Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, solo episode |
An Announcement and A Poem
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
This week’s episode is a special announcement and a poem for you.
Wednesday, August 30th, is National Grief Awareness Day, and National Overdose Awareness Day is August 31st here in the U.S.
In light of these special days, I feel encouraged to host a virtual gathering this coming September, which is perfect timing because it will coincide with World Suicide Prevention Day. This virtual gathering about understanding and managing grief will be held on Sunday, September 10th, 2023, at 1 PM PST / 3 PM CST / 4 PM EST.
We will meet virtually over Zoom, and it will not be recorded. Please note that it’s also limited to 100 attendees, so register today!
What you will learn at this virtual gathering is:
- General Grief 101
- Why Grief is So Challenging
- How Grief Impacts Our Lives & Our Bodies
- The Ways We’ve Learned & Have Been Conditioned to Manage Grief
- Healthier Ways To Cope & Manage Grief
- Resources & Tools To Support Yourself & Others
- Answers to Questions You May Have (either during the Live or via email afterward)
Let’s Learn, heal, and find solace together. This is your space if you’re seeking a supportive community, expert insights, and practical strategies to navigate your grief journey. Let’s unite, share our stories, and build connections that uplift us on this path of understanding and healing. Register now and take the first step toward healing and growth.
Virtual Gathering Registration HERE.
I share a special poem about grief a little more than mid-way through the episode. If you’ve experienced grief due to the loss of a loving or not-so-loving relationship, I know you will resonate with the poem. Let its verses remind you that you’re not alone in your journey, and hope awaits you.
This is to remind you not just during this National Grief Awareness Day and National Overdose Awareness Day, but every day is a reminder that you are not alone in your journey. These days remind us of our collective strength, resilience, and capacity for healing. Reach out to your support network, share your feelings, and honor those no longer with us. Your story matters, and by coming together, we can uplift each other, raise awareness, and work towards brighter days ahead. There is strength in unity; we can positively impact ourselves and our communities through understanding and compassion.
RESOURCES:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hey, Hey, Hey, Thank you for tuning into grieving voices. I am your host Victoria V. and today’s episode is actually was unplanned. I had an episode recorded, a Q and A episode where I actually answered my own question. One that I had been wondering for the past eighteen years. And yeah, so I hope you come back for that episode. I’m actually really excited to share that one. I’m excited to share all the episodes, but it was a big aha moment for me. And I think if you’re into and particularly if you’re into human design or if you’ve never heard about human design, maybe actually take this time in this coming week to investigate that for yourself. What is human design? Maybe get your own body graph chart, so you kind of have an idea of what I’m talking about next week.
Victoria Volk: But anyway, through this rabbit hole I’ve gone down, I’ve really had a lot of awareness about myself and reflecting on my life in the past and things like that and relationships. And so I’m really excited to share that episode just because I’m learning and sharing as I’m learning. So anyway, but this week is inspired by this week’s episode is inspired by my virtual assistant actually, she helps me a lot with my publishing my social media and graphics, creating the graphics and things like that. But this coming week, tomorrow, actually, it’s like, I’m recording this earlier, but tomorrow, as you’re listening to this Wednesday, the thirtieth is National Grief Awareness Day. And this Thursday, the thirty first is National Overdose Awareness Day here in the United States. And so I always want some special type of post on days like that. On my social media, but she had a great idea that this would be a great episode for your podcast and I couldn’t argue. I was like, yes, that is a great idea.
Victoria Volk: However, I had a synchronic moment where I had read her email and I was actually going through I don’t know what I was reading something about workshops and things like that and seminars and I’m like, yeah, I haven’t done that in a long time. Like, I was just reflecting in my in my own mind, like, man, it’s been since probably like twenty twenty since actually pre-COVID, where I did any type of workshop or webinar or public speaking informational type thing. And that was really when I was kind of fresh into I was only a year into working with grievers. I was doing I could only that first year, I was certified, I could only do actually, first year and a half, I could only do work with grievers in person.
Victoria Volk: So I started one-on-one in groups in person, and then COVID hit in that you know, changed all businesses, how all businesses do business. And the institute through which I’m certified, the Grief Recovery Institute, for my grief work, they had to change how they did things. And so I actually got my advanced certification during COVID where then that allowed me to work with grievers online because it’s not the method isn’t different. It’s just the approach is a little different. And also there’s a lot of, you know, tech things that, you know, they touch on and things like that, which was never wouldn’t have been an issue for me, but it’s just additional training that they require for you to work with grievers online, and it is an additional training.
Victoria Volk: So anyway, I got that out of the way during COVID and also my end-of-life doula certification too. All that to say is I, after that, reflection. I went to Facebook for something entirely different and just to quickly check something. Actually, my I really am not a heavy I’m not a heavy Facebook user at all. Most of actually, anything that you see on social media is auto-posted. So social media is like the necessary evil for my business. It’s just not my favorite thing. I much prefer to sit down with coffee, one-on-one, or a small group in person. Like, in-person is more of my thing.
Victoria Volk: But anyway so I go to Facebook to check to in one of my groups I’m in for my coach that I have for my fitness and nutrition and things like that. And I stumbled upon. I see that I had a notification on my business page and it was this complete stranger. No idea who they are. No idea if they even like my page or follow my page, but they liked two posts that I shared in twenty twenty, and both were about doing a workshop, like an informational thing. In-person, one was in person, and one was online. And talk about synchronicities. This is what I mean friends when I say and I’ve said this in episodes before, like, following the bread crumbs or listening to the nudges or when you knew the universe, when God, your guiding angels, the divine, whatever you wanna call it, whatever you identify with or whatever resonates with you, when you get those moments, pay attention. Like, we get so wrapped up in the day to day life and you know, just in the home. We’re just constantly in the home. Like, doing going from one thing to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing, like a well-oiled machine. Right?
Victoria Volk: That we kind of miss these magical moments. Like, it was a magical moment to me. And I thought, oh my gosh. I gotta do this. I gotta do this. And what a perfect time? It is perfect timing. So this episode is actually me to share with you that I’m going to be doing a free gathering. I’m calling it a gathering because I don’t really like workshop, symposium, lecture, session, webinar, like, all that, whatever. I don’t think this to me feels like more of like, let’s come together, let me teach you some things, and let’s talk about it, and so that’s gonna happen actually on September 10th, which is World Suicide Prevention Day. Perfect day for me, for I feel to have this. And so I’m calling it understanding and managing grief.
And check out the show notes for the link to register. You do have to register. It is limited to a hundred people just because I don’t pay any. I do pay for Zoom, but the max that I can have is a hundred people. I’m not quite ready to dive into, like, several hundred dollars for something like that when I don’t do this stuff that often.
Victoria Volk: But Anyway, so it’s live, it’s virtual, and it’s going to be from three to four thirty central standard time on nine ten on a Sunday, and I hope you join me. Because I’m gonna teach you some things, and we’re gonna hold space for each other. And so I’m really excited to do this because like I said, I haven’t done this since twenty twenty, April of twenty twenty. So it’s about time. And apparently, the universe thinks so too because they gave me all the signs.
Victoria Volk: So what I’m gonna do now is I wanna read something to you that because I wanted to give you something else for today and for this week being National Grief Awareness day, and National Overdose Awareness Day, I want you to listen to what I’m about to say and feel it. And I know you’ll feel it because I feel it when I’m just reading it to myself and when I’m sharing it out loud because I like to read poems out loud even to myself. I wanted to give you something today to let you know that there is always hope that grief comes from the depths of our souls, and we all have a story to tell. And so I think this -this little poem is just devoted to all of those hurting hearts this week, this month, this year, this day, today, tomorrow; we’re all experiencing something. There is not one soul on this earth that is not untouched by grief. I don’t give a crap who you are, even warm buffet grieves, and I’m sure. Because grief comes in many different forms. It takes many different shapes and, you know, it can I mean, I’m sure Warren Buffett lost money in his day. And I’m sure that caused him some grief. But all that to say is, there is no one unscathed on this earth, so when it comes to grief.
Victoria Volk: So I’m gonna read this to you and leave it with you today. And whenever you wanna come back and listen to it, it’s about twelve minutes in. Twelve minutes, thirty seconds in. You can fast-forward and just listen to that.
Victoria Volk: Grief’s journey, a poem. In shadows cast by silent tears, grief’s heavy veil, a shroud appears. A haunting ache, a mournful song, a journey where we all belong. In tender whispers of the breeze, the echoes of what used to be we find our hearts held by the past, a love, too precious, and too vast. The empty chair, the vacant space, along in gaze we can’t erase. Yet in this pain, we still can see the bonds of love that set us free. Grief cars a path through depths of soul, a rivers course both deep and whole, it teaches us to hold our pain and slowly find our peace again. And memories like fragile light, we find the strength to face the night, to honor those we’ve had to part and heal the ache within the heart. Though tears may fall like gentle rain and healing feels like distant terrain, grief’s journey shapes us, molds us new, emerging stronger, tried, and true. In shadows cast, by hearts, estranged, grief tendrils twine a truth unchanged. Where love once bloomed, now withered with tears, into less than loving bonds, it’s clear. A dance of size, a silent pain, where once was sunshine, now is rain. The hollow echoes of what was lost in a love that faltered at a cost. The bitterness of words unsaid in hearts that ache where hopes have fled, the ache of longing unfulfilled, and empty spaces, grief distilled. Two soles adrift in separate seas, once entwined, now brought to knees. The scars of love turned cold and gray, in fractured bonds that fade away. The grief finds its place and loves debris appointment reminder of what could be, in less than loving realms we roam, projecting remnants of a broken home. So let us share this weight we bear. Reach out to others in despair. For through our pain, connections birthed and in each other loves unearthed. In grief’s embrace, we find our way, to brighter skies, a hopeful day for as we navigate the pain, we find that love will still remain.
Victoria Volk: I hope that resonated with you. And if it did, please share it with someone you know or love who might be struggling today or this week or this month. You never know what one little piece of encouragement can do for another. And I hope you can join me on September 10th. Again, it’s limited to a hundred people, so I encourage you to register early. And the link will be sent out after you register and it will not be recorded. I wanted to create a safe space for people to feel open and sharing if they feel called to. And I think if it’s recorded, people don’t necessarily feel like they can share openly and freely. And so it will only be live you will not receive a replay. And but I will provide some handouts or some things that I don’t want people to be taking notes during this either. So I’m going to provide whatever it is that you need you know, if you there’s information you wanna come back to, things like that, and some resources as well. And there’ll also be some time for some Q and A too. So I hope you can join me again September 10th, It’s Sunday, three to four thirty Central Standard Time, understanding and managing grief.
Victoria Volk: Thank you again for tuning into this episode. I send you all so much love and light this week as we go into National Grief Awareness Day and National Overdose Awareness Day just reach out to someone that you think might be struggling and say, hey, I’m here for you. Just sending you some love and light and thinking about you and it can go a long way. You just never know. So again, lots of love to you. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Childhood Grief, Divorce, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Growth, Healing, Mind/Body Wellness, Podcast, Spirituality, Where Are They Now? |
Phoebe Leona: Where Are They Now? | Magic in the Mess
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
This week, we catch up with previous Grieving Voices guest Phoebe Leona.
I had received a newsletter from Phoebe providing some updates that, I felt, would be a great episode to talk about the potential/impending loss of something she had built with love, sweat, tears, and probably plenty of finances, too.
Sometimes to grow and evolve, we need to close one door so another may open. Little did I expect that as this episode goes live, I feel we could record a third episode – stay tuned…
Back to this episode; this is for you if you are feeling stuck in a mess and having difficulty feeling the magic of the situation and your experience. As Phoebe shares in this episode: “When it is meant for you, you cannot mess it up.”
Be a fly on the wall of this conversation about growth, hard transitions, finding love again, and perhaps more importantly…finding yourself and the magic while in the mess. Or, as I like to say: the thick of the ick.
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. I’m so happy that you’ve pushed play on this episode. And today is a where are they now episode. And I’m following up with my previous guest Phoebe Leona, where we originally had our episode. The first episode were recorded, went live on March twenty-ninth twenty twenty-two. It’s episode ninety two. And it’s titled, I’m only grieving Fridays. And it was all about her experience of losing her father and how that was the catalyst for all of the change that she described in that episode. And now we’re back for Phoebe 3.0 because there’s been a lot of change in transition and a new evolution to Phoebe’s life that I came across because of her newsletter. If you don’t know, when people become guests on my podcast, I often tried to keep up with them and whether that’s on social media or their newsletter or I think a lot of my guests become friends. And so And I’ve always been the person that, like, loves to, where are they now? Right? Like, the eighties pop stars of the one-hit wonders. I’ve always looking up, like, wonder what happened to them, you know. So today is the I wonder what happened with Phoebe. So here she is ladies and gentlemen. TV, what brings you to the podcast? Actually, I asked you to come back on the podcast. So let’s get that great. But I would love to have you share with me what has transpired since we last recorded.
Phoebe Leona: Oh, yeah. Well, first of all, thank you so much for inviting me back, Victoria. It’s such a joy to be with you, and I was before we press record, we were thinking about when was it that we sat together. And I think also, since then, you came on my podcast, so that’s where I was getting my dates confused. Where are they now? Where is Phoebe Leona now? Before, I think you said March twenty twenty-two. So my book did come out. We did talk a bit about that and how is about to be burzed out into the world. So the book was launched April fourth, twenty twenty two. So it’s been officially out for more than a year now. And it’s my little baby. It’s out in the world doing its thing. I did a bit of a book tour. It was on many podcasts. I also created this live experience called the rating experience where I brought together because when I and I don’t know if I talked about this that day, but when I was called to write the book, I knew it wasn’t just going to be a book, I knew it was something that was multidimensional.
Phoebe Leona: So with the medium of having dance being a primary part of my life and also was part of the book too because I talk about how dance really saved me and was a huge healing modality for me as I was going through all of the trauma and all of the grief throughout my childhood and my adulthood when I was dealing with the loss of my father and my divorce. So I wanted to bring that element to life. So I created this thing called Radian Experience, where it was a book reading essentially, but I was also dancing and I also had a friend who’s palette who brought some of the letters that I write to the emotions. She wrote she read them. Out as a poem as I danced, and we had a painter painting live behind me on a beautiful canvas and a sound healer. Creating a soundscape for everybody to be in that space with me those moments of my childhood, those moments of grief, and my adulthood. So that was a really powerful experience and we’re playing around with what more we can do with that. What else has happened with dear radiant one, my little baby, was nominated for best spiritual memoir by own times. Just recently, which I’m very excited about. Yeah. Very excited about.
Phoebe Leona: Thank you. And like I said, I’m just letting it do its thing. And I did talk a bit about my company, NoMad, which was birth from all of that grief of twenty thirteen when I went through everything. I always let NoMad guide me and I follow the breadcrumbs to where what it wanted to do next. And that’s how I feel with all of my creations, including Dear Radian one of, okay, I gave birth it. I put up my heart and soul into it. And now what does it want to become now that it’s out into this world? So I’m sure there’s going to be maybe another 4.0 version.
Victoria Volk: Guaranteed.
Phoebe Leona: That I have no idea. I have absolutely no idea what that will look like, but I’m that’s why I love what I do because I just lean into that mystery of what it wants to it’s a true co-creation. And I love having that space and that deep trust for the creation to just whisper to me or maybe shout at me if I’m not really listening. To say, okay, this is what needs to happen now. And yeah.
Victoria Volk: Okay. So because you brought up co creation and I hear a lot of intuitive vibes in what you’re talking about. Can you share with people how you tapped into that personally and any advice that you would give to others to who may not be getting the message. And then what is that not getting the message play out like in real life. Right?
Phoebe Leona: Oh, I’m getting massive chills in my body. So this is a very good question, and I think we could dig deep into this. So intuition, everybody’s born with us, this idea of intuition. We have these clear abilities. And clairvoyance is one that I think a lot of people know to be, you know, the mediums or the psychics and they have visions. And we don’t necessarily need to tap into it and identify as a medium or a psychic. But we have these clear abilities, which means that we are able to sense the unseen world and have communication with our souls, desire, our guides, our angels, whatever you wanna identify with. I’m not going to label them for you. You can choose if you align with that or not. But there is some sort of sense. So when you just spoke to me, I got chills in my body. So this is a clearability of clear sentence.
Phoebe Leona: So my physical body is giving me or an emotional body as well was giving me signs like, oh, yes, lean into this. When you do meditations and you and you visualize, right, when somebody guides you through a visualization and you can actually see what your future could look like or where that scenario that person is guiding you to or maybe you just do it on your own. That is you tapping into that clairvoyance. So you can dive in deeper and do some research if this is a new idea too. But when we have these abilities to tapping to the unseen world. This is the tapping on the shoulder. Listen, this might be something here you. This is your yes. This is your no. This is that gut instinct. Right? We have even in our vocabulary of I just knew it in my gut. Right? Or you know
Victoria Volk: Spidey sense.
Phoebe Leona: Spidey sense. Right? We have this nomenclature for it in our worlds. And this is really us tapping into our intuition. Now my personal story with intuition was and I might have spoken about this when we sat down the last time I was super intuitive. I had this ability to sense the energy in my space changing that made me afraid to really use my intuition because what I thought was I was creating the scenarios. So my father being, you know, dealing with his PTSD, he would go into flashbacks, and I would actually sense the energy change when he was triggered. So before he physically acted it out in our worlds, in our reality that we were sharing, I felt it. And so when I felt that energy and then I saw it play out in my physical world, I thought, oh my god, I’m crazy, and this is a curse. So I share that because some people might not have had that dramatic story, but they might have had a conditioning. Right? A lot of times as children, we’re being conditioned to not feel these intuitive spider senses, as you said.
Phoebe Leona: We might feel very emotional because we’re in a situation that is unsafe, but our parents said, oh, that you shouldn’t be acting out right now. You can’t act your fears out or your anxiety out right now, so we had to clamp down on these emotions that are part of our intuition as well as children. So there is that looking at it as possibly that it was a curse or maybe it was just programmed out of you.
Phoebe Leona: And so I think it’s really important to know that it’s not a bad thing if you don’t know how to tap into your intuition. This might just be part of your story. And so if you’re curious to be more intuitive and lean into it, there are ways of getting there. And a lot of the work that I do with the somatic work, if that’s a word that nobody knows out there, it’s really just being in the body, it’s being embodied. Being able to tap into your physical body, the sensations that I said, the emotions that are coming through, not just getting lost in your head because a lot of times in our head. It’s, you know, not really truly in our reality. That’s not really our intuition. The messages that come through intuition are usually down in our heart space. And these messages come through as a very like, whenever I feel them come through, it’s just one word or a short phrase, and it’s usually like a heartbeat or like a metronome, like, yes, yes, you got this, might feel like a mantra to me. It is that gut sense. Right? It is that just you feel it in your body. If it’s all up in your head and it’s, oh, like, the squirrel cut, like, the dog and the squirrel. Like, the dog is just, oh, scroll there. Scroll there. Right? If that’s what your mind is doing or you’re getting on cancer, we’ll have all of these different thoughts. That’s not usually your intuition. Right? That’s you just kind of up there letting,
Victoria Volk: Anxiety.
Phoebe Leona: Anxiety. Yeah. Anxiety.
Victoria Volk: Stress,
Phoebe Leona: Ego, Fear, all of it run the show. So I feel that when we can start to really drop down into just listening not needing to know the answer, and that’s what I think happens a lot is something feels uncomfortable. How do we fix it? Right? Let me look at all the things and let me write out the to do list and let me take a class or look at YouTube or Google it and find, go outside of myself. To find the answer. But when we really can just drop down, take a few breaths, understand again, maybe tap into your clear abilities if you know what they are or work on focusing on how to strengthen those. And listen to what’s coming through, whether it is that visualization or whether it is that feeling in your body or whether it is maybe a sound, maybe there is an audio message that you receive or a sound, like sometimes I have ringing in my ears. So there are a lot of ways to listen to your intuition.
Victoria Volk: Repetitive numbers, signs, those two.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. Yeah. The Angel numbers I see Angel numbers all the time, like, the seven sevens are always in my world.
Victoria Volk: Actually, I had two podcast episodes, recent ones back to back that were the exact same time. Oh, both episodes. And I’m like, oh my gosh. Did I upload the wrong episode? Yeah.
Phoebe Leona: At the end on that today? Oh,
Victoria Volk: Oh,
Victoria Volk: So how did all of this play into the version of yourself that you’re stepping into now?
Phoene Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: I’ve closed a business. I know I know what that process is like and it’s heart wrenching. Yeah. It’s painfully. It’s a painful awareness because you know how much blood sweat and tears you poured into something.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: And I’ll just say, from my own perspective, what I’ve come to know is that everything is just a stepping stone.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: And I didn’t fail in that business. You know, when I closed it, people I know people thought people even asked me, oh, we couldn’t make it or whatever because where I live and what I was charging or what have you and a lot of ego thoughts I had and myself too, but really it was I had to close that door for something else to come in.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: And I wrote my book, and then I started another business that wasn’t the right business. And I had a one chance off conversation with friend who I was working with, and she’s like, you know, for this one business, for my website. And she’s like, you wrote a book, didn’t you, about grief? I’m like, yeah, why aren’t you helping people in their grief? And I was like, Okay. Captain obvious. Good question. And so it was a question. You know, we can’t see the label from inside the jar, and so that one conversation has landed me talking to you again for a second time. It’s you know, so we have these moments in our lives that are truly transformative. Are what do they call those moments? What do they call it? A moment that changes everything.
Phoebe Leona: Like a pivotal.
Victoria Volk: Like a pivotal
Victoria Volk: Yeah. — pivotal point.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: So what happened? It’s changed. And how did that come to be?
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. Okay. I feel like I wanna go back again because I didn’t fully answer your other question. So I wanna finish that, which will feed into that. And I also wanna bring other people up to speed because they didn’t talk too much about that part of what shifted for me in terms of nomad. So in terms of the intuition, what you had asked me is, what would it look like if you don’t listen to it? And that leads us into this question really.
Victoria Volk: Right.
Phoebe Leona: It’s basically I like to think of it as this child Right? You’re the mom or the father of a child saying, hey, like, just tapping on your shoulder. Like, hey, I need a little attention here. That’s your intuition going, hey, this might not be the best thing to do or go for it or whatever. And if you’re not listening to it, it gets louder and louder and louder until it’s like full on temper tantrum. So in the external world, that looks like, oh, there’s a challenge. Now we don’t sometimes we go, okay, I’m ready to step into this challenge or I’m going to ignore the challenge. Right? We make our choices there. But if it’s I don’t wanna call it the wrong choice. But if it’s the choice that our intuition is guiding us because it knows. Right? It’s our higher self. It’s our soul. It can see your life from a bird’s eye view, and it kinda comes back down into this reality. And it’s like, oh, that’s a good move. Oh, that’s not a good move. Right? So it’s understanding, learning how to trust it. And so that little child that’s tugging on you is going, go this direction. Go that direction. Right? Because you can see that bird’s eye view. But if you don’t listen to it, yes, more challenges, more obstacles come up, and it turns into that temper tantrum.
Phoebe Leona: So where I am with NoMad, that’s the company that I started because of the year of grief. I wanted to have power back because in that year, January, my father died. March, my husband of fifteen years, said, I wanna end our marriage. That started the domino effect of losing my home, my dog, my physical health was at stake because of all the stress. And then the one thing that was still there that I had was my job that wasn’t filling my soul at all. And it was a choice that I had made because of these other two people that were no longer in my life And so that was the one thing that I said, I wanna have control over this. I want to live in alignment with my soul’s purpose, which was to really create a space for people to have a sense of belonging and purpose. And what are the two things that I did at the time while I hot yoga, that was the modality, and I wanted to travel more. So we started NoMad from this place of wanting to feel empowered in my life again and have these other aspects of myself be, you know, fueled again. So I started a retreat-based business. That’s what NoMad was.
Phoebe Leona: And as I said at the very beginning with Dear Radiant, why don’t I just kind of when I create something, I follow the breadcrumbs. So Nomad has been not just a retreat based business where I taught yoga was the modality, but it’s evolved into another modality that I created, a somatic practice called Movement one o nine, that was one of the bread crumbs. It turned into local community events where we had two hundred people at the summer solstice bring coming together in my Hudson Valley community here in New York, it turned into me leading yoga teacher trainings. It also turned into having to go online when we’ve all went into lockdown and figuring that part of the world out. So it evbed and flowed and morphed and shape-shifted in so many different ways. And I just leaned in and they said, okay, what do you wanna do now, baby? Now when I started it, the other aspect that I wanted in that part was I just had this vision that it was going to be with my partner. Like, didn’t have a partner. But I said, if you build it, he will come.
Phoebe Leona: And he did it. I mean, I had a couple of relationships that it could have potentially turned into that, but they all fell apart. Because I was still going through my own grief am I, you know, recovering from my trauma. So a lot of those relationships as beautiful as they were, they triggered a lot, and they got me to evolve further by leaving them and then doing the inner work.
Phoebe Leona: So here I am almost ten years, I guess it’s we’ll be celebrating nine years this year of NoMad, still no partner, letting it kind of morph into things, but I’ve also taken all these other branches, like Movement one o nine, like my book, Dear Radiant One, which can fit under the umbrella of NoMad, but I was noticing that my community was under the umbrella of just NoMad was getting smaller and smaller. And I just could’ve, like, you know, like, square peg triangle or whatever that scene is, a square peg, round hole, whatever. I was just like, oh, no. Just oh, this is all, NoMad. But now I think that there’s something within what I’ve created there and I don’t quite know what it is yet. I don’t know if it’s a book.
I don’t know if it’s Movement one o nine. It might be a combination of both. It might be something completely new. I said in the I think I said in the email that you read. I’m sort of mushy. I’m in the chrysalis. So I’m just letting it morph into what it wants to become right now. But I am also grieving. Right? Here we are talking about our grieving hearts. I’m grieving because it is my baby. I put my hot blood, sweat, love, heart, soul, tears into it. And I’m kind of like, was that a waste of time? And it isn’t. Yeah. Absolutely not. And I really resonate with what you were saying about other people saying, you didn’t make it or you failed. And I don’t feel that. I feel I feel frustrated because I want Nomad to I want I see no I always see my creations as little babies. I’m like, I want my baby to see this world and really be the vision that we had together. So I’m letting go of that idea of NoMad might not get to do the things that we had envisioned together. So yeah. I’m hearing I’m getting a little teary. I didn’t show up. But I do have a deep sense of trust that something else is being born, and I just I have absolutely no idea what it is. And I have a feeling just sitting here talking to you right now, Victoria, that magic is happening.
Victoria Volk: I got full body goosebumps like I if you could see my chicken zips right now.
Phoebe Leona: You’re chicken. I love it. Yeah. I mean, it might just be and I invite this for anybody out there listening. It might just be that you would you just spark something within me hearing your words. That an idea will come out whether it’s just I walk away from that and go, oh, actually, there’s some insight that I hadn’t seen yet. You’re a mirror for me. It might be that you and I are gonna get off of this and go, oh, wait, what about this and this and this and we collaborate or you connect me with somebody or there might be somebody listening here and go don’t let Nomad, go to bed. I love what you’re doing. Did they reach out to me or somebody else, you know, is inspired by our conversation and they go make a big life shift? Right? It doesn’t have to be related directly to me. It might be that somebody out there listening is going, oh, I’m going to listen to my intuition and yes, I need to leave that romantic relationship or that job or maybe it’s time for me to take the leap and make that new step into what I most desire. So who knows what universe is doing right now as you and I are speaking.
Victori Volk: We’re cocreating magic.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. We’re cocreating magic right now, and the magic happens within the grief. Mhmm. It has to,
Victoria Volk: and I think because of it.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. Yeah. I just got chills again.
Victoria Volk: Let’s just talk this out then.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: So what was the dream or is the dream that you had for so long? When you started NoMad?
Phoebe Leona: It was it was providing a space for people who were making transitions in their life. Because I had just gone through and was still going through it. Right? That year of grief, that year of great loss, that year of stepping into the unknown. And as I was doing it, a lot of people were applauding me saying, wow, you made a huge leap.
Phoebe Leona: And I didn’t see it as that. I saw it as, wow, I just got jot down. And I’m taking this one little thing where I might have some power and I was claiming it back. And I didn’t see myself as any sort of hero and that I was just trying to survive, but people were applauding me in that sense of wow, I wish I could do something like that. And I thought, you can, why not? You know, it came sick in nature to me, but I also know that that came from a lot of, you know, I know you had a similar childhood like having to deal with so much chaos. Chaos. Exactly that you don’t know that you didn’t know you don’t realize you had a choice. Right? It’s just like, yeah. This is just what my phase. You just keep going and roll with the punches. So when I started to see that something that came somewhat second nature to me doesn’t come for other people, I thought, well, what if I provide a space what if I take them out of their ordinary life, bring them to a retreats, yes, they get to see somewhere beautiful and you know, have beautiful food and make connections and see parts of the world that maybe they never had seen before, but also see parts of themselves that they had never seen before and tap into this new not a new version I shouldn’t say that, but this version of themselves that they hadn’t really tapped into in this reality or maybe this time and space. Right? Maybe they knew that was a part of them and they lost it along the way. But tap back into that and say you do have the power. If you’re in a toxic relationship, you have the power to leave it. If you are not living in alignment with your soul’s purse purpose. You can leave the job or you can make a big move, you know, physically across the world or whatever it is. It might also be really small and subtle but it changes your whole internal landscape. So that was the vision. And like I said, when you and I say this a lot of my teaching when you know your why, when you’re so aligned with your purpose. The Whats? Doesn’t matter. So, yeah, use the what of the retreats, but the “why” that creating space for people to have that greater sense of belonging so that they could make those transitions in their life was my why and has it has been my heartbeat these whole years since then. And so, yeah, the what is wants to be something new right now, and don’t know what that is.
Victoria Volk: You missed a question though.
Phoebe Leona: How how how how in terms of what how what
Victoria Volk: How do you envision it looking?
Phoebe Leona: Well, I think that’s where maybe that’s a good thing or maybe it’s a bad thing. I don’t have, like, specific visions of how I want it to look. I envision it as this is why I’m showing up in the world. And I trust that universal provide the how and the what. And maybe that is my downfall. And maybe you’re giving me some insight as to get clear focus, baby?
Victoria Volk: Because this is the thing. It’s like we’re always co-creating or always manifesting, but the universe doesn’t know what to manifest or co-create or bring to you. Yes. You’re not clear on the how.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. Yeah. Story of my life, I think, Victoria.
Victoria Volk: Well, here’s the thing. So, like, I mean, I’m not intending to turn this into, like, some sort of, like, coaching session or anything.
Phoebe Leona: No. I love I get pre therapy today?
Victoria Volk: Here’s the things. When I think of you and when I think about everything that you’ve talked about and shared with me, in the audience, I feel like you’re a very grounding presence for people. Right? So, like, when people are around you and you have these retreats, feel like you are very grounding for them.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: But Phoebe grounded, how do you fly? Who encourages you and who is the person or what is it, what elements in your life are not, some people need accountability Some people just need a cheerleader. Some people need someone to challenge them. So I think so often too, like, especially helpers they have a hard time asking for help. Mhmm. And so am I am I nailing
Phoebe Leona: Oh, for sure.
Phoebe Leona: Oh, yeah. We got this. Yeah. And I mean, I know you want there was an aspect that you and I talked before, we press record that we’re gonna go to right now is this idea of love in my life. And That has been a huge game changer for me because, yes, going through so much chaos in my childhood alone, I did not know how to ask for help. And going through it again in twenty thirteen, it was the universe going, you need to ask for help Phoebe. And I did. I had to lean in to my family. I had to lean in to some people even strangers because I went to live in Costa Rica for a period of time and didn’t fluently speak Spanish, so I had to rely on strangers to help me. So it’s been a lesson the last nine years of ass asking for help, but still what you just saw, what you just reflected back of the ground in this, that was me going, I need to survive. I need to be really grounded here and not only because I’m a helper, like you said, and on hold space for other people, but I need to provide that for myself. And it was a little bit of survival mode. Right? Or a lot of survival mode. It was just holding on for dear life of okay. Gotta get my shit together.
Victoria Volk: Sols. Can I ask you? Yeah. They don’t mean to interject, but I just because so, like, it feels like because I know for me too, like, I had this grip or this hold. Right? On something, like, this is my identity. Right? Like, this is my identity. This is who I am. This is, you know, what who am I without this?
Phoebe Leona: Yes.
Victoria Volk: Do you feel like the only way to find out if that is where you want to continue to go as if just letting it go, like, backing away for a time.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. I’m I think I’m in that, that’s why I’m in the chrysalis because it’s the that’s that mushy part. Right? When you’re in the crystal, well, from the little caterpillars in the chrysalis. Maybe we’re in the chrysalis too right now, who knows? But when we’re physically in that idea of the chrysalis, you become mushy. Right? You so you have to have that deep surrender, but at some point, right, when it’s making that shift to become the butterfly, there is the resistance. Mhmm. Like, it has to press out to create the wings. So there is this play between the deep surrender and that resistance of becoming the something new. And that’s really where I’m at right now of letting go of that identity. No man was my identity. For, you know, almost nine years now. And it is letting that go but there’s a there has to be a bit of resistance of like, okay. Well, how do you wanna see the next vision, right, and create that? And so that is, I’m not taking it as a cop out, but I am they I’m figuring out what the how is
Victoria Volk: The “How” that’s where we came back to is the “how”.
Phoebe Leona: Is the how because I’m kind of like, well, I was this for, you know, nine years. That’s all I knew to a certain extent because I was so had the death grip. Like, of Nomad and even though it’s letting it up and flow, but there was this has to survive because it was me proving to the world that I can do this I survived that horrible year and look what came from it, and I’m gonna use it. And you universe is telling me, like, you’re good. You’re so alive. You got this. You don’t have to just be in survival note mode now. You can actually thrive and spread your wings and fly. But I’m not quite there yet because I’m thinking, well, what is that gonna look like? And I guess maybe I’ll find out because the butterfly is not looking, maybe it is, and the, like, wings, like, oh, look at those colors. I’m not sure. Bright and then it just flies and it’s like, oh, okay. I’m crying. So I’m in that exploring process and there’s a little bit of playing with ideas, but also not being attached to them right now and seeing what what comes out of it. But I do wanna answer a little bit more, go a little deeper into this idea of the partner because I did have this vision of my partner is going to come in. But I had somewhat rules and regulation of what he was going to look like and be like because he was going to play a large role in my business, in my vision of them. And it’s really interesting because I’ve been completely single for six years now. Here I am doing my thing. I’m writing a book. I’m doing no mood or a pandemic. I’m still standing. And there were just all these challenges that came. Right? Everybody, I’m not saying I’m not doing a woe’s knee. Everybody has been gone through letting go of the old normal, right, going into that lockdown. There was a deep sense of grief during that period and letting go of your old identities, get letting go of old relationships, jobs, whatever. So I was in that at that time too and trying to figure out what NoMad wanted to be. And like I said, though, that was really when I was doing the square peg round hole and figuring out, well, let’s try to do online. You know, programs or membership or, you know, one on ones. And I was just, like, figuring out what it wasn’t. It just didn’t translate in the way of really being in person with people. And so, you know, the finances were not coming in, I was not receiving the abundance that made it not only thriving but not sustainable. I invested a lot in my book. You know, I did a hybrid publishing, which I am grateful for. I have really love the team of Grace Point, but it was a huge investment that I probably didn’t have, but I just going, it’s gonna pay off. It’s gonna pay off. And because I believe in myself and I even this morning, I was crying about that, my eyes are probably still a little puffy. And here I am about the the brink of letting go of my business and possibly declaring bankruptcy from putting my heart and soul in finances into it and steps in literally out of nowhere this man who just I met him and he’s my person. Like, there’s no doubt about it. And it’s it’s really quite beautiful how it happened because it somebody matched us up who I’ve known for twenty years and she’s known him his entire life since she was five years old. And just out of the blue said, hey, you two should meet. And it’s really quite beautiful.
Phoebe Leona: So I think that I did manifest the how of Nomad, but it also wants to become something completely new and different. And so maybe he’s stepping in because he does have a lot of similarities in terms of strengths that I don’t have that could really be a beautiful combination of what I envisioned originally. He even came to me with this vision that I didn’t put into his head. He said, I think we should do retreats together down the line. We need to do this. So it might turn into Nomad 2.0 after we reestablish our personal relationship and build that business or it might be that we need to co-create something completely new together. I’m not sure yet. And this is the first time I’m, like, publicly talking about this.
Victoria Volk: Well, I got my chicken zits again when you were talking about it. So it feels like truth to me.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. Yeah. It’s kind of wild. So
Victoria Volk: Is that crazy? I mean, just sit just for a moment. Like, just I mean, we don’t do this enough. Like, just really reflect back. Like, life is crazy. Like, you just cannot anticipate the amazingness that can happen. Right? We don’t It’s like you will you think when you’re in the thick of the icky? The thick of the neck. And you’re in the thick of the neck. You can’t even fathom that there can be brighter days ahead. Yeah. You know, I had a client, one of my first clients, actually, after they became certified as a grief specialist, his life has just exploded. I worked with him for a time. He went through grief recovery with me and stuff. And, you know, at the time, like, his he was struggling in relationships and trying to get his business going and he’s a designer. He does — Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: Now he’s into purses. He designs purses. Ended up on the red carpet. He’s, like, on the own network, the Detroit oh, love in Detroit or something like that? Remember the show. It’s a reality show. Like, it’s just crazy. How his life has just exploded. And he said in a post, he said something to the effect of, imagine living each day. You think today is the best day. But imagine if even tomorrow is better. Like, you have no idea. Yeah. Like live like tomorrow is gonna be even better.
Phoebe Leona: I love that. I’m I think this episode is called full-bodied chills.
Victoria Volk: Oh, yeah. That’s good.
Phoebe Leona: Because I just kept getting chills as you’re speaking about this.
Victoria Volk: Okay. Well, there is a true crime podcast called Full Body Chills.
Phoebe Leona: Okay.
Phoebe Leona: You might have to call you know what? Yeah.
Phoebe Leona: Play around with that because you and I just keep balancing our what did you call chicken zips? Chicken zips.
Victoria Volk Yeah. Chicken zips of truth.
Phoebe Leona: Oh, sure.
Victoria Volk: People would be like, chicken zips of truth. Why? I gotta listen to that one. Yeah. Maybe that’s a go.
Phoebe Leona: There we go. That’ll stop them in their tracks.
Victoria Volk: So what I hear is that you are very curious and excited about not knowing what’s to come in a way. Yeah. And yet surrendering to the how and just letting it unfold. But yet, at the same time, this is where I think, you know, you are a very grown in presence and maybe this gentleman that it’s come into your life, like who’s kind of been under your nose. Right? Like, because he was with the he was he’s a friend of a friend. Mhmm. Had you met him before?
Phoebe Leona: No. Never lived with me. We have so she was a Pilates client of mine here twenty years ago, and I knew her socially too. She even came to my wedding. So I had been to a couple of her parties, and so we have looked back and said, were you at that party? Were you at the upper end? We don’t quite know yet because of this so long ago. But, yes, very much under under each other’s nose. But we weren’t ready yet. And that’s something that I wanna speak into too is
Victoria Volk: Yes. Please.
Phoebe Leona: When when you are ready, the universe makes it so clear and says, get this is it. This is you’re ready now. Right? Here you go. Like, your client. Your client had to go through all of that grief and he was trying, he was showing up and doing his work. Like, ugh. And then all of a sudden, it just clicked. And now his purses on red carpets. And I swear I truly believe in that. And I’ve I have seen that in my own personal life. I’ve seen that evidence in the external world and everybody else in other people’s lives that when it’s meant to be for you, you cannot mess it up. It is just there. And that’s how I felt for this relationship. It was just we were not ready for each other and we’ve had many conversations because he’s done a lot of work on himself if he’s done, you know, he’s a life coaches while he wrote a book too. And it’s even funny when we see that our books, our covers, our same coloring, like, same kind of branding, very similar format. He shares a lot of his own childhood trauma and, yeah, maybe a guest for you, by the way. But yeah.
Phoebe Leona: So it’s just so funny because we’re laughing at each other. Like, we’ve been walking side by side but just weren’t we weren’t ready for each other yet. We weren’t ready for the relationship that we both want wanted for so many years, but we weren’t emotionally ready for it yet. We had to recover through the trauma to a certain extent and our own grief so that we could be ready. Right? He if I had met him six years ago when I had my last relationship, he would have been triggering all my traumas right and left, and I would have said goodbye, just like I did to the other two, man. And so I had to do this in our work for it to show up. And I say that because it doesn’t have to be a romantic relationship. It’s whatever you desire right now. It will show up when you have to do the work, though. That kinda like, it’s that balance of the doing and the being. Right? Because I think that in our world, we get too much in one direction. It’s the very western world of just do do do and have the strategy and check the things off the list. And, yeah, if you hustle and hustle, I played that game for so long and so many things didn’t happen in that world for me because I wasn’t allowing there that to be that surrender into that being. But on the flip side of that, if we’re just, you know, love attraction, I believe in it. I truly believe in it. But if you just do that and kinda lean back and not do any of the work, the thing isn’t really going to be truly yours. I mean, you might see it but if you’re not actually showing up and doing the inner work, going through your grief, going through recovering from your trauma, whatever it is that’s your karma and your dharma. Right? Karma is the lessons we enter into this world and the dharma as you shifted into your purpose. If you’re not actually playing with those two, yeah, those things might come on your radar and you might not see really truly see them or they might just float on by because they’re not you’re not aligned with them yet. So it is that play of the doing and the being?
Victoria Volk: You said something, and I’m gonna say, I’m I had a client, she asked me, Everyone else says you have to do the work. I’d get so annoyed when I’d hear that. Do the work. You gotta do the work. Well, what’s the work? And after she went through a group recovery with me, she’s like, I get it now. This is the work. Like, this is the work. So in your mind, what is the work?
Phoebe Leona: That’s a good question. For me, it’s awareness. I really truly believe awareness is the transformation. Now awareness can look different for people. So awareness might be that you need to be aware of your three d reality? Like, what is actually physically happening in your relationship? Or what is happening in your bank account? Or what is happening in this toxic situation at your job? Right? But also, it’s awareness of what’s happening in your mind, what’s happening in your physical body. How can you listen again to the spidey sense. Right? When you’re in those external relationships with the world and your body’s going, uh-uh, right, you have to bring your awareness to that so that you tap into that intuition. That’s really what I see the work is just being able to listen So it’s kind of funny that to do the work is actually sitting back and listening. That’s step one is that listening and the awareness, but then there is the, okay, now I need to take action from that place. Right? So maybe I do need to get a job that’s going to help you pay the bills or maybe I do need to leave that relationship or maybe we need to go see a relationship therapist. Or whatever it is, it’s actually taking the action and doing the work physically doing the work. And then there is the surrender., of okay, letting go and saying this isn’t working or I deeply trust that it is working, but I don’t see that. Evidence yet. Right? So that’s level three, step three of the work. I’m sure there are others, but those are the three that I feel are necessary in everything as I just talking off the cuff.
Victoria Volk: I love it.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: I love it. I love this conversation. And I wanna give you an opportunity. To share anything else that you would like to share?
Phoebe Leona: Let me think. I feel we should yeah. Let’s talk a little bit more about grief because that is your podcast. Mhmm. And to know if somebody is out there right now who is grieving a relationship or grieving possibly the loss of their own business or whoever they are right now to allow yourself to simply be in that chrysalis. Allow yourself to get mushy. Allow yourself to I love what you at you pressed me to do is imagine the how or the what or the whatever it is that drives you. Right? It could be the how, it could be the why, it could be the what. But whatever it is that’s gonna just be your heartbeat for a little while. Right? If you’re in that grief space and you don’t know what is to come, find some sort of heartbeat for you that’s gonna get you up every morning and really build a relationship with physical support in your life Right? It might be one person, it might be a community, but then also what has really been a huge piece for me is trusting the divine, the universe, God, guides, angels. Whatever it is that you resonate with whatever word resonates with you and energy that resonates with you in that end unseen world because there is and energy. There are many energies around us that we don’t see and maybe not feel, but they are here and they are on our side and they are flying high above us, seeing a bird’s eye view. And I was in a session, if I don’t mind if you don’t mind me sharing really quickly I was in a, like, a call with some a group yesterday, and you probably have heard this. And I feel like, actually, now I’m saying that you might have even spoken about it, but the idea of the two footprints, two sets of footprints talking to God and saying God, why weren’t you there for me? There were times that I only saw one footprint and I was walking in a long loan, and God said that was because I was carrying you.
Victoria Volk: It’s a footprints in the sand. It’s actually
Phoebe Leona: Footprints in the sand. Yeah. And I just wanna remind everybody because that’s something that I needed to remember for myself is when we’re going through those moments of grief. There is someone carrying us even in those deepest darkest moments, in those mushy moments, in those messy moments. There is something here for us and to just deeply trust and find a way to build that relationship to trust again.
Victoria Volk: And someone is caring. Mhmm. And I think that’s what a lot of people forget. It’s like there are people that care you just have to allow yourself to be cared for.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, that’s a hard one for us, helpers.
Victoria Volk: True. Yeah. It is. What a beautiful way to tie up this episode, I think. Where can people find you now if they’d like to reach out to you and connect with you?
Phoebe leona: That is an interesting question, Victoria. I’m not sure where I’m going. Social media, I’ll just say first of all, social media I’m on Instagram it’s my name @phoebeleona.love and Facebook. And then I do have my website, so I would say right now, they could go to phoebeleona.com that’s where you can generally see what I’m physically doing in the world. Then I have my thenomadcollective.org and Movement 109. Those are also websites, but they’re all linked together. Who knows if they’ll be there in a couple of months? Maybe they got, you know, floated away. Maybe they’re coming back in a bigger way. We don’t know yet. But if you find my name Phoebe Leona, you’ll find what’s happening now. And I think that’s a great way to, like, What is that girl doing? Let’s see.
Victoria Volk: We might have a Where are they now? Three. Yeah. Maybe in a year.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. Yeah. And I just wanna acknowledge you too because, you know, what you just said of being cared for is you did respond to that it was, you know, somewhat desperate email of, like, I don’t know what’s happening guys. Let’s see. And you were one of, you know, a few that responded immediately and I saw that you cared, and I know that you care so deeply for the people that you help. And the listeners that you show up for. So I just I wanna take a moment to acknowledge that. So thank you.
Victoria Volk: Thank you. Sometimes I need that reminder too, and I’m looking at her clothes. Yeah. Yeah. Since this is my labor of love, For sure.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: But it’s been a great joy. And that’s why I continue doing it. You know, it doesn’t put food on my table, but it fills my heart. It’s my soul food.
Phoebe Leona: Mhmm. Exactly.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. Find your soul food people. Find your soul food.
Phoebe Leona: Yes.
Victoria Volk: Alright. Well, thank you so much for joining me again. On kind of short notice, like, this was like, hey, wanna come back? Yeah. Let’s do it. Alright. I love that.
Phoebe Leona: You know, we had to do it while it was still mushy because, yeah, it wouldn’t have been that exciting if I was. Everything’s fine now. You know, hindsight.
Victoria Volk: I mean, that’s the beautiful thing behind you. Right? But when you’re in the thick of the ick. Right? The thick of the ick. And it’s not it it doesn’t have to be it doesn’t have to be this negative bad energy. Right? That we like, this drudge of it certainly, it doesn’t feel good. Yeah. But with for all the reasons that you said, it’s like lean into the awareness. How is this making me feel? What do I wanna see for myself in the future? What do I want for my life? Yeah. You know, these deeper questions that we are so afraid to ask ourselves Yeah. You know, one of my favorite segments on Saturday Night Live was deep thoughts by Jack Handy.
Phoebe Leona: Oh, yeah.
Victoria Volk: I mean, I was, like, ten, eleven, twelve, you know. Oh, wow. Because I’m aging myself now. This is when Saturday nightlife was, like, really good. But Yeah. But yeah.
Will Ferrell, deep thoughts by Jack Handy.
Phoebe Leona: Was it I don’t think it was Will Ferrell. It was before Will Ferrell’s time. It was because I actually met him in a certain week already. No. It was before Will Farrell.
It was oh my god. I know who it is, but he’s not in my brain right now.
Victoria Volk: I thought it was the same guy that was played Bob Ross.
Phoebe Leona: It was Al Franklin.
Victoria Volk: Oh, yeah. Are you sure?
Phoebe Leona: Now that I said, and I’m afraid I am wrong, but hold on, Okay. We’re good we’re gonna fact-check.
Victoria Volk: I’m you know, I have a saying, like, with my friends. I’m like, I’m gonna get a t-shirt that says, Google that shit.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. I think it was before Will Ferrell’s time. And I do feel I see his face. And Al Franklin was on Saturday Night Live? Yes.
Victoria Volk: Phil Hartman.
Phoebe Leona: Phil Hartman. What’s? Okay we both we both lost
Victoria Volk: Wait. No. Deep okay. Well, Jack Handy was an actual person. Learn something new today.
Phoebe Leona: That makes sense.
Phoebe Leona: Yeah. Yeah.
Phoebe Leona: So they made affirmations before is, like, a big thing in our world at which I thought those.
Victoria Volk: Okay. It looks like I have to do some writing.
Phoebe Leona: You’re gonna have to fact-check and do a follow-up for the listeners here.
Victoria Volk: I see a connection between Phil Hartman and that’s segment, but I can’t like, I would have to do some reading. Yeah. Anyway, I will find it. Anyway, I digress. Have a beautiful rest of your day, and listeners, thank you for tuning in. And I hope this episode was helpful. And if it was, I hope you share it or leave a review, five stars if you feel so inclined. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life, much love.
Divorce, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Q&A, Widowhood |
Q&A | When Is It Too Soon To Start a New Relationship?
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Victoria Volk: Hey. Hey. Hey. Thank you for being here and for pushing play on this episode. Today, I’m going to share a Q and A episode about a topic I think Tom Dickerry and Harry and their mother has an opinion about, including myself, which I had personal experience with this as a child, and knowing what I know now. I know why. What happened, happened?
Victoria Volk: But anyway, let me get into the question and into the answer, and I’ll share a little bit more on my personal experience with this question. But today’s question is, “When does it too soon to start a relationship after the death of your spouse or significant other?”
Now, there’s no correct air quotes correct answer to this question, but there’s all kinds of estimates. There’s even an absurd mathematical equation that you’ve maybe heard that says that you need to wait a year for a year that you were married or with that person.
Victoria Volk: So along with our personal experiences, is that time is not the key factor when a person should start dating after the death of someone they love. We know that time doesn’t heal emotional wounds, and we also know that many people have waited a year or two or five or ten or even twenty years after their significant other has died. And this next relationship still failed. And the majority of those failures were not necessarily because the two people didn’t belong together. It was that the widow or the widower or the person left behind was not emotionally complete with their significant other who had died. And absent that kind of completion, the new relationship is almost guaranteed to fail. So the other danger is that a person can feel, air quotes, feel ready to date or start a new relationship relatively soon after the death. It will actually say estrangement too. I mean, someone doesn’t have to die. You can just relationship can end or you can become estranged. But I’ll just say death for clarity and just for conciseness of this episode, but I’m also talking about those strange relationships as well or those that have ended of their significant other, but that feeling can be predicated on loneliness. And other factors, not necessarily because they are emotionally complete with their significant other who died.
Victoria Volk: So let me say that again because there was a lot of information in there. So even though you can feel ready, for a new relationship, that feeling can be predicated on loneliness and also other factors. But not necessarily because you are emotionally complete. So the time to start a new relationship is only after, air quotes after, having taken actions to discover and complete what was left emotionally unfinished in the earlier relationship. And you’ll notice that I’m not saying any time frames at all, and that’s not to say that a week after your significant other dies or the relationship ends that you should start dating, it’s meant to indicate that it’s the actions of completion that will dictate when you are ready to start a new relationship. So that you don’t mix the old relationship in with the new one and sabotage it in advance. So it’s only after you take grief recovery actions that you’ll have a clearer sense of whether or not you’re ready and truly only you the person left behind can answer that for yourself.
Victoria Volk: But it’s, again, we can easily confuse that feeling of being ready. And yet when we start that new relationship, we’re seeing the same patterns repeating themselves. And why is that? It’s because we haven’t become emotionally complete with that previous relationship. And so as you’ve listen to this podcast for any period of time, you’ll see and you’ve heard and understood by now, that we drag our baggage with us from the past into the present, unless we look at it, unless we unpack that baggage and unless we look at that luggage that we’ve been dragging around. This is why when people say, I don’t have to dig up the past. I don’t have to look at the past. I’ll just forget it. I’ll bury it. I’ll sweep it under the rug. This is why these patterns keep repeating in your life. You can have failed relationship after failed relationship because you’re not consciously aware of what those patterns are. And the only way to become aware of what those patterns are that are repeating is to understand them, is to have awareness about them. Where did they come from? Where did they originate? Nine times out of ten, I’ll even say ten times out of ten, it originated from your family of origin. Because when we are our backs are against the wall and we’re feeling challenged and we’re feeling like we’re in an uncomfortable position, we will resort to what we know in those situations. And what we’ve learned in those situations in the past is how we’ll respond in the present and in the future unless we have an awareness and acknowledge that the past is influencing our present and then we choose new tools and new awareness to change those patterns of behavior. And this is why grief recovery is very much an educational process as much as it is a transformative one.
Victoria Volk: And I say grief recovery because that’s the program that I facilitate in my program do grief differently. So you’ll hear you would have heard both terms used interchangeably. But that is essentially what I’m talking about when I talk about do grief differently is grief recovery as well as the Youmap, which is another component of do grief differently, which answers the question when you’re kind of when I just had a consultation just a while ago and that I finished and what you learn through grief recovery. It’s like you’ve addressed all this grief and you’ve addressed all this stuff from the past. Now what? Well, the Youmap is the now what? It’s how you move forward. It’s becomes your lighthouse for moving forward. Which is why both programs together are so transformative and impactful on people’s lives.
Victoria Volk: And so coming back to this question, my personal experience in this is that As a child when my father had passed away, my mother quickly remarried within a couple of years. She was in within a couple years, she was in a new relationship and remarried. And at the time, there was no communication about why that was or, like, I wasn’t privy because of my age, I suppose, to why my mother was in my mind, jumping into another relationship so quickly when I really didn’t even have personally an opportunity to grieve my dad here on thrown into another huge change that we didn’t even talk about. Like, I was no I had no part of that conversation. It was, this is what’s happening, and you just accept it. And in my mother’s defense, she was doing what she thought was best. Like, she wanted she herself was lacking the confidence and security that she felt she needed. To raise my brother and I who he was a teenager and I was eight at the time, nine, ten going, getting to those pre-teen years. And she felt I believe that she needed that support financially and emotionally and just that companionship and her and my dad were married for seventeen years when he passed. She thought they were gonna grow old and die together. And so and she was very young. I mean, she, you know, my father was forty four. She was forty three. When he passed away, still young. And you just don’t expect that when you’re that young. And while you have young children, and I know many people listening to this probably are themselves in this situation, or you were a kid that was in this situation where your parents remarried or got into another relationship.
Victoria Volk: And so I think knowing now what I know about grief and the why behind without my mom even having to say it. Right? Because we have not had that conversation, but specifically about why, although she is kind of sprinkled in what I just said the fact that she didn’t know what to do. Well, how am I supposed to raise two kids on my own and I have this house and the law needs to be made and what if repairs need to be made? And I think she was just very overwhelmed with all of that and felt like she needed somebody to support her. In moving forward. And was he the right person for her? I don’t know, but that marriage failed. Right? And I think it’s because the reasoning for going into it was not the right reason. Right? Like but I think everything’s learning. Everything is learning. And he did end up passing away of emphysema quite a few years ago. But he was a big part of my life in all my teen years. He taught me how to drive a stick shift. He taught me how to drive a car. And he was a big part of my life. But I think when you are a parent and you’re in that situation and you’re unsure what to do.
Victoria Volk: One of my guests a long time ago had shared that and I think this is great advice, and I’ll add on to it. But I think she had shared something to the effect of she made the conscious decision herself to not make any big decisions for one year. No big moves, no big career changes, none of those things, no big changes or moves or anything like that, no relationships or anything for the first year that after her spouse had passed away. And I think that’s great advice. I think how do you even find your does it take a year to find your bearings? I mean, maybe for some people, it takes five. Again, there’s no timeline to when you should when you are ready for another relationship. But again, it comes back to have you emotionally become complete with relationship so that you’re setting up your next relationship or your future relationship for success. And that’s really the goal isn’t it, is to have a successful relationship. Like, we don’t go into it thinking, oh my god. I’m just however long we’re together, I’ll just, you know, it is what it is. I think we hope for the best when we embark on sharing our life with somebody.
Victoria Volk: And so I think there’s a lot of and especially if you have children, there’s a lot of decision making that needs to go into that as well. It’s not as cut and dry as if you’re single and alone and, you know, it’s just you, you’re responsible for yourself. But I think we all come to those conclusions in our own time and people can raise an eyebrow at no matter what you do, they’ll think it’s too soon or it’s you should be dating by now or whatever other people’s timelines are. But they don’t see the personal work that perhaps you’re doing that’s unseen. Right? They might not know that you’ve gone through grief recovery with a counselor or a therapist or that you’re even seeing a therapist. Right? Like, not everybody dishes everything to everybody.
Victoria Volk: And so we can make these decisions for ourselves and still that we feel are positive and healthy and other people still aren’t going to fully understand our decision making and you owe no on the next explanation either. I wanna say that. Like oh, no one an explanation. My mom didn’t owe me an explanation, but would it have been nice? To be a part of the conversation. Yeah. Would it have been nice to have to feel heard and what my thoughts were even if my mother didn’t agree with them? Yes. But it was suck it up, buttercup. It is what it is. And so adaptability became one of my huge strengths from a very, very, very young age. And it’s still in one of my it’s actually one of my top ten strengths. Because I’ve had to learn to adapt to my environment many times over.
Victoria Volk: And so all these experiences that we have I’m, you know, I’ll bring up the Youmap is what changes our strengths over time. It’s our life experience and the things that we go through and endure and that help us build our own resiliency in challenging times, including death of a loved one or a spouse or a significant other or an end of a relationship because we’re taught how to acquire things and acquire people, but not what to do when we lose them. Right? And so grief recovery is the what to do when you lose them. And we’re simply not taught those skills and those tools and that knowledge from a young age. We’re just, we’re not.
Victoria Volk: And so that’s part of my mission here and why I started this podcast is so that we can talk about grief like we talk about the weather. So if you found this episode helpful, please share it leave a review if you feel so inclined to. I would love I read them all. I would love to hear your review. Share it with my audience as well and share it with a friend who you think is could find this information helpful. Maybe he’s in this situation and maybe just needs a little hug with words because I want this episode to feel like a hug with words that it is possible to move forward It is possible to enjoy a life of fulfillment even after death of a loved one spouse, significant other the love of your life, it is possible. And again, thank you so much for listening and pushing play. And I hope you come back next week. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Death/Dying, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Spirituality |
Dr. Amirah Hall | The Aftermath and Awakening of a Near-Death Experience
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
This week’s guest is no stranger to death. By the age of 20, she had attended 20 funerals. As an adult, she buried her father while, at the same time, her marriage was ending and her health was deteriorating. Little did Amirah know at the time that all of that loss would lead her on a path of self-discovery, understanding, and acceptance of the gifts she had been given.
Dr. Amirah Hall had always believed she came from a typical, ordinary, normal family, where love and support were the cornerstones of their interactions. But she didn’t realize she grew up in a dysfunctional family. Dysfunction runs deep in families. However, in the midst of Amirah’s life unraveling, she felt a spiritual pull that set her on a path of seeking and understanding.
Like many of us, we experience death as a child, are around it, and are exposed to it, but most don’t become communicators with the dearly departed. What set the ball rolling for Amirah was a trip to Egypt she felt a calling to take. On that trip, she would be surrounded by people she didn’t know in a foreign land who were on a mission to save her life. She would later understand that she was transported far away from her body and back again.
This is Amirah’s story of her near-death experience.
If you or someone you know is struggling with the darkness of life or has experienced the grief of death and want to find the answers, I encourage you to listen to this inspiring episode.
Subscribe to Grieving Voices to hear a Part 2 conversation with Dr. Amirah! She will be back for another episode where we will dive deeper into spiritual practices, sharpening our tool of intuition, all things energy + more!
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CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today, my guest is Dr. Amirah. She is the founder of Seoul Mystic School, a modern mystery school for psychic development and energy mastery. She’s the author of five books including manifesting miracles one on one and love up your life and was featured in the documentaries to death and back again and angels among us. She’s been practicing psychic medium, spiritual mentorship, and quantum healing after having a life changing near death experience while traveling in Egypt. She’s the past host of lessons from the Light Radio podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. I’m excited to have this conversation with you.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Thank you. It’s my pleasure. I’m super excited to be here.
Victoria Volk: We were talking a little bit before we started to record, and I had to stop us because there’s so much I wanna get into. But where I usually start interviews with guests is your story and how you’ve become, come to be Dr. Amirah.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, thank you. It’s been quite a journey. I’m gonna give you the reader’s digest version. Okay? So don’t even know if reader’s digests around anymore. But I grew up in Canada. I grew up to a in the conservative family. I was raised Catholic. Went to Catholic school for twelve years. I never got in trouble all the way through school. I was an honor student and a hard worker. And I was always very, very sensitive. I had a father that his brother committed suicide. I believe I was eight.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And I’ll never forget that was my first experience of watching or seeing my dad cry. And I remember just standing there just feeling so painful and not being able to help him. My mother was holding him as he was grieving because he found his brother who had shot himself basically in the head.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So then my dad was an alcoholic. I thought I had a normal family, which I guess at the time it was a normal, dysfunctional family. My mom was an enabler and I was one of those people as a young sensitive, I was always trying to keep the peace. And yet, I was so sensitive I would often be said, stop crying. Stop crying. I’ll give you something to cry about. Or why are you crying now? I mean, I would be upset if you know, kid at school played a trick on me and threw a water bomb on me. Well, that any kid would probably be upset with that.
Dr. Amirah Hall: But I was the kid that my mom knew when I walked in that it wasn’t a good day. Right? I was always looking for friends I was always curious. I always found myself going out and building relationships and building friendships. So what happened was I think at least a little of ten, my mother had a brother and sister that died two days apart. Now my aunt was a nun in the Catholic church. And my uncle, well, he was only thirty years old. My aunt was twenty-four. That was pretty significant because it was sudden for my aunt. Well, we knew about a month before my uncle was sudden he was died of cirrhosis of the liver, but he was a non drinker. So it was a a real a moment in time where I remember the chaos and I remember people coming over with with casseroles. And again, I was sort of numb. Like, what is this? I didn’t know what it meant. She went to heaven.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And my and then the nuns or the hot the convent all descended on our home. And it’s funny because they told us that my aunt wasn’t part of our family. So they only informed the family a month before she passed. And so there was a lot of discussion about family being upset with this. Right? We didn’t know. And their comment was she was part of their family. At God’s family, she wasn’t part of our family. So we didn’t need to know.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And so that was pretty significant in terms of me even trying to understand one of the nuns befriended me because I was so sensitive and I was crying. She would write me letters for years. And she was so graceful and peaceful and supportive. She was the first really mentor that I had, that reminded me that I was pretty or this, that I was smart. And so that was my first experience with religion shutting us down. My mom stopped going to church. And by the time I got to high school, I would go with friends to their churches. I was curious.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I remember the first time I thought if I go in that church, I might not come out. I’m like, die. Like, what’s gonna happen? It was so ingrained in me that this was a really bad thing to do, a bad idea. But I went and I lived and so enough about that because that was I think my quest that began for finding out who is God who is Jesus and wanting a connection.
Dr. Amirha Hall: My grandfather died. I was having connections and visions with my aunt but I didn’t know what to do with it. My grandfather passed from the same family, and grandpa gave me a dream before he passed. And then he showed me on the path. We were both walking along. We were holding hands. And grandpa just dropped my hand and he didn’t speak. He spoke to me telepathically. It’s like, I’m going this way. I’m taking this fork in the road. You’re going this way. And I just knew. That his journey on earth was gonna end.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I went camping with some friends that weekend, and we were sitting around the campfire, and I just blurred it out. Am I going to wear to the funeral? They’re like, what funeral? What are you talking about? Got home and my mom met me at the gate and mentioned that my grandfather passed. I knew in the moment. And so that was my, I guess, you could say, curiosity was death that continued to build and I continued to By the time I was twenty, I had been to twenty funerals. And Catholic funerals were not anything I mean, everybody just cried. And so, but I was starting to feel like there was something more. There was something beyond this, and so I held on to that fascination. Until well, no. I guess it was really a pivot point of my dad’s death.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And when I went home, I was living in San Diego at the time and I went home to Canada for my dad’s funeral. And well, he was in the process of making his transition. And it was gruesome. It was painful. And he was in ICU for two weeks. So that was back in nineteen ninety. So you can just imagine we didn’t have Internet, we didn’t really have anything to communicate, but or to understand what was going on. They had hooked them up with life support but it was just pushing his body up and down. The forcing air into the lungs to make it look like he was alive. Meanwhile, his whole body was shrinking. And we were waiting talk about crazy.
Dr. Amirah Hall: We’re waiting for my ants to arrive from Florida. California, respectively. And so the rest of us just kind of suffered watching this. It was just incredibly painful. Like, gold moment just cry and sob and it was torment for me. The doctors kept saying any minute, any minute, now it went on for two weeks. So I empathize with people that with families that send to Alzheimer’s or a long-delayed death and is it feels like torture. So at the same time, I was going through divorce.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I had just started my divorce. In fact, Yeah. It was I don’t wanna go down that road, but it was something that was in process. So after dad’s death, I was at a real low. And I was going home. I was flying back. I picked up this book. I think it was in the Vancouver airport. “Many lives, many masters.” And that was a first glimmer into yes we do go on. Because that my internal question is, what happens when we die? Where do we go? What where what is all this? So it was really driven home with my dad’s death, and it was like my wake-up call.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And by the time I got back to my job, my health was failing. I was not going to work. And back in those days, they could candy for that. So they did. They fired me. So I was going through a divorce, my dad died, and now I have no money and no job. And at the time, I was making a very high six fees. Not six figures. I was high-five figures. And back in the nineties, that was significant. Right? But then nothing and no support from anybody.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I was in a real talk about dark night of the soul and then having no energy. The doctor told me, yeah, well, you look like you’re dying. You go on or prepare your affairs. You’re either gonna die or you’ll end up in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. Well, that’s not good news for anybody. That’s the worst thing possible that I could have heard at the time.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And so I went home and I to use your word grieve. At the time, I would call that a holy hell. I was just miserable. I was falling apart at the seams from every angle, didn’t know who to talk to. I had no I was new in the states. I was only here about three years by then. And so I didn’t have strong relationships. I didn’t have a good support system.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So when everything hit the fan, after crying for two weeks, and a friend said, you need acupuncture. Try this, Amirah, that’ll help your health. So, God bless her. I had no other options. The doctor threw me to the curb. Right? It was just like, Okay. Well, this is some hope. Let’s try this out. So that’s when I started down the avenue of alternative care.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So again, back in the early nineties, there was it was almost like you were doing back office an abortion or something when you talk about acupuncture, like, mama was the word, no way, oh, that was horrible. But I had no other options. I went in for it. And so that progressed and I got better and a little bit better and a little bit better. And I built some businesses, some entrepreneurial endeavors, and I started working with gemstones and making custom jewelry. I started expanding that to an international market.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I was doing really, really well. But not making enough money. But my health was restoring and I started feeling and stronger and I felt like there was something missing in my life. Like, I had the money now, business was in my well, I got hired in the tech industry. My health was getting better. The divorce was finished. I had more money coming in and I’m like, fine. Okay. I’m good. But something’s missing.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I told a friend that I was feeling a sense to go to Egypt. And she gave me a brochure. And I found myself a few months later with soon as I said, well, I’ll go if I get my tax return. And I got to pay for this. Sure enough, it manifested this tax return refund.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And so I go to Egypt, which was an incredible spiritual journey. We meditated in temples. When I landed in Egypt, it was the strangest feeling. I know this sounds weird, but I felt like I was home. And it was a sense of being so familiar yet I had never you know, I didn’t study Egypt. It wasn’t on my bucket list. I wasn’t somebody that was fascinated. I did it maybe science report in school or something, but that was it. Book reporter, what did they call that social studies project? This was an amazing experience of learning about the ancient teachings, learning about the mystery schools, and I gravitated towards that. It just made sense to me.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, I met someone there and I extended my stay after the trip was over, went down to Luxor from Cairo, where the tour ended, went down to Luxor, and hung out for a week and I said, I’d really like to get some antiquities for the jewelry that I make. Some beads. Well, this was a very very primitive village right outside the valley of the kings where all the ancient pharaohs twos are buried. And so this little village, people their homes are perched up right at the backside of this mountain where all the tombs are. And so people would be digging through their back wall, so these houses are literally built on the mountain. Right? They’re digging at night and they’re trying to find tools or antiquities or any kind of treasure. So they’re trying to work ahead of the you know, the ministry of antiquities, digging. And so they would have these, Arabic carpets hanging on the back wall cover off the tunnel. So I knew from that that there’s a high likelihood some of these people would have beads. We’re just talking some small beads. Nobody’s gonna notice this ant colony leaving the country. Right? That was my logic.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And so anyway, we found a guy. And he showed me the beads, and I think there was a handful. And he’s one in three hundred bucks, and I didn’t have that much cash at the time. So I went, I said, come back tomorrow with the cash, go to the ATM, come back. Now that was the day I was leaving. So it was about noontime, minus heck. And we go back to pay, we’ll have it his money. And when you visit when you have a transaction like that or your friend, especially I was a special guest because my friend, Jude, who was brought me there. They bring out cocacola or a tea, coffee, water, you sit and visit. You it’s very polite.
It’s not just a slam-bam. Thank you, ma’am. Pay and run. It’s not like that at all.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So here I am, the only female, and they bring out this green garden lawn chair. Right? I’m sitting on this plastic chair. And all of a sudden, they bring out this joint. And Mohammed says, you know, it’s the best. It’s the best. And he’s screaming and I’m coming from this dysfunctional family, I’m feeling agitated myself, and I’ve disturbed the peace, so to speak. He is shouting. And Arabic’s Egyptians are very vocal and loud and expressive. Let’s call it that way. And I said, I don’t smoke. And I had tried a few times. It didn’t really do anything for me. And I just was like, No. No. Thank you. And then the shouting continued. So I’m thinking, oh, god. I’ve insulted the man. I’ve gone against their protocol. And now I’m the only woman here. I should mind, do something here because this could escalate.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I thought, okay, it’s not done anything for me in the past. Maybe I’ll just acquiesce, be a graceful guest, and I’ll be on my way. Nothing will happen. Right? Okay. Didn’t happen that way. The joint went around twice. And all of a sudden, they have these workers that are chiseling Alibaster outside the factory entrance. And so they all of a sudden showed up in this showroom. And so there’s like eight or ten of us in this room. So one joint goes around, the circle, twice. And everybody bounces up. They’re ready to walk out the door except for me. I can’t get out of the chair. I’m sitting there. Only I find myself standing behind myself and I’m witnessing all the people that are in the room and it’s like they have an individual television and I’m why watching this video play out on their on your screen. And I’m just horrified and I’m like, what the heck is this? I need to stay in my body. I need to get back. I need to come back. And so I thought to myself, I so I was coming and going coming out in and out, it was sort of a subtle phase. I must have said something. I don’t recall hearing myself verbalized, but I definitely had my hands out in front of me. And I just thought I need water. If I could splash my face with this water, I’ll stay here. I won’t leave. I just knew I needed to stay. And so obviously, they’re laughing, and everything’s in slow motion at this time for me.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And my friend Juju must have either sense that I need water or they also were aware that a lot of westerners get dehydrated. So that was a part of the front and center for their awareness. So he comes towards me with the water bottle and he pours water in my hands and I remember getting it right about, you know, six inches from my face thinking, oh, shit, my mascara is gonna run. That was the last spot. And I blacked out.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Now, what they informed me and filled in the points at this point, my body stiffened. And according to my friend, juju, my breathing stopped, my heart stopped, and he was pounding my chest with all his might to get my heart going, call that jokingly, Egyptian CPR. And he was just going to be, beat the drum so to speak. They drag me out under the arms, drag me out into a pickup truck. So the pickup trucks there are the taxis. They’ve got benches along the back of the box, but they stuck me in the cab so my there’s the driver and juju’s in the middle, and I’m on the outer edge. They’ve got my head propped up outside the window. Trying to give me air, some oxygen. And they’re barreling down this dusty, sandy road to nowhere as far as I know. So I’m out of it.
Dr. Amirah Hall: The next thing I remember is coming through the night sky and curling through the sky like I was a comet. And towards a familiar blue ball way off in the distance. And I’m like, oh, that’s where I’m going. And that little ball got bigger and bigger and bigger and it was like so massive. And I’m like, oh, how am I gonna find myself? And then the next thought was, well, I heard this talking language, but I had no clue. And I’m like, I don’t know that language. I don’t know where that is. And then it went, that’s Arabic. I’m in Egypt. There was like a GPS beacon that was just directing me to where my body was. And then it felt like I was trying to put on wet clothes. Have you ever put on wet clothes after going swimming or getting thrown in the lot. It’s miserable. It’s cold and yucky in. It’s just awful. So I felt like I was struggling to get in my body, like putting on my clothes for about twenty minutes. It wasn’t that long, but felt like that. At the same time, the bright light was incredibly painful to my eyes, and it hurt almost to coming into my body. At the same time, I felt this incredible overwhelming bliss and love and peace. And so it was a peculiar experience and Juju stayed with me. Basically, what happened, this then I realized I’m in my body and I’m hearing these voices and I can’t open my eyes and I reach over and I touched his arm. Well, he just law like the dead man coming alive or the mummy or so he was very animated. And I’m thinking, I don’t know what the problem here. Well, I said, where are you taking me? And he blurted out something in Arabic, which then he realized she doesn’t speak Arabic. I have to speak English. So they were highly excited. You know, this was extremely difficult. I said, well, I need a bathroom.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Now, here’s another problem, Victoria. Back in those days, there were no western-sized type toilets in the Valley and the Kings in that primitive village. There were holes in the ground. Okay? And there’s these little porcelain markers where you put your feet. I couldn’t stand, and I didn’t know that. And I didn’t even realize there was something problem with toilets. Okay. So I’m saying, they said, well, we’re taking you to the hospital, and I’m thinking, Oh, shit. A hospital, I mean, primitive country here. That’ll kill me. If I go to some gerund lights in the bone docs, so that was where I was at. I’m like, oh, I just need a toilet, please. I’m fine. And so there was some they can Arabic, and so they finally figured it out, oh, their brother, his brother, had a flat that was europeanized. Okay? And so the facilities were appropriate for a woman. That’s another issue because in that culture back at that time, that a man cannot go into a private space like that with a woman. This is the worst. This is like the worst crime known to man. I mean, they were it would stone a woman probably for doing that openly. So here I am in their flat their apartment. And I won’t let him leave me in the bathroom. They carry me up the stairs. He’s on this edge of this bathtub sitting next to me and his tiers are just streaming down his face. And I’m blissed out. I’m thinking I’m so proper. I’m modestly covered my legs, so nothing’s exposed. And I’m thinking everything’s cool. The sister-in-law’s beaten down the door. She’s frantic because a man and a woman are in the bathroom. She’s thinking they’re having sex. That’s their primitive mindset. That’s time. Well, nothing I could say or do, and I didn’t realize what all was going on. I’m completely blissed. And then he just said, you die. You don’t understand. He said, you died.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So fast forward, I was on the bed. I’m they brought me into the bedroom. I’m laying their recovery. They brought me water and yogurt and an orange. And it was the strangest experience because the orange it was cut orange. They also knew as a westerner, I couldn’t have any other type of food. It needs to be peeled or it needs to be boiled or something like that. So the yogurt was safe. And they suspected I was dehydrated or something was a miss with my electrolytes. Right? Because they’ve seen it. And westerners are just not. Oh, and I failed to mention, I had done a thirty day detox prior to going to Egypt. So I was primed plus I had this two-week spiritual journey prior to that. So I was primed and hypersensitive to all of these types of things. Right? But I was oblivious to it.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So what happens is I start seeing this being, this entity. Her name is Sekhmet. She’s a lion’s face with a female body. She was just a statue to me going through Egypt I didn’t relate to all the Egyptology and all the beams and the deities. It was overwhelming. Right? When you first go and you just okay, it’s a nice story or that’s their religion and it just didn’t resonate, but I’m seeing her in the wood grain of the arm war and I’m thinking I’m losing my mind.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And there’s a window with Nile Valley there and there’s these sheared draperies fluttering inside the room, the wind was or the breeze was coming into the room, and I see the bright blue sky and this brilliant evergreen Nile valley. I’m looking out there. That’s real. I can’t look at this. This is not real. And from that moment on, I have been seeing beings and entities. At first, it felt like I stepped into a scene in the Star Wars movie, the Cantina. You know, or all these strange beings and deities and actually it was overwhelming But so the first part of it, I was still blissing out and denying I was seeing that. I was trying to focus on something that was tangible. And Juju escorted me to Cairo. I got my tour guide was there waiting in line, and I remember I asked girl, who’s that lion goddess with female, you know, body? And she said, oh, that’s Sekhmet. Sekhmet is the healer of healers. She was the patron saint in Egypt. She was known by all the doctors. They would pray to her. Okay. That’s nice information.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I get on the plane, I sleep all the way back to JFK. It’s like an it was an eight-hour flight, but it probably had been fifteen hours to this point by the time I get to JFK. And I get there, I get off the Jet Way, and all the people look like black and white paper dolls. And I’m freaking out. I’m all by myself. And I’m like, this is horrible. I’m horrified what I’m seeing. And I don’t wanna come back here. This place America is horrible. It’s angry. It’s depressed. It’s grief-stricken. It was just it was very low vibration. It’s like literally I stepped off a JetWay into another dimension and I went, and I kept looking at my book. I know it was I realized at one point it was upside down. I couldn’t read it. But I wanted to focus on something that was real and none of that out there was real.
Dr. Amirah Hall: That continued until I got to San Diego. I got off the plane, so it had probably been about a twenty four hour journey, the whole thing. Get off the plane and that moist air hit me, and it was like, Okay, I’m back. And and and and that noise stopped. However, for about nine months, I was stuck in a very deep depression. One, I didn’t wanna be here. Two, I didn’t know what the f happened. I was confused in ninety, so this was in nineteen ninety-eight. There was no internet. There was no resources. There was no.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I started going to psychics and healers or anybody. I definitely didn’t wanna go see a psychologist because I’m like, they’re gonna lock me up and throw away the key. There is no freaking way I’m going to those people. I know something happened. I am different. However, I haven’t lost my mind. I was that hardworking student. I was that type a personality responsible and honest. And so I went to all these healers and you know what? I got really ticked off because they told me something different every single one because they didn’t know. And then I finally got the message, okay. I gotta figure it out myself. I get it. I get it. Okay.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I found a friend brought me to Mexico. I found this healer. She reads cards, but she wasn’t a healer. She was a card reader. And she’s saying in Spanish to my French I don’t understand the cards. It says she died. This card should be over here in the future of this death card, but it says she died. So we kinda looked at each other, like, yep. Okay. That thanks a lot. That validates something like that happens.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I went back to Egypt the following year and my friend Jude brought me to see a holy man in the far south of Egypt in s one. And he was just a guy that would hang out in the in the market in this little cube, not a kiosk, but they have these little shops, right, with all these shawls or whatever it was. We brought him a very luxurious gift. And I said, what happened? Of course, to do is explain or translating to this holy man. And he said, She didn’t die in in in Arabic, you know, in their mind, their level of understanding. He said, but she went very, very, very far away. So, technically, my body wasn’t buried and I wasn’t, you know, tuned, but I went very, very far away. So that helped me understand.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And then when I came back, I continued asking a friend of mine that was on the trip referred me to another healer. And this healer, he he was looking at my energy, and he said, oh, he said, you’ve got some stuck energy. And I’m like, okay, that’s something to do. I get to undo that stuck energy then. Right? It seemed pretty simple to me. And I did. I began starting to understand the nuances of my energy. And what that all meant. And within about six months, I well, I started feeling happier I started feeling sleeping better. I was more inspired. My creativity was coming back. I wasn’t a bitch on wheels. You know, I because that when though I first came back, I fired all my friends. I stopped all my hobbies. I got fired from my job again because I was just miserable. It wasn’t fun to be around. It wasn’t fun to be anywhere. I wanted to go home. I didn’t want to be here at all.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I figured I gotta write about this story. So I go to the book expo. And I’m trying to think I can hook up with an agent or a publisher. I didn’t know how this whole thing worked. And only to be rejected. But, you know, people looked at me like, you gotta be crazy. You know, this you were just hallucinating girl. You know, you’re just this is cuckoo crazy. And they give away all these books. And so I’m I guess I was a glutton and I fill these two linen bags with these big heavy, hard bound books. And so I was my back was breaking.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And I said, I need a massage desperately. So I found this Chinese massage place. I go to the massage and this guy’s walking on my back and it hurt like hell. And I had a spontaneous out of body experience. So, those whole year was less than a year, maybe about nine months. I had been asking, where did I go? What happened? I’m different. I’m different. And I’ve been searching. Where did I go? I know I’m different, but what? You know, now what? So that’s when I had this out of body experience and I was transported, teleported, I was greeted by this being. It was almost like my body appeared with this being that was just like an egg-shaped, fuzzy, white energy, a presence. And my body literally melted, and I created this life form, light form, and the guide said to me, I’m gonna take you on a tour of the hall, but you can’t stay. And so there I was escorted into this place. It was this grand, incredible building. I struggled to this day to describe it. It was ultimate perfection and beauty. The precision was beyond anything that Earthwards can describe. And I was merged into a conference room. And my sense is there were twelve people. I didn’t count them, but it felt like there was a board or a committee of twelve. And they were all dressed identical. Very three d like and like suits and proper and formal. And then their heads were glowing And at the top of their head, it was like a lid open, like a teapot. And there was this glowing ball of light that just streamed into my head, right into my third eye, I guess, I could say. And it’s and they said to me, you you can know anything you need to know, whatever you need to know it.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And instantly, I was teleported out of there and I was standing with my guide. It was, like, not visible. There’s a presence with the guide communicating. And there I was standing in front of this corridor that went on for infinity.
And there were doors on either side of the corridor that sat at east my guide said, you can enter any door that you choose. You can’t stay. So I went to the easiest route. I took the first door of my right. It was a gold door. And I stepped through it. It was like I merged through it. And I stepped into what felt like a kaleidoscope of color. And it was moving patterns. And it was incredibly rich, warm, comforting embracing in ways that the only way I can describe it was, like, going back into momma’s room and feeling the love and the support and the safety. And I said, what is this? And the voice said to me, This is the fabric of all creation. This is love. And I was just so immersed into it and so still and so full. And then I was full of gout. And I’m like, I don’t know, rude. I was liking this. I wanted to stay there. And then I went across the corridor. I entered this the store across the way. It was pink. And I merged through that door and it was a solid green Emerald Green Energy. I said, well, what’s this? And they told what I then saw was my life review.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And I saw a timeline of my own life, all the places where my emotions had gotten stuck or interfered with what I was creating or my flow. I could see that I created my I created the dysfunction and the decease in my life with my emotions. And being highly emotional, that’s how I did it. And those emotions weren’t flowing and I was very attached to them and that way of being. I knew in an instant I needed to go home well, at home. I needed to detox. And the detox was not only the physical body, It was mental, emotional, spiritual. And I realized in that moment that that was my purpose. And to understand who I am and that everything was energy. I had stepped into the quantum field. I understood it at a level. That was beyond my words or my vocabulary at the time. I think, finally, when I came across Doopak Chopra, I’m like, oh, I get it. This is where I went. This is what it is. And this is the explanation that and my guide told me that meditation was crucial. For all of it, for all of our disease, all of our dysfunction. And that there is tools to practice, but it was a it was a journey. And so for twenty three years now, I’ve been doing this work. And yes, I still see beings. I connect with loved ones on the other side because they are just changed forms, and I’m able to access that and receive information. I’m also have the ability to heal them. If there are a sense of being stuck. So Victoria, I feel like I’ve just firehosed you here with the story and didn’t take happen. I apologize.
Victoria VolK: That’s okay. And I don’t do you have to go soon?
Dr. Amirah Hall: No. No. I’m good. I just I feel like when it starts coming the stream of information, you know, it’s like I get so excited to get it out and to share that often don’t take a breath myself. So
Victoria Volk: Well, I felt like I was listening to an audiobook. Like, it was just I was envisioning it as you were talking and just felt like I was kind of experiencing it with you in a sense. There was a couple of questions that I thought of on the way as you’re speaking. Can you speak to a little bit what when you were feeling it in your darkest place? Physically when your body was starting to break down, what did that actually look like?
Like, what were you struggling with physically?
Dr. Amirah Hall: I can remember driving to work after my dad died and having to pull over to the side of the road and just overwhelming tears and sobbing. And I had healed my I had already started personal development work, and I had been healing my relationship with my dad. So I thought we were good. And when he died, I was so freaking mad. I was he was a dirty rotten bastard for dying and leaving me. You know, that we just got going in terms of healing what we had. And I just felt so jipped, you know, losing both men in my life and that that were significant and my the divorce and my dad. And, yeah, I’ve become I became completely dysfunctional. Like I said, miserable. I was I was heavy. I was negative. I was so over time, that built up. And then, well, the doctor told me I had chronic fatigue syndrome. So, you know, they don’t know how to diagnose that. They lump that in with everything.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And it’s my belief system that fibromyalgia you name it, you name it. In fact, I can see the beginnings of cancer. In fact, before the show, we were talking about a client that had recently lost one client lost her son to suicide a year ago. Another client her friend wasn’t my client yet. She lost her son seventeen years ago. Now that woman seventeen years is hanging on to that energy of the loss. And her fear of letting that go is that she’ll lose connection with her son and perhaps, you know, be a bad mom as a result of that. You know, you just have to Whereas the other lady who has been healing those energies of loss and pain and just incredible separation, that feeling of separation. She’s thriving.
She’s doing things that she hasn’t done in years. She’s having a great connection with her son now. She can actually feel him come and give her a hug. And so there’s I find the contrast so fascinating, not not as a judgment, but as an as I think as hope or as an as a lesson, as a possibility that there are other ways that we can still have that connection with our I talk to my dad all the time and when I pull out his hunting knife and I’m cutting something, I always feel him coming like, watch your fingers young lady. It’s like every single time he comes in for that. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: I think that’s a great I’m glad this came up because I think people tend to focus on that separation, like you said. Like, the focus is just the separation. Like, I’m never gonna see them again. I’m never gonna speak to them again. Never gonna hug them or touch them or pick up the phone and call them again. It’s that the focus is so much on the separation. That you can’t even fathom the idea that the relationship is continuing. Right? That’s still a relationship that’s continuing, but it’s so unhealthy and dysfunctional and — Right. — and not self-serving at all.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yeah. And only turning other people too because
Victoria Volk: Exactly —
Dr. Amirah Hall: You’re affecting the entire family or friends and your all your other relationships suffer. So you have to, you know, if we can have a moment and just think in terms of I know when we’re grieving, we’re not thinking of anybody else. We’re really self absorbed. Most of the time, I was. And it was all me and my pain, and I didn’t have the bandwidth for anybody else. But I can honestly say I’ve been divorced over thirty years now. My ex-husband committed suicide in COVID. And I know there’s a growing number of suicides and depression that people are experiencing. And what I’d like to say to that is I couldn’t connect with him for a very long time. And as a medium, as somebody that does talk to the dead, I thought, well, this is interesting.
Dr. Amirah Hall: When a client comes to me, for instance, my client, whose son had committed suicide a year ago, I couldn’t connect with him at first. And what I the first impression I got was his energy let’s call it a package of energy. And he was stuck in an elevator, and he wasn’t going up or down, and it was confined And I could see that there was drug-induced and so there was a question of was it accidental or was it intentional? But I also saw the depression. So, you know, it all sort of came together. It wasn’t it wasn’t a place of blaming one thing. You know what I think is those of us grieving or left behind, we wanna have a reason. We wanna pinpoint what exactly it was that I don’t know as if it’s gonna help ease our pain or maybe your guilt? That we should have known something. So when we connected with him, I’m trying to remember. See, because I’m in a slight trance when I look and connect. So I don’t remember my story’s crystal clear unless we talk about it.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And so my client and I, we’ve talked about it many, many times as it comes up. But So we I I can see the energy where they’re stuck, and I can move the energy. So, like, I understand in religions, they talk about limbo. Or purgatory. Mhmm. And I would say that’s probably the zone. It’s like a zone. Like when I came back from my near death, I think I was stuck in a limbo that was freaking depressing. It was horrible that zone. And so just like when we leave the body, it’s my understanding that we can that can happen also. Now I’ve also connected with loved ones on the other side who committed suicide, who weren’t stuck. Okay? So it’s not a it’s not a blanket statement. It’s not It’s so in my own husband, I did some clearing and I did all the work and connect tried to connect because this was a man. The reason we got divorced is I couldn’t be me. I couldn’t I couldn’t express my need to connect with spirituality. He wasn’t having anything about it. So that was the sort of the breaking point for us. Well, he was just a whole life atheist, and he didn’t believe in anything. So that’s why I think I’m such a advocate for, you know, increasing our self awareness and and awakening our consciousness to all that we are because guess what? That’s the only freaking thing we take with us. Is our consciousness. And I’ve been witnessing that and communicating with that. And yes, we can affect those loved ones that seem to be stuck. Okay? For some reason, it’s like our energy is a soul in this human body has seniority. At some for for, I don’t know, the heirarchy, but it’s my understanding and from my experience.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So in doing the work for my ex-husband, Dave, I cleared the energy, then one day I was walking on my path where all the cardinals come to say hello to me. And this one day, all of a sudden, I felt Dave. And I’m like, wow. I wasn’t looking for it or expecting you know, and he just he had the attitude of, you know, your first love like, when you’re a puppy love and you’re so sweet on somebody and you’re kind of embarrassed or shy and that’s how he was. He was like a young soul that didn’t really know how this worked and that he was just beginning at his level of comprehension of what love was. And he was reflecting to me some of the things he did for me. Like, I didn’t think it was very funny or nice for a vacuum for Christmas. And he thought that was loving. Okay. And so back in those days, I was, you know, that was meant to be done. And, you know, so I was getting to laugh at some of these ridiculous things that I got spun up over, but he was showing me that he really, really did love me. And that was incredibly healing for me, spent all these years and a surprise. And it’s been it was two years after he passed that I was finally able to connect with him. I didn’t I didn’t work on it and intend on it, you know, and make it like I had to. But that’s what happens when we heal. It’s us that needs to heal, then the communication. They’re right there.
Victoria Volk: Oh, is that your tip? Is that people work on healing themselves? If —
Dr. Amirah Hall: Absolutely. —
Victoria Volk: so that they can connect?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Absolutely. We are we’re always like you and I are telepathically connected. And, you know, it’s just because they’ve left changed forms doesn’t mean they’re not communicating or they’re not able to communicate. It’s us. It’s the receiver. That’s been dumb down or doled out. And, you know, just a little the frequency, we have to raise our frequency to have that connection. It’s just like sometimes you can call somebody and add all the static on the line or it’s intermittent and you go, you know what? Let’s just hang up. You call again and boom, it’s good. Right? And that’s like that with communicating with spirit. So you don’t need a medium, but you need to get clear. And I find one of the very basic tools that I teach people because people don’t know how to be presence. Because if they’re stuck thinking about how their loved one died or some things they didn’t say, or they wish it could be different. They wish Johnny was with us at Christmas or it’s his birthday today, then you’re stuck in the past. Your energy is literally in that past experience that moment in time. And what that does overall is it reduces your frequency and you’re stuck in what I call depression. And so in the work I do is we learn to really accumulate, reaccumulate our own energies, our lives, and raise that so that we can be happier. So we are more inspired. So we are more motivated and fluid. And then, it’s like when opportunities open up, set new situations, you present yourself in ways that you couldn’t have expected. You know, my client that I was sharing when we cleared her energy and she was able to have that communication with her son, she started wearing shorts for the first time in thirty years. Right? And she would she said, I’m cutting up and I’m goofing off and I’m just she goes, my daughter doesn’t even know me like this. So parts of herself that she’d shut off, maybe when she decided when she became a mom. That’s the moment to come. Okay. Now I gotta be serious. I gotta grow up. And those aspects to our personality or what’s in our heart kinda get lost? Yeah. So it is work. It’s being a raising our awareness to being present. Having the appropriate tools, how can I do this? You know, if it’s I’m not a subscriber to talk therapy because in my own moments of grief, I just I got sick and tired of just talking about it. Like, I’m a bottom line girl. Give me some freaking way to get rid of it because I like this feeling to be caught in this loop.
Victoria Volk: Exactly. And so, like, even for what the work that I do with grievers, it’s action based. You’re always taking action. There’s steps. There’s it’s a process. Right. It’s evidence-based. Yes. I’m totally and it’s Transforms my transform my life and my grief too.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yes. Yes. And, you know, like, we were talking. I mean, you can be sacked from your job, and that’s grief.
Victoria Volk: Mhmm.
Dr. Amirah Hall: You know, you can, yes, losing a loved one is is probably the ultimate, but losing a relationship, that’s a heavy grief. And
Victoria Volk: Loss of health.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yes.
Victoria Volk: And all of it
Dr. Amirah Hall: I had all
Victoria Volk: of you. Yeah.
Dr. Amirah Hall: And I’m not alone. I know there’s millions of people doing the same shit that I did. And because we’ve not been taught, we’ve not been taught the nuances of our energy. How our thoughts are creating?
Victoria Volk: Can I ask you a question? Because something came up when I because in my in my own personal experience with my own energy. Right?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Uh-huh.
Dr. Amirah Hall: So I think, you know, as time, we can go through periods where, you know, like, for my for me personally, like, I’ve been on and off the health wagon for many years on and off on and off. What I have discovered just in the last month is nutrition and how food is fuel. And food is cheap. Right? Energy?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yes.
Victoria Volk: Everything you eat is energy. The plants animals like it, this is energy. And if you are consistently and especially in grief or if you’re depressed, stress, can be a big one? Like, what are you reaching for? The sugary cake? or
Dr. Amirah Hall: of course.
Victoria Volk: Probably not the salad. Right? So so what she do you want? If you are ready or low vibe and you’re already down and out and you’re feeling in the dumps, that sugary cake is not gonna bring you up. Right? It’s not gonna bring up your tea. So when you are going through like that deep depressive period in your life, I imagine you are probably terribly under eating and not caring for wrongly eating, I actually heard something not that long ago about vegetarians. About how vegetarians can actually come off as very angry people, because they don’t they don’t eat protein. But what they don’t realize is that they’re still eating they’re still eating living things. Right? So it’s like they don’t wanna eat meat. Like, because it’s because it’s animal.
Victoria Volk: But a plant is a living thing too. Right?
Dr. Amirah Hall: I know. They have no problem killing that.
Victoria Volk: Right. So let’s bring it with poison. Yes.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, here’s you know, we could that’s a whole another podcast because back in those days in the nineties, and when I’ve discovered with chronic fatigue, I started colon cleansing. I started doing detoxes. Like I said before, one year before I went to Egypt, I started doing thirty day detoxes twice a year. And I was into juicing, and I was into enemas, and a coffee enemas, and you name it. Well, at one point, I was vegan then I went to a mix. Right? So I’ve seen the journey across the board. Now, because things were so compromised as a young girl with my emotions and eating all the carbs growing up and sandwiches every day to go to school. And I believe while my immune system is still compromised. So now we understand about leaky gut. We understand, hey, I’ve been in the process of healing. It’s a big it’s a long journey. And I’ve recently switched the carnivore, which I have to say, I don’t tell many people and I don’t admit but I am absolutely loving it and I’m shocked at my own self because there was one time, I would say to you, if you’re eating animal, you’re, you know, going to the hell or the you know. But I as a vegetarian, complete vegetarian for a number of years, I got very sick. I got anemic. Right? And so all of these you know, broad range and scope swings that I’ve done to do desperate to heal myself. I think the biggest most important thing I’ve done is my energy. And when we have energy that’s stuck, that will make us crave carbs because today, even though I’m now carnivore in like six or nine months, I know people that have been a carnivore for fourteen years. And the thing of it is is their that cow is eating all the nutrients and pre-digesting it is going into the meat. So that’s the argument. So my health has improved. Inflammation has been reduced and cravings have pretty much stopped. Yeah. So it’s a shock to me and I’m delighted. However, I’m as I said, I’m working on it and I’m actually gaining weight. Now is it because my body still you know, a lot of things, adrenals, etcetera. But one thing I notice is I when I’m teaching a class or working with clients, two days before I’m like, shit. And I find myself driving to the store and getting that butter pecan ice cream. I’m like, what the I don’t I don’t need this. What is it’s somebody’s energy, literally, plugging into me. I get on the call, I said, you know, like, buttered pecan ice cream by any chance, do you? That’s my favorite. No. Unknowingly, I’ve been affected by this person’s energy that was seeking me and looking for their answers or their healing. And so it does affect us, especially ultra-sensitive people. So if all of a sudden, like the other night, I was craving chocolate, That’s not normally on my list, but I’m like, okay, somebody’s energies permeated my space. We can’t completely stop energy. You can’t stop energy from moving. It’s just the nature of it. So we have to learn tools. We have to learn how to be grounded, how to protect, not protect because that’s a sense that you can actually control energy. You can’t, you can manage it. So learning all of that is key.
Victoria Volk: It can only be transformed, moved, or transformed.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yes. Yes. And so whether it’s grief, whether it’s, you know, gaining around your waistline, whether it’s a new job, whether it’s a relationship, we’re creating all of that with our energy, with our thoughts, with our consciousness. And so we start, we gotta start somewhere. Right? So let’s start with being aware. Grounding, being present.
Victoria Volk: Gosh. We could talk so much. I mean,
Dr. Amirah Hall: I know I know it’s so exciting because I’m
Victoria Volk: so glad you like, that that the conversation went with the with the carnivore and because I beat I’m eating more protein than I had in years. I — Right. — I spent years trashing my metabolism.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Right.
Victoria Volk: But and it’s a vicious cycle, you know, and then you have the cortisol and the middle section where they can
Dr. Amirah Hall: And you believe all the doctors. Well, listen, I’m there is a lot of cardiologists now and other mainstream doctors that are starting to go this route. So I’m just open. I’m just open to exploring. And I didn’t tell anybody for the longest time because I’m my own labrat. Like, I’m gonna try it. And then if it works for me, then I’ll share it with other clients. But, hey, I’m shocked. And I’m just like,
Victoria Volk: But I think one of the key things you said was when the pendulum swings so far one way, you know, where you’re just a vegetarian and that’s all you’re doing. Any one way isn’t balanced.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Well, and the thing of it is I’ve met so many vegetarians. They’re completely ungrounded. They don’t. They can’t get their life together. They struggle. In in most cases, not all. But they struggle in some ways and that is being present or you can just see the, like, the life force energy isn’t strong or bright, usually with them. Oh, again, I’m not talking about the, you know, the monk or the guru from India. I’m talking about Western and live in this lifestyle. So Yeah.
Victoria Volk: I definitely wanna have you back because there’s so much more I want to talk about with you if that’s okay?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Oh, I’d love that. Thank you
Victoria Volk: too. Okay. Yeah. And I do wanna give you an opportunity to share what you have coming up or where people can find you or reach out to you if they wanna learn more about you?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Great. Yes. I’m hosting a twenty-one-speaker series with incredibly brilliant and amazing experts. And so you can go to intuitivesuperpowerssummit.com Intuitive superpowers with an s summit dot com. And, yeah, go to my website. I’ve got a free gift It’s called stress buster. And you go to my website, amirahhall.com forward slash stress buster dot com.
Victoria Volk: And I’ll get those links in the show notes as well.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yeah. The yeah. So stress buster, and that’s agood energy shower, and you can start clearing your energy and moving in the direction of coming into alignment and connecting with your loved one.
Victoria Volk: And where can people find you just your website? Are there social media?
Dr. Amirah Hall: Yes. Amira, A M I R A H H A L L. COM. You can read all about me there.
Victoria Volk: Sounds wonderful. Thank you so much for this great conversation.
Dr. Amirah Hall: I just want to invite people if something triggered something within you reach out to me on my website. There’s a link and you can book a twenty-minute consultation. And we’ll just talk about maybe what your next step is or where you feel that maybe you need help. Okay?
Victoria Volk: Sounds great.
Dr. Amirah Hall: Thank you so much. It’s been such an honor. Thank you for opening your heart and doing the work you’re doing. It’s truly amazing and I’m I feel very blessed to be connected with you.
Victoria Volk: Same. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast |
6 Tips For Getting Out of a Slump
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
In this week’s episode, we dive deep into self-improvement and personal growth.
Today’s episode is about:
- Exploring the dynamic between motivation and determination and why determination is often more potent in overcoming challenges (including grief).
- Discovering the key differences between these concepts and how harnessing determination can lead to more success and empowerment.
- In this episode, I also share with you how determination played a role in me becoming the person I am today.
Motivation and determination play vital roles in the pursuit of success, but determination is often considered more critical in the long run. While motivation can provide the initial drive and enthusiasm to start a journey, it tends to fluctuate over time and may not always be present. In this episode, I explore motivation and determination and the role of each in our lives, even in times of challenge.
On the other hand, determination embodies a relentless commitment to achieving goals, even in the face of adversity and challenges. Determination keeps individuals going when the initial excitement fades away, and obstacles threaten to derail their progress. Determination fuels resilience, perseverance, and unwavering focus, pushing people to overcome setbacks and stay on track toward their objectives.
While motivation can ignite the spark, determination keeps the fire burning. Combining both elements can be a powerful approach, as motivation can be the catalyst for building determination, creating a resilient mindset that propels individuals toward their dreams and the will to reach the other side of adversity.
RESOURCES:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hey there. Thank you so much for tuning in to this week’s episode, which is episode 153 five tips for getting out of a slump and I can’t tell you how many times I have been there. Probably just like you as you’re listening to this, saying, raising your hand, saying, yep, that’s me. I’m in a slump, whether it’s physically, emotionally, mentally, all the ways we find ourselves feeling like our feet are planted in quicksand or concrete. Right? Like we have a really difficult time putting one foot in front of the other.
Victoria Volk: We lack the motivation, right, to get ourselves out of this pit we find ourselves in, and it can be in relationships too. Right? Like, there’s so many ways that we find ourselves in a slump. So this is not going to be directly correlated with any type of slump whether it’s physical or mental emotional, relational, anything like that, this is going to be a very general overarching episode about getting out of a slump no matter what that slump is.
And it’s inspired by my coach actually who my it’s she’s actually my fitness and nutrition coach. I am a coach. I’m a grief coach, grief therapist, whatever you want to call me. I do energy healing work, but I’m someone who recognizes that I need support as well. And any coach or therapist or anyone you choose to work with who doesn’t themselves have a coach, not saying that’s wrong or bad, I mean, I’ve gone through phases where I didn’t have a coach or a mentor or something like that. But in the areas of my life where I know, I’ve needed support. I’ve sought it out.
Victoria Volk: I currently have a speaking coach. And mentor and like I said, I just recently started with a nutrition and fitness coach and it’s pushed me beyond my comfort zone for sure. I am learning so much about food and reading labels and shifting my relationship with food which stems from my childhood. I can talk about that later in this podcast, not in this episode, but I think after I’ve been at it for a while, I’ll share my experience with you all, but I just think these what areas of your life could you use some mentoring or support or coaching. It’s not wrong. It’s not bad. It helps you grow. It gets you out of your comfort zone. It helps you to evolve and develop yourself. And really, I mean, the best version of yourself is the best version you give to others. And so I’m one of my values is growth. So that’s me living out my value of personal growth or growth in development. That’s very important to me. And when I stop doing that, I will be dead.
Victoria Volk: So I’ll get into values a little bit. In this episode because that does play a role and what motivates us. But this episode is a little bit about motivation versus determination and as well. And so I’m gonna touch on a lot of different things here, but there will be six tips that I will provide you. I think I said five, but I think I actually wrote a six one, so this is six tips for getting out of a slump.
Victoria Volk: I’d like to start out talking about motivation. There are things that we do to get ourselves motivated. We may have grief over our body image. And so if we have grief over our body image, we might put pictures of the physique of people that we don’t even know on our mirrors or inner lockers at work or in our cubicles or on our phones or places where we can see them to inspire us to keep going. We might not even know those people. Right? But it’s just a visual cue. Like, this is what I want. And it can be effective and I suppose like manifestation and having what do you call those boards, vision board, so to speak. Or you can put a picture of yourself when you were younger. There are many people who do that too. Like, your younger self, your slimmer, trimmer, healthier, fitter self. Right? So that’s another thing that people often can do to keep themselves motivated. Right? But you’re not the same person you used to be. And especially if you are a female and you’ve had children, you’re definitely not going to have the same body composition and look that you did when you were twenty, it’s not going to happen, most likely.
Victoria Volk: When I look back to after I had my third child, and I was nursing her probably at eighteen until eighteen months. I was a photographer at the time, and I had to go to Montana. It was quite a drive to get there, and I had to quit nursing her cold turkey. When she was eighteen months to get to go photograph this wedding. And that I look back now at that time and that was probably one of the smallest I had ever been as an adult.
Victoria Volk: And I’ve had to let go of the fact that that is not what I will be like ever again, most likely. But the thing is, I wasn’t was a healthy, this is what I’ve learned too in my program is that you can be a hundred and forty pounds of softness or you can be a hundred and forty pounds of muscle. The body composition will be very different. And this is where we focus so much on the scale, and that is the wrong caliber of health. From what I’ve learned. And the least reliable resource that we have to gauge to gauge our health. So that’s just one aspect of how we get ourselves motivated in terms of like like physical. Right? If we have grief over our physical bodies.
Victoria Volk: But motivation is fleeting. Right? Like, how do you stay motivated to keep going at something? Whether it’s bettering your physical self or your mental health or your emotional or relational aspects of your life. How do you keep motivated? Is motivated, is quick, it’s fleeting, it comes and goes. You can’t rely on it. It it’s exciting at the moment, and it lives in emotion. Whereas determination, when I think of determination, I think of grit, I think of power. I think of being a fighter. I think of not giving up, resilience, we can be motivated or we can be determined. And determination to me is when you have your mind set on something.
Victoria Volk: And often for me, what I have had to do is put myself in the way of suffering. I say suffering, but I mean really discomfort. And challenge to prove to myself that I could do what it is that I thought I couldn’t do. For example, I was 20 years old when I enlisted in the military. I was one of the oldest people at my basic training, boot camp. Most people are, like, eighteen when they seventeen, eighteen when they go to basic. So I wasn’t that much older, but I was not. I was not an athlete growing up. I had two left feet I did not have the strength to do I barely squeaked out one push-up. And that’s what you had to do in order to be accepted at the military processing, what they call it, maps.
Victoria Volk: And so I squeaked out my one push-up. And by the end of basic training, which was around eight weeks, I did my training at Fort Leonardwood, Missouri. Same place. My dad had actually been for his army training. And I did the most push-ups of all the females by the end of my basic training. Seventy-two in two minutes. Will I hit that again? I don’t know. It is possible. I think with this fitness and nutrition program I’m now doing, but I didn’t think it was ever possible for me. And so determination was what kept me going. Because there were plenty of other females and males, to be honest, that had to be recycled. Recycled meaning, they start from the beginning. And it could have been from an injury, but sometimes it was just because they could not pass the physical aspect. We did a two-mile road march with forty-pound rucksack. I think it was it might have been more than that. I can’t even remember what the rucksack weight was, but that was grueling, I remember, but I did it. I finished. But that was the greatest challenge for me physically that I have ever put myself in.
Victoria Volk: But I tell you what, it wasn’t motivation that was keeping me going. We need to regularly recognize our small wins and our strengths to keep us going and recognize what is going well and understand that there is no shame that no one has motivated all of the time. And what I really have come to know is that determination has a really strong why. Why are you doing what you were doing? Why do you want to happen? Why do you want this thing to happen happen. Right? Like, for me getting out of my slump of my grief, right? I had never really addressed it in my forty-plus years of life. And I was determined to figure out why I felt the way I felt. And I took action and that’s what we need to do. Determination leads us to taking action. If you are going to sit on your couch and wait to be motivated to get out of a slump, you’re you’re gonna wait for a very long time. With motivation, you’re just going through the motion.
Victoria Volk: So the first tip I would give is to not overwhelm yourself. When you feel overwhelmed in life, lighten up your goals and simplify. What’s one thing you can do today or daily to get out of the slump and add as you go day by day. You need to crawl before you walk. Right?
Victoria Volk: Second tip, lose the shame in the guilt. As we build our confidence, the shame and the guilt subside or lessen. And coming back to recognizing your wins and your strengths, think about what’s going well. These are ways that we lessen the shame and the guilt. Not everybody gets it right the first time. You’re gonna fall, you’re gonna fail, you’re gonna feel like you failed.
Victoria Volk: But there was a my son Russel, when he was an elementary school. And there was a wrestling team that had a quote on the back of their t-shirts and I’ve never forgotten it and I probably am not gonna say it exactly how it was on the shirt, but you don’t fail there’s no such thing as failure. There’s only learning. And that’s absolutely true in the sport of wrestling, but it’s true in the sport of life. Right? We’re gonna be learning constantly. There’s always something more to learn about ourselves about each other, about our grief, about our physical capabilities, about our resilience. There is so much to learn. Life is the gift that keeps on giving in that regard.
Victoria Volk: Three, share with a trusted loved one or a friend, seek support and a cheerleader. And maybe accountability if that’s what you need. I know for me personally, I need accountability because I have zero executing strengths. I am someone who okay, let me come up with the plan. Someone else executed. Right? Someone else, If there was if I were to ever build an app, it would be I would come up with the ideas. I would structure it out. Someone else would execute. I am the builder of things, of ideas. The builder of the ideas but someone else does be executing. And so I know for myself that accountability is huge for me. To keep myself in check and to recognize that probably more so of a cheerleader. Right? And I think, again, this comes back to being our bet being our own cheerleader. And how we do that is recognizing what is going well. What are we accomplishing? And I think when you look for that trust and a loved one or a friend, maybe they’ll have similar goals to you that you can hold each other accountable and be that support for one another. And if it’s an area of your life, where a friend or a family member is not the best person. Say, like, when it comes to grief, for example, maybe that’s where you bring someone like me into your life to help you support to support you through those things as you work through those losses and the traumas that happened in your past that are probably weighing you down today that are contributing to this slump that you’re in. And that was the thing if I’m really connecting some dots here because connectedness is in my top five, is a lot of my slumps we’re connected to grief in some respect in some way.
Victoria Volk: Tip #4. Be open to stepping outside of your comfort zone. Try something new. Don’t have this all or nothing idea or mindset that, well, I tried that so now this isn’t gonna work. I did that. That didn’t work. Well, she tried that and that didn’t work for her, so it’s surely not gonna work for me. We tell ourselves these stories even before we begin. You have to put yourself in the way of struggle and challenge sometimes in order to grow and that means getting out of your comfort zone. The moments I have done that in my life have been the most rewarding experiences of my life. Like I said, my military service, the basic training, deployment, becoming a parent, opening a business, writing a book, starting this podcast, so many things applying for a job that I never should have probably gotten, and I did. But I was open to learning something new. I was not coming in as a know it all. Like, I love to learn. And so I am always open to learning something new. My clients are always teaching me something new about myself too.
Victoria Volk: Tip five. Set time aside to self-reflect. I cannot stress this enough. That we are constantly going going going going going. How do we ever possibly recognize what’s going well? Celebrate our wins if we don’t pause long enough to acknowledge them. So at the end of the day, while you’re driving in the morning when the house is quiet, build it into your day as a habit. Anchoring it in another behavior. So like I said, as you’re driving, no music, no podcast, get out your voice recorder. There’s voice memo apps that you can put on your phone. You can take notes in the notes app. Capture some thoughts, and it doesn’t have to be long ten minutes, just capture some thoughts. Just self-reflect and capture those thoughts somehow on a posted note, in a voice memo, in your journal, in your planner something. Because if we can look back, there is I tell you this. Like, so I use the passion planner. I absolutely love the passion planner. I will put a link to it in the show notes where you get a discount by using my link. But looking back at my wins and things that went well each week. When you do that at the end of the month, it’s like, wow. A lot of things really did go well because we so easily focus on the negative. We so easily focus on what went wrong. It takes, like, five seconds of someone just saying the wrong thing and it spoils your entire day. It’s like that one rot that one moldy cherry tomato or the moldy cherry in the bowl? Or the rotten apple, it just spoils the whole bunch. Right? So we have some say over that. And how we can nip that in the bud is by pausing long enough to celebrate our wins and look at what went right and what’s going well. So maybe you get get a cup of tea and you self-reflect. You drive and you self-reflect. You take a walk, you self-reflect. These can become moments in our day that become a habit.
Victoria Volk: The sixth tip is clear your space declutter, throw, save, donate. I have a rule for myself that whenever I’m buying anything new, like new clothes for example, stuff that I haven’t, if I have not touched it in six months or a year or more, it goes. I need to get rid of it. In fact, I’m due for a purge in my closet as we speak, and I do intend to do that. But decluttering, there’s something about our space. When we feel overwhelmed in our life, and we leave the house in the morning and we go about our day and we go to work and we do all these things and we pick up the kids and go grocery shopping. And then we come home and we’re in a space of clutter That is not relaxing. How do you relax? You can’t. And if life itself, if all the rat race of life and your schedule is overwhelming, maybe you had a look at your schedule, But if that aspect of your life is really full, and you don’t know where to start and that part of your life, the things that you do for others and being the CEO of the family, if that’s you, then start with your space. That’s what you can start with. And I’m telling you, when you come home, and you’re able to actually relax. That will translate into your day. Trust me. Life is hard at times, but we often are our own worst enemies. Only making life feel harder. How about we get back to the basics? Slow down our minds, re-evaluate our schedules, and take a hard look at our priorities, which if your life isn’t aligning with your values, you are making your life harder for yourself than it needs to be.
Victoria Volk: Did you like this episode? Six tips for getting out of a slump, If you found it helpful and you liked it, please share it, leave a review. It takes five seconds, and it helps the show reach more hurting hearts. And keeps my determination going and helping humanity talk about grief like we talk about the weather. Until next time. When you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Podcast, Mental Health, Mind/Body Wellness, Podcast, solo episode |
The Grief of Burnout and Not Knowing Yourself
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
In today’s episode, I will cover the other two pillars of YouMap®: Skills and Personality. If you listened to last week’s episode, I discuss the first two pillars of YouMap®, which are the Strengths and Values.
This week, I’m diving deeper into:
- The difference between Preferred and Least Preferred Skills
- The 6 Personality Interest Types (as they relate to career/life satisfaction)
- The 3 Levels of Coaching
According to Korn Ferry International, 85 percent of skills can be transferred from one job to another.
This means the expertise, knowledge, and abilities gained in a specific role can be applicable and valuable in a different job or industry. However, many individuals might not fully recognize the potential of their transferable skills, often underestimating how their existing competencies can be leveraged in a new position they have not previously experienced.
Understanding and acknowledging these transferable skills are crucial in maximizing career opportunities and navigating job transitions successfully. Emphasizing transferable skills can empower job seekers to present themselves as versatile and adaptable candidates to employers, expanding their possibilities in the ever-changing job market.
Why does this all matter? Considering we spend the majority of our lives in our careers/work life, isn’t it more satisfying when you’re doing something you enjoy and maximizing everything about you that is expressed through your YouMap®?
RESOURCES:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE. Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hello there. Thank you for tuning in to this week’s episode of grieving voices. This is going to be continuation from last week’s episode where I’ll be talking about skills and personality type as they relate to what’s called the Youmap. If you did not listen to last week’s episode where I talk about the Youmap more in-depth like an overview. And the first two pillars, I cover more in-depth, strengths and values, then I highly recommend you go back to that episode because it’s going to lay the foundation for what I’m going to cover today.
Victoria Volk: So today, we’re gonna be talking about skills and personality type. And skills are important to know just because, you know, we might think we know what we like to do, or we definitely know what we don’t like to do. But just because we are good at something doesn’t mean we like doing it or enjoy doing it or just because we think we might like something, and then we actually go do it that might not be the case either. We can actually be really good at something too and not enjoy it, and then overuse that skill. And then it becomes what’s called a burnout skill. And so it’s very important to discern for ourselves what our most preferred and least preferred skills are because we can really hone in on opportunities that may come our way.
Victoria Volk: We can find a resume or an application or things like that, organizations or any even volunteering, we can apply this knowledge about ourselves to these opportunities and make a more informed decision as to if that opportunity is really for me. And again, this is one aspect of the Youmap. Strength also plays a role and what you value is huge as well. Because if you are working for a company that lacks integrity, but you are integrity is very important to you. Probably not gonna be very happy in that work environment.
Victoria Volk: So, anyway, today, skills. We’re gonna talk about skills. And skills are the abilities and expertise that contribute to an individual’s capacity to perform competently in a role and those skills are usually portable across many jobs. According to Korn Ferry International, 85 percent of skills are transferable from job to job. And many people don’t even realize how their skills can transfer to a role they haven’t even held in the past. We see this a lot with veterans military people, personnel, often find themselves in law enforcement. Now you wouldn’t think that someone who was in the military, like myself, let’s say, as a medic, would end up in, you know, as a police officer, but that happens. Because there are so many different skills that we learn in that environment, you know, going through the different training and things like that are transferable to civilian world in, let’s say, law enforcement. And so understanding what skills may be transferrable is important too if you’re wanting to make a career change or you’re like the military, you’re coming out of the military. Well, what are you what are you gonna do with that experience and skills, and knowledge that you learned from the military, how are you going to translate that into the civilian life? If you are a veteran or you are in the military and this as part of you’re finding yourself in that process right now. I encourage you to reach out to me. The military offers so many opportunities to learn.
Victoria Volk: And I think there’s a lot of really intelligent and motivated people out there whose skills were utilized in the military, but maybe they’re being underutilized in the civilian world right now. There are as many companies that love hiring veterans, and so I’ve actually come across many resources. So if this is you and you’re struggling to find work, I encourage you to reach out to me because I have a lot of resources I could share. In that regard. But anyway, the most preferred skills are defined as a skill that you are good at and enjoy using. The keyword, “enjoy using”. A skill, a client hasn’t had a chance to use yet, but believes they would enjoy using also. So like I said, you know, you may not have had the chance to do that certain thing, but you believe that you would enjoy it. So that’s a preferred skill as well. A least preferred skill is defined as something you’re good at, but you do not enjoy using. It is something you are not good at and do not enjoy using. And it’s also something you may haven’t had the chance to use, but you believe you would not enjoy using that skill.
Victoria Volk: Now, you can have a skill that you’re not good at, but you believe that you would enjoy. Could be something that we would work on or could be flagged for development. So then we would assess, well, what could you do to build your knowledge around that skill and gain more experience and things like that? Especially if it’s a leadership role, you know, what are other ways in your community that you could get more familiarized with leadership roles or things like that, for example. So anyway, we have these we go there’s a whole list of these skills. And then we do some math, and we figure out the total number of most preferred skills. And we figure out total number of the least preferred skills and we calculate a percentage and and this percentage will tell us if you are a specialist or if you are a generalist where you like to wear many multiple hats at work. And then we can also determine based on some calculations, if you are using burnout skills, too many burnout skills, or if you’re being underutilized. So we really glean a lot of information from this part of the Youmap assessment. And you can actually see in different categories as well.
Victoria Volk: For example, let’s say most of your preferred skills might be for example, expedite or make arrangements, manage time, plan, or organize. That tells me that you love and you love managing processes and projects. However, if you don’t enjoy adapting to change or customer service, or multitasking, these would probably be burnout skills under management process under managing processes or projects. So those are things important to know because if you’re going into a certain job, a new job, or you’re looking to transition and customer service is like one of their main things. And that’s part of your job description and but that’s a burnout skill for you that might not be the best role for you to take on.
Victoria Volk: And so all of these, it’s not just a matter of spitting out this information and now you know what your skills are and things like that. There there’s so much more to this and it’s a really deep assessment compared to probably many others that you’ve taken. In how and what we do with the information. So it’s not just it’s like, okay, now I know this stuff, but now what? And for the work that I do with grievers, it’s not enough to just know themselves. It’s and for anybody in general, actually, it’s not just grievers, but it’s not enough for us to just know ourselves or know these things about ourselves and see it in black and white on paper in the u map, but it’s what do I do with this information? And so this is where the coaching comes in. And there are three different levels to the coaching. You can just get the Youmap, which involves no coaching whatsoever, or you can get the u map and a mini debrief, which is a brief overview, or you can go through the full coaching that goes through every pillar more in-depth specific to your u mab. And so that’s where they differ a little bit, but just having this knowledge is great. And but again, it’s how do you implement it in your life? How do you use this? Information as a guide moving forward. As, you know, what’s the word I’m trying to think of? A roadmap moving forward. And on something to fall back on to discern opportunities as they come your way or even to assess relationships in your life. If you know, maybe your loved one, maybe you want him or her or, you know, someone special in your life to take the u map and you can gain a better understanding of each other, right, before you dive into marriage or, I mean, it’s a really great way to talk about what it is that you bring to the relationship individually. And I did touch more on a lot more on that on in the last episode.
Victoria Volk: So again, I’d encourage you to go back to that one. So now that we’ve talked a little bit about skills. Let’s move on to personality. So the fourth pillar explores your personality and the interests aspect of the personality is determined by the person’s traits. So in the u map, we use a personality inventory, and there are six different interest types, realistic, which are the doers, investigative are the thinkers. The artistic type are the creators. The social type are the helpers. The enterprising type are the persuaders and the conventional type are the organizers. Now for example, I am artistic investigative. So those two together makes what’s called the idealist. I am the creator and the thinker. So how the Youmap uses the descriptor words for artistic investigative are intensely verbal, private, opinionated, somewhat antisocial, highly idealistic, perpetually thinking, extremely perceptive. And the idealist is most fascinated by the work that is in their head exploring ideas and creating They are soulful, deep thinkers, and they are also passionate. They need intellectual challenge and creative stimulation or their minds tend to wonder. And you would be amazed when you actually get your Youmap, how spot on it is. And this is me to a t. They have very high standards and ideals and crave being alone, which I do. They need autonomy to think and create, which I do. They tend to work long hours to see an idea through to completion I do. Idealists are intellectually curious and need to be challenged. And any work that involves repetitive tasks is bad fit. So is highly technical work or anything that involves working directly with customers, which I work directly with clients, but working in customer service when in my younger years definitely taught me a lot. But I definitely need and it’s not that I hate customers. I don’t it’s not that I dislike customers. I’ve seen my clients as my customers of course. But it’s those short-term interactions where you really don’t get to connect with people I’m much more of a let’s connect more deeply one on one or in a small group. And, you know, it’s just very different dynamic So what the u map personality type gives you is kind of, like, really what what is your best match for the type of work that you could be doing? So we take these six interest type.
Victoria Volk: And I’ll go over just each of them briefly again, more in-depth sold the realistic or the doers. Individuals with a realistic career code tend to prefer work that involves practical hands on solutions to problems. They value things they can see, touch, and use. They’d rather work with their hands than sit behind a desk for example. Well. And then we also get occupation samples or, you know, different ideas for occupation based on the different interest types. So the realistic or the doer would be the ambulance driver, the EMT technicians, veterinarians, elect things like that, investigative, the thinkers, those with an investigative career code are intellectual, curious, and reserved. And they like to solve problems and engage in challenges in their work. They do not like routine work that forces them to check their brain at the door. In fact, their work often involves ideas and heavy mental lifting. So they also tend to avoid careers that involve leading or influencing people and selling. So some ideas for the invest gate of thinkers are fire investigators, registered nurses, software developers, analysts, market research, analysts, database, architects, things like that. I which really is funny because I really geek out over like kitchen gadgets and like any any types of gadgets. And I love learning new software. So That is totally me. Artistic creators, this type of code, they’re imaginative, creative, original, independent, and expressive. In general, they tend to avoid work that involves highly structured or routine activities. And these individuals are inspired to create weather through activities such as music, writing, drawing, dance photography or art, which in my previous years, I had a photography business. So it’s kinda interesting, you know, reading through these and recognizing, like, oh, I used to do that. And, you know, it’s like, it’s not that we don’t know ourselves.
Victoria Volk: It’s like we know these things intuitively, but it’s like we don’t understand ourselves. Like, why do I do the things I do? The Youmap helps explain that. Moving on to social, the helpers, individuals with a social career code are interested in serving society and making a difference in people’s lives. They like to help people and their work is often centered around people. Like social careers, nonprofits, education, healthcare. They are helpful, friendly, loyal, generous, you know, these are our teachers, dietetic technicians, midwives health educators, patient representatives, for example. Moving on to enterprising, the persuaders, these individuals you’ll often deal with business, leadership or politics, involved in making decisions, starting up and carrying out projects, selling ideas or things. They are generally energetic, ambitious, dominant, outgoing, and and competitive. So think about financial services, sales reps, CEOs, judges, human resource specialists, supply chain managers, people in charge basically. The conventional, the organizer type are the glue that holds organizations together. They provide structure, process, and order that all organizations need to run smoothly. People with this career type are generally methodical detailed oriented, cautious, organized, responsible, and quality oriented. So for example, insurance claim clerk or medical secretary’s accountants, pharmacy tax, loan officers, research assistance, or financial analysts, So these six personal personality types provide a glimpse into a person’s internal, interpersonal and environmental preferences. And when we hone in on their two strongest codes, for example, like I mentioned, mine are artistic and investigative, more specific preferences are then revealed. And so then we take this information, all of this information, your strengths, your values, your skills, and your personality inventory type. And you have what’s called a workbook.
Victoria Volk: And the workbook is where you really answer questions that integrate this information more deeply. It helps you gain a better understanding and assimilate all of this information because is a lot of information that you receive in a u map. We also have what’s called dealmakers and breakers. It’s a worksheet for that. We have an ideal day worksheet.
Victoria Volk: There is so much information that you receive with the Youmap. It’s not just this assessment you take and you get this printout and then it goes in a drawer and it sits for years and years. This is something that you can use in your daily life, like I said, in your relationships for better understanding, and probably nurturing compassion because in understanding that we’re all different, you can be more compassionate towards others in your grief. Like, if you’ve lost a breadwinner in the household, like, what are you gonna do now? Right? Like, if you have to go out and get a second job or you have to get a job maybe for the first time after many years of not being in the workforce because now you have to go to work for whatever reason. Or you’ve been a stay-at-home parent and now you’re gonna enter the workforce again after being home with your kids for a while.
Victoria Volk: There are so many different scenarios where we find ourselves having to reinvent our lives, reinvent ourselves. Maybe you’ve had a change in health. In their the career that you had, you can no longer physically do that. But what can you do? There is something else you can do. You can still contribute to the world, you can still make a difference in people’s lives and as long as you’re not dead, you still have something to contribute You can still contribute to the world, you can still contribute to your life, and you can create your life with this information armed with this information, how you see it, how you want to see it, that fits you, who you are, and where you are in your life. And how you want to move forward. And this is the whole goal of Do Grief Differently and the Youmap together is moving forward, onward, and upward in a positive direction and creating lasting transformational change that leads you to have a fulfilling, soulful, self-honoring life.
Victoria Volk: Because when we honor who we are, what we get back is joy. How can it be any other way? If you’re interested in the Youmap, you wanna learn more there’s a link on my website where you can email me [email protected]. If you are interested in working with me and receiving your Youmap and diving deeper. If you’re a veteran or you’re in the military and you’re gonna be sitting soon, coming into civilian life, and you’re kind of feeling overwhelmed. Like, what are you gonna do? This is perfect for you.
Victoria Volk: We actually have a specific workbook that is specific for military personnel. If you’re an entrepreneur, or if you one that’s geared more towards life coaching, there’s a specific workbook for your specific situation. If you are looking for employment, there’s a workbook specific for that.
Victoria Volk: So lots of information to share and help help you process. And I’m more than happy to do that and be there for you in that journey. And I hope this was helpful and maybe you understanding, yeah, there really is a lot more to us as human beings. They’re we’re complex. We’re so complex. And any tool that can help us better understand and just kind of make sense of everything, the better off we are for it and those we love. I encourage you to go back and listen to last week’s episode if you haven’t yet and check out my website for more information and reach out to me because life’s too short to be staying in a cubicle you don’t wanna be in or doing something that is sucking the joy out of your life. Right? And perhaps like me, you’ll receive the Youmap and it’ll be life-affirming like I am doing exactly what I meant to be doing. This is a perfect fit for me. And that’s what the Youmap did for me. It was very life-affirming, but what it also did then was it gave me the language to articulate what it is that I really do. Thank you for listening. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
