonna feel joy again. I guess that’s alright. I mean, I’ve had little kind of burst of oh, I feel happy for a minute. That’s okay. I mean, I had accepted that was weird when that first happened, but I’m never gonna feel joy again. I mean, who knew? You can. It’s not and so, you know, the for me, the most profound thing was really real. And it was did not happen overnight. Is being able to hold grief alongside other emotions. And it’s hard to do because grief, especially traumatic grievance and the trauma aspect of it really has to be worked on, like, how do you deal with post-traumatic stress issues when they come up. Like, that’s a different thing, learning how to calm your nervous system down and understand how it works. But the grief itself does not need to be healed. It’s a normal and a natural response. And in the beginning, It is so overwhelming that it’s impossible for other things to come in and feel. But the more you learn how to carry it, the more than you’re able to have that space for other things, it doesn’t mean that this is gonna go away. It doesn’t. And then that not being afraid of learning that grief isn’t your enemy, that was huge for me too. But and I remember talking to a really good friend of mine. I was on one of the death anniversaries, and I was saying to her, I hate this so much. I hate this grief. I hate it. And she’s like, you don’t hate it. And I was like, yes, I do. No, you don’t hate it. And I was like, oh, I totally do. And she said, no. You hate that he’s dead. You don’t hate the grief. I was like, okay. That is true. That’s true. The grief is just there because he’s dead. Like, there’s Of course, it is. And so, like, that for me was another little turning point of really realizing, okay, I don’t have to try to get rid of it. How can I, like, make friends with it a little bit? It’s a constant companion. You know, it’s always here. Even in that the the metaphor of sort of, like, this thing being huge and you can’t see around it at all and or you’re just blind to buy it. And then eventually, it moves out here and you can see around it or under it and then it’s here and so it’s always right there. Or maybe it’s like right here most of the time and oh, I know you’re there. If I wanna come get you. And then there’s those days where it’s like, oh, look, here I am. It’s never like this for me anymore. And his grief isn’t. And I,really feel that the only thing that scares me and it’s that true for a lot of grandparents as my living child. Then I don’t know what will happen to me if she were to die before I die. I just hope she won’t. But here, I’m all I’m pretty confident that I can handle anything grief-related that comes my way in regards to his death. I can I can handle it even if it’s here? and it doesn’t stay here very long. It’s just like, okay. I know. And then it goes back here. But it’s always part of me. And in the beginning, had you told me that’ll be like, I don’t want this, and I understand that completely that impose to protest and to push this away and to not have this be your reality is absolutely how you feel. And I get it. And so you’re right with the where people and people are ready. And in this job, in my job, I No. There’s nothing I can do to help you. I can’t fix this. Like, I can’t fix the grief. I cannot change how you feel. I can offer you suggestions, I can be there with you, and it doesn’t scare me. And so now in a lot of ways working with dramatically grief people, I don’t I’m not responsible for their healing. I can just be there with you in it, and I’m really good at that now. And I think a lot of people who do this work, including lots of therapists, are not comfortable in that discomfort. It’s also a cultural issue. This is much fun with culture. Like, our culture is not comfortable in the face of other people’s pain. They either, like, don’t wanna be seeing that. Or they want the person that they care about to be who they used to be, which is also impossible, or they wanna fix it for them and take like, when people say, oh, if I could do take this away from you, I would never want somebody to take my grief away from me. It’s inexorably connected to my love for my child and you’re not taking my breath away. It’s impossible anyway. But even early on, I knew that. Like, I had to feel it. But if this it is a developmental process and a journey, like, nobody overnight just as like, okay, I’m ready to be healing now. I mean, just and for me, I don’t even really use that language because I think the idea is that grief can be healed and it doesn’t need to be. And I’m never gonna be healed from that trauma, relationship problems with other people that show up, physical issues. A lot of times, this can be healing, all that depending on what has happened. The immune systems are depleted. People have autoimmune problems because of extreme amount of stress that their bodies are under. And once you start dealing with the emotional peace and find the right physical support, that stuff can be healed, but the grief doesn’t need to be. It’s a learning process too with all of those things growing, learning, developing, but I don’t need to heal from it. So but other I don’t suggest other people use my words, but figuring that out was also huge because for several years, I thought I needed to heal. And I tried and tried and tried and thought about it and wrote about it and finally, when I started thinking about it in a different way, it was a relief to just be like, oh, and god, I don’t have to heal from this because I’m not.
Victoria Volk: I have a lot to reflect on that because it is. It’s like this, it is a constant wound. Right? Like, there’s nothing ever that will bring your son back and Right. Or any loss that anyone experiences or any traumatic experience that someone has, there’s nothing we can’t go back in time. We can’t change it.
Karla Helbert: Right.
Victoria Volk: And so it is this ever present wound. But like in grief recovery, what the language And I use healing but more towards, like, energy work. Mhmm. But when it comes to grief, it’s more of the a sense of recovery. And almost like, you know, like the twelve-step programs of alcohol or substance abuse disorders and things like that. But for me, personally, it was recovering from the pain. Mhmm. It was and that’s what I feel like grief recovery addresses is the pain so that when you have those moments that show up in your life that remind you you’re not pulled back to the pain. Mhmm. Your relationship changes because your relationship continues with your son. Your relationship continues who never passed.
Karla Helbert: Absolutely. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: And so it’s and she’s yes. So grief recovery. What it did for me and what I see it doing for clients is it helps them change the relationship moving forward? Because I think there’s a lot of you know, what’s the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations and anything that you wish would have been different better or more. And I think that’s the story on repeat in a lot of people’s minds and hearts and that’s really difficult to let go of.
Karla Helbert: Oh, totally. Yeah. And that’s for me and a lot of other bereaved parents. And in a lot of ways for anybody who’s the loved one, but that those ideas of, like, what we what would have been if he would be now. Like, I was not expecting, for example, fact that school stuff has been with hard for a lot of years. But I didn’t even really think about it. All the kids going off college this last summer. And I was like, oh my god. Like, it went it’s interesting. I looked at it. I was like, wow. And a lot of the things I was reading from a lot of mothers being devastated and grieving. And I just thought, oh, gosh. Yeah. I’m not gonna I can’t I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t comment on anything. I didn’t because I just thought, okay. It was it was very hard to read. And I don’t know if he what would he be doing? Will he take a gap year? I don’t know. Would he be going to college at all? What would he be doing? I don’t even I don’t know. All things you don’t know. That’s all still there. But for me, yeah, like, you know, language is so important how we talk about things and what we think about words. I mean, I’m a big word nerd. So I mean, to me, I’m always like, look up the ophthalmology of this thing and see where it comes from. But that’s why healing and the thought around that. But it really is how we because the way you’re talking about grief recovery, like this resonates with me. I don’t like that word because I think in a lot of places, people assume it means you get to go back to who you were before and you don’t. And I know you know that. Mhmm. And so it’s hard to our language is still limited to on how we can really express it’s hard to talk about. I write a lot about grief. I mean, I have written a lot about grief and there’s still no words that really can describe your actual experience in it.
Victoria Volk: Can I read something that you shared with me in your application here?
Karla Helbert: Oh of course.
Victoria Volk: Because I feel like a lot of people listening who have lost a child will resonate with this. So I asked, what would you like to scream to the world? And you had said that others who did not know this pain could fully you wanted them to fully feel the catastrophic immensity of not just my pain, but the totality of living with such traumatic loss and the ongoing experience of what it is truly like to live without the person you love and cherish most. I wish they could experience it so they would know and if only for a few minutes what I was going through, and I imagine that as a feeling that you have kept all these years. Even when you’re reading those messages of the moms when their children were going off to college and things, I imagine, like, it really touched me. That’s why I wanted to bring it up.
Karla Helbert: I can I didn’t remember what I wrote in the so but that’s true? Because, you know, people will say. And this and it is I do concur. I would not wish the death of a child. On anybody. I don’t really have any enemies, but if I did, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, people say. But I do wish that for just an instant, people could really feel it. Because I don’t think I mean, I know. So I also have this thing that I don’t like it when people say I can’t imagine because human beings have the capacity to imagine anything. Like, we’ve imagined worlds that never existed. Galaxies far, far away and all these things. And it and I think what it means when people say that is they don’t want to imagine it because it’s new scary because if you really really. And I know you can never if you’ve not experienced it, you cannot know what it’s actually like. But people don’t want to try to imagine. And I haven’t had a conversation with my mom not too long ago. Which was really interesting because she’s one of the people who just have historically over this whole period difficult to talk about this with. And she’s gotten so much better over the years. She’s really, like, taken in a lot and I think learned and had I’ve seen her deal with grief with friends and other aspects, and she’s gotten so much better at it. But she asked me something about how do you work with all these people’s pain and what how do you do that all the time every day? And I was trying to explain it and and that this conversation went into the phase of that because that was happening at that time, everybody’s children were going off to college, and I was talking about it. And she said to me, oh, bigger. She said, well, when you went to when you went off to school, I cried every day from month to month, it was awful. You just have no idea and I was like, Okay. Now imagine, I’m an only child. Imagine if you would never speak to me again, never see me, never hold me, never touch me, never hear my voice, never mail me, but I don’t want to hear that. And I was like, okay. This is what I’m talking about. And I didn’t you know, we were we were out at our house. I was making dinner and all. I just went back. And it’s interesting too. I like that I mean, for me that moment, if that had happened fifteen years ago, I would not have been able to even talk to her. I would have had to leave. You know, it was just no, it’s interesting, and I remember miserably in those moments. Early on in grief. Just wishing that people could feel how I felt. Just for a few seconds even because grieving people and I experienced it too are so judged. It’s like I mean, yeah, you’re tired of our grief, oh my god. Imagine having to do it every single second. We’re sick of our shit too. Oh my god. We can’t do anything about it. And then for that gets back to that, what you said earlier, it’s a choice to do something. It’s so hard. So I have so much sympathy and sympathy for people who are in those places, and I work with people who it’s protracted. And it’s just, okay. You just keep doing these things, and then there might be a little shift, a little shift. And I had a woman once. It totally sticks out to me. Our son took his own life. She came in, she walked on my sofa, she’s just crying crying crying. And for, like, twenty minutes, all we did, she sat there and told me how she can’t do this. And I said, but you’re doing it, but I can’t do it anymore. But you’re doing it. This went on and on and we had a lot of conversations around, okay, what are your options? And to killing herself, completely just like taking every drug and just staying high and she didn’t like any of those options because all of those had bad consequences. And I thought well, Okay. We’re doing it then. And then we shifted the conversation and we’re talking about other things. And when she left, she was laughing about something and we were just it was not we’re having a great little time, and I said, you know, I want just want to point out to you. This isn’t to say that some great healing moment happened but look at how differently you feel right now as opposed to how you felt just like an hour and a half ago. That doesn’t mean you won’t have those moments again, but you’ve got through it. And now we’re in a different place totally. Just remember that. It can change. It can. And people just don’t believe that often when you’re in those places of just total pit darkness, but it can’t.
Victoria Volk: You just highlighted a very important point is that especially in those moments when you’re sitting in it and you’d have don’t see a way out of it. You can’t see the label from inside the jar. This is where you need support, you need someone else to light the way for you, to show you that you can shift your perspective in an instant.
Karla Helbert: It is variable. Don’t have that Yeah. Right. And a lot of people don’t have that. They don’t have that help and support. And it’s it’s hard because a lot of times people who may not be the kind of person who would reach out and go find it are the ones who need it the most. I mean, you see this, people who are help, seeking people just naturally be like, I I need to go to a group or I’m gonna go find a therapist or whatever. And now I’ve said a few times on different podcasts. Now what is so helpful? Even more it’s I mean, it’s been almost twenty years, which seems like a long time, but it all those things really fast. Then, like, there was very little support. Now, you can and social media can be really devastating for many people, and it can be really helpful but there’s so much more. And you need to be discerning because not every place that’s supposedly helpful and supportive really is and there can be a lot of toxicity, but this is where you knowing yourself and learning, having that self awareness and starting to pay attention again to your own wisdom, finding the places where you feel safe and comfortable there’s so many more out there now than there were even when I was going through it. I felt really alone. I mean, it’s really thankful for the miss foundation and the group that was here. And that’s one reason I’ve stayed so connected and and still very much active with with the foundation. Is because it’s what really helps save me. So having that support and there’s so many more options now and that’s really, really good.
Karla Helbert: When I wrote that book yoga for grief and loss, Actually, the the other book defining your own way to grief book that’s for kids on spectrum, that came from a story that I wrote one of my clients is for my son, any of this happened with him. This kid was a new kid to me. Both of his grandfathers had died. And one of those grandfathers was, like, his person. And there was nothing anywhere. I could find no resources. So I wrote him this little story that’s at the beginning of that book, but then turned into chapters because I couldn’t find anything out. And now, there’s more support for people on the spectrum. There’s more support for grief parents. So I remember finding there was one book that I found that was for marine parents at the time. And then there were a couple more, but there really weren’t that many resources even for bereaved parents. There was nothing for siblings. So, and all of this has grown a lot over the last fifteen years. And there’s so much more out there. It’s easier to find support than it was, but you have people that it’s hard for them to reach out. Which is why I say also to other people don’t stop reaching out to the greeting person. They may not come to lunch, keep asking them. And a lot of times, what happens is this victim blaming kinda thing, oh, well, she doesn’t wanna come to let her sit there. It’s part of it is because they don’t understand how grief is not a disability or a disorder, but it can be debilitating. Had trauma with it, you have all of that combined. It can be terrifying to walk out of your house. And they need support. You need people who the people who love you who are gonna keep coming back instead of getting annoyed with you because you’re not getting over this. Are you still sad about this? It’s been six months or less? I mean, it’s just like amazing. So for me, if people could’ve veld it, just for an infant, maybe they would have more other lips.
Victoria Volk: And zip their lips. Right?
Karla Helbert: It’s like impossible. I get that it’s impossible.
Victoria Volk: It’s like I equate it to society’s response to grief to grievers, like a thousand paper cuts. It’s like every little comment, every little inciliation, every judgment, or every whatever it is. It’s like just another little paper cut on a griever. And the thing is what this is why I started this podcast is like nobody has to die for you to be a griever, for you to grieve. Like, I guarantee you these people that say this stuff, this un these unhelpful things, have a lost dream, or have a less than loving relationship with a parent. I mean, we grieve, have a loss of career or finances. Maybe the less they’re home, everything went up in flames. Like, we all grieve something as we just forget. We forget.
Karla Helbert: Yeah, well, maybe that forgetting. I don’t know. Because when you’ve had these huge losses, catastrophic losses, you can’t forget. And I don’t know. I mean, maybe when people have those other those other kinds of grief and those other losses and they forget, they sort of think, well, I got over these things. I mean, and people equate these things together, they do. I mean, I’ve seen it. Like, it’s amazing. Oh, I know exactly how you feel.
Victoria Volk: Oh, yeah. Mhmm.
Karla Helbert: Because my grandmother died, my dog died, my whatever died. I mean, it’s like
Victoria Volk: My aunts, cousins, brother, sister.
Karla Helbert: Yes. Whatever, you know. I mean, it’s just like,
Victoria Volk: trying to relate and trying to relate you’re creating more harm. And Yeah. You talked a lot about support and making sure that grievers seek support and you talked about ways that you found support and what you looked for and what helped you. But overall, what has your grief taught you?
Karla Helbert: I don’t think you asked me this ahead of time.
Victoria Volk: It was on the form and you selected it.
Karla Helbert: Oh, well. Okay. Okay. Well, today, I think well, the thing that came to my mind very the first thing is that I’m not special. Like, I so in the beginning when this first happened, one of the things, right, that was, like, universe shattering and this idea somehow that I was protected and special. Even if I didn’t really say that to myself and I think like a lot of people walk around with this assumption that they’re exempt. They know bad things can happen, but somewhere they don’t think it’s gonna happen to them. And I was just, like, with the why, why, why, why, why. And then I just had this, like, thought, but this was really early in. Oh, why not? I mean, like, why not? Why not me? What’s I’m no different than anybody else. I mean, I’m just I’m special. I’m just special and I’m just as not special as anybody else. And I think it also had taught me And that was really eye-opening. I was like, okay, what does that mean now? What do I how do you navigate the world. And it’s scary. How do you navigate the world when you know for sure these terrible things can happen? And I’ve had to learn how to balance that fear? Because it’s still there. I mean, I know all the things can happen. So it’s how do we balance that fear and then at the same time knowing that. And maybe it’s the curiosity piece because I’m I’ve always been, like, very curious and open to lots of things. It’s like, well, if I know that, then how do you make the most of this one this moment that’s happening now. Right now, as far as I can tell and everything I can do, everybody that I love is safe. Everybody is okay. Now what do we do? We live in this moment. We live in this present moment as much as we can. We plan for what we can plan for. But you can’t control everything. And that’s been really hard. Like, I’ve tried my best and I’ve really have tried my best. Some people say that and I don’t always try my best at everything. Try my best. To try to be the kind of parent. That I think I would be if I didn’t have a dad child, but learning how to, like, let her go into the world she’s gonna be fifteen on her next birthday. Oh my god. She’s gonna drive a car. Like, how it’s ongoing. How do you balance this stuff? It’s taught me how to be able to live a more balanced life to let go of what I don’t control or hang to how to really surrender to things how to learn how to surrender to that grief because it cannot control it. And then how to then take the steps to continue learning and growing. I mean, those are the things I’ve learned from my grief. For sure.
Victoria Volk: I’m glad you touched on that with your daughter, like, you know, that fear of I mean, you’ve lost one child. Right? That fear never goes away. Right?
Karla Helbert: Now when I know many, many families who’ve lost more than one child, it’s it happens a lot. And it’s a real fear and a real possibility. So how do you live? And that’s the thing I address with lots of parents that I work with who have living children. How do you live with this? Without being crazy, without being super controlling, letting them have and have made mistakes, I’m sure not definitely not a perfect parent. I do feel I’ve tried my best to not control her and let her have experiences climbing trees. Oh my god. I used to love to climb trees. Nobody paid any attention to me. Climbing the trees. I was so scared to deliver climb trees, but I let her do it. Thank goodness she was not like a daredevil child. Really glad for that, but it was really hard. But I wanted her to have those experiences. And I’m gonna have to let her drive a car at some point. That’s worse than climbing trees because there’s other people driving cars and on phones and drilling and drag all these things. So it’s just like to terrifying. Is scary for non bereaved parents?
Victoria Volk: It is. Yeah.
Karla Helbert Yeah. It’s a it’s a challenge. It’s a challenge. And it’s ongoing. I mean, their times when it’s harder than other times. So, like, that’s a skill. Right? So, grief has taught me many skills to move through my days.
Victoria Volk: I do have one question kind of on that topic. What would you say to parents I have this belief system too that, like, a parent’s anxiety can become their child’s anxiety. How do you express that to parents in a loving, compassionate way. I know.
Karla Helbert: I mean, in my kid. I do. I mean, I see it in my child. And and there’s so much, like, we knew nature or nurture all these things. Like, she’s her own person. She has a lot of anxiety. That I never had. Really, we’re very different people. You know what I mean?
Victoria Volk: It’s a very different time too.
Karla Helbert: Yes. Yes. There’s so many things. Like, I would never wanna be a teenager right now. It’s just so scary the world that they are living in. And so there’s that, I mean, when they do active shooter drills at school. I mean, she’s terrified, but there was one day that this is a middle school. And she that happened and then she had a nightmare that night that there was a shooter in her school. And she didn’t wanna go to school the next day because she thought that it was gonna come true. And I said, I mean, we had a long talk about it. And I said, because I can’t tell her it’s not gonna happen. I can’t. I know people whose children have been killed in school shootings. I know them. And I can’t tell her it’s not gonna happen. But I told her, I said, I understand that you’re scared. I know. And she knows of the children that I know. I mean, she’s aware. She knows what I do. She knows a lot of things. And I said it, but it’s like lots and lots of accidents happen in cars every day, and it’s scary to drive a car. But what if I say, we’re never gonna get in a car again because we might be in an accident. We would never go to go anywhere. We would have to be only where we could walk, and I send this to her, that would make our world a lot smaller. I know it’s scary. But we have to figure out how to breathe through our fear, do the best we can, protect ourselves, and take care of ourselves. But also live our lives. You’d have to live your life. You’d have to go to school. And it was so hard sitting here in a school. And every time this happens, it’s like, mean, I think of it all the time when she goes to school. But, I don’t know, there’s not even a but. It’s a very, very difficult. She does have a lot of anxiety and some of it is the world. I mean, the pandemic was horrible, living through that as children and teenagers. And what that had done. And we were terrified during the pandemic for her to catch it, like all of these things. And when she was a child, I mean, I know when I was pregnant, I was terrified. There’s only so much you can control and even in terms of, like, what anxieties rub off on her? I’m like, I’ve talked about my husband’s fears. He’s been through the same stuff I’ve been through, and he’s a different person. And the way he deals with trauma is very different. She’s living with two traumatized parents. And grief stricken parents. I mean, I even didn’t even know how I thought I’m gonna bring the child into this house that’s still with grief. Is that the right thing for me to do? And I did. And I think I do think too that she’s a more empathetic person she does not have hang ups about grief at all. It is normal part of her life. I also tried. I didn’t wanna push a relationship with her brother on her. Like, she never knew him. Let her come to her own sort of thoughts and feelings about it. I have a hundred percent sure. Like, none of us, grievers are not can avoid our own stuff coming off on our children. I just think being as self-aware as possible and as open as possible to your own feelings. Like being telling yourself the truth about stuff is number one important thing. Okay, how am I affecting her right now? Can I need to manage myself first before I can manage the whole oxygen put your own oxygen mask on first? But I know that it’s impacted her. It can’t not have impacted her. I don’t know how much of her anxieties or because of me or my husband or whatever stress or whether she absorbed in utero. I don’t know. I can only do what I can do and try to be as aware as I can, as loving as I can. Come back to her when I’ve made mistakes. I’ve done that too. She’s a really good kid and she’s very smart. She’s funny. She’s creative. She’s finding her own way. And I just do my best to do my best. I don’t know.
Karla Helbert: There’s not a lot I can say to people because I get it. I understand. That fear and that learning to balance it is hard. And we don’t always I don’t even know what success looks like in that, but your kids as much space to be themselves. And we’re guiding all the time and once she’s an adult, to get out of the way and let her live her life. I mean, I’ve always thought like our job as parents is for them to not need us later. Hopefully, right, for her to be able to be on her own in a contributing adult in society and be as happy as she can be as content as she can be with who she is. I mean, I hope that I’ve done that. And I think some of that is unavoidable.
Victoria Volk: And to piggyback on that, I think the best way we can do that is, like you said, have a self-awareness about ourselves and sweep our own doorstep and look at our own parts.
Karla Helbert: Yes. Do your own work. I mean, that’s really important. Because if you don’t if you if you’re not aware, then nothing can change. Like, that is the first part, self-awareness. That something needs to change or it never changes.
Victoria Volk: It’s a great way to end this podcast, I think.
Karla Helbert: Thank you so much.
Victoria Volk: Yes. Thank you. And I’m gonna put links to the books to your everything in the show notes, but where can people find you if they’d like to connect with you and work with you?
Karla Helbert: Oh, for sure. My website is the best place, and you can always any any of the contact forms come straight to my email. Also, I’m not sure whether this is gonna air, but we’re a friend of mine, animal rogers who’s also a bereaved parent. Her story is very different from mine. We’re doing a free webinar for marine parents on December fifth. And that is gonna be from five to five thirty seven eastern time. Yeah. And that information is off the on my website. And you can just click there. It’s free, but you do need to register just to get the link and everything. I think that’ll be a really helpful thing for people. My website is just my name. It’s www.karlahelbert.com. It’s Karla Helbert. And all the stuff I do is on there, and any email that you send come straight to me, and I will write back.
Victoria Volk: I will put that information in the show notes. And I
Karla Helbert: Can also find me on Instagram. I’m also on Facebook. I don’t do Twitter so much anymore. X. No. It’s really not there anymore. So Instagram and Facebook are places to find me. And also my website, you can just email me and I would love to hear from people about reiki, about bereavement, about whatever. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff that I do about yoga. So Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It’s been really, really great talking to you.
Victoria Volk: It’s been my pleasure. Thank you for sharing your story. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life much longer.
Cancer, Chronic Illness, Death/Dying, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast |
Melody & Gracelyn | Luna Peak Foundation: Filling a Gap in Cancer and Grief Support
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Melody and Gracelyn are an aunt and niece team behind Luna Peak Foundation and Luna Peak Publishing. Through their nonprofit, they publish photography books, engaging workbooks, and children’s books that show people they are not alone in grief.
Their work helps dispel stereotypes about cancer and grief and provides resources for the whole family to help heal. They have donated over 2,000 books to hospitals, therapist offices, schools, and universities.
Nonprofit work aside, Melody and Gracelyn discuss their grief experiences, resulting in the women joining forces to offer grief and cancer support. At age six, Melody was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and was given a 50% chance of surviving beyond one year; she underwent treatment for the next three years. She’s been a cancer warrior ever since. Gracelyn was inspired to support others after the unexpected loss of her father when she was twenty-six.
Throughout their adversity, Melody and Gracelyn wish people knew they are not alone and that cancer and grief support exists. And that it is possible to smile and laugh again after loss.
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
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NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
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, I’m excited to talk to an aunt, a niece duo, they are Melody and Gracelyn, and they are the team behind Luna Peak Foundation and Luna Peak Publishing. Their work at Luna Peak uplifts, multicultural cancer, and grief survivor stories. Through their nonprofit, they published photography books, engaging workbooks and children’s books that show people that they are not alone. Their work helps just spell, stereotype, about cancer and grief and provides resources for the whole family to help heal. Today, they have donated over two thousand books to hospitals’ therapist office schools and universities. Melody was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia at age six and has been a cancer warrior ever since. She was given a fifty percent chance of surviving one year and underwent treatment for three years until age nine. Being a survivor at a time when not many survived, set Melody on a course to help newly diagnosed cancer patients. Melody studied sociology in art history at the University of California, Irvine. Gracelyn studied sociology at Santa Clara University and received a master’s degree at Columbia University, inspired by the sudden loss of her dad, Gracelyn has built a fund grief community an online platform at snapshots of life after loss. Gracelyn is certified by the David Kessler Grief educator program and is a trained end-of-life doula by the Alua Arthur growing with Grace program. Thank you so much, ladies for being here today.
Melody & Gracelyn: Thank you so much for having us.
Victoria: So I could go into a lot of different directions here to start out, but I just we kinda know understand, like, the backstory of how you both are using your history, your experience, through Luna Peak. But how did you to come together to start it? What was the was there a conversation? Was there a question, like, what was it that sparked the two of you to come together, to share your experiences through your work?
Melody: I’ll take this first. So basically, Luna Peak has been a dream of mine for many, many years before we started it. I just didn’t know how to start a nonprofit and how to do all of these things. And I had a few books even written in some old journals. And I talked to Gracelyn about some of the ideas I had and, you know, how I could, you know, make them work. But then the sudden loss of her dad and her grief kind of sparked us coming together and creating a luna peak foundation because we both wanted to take our difficult experiences and turn it into something beautiful that can help other people. But when Gracelyn finished college and was in the workforce, she had a little bit more knowledge of how to start all these things. And so when we came together, when luna peak was formed,
Victoria Volk: sounds like a dynamic duo because you have that marketing background and Gracelyn. Mhmm. And So how long did it take? Because I’ve talked to a few nonprofits to this up to this point, and it is like this grueling process in the start from the sounds of it. And even when I think about starting a nonprofit, I’m just like overwhelmed.
Like, how did you did was there local resources that you tapped into? What did that those early years look like in starting Luna Peak.
Gracelyn: We kind of started doing this work before everything became official, so it was kind of a rolling basis. Basically Melody’s idea to do a massive photography project of cancer survivors we started all of this and then slowly we realized, okay, we need to set some structure to this and really, you know, make sure to put a foundation in place so that we can continue this work. And then expand it into the grief community as well. So it’s taken a few years. We were a private charity person, then we became a public charity so now we’re officially Luna Peak Foundation Inc. So it’s taken a bit of time, but we rely on our village and we rely on our board members and other people with expertise to come in and help kind of fill in some of those gaps. And we kind of learn as we go. Lot of research. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: What is one piece of advice that you would give to others who wish to start a nonprofit?
Melody: I would say be patient and really think about your mission before for me. Your nonprofit. You like, figure out your why before you would form it. That’s my advice.
Gracelyn: And definitely, make sure that the work that you’re doing is filling in a gap. Make sure that you’re providing something unique in the space. And know how your talents are going to contribute and use that mission to actually make an impact because there’s so many nonprofits out there, but it is really cool to think. Alright. People have figured it out before we can figure it out too.
Victoria: Can you speak to a little bit then how each of you what piece you thought was missing and what individually you bring? What gap are you filling? How do you articulate that?
Melody: Yeah, for me, I’ll speak for myself. I create books that I wish existed when I was sick, that I like, resources that didn’t exist at the time when I was younger. And one of the pieces is multicultural stories. So if I did find any information on childhood cancer, survivor, or anything like that. It just didn’t look like me. So I really wanted to make sure that, you know, there’s a lot of diversity in our books. We make sure that everybody can see themselves in our books. So that’s a piece that I think is unique. And also, Like, for us, we also include families. So we don’t just talk to cancer survivors or cancer fighters or breeders just to them.
We talk to the whole family. Because the whole family’s grieving, the whole family has cancer. So that’s our mission.
Gracelyn: We’re trying to humanize the topics cancer and greed because they’re very scary, but they’re very common experiences. So through showing multicultural stories and especially through the photography that we do. We knew that that was kind of key to impacting people. And people responded really well to seeing the eyes and faces within the photography of people they could relate to because sometimes that’s not out there. Sometimes people wanna just see a story, sometimes will wanna engage with it. Sometimes people wanna share their own story too. But that kind of all unfolded after we started to humanize the topic and really show what people look like. What does cancer look like? What does grief look like? What does grief look like? Ten years from now? Twenty years from now? Those are all questions that we had. And we kind of what about this process in a very curious way. We needed these books then and we need them now. So, you know, we hope that these large-scale photography projects and workbooks for kids, workbooks for adults, workbooks for the siblings of kids with cancer, And sometimes these groups that are oftentimes forgotten. In terms of providing support, we hope that they can feel to work that we do.
Victoria Volk: So if someone were to purchase a workbook, is this something that they do on their own time at home? Is their support as they work through it? How do you support people as they utilize the tools and the resources that you have shared?
Melody: Well, we have a large online community. So people reach out to us constantly via DMs or comments on our pages. We also will do workshops where we’re helping them work through the book. Most of those are in person, but we’ll break it up so that it’s not so overwhelming. It’s not homework. It’s not like you have to do twenty pages a day. You find the page that speaks to you and you work on that page. That’s how we work. But for the most part, I mean, people buy it and they kind of go along on their own, what speaks to them, what they think they need that day. So if they want something that’s snarky and funny to help them heal that day, they find that page. But then there’s some pages that are very much just in remembrance of their person that they lost. Or talking to their doctor or having their doctor sign a book for them. So it varies. Different people
Gracelyn: Different people Different pick the different times. And everybody’s different. Right? You never know what kind of mood you’re gonna be in, but if you pre-open a journal that’s kind of intimidating, so why not have some of these directed prompts? Why not have some humor? Sometimes in your grief, you do just wanna laugh.
Victoria Volk: I’m glad you brought that up in the pre-conversation form that we have, that I share. You had wrote about humor and dark humor, how helpful in healing. And I’m glad that you mentioned that because say, you might say something that other people are just like, oh my god, I can’t believe said that or I can’t you know, but if when you’re in it, it’s like anything to lighten the mood a little bit, to make yourself feel a little bit lighter. And I know for a lot of people who might have that personality of self-deprecating humor, which is kind of my personality a little bit. You know, I might have that sense of humor that many people may not get, but I think it’s important. It helps to I don’t know. I guess, feel lighter. Yeah. I go in the moment, I suppose. But now that we’ve talked a little bit about Luna Peak, I would like to dig a little bit deeper into your individual stories because really that’s how Luna Peak was born. So you had shared about melody about your diagnosis as a child? And how not many children survived? What do you think was the difference for you? I mean, given a fifty percent chance of survival, which I don’t know, you can speak to that too, but in my opinion on that, it’s, you know, we are all statistic of one, like everybody is everybody is different and everybody responds to treatment and all of that differently. And so I think that can be really damaging to the person’s psyche. An adult, not much less a child, to be told that. So can you share a little bit about that experience? And what was happening with your family at that time?
Meldoy: That was very, very time. I’m from a large family. I’m the youngest of five. So it definitely affected everybody. Everybody differently because we’re we have big age gaps.
So some of my siblings were adults when I was diagnosed. So the sibling that was still a child had the worst time with it. But I have to say, like, being a kid, I was six years old, So I kind of didn’t know anything different. I thought treatment was normal. You know, going to the hospital was normal. And I don’t think there’s any rhyme or reason why I survived and somebody else didn’t. It’s luck. I think I was lucky. I think that I was very lucky that I was diagnosed early. My mom felt lymph nodes on my neck and kept on persisting, and the leukemia hadn’t shown up in my bloodstream yet. So it would have been very easy to just say, okay, you know, she’s fine. We’re not gonna go back to the doctor, but my mom persisted. And the cancer was found in my bone marrow and spinal fluid. So luckily, she got those extra tests. So I was diagnosed a lot earlier than I think some kids you know, the diagnosis comes later and then it’s harder to care. But in the eighties, when I was diagnosed, it really was kind of a death sentence. You didn’t you didn’t think you were going to survive at all. And in our neighborhood, there were three kids that had cancer, and I was the one that survived. So, yeah, a lot of survivor guilt with that. So, like, a lot of people be like, what did you do different? It’s like, I didn’t do anything different. I was very lucky. But one thing that I think did help was staying positive and continuing to live life as a normal child as much as I could. So I tried to attend school as much as I could, and I tried to stay with my sport. I was a swimmer. So my parents, you know, would make sure that I was still attending swim meets and swim practice and kind of a little bit of normalcy.
Victoria: Had grief been something that had been a part of your life, up to that point? Or as you were going through your treatment? Like, is that something that was openly talked about in your home?
Melody: So not openly talked about, but experience. A month before I was diagnosed, my grandfather died very quickly from a colon cancer diagnosis. So, you know, my father had to deal with his dad dying and then me being diagnosed in a very short amount of time. So I knew what grief was and I knew that our family kind of suppressed it. You didn’t talk about it. You dealt with it on your own. But, yeah, I had just attended a funeral right before I was diagnosed.
Victoria Volk: Wow. How do you think that experience has evolved with you? Like, how do you feel like you’ve evolved maybe with your grief from that experience over time? Because, I mean, you had obviously, a loss of some childhood there, even though your parents made an effort to make sure that you had as much of the childhood as they as you possibly could. But how do you think that that has how you’ve evolved with that experience over time?
Melody: Yeah. I think that I learned a lot about grief because it was constant. A lot of friends were dying. So I think I learned how to live with it and not fight it. I guess, I’m okay with feeling those feelings. And I think a lot of people try to hide their grief. So I think it was it was good for me to sort of I mean, I don’t wanna say, grow up with grief, but I also had to grieve, you know, my childhood, and my parents had to grieve the child. They thought what they were going to have. Because you think you’re gonna be taking kids to baseball games and you think you’re gonna be taking your kids on vacations, but instead they were taking you to chemotherapy. So there was a lot of grief in our house for sure.
Victoria Volk: My dad was diagnosed with cancer. I was about six. He was given about six months to live. But he lived sixteen months and ultimately he passed away when I was eight. And so I under when you say, like, the whole family grieves, the whole family experiences, the cancer. That’s very true. It’s you know, I wasn’t and we were separated too because his treatment was, like, three hours away. But at that point, there really wasn’t nothing they could do him, but I understand where you’re coming from, how the whole family just experiences it, you know, full on. Right? You bring up a good point with losing other friends, right? Because as a child experiencing cancer and going through cancer, you meet other kids who are going through cancer treatments and things. Just as adults who might connect with other people who are going through cancer treatments and lose friends along the way and you don’t understand, well, why am I still here? And why did they pass away? Children experience that too, and that’s something that really is not talked about. Do you have a resource for helping the parents assist the child and losing other friends to the same thing that they’re maybe not the same thing, but a similar experience.
Melody: One thing that did help me, and this is gonna sound super crazy. I told this story before, so Graceland knows what I’m about to say, but I planned my own funeral at six. So when I was given it in a fifty percent chance of survival, I plan my own funeral, and there was something very empowering about that because I felt like if I died, I knew that things were gonna go the way I wanted them to go. So I chose my plot, which is still sitting there. I made sure that it was overlooking the pool because I wanted to look at my friend swimming.
So I chose my own plot. I chose my own coffin. Like, all of the crazy things that, you know, people go through. After somebody dies, I did it all before. And there’s something very good about being able to I mean, healing. It was healing for me to know that if I wasn’t here, that things were gonna be the way I wanted them to be. And I allocated which toys are going to which friends. So, I know, crazy. But so that was something I would actually, you know, advise people to do if you know that, you know, if somebody says you have six months to live, like, plan it because It does. It feels better. It really does feel better.
Victoria Volk: Now I’m sure people who are listening like me are curious. How did that come about? Like, is that something your parents, like, hey, how would you like to plan your own funeral? Like, how did that come about? Like, is it just, like, you know, were you beyond your years as a six year old you think?
Melody: For sure. Yeah. I don’t know if it was the cancer diagnosis or just who I am, but I felt like I was an instant adult at the moment of diagnosis. I don’t know exactly the moment that came about, but I know that I have a quirky mom that, you know, does things differently. And so it was probably her saying, hey, let’s go, you know. And we live in a really small community in California, and everybody kind of came together to help. So I’m sure that, you know, maybe somebody said, hey, you know, we’ll give you a discount on this or that or, you know, trying to help the family. So maybe that’s how, but I really honestly don’t know what started it, but I know I actually had a really good time doing it.
Victoria Volk: That’s interesting. I would say you’re probably an old soul. So, Gracelyn, I know you mentioned earlier that a father had passed away when you were twenty six. Is he your brother? Melody?
Melody: My brother-in-law.
Victoria Volk: Oh, brother-in-law. Okay. Was that a sudden loss for you or was that kind of expected?
Gracelyn: It was a sudden loss. So I thought I was actually training for a mudrun, and he was on a run. And he had a heart, like, a cardiac event it wasn’t exactly a heart attack. It was an electrical issue with his heart. So it was very sudden. I was in New York at the time. But Melody is here and actually, you know, it’s Melody’s brother-in-law, but really he was kind of a father figure to my aunt as well because we all kind of grew up together. Melody was kind of like the first child in my family because of the age gap between Melody and my mom. So she was kind of raised as their first baby. So we’ve been on family vacations together. We’re all very tight knit. So, yeah, it was a very big shop. It was actually seven years ago this week.
Victoria Volk: Can you speak to what you’ve learned through working with other grievers and survivors of cancer versus maybe survivors of the family left behind due to a sudden loss, like do you have anything specific that you did that helped you and that you have passed along to others that you’ve worked with and and and shared your resources and things with.
Gracelyn: You know, I don’t think anybody could really prepare you for the finality of someone being gone. Whether it’s a sudden loss or an anticipated loss. I mean, just the effect of having somebody there one day and not the next. It’s just wild and it’s so difficult to cope with that emotionally and physically to just you know, that person’s just there’s such a large space. There’s a large space in your heart. There’s a large space just in your vicinity, in your home, just somebody missing from the table. It’s just a very crazy experience, and it’s really difficult to get used to that. But I think having stories of other people learning how to cope with that has helped me I think when I started the process of interviewing and photographing creepers, I was just two years into loss. And I was very much broken. I wouldn’t definitely describe myself as lost as broken. You know, I had already gotten a career started, but when you experience that type of loss, it feels as if the life that you were living is gone. Right? You have to start your new life without them because everything is just reshuffled, all your priorities are different, everything that you thought mattered, maybe doesn’t matter as much anymore or different things matter more now. So, you know, I would describe myself as very very broken and lost and listening to people’s stories. And connecting with people either from my past or even connecting with our own family members was very healing for me. And the more that I started to interview people and get to know their stories and connect with them over this shared loss, the more I figured out, oh, okay, I don’t have to grieve exactly the way that they had grieved, but I can figure it out for myself. And that was kind of a big turning point at least for me. And, you know, even reconnecting with family members who are part of our project, it was crazy because, you know, in the case of even Melody’s dad, not having the opportunity to grieve his own dad while Melody was going through treatment, well, you know, that I was able to reconnect with him and get his grief story through this project. And so each of us with a father loss connecting And this is my grandpa who I’ve always grown up with. And I didn’t hear anything about his grief until, like, I sat hand out, and I learned what it meant for him as a father, you know, as a fatherless father going through other types of adversity in his life and how he started to rebuild.
And, yeah, maybe our stories aren’t completely the same. And I don’t think they have to be the same. To learn how other people have gone through it.
Victoria Volk: I totally one hundred percent agree. And that’s really the why I love this podcast so much because I’m storytelling. Right? People are storytelling. They’re telling they’re sharing their stories. And you’re sharing the stories of others through your photography in the book. I used to be a photographer. So it never occurred to me to, like, capture other people’s stories of grief through photography. Had you had an interest in photography before that project?
Gracelyn: I think I’m known as the person in the family who is like the annoying one who always demands a photo. Yeah. And I think everybody who is annoyed with it until my dad died, and now we’re like, oh, we have so many photos. That’s great, actually. So we’re a very decent eventful type of family. And, you know, it’s not like we were experts before we started this. We weren’t photographers by trade, but you know, we kind of started into it and we just made sure to focus on the eyes and the faces and kinda people bring their mementos to the table and share their story. And I think the point kind of came across as we went through it.
Victoria Volk: One thing I wish I would have done is purchase the book before we got on this call because I would have loved to have paged through it and been able to speak to it myself personally. So I do look forward to checking it out myself. So thank you for that work that you have done and put into that. And both of you for Luna Peak foundation because I’m sure that there are children who are feeling happier and lighter because of the resources that you’ve shared. Like, I’m not alone. Because even as children, they can feel alone and isolated in their grief. And I didn’t ask you yet, Graceland, but was grief something that was talked about in your home growing up?
Gracelyn: Yeah. It wasn’t. And you know, I had experienced a loss of an uncle who actually lived with us. And I think about my dad’s story, my dad had actually lost everyone except for her sister in his immediate family.
Victoria Volk: Okay.
Gracelyn: Very young, actually. So, you know, he had even gone through five different close losses before he passed away, very suddenly. And, you know, he never talked about it. And so that is kind of an interesting element to it and that I’m perpetually curious about that. You know, how did he get through the loss of his dad, his mom, his sibling, another sibling.
You know, how did he get through it? And that’s kind of still a mystery. And so I think part of work is kind of digging into it and, you know, laying bare all of these unspoken pieces of grief and other people’s stories. Because I kinda don’t have any answers myself, and it’s hard to so you actually go through it, which is an unfortunate reality of a lot of people’s grief experiences.
Victoria Volk: You know, I say, like, you know, if you’ve been with the same person for forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years, and, you know, spouses, let’s say they’re married, and one of them passes away. And it’s not uncommon that the other spouse passes away shortly thereafter, and they say, well, he died of a broken heart. Perhaps that is part of it with your dad, that he had so much loss that he didn’t complete those emotions for himself with all of those losses. It wasn’t, you know, something that he just buried and stepped down and, you know, perhaps it was a broken heart. Literally, like, a broken heart. It’s not about digging up the past and hashing everything out. Right? Because all relationships are different and there’s less than loving relationships and there’s loving relationships. But regardless of what kind of relationship you have with your loved ones, there’s gonna be stuff that upsets you and makes you angry and sad and maybe resentful and all of these things and, of course, lots of love and joy in memories too, but that’s, you know, the polarity of life. Right?
So what is your training through the David Kessler grief educator program taught you that you may not have realized before any aha moments through your training and things.
Gracelyn: I think what I found most valuable was the thoughts on children’s grief and how they go through it. Because I lost my dog when I was twenty six and Melody has a lot of experience with grief as a child, but that was something that I wasn’t as familiar with. And to hear some of the stories about what he has done therapy and to think about how play is incorporated into children’s grief and how that can be helpful. For them or how they can compartmentalize on, like, adults can in their grief. They can kind of go in and out of their grief. A lot more than an adult can for example. And so that has helped inform the work that we do in talking to adults. In, you know, hosting these workshops and just being a general resource for people and creating a kids version of our group workbook for example. And it kind of helped us organize some of these pages too because kids do wanna draw. Kids do wanna talk about their memories. They do wanna talk about their loved ones favorite things. And how can we do this and kind of interleave more playful activities in between it? Or how can they use their creativity to unpack their grief experience? And even if they might not fully understand what grief is, they’re still grieving. So how can we do this in a very honest way and invite them and welcome them to start to process their emotion? And so I found that to be really useful. From the grief educator program.
Victoria Volk: I think it’s important to mention too that the parents or the caretakers or caregivers of the children are open to their children talking about their loss and their grief because for a lot of parents in that situation, let’s say they lost their parent. The child lost their grandparent. There I’ve personally heard of situations where the parent does not want the child to bring up the grandparent because it sets them or it makes them sad or whatever. And but really, it’s not about you, the parent. Right? Like, and maybe that’s part of the lesson here is that if you’re not willing and open to talk about your own feelings and your own grief, your child is not going to feel safe talking about their own. I’m certified through the grief recovery institute and there’s these six myths of grief and one of them is you know, a few of them don’t feel bad. Replace the loss. Grieve alone. And these are things that we learn that is emulated by our parents and caregivers of how to how to deal with grief when something happens. Like, they don’t talk about it, so I guess I can’t talk about it or I’m told not to talk about it. So now I gotta go grieve alone. Right? And so we I can speak to that personally as a child who lost a parent as a child. There has to be space for children to let that go and to express it. And so I love that your program incorporates that, but the parents really do have to be open to that to their child having that experience and sharing it with them. Otherwise, they grew up a griever as an adult that’s like many of many people walking around stuffing their feelings and not talking about it. Right? So I’m glad that as a society, I think we’re getting better at this. I think we’re getting better as adults sharing and talking and communicating and demystifying death and dying even too. Right? Like, it doesn’t have to be this even as an end of life, Dula, which you are a trained in a life dual as well. So am I? It’s so much in common. It’s important that we are able to have those discussions of what is important to us at end of life to there are so many things we could talk about here, but what piece of advice that you would give a young adult who has experienced a loss of a parent or someone significant. I know you had mentioned the things that helped you, but if people aren’t sure what to do or where to turn, what would you suggest?
Gracelyn: I love saying that, you know, you can carve your own path I think everything is shopping after loss and the change just keeps coming. And the sooner that you can roll with the punches and welcome those changes, the sooner you’ll be able to cope with it in a healthy way. I think not a lot of people understand at least from the outside, when you go through grief, it’s not just the grief of your person. There is an entire ripple effect. And it affects your whole family, it affects your whole network, your job, where you physically are, just so many things can also change and so many different secondary losses that come with it. And I think there’s so many stereotypes and I think as a griever, there’s so much dancing around uncomfortable topics and not making other people uncomfortable with what you’re going through. And it’s okay to carve your own path, and it’s okay if you end up doing something, you had no idea that you would be doing. I mean, I’m really shocked by everything that we’ve created. And this is just kind of where my life has led me, but I think my dad would have I was crazy for quitting my day job and for quitting a very stable day job in corporate America to, you know, just try this out. So, you know, it’s okay that your life might look different. It should look different after loss. And I think part of embracing that change is honoring the fact that the loss has occurred. And to acknowledge it, why would your life look the same when some of you that you love so much is gone? So Yeah. I guess it’s twofold. Be okay with carving carving your own path and be okay with the changes that just keep coming.
Victoria Volk: My last guest on the podcast, she said something that was very poignant. It’s very simple. How do I want this to change me? Because we do have a choice. You know, it can really derail our entire lives. Loss and grief can derail our entire lives. We can base our choices and our decisions of that emotional weight that we carry or we can do something about it. So thank you so much for what you guys have created. And I want to ask to, what do you feel like are the gaps right now that you see still in the grief and end-of-life space?
Melody: I think that talking about it is always going to be a gap. So that’s why I’m very proud of Gracelyn’s snapshots of life after loss on Instagram because she’s created a community of people that can talk. So seeing other people talk triggers you to talk and tell your story and hearing other people’s story. So it’s this like she said, it’s this ripple effect. So I do think that, you know, storytelling is important. And what you’re doing is important. And, you know, I do think that the gap is finding someone or finding other people that are like you that are grieving similar losses as you that connection. So I think the connection is needed. And there has been so much progress with celebrities talking about grief, grief in
Gracelyn: the news, especially with COVID. There’s so much more talk about grief, which is, you know, incredible and you see so many creative people using their unique talents to draw, to create films about grief in a very real way documentaries, and that’s been a really awesome thing to see. I mean, we’ve been doing this for about five years, but you know, still more keeps coming out and I love seeing that. It’s really empowering even for me as a brief creator, if you will. But, you know, we always need more stories of men talking about their grief. We need more stories of people talking about their grief when they grew up not having grief. Great resources. One of the people in our project is actually a family friend. He’s holding it down as sixty six years after loss. So we have, like, a whole range of people who talk about their loss, and it ranges from one to sixty six years. But, you know, to even have somebody come to the table who had no resources to then share about six decades worth of grief and what he went through. The more that we get these stories and we get men, we get people who are of different generations talking about you know, the landscape and what resources they had and what wisdom that they have to share. The better we’re all better off hearing the experiences of someone who can relate to and, you know, and then learn from people who have a different background. So we just hope that there is a lot more age diversity cultural diversity, gender diversity, all the diversity, I think we’re all better off. You know, seeing and hearing those types stories.
Victoria Volk: Was it just you or are you the only child in your family, or did you have a sibling that you experienced the loss of your father with?
Gracelyn: I have a brother. Yeah. He’s older.
Victoria Volk: Did it bring you closer together?
Gracelyn: Yeah. We were very tight knit. I would say we’re a very, very close family, which is why it’s been hard to go from a family of four to that kind of rebalancing act of going to you know, become a family of three. But, yeah, we’ve gone through so much together and, you know, it’s really shed some light on all the different types of loss and grief that you can go through. And I really see him as a companion in my grief, and I’m thankful that we’re actually five years apart, so he’s five years older. And he has more memories than I do with my dad, and sometimes he helps fill in those gaps for me. And even though we’re both adults when it happens, you know. Mhmm. Still those five years are five years of, you know, more he knew about my dad, and I’m really thankful that he is a friend in this process. He is my best friend. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: Do you highlight also stories of people who may not have had someone die, but still have experienced maybe estrangement or maybe they were adopted and they don’t know who their parents are situations like that. Do you address or do you highlight all types of loss? Or is it mostly people that have experienced the death of a loved one?
Melody: So far, it’s only been the death of a loved one, but we acknowledge all types of grief, obviously. And where we have a few things in the works that will expand on types of greed and types of loss, but it’s still more loss than you know, grieving something, you know, grieving a change in your life or something like that.
Victoria Volk: How would you to define grief?
Melody: I guess, for me, I mean, this it’s a common saying that brief comes and waves. So it’s a feeling that’s ever-changing. It’s a constant changing feeling for me and we talk about moments of grief that come and go and those moments even change. You know, we feel like memories. So you hear a song about your person on the radio. And sometimes that song will make you cry, but sometimes that song will make you happy. So there’s, you know, creep I guess there’s no definition for me. It really is just an ocean. Grief is an ocean.
Victoria Volk: How about you, Gracelyn?
Gracelyn: I think it’s just a part of you. I think it’s something that is just forever than there. Like almost physically, it’s just a part of your body that’s just always on you. One of our participants actually said that he was under the influence of grief, and we really loved. We really loved that quote because It’s just and that kind of just comes over you, you know, in good ways and in bad ways and everything in between, but we thought that was, like, a really good way to explain how grief just kind of overtakes you sometimes.
Victoria Volk: That really could be a really snarky and funny bumper sticker. Is there anything else that you would like to share about Luna Peak Foundation or Luna Peak Publishing? Or about your stories?
Melody: You know, I like to tell people that when you know a griever, it’s I we get this question the most, actually. Like, my friends, you know, dad just died. What should I do for them? You know, because we wanna help our friends or, you know, our companions that are dealing with grief, but often people don’t know how to help. And since everyone briefed you have to know the person, but I feel like Gracelyn’s book, our book beyond wreath, is probably one of the best things to give to a new griever. Because they have so many resources in one place. They can find someone that is similar to them or how many years out of grief because one thing we want to know is what is grief like five years from now, ten years from now. And you can find that in the book. And I certainly don’t like getting flowers for deaths or for grief because, I don’t know, the smell of the flowers, like, reminds me of funerals. It reminds me of death because the flowers die. So I like to give our book. Obviously, I do, but I tell people, like, something that’s tangible that they can hold and they can keep with of them is better than a bouquet..
Victoria Volk: That’s great tip. I just wanna share a resource with you both through the grief recovery institute, the founder of the grief recovery institute co-authored a book called the grief recovery handbook but in that book, they define grief as the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations, and anything that you wish would have been different, better, or more. And for me, that, like, totally rings true for I mean, that covers all kinds of grief. Right? I mean, loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations. I mean, I can be for relationships. I can be for your life. It can be your career, money, like all sorts of things. So I just wanted to share that resource with you both that that book exists and there’s also when children Grieve is another book that they have. But yes, I think the more people that do this work, the better off society is no matter how you bring it about, no matter how you share it, whether it’s through photography or through workbooks or there’s so many resources now that, like you mentioned, before, did not exist. Twenty, thirty years ago. I know for me as a child griever nobody knew what to do. Nobody knew what to say, so nobody did anything. Nobody said anything. You know? And like you said, when children, you know, children can come in and out of their grief and they can compartmentalize, like, don’t assume that just because a child is not exhibiting sad or, you know, anger behavior or something. You know, like, I was a wall like, I was a wallflower. Like, I was very shy and kept to myself and some children just experience it differently or express it differently, like, you know, they say, you know, too, like, children that are exhibiting, like, anger or aggressive behavior. They’re just hurting that’s a child hurting, you know. And so we just we label them kids as bad kids or good kids, you know. And so I think we need to get away from those labels instead of asking what’s wrong with you, maybe what happened to you, you know? So thank you for the resources that you’ve created and have put out into the world and what you have to come. So what Can you share a little bit what you’re excited about right now?
Gracelyn: I actually just brought her our sample of the grief workbook for kids. So we’re working on that. But a lot of what we do is we bring care packages and books to kids and hospitals. So for pediatric, cancer boards, we bring them some of Melody’s resources and her children’s books and the workbook and the photography books. And so we’re getting those all into Spanish as well.
Victoria: Oh that’s nice
Gracelyn: So that’s kind of one of our, you know, big parts of our mission is to make these books accessible for people and to make this learn being in education and processing accessible for everyone, so especially in the LA area where we are. We like to donate all of these books to hospitals, so we’re working on those new books. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: I love that. And I’m also told or we had talked about it before that you’ll have discount code for the week after the episode airs? Yes.
Gracelyn: So the code will be grieving voices in all caps. And everyone will get 15% off when you use that code.
Victoria Volk: Off of a book. Right?
Gracelyn: Yes.
Victoria Volk: Yes. Okay.
Gracelyn: Then that’ll be through our website, which is lunapeakpublishing.com.
Victoria Volk: And I will put that information in the show notes as well as along with the dates. So we have that perfect. And anything else you would like to share?
Melody: Just that you’re never alone. You know, you walk past a grieve every single day and you don’t even know it.
Victoria Volk: That’s true. And you don’t know what people are physically dealing with, right? Because sickness and illness can doesn’t show up all the time with a bald head. Right?
Gracelyn: Right.
Victoria Volk: You know, compassion. Let’s give some compassion. And light in the world. We need it for sure. One more question. What has your grief taught you?
Melody: I mean, I think what I just said that you’re not alone, you know, finding other creepers. You know, it taught me that there is no right way to grieve.
Gracelyn: The same for me as well. And I think I figured out that sharing can be healing, whether you’re sharing with yourself. And acknowledging those feelings or sharing with a community or sharing it a book. It was through that ripple full effective healing that we figured out our path as a nonprofit, actually. It was through having cancer survivors share their story with another cancer survivor and to have that really quick bond with someone and to see kind of the healing happened there. In addition to putting their story in a book and elevating their voice and having that heal the readers. We like to call that the ripple effect of healing, and that’s kind of continued with the grief book as well. And it was through other people sharing their stories even with me as the editor that really helped me heal. So I’m really thankful to have discovered that. It’s okay to acknowledge this, and it’s okay to, you know, give some power back the grief experience even though people might not wanna talk about it. It’s okay to share and it’s okay to find those people and the community that understands you.
Victoria Volk: Very important. Thank you so much. I love this conversation. I like what you guys are doing and sharing with the world. And I appreciate your time, both of you for being here today. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Cancer, Childhood Grief, Death/Dying, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Resources |
Dan Goldberg | Finding the Glory
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Was your childhood filled with joy and surrounded by love and support? There may have been some challenging times for your parents or even for you, but what if you indeed did have the ideal life?
Dan’s childhood was amazing. So when grief hit home hard, and hard it did, he was ill-prepared. He had experienced the death of his grandparents, but even then, there was little discussion about death or grief. His parents did their best to shelter him and his siblings from the sorrows of life.
So when his father was dying of cancer, there was a strong message shared by his father and other loved ones that his father would get through it, that he would beat cancer. And when the next cancer treatment worked, they would take that amazing family vacation. However, that family vacation never happened.
Before Dan turned 20, his father died. And, before his 25th birthday, his mother would also die of cancer, the kind that’s hard to pronounce and little known about. What are the odds?
Rather than taking those odds and allowing them to destroy his life, Dan took the advice his mother gave him before she died that shook him straight and went on a quest for healing.
RESOURCES:
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CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk 0:00
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. today. My guest is Dan Goldberg. He is a serial entrepreneur and host of the bits of gold podcast, where he explores thought provoking topics, navigating tough circumstances, and ultimately, how you can build a purpose driven life no matter what. On bits of gold, Dan discusses waking up to who we truly are finding our purpose and the importance of building our dream life through unfiltered conversations, personal experience, and inspiring interviews. Thank you so much for being here, Dan.
Dan Goldberg 0:34
Thanks so much for having me. It’s great to great to see you again.
Victoria Volk 0:37
And I was a guest on bits of gold. And I just love that whole bio. I love how you describe the podcast. And I just I think the name is really clever, too, because I think so often, in our stories, there are bits of gold that we can’t really see when we’re in the thick of it, right, but we can eventually see once we’re to the other side of it. And that’s why you’re on grieving voices. Because somehow, some way you have found the other side of what you’ve experienced, in a lot of ways, you’re probably still going through it because grief is like that it kind of shows up when we least expect it. So what brings you to grieving voices?
Dan Goldberg 1:19
Yeah, I was gonna say still still moving through it. I think that journey is, is is a journey. And it is there’s, there’s never really a destination, right? Like, I think you’re constantly on grief, grief, once you experience grief, it’s with you forever. And it morphs. It evolves, it takes shape in a new life and a new light. And as as you get older, and as more time moves on. But I think grief is something that you always carry with you once you experience loss, regardless if it’s regardless if it’s a traumatic loss or not.
Victoria Volk 1:54
And so what was your first experience, even in childhood, with loss?
Dan Goldberg 2:01
Yeah, so I’ve actually I feel like so I’m 28 years old. And I feel like, by the time I turned 25, I experienced actually a pretty significant amount of loss in my life. The two most the two most traumatic ones, my my dad passed away when when I turned 20 A couple of months prior to me turning 20 years old, my dad passed away. And then my mom passed away a month after my my 25th birthday. So within a five year period, I lost both my dad and my mom. But prior to that actually growing up I I had lost a both my grandparents, my grandma and aunt and a dog. So I feel like I’ve actually had like a pretty wide a lot of loss at a at a fairly young age.
Victoria Volk 2:51
And how can I ask how your parents address those losses? Because often we just don’t know as parents what to do or what to say?
Dan Goldberg 2:59
Yes. So I would say the first the first. The first loss that my grandma was the first person that that passed away in my direct family. And I was like, so young, I really don’t have any memories with her. I don’t even remember how that was handled or how my family navigated. I really don’t remember that my grandma was fairly older. So I don’t have any memories there. When my aunt passed away, that was completely unexpected. And she died in the middle of of of the night. And I want to say it was days before or maybe even on her 50th birthday. But I remember my parents came home and they my parents were out to dinner, my parents came home my sisters and I were on the couch and they told us that tell us something and my aunt my They said my aunt passed away. And we were caught we were close with this. And and similarly, you know, like I just didn’t really I wasn’t at a point in my life, from an age standpoint that I can really understand comprehend. What what that actually meant. Yeah, you know, it’s, it’s, I really have never spoken about my end. But it is. It’s interesting now looking back, just like how limited my understanding was of what it meant that she had died. And I remember my parents telling me that but I really remember not being able to comprehend or understand and I’m sure we’ll get into it later on this podcast. But I’m very involved now in an organization experience camps, which is a free one week camp for kids that have lost loved one, ages nine to 16. And it’s only a five day camp I go every single summer and I think about that a lot while I’m at at the camp volunteering as a counselor, just like when I’m with kids who are 910 Even 11 years old, how they’re, what they’re processing and how they’re able to try how they’re trying to understand or what it really means the person is dead and gone. forever and what that means, physically, obviously, I’m speaking.
Victoria Volk 5:04
Do you remember how old you were when your aunt passed?
Dan Goldberg 5:08
Um, let’s see. I was definitely before maybe 10 or 11. So, but yeah, it’s like it’s even my memories with her are very blurry. But I just vividly remember really not understanding or comprehending, a comprehending death. And, you know, I could I could actually speak to that a little bit just to get off my aunt, specifically with my dad. So my dad died when I was 20. The leading up to his death, I had just transferred into a new college, my parents dropped me off parents dropped me off in August, and Parents Weekend was around Thanksgiving around November time. And my dad traveled a lot for for work. And he had just gotten back from a trip overseas. And my dad was like, I’m not feeling too well. He’s and he said, I’m not sure if we’re going to come up Parents Weekend or not, but I want to see you. So I said, do whatever you need to do, if you want to come up, come up if you can’t come up, because you’re not feeling great. Whatever you want to do, he ended up saying, You know what I really want to see you so he ended up coming up. And when he got there, he looked completely different. He was very, like his skin color was very, very pale. He looked a lot skinnier than he then he was. And he just didn’t look well. And we went out for we I hung out with him and my mom during the day we went out for dinner. And the next morning, he woke up and he said, You know, I’m really not feeling well. So my parents decided to go home, they didn’t stay the weekend, they only say that one night, they drove home. But instead of going home, they made a detour and stopped to the hospital. And originally they thought maybe he had maybe he got something from traveling overseas, maybe it was the flu, something like that. And they were running all these different tests. And about like a week and a half later, they called me and they said that has cancer. And it was even in that moment that and at that point, I was 20 years old, I really couldn’t comprehend, or understand that, like death was even a part of the equation. When my parents told me my dad was sick. My dad called me and he said, You know, it’s not I we have to tell you something, we have to talk to you. I I have cancer, that I’m going to see the best doctors in the world and I’m going to be okay. And I have I have actually a lot of a lot of my uncle’s are and answered our doctors or work in the hot but hospital or health system. And my my uncle called me after. And he sort of just reassured me you know, my dad’s gonna get the best care. And he’s gonna He’s gonna be okay. And we’re gonna get through this that was sort of like the the messaging that my parents sort of told me from the get go that my uncle sort of told me, and seven short months later, he passed away. And as as that as through those seven months, my dad was progressively getting worse, and I was away at school, but I’d come home for the holidays. And I’d come I’d make some trips to come home just to see him. And every time it was progressively worse and worse. So when I first saw him he looked very skinny pale. Next time I saw him he was using a walker. Next time I saw him he was using a wheelchair. Next time I saw him we put this like the electric chair in the on the stair so we get up from the first floor to the second floor. And the next time I saw him he couldn’t really move from his bed to the bathroom without being completely out of breath. And then it was like he was just sort of stuck in this chair. And toward towards the end he was really just like stuck in this chair. And we got like one of those reclining chairs for him. And he would just sort of stay there drink a lot of liquids and he was going to get chemo treatments. And even throughout that entire process. There was never truly a point in my mind where I said, my dad is going to to die or that that was even sort of a that was even a part of the the possibility in the realm of possibility. And actually days leading up to his his his death. My dad, my dad ended up not being able to really walk towards the end. And he had a lot of hip pain. And he ended up going to the hospital to get some radiation to his hip. And I was supposed to be traveling for for like the weekend to go to Boston for for for work. And this was this was Friday, and I went to the hospital to see him. And I said that Should I cancel my trip. I’m just going to Boston for the weekend. But I don’t mind I could stay here. And he said nothing’s going to change between now and when you come home on Sunday. So he said go on the trip. And it was at this point that my dad sort of in that same at that same day earlier in the day my dad had told me there’s nothing more that doctors can do from a chemo standpoint. But they’re going to raise my hip. And I’m going to be able to have a lot more movement after. And we’re going to do like one more big family trip. And I’m going to be okay. So, you know, I saw I said, Okay, do you want me to stay and he said, Go go to Boston, everything’s going to be fine. And I ended up giving him a kiss, and went to Boston. And Sunday morning, my mom called me and she said, Come home as soon as possible. got in the car first thing in the morning, drove right to the hospital. And at that point, they had like, my dad’s pain meds, and he wasn’t, he was, he wasn’t really he wasn’t really lucid at that point, he was just sort of sleeping and making some uncomfortable, like, just noises, you know, it was clearly he was, he was clearly going to die. And the doctor had come in and just said, you know, he’s, this could go on for a couple days, several hours, they didn’t really know, but that he was going to die. And that was, it was really in that moment that, like, I collapsed, and I ended up going leaving the room going to the waiting room. And I just remember like putting my head in my hands and trying to understand or comprehend that my dad’s going to die. And it really wasn’t up until that point where I really had even, there wasn’t even a thought or imagination or possibility in my mind. And part of it was definitely that my parents tried to shelter me or protect me from it’s funny, like the Protect me, but protect me from, you know, the, just the painful, the painful truth and the painful destination that we ultimately ended up at. I think my dad definitely tried to shelter, shelter me a little bit. And that was by choice. And that was his decision. But it definitely, but that was really like the first time that I realized that, hey, people, people do die. People do die young. And it’s funny, just since we started talking about my aunt, it’s even funny, having had those experiences and having lost my aunt and grandparents. You know, you understand obviously, as a young person that death is, death is like, one of one of the few guarantees we all know is our inevitable destination. But I really do think so often. And I would say that this was very much my life previous previous to experiencing significant loss and losing my dad, my life was really, everything’s good. Probably the things that weren’t of significance, I thought were of significance. And although you know that death is a part of life, you’re not really constantly living with that on your mind, thinking about people die, or those around me can die or those that I love die, or I can die you don’t really think of those things I really believe is someone who’s young, naive, and unfortunately, or unfortunately, unfortunately, hasn’t really experienced anything significant. You don’t really, I don’t think you’re walking around, really holding that, that weight that death is a real part of life and that it can strike in a moment’s notice with no warning, no rhyme nor reason. Things will happen and that sort of life. And I think that’s an you know, I’m sure we’ll get into it. But that’s definitely something that I carry near and dear to me now. It’s like that is so physically, spiritually, emotionally, it’s, it’s such a real thing at this point in my life. And knowing that that’s what’s that’s sort of like the bouncing board that enables me to think about life with this unique perspective, which has sort of been the guiding light in my life now now ever forward. But yeah, I just, I just don’t really think that we think about it as young kids, even young adults, even maybe adults, if you haven’t really experienced significant loss, I think, you know, I don’t want to say necessarily my, my dad, because his his sister died when later on in life, that was my aunt, but like, my mom really didn’t experience significant like growing up, we lived in such a happy household. And there were things obviously, where there were challenges or life circumstances that my parents had to navigate. But I have such a happy childhood and life as we knew it as a family, I would say was so happy that like we really didn’t experience the significant shitstorm that would come in my early 20s and mid 20s.
Victoria Volk 14:31
And I want to speak to that a little bit because we are a product of our environment, right? And so you can have two different homes where they can have all these different experiences, negative, impactful experiences, and it’s all negative and the worst always happens to us. And here’s another challenge and it’s really heavy energy, or we can grow up in a home where it’s even if there’s a challenge it’s, well you know what we got we’ll get through this And it’s there’s this positive outlook versus this negative outlook. And so although that served you well as a child growing up, and you know, it might be some people might even say, well take those rose colored glasses off, right? Because the reality is, is that crap happens. But it’s the outlook that your parents gave you. Right? That partially may have resulted in this inability to think about death as like this finality or like this, like this could ever happen to me. So it’s like, where’s the balance? Yeah. You know, because you can go, it’s like the pendulum swung very much the positive way, instead of the negative way, but yet, it didn’t prepare you. For what, for the challenges when they really did when it was really big. Right? When it was something really big?
Dan Goldberg 15:54
Yeah, well, so it’s definitely it’s, it’s interesting. When I look back at when my when my dad was sick, I had this extremely naive perspective thinking, Oh, my dad’s not gonna die. Honestly, there was one conversation I had with a friend who had lost his that young and he had told me, you know, maybe half of the conversations with your dad that you want to have. The advice was have these conversations you’ll want to have with your dad that you might want to questions you might want to ask him later on in life, but it’s like now I sit here as a 28 year old when I was 20. The questions I would ask him now, versus the questions I would ask him that are so drastically different than you know, it was sure we sat down we, I would we would talk about things. But obviously, he’s he’s not here to answer those questions today that are now on my mind. But anyways, that was my one friend. That was that was I had that one conversation with a friend. And that was the only time where like, death really was part of the conversation. So I had this extremely naive, and just like very innocent mindset around life and death when my dad was sick. On the contrary, when my mom was sick, it was a very different experience. My mom got sick when I was coming home from a 25. I was coming home from sorry, 24, I was coming home from experience camps. This was in August, and weeks prior, my mom had gallbladder surgery. And they said some they said that she had she had gall stones, and she ended up getting gallbladder surgery. And she she didn’t really like make a full recovery. I ended up going to experience camps. I volunteer for a week, I’m driving home from Georgia to New York. And when I get home, I get home pretty late at night, I go to sleep, I wake up in the morning, and I’m very excited. tell my mom about the week, all the kids that I’ve connected with the incredible stories. And my mom, my mom slept later than me, which like very, very much was not like her by any means. And I was sitting on the couch, waiting for her to wake up and she had no coming down. And she was she was in her pajamas. And she sat down on the couch next to me. And she told me that I’ve been diagnosed with cancer, but they don’t know what type of cancer, but we’re gonna get through this and everything’s gonna be okay. Sort of like, you know, the same very positive mindset around that we’re gonna get through this. My mom was having a tough time eating and keeping food down. And they were waiting for these test results to come back to try to identify what cancer it was what treatment she’d be getting all those things. And in the five days that were waiting, she really started to experience a lot of significant pain. And she ended up going to we ended up taking her to the hospital. And she checked in and from the moment she checked in, she never ended up checking out she was in the hospital for a little over two months. And they weren’t able to identify what cancer she had until the very end of her time in the hospital. Originally, they said she had soft gel cancer, then they couldn’t really identify it. She ended up actually switching hospitals then going back to the original hospital. And she had three major surgeries while she was in the hospital where they said we don’t know if you’re going to live through these surgeries, but we recommend going through with them. So with my mom’s experience, it was really the only words that I would use to explain the experience that we had with her was just like absolute hell torturous how like she went through these three major surgeries in a very short period of time. She was only in hospital for two and a half months. She had like a tube in her nose. That was how she was she was getting nutrients. She made it to one chemo treatment. And again, they didn’t really have a sense of what cancer they were trying to treat. And like I was sitting in the room with her and at the end she ended up being in excruciating pain, yelling in so much pain and you know you want to you want to do something to help the person but there’s nothing you can do. So, you know, I’m sitting in the room and they come in they’re trying to give her some some medication to try to ease the pain. It was just really hell. And she ended up being diagnosed with a cancer called undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma. And the sort of inside joke with my mom was my mom said if you if you end up get always like for a long time that if you ended up getting cancer, you want some, you want something that, you know, you know, typically the cancers that you hear of are the ones you want it, you’re gonna get a cancer, you want that cancer, because they know a lot about it, there’s a lot of money, there’s a lot of research towards it. And there’s more treatment to help those cancers to help people who have those cancers. So I was sort of like the the inside running running joke with my mom. And my mom ended up being diagnosed with undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma. And my mom made some joke when they finally said that sort of towards the tail end, just like, of course, this is the this is the one I got. But that so she was in hospital for these two and a half months diagnosed with his cancer. And really, after that first chemo treatment, very quickly, after they said, there’s nothing more that that we can do. And she ended up staying in the hospital, but moving into hospice care, and it was at that point that, you know, we knew she was days, weeks, months prior before she would die, but it was turned out to be about 10 days or so. But it was in that moment. It was in that journey with with my mom, where I had a completely different mentality and perspective around cancer and loss and death and all that, I would say that with my mom, I was hopeful. But I was very realistic that this story didn’t have a happy ending. And, you know, my, my one of my uncle’s, again, I have a few uncles that are doctors, I spoke to one of my uncles that stalked her. And he said, you know, with cancer, it’s like, his advice was don’t start Googling, don’t start researching. Because cancer is a one or a zero, you’re either gonna live or you’re or you’re not, there’s not, there’s not like, Oh, I could be in the 76% that will survive. You know, so he said, there’s no point to Google to start spending your time Googling and trying to figure things out, your mom’s either gonna be okay, or she’s not. But with this specific cancer, I knew that from the beginning that that was a real part of the equation and that, in the best case scenario, my mom was going to live for another couple of years. And I accepted that from the very beginning that life as I knew it, was has has changed once again, and my mom, she might live longer, but she’s going to die in the near future. And I accepted that really, from the very beginning. You know, some people I remember having a conversation with my uncle, and this isn’t to get into religion or spirituality. But My other uncle just kept saying, we have to be hopeful, we need to pray, we need to be hopeful, we need to be hopeful. And, you know, I told him, you know, if that’s what’s working for him, I support it. But I’m going to be supportive, but also realistic, that there’s nothing that any of us can do to change the outcome, the circumstance, and we need to accept that. And I definitely like, you know, I gave him an example, sort of, like, if you’re, if you’re on a plane that’s going to crash, you can pray, you can be hopeful, but the planes still ultimately going to crash. And you’re going to die if you’re on that plane, right? Most most likely. So you know, I gave him I sort of just gave him this example. And I said, this is my mom’s on on the plane that’s going to crash, there’s no, there’s no positive, there’s no happy ending to the story, we need to sort of accept the reality and be supportive. And that’s, that’s it. And that’s sort of where my, my mentality went through in that moment. And that’s sort of how I navigated those two months. Now, I was also, you know, I went to an extremely dark place where it was very hard to be to feel happy, and my life just revolved around waking up, going to the hospital, sitting in the hospital, going to sleep, going home, going to sleep, doing it again for two and a half months, and watching my mom progressively get worse. But, again, my personal experience and my personal ability to just be realistic about the situation and the cards that we were dealt was very pinpoint, I’d say.
Victoria Volk 24:02
Well, I’m just to your point of what your uncle had said to you. He’s saying this to someone who had already lost a parent to cancer, you know what I mean? Like, so it’s like, Do you realize who you’re saying that to? You know, it’s not just like, this is your first rodeo? Yeah, absolutely. You had already been through that. So did you feel almost kind of jaded or, like, and I, you know, I think this spirit spirituality or not even religion, but just like the relationship to God, or that that relationship that either you have it or you don’t. And personally, when my dad died when I was eight, that went away, like I didn’t have that sense of spirituality or anything like I was angry with God. And so did you find yourself feeling that way, especially after your dad had passed where, you know, you had this hope and you have this naive approach, in a way, did that change for you?
Dan Goldberg 24:57
I would say that with my dad, you My focus really didn’t become so much me it became much more helped my mom support my mom. And I sort of just followed almost like followed my mom’s footsteps, I would say my mom turned a little bit more in the spiritual direction, I was just like there to be with my mom, but not necessarily turning into God or religion or things, things of that nature, with with my mom when she died, would carry me after my mom died. So this will get get back to your question around spirituality and what sort of carried me through. But when my mom died, like leading up to days before she was she was going to die. Although I accepted that she was going to die, I was in a very dark place. It looked at my blinds are closed, but it looked like a day out like today, it was beautiful outside the sun was like beaming down. And I remember I was walking to get lunch with a friend. And so my friend had lost his dad growing up. So he had experienced a significant loss in his life. And this, this specific friend of mine is just like a very good listener. And when we sat down, I told him, You know, I don’t want to, I don’t want this to just be like me venting to you. You don’t need, I don’t want you to feel compelled that you have to say anything. He’s like, I’m just here to listen, you know, I’m not here to share my opinions. I’m just here to listen, I’m here to just literally say whatever you want, I’m here for you. And I really felt like I was in such a dark place I could not. And I’m really a happy person, I could not feel any sense of happiness. Again, it was like beautiful outside. And normally I’d go outside and be like, Oh, it’s a beautiful day. This is this is great. And in that moment, I like everything was gray. That’s really the only way that I could explain it. It’s almost like when you if you wake up and you just, you don’t want to get out of bed. It’s not necessarily you don’t have any aspirations. It’s just that there’s I felt almost as if there was no point there was there’s there was no point to get out of bed. There was no point to to do anything during the day because life life kind of suck. That’s how that’s, that’s, that’s really the feeling that I was feeling. And after that lunch, I went back to the hospital. And it was at that point that my mom told me that there was no more there was nothing more that they could do, and that she was going to move to hospice care. And I remember telling her life so unfair. First, the world took that from us. And that’s already enough. But now we have to lose you too. My mom said life is unfair. But life’s also glorious, she said you have to go and find the glory. And that was really the big thing that like instantly changed my entire mentality where my mom almost pressed it into my mind, it was it really was like in that in that one conversation where I was in this place where not not where I was suicidal, but definitely where I just was not feeling a point to get out of bed to to just go about my life at that point, like the lowest low the darkest place that I’ve personally ever done, was in that moment where like, I accepted that life is filled with hardship. And that’s, that’s life and you need to sort of accept it. But there’s also plenty of beautiful things. Plenty, as my mom said plenty of glorious things that you need to go and find embrace, and life sad balance of, you know, painful, but also yet so beautiful. And that was really like the, the shift. And when my mom had died, and in the eulogy that I gave at the funeral, I had said that I’m not going to focus on the why. You know, and I might spend some time thinking about why why is this happened. But ultimately, that’s not where I’m going to focus my time and energy, I’m going to focus on the what, what I’m going to do now as a result of the circumstances as a result of what I’ve lived through. And I’m going to focus on finding the glory despite, despite the unfair despite the shit, I’m going to focus on what I can do now as a result of the circumstances I’ve been put in, and that that I’d say is really was really the where I went to after my mom died and sort of, you know, in many ways what what led us to, to this moment now.
Victoria Volk 29:15
And you starting your podcast?
Dan Goldberg 29:19
Yeah, it’s starting the podcast getting involved in experience camps I’ve been involved for almost a decade now. And you know, I feel like I am on such a mission to help others who have lived through significant loss know that, you know, loss is unfortunately, a very real part of life but that it doesn’t need to destroy your define us and that it very much can, you know, people who experienced significant loss can still very much go on to live happy, healthy lives that they that they enjoy.
Victoria Volk 29:50
So you were a part of experience camps even before your dad passed?
Dan Goldberg 29:55
No. So I only I got involved. I’m almost so this is going to be my ninth summer So once my dad passed, I went, I went, I, I grew up going to summer camp. And once I had the opportunity to like, go back to camp in a more meaningful way, I sort of jumped at it. So once my dad got sick, I went I once my dad passed, I got involved right away.
Victoria Volk 30:16
Yeah, I’ve looked up the organization. I’ll put the link in the show notes. And that is something that I that would be an amazing way to spend a week in this. Yeah, you should come. I would love that. I’m in the sticks, though, of North Dakota. So anywhere I would go, I’d have to hop on a plane. And
Dan Goldberg 30:34
We have we have some people who come from last year because I COVID. But north from London, Australia. Oh, wow. Yeah. But we have we have we’ve grown a lot. So there’s camps all over the US, California, outside Chicago, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Georgia. I think they’re opening up one in DC now and Maine.
Victoria Volk 30:54
Yeah, cuz that was not I remember I went to I went to one summer camp, and it was, it would have been four years after my dad had passed, I think it would have been about 12 or so. But it was a church camp. Okay. And I had an amazing time. I still remember that time, but it wasn’t for grief. You know, it wasn’t for, for me really my grief and things like that. But that, you know, and I talked about this on other podcasts, I’ve been a guest, but there wasn’t room for me to grieve, you know, as a child, so I internalized all of mine. And so, for you, you know, having that happen when you’re a little bit older, you have that maybe ability to you know, your approach is very different. And your outlook is very different. But I imagine though at that age, too, it’s very difficult. Like you mentioned your one friend, but wasn’t that difficult to find people your age that you could, that could relate to you or you could relate to them?
Dan Goldberg 31:59
Yeah, I would say definitely after my dad died, it was extremely difficult. I was going into my senior year of college, then everyone’s focused on partying, getting drunk. I’d say very limited schoolwork. Going out. It was it was an extremely difficult year for me. And I really didn’t I wanted to drop out so badly. I had like, my body was telling me drop out, go home, help, help around, help around the house, help your mom out. That was really all I wanted to do. One of the last things my dad told me, because I voiced to my dad numerous times while he was sick, I want to drop out I want to drop out. And he’s like, just get the damn degree that was sort of like, and then there was never any discussion. So that’s, that was sort of my dad’s wish. And I, I listened to it. But yeah, it was it was really challenging. I would say I’d wake up, and I’d wake up away from my mom. And I did not know. I did really didn’t understand like, why I was even at school, I wanted to go home and help help my mom. And that’s, you know, when my dad died, and I know I already mentioned it, but so much of my personal focus and and life became around, how can I help my mom, I really was not thinking so much about like, what does Danny need? What? What do I need to heal to move forward? To keep going in my life, it became how can I sort of not necessarily replace my dad, but help as if my dad was still alive. That was really where I went. And when my mom died? I would say almost in like five years, it was truly the first time where I took a step back and started thinking about like, what does Danny need? What does Danny want? What do I want my life to look like? And that’s where I started to really go on this, like, very deep introspective journey of how do I become more intentional and what what do I how do I make sense of what life is and all all those questions that you know, are sort of the every journey we’re all on trying to think through as as we build our own lives. But yeah, it was it was really hard to find that community early on. And after my dad died, that I was I really feel extremely lucky and fortunate that I did find community very quickly by volunteering at experience camps, and I ended up I remember the first time I spoke about my dad, it was I was terrified. It was extremely challenging. I would break down and in tears and you know, I couldn’t even it was very hard and challenging to just say my dad died. You know, it’s like almost funny looking. I’ve said it now so many times that it’s it’s just like, good more. Good morning. Can I have a coffee? You know, it’s almost like the same thing. It’s very matter of fact at this point, but I remember that being extremely difficult and even in like a small setting, even with my closest friends. Even with family, I’d say actually with family there’s there’s a You know, families are different. But I would say for the most part, like, my family and I, we acknowledge, and we celebrate, like death of bursaries or things like that, and we say we missed the person, but we’re never going beyond sort of that surface level. And you know, even in many ways with friends, it’s it’s rare at this point that we do that. But there are moments or times like add experience camps, where going there is very acceptable in the norm and things of that nature. So I ended up finding community in that and ended up sort of throwing myself at other opportunities, I don’t know if it’s still around. But there, there’s was an organization, that dinner party, which did grief parties for people who have experienced significant loss, and I went to a bunch of those and met a bunch of people who, you know, had lived through a significant loss. And, you know, it was actually funny, I went to that only a few times, but I remember going to this dinner party. And I was definitely I think the youngest, both times, I was the youngest person there. And this was only after my dad had passed. And I had already from from volunteering and experience kampsen, from sharing my own story, and from helping others who have lived through loss at this dinner party, I must have been maybe 22 years old, 23 years old, and everyone else, maybe it was like late 20s, early 30s. And a lot of people, there was the first time sharing their story. And that’s the point is you everyone brings something to the dinner party, and you sit down and you talk about your people, or the person that has died. And you’ve sort of built community through through this network. And I remember, like, really, there were so many people there who was the first time they were sharing their story. And my friend and I went with a friend from experience camps, we almost ended up like leading the dinner party and getting the conversation going and trying to make it an environment in which people felt like comfortable to sort of go there. But it is it is very difficult, I think to to find that community. But I really do feel like there are a lot of organizations now that exist, if you if you seek them out, where you can find community and find people who are who have lived through something similar or going through something similar. I can’t really speak obviously as much to what it’s like being a child. But I can only imagine how difficult and challenging it is to lose someone significant when you’re so young, because it’s I think the processing, really understanding and comprehending is the challenge there. And I know so many people now who have who have lost someone very young, and you know, they deal with all sorts of different not necessarily problems, but just their their own grief journey is very different, where maybe they don’t have memories with the person. And they have different challenges as it relates to how they grieve for their grief journey, as opposed to my own grief journey, where it’s like, I have so many memories with both my parents, but you know, they’re, they’re not here, etc. So it’s very different. Obviously.
Victoria Volk 38:00
When this happened to you, at a really, I’ll say ripe age, like you’re just on the cusp of going on your own into adulthood. And and I know that, like you kind of described just the college years, it can be a crazy time and things. Did you find yourself going down this slippery slope? Were you using alcohol? Were you using other things to soothe you during those years?
Dan Goldberg 38:27
Yeah, I wouldn’t say that. I was definitely drinking but I would say more like any other college student who’s excited or living for the party. I was not I was not like drinking necessarily. I wasn’t drinking though like to numb the pain that I was in, I would say the college was sort of just like my senior year of college was a tremendous block sort of, of me getting to where I wanted to get to go, which was I want to get out of here. I want to get this degree because that’s what my dad wanted. For me. And I want to I want to get out of here so I can help take care of my mom. But I really didn’t use I wasn’t using like drugs or alcohol as a way to numb numb the pain I was in. I started seeing a therapist for the first time my life like right, immediately after my dad died. And I think that that really helped. I did I did. You know I think grief manifests itself in different ways. And I think physical is one of the many ways that we experience grief and early on like when I was 21 right after my dad died. I couldn’t again like I had I really had to and I just spent I know. We’re talking now for like 45 minutes about grief and I feel now I’m at a point where I really can discuss in depth my emotions, how I feel what I felt, but right after my dad died, I definitely couldn’t. I couldn’t. I still was having a difficult time comprehending I remember the night he died going in the car with my mom, my uncle and They were driving home. And so I remember driving home and just like, again, my hands, my head was in my hands. And I just, I remember both when my mom and dad died, like, specifically, I guess when my dad died, just like, sort of just sitting there shaking my head, trying to really comprehend, you know, what, what had just taken place. So my dad, like thinking, so my dad’s gone now forever, how, why? It’s so unfair, I’m so angry, but I couldn’t even like, you know, I couldn’t really put like, for example, I’m so angry, I couldn’t put the emotion onto the feeling. And for me, when my dad died, the grief really manifested in physical ways. So like, my dad had all this hip pain. And then I was like, I think I have all this hip pain too. And I would find myself really in more of like a panic state. And I remember having a lot of panic attacks and being absolutely terrified that I was also going to die. And, and all that was because I, I really had an inability to, to feel like I had, and it wasn’t like I was I was numb to the loss it was that I didn’t know how to physically, emotionally express what I was feeling. And I would say, really, that’s, that’s what, for me, going to therapy like, right away helped with. And I think, in many ways, like finding community, going to go into the third therapy, which I’m still doing now like, that’s enabled me to be able to openly share and discuss and actually feel these feelings were in the past, especially at 20, where I really couldn’t, I really, like I really had such an inability. And it’s almost funny looking back now, because who I was eight years ago is so tremendously different from who I am now. But it’s definitely funny. I think as a whole, like society is definitely getting better with discussing grief and having it be a part of a normal, a normal part of a conversation. It’s not so taboo anymore. But you know, thanks to shows like yours and the work that a lot of people are doing in this space. But I definitely think it’s still a very uncomfortable one where people don’t know what to say, people don’t know how to support the people that are going through it. I do think like, when you’re so young, it’s very difficult for even you, yourself to, to like self advocate for yourself and to understand and that that was really where I struggled after my dad died, and especially being in that college environment. Like, I wasn’t sitting down with a friend over lunch discussing that my dad just died. And I want to, I just need someone to listen, or I want to share some things and I’m feeling you know, like, I wasn’t at a point where I could could do those things.
Victoria Volk 42:47
Because you probably didn’t feel safe to.
Dan Goldberg 42:49
Yeah, I’d say that. And I really think I had like a knee didn’t have the language. Yeah, you know, and it’s, it’s,
Dan Goldberg 42:57
I don’t know if it’s necessarily a gender thing, but I think also, it is challenging for like, to put the emotion to the feeling, right. Like I actually do feel angry right now or actually do feel sad right now. And, yeah.
Victoria Volk 43:10
And it’s not bad. It’s just and you can feel joy and you can feel anger. Yeah, absolutely the same. Within the same minute, right. Yeah. So I’m curious too. Are you an only child?
Dan Goldberg 43:24
I have two older sisters as well.
Victoria Volk 43:26
Okay, I mean, have you been through the years like with those with the loss of the parents has that in I mean, I don’t know if you’re okay, sharing, but has that brought you closer together?
Dan Goldberg 43:38
Yeah. So my, my family is like, we’re very close. My sisters live. Like only like, 40 blocks away from me and Manhattan. So we grew up and like I said, like, when we grew up, we, my family knew no, we didn’t know like sadness, really, as a family. Like, we only knew happiness. And, you know, I feel so fortunate, grateful lucky, like, blessed that that was that that was how we grew up. And that was, that was all we we knew, like how, how freakin lucky were we? And I would say we really even became closer after my, my dad had passed, and just like wanting to be there for one another. And, you know, I know that you know, we’re very lucky to that that is sort of where we all went to and after my mom passed that that stayed the course and you know, I think we all want to be there for an in each other’s lives. And obviously, we can’t fill fill the void and not having our parents be here but at least be there as as much as possible. And I really I feel so this this is this definitely isn’t something that I’ve openly voiced before, but I actually really feel so grateful for my like, Send a family, my cousins, my aunts and uncles, I think about that a lot. After my mom had died, you know, after my dad had died, my mom’s still there. So she’s sort of like the glue that kept everyone together. And after my mom died, my family like my aunt’s my uncle’s, my cousins have stepped up big in every which way, in every which way imaginable. Like, my uncles that live across the world will fly in one of my uncle’s is coming here in a couple of weeks. And to see us to be there for us to be there with us. One of my both my sisters recently had baby, their first baby wants to start identical twins, so she had babies, but you know, my, my, my family stepped up big. And I’m really so like, moved and grateful that that is what they did. Because, you know, when you wake up in the morning, no one forces any any of us to do anything. And they’ve all consciously made a decision, an effort, and a choice that, you know, I’m going to step up big and, and be there despite my sister, right, their sister or their brother not being here, I recognize that I’m like, so freaking lucky that that is the situation. And that that is how things are in our life. And yeah, it’s like, honestly, I sometimes have to like, pinch myself, because I’m like, Wow, I’m lucky. I’m lucky in this situation, because I do know that, you know, after you live through significant loss, families, it’s very easy for families to be torn apart from lack of communication from high emotions from for all for all different reasons. And I think that I don’t, I don’t think that in and just in any family, you know, the, that the uncle or the aunt steps up big and he’s like, I’m gonna be there when you have your first kid or I’m gonna be there when you go through that milestone in your life. And I really feel like, yeah, just I know how lucky I am to have to have that.
Victoria Volk 47:03
Yes, you are. Yeah, that wasn’t my experience. So yeah, it is, it makes a huge impact. And so thank you for bringing that up. Because anyone listening to this, if they’ve lost a sibling who has children, to keep that in mind, the impact that they still can have, in that person’s life, the child’s life, their niece or nephews life?
Dan Goldberg 47:27
Yeah, I’m getting chills here thinking about it. But you know, I think I think also, I think about it, sometimes it’s definitely been like a thought that’s popped into my mind, where now with my sisters, what if that they have kids, you know, it’s like, if God forbid, something happened to them, and they, and they passed, you know, I see that you can now step up big, and I see the impact that it can have. And, and, you know, I think about it as it relates to other people, right, it hasn’t really been my my personal situation, but I’ve definitely had my own challenges or friction points within my own family, with navigating things with my sisters and things like that. And that will have to be fun for another podcast, you know, because it’s, it’s difficult when you when you have no parent, to be in the situation and to help resolve things and say, Hey, this is a dumb argument, let’s move forward, let’s move beyond this. Hug it out, your siblings, you’d love each other, let’s let’s move forward. So you know, there’s, there’s absolutely challenges. Where the, because we don’t have any parent that’s alive to to be to be the parent, right? There’s no one to say, let’s just move forward from here. So I do think you know, that communication after you, you live through someone, significant loss is so important. And also, you know, that because I know that they happen, that you know, these, these the arguments that you could have with a sibling, a parent after you live through something, after you live through significant loss. It’s just like, you know, that’s life and those things will happen. It’s inevitable. But the communication, having a good line of communication is just so important. Because in the end, like, there’s no there’s no argument, there’s no friction point, that’s, that’s worth it. Because, you know, we’re all we’re all going to die eventually. And I think that having being able to navigate you know, those difficult conversations after or just those friction points is so important because in the end, I really believe that it’s, it’s more worthwhile to be there for each other than have some argument calls from whatever it may be, but as a result of your loss or grief and to be able to sort of move forward and whether you know, I’m speaking very broadly here but whether there be resolve insight, but be able to just accept the differences and move forward and still be there for that person. Regardless if you don’t see eye to eye and things like that because that’s what’s so important after you live after you lose someone to You to be there for the people that you love and be able to support them and, and move forward with those people.
Victoria Volk 50:05
Well, and the key thing to remember is that everybody lost. And everybody had their own unique individual relationship to with that person. And so yeah, bring their own personal pain and their own personal perspective.
Dan Goldberg 50:21
And with friends as well, you know, because I think, I think sometimes with friends, it’s like it’s not looked as the same, but I think it’s a little bit like discredited where sometimes people don’t put as much weight on it, like, oh, you lost, you lost your friend, you know, but that person might have such an that person might have had such an impact. This this woman that I was close with, while I was in college, she had cancer, but she didn’t really let anyone know. And I was on Facebook, well, like this is last year scrolling and I found out she had passed away. And I was really close with her. I actually, she was an older woman. Her name was Barbara and she lost her dad growing up young. And she ended up her husband ended up passing on earlier early in life. And I went to Syracuse and she was head of like alumni relations. And she was she was an older woman, I want to say maybe late 60s, early 70s, I ended up telling her all about experience camps after my dad died. She really like was there for me while I was in school. And I had this very unique special relationship with this woman. And I ended up bring her to, to experience hands on like, You got to come you got to come and she actually, one year, she just came to like, see what was going on. In the following year, she ended up volunteering, and she was like an out of bunk, cabin counselor, but she got the full experience. And she was able to help the kids who who were there. And we had a special relationship. And I ended up finding very unexpectedly that she had passed. And it it really it really like it was like sort of like a someone hit me in the back of the head with a hammer I wasn’t expecting it, I sort of we would we she would let me know if she was in New York City. And we try to find time for like, grab a coffee or something like that. But we weren’t talking as much as we used to just because life right? And not not to say that, you know, I’m experiencing, I was I was I was grieving again. And I was experiencing this loss in that moment. And for the days to come, maybe the weeks come I felt it. And I was I was feeling the pain associated that I had lost this person and we sort of lost touch. And I would have loved to check in more. And I wish I had said hey, how you doing more often and things like that. So you know, it’s like, I definitely think that the grief is early like grief with friend sometimes is discredited, or there’s not as much weight on it. But that’s, you know, there’s there’s loss and grief in so many ways, obviously outside of just physically, the death of someone. But you know, I think that that’s something that people need to I hope people can understand and be there for people who have lost a friend because they have, like you said, their own their own experience with those people as well.
Victoria Volk 52:58
Well, and we all have like our person, right? Or maybe our group of people who are in our inner circle who know our dreams who support our dreams. And those are important people in our lives. And so to your point, well, it’s just a friend, you have plenty of friends, you know, people can say sensitive things without really understanding what your relationship was 100% I’m interested in learning now, how all of these experiences has shifted your perspective and how you live your life now.
Dan Goldberg 53:33
Yeah. So I would say that. I feel like we definitely got into it over the last hour around how I evolved and how my life evolved. After from when my dad died when my mom ended up ultimately dying. And I know I already touched upon it, but my mom’s eulogy, I gave this whole talk around, you know, sort of finding your glory, finding the glory in life and not focusing on the Y but focusing on the what, what, what are you going to do now as a result of the circumstances that that you’re in. And I would say in many ways, that is the guiding light, it’s sort of is the guiding principle in my own life. I wake up every single day, and I think about knowing that I too am going to die. How do I want to spend the limited time that I’m given on this earth? And I focus on mapping my life towards those things, to doing those things to prioritizing those things. And it’s very interesting how we actually started with the beginning of the conversation talking about my aunt, and talking about like the how when your child when they’re young, it’s very hard to comprehend that and understand what death really is and that it’s that that the person is gone forever and that it’s it’s very hard to understand and comprehend all those things. Now, it’s like death is death is a piece of me and it’s that something that I carry with me every single day. Where I really focus on knowing like knowing that I too am going to die. How do I want to spend my time knowing that I am going to die, like, put my phone down and be present be in this moment, knowing that I am going to die, appreciate the fact that I just woke up and was had the ability to put my feet on the ground when I woke up and that I’m alive, healthy, and able and that I have opportunity in front of front of me knowing that I too, am going to die. Where do I want to spend my time? How do I want to focus my time and all that, and that that’s sort of like, like, death is sort of the guiding light in my life almost, you know, knowing knowing that death. And it’s not, it’s not in a panicky way. It’s not in an impatient way. Just that knowing that like, in a very real authentic way that death is a part of life. It’s sort of the thing that it is the thing that makes me question like, is the day I’m about to live, the day I actually want to live, and if not, I’m going to make the changes. But if it is then great. And that’s sort of how I now map my life. And the things I want to do, and the impact I want to have, and where I want to spend my my time professionally. Personally, how I want to impact the world, it’s all comes through the lens of just knowing that that death is a very real part of life.
Victoria Volk 56:30
So what do you look forward to?
Dan Goldberg 56:33
Everything, everything. I mean, I think, I think that it’s like, I look forward to everything, it’s like, I have this deep appreciation for the smallest things. And I have, I have like a little gratitude practice where I write in the journal every day, three things I’m grateful for. But I would say even like the, like, the first thing I write every single day is health, just like a given. But I really do like when I wake up in the morning, and I’m able to turn over and put my feet on the floor. I’m already like I’ve won today because I know that there are people who can’t do this, and I’m lucky and I’m blessed. And I’m, I’m fortunate that I’m that I am capable, and that I’m able to do this and I’m, I’m I’m I’m so lucky that I don’t have to think about my, my white blood cells, my red blood cells, I’m so lucky that I have. And you know, it goes beyond just cancer like Lucky. I’m so lucky that I don’t I have a safe place to sleep, I have food that I can that I can go and eat at any point I have safety, security, food, friends, family like life is life is good. I have I had a friend who lived through significant loss. And he wants told me you know that he believes that life is rigged in our favor. And it’s because of things just like the fact that we’re able to have this this podcast right now that we’re both over zoom, we’re not physically together, where we’re doing this from different parts of, of the country, and we’re able to sit here and we both live through significant loss, we both have lived through our own our own tragedies and, and but yet, we’re still here having this like beautiful conversation around the worst moments in our life and how they shaped our life and how they’ve shaped our perspective. And it’s because of moments like that, that, you know, that we are we are in many ways lucky, you know most besides the human race, I don’t think any any other animals capable of sitting here and actually understanding and comprehending and having this conversation this dialogue around the worst moments in our life and how they’ve shaped our perspective. And that in and of itself is like a beautiful thing. And I think that since he’s told me that it is something that I really do embrace and believe that life despite what I’ve lived through the fact that I’m still here right now having in this moment is all it is like enough and it’s that and it and it’s moments like these where I realized that life truly is rigged in my favor and that there is so much to be grateful for and that there is so much to live for. And as my mom put it there’s so there’s plenty of glory and that doesn’t mean you know that I’m walking around sitting here like all sunshine and butterflies and life’s perfect Whoo. It’s you know, there’s there’s plenty of hardship and there will be more hardship i remember turning my mom when when we when she moved to hospice care of telling her like, you know, life is at least now I this was the lowest low I’ll never hit a lower low again. And she told me don’t be so naive. There will be there’ll be worse things in our life that will that can and will happen. And you know, I think that true and it’s funny too. Now looking back even just from saying that, how different that is from when my dad first tried to shelter me from the painful realities of life. But, you know, it’s like, there’s so much truth to that, just because you’ve lived through one loss just because you’ve had heartbreak, whatever your losses, whether it be a job or relationship, there will be worse things in our life that will ultimately come. And that’s just a part of that’s a part of living. But there is plenty of there’s there’s so many beautiful things and so much to wake up and live for. And I think that death has given me this perspective that there will always be bad. It’s inevitable, but there’s equally so much good, and so much, so much great to live for. And that sort of I guess where that is, that is where I, I sit, I guess now, looking back on what I’ve lived through, and how I how I live my life today,
Victoria Volk 1:00:52
That can be a really depressing thought, you know, when you think of people, I just want to elaborate on this. Because when people have experienced something that they think is the worst, right, the worst has already happened. And can get really wrapped up in that emotion of that thinking the worst has already happened. And they can get very depressed and down and things like that. But to have the awareness and the cognitive understanding that, well, gee, there really could be other worse things that can happen to me. It’s like, well, what’s the point of living? Right? But the importance of that. And I think the distinction of your story is that it’s who you surround yourself with. And that is why it’s so important to find community that you don’t grieve alone, so that when those future things happen and occur, you have a foundation of support. And you sought out therapy, which is which is amazing for a 20 something to choose that for himself and a young male, right. So it’s, it’s the action that you’ve taken, and the love that you’ve allowed yourself to receive, that will help you face those future challenges.
Dan Goldberg 1:02:07
Yeah, I really, you know, I said it before, like my, my extended family, but certainly without a doubt the, the community that I’ve found and surrounded myself with is I wouldn’t be where I am today with without, without those people and without that community. I definitely, I definitely would say though, I could see how it could be depressing, you know, but it is it is very, and it’s not to say that there’s like a right way or a wrong way. I think with grief loss can’t like can’t like any of this stuff. You know, it’s like it’s messy. Yeah, it’s very messy. And I think that there’s no right or wrong way. If if if when someone you love is diagnosed with cancer, if you want to turn to, to God and religion great, like you need to find what will what will give you the support that you need to sort of support those people and move forward. And there’s like I said, there’s no right or wrong way. But I do think that there is Yeah, I just think like I rather live in grounded in reality, knowing that life Life is messy. Right? There’s no, there’s no guarantee that tomorrow will come for any of us. And I think I think that and I know we didn’t really touch upon it on this episode, but like, I think the intentionality and intentional with your life is so important. And I think that that’s one of like the greatest gifts that grief has shown me or given me. I think, again, like it’s not like I’m over here thinking, life’s sunshine and butterflies and everything is amazing. But I’m also not down here where it’s like, this sucks, and there’s no purpose and it’s, it’s that I’m very intentional with how and where I choose to spend my time now as a result, knowing that, you know, tomorrow’s not guaranteed I think about it with like, even my my dog or my, my wife, it’s like, put the phone down and go out on go out on a date. And just be with one another because we have this moment here right now. And we should embrace this moment because it’s it is just the reality that we don’t know that there is no guarantee that that moment will be available again next week or tomorrow. And you know, that’s that’s why it’s very frustrating when you see people who are so focused on you know, maybe stuck stuck in their phone just texting away, and they’re not physically wherever they wherever they are, whether it be a wedding or a hike or with friends. Or if you’re getting like stuck on focused on little things in life that don’t really have grand that don’t have like significant impact in your life and you’re so focused on the stupid the stupid thing. It’s like, you know, we don’t know that tomorrow is a guarantee. So just be physically be be be here, be here right now. And embrace them embrace this moment and You know, going going back to just be be intentional. That’s like the one thing that I try to encourage anyone and everyone, if you’re, wherever you are in your life, I really don’t believe that, like, age has an impact with intentionality. I think if you’re in your early 20s, try to try to develop a way to become intentional with how and where you want to spend your time. If you’re in your early 50s Like, and you’ve been living your life a certain way for the last the last 50 years, you if you want to make changes, because you now recognize something, you know, be the intentionality I think is so important in in our own lives. And I think that that’s, that’s like the, that is one of the biggest things that grief has has shown me.
Victoria Volk 1:05:38
I love that. There’s a quote I actually just wrote came across it yesterday, and I wrote it down, it says, if it’s out of your hands, it deserves freedom from your mind to like that. I even knew Ruth said that. And that’s just like, that’s with worry, that’s with, you know, anything that’s out of our hands, right? Like, what will happen tomorrow is out of our hands. It’s what’s going to happen is going to happen. And but we what we have control over is the actions we take. Right? Yeah, intention we bring to each day. Intention has come up a lot for me lately.
Dan Goldberg 1:06:18
Yeah, like intention where? I, you know, I, I’m curious if you see this or from like, I think a lot of people especially, I think both young and old, I don’t think it really skews one way or another. I think older people, I think young people aren’t intentional. I think prior to my dad dying, I certainly wasn’t, you know, like, the most important thing in my life prior to my dad dying, was going to that college party getting drunk and having a good time. I had zero intention in my life. After my dad died. It sort of opened things up. When my mom died. I became Mr. intention that was really like my focus. And I think if you’re young, and you start to focus on like, how do I want to spend my time on this earth, it can sort of push you in a direction because I think when you’re young, you’re told typically, like, You should do this, or you have a teacher, a professor, a friend, a family, friend, a parent tell you, I did this. So you should do that. So there’s, there’s not really this intentionality when you’re young, because you’re just sort of following what you’re told. And I think as you get older, you have your sort of mindset set up that this is how life works. This is, this is what my life looks like, I’ve done this for the last this all you know, I’ve done this for the last two decades. I’m not going to change my life now. And I think as you get older, you don’t necessarily have that intention as well, because you get set in your own ways. So I think like everyone can do a better job at being more intentional. And, again, for me, it’s like, that was the gift that grief gave me this understanding of intentionality, and how it can shape my life differently now as a result, but I think everyone can, can do a better job with being more intentional.
Victoria Volk 1:07:51
I almost think intention might be the antidote for fear. Because how many of us, us, I’m in my 40s, you know, 40s 50s and older, don’t make those changes, or are afraid to make those changes, right. I think fear is a huge driver for a lot of people. And so would you rather have fear be your driver? Or would you rather have intention? Be Your driver?
Dan Goldberg 1:08:20
Yeah it isn’t. You know, that. The other thing? That’s funny, is that just just about fear specifically about fear, it’s like, then you think about it through the lens of of grief and loss. You know, it’s like.
Victoria Volk 1:08:32
End of dying, right?
Dan Goldberg 1:08:33
Yeah. So you know, that’s, that’s where I go back to where it’s like, well, knowing that I could die, what do I really have to lose? What am I really scared of? Is there really, should I really be fearful right now? Or is it or, and, you know, it’s, it’s like, I don’t think there are things that are scary, and you, you shouldn’t be scared. If you want to make some drastic change in life. It might be it would be weird if you weren’t. But you you need to be able to get to a point where I’m scared, but I’m going to do it anyways. So I think that’s, you know, it’s like, those are the things those are the little, the light, I think that grief sort of gives you.
Victoria Volk 1:09:07
And if you change your intention to getting out of your comfort zone, I need to stretch myself, I need to expand like this is going to stretch me this is going to grow me this is going to elevate me in some way. Right? We don’t grow. And if we stay in our comfort zone 100% I think that’s what grief really does is it it just it blows us up. It just blows up our world in our life. And it’s just a matter of gathering up the pieces and putting it back together but with intention of what we want that to look like going forward.
Dan Goldberg 1:09:42
100% agreed.
Victoria Volk 1:09:44
Yeah. Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Dan Goldberg 1:09:48
No, I think I really enjoyed this conversation. And I think we covered we covered a lot over the last hour plus and yeah, any other questions you have for me?
Victoria Volk 1:09:58
Where can people find you if they’d like to connect with you and listen to your podcast.
Dan Goldberg 1:10:02
Yeah, I am on Instagram @danlevgoldberg, D A N L E V Goldberg, G O L D B E R G. And you can connect with me at bitsofgold.com.
Victoria Volk 1:10:02
And I’ll put the links.
Dan Goldberg 1:10:19
Awesome, and I’m on LinkedIn as well. I think it’s just, I think, I think I’m just Daniel Goldberg on LinkedIn.
Victoria Volk 1:10:24
I’ll put the link in the show notes.
Dan Goldberg 1:10:27
Okay, cool.
Victoria Volk 1:10:28
All that you mentioned. And I thank you so much for being here and for living with intention and bringing that intention to the work that you’re doing, at the camps to wherever life takes you moving forward. So,
Dan Goldberg 1:10:44
Appreciate that.
Dan Goldberg 1:10:46
And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Cancer, Chronic Illness, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Parenting, Pespective, Podcast |
Rachael Burns | The Space Inbetween
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
How would you live your life if a ticking time bomb was woven into the very fabric of your everyday life?
Would you carry on business as usual? Would you live like tomorrow is not guaranteed and chip away at your bucket list?
Rachael’s story isn’t about a ticking time bomb that is in her body. Rather, it is about the ticking time bomb of grief that lies in wait due to the one her beloved has in his body. However, that is only part of Rachael’s story.
What if, newly married, you found out you were pregnant, but not only with one baby, but two! What are the odds?!
But what if, a day later, your spouse has a seizure; soon after you find out he has brain cancer? And, not just any cancer – this kind is aggressive, it can never be completely surgically removed, and most people die within 18 months of diagnosis?
The ripples of grief are felt deep and wide. And, when the love of your life, and the father of your children, are living with these odds, how do you truly live?
Rachael’s story doesn’t stop there. She would find herself in her own health crisis after having the twins. Her kidneys were failing, her husband had to forego his chemo because she was in the hospital, and they were both faced with the question of what if something happened to them both? Who would take care of the babies?
After the dust settled, processing all that had transpired has been a process all on its own as well. Grief isn’t only about death. As Rachael’s story illustrates, it’s near-death experiences or living while death hangs around waiting to take you out that cause grief, too.
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Victoria Volk 0:00
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. I am your host Victoria Volk, and today I have with me Rachel burns. She is the founder of true worth financial planning, which helps newly single women get their finances back on track after divorce or the death of a spouse. Her passion for helping women in transition was inspired by her own experiences with grief after her husband was diagnosed with brain cancer. She is a certified financial planner and a certified divorce financial analyst. But most importantly, she’s the mom of three-year-old twin boys. Busy, busy time. Thank you so much for giving your time to my audience today.
Rachael Burns 0:41
Thank you, Victoria. Thanks for having me on.
Victoria Volk 0:43
We have chatted briefly before and I’m excited to chat with you again and for you to share your story with my audience, because I’ve heard it a little bit, but we didn’t get into the deep of it. And so I’m looking forward to that today. But what has been your experience with grief, up until what you’re about to share today?
Rachael Burns 1:10
Before my husband’s diagnosis, my experience with grief was very limited. Fortunately, I had not experienced experienced much in the way of loss except for, you know, grandparents passing away and things like that, but nothing that really shook me to my core, like what I was about to experience. So I had been very fortunate to have a very boring life in that way up until then.
Victoria Volk 1:42
How long were you married? When you and your husband got the news?
Rachael Burns 1:45
We been married probably about two years when we found out when he was diagnosed. So it was still, you know, early, early in marriage. But we had been together for several years before that.
Victoria Volk 2:01
Having children. Was that a conscious decision? Or I mean, I don’t want to say where they oopsie you know what I mean? But because I think that would be a challenging thing, right? Do you? Do you take that path? Don’t you take that path? Like what did that look like that decision making? And
Rachael Burns 2:18
So we had them on purpose, we knew we were going to have one we I guess the second one was an Oopsie. Because they’re twins. We didn’t know we’d have to. But we had planned on having kids. But we found out we were pregnant. I think the day before he had his first seizure. So we didn’t know he had brain cancer when we when we got pregnant. So basically, he comes home from work, I’m like I’m pregnant. And then the next day he had a seizure, and didn’t tell me because he didn’t want to overshadow the good news. And it was a relatively minor seizure. And so he wasn’t super concerned about it, he went to the ER by himself and didn’t tell me this is totally like my husband. And because he had had a relatively benign brain tumor when he was young. And so it wasn’t like that alarming to him that he had a little seizure. So basically, we found out about these two things that are almost exactly the same time he was diagnosed. So we found out we were pregnant, found out he had a brain tumor, found out they were twins, and then found out it was not a low grade recurrence of his old tumor. It was super aggressive grade for glioblastoma. So all of this news we got at almost the exact same time.
Victoria Volk 3:37
Wow. What are the chances you must have asked yourself that a million times like what are the chances like why?
Rachael Burns 3:44
Yes, I thought about that. And I and then I kind of came to the conclusion that we are the one percenters we are the ones that all these really rare events happen to? It’s like, what are the chances of having twins? What are the chances of having this brain cancer if literally, I mean, it was like, it was really bizarre. The odds of all of these things happening were so small that it was like, Well, of course it’s going to happen to us because we’re one percenters or point one percenters?
Victoria Volk 4:15
So the tumor that he had as a child had that been removed?
Rachael Burns 4:19
Yes. So we he was 16. He had a grand mal seizure, and they immediately did surgery and removed the whole tumor. It was a low grade tumor, you know, they took it out because they don’t want it in there. But it wasn’t even really growing. Like they don’t even know how long it had been there. So when it came back, it was in the exact same spot. And, again, they were like, oh, it’s probably not a big deal. It’s probably been growing very, very slowly all this time. But when they took it out, and they biopsied it, they realized it that wasn’t the case. It was a it was a high grade tumor. and that type of tumor you don’t, you don’t ever get it all out. It’s, it’s like, has little tentacles that kind of grow through your brain and you can’t see it on an MRI all the time. And it’s not something you could ever completely remove. So very, very different situation than when he was young.
Victoria Volk 5:16
So what was that like? Like your pregnancy? Like, I mean, that’s it’s stressful alone. I imagine hearing news like that, yeah. And planning for, because what the prognosis was what
Rachael Burns 5:28
The prognosis was really bad when they told us that that’s what what came back with the pathology. They said, Don’t go online and don’t google it. Because the odds are really, really bad. Like, you’re going to be really depressed if you go online and look at the life expectancy, because statistically, life expectancy is an average of 18 months after diagnosis. And that’s really like best case scenario, that’s assuming that you’re able to have a successful surgery and treatment with radiation and chemo best case scenario, you you maybe have 18 months to live after that, but a lot of people and people that I’ve met at the hospital or in waiting rooms for radiation, or whatever, a lot of people die after a couple of months after being diagnosed. So it’s like a really, the prognosis was really bad. They, they said, you have some things in your favor, you’re young, you have these certain genetic traits like that they were able to see when they did the pathology that they could tell that his case was, you know, it’s still an aggressive cancer, but it’s not as horrible as it could be. So there were like, you’re probably going to be on the higher end of the range. But still, they gave us I mean, it was, it was like a couple of years, was the timeframe that they that they gave us. And so that was a difficult thing to process. And as they’re telling us that I’m sitting there with my bagel belly, you know, I’ve got twins that are on the way there was so much. I mean, what we thought our life was in an instant change so much having the kids on the way just made it extra complicated. I mean, obviously, but and extra tragic. And it was just so much to process at one time,
Victoria Volk 7:24
And even just having twins is risky to write. So yes, like, what is the risk to you, as a mother and I can’t even imagine, give us a day in the life of what that was like.
Rachael Burns 7:37
So at that time, Rob had taken some time off work after because he they got him into surgery pretty quickly. And he started doing radiation right away. And I was still working, and just getting more and more pregnant by the day. So, you know, we’re still trying to do normal, quote, unquote, normal stuff, I was still going to work and Rob wasn’t allowed to drive because of his seizures. So I was taking him to radiation every morning before work, and dropping them off. And then you know, leaving for work worrying about him having a seizure when he’s home, alone. And, you know, I’d go to work, I try to get everything done, I tried to be as normal as I could, but it was, it was just, it was just insane to like manage the treatment, you know, the the logistics of the treatment, but then also just managing the emotions and the fear and, and trying to support him. And it was so overwhelming that you just kind of go into shock. And you kind of don’t even realize, you just you just kind of go into survival mode, and you’re not really feeling anything because you’re just like so overwhelmed that I just kind of went into autopilot and did what I had to do to get through each day. Until Until the kids were born basically. And then that definitely shifted a lot of the focus off of his situation, which was kind of kind of a good thing for a little bit. But once the kids were born, then I had some major health issues. I had some pretty bad complications after they were born and was hospitalized for a couple of weeks. So Rob was home, he had to take a break from chemo, because he was home alone with the kids when I was in the hospital. Luckily, our moms were dropping in to help and stuff but like, we had to disrupt his treatment because I was in the hospital with like kidney failure and a pulmonary embolism and all of this like majorly life threatening postpartum stuff. And so he was freaking out thinking I was gonna die and then he was going to die. And then we would have these little babies that had no parents. You know, it’s one thing to plan to try to grasp. Something happening to one of us but like Yeah. And that, that that fear was relatively short lived because I got stabilized fairly quickly. And after that, after I got home from the hospital, I was not in any imminent danger. But there was a time there were, like, we were worried about the kids being orphans, and, you know, needing our parents did raise them, or it was just like, wild, wild time.
Victoria Volk 10:24
And you’re sitting here and you’re telling me about it, almost like it, it’s a recipe. And, you know, I’m, I’m very curious, like, what was the day like, we’re just all kind of hit you, and you allowed yourself to feel and get off autopilot.
Rachael Burns 10:45
It took a, it took a couple of months after the kids were born, where I looked back and thought that was really bad. That was really, really dangerous. It was a really dangerous situation. might let me I mean, health wise, like that, that was as close to dying as I’ve ever come. And once I actually had some time to think about that, it scared me even more like how critical it was. And then, but then, like, thinking about my own health would make me feel like, this is small potatoes compared to what we’re dealing with, with prob like, I’m, I’m gonna be fine. I will survive, but his situation is the same. And so is like, realizing what happened, like finally kind of feeling some feelings about it. And then quickly, remembering Oh, yeah, there’s bigger stuff to worry about. And going back to like dealing with that. So there’s just been, it’s been like one thing after the other, and there’s been so much going on that it really is hard to feel anything, because you have to deal with the next thing. Right away, and you don’t even have like the bandwidth to like, acknowledge your feelings, which is kind of weird.
Victoria Volk 12:14
Do you feel like that’s true for you today?
Rachael Burns 12:17
Yeah, it’s, it’s easy to it’s easy to get wrapped up in the day to day stuff and stay distracted and kind of detached, that’s easy, because just because of the amount of activity in our lives, but then it’s hard. You know, when when I do when I do think about things, and I do remember things, and I do feel those feelings. It’s like, well, what am I going to do with that? I can’t, I mean, I can’t fall apart, I can’t flip out, I can’t, I don’t really have any option other than to just keep chugging along. And so it just becomes this like new reality where there’s this, like, underlying stuff that we all know is there. But there’s not a ton that can be done about it. So we just kind of pretend like it’s not there, which may or may not be healthy.
Victoria Volk 13:13
Do you feel like it’s been impacting you or has impacted you, like physically your body or like emotionally psychologically?
Rachael Burns 13:23
Yeah, it impacts everything. That kind of stress absolutely impacts your, your body and your physical health. And it’s kind of hard to know what issues are stress related and what are, you know, leftover issues from having twins or, you know, COVID related stress and inactivity and all this stuff there. It’s hard to know, it’s hard to know, like how to attribute it, but But it’s certainly impacted every single aspect of my life, physical, emotional, everything. It’s just it’s not always super obvious. But I mean, someone has to kind of beat it out of me a little bit.
Victoria Volk 14:11
I don’t know if you get the impression I’m trying to beat it out of you. I know. I am, I am needling a little bit. Because what I can relate to tiny, just tiny tiny is, you know, we had a family emergency health scare with our son recently and I recognize that autopilot where you you’re shift your focus to what needs to be done and your energy to that other person and, and then when you get in the quiet of your own head, and in your own space, it’s like roof like it just hits you and so have you had moments like that? And have you allowed that to wash over you and
Rachael Burns 14:57
I haven’t felt over overwhelmed with the grief and quite a while just because things feel pretty normal right now, he’s my husband is not in any treatment, his tumor is not growing, it hasn’t been growing for a while. He’s going to work, he’s acting normal. And it’s easy to forget that that ever happened to kind of feels like, that was about dream, or that was a past life, or it’s, it doesn’t even feel like that was real. And I know that he and I deal with things very differently in how we express grief. And I’m someone who kind of verbalizes stuff. And he is someone who, who goes inward and needs to be quiet and not talk to people and doesn’t want to acknowledge his emotions or talk about them. And so it’s even if I wanted to talk about it, or express myself, that’s not really someone that I can do that with, because that’s not his style. And that would actually upset him. Because I, it might be more painful to him that I’m raising things to the surface, and he doesn’t want to do that. And so, you know, you can only express that with certain people or in certain situations, but it’s, I mean, for the most part that’s not happening at home. So yeah, partially, it’s like easy to kind of ignore and pretend like it’s not happening. And then and then. And then even when I do remember, it’s like, well, I don’t know, I don’t really have a ton of options and how and how I can deal with that. I have to keep going, I have to make things normal for my kids, I have to build my business and keep working and be in as good of a spot as I can in case something changes. And falling apart emotionally doesn’t allow me to do that. So I just I kind of feel like well, I don’t have the option of like, really flipping out. Even though I’d kind of like to sometimes.
Victoria Volk 17:22
Do you channel that energy in a different way? Like, have you found a way that you can channel the energy that that emotion when it comes up or or even just to when it’s not coming up. But just because I imagine there’s some anger there, like, you know, just anger of this. It’s this ongoing thing that you can never outrun? Right, you get out run it? And it’s always just like you said, the undercurrent of it is there. Yeah, Have you have you found a way to channel your emotion.
Rachael Burns 17:22
I don’t know that I’ve channeled it but what what I have noticed myself doing is just getting more and more focused on work, like just it’s all I’ve been thinking about and, you know, on the nights, weekends, whatever, I’m always just, like, really obsessing about work. And part of that is because I enjoy my work and part of it is that work needs to possibly support my family at some point. And part of it is I need to keep myself busy so I don’t dwell too much on things. So that’s not the only reason why but I do think that some of that energy gets channeled into the work just because it’s something that I can control it’s something that I can make positive changes in our life does make me feel like I am not powerless. I guess you’re doing something. Yeah, like I’m being productive. I’m taking the right steps because you can’t really be you know, with grief, it’s not productive. You’re not a comp, you’re not like, Oh, I’m I’ve gotten this much grief out of the way so then I only have this much more. It’s like it’s it’s it’s always going to be there. It’s not going away. But part of me feels like okay, I have to be doing something to make the situation better all the time.
Victoria Volk 19:21
In Grief Recovery. One of the myths of grief is keeping busy. So I just want to you know, for anyone listening if they find themselves in your story, have it’s one thing to because my husband he just last night, I’m nights weekends. I’m a hustler, I hustle maybe it’s part of our personalities to like how we’re wired right? To almost detach from what is happening and then pour energy into something that we feel like you said you can control it you have some say in What happens here? I don’t have say a nap. But I have say in this right, yeah. And I find it interesting, the work that you’re doing is with widowers. And so a part of their story, you obviously can relate to in a way that isn’t exactly the same. But you understand this idea. I don’t want to put words in your mouth. But I actually, you’ve expressed this before, briefly. But could you just articulate how your work is being influenced by your experience.
Rachael Burns 20:36
While we were in the midst of everything, and while it was fresh, one thing that I remember is, obviously being overwhelmed with all sorts of parts of this problem that we had to deal with. And some of those were very practical things that we had to worry about. Some of those were, you know, just worries, but because of my background, in my career, you know, I’m a financial person, and have been for a long time. And so one thing that I didn’t worry about at that time was anything financial related, because we had all the things in place that we were supposed to have in place, we were like the poster children of having an estate plan done and having the right insurance and all these things. And so when this happened, I didn’t need to worry, oh, my god, like, if he can’t work, what’s gonna happen? Will you have disability income, if something happens to him can I like, there was a lot of practical parts of that, that I didn’t have to worry about. And the the idea of needing to manage the finances on my own, if I needed to, did not bother me, because I have that background. But then I was thinking, you know, not everyone has that kind of background. And that, for a lot of people is a very, very big component of their stress and their fears. And that was something I didn’t have to worry about. But I wanted to help other women, particularly who are in that situation, because that was something that I could at least offload for them, or help offload? You know, I can’t make things go away, but I can, I can help them understand it and make a plan for the future, at least for their finances. So my goal was just to alleviate some stress from someone who’s going through a difficult transition, whether that’s someone died, they get divorced, they, you know, something unexpected happens when there’s all sorts of transitions that can happen where we have grief associated with that someone doesn’t have to die. But that’s where I felt like I could relate to women that were in that situation, and I could offer them my financial knowledge, but also I my own experiences with that, that I think that helps give me a different perspective and helps give me helps me gives them better quality, support.
Victoria Volk 23:09
And to me, it sounds like it’s meaningful work to to as you’re kind of journeying through this process with your husband.
Rachael Burns 23:19
It is it absolutely is. And I had a feeling that would be meaningful, but I never knew just how much I would get out of it until I actually got into it. Because I’ve been a financial advisor for quite a while but didn’t work with women in transition until everything had happened with our family. And I enjoyed my job before. But once I was working with women in that niche, I got a whole new level of satisfaction from helping women who really, really needed help, and I really identify with them and I have met just hearing their stories and learning about them as has just been such a amazing experience. Even though I’ve been working harder than I ever have before. It doesn’t feel like work because it’s so enjoyable, which is so weird, because a lot of the situations or difficult situations that I’m trying to help with, but it doesn’t feel like work. It feels like I’m trying to help a friend. And that doesn’t feel that doesn’t feel like work. So it gives me a lot of energy to be doing the work that I really get a lot of joy from
Victoria Volk 24:34
That’s when you know you’re aligned in what you’re doing because yeah, like my husband said last night like Don’t you get tired of looking at that computer? You know, like he has to literally almost like pull it away from me and I’m like, but it doesn’t feel like work. Yeah, you know, I’m like creating posts, you know, for my Instagram about grief and, you know, sharing something that I think might be helpful or working on my newsletter or doing this podcast or doesn’t matter what it is, if if I feel like it’s serving someone, I get a lot of gratifying gratification from that. But I want to ask you to, because when I was a new mom, motherhood brings out like all of your insecurities known as entrepreneurship, you’re like, you’re you are where I was, feels like forever ago. And I remember what that time was like, and I personally was, felt like a basket case, right? Because I had grief that I had dealt with. I was, like I said, all my insecurities were coming up in my parenting and all that all these things, right. And so what I just can’t imagine, like also trying to parent twins, first of all, but just trying to parent twins, parent in general, the parent twins, and, and having this undercurrent of concern, fear, all of those things, while trying to navigate all the feelings that are coming up being a mom, like, what does that look like for you.
Rachael Burns 26:15
I feel like we had so many things going on that we’re competing for attention, that it prevented us from obsessing too much about any one thing. So because of what was going on with my husband, it made me a little bit more relaxed. When it came to the kids. I think that if the brain tumor stuff had never happened, I honestly think I’d be a much more neurotic mom. Like, I think I would be panicking about the house being dirty, or about the kids eating something that’s not organic, or like, I know how I was before all of this has happened. And it’s one good thing that has come out of this experience is my priorities have changed. The things that I actually worry about, that list has gotten a lot shorter. Like it’s just made me reassess what’s actually worth worrying about. And so, because of that with the kids, I’m like, whatever, like, I’m doing the best that I can, I genuinely believe that like, this is a tough situation. In a lot of different ways. I’m doing the best I can, I just don’t have the bandwidth to like, freak out about them. spilling stuff all over the carpet and permanently staining it. Like I’m just like, whatever, we have bigger fish to fry. But then at the same time, it goes the other way too. Like with Rob stuff, it’s really easy to get lost in that kind of despair. But then I’ve got these like little kids running around, like hitting each other with fake swords. And it’s like, Okay, I can’t even focus on one thing long enough to like, really get upset about it. So we’ll see what happens when the kids get a little older and aren’t like when it’s not as chaotic in my house.
Victoria Volk 28:10
There you’re keeping busy right now.
Rachael Burns 28:13
Gosh, yeah, yeah. And then also, they just are so hilarious and sweet and wonderful that like there’s so many joyful moments throughout the day that it really counterbalances the stress, or the or the worry, because you just can’t not be in a good mood when you’re around them. For the most part, they do like, scream and you know, they’re like me press. But for the most part, there are really lovely little distraction.
Victoria Volk 28:48
I just was thinking my son, we’re talking about my son, he’s going to be a senior in high school next year. And my husband’s like, I just don’t want to believe like, you know, it’s, I just so remember, I just last night I was just last night I was going off to sleep and I was just like, just for a day I would love to go back in time. And just revel in their curiosity and their I could cry just thinking about it. How Yeah, just just how fast the time goes. And like you said, it’s shifting your priorities. And so it’s not even that they’re this beautiful distraction. It’s like they bring out something when they bring out your insecurities. They also bring out like the kid in you to write the things that you know, you want to get out your sword and pretend and chase and you know all of those things. And fortunately, my husband is like a big kid and that is still a thing in our house. Yeah, there’s no such thing as boredom when there Yeah, that’s such a fun age. And I think Got to allow yourself to embrace that time, regardless of what’s going on. It is probably a beautiful gift that these little people have given you.
Rachael Burns 30:10
Oh, my God, I, this situation would be. So it would be so much different. I think it’d be so much worse if we didn’t have them. I think about that. And I think, oh my god, I can’t even imagine like going through this, just with the two of us and not having something. There’s always something to look forward to with kids. Always. It’s like, like, I’ve been telling my husband in the last couple of weeks. I’m just so excited for Easter, because the kids get so excited about Easter egg hunting, he’s like, it’s February, like calm down. And I’m like, No, but there’s always something to be so excited about. And oh, I can’t wait until they can do this. Like there’s always some milestone, it’s just around the corner. That’s so exciting. And it’s sad when they’re changing so fast, and they’re growing so fast, and you miss how it was when they were smaller, but at the same time, all of the new fun things that they do makes you forget about what you were sad about.
Victoria Volk 31:11
So I’m curious amongst the craziness and the quiet when you have it and everything going on with your husband. That is pretty steady, right? It’s steady. Yeah. How have you been tending to yourself? What does self care looking like for you?
Rachael Burns 31:30
Self-care has been practically non existent. I have been the lowest priority thing in the house for quite a few years, which is understandable. But I haven’t been focused on like, doing something nice for myself, because it’s just not the highest priority. So friend, one of my friends asked me, like, what are you doing for self care? And I laughed, and I was like, take a shower once a week. Like, that’s really exciting. That’s like a, that’s like, my me time is like, five minutes in the shower every few days.
Victoria Volk 32:10
Oh, my God was like, I mean, it’s just me.
Rachael Burns 32:15
Like, I was so I mean, back then it really was that wild. Like, I genuinely could not get it. If you had to be around me, within, you know, a couple of feet of me at that point. I I’m sorry, to anyone who had to be around me. But you know, being a brand new mom. There’s no such thing as self care. You’re not showering, you’re not brushing your teeth and not brushing your hair. You’re not eating anything except for stuff that like fell on the floor. Like, your needs just go out the window. And they kind of stay out the window for a while. So yeah, I don’t know. I don’t even know. Like the concept of self care is like really foreign to me. Right now. I understand how it will work for some people. It’s like, if I can get away for like, a quick weekend with like, my girlfriends that self care. And that’s, that’s like a really big luxury for me. Like if I can get a day or two to like, get out of town. That’s like a big, big deal. Go like drink some wine with my friends and just like sit there. That’s like, Oh, that’s such a recharge. That’s the only self care I can think of right now.
Victoria Volk 33:36
Other than what you’re doing, but you I mean
Rachael Burns 33:39
Other than taking fantastic care of my skin. I mean, that takes up a lot of time too. But
Victoria Volk 33:44
Well, that’s self care. Self Care. I’m just, you’re just kidding. So it’s just natural. No, it’s
Rachael Burns 33:50
It’s like I put this filter on the Zoom where it’s, you know, you can do that on Zoom. It’s not like a crazy filter. It’s not like it doesn’t look fake. It just kind of blurs everything. So now we’re getting into the grief of aging here. It’s not real. Yeah, that’s, that’s some grief in itself.
Victoria Volk 34:09
It is. Oh, yeah. I’m gonna have to check off these filters.
Rachael Burns 34:13
Well, and also you said, you know, you don’t look like someone that’s really stressed out. It’s called Botox, then your your face just can’t make sad faces anymore. That helps that will make you seem like you have it together because your face can’t physically even move like that. Like I can’t look sad. Not for another three months or so until it wears off. So you’ve got to keep it going.
Victoria Volk 34:37
Okay, well, this is the direction of the podcast I didn’t expect. This is real talk. It is real talk. thing. It’s like you’re in the you’re in the thick of it really all you’re in the thick of it. And I say the trenches of motherhood. Now I’m sure you have friends that have kids that are older. Oh yeah. And you have plenty of friends that have told you, you can’t get from an empty cup. Do you feel? Do you feel like you’re like your cup? Do you feel drained?
Rachael Burns 35:10
Yes. Okay, I do. But I feel like that is a temporary state. I know that things will not always be as difficult as they are now. Like, I know that and the kids keep getting older, the kids keep getting easier to deal with. And like, there will be a day when I don’t have to worry about Rob’s brain tumor coming back, because someday he won’t be here. And then like, then there’s other stuff to be worried about, obviously, at that point, but like, the way things are right now is not the way that things will always be. And anytime that things are really difficult, I always remember, they will not always be this difficult. This is like a this is just a point in time. And it’s always changing. So I don’t remember where I was going with that. But sort of that’s like, it’s Oh, my cup, my cup being full. I know that my cup will refill at some point, but it’s just not. It’s just not like, a top priority right now, I guess. Do you try to keep just trying to keep everyone alive and keep keep working? And that’s like, all my, it’s all I have energy for?
Victoria Volk 36:27
I had that thought to like, you just keep on going and keep on going and keep on going. But I look back in hindsight. And it’s like, gosh, if And granted, it was grief, like Grant grief was a huge factor for me and, and your situation is entirely different than anyone listening to this, their situation is going to be entirely different to about I think it’s finding what, like you said just a weekend, or even just two hours in an afternoon to your favorite little shop, or going to a coffee shop and just sitting and watching people which is you know, is that fun? Just watching people. Yeah, making up stories in your head about people like their lives, wondering, you know, that’s, yeah, I like doing stuff like that. But anyway, it’s finding stuff that bring you back to who you were right? Like, kind of, it’s almost like the children, you know, the children remind you of when you were a kid, and it’s doing the things that remind you of the essence of who you are. And I’m I lost sight of that for so many years. And I think if if what what are just share with me, if you don’t mind, what are a couple of things that remind you of the essence of who you are.
Rachael Burns 37:48
That’s interesting, you brought that up, because that’s something that I’ve realized, you don’t realize that you’re forgetting who you are until you remember something. And it can be something so simple as a song that you hear a shirt that you find in the back of your closet, there are these little reminders that I have that take me back to this time when life was simple. And I think I’m a happy person now. But back then I was happy in a very uncomplicated way. And all like hear some song that I didn’t even like that much. But just like a song that I remember from when I was 20 or something. And I’ll just be like, Why do I feel things right now? Like what is what is it about the song like, the Super Bowl was last weekend, and I watched the halftime show. And I remembered like, driving around in my 1996 on a prelude listening to 2001 from Dr. Dre. And I was just like, Oh my god. Life was so fun. All day, every day back then, like, my only job was to just have fun and like barely show up at school. And that was the only requirements of me like today. Yeah. And then in then I’m like, Oh my gosh, I remember I used to be this person who used to have these interests. And I used to do stuff and travel. And I enjoy I enjoyed listening to music and I enjoyed going to find bars and I enjoy doing all these things. And then I’m like, I haven’t done any of those things and so long that I forgot about those parts of myself. Like I forgot that I used to be really silly and I used to I mean, I still laugh a lot but I have forgotten who I am. And I don’t know if that’s more of a grief or if that’s more just having kids and not having any time to do anything for yourself but that that’s like a super weird thing that I’ve experienced.
Victoria Volk 39:45
I did do I experienced that too. And it just I have I use the Passion Planner. And did you know the Passion Planner? Makes stickers I love stickers. And I collected stickers as a kid, like I had tons and tons of stickers, like brings out the kid in me. Every Sunday, I get out my highlighters and my stickers and I, you know, I plan my week for fun with stickers like, yeah, how ridiculous. But I think it’s this little thing that I found that connects me to myself. And I just encourage you, and anyone listening, that when you’re in the thick of stuff, grief, transition, parenthood, whatever it is, to do something that reminds you of the essence of who you are. So you don’t lose touch of that. Because when it feels like a part of you is died. There’s grief in that too.
Rachael Burns 40:39
Yeah. And that’s a very, very real thing is the death of who you once were. Because once once Rob was diagnosed, obviously, there’s the grief associated with the very obvious part of that. But what really disturbed me the most in that time period was, I will never go back to who I was, before I knew that this was coming. I will never ever be that person anymore. I will always have some form of this grief. And even when I would see pictures of myself from like, a few years before, but I didn’t know what was coming. And I was like, I’m like smiling like no idea what’s going on. It’s weird to think that that person is dead, that person will never exist again. That’s a really weird realization. That’s like a really weird part of grief that I wasn’t prepared for I guess.
Victoria Volk 41:45
Yeah. And I talked to someone else, just before we hopped on and one of the themes of our conversation was that she allowed herself to change. And I think we kind of bucked that, or we try to resist that through grief, like grief changing us, but it’s going to whether we like it or not, but it’s allowing that unfolding of the new Rachael 2.0. But when I speak about connecting to the essence of who you are, it’s not even there’s parts of you that regardless of what happens, never change, right? Like, I still love stickers like that is that brings out the kid in me that brings out the essence of who I am. And so that’s really what I’m talking about here is I am not the same person that I was before. Whatever happened to me, you’re not going to be in anyone listening. That’s the case as well. But it’s really, I think, before the world got a hold of you right before brief got a hold of you. What were the things that brought you to life like sparked joy, if we got to.
Rachael Burns 42:52
Marie Kondo
Victoria Volk 42:53
Yes. Marie Kondo our lives, you know, but it really it’s, it’s coming back to the simple things like that, like collecting stickers and, or like playing with playdough with your kids, and making different creations or, you know, and that’s, I think what the gift of those ages are and parenthood is that it’s like you have permission to play. Because if, let’s say you’re just, it was just you and you’re playing with playdough. And someone calls you Hey, what are you doing? I’m playing with playdough. What? You know, you kind of get some side eyes, like, you know, what, when you have little ones it’s, it’s a permission slip to just play? Yeah, yeah. It’s, yeah, I think you can rediscover, there’s an opportunity there for you to rediscover who you were before all of this and who the essence of who you are. Just in everyday parenting with your kids. Yeah. Putting on the music putting on Dr. Dre. Maybe some clean edited. Yeah,
Rachael Burns 43:57
I know, the kids are old enough to where they repeat cuss words. Now, once
Victoria Volk 44:03
You bring some of your play into their world. Yeah, they get to know you that way, too. You know, yeah, that’s good advice. And also to maybe bring that to your relationship, you know, the things that brought you together and you know, before Yeah, then it really it is so important to make your unit a priority. And you but I think if if you have to choose, it’s a lot easier for you to choose time with your spouse than you alone. But that is self care, too. Right. If you’re doing something you enjoy, and you’re sharing it with him, that’s self care, too. Yeah, yeah. When I did for this to turn into like a coaching session. It just so many reminders for me of of where I once was,
Rachael Burns 44:54
yeah. Yeah. It’s funny. We’ve been one thing we’ve been doing is because he works, or his office is close to the house, I work from home, and we’ll like, Go, he’ll be like, Oh, I’m gonna come home for lunch. And we’ll go get lunch. And it turns into just like having cocktails and not working and taking the rest of the day off. But it’s like this really nice thing that we’ll do every once in a while, where we’ll just kind of forget about all of all of our responsibilities. And it’s just time that we haven’t really spent together in a long time where we’re just like, hanging out not dealing with real life stuff.
Victoria Volk 45:43
Play hooky from life. Yeah. playing hooky is fun. So what has your grief taught you?
Rachael Burns 45:50
It has taught me all sorts of things, it’s taught me, I much stronger than I ever thought, which is like, I feel like that’s kind of cliche, but I can endure a lot. And still keep doing what I need to do. Like that has become very clear out of this. situation, um, like, I can handle, I can handle a lot. And if I can handle whatever already been through, there’s really not a lot out there that scares me. Which is like a kind of weird, empowering feeling to have, even like thinking back to when I was in my late 20s. Before I had kids and everything. And like, if I had to go get blood drawn, I would seriously cry. Like they would, they’d be like, Oh, my God, this girl is such a loony. And like I was I was just like, so dramatic, like, Oh, my God, I can’t like, I don’t know, I just, I felt like I had all these kind of fears that were really silly, and really kind of irrational. And then now, after having the kids after having the complications, I remember thinking, There’s not one medical procedure that I can think of, that scares me after what I’ve gone through with the poking and the prodding and the IVs. And the tests, and the, there was a lot of like, really, extraordinarily uncomfortable or painful moments through all of that. And I’m like, There’s nothing that I can think of that would really scare me at this point. And the same goes for things that can happen in life, like losing a job, or losing a family member, or, you know, whatever things that used to scare me, I’ve already proven that I can handle it. So there’s like not a lot to really be scared of anymore. Other than being scared of something happening with my kids, like, there’s so many fears that I didn’t have that I have now, like, oh my god, if they got hurt, I would just like lose my mind. Aside from that, I feel pretty fearless. I can accomplish more than I ever thought was possible. That’s been empowering. And and when I went out on my own and started my own business that that had a lot to do with it. I’m like, Well, clearly I can handle it, because I just survived all of this. So running a business is not. That’s not a big deal at all. I mean, it is a big deal. But it’s not something that scares me. So that’s something that I’ve learned about myself in the process.
Victoria Volk 48:40
I’m finding it a curious aspect of grief that I’m just kind of came to light for me today. And I was talking to someone before I spoke with you, and she’s an entrepreneur, and we’re just kind of thinking about how, as entrepreneurs, you even if you never felt like a leader brings out your leadership skills, right, you have to be able to lead yourself you self self determined you have to have it brings out all it’s brought out aspects of me that I never like, I’m sure people looking like when people see me now. And like think of me when I was young, like, you know, fifth, sixth, fourth grade, whatever, like, oh, never thought you would do that. Right? You know, like I was one of those kids like, Yeah, and so I’ve proven to myself, right? It’s like this, you have to prove it to yourself. And so I think there’s this element of self leadership that comes out of being an entrepreneur and I think that really serves us as Grievers to be able to lead ourselves through the process of grieving in a way that well hopefully is positive and healthy, but it can go the opposite where you just pour yourself even more into work and become a workaholic, and that’s not healthy. I’m talking in a healthy way but I just want Want to highlight though that that’s probably really serving you in that way and will continue to serve you as you navigate this, the unknowns of all of this?
Rachael Burns 50:09
Yeah, one thing that it’s taught me is I really trust myself more than I ever have. I really trust my judgment. And I trust my decision making. And I’m very confident in the decisions that I make now, which has been, I wasn’t expecting that. But it does make me feel like I know what I’m doing. I’m not, you know, this isn’t my first rodeo. So that’s been, it’s been very empowering in that way.
Victoria Volk 50:45
What has been the biggest support for you? Like, especially then, like, when you first found out all of this stuff was happening? Like, what was the most helpful thing that? Where did you find the most support?
Rachael Burns 50:59
Yeah, I, there were two phases in that. And the first phase was maybe the first year after he was diagnosed. And I was not wanting to see people, I was not wanting to be around people, I was not wanting to talk to people about what was going on, I was just, I just wanted to like crawl in a cave and just hide until it was over. And at that point, because I wasn’t really ready to talk about it too much with people. It was more me getting whatever information I could to help process that or to help understand my feelings with that. And and one thing that was so helpful was I found a podcast, it was started as being about grief, it was put on by someone who is around my age, and her husband died of the same type of brain cancer that my husband has. And that sounds like a really depressing podcast. But in reality, when she talked about grief, I could totally identify with things that she was saying. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, I’ve been feeling that. But I couldn’t even articulate that. But now that she said this, I’m like, Oh, my gosh, that’s exactly what I’m going through, which was so helpful. But also, it wasn’t just about grief, it was about overcoming difficult things, which we all do. I mean, everyone has to do difficult things, and we all can relate to that. But the fact that she had gone through this very similar situation, and she had turned it into something that helped others in a very meaningful way. I mean, she, she made a meaningful difference in my life, just from listening to a podcast. This is someone I don’t know, it’s called terrible. Thanks for asking, by the way, I think I we talked about that before. Yep, I’ll put it in the show notes, too. That was such a huge support for me, which is kind of funny, because it’s just like a podcast. But that that was really important. And then once I got through that initial phase, where I was like, Alright, I’m ready to emerge from my cave, and like, talk to people about what’s going on, then, you know, having the support of my friends and family was, and having their support was extremely meaningful during that first phase, but I just was I like, couldn’t, I couldn’t bear to like, be around people. But once I kind of reemerged, I have this new sense of gratitude for the support of my friends and family, just because you don’t know how truly committed they are to you until you go through something really bad. And they show up for you in ways that like you would have never expected and it makes you really appreciative of the support that you didn’t even realize. I mean, I knew that I had the support, but I didn’t know that I had
Rachael Burns 53.58
That, that was that was like a life savings thing. The stuff that my family did for me like when I when Rob was first diagnosed, the first call
Rachael Burns 54:22
That I made, one of the first calls was to my brother and I told him what happened. And I just asked if he could take that if he could be in charge of letting people note because I didn’t want to like keep repeating that story. And I didn’t want to be the one that was responsible for like delivering this horrible news to people. I didn’t want to be responsible for that for like changing their life with this. Like because I knew how much it hurt to be on the receiving end of that news that I didn’t want to give it to anyone else. And like my brother took that off of my plate for me and like Did this really horrible task of being in charge of like delivering horrible news to everyone, but he did that for me and, and my mom, like, would just magically drop food off at my house. And she just like, kind of show up and like, leave food and just kind of run away and give me space and like, your people show up for you. It’s like, they know what to do. In times of need, people know what, what to do. So that was pretty amazing. It’s beautiful. I just got goosebumps. I had a feeling you’d make me cry. I debated whether to put on mascara. But luckily, the filter will blurred out. So back to the filter.
Victoria Volk 55:44
It’s so easy to think about how people don’t show up. But I think it’s reminding ourselves of how people do is far more empowering and self loving, really.
Rachael Burns 55:58
And some of the people who don’t show up. Sometimes it’s just because they can’t they don’t have they don’t have the tools or it’s not, I think it’s easy to get your feelings hurt when you don’t get the type of support you’re expecting from someone or whatever. But like, one thing that I realized is people just don’t know what to do. People don’t know what to do in that situation. There’s no manual on like, how to help your friend whose husband was just diagnosed with brain cancer like, no, no one expects you to be an expert in that. But some people can feel like, I don’t know what to do. I don’t I don’t know if I should talk about it. I don’t want to say the wrong thing. I don’t want to do this like, and then they just kind of freak out and just kind of disappear. I think that’s a really common reaction people have and like, I don’t blame anyone for having that reaction. I think it helps to have some realistic expectations of people knowing that they’re not going to know what to do. I don’t I mean, I don’t know what to do. I don’t expect anyone else to know what to do in that type of situation. So, but it does make you extra appreciative of the people who do like, despite the difficulty of the situation, they still show up.
Victoria Volk 57:08
That’s why I love to ask that question like, What are some of the ways that people supported you? Because I think through this podcast, people can learn different ideas, even if they want to be the one to support someone who’s going through a difficult time. You can learn through podcasts to easily support for others. What is one tip that you would share with somebody who’s in the thick of it, maybe like you or maybe not as far as long as you because we’re all at different points, right?
Rachael Burns 57:39
I don’t know how to answer that. I don’t know, I just feel like everyone’s situation is so different. And I am not an expert. I’m barely an expert in my own life. Like I don’t know how to give advice to someone else who’s like going through something a little bit different. But I think just knowing that no matter what you’re going through, it will not always be that hard. Like nothing stays that hard. I can’t I mean, it’s I guess certain things could get worse, but you will survive difficult things. And you will adapt, and you will learn to accept certain things, and you will learn to move forward and it like when you’re in the thick of it. It’s so hard to see, like what it could look like on the other side, but it will get better. It might have to get worse. It may very well could get worse before it gets better, but it will get better. And like, I don’t know, knowing that made me feel like less despair, I guess. Because I was like, Yeah, this is horrible. But this will not always be this way. That’s the only thing I can really like offer in terms of advice.
Victoria Volk 58:12
Well, let’s shift gears to the work that you do then, yes. And talk about give a piece of advice or suggestion that you would give to somebody putting your financial advisor hat on planner with that hat on what would you say.
Rachael Burns 59:14
So if someone is going through a really difficult situation, and there’s some financial decisions that need to be made, or some sort of actions that need to be taken, and that’s something that’s really causing you a lot of stress. I think it helps to understand that you are not expected to be an expert in your finances. There are other things that are more important at that time. And yeah, there are some decisions that have to be made and some things you can’t put off but no one’s expecting you to be superwoman. Like you can get help on anything that you need. And if that’s financial stuff, there is someone who can break that down and tell you Okay, these are the things that you actually we need to worry about the rest of it, don’t worry about it, you’ve got other stuff to deal with. There’s just there’s a lot of support out there. No matter what your issue is, and particularly with the financial stuff, there are so many advisors or other experts out there that specialize in very specific situations. Where, if you are going through divorce, there is a whole industry out there of people who are able to support people going through divorce, or if you have lost your spouse, there are people who specialize in that type of situation. So there’s really specialized support available, whatever you need help with, and I really encourage people to like, be open to help. And it might take a little bit of digging to find the right person to help you. But there’s just so much support available for you. So don’t feel like you have to do everything alone. Don’t feel like oh, I don’t know what I’m doing. Like, you don’t have to do it alone, you can get help. And someone can help make your life a little bit easier. And you should you should take the opportunity to make your life a little bit easier when you can because life is hard. And you don’t need to take on more than you absolutely need to.
Victoria Volk 1:01:19
What do you think is? I mean, I have an idea. But what do you think is one thing that maybe stops people from seeking help? Can then I’ll share my thought on that around finances?
Rachael Burns 1:01:32
Well, with finances specifically, I think people get scared to face face the facts. I think finances are just a very uncomfortable subject for a lot of people. And that’s for a lot of reasons. You know, a lot of people don’t have the knowledge and they feel bad about their lack of financial knowledge. Or they feel bad about decisions that they’ve made in the past with their finances, or they have all this like guilt and shame wrapped around it. And I think with finances, that’s something that you feel like, oh, I can deal with this later and that you put on the backburner, even though it’s really not something that you should put on the backburner because you need to address it as early as you can. But I think just not wanting to deal with it is like the number one block that keeps people from getting it in order.
Victoria Volk 1:02:30
So once your yes shame, the shame, yeah, you feel around their money. Yeah.
Rachael Burns 1:02:37
Yeah, it’s totally understandable. And it’s very, very common, but like, money is just a thing. I mean, it’s, it’s a more complicated thing than that you need it to get a lot of things. But no one is born bad with money. No one is born good with money. If you make a mistake, that doesn’t need to define the rest of your life, you’re not Oh, the person that screwed up and did this, like, you learn as you go along. And it may be it takes you a while to learn it. But it’s not. It’s doable. It’s something that you kind of have to try to remove the emotions from. And just, you know, what, what you’ve done in the past, that stays in the past, you just kind of have to be willing to, to learn, be open to learning and be open to making some changes when necessary. And if that’s how you get over the shame, part of it.
Victoria Volk 1:03:36
Isn’t the root word of currency current. Because I think of if you think of money as like, currency, right? It’s flows, right? Money flows. It’s, it’s an energetic exchange. And that’s really how I’ve had to reshape my thoughts around money is that it’s an energetic exchange. And just like we have shame in our money, we have shame in our grief and how we handle our grief or how we’re not handling our grief. stop us from seeking help, too. Absolutely. There’s a lot of similarities there. But if someone wants to, if I’m in a situation where I had a death of a spouse, or I’m getting divorced, or recently divorced, where can I? Where’s the Where do you recommend I look for resources.
Rachael Burns 1:04:29
I don’t think there’s one place to go get all information on on that type of thing I think it’s going to take it’s going to depend on what’s your preferred way of receiving that information. If you’re someone who likes if you’re someone like me, who likes to listen to podcasts, any information that I absorb, needs to come in the form of a podcast or else I’m not open to it. So if you’re someone like that, there are so many amazing financial podcasts out there that have different focuses, if you’re interested in budgeting, if you’re interested in planning for retirement, if you’re interested in getting out of debt, that’s like my favorite way. But that’s, that’s me. That’s not That’s not everyone’s cup of tea. If you like reading, there’s some, there’s some great websites, there’s, I mean, advisors like me often put out content, they put out blogs, they put out all sorts of stuff. That’s, I think, a good source of information. I think if you go on social media, there’s a lot of helpful information, but there’s a lot of garbage. And there’s a lot of people who claim to be financial experts, but they’re just like social media personalities, you have to be careful where the information is coming from, but there’s no one place to get the information, it really depends on you just have to kind of poke around in your preferred type of media, I suppose.
Victoria Volk 1:05:56
So if I’m listening, and I really resonate with you, and I like your story, and I want to connect with you, where can I find you.
Rachael Burns 1:06:03
So you can visit my website, it’s trueworthfp.com. And I have my blog on there, I have my story on there. And then I also have a link to schedule a free strategy session, which I really encourage people to take me up on. Because even if it’s not a good fit, you will absolutely walk away with some actionable ideas that you can put into place right now. And even if I mean, if it’s not a good fit, I can give people referrals, I can point them in the right direction. I think that’s a good place to start. And then I’m also active on social media. I’m not one of the people who pretends to have the expertise, I actually have some credentials. But I’m on. I’m on Instagram. It’s true worth FP. I’m on LinkedIn, it’s under my name, Rachel V. Burns. Those are some good places to connect with me and chat with me there. And you can read the stuff that I’m pretty active about posting stuff on there. So that’s, that’s where you can find me. And I’ll put all the links in the show notes, too.
Victoria Volk 1:07:10
But is there anything else that you would like to share?
Rachael Burns 1:07:14
I don’t think so. I have thought about a lot of things in the past hour and 20 minutes that I haven’t thought about in a while. And I don’t think there’s any stones that were left on turned. You know what the one thing I will say is going through really difficult times is part of being human. It is like what when I said it in the beginning of the of the episode about feeling like I’m a one percenter like, of course, of course, it’s going to happen to me everything. Like you’re not being singled out by the universe like, this is this stuff happens to everyone, no one is safe from having bad things happen to them. This is just this is just part of the deal of being human. And I think when you look at it that way, you won’t get as angry when you’re going through something because you know, it’s not just you this is just something that happens to people for no good reason. And it also makes you feel kind of united with other people who are going through difficult things. It made me feel like this is something that we all have in common is going through hard times. Like I just I don’t know why, but it made me feel so much more connected with other people in general, just knowing that we all have something that we’re dealing with, and that makes me feel better for some weird reason.
Victoria Volk 1:08:45
Me too, honestly, like when I think about my podcast, it’s grief is the one thing that unites us all it doesn’t discriminate, it doesn’t care. We are who you are where you’re from your background, your age, doesn’t care. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here. I will put all of your information in the show notes if anyone wants a financial advisor, planner, and thank you so much for being here.
Rachael Burns 1:09:13
Thank you, Victoria. I really appreciate it.
Victoria Volk 1:09:15
And remember, when you unleash your heart you unleash your life. Much love.
