Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, solo episode |
The Grief of Not Knowing Your Strengths and Values
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Grief puts this veil over your face. When you’re bogged down emotionally, it can feel like a chore to make it through the day, much less connect emotionally with others (or yourself). Once you address the emotional weight, little by little, you see potential where you saw heartbreak. You feel connection where you once felt disconnected. And you recognize the only limits placed on yourself, or others are those imposed by the mind.
*This episode is connected to last week’s episode, which is titled Ep. 150, What It’s Like Working With Me*
In today’s episode, you will learn:
* How YouMap was the missing piece in finding the language for who I am and what I offer, but more importantly, in my work with clients and understanding them better.
* How YouMap can help you find your purpose in life.
* Grief Recovery and Youmap are a beautiful marriage of transformation.
Did you know that only 1 in 33 million people will have the exact same five strengths as you? Yes, that is a fact.
In this episode, I discuss what the YouMap® is and how It helps individuals understand their unique strengths, values, interests, and personality traits and guides their career choices and life goals accordingly. By clarifying these aspects, individuals can make more informed decisions and find greater fulfillment in their personal and professional lives – thereby experiencing less (self-inflicted and unnecessary) grief.
If you are looking for YouMap® Coach to help you discover your unique gifts and skills and how you can show up to the world, I am here to help and guide you.
RESOURCES:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hello. Hello. Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. I am your host, Victoria. And today, I want to dig into a topic I think is not really talked about as it relates to grief. One thing that I’ve learned in the years since becoming an advanced grief recovery specialist and working with clients in those first couple of years, there was a piece missing for me. People would work through their deepest losses and it was kind of like this now what feeling? Even I felt it or had that sense. And so I was looking for something to that could be kind of this roadmap for people moving forward, like moving beyond.
Victoria Volk: Okay. I’ve addressed all this icky stuff and I’ve swept my doorstep so to speak. And now what? What do I want for my life now that I’ve addressed how this very important person has passed away from my life or the relationship came to an end, whether it was divorced or estrangement or whatever it may be, there’s this once we repair this gap and this hole that we have felt. What do we fill it with? We can fill it with purpose. With meaning, things like that. That’s what I was looking for as a missing piece for my clients that I was working with.
Victoria Volk: So when I came across Youmap, it was the answer to that very question for me. I went through it for myself and it was very life-affirming that I’m doing exactly what I am to be doing in my work with grieving clients in energy healing. I’m utilizing my strengths and really honoring my values of personal growth. And bringing that to other people’s lives to make lasting transformational change. And that’s really what the Youmap helps us do. It becomes our lighthouse. Any opportunity that comes our way, we can put it up against our Youmap and say is this align with my values? Is this going to get me into the shore? Is that going to guide me where I’m ultimately wanting to take my life? Based on my values, based on my strengths, based on what I really want to be doing based on how I’m wired, just who I am as a person and as a human being with all of those things combined.
Victoria Volk: And so much misunderstanding happens among relationships, especially and it can be, I was gonna say, especially family and friends, but I was going to say even in your work relationships like people that you don’t necessarily wouldn’t call up at three o’clock in the morning, but you see them every day. Just having this background knowledge and information of how different we truly are. And but yet how grief is the commonality for us all? Like grief is it knows discrimination. It doesn’t matter what your skills, values, and strengths and all of that are. It doesn’t care. Grief doesn’t care. But when you understand these things about yourself, it can really help pull you out of a deep hole that you feel that you’ve been in. After we address the root of the issues of your emotional dis-ease through grief recovery.
Victoria Volk: And so this is why these two combined brief recovery and Youmap are such a beautiful marriage of transformation for my clients and why I believe that they needed to be together. And so I put them together in my program Do grief differently, which is twelve weeks long. And it flies people. Like that twelve weeks, it goes so fast. But it really has shifted how my clients move through grief recovery as well because they’re making these connections for themselves and through my assistance of course, making these different connections to how these misunderstandings are happening, why they’re happening, and how to move forward with them. Right? Because as long as we have people in our lives, we’re going to have grief. And that’s just a fact.
Victoria Volk: So today, I just want to dive deeper into two of the four pillars of the u map, four pillars are strengths, which is I mentioned last week in the episode briefly, but just for a recap, Strength is pillar one and that’s it’s what we prioritize. It’s how we work. So the there’s different kind of buckets that the strengths fall into, and we use the Clifton Strengths guide for this, that assessment as part of the Youmap assessment. So it’s not secret knowledge or anything like that, but it’s the Clifton Strengths, the values, the skills, and the personality type that all combined make the Youmap.
Victoria Volk: So yes, knowing your strengths is great information to have, but by itself, it’s not giving you the whole picture. And what’s really mind-blowing about the Clifton Strengths is that only one in thirty-three million people will have the exact same five strengths as you. Isn’t that crazy? That is absolutely bananas to me.
Victoria Volk: So it really just speaks to how unique all of us really are. And how we bring different things to the table in our relationships in our jobs or careers, in our philanthropy work or in our volunteering work, And again, in our relationships. And so it’s important to understand ourselves in this way because as you can see if you haven’t figured it out already, it can cause a lot of grief, not knowing who you are, what do I want? We often ask ourselves for so many years, what do I wanna be when I grow up? Sometimes even in our thirties, we’re still asking ourselves that, or it feels stuck in our career because we followed a life path that someone else paved for us. Maybe both of our parents were doctors or had construction business or something. And so we felt like we had to follow on their footsteps or keep the family business going it can be the same for farming operations. Maybe you don’t wanna farm, maybe you don’t wanna come back and take over the farm as an adult.
Victoria Volk: And so there’s a lot of grief that can come about as I’m sharing with you today in not understanding ourselves or sacrificing who we are in order to please other people. And where does this all happen? Why does that happen? Maybe somebody’s bringing their own values. They’re pushing their values onto you. They’re projecting what is important to them. It’s important to me, so it should be important to you. Right? Or this is how I do things, so this is how I want you to do things. And yet, we all do things differently because we’re different because we bring different strengths. Because we have different values, because our skill sets are different, because our life experience has been different. And we’re just uniquely ourselves that we are unique in our own right based on our personality, like, when we were born. Right? So there are so many influences that affect and have an impact on who we become and what we do with our lives.
Victoria Volk: And why we do them? What’s motivating us? So this is why this stuff is so important. And again, if you can’t tell now, maybe you’ve related to some of the things I’ve already said and you’ve experienced grief as a result, This is why I am encouraging you as a listener to take a look at understanding. Be open-minded to understanding that maybe you don’t know yourself exactly as you think you do. Or you don’t know how you don’t have the language to communicate that. Right? And so often too, that’s where misunderstandings happen is we don’t have the language to communicate why we do the things we do, how we do the things we do, why we do it that way. Right? So what the Youmap also does and through grief recovery is you find the language to express to others why you do what you do. So for example, like, I’m one of my top five strengths is strategic. And but not only do I have strategic, but I also have input and intellectually. So input, intellectually, strategic, three thinking themes.
Victoria Volk: So I spend a lot of time analyzing the world in my head. So I’m not necessarily gonna be the person that’s going to be openly communicating my thoughts or being upfront about what I think about something I’m going to read the room. I’m going to take in what everybody else is showing in their body language and what they’re saying. I’m gonna read the room and assess and reflect on what I think about that before I communicate. And when I do communicate, I’m gonna communicate with connectedness and empathy. I’m going to that’s how I relate to people in relationship. That’s how I create relationship building is through empathy and connectedness, helping other people see the connections. Right?
Finding helping other people see the purpose.
Victoria Volk: So often, I have felt grief or experienced grief in careers and different jobs or in with other relationships with people because I didn’t understand why I was doing something. I need to know, tell me why I am doing this. If it doesn’t make sense to me or if I don’t see a point or a purpose with that connectedness again. If I don’t see a purpose to the madness, I’m going to not be a very happy employee or a happy friend or what have you. Right? So I need to and so it’s helping me know that about myself so that I can communicate that because I know that not everybody has three thinking themes like I do. Right? And so, again, this is why this stuff matters.
Victoria Volk: So today, again, we’re gonna talk about strengths a little bit more and then values. Values explain our why. It’s based on what’s most important to us. It’s why we work. Again, tell me why I’m doing this. Right? So if I value personal growth like I do, I’m going to want clients who also value personal growth. That is going to be aligning with my values. And often some values are reciprocal. Right? So honesty is almost always reciprocal. If I’m if I value honesty, which I do, I expect honesty in return. Sometimes that doesn’t feel good. Right? But I would rather there was a quote once I heard. I would rather take an ounce of truth over a pound of lies any day. And that’s absolutely true. Tell me the truth, chances are with my empathy. I can kind of pick up on BS anyway. But again, it comes back to reading the room. Right? But or the body language or the tone of voice or what have you, those social cues that because of how I grew up in an environment that it was really and you can go back to the last episode where I talk about this a little bit, but when you grow up in an environment that’s kind of chaotic or emotionally charged like you really learn especially if you have empathy as a strength or you’re empathic because not all people have both. Like, you’re not you can be empathic but not have empathy as your top. Strength.
Victoria Volk: So I just want to make that clear. But as an empath or highly sensitive child, this is it’s no surprise to me that I developed empathy as my strength because I see I grew up seeing many different emotional responses from people in different scenarios and situations and learn through my own, right, that became not healthy responses to life because that’s what I was around, that’s what I learned, and so that’s how I responded to life. In life’s challenges sometimes in an unhealthy way. Emotionally. Right? So Anyway, I’m kind of all over the place I feel like, but I get really excited about this because, again, it comes down to knowing yourself? And what grief does is that I’ve said this so many times to clients and this podcast, and I’ll say it again. Grief puts this veil over your face and you really have a difficult time seeing yourself clearly. And because you have this veil over your face that this mask that you’re wearing your whole self isn’t shining through. Right? Because you’re burdened by grief. So you’re not seeing yourself clearly. You’re not living your life fully. So, therefore, you’re not seeing other people clearly either. You’re not seeing what they’re bringing to the table. You’re not understanding that they’re trying to support you maybe or what have you. Again, it comes down to misunderstandings, which are oftentimes at the root of a lot of grief too in relationships is just misunderstanding. Again, because we all do things differently. And view life differently and have had different life experiences that shape our personality and shape our skill set.
Victoria Volk: So there are again four buckets of strengths. The relationship-building strengths which explain how people build connection with others. There are influencing strengths which explain how an individual moves. Others to action. And there’s executing, which is what pushes an individual towards results. And then the last bucket is thinking. And it explains how a person analyzes the world.
Victoria Volk: And so let’s say you’re married to somebody who has more executing strengths than you do. Let’s say you have none. I don’t have any. I have zero. I have zero executing strengths. But let’s say that person has discipline as an executing strength. And you have harmony okay? So as a relationship-building strength. But the person executing doesn’t have harmony. Someone who is has executing as their strength. They are going to be diligent about time frames and deadlines, take a vacation with someone with discipline. It might be great for some people. Like, yep, handle it all, take care of it all. I don’t want anything to do with all of that. But then at the same time, let’s say you have adaptability. For example, adaptability might show up like when things don’t go right, For this person with discipline, things don’t go as scheduled. They might be struggling a little bit. But here, when with you and adaptability, you can come in and swoop in and kind of put out the fire a little bit. So this is how in marriage, in particular, it’s really great to know each other’s strengths because you can understand why certain conflicts happen the way they do. And for someone like me, I have a lot of thinking themes. I’m not going to necessarily be the let’s sit down and communicate. Like, my every thought right now and share every thought. That’s not me. That is not how I operate in the world. But someone who has more relationship-building strengths, let’s say my spouse had more relationship-building strengths, he was he’d probably be more keen to share every thought he has upfront.
Victoria Volk: It’s also important I think I just wanna mention. It’s great to know all of your strengths because it’s great to know your bottom strengths because we can also look at the and there’s you can think of these as weaknesses, but when we talk about Youmap, we don’t discuss them as weaknesses. These are just strengths that just are not ours. Right? But when we’re building a team, let’s say you have a business and you’re building a team, you probably want people on your team who have some of those other strengths that are not yours. This is where it’s also important to know about Youmap. And implementing Youmap, especially if you have a business or, you know, a large company, a lot of conflict can be resolute. I don’t know if that’s a word resolute. But you can really eliminate a lot of those issues if you are placing people, first of all, in their strengths and skill sets in in the right role, first of all, if they’re feeling like they’re in the right role for them in within a company, they’ll be happier employees. And that’s good for everybody. Right? That is good for everybody. So if you can match your future spouse, exactly who you are, what you’re looking for in someone else, you can become a really great team for the long term, for the long haul because and I’m not saying that if you don’t match with some maybe I should do matchmaking with Youmap. It was an idea. Anyway, it’s just so important, and I think you may have gotten the point by now.
Victoria Volk: But relationship building and influencing together these are what we call people-facing strengths. And the executing and thinking themes are the inward-facing strengths. They’re the task-oriented people. And so a lot of executives, you’ll see a lot of executives or CEO’s probably have either executing or thinking themes. They’re more of the top the person that comes up with the ideas and it’s the purse the people below that implement them. Or see them through to through to fruition. And, again, your strengths, your skills play into that as well. And your personality. So again, it it it it all ties together. All there’s this constant through line in the Youmap. And when people are telling me different stories that, you know, they’ve experienced as a grief client, Actually, I’ll just say this real quick. So someone, a client of mine, valued honesty. And so we’ll get into values right now because I’m gonna share the story. But again, values are why we work, like, why we do the things we do. But she valued honesty and yet she didn’t have honesty on her list of values. But I heard enough stories and enough, she shared enough with me through working with me in the grief work that I’m like, well, there’s honesty again. Like, you value honesty, but yet you don’t have it listed as one of your values. And that was a big aha for her. And the thing about honesty is, again, it’s reciprocal most of the time. If we value honesty, we want to receive that back. And so we can dishonor our own values. And this is exactly what she was doing. She was dishonoring her own value of honesty. And a part of it too is not being honest with herself, so you can dishonor your own values, yourself, if you value personal growth and you’re not doing anything to grow as an individual, you’re not learning and taking in information to become better than you were yesterday, you’re dishonoring your value of personal growth. That was a lot. Well, that was a lot of information within twenty-five minutes. And I feel like I barely scratched the surface. I hope you can see now how important this really is.
Victoria Volk: Let me just share a little bit more deeply about each of the some of the examples from each of the different buckets of strengths. So again, relationship-building strengths explain how people build connections with others. So people with this theme or mostly have strengths in this theme, build connections with people one on one, but those connections are made very differently depending on which strength you have. So the relationship currency that you have with people is largely based on your theme. But if you don’t have relationship-building themes, you can compensate with some of the other strengths. So some examples of how some of these relationship-building strengths can play out is Like I mentioned, empathy. Empathy understands where they get people. Harmony, they’re the peacemaker. They find common ground. So if you got a bickering table of, you know, employees, you’re and you have harmony, that’s a wonderful strength to have on your team because you can that person can help the team find common ground.
Victoria Volk: Individualization. I love this one. This is great for like coaches to have, but they appreciate the differences in people and they recognize individual strengths. Relator, they’re real and genuine makes connections easily with anyone. This is like the friend of the friend, like, there’s they know a they know no stranger anywhere. Like, there this is where a lot you might see a lot of people, especially because again, this is a people-facing strength. So you’ll see these are the people that exude warmth and inviting energy, I would say. So connectedness, they help others see purpose and believe that we are all connected, which I do. I have connectedness, and I totally believe that. Another influence or excuse me, another people facing strength is the influencing strengths. And these explain how an individual moves others to action. So some business people, business owners, might be just appointed like I was at first that I had no influencing strengths. I have none. There’s one in particular Woo, which means winning others over. And people with Woo, it’s almost like they can sell ice to an escomo. It’s yeah. So a lot of business owners can feel discouraged when they don’t have some of these influencing strengths.
Victoria Volk: But people with influencing strengths persuade or move people to action differently, based on the strengths that they have. They tend to work through people to accomplish goals like unlike relationship-building themes who form deeper connections. So again, you know, the relationship building, they want deeper connections. People with influencing strengths often prefer working with a variety of people. They tend to prefer a broader network versus fewer deeper connections like the relationship-building themes. And people with a lot of influence and strengths may tire of working with the same team of people day to day. So if you have a lot of these themes in your top five, maybe this is you, maybe you are kind of burned out from working with the same people. I do have maximizer in my top 10. But people who lack and I I think this is important to note. People who lack influencing strengths tend to be uncomfortable influencing or persuading others such as sales or fighting to have their voice heard, raising my hand or influencing people without any authority.
Victoria Volk: So for example, project managers are accountable for the results of people that don’t report to them. If project team members are missing deadlines, Someone without influencing themes likely not would likely not enjoying, enjoy motivating others to complete their deliverables. Right? And so when you see this translating onto a team of people at a company, that doesn’t bode well. And so this is where it is. Again, I come back to under standing yourself and understanding the importance of understanding others because as a manager or as a CEO of a company, it’s so important to have people in the right roles and this is why. This is a huge reason why because it does affect your bottom line. Right?
Victoria Volk: So the next bucket is executing strengths, the inward facing, the first of the inward facing. Or explains how an individual pushes towards results. And some examples of those are Achiever, arranger, belief is actually my sixth strength. I think, yeah, belief in maximizer are after my top five. Consistency, discipline, focus, responsibility. So responsibility is huge too because if you have responsibility, you are likely a someone who has takes that that takes responsibilities very seriously. Who probably, to their detriment can be a yes man, yes woman, yes a yes person and over commit themselves and then burnout. But people with executing strengths are the doers. Who like to get things done and put plans into action. Again, you’re motivated differently based on the strengths but you tend to be internally motivated since executing strengths are an inward, task-focused strength. People with several executing strengths may prefer to work independently to accomplish a goal and may also struggle to delegate. Some and but not all executors are not interested in strategy and may focus more on implementation unless they also have the thinking themes.
Victoria Volk: So people with discipline, for example, like planning as well as fusion. And last but not least, my favorite, the strategic thinking strengths, explain how a person analyzes the world and views the world too. Some examples are analytical, context, futuristic, ideation, input, intellectually, learner and strategic. So people with these thinking themes prefer mental work, particularly if they have two or more thinking strengths. So I like the mental game. I like the mental work. People with thinking strengths are often quietly effective. Because their most influential work occurs in their head. And this is also called the executive bucket because as people move up the career ladder, they are paid to think more often than they are paid to do. And so that’s where I said, you know, the CEOs and the executives are often have mostly thinking themes. And so this is just a really brief overview of the strengths and values and I didn’t go too much into depth, into values. But values are also so important because of what I said earlier if you are dishonoring your own values, you’re gonna experience grief. If you have people in your life close to you who you love and love you who are dishonoring your values, there’s going to be grief. And values vary so widely. Therefore, it’s important for a person to reflect on what’s most important to him or her. For example, like, listening to the advice of others can be helpful, but you have to understand that when taking values-based advice, it’s not necessarily advice that’s right for you. So people, for example, with who value security, will steer a person away from bold or adventurous risks. Others who value wealth and status might encourage someone to pursue a career simply because of the salary potential. And this comes back to again, let’s come back I’m circling back to, like, taking over the family farm or taking over the family business or, you know, choosing a career path because you’re that’s what your parents did and that’s what your parents want you to do and things like that. So a person’s work must align with their values. Not the values of others. And there’s exercises so along with Youmap you get a workbook and there’s exercises that really help you deepen this knowledge and apply it to your life and really look at and also too in the coaching with working with me, we actually go over each of these. In the Youmap and Do Grief Differently too and so into more depth.
Victoria Volk: And it’s individualized because you’re an individual and you’re unique and your Youmap is unique. But to define the values, there’s actually a whole list and you choose from this list because there can be a lot of values out there. But these values are kind of broken down to it takes it weeds out the similar similar ones. And so it’s a really easy. It’s not like you’re pulling words out of the sky. And what you do is and because I have three thinking this was probably one of the hardest exercises for me because in my mind I have to, like, like, it’s almost, like, pitch one to the other. Like, I have to do I value honesty more than I value growth. And you kinda have to weigh them out, like, especially if you have thinking themes. Like so this is kind of a difficult exercise for me to choose and weed out, but it’s doable. And some people just look at the list and like, yep, this is Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. This is what I value. But then through working with me, they miss some or realize that they didn’t have a value on their list, or they feel like, you know what, that isn’t necessarily true for me. I’m more so I value this aspect of myself more. So it’s all part of self-discovery, and that’s a lot of what Do Grief Differently is. It’s a lot of self-discovery. That’s what Youmap is, but it becomes once you’ve gone through the assessments and we’ve talked about and applied it to your life and you have some connections made through real life examples of how your Youmap is playing out in your life. It’s a lot easier to assimilate the information because it is a lot to take in even just for this episode I think I feel like it’s a ton of information at once, but and this is just too. This is just strengths and values. I haven’t even talked about skills yet or personality type. So that’s gonna come up in the next episode.
Victoria Volk: But in the meantime, think about what you bring to the table. Is it Do you feel like your life is aligned by your values? Do you feel like you are living out your strengths? And you can also overuse your strengths too. That is that is a possibility. And like, with empathy, for example, If I overuse empathy, I can seem like I’m too invested in someone’s life. Like, too invested in how they’re feeling and how they’re doing and almost take on this, save your role. And I know there’s a lot of people that can do that when they come into relationships with other people that they feel like they can rescue them. And that’s not your job. That’s not my job. And so that took a lot for me. It took a lot of personal growth and reflection and in doing the work that I personally did on myself to realize that I can only save myself. And you can only save yourself. It is your job, no one else’s.
Victoria Volk: And so I hope this information sparked some self-reflection in you and made you realize, there’s a lot to know here. And if you’re interested in learning more, just check out my website there’s a Youmap tab on there. You can check up more information about Youmap and see my Youmap on there as well. Or if you’re interested in combining it in grief work. There’s Do Grief Differently, and there’s information on that on my website as well. But it’s when I’m working with clients, it’s so much inform it’s educational. It’s not just let’s you know, dig up all the dirty laundry and talk about how I failed at life or what I’m doing wrong. It’s none of that. It is none of that. It’s or how this person hurt me. We don’t get wrapped up in the story because when you’re working with me, it’s action-focused, it’s action-based, evidence-based, educational based. We lay a foundation and you learn so so much about yourself. More than I think most of my clients bargain for in the best of ways.
So, anyway, I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day wherever you are. I hope the sun is shining. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, solo episode |
What It’s Like Working With Me
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
In today’s episode, you will learn what I bring to the table when choosing to work with me. I use aspects of my YouMap® to illustrate what’s in it for you as a client and more.
Today, there are far more options for grief support than were available five, ten years ago, and beyond. There are several training programs online that one can take to work with grievers, hang up their virtual shingles, and work with clients in exchange for money. However, not all grief coaches have done their own deep dive into their past losses and trauma, making it challenging to know who to trust, where to look, or where to start.
By the end of today’s episode, you will learn the specific skill set I bring to my work with clients and why it matters. Being the only certified grief specialist (who continues to apply the tools and framework I share with clients) and YouMap® coach worldwide does have its perks. Want to learn what they are? Check out this episode!
If you’d like to learn more about YouMap® and Do Grief Differently™️, check out the links below. Click HERE to schedule a no-obligation, free consultation!
I will not tell you how you should feel because you already know. – Me
RESOURCES:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hey. Hey. Hey. Thank you for tuning in. It’s another episode of grieving voices, and this is actually episode one five o. And today, I’m doing something a little different that I’ve not done yet on the podcast, and that is to talk a little bit about what it’s like working with me. And I’m going to start with some Youmap stuff. And if you’re not familiar with Youmap, check out the show notes because I have a link to my website where it has more information on what I’m talking about. So I’m just gonna give a very brief overview of what my Youmap is in this episode, but I do have another episode I’m planning to put out in the coming weeks which is all about the importance of knowing yourself because if there’s anything I’ve learned through my own Youmap and working with other clients and their Youmap is that the more you know yourself, the less you look to others to tell you who you are and I am sure listening to this. You have plenty of people who have told you who you are in your lifetime and the grief that that’s probably caused you. So be on the lookout for that episode coming up.
Victoria Volk: However, today, what it’s like working with me. Let’s start there. So I’m gonna start out actually with my number one strength and which is found by going through the Clifton Strengthfinder, which is a part of the Youmap, that is one of the assessments. And the Youmap actually is just for a brief overview, is a holistic assessment profile and framework that is a foundation of self-awareness for endless personal and professional use. And the framework is based on four key pillars of view. So the first being your strengths. And this is the “How”. This is what we prioritize. It’s either our relationship building, influencing others, getting results or thinking. Strength explain how we work.
Victoria Volk: Our values is pillar two, and this explains why we work. So values explain our why based on what’s most important to us.
Victoria Volk: Pillar three is all about skills. It’s what we like doing. What skills are we motivated to spend our time using?
Victoria Volk: And the fourth pillar is personality. It explains our interests, who we are. Who are we? Are we a blend of the doer, the thinker, the creator, the helper, the persuader, or the organizer? And so all of these together combined create what is called the Youmap. And the Youmap radically reduces the time it takes me to get to know my clients who go through my program, which includes the Youmap and Do Grief Differently, the twelve-week one on one program.
Victoria Volk: And I included this, the Youmap program because it was actually, to me, what was missing in the grief work I was doing with clients. And so for me personally to learn my Youmap was life-affirming. My number one strength is empathy. And empathy is a relationship-building theme. And according to Youmap, it is how we’d define it. You can sense the emotions of others, feel what they are feeling, see the world through their eyes. You hear unvoiced questions, anticipate their needs. For this reason, others are drawn to you. So the thing about empathy and all strengths for that matter, there’s thirty two strengths in the Clifton Strengthsfinder, but they all have, like, healthy or productive descriptor words, but then there’s also unhealthy or barrier descriptor words. And so if I’m using my empathy well, my strength of empathy. I create trust. It brings healing. I know just what to say or do. I can customize my approach to others. But if I’m overusing empathy, I can appear to be soft, or as a child, a crybaby, I can be moody. And seem overly involved, which actually was a problem for me many years ago. I would overuse empathy and it would be to my dutch treatment because I was always there for other people and yet it seemed like when I needed someone there, for me, emotionally, people were unavailable, and I had some resentment around that. And maybe listening to this, you can relate to that. When you have the strength of empathy, people are drawn to you because you’re like the counselor in their back pocket. However, if without boundaries, without knowing yourself, this, you can see where this would create some issues for your life, which it did for me. So that’s the empathy strength.
Victoria Volk: The other relationship-building strength that I bring in working with my clients is connectedness. And that’s how I build relationships with my clients is through connectedness because I’m able to connect the dots of what they’re sharing with me. And the definition for connectedness is having faith in the links between all things. Like, we are all connected. You believe there are a few coincidences and that almost every event has a reason. You are a bridge builder among people who share differences. And so healthy descriptors of the connectedness theme would be spiritual. Doesn’t sweat the small stuff, has strong faith, always looking at the big picture, helps others see purpose. And an overuse of connectedness would come off as being passive or naive or too idealistic or wishy-washy, which I’ve been accused of being naive in the past.
Victoria Volk: And so you can see where these are just two strengths I’m talking about that are my strengths. But, you know, these are just two. Right? But we have five in our Yoump that we that combine to create strength assessment piece of the Youmap. Okay? But there’s thirty two that you can have and there’s different combinations. And I can’t remember the exact statistics. I mean, one in like a billion people have the same top five strengths as you if you’re listening to this. So we literally are snowflakes people. So anyway, using empathy and connectedness, this is how I build the relationships with my clients.
Victoria Volk: My other three strengths are input, intellection, and strategic, which are all thinking strengths. And so using those three, that’s how I absorb and analyze information to inform better decisions. Now for my clients, that means asking inquisitive and curious questions. Sometimes probing questions. To facilitate deeper reflection of my clients. And again, I’ll get more into the strengths and values and skills and personality in that future episode.
Victoria Volk: But today, I wanna tell you why this matters in working with me. I am not going to tell you how you should feel because you already know. But I will be able to feel into and sense how you feel, again, with my strength of empathy and connectedness often by your body language alone, or your tone. It’s those nuances of communication that I picked up personally as a child that became a necessity in an environment of chaos, and heartbreak, and extreme highs and lows of emotions that were exhibited by those around me. Also, I will challenge you. To see your experiences and yourself differently. This will naturally unfold to in the work that we do together. However, you’ll feel supported in the process. For some people, I may be the very first person who truly listens and hears you, and allows you to be a safe space – to be open and honest. As I briefly mentioned, through my strength of connectedness. I help clients connect the dots and patterns of the past to the present. And it’s one of my superpowers in grief coaching. But these themes emerge to me and often clients have aha moments and revelations that even surprised them. And also, I’m laid back and easygoing, but I hold my clients accountable to themselves in a loving way. I’m all in with my clients and I expect them to be also that for themselves. I know I’m not the grief coach for everyone and each person has to discern that for themselves. But that’s also hard to do when you don’t know yourself, which is greatly affected by grief and overwhelming emotion. It’s really hard to know what you need or where to start. If you value honesty, growth, inner harmony, compassion, authenticity, and curiosity, I’d say we’re a good fit to work together.
Victoria Volk: If you felt unsafe to express your emotions honestly most of your life, I’d again say we’re a good fit. And if you’ve felt misunderstood most of your life, then I’d say you’d get a lot more than grief coaching in working with me because I am the only certified grief specialist and Youmap coach in the world. So if that hasn’t convinced you yet, I highly encourage you to schedule a free consultation with me. I will put a link in the show notes if you are interested and diving deeper into your past and healing and grief and understanding yourself and knowing yourself better and where you need boundaries and where you’ve never had them and all of that goodness and more. And in a specific time frame in working with me, twelve weeks, I can guarantee that from week one to week twelve, you will have softened your heart and transformed your life. And I say you because that is the truth. You are doing the work. I am just holding space. I am the facilitator. And if you feel that I am a good fit for you, then I encourage you to reach out and learn more. And in the meantime, remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Child Loss, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Q&A |
Q&A | My Son’s Death is the Elephant in the Room
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Today’s Q&A is a great reminder for all of us that we express our grief differently and in our own timing. However, when emotions run high, and the loss seems unbearable, as is often the case with child loss, more grief will often add to the pain and heartbreak within family dynamics.
We must remember that 75% of how we respond to life’s challenges is learned by age three. By age fifteen, we’ve learned the remaining 25% of how to respond to life’s challenges. These are impressionable ages, and the lessons in our youth are what we fall back on as adults.
So when life hands a family a devastating loss, everyone brings their unique perspective and feelings about the person the family, as a whole, is grieving. This is why family dynamics have the potential to create more togetherness or more grief and separation in the wake of devastating loss.
However, less would be taken so personally if we all took the time to understand our loved ones better and honored each individual where they’re at in their grief experience.
RESOURCES:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hello. Hello. Welcome to grieving voices. Today is episode 149, a Q&A episode. But before we jump into the question today, I just wanted to share that this is the start of season 4. It is absolutely bananas to me that I’ve been doing this going on four years. I never anticipated that I would be having this podcast this long. I really didn’t know what to expect. It took me a good year to even really just decide and do it and learn along the way and it’s been an amazing experience of connecting with people from all around the world hearing people’s stories and being able to connect with people in a way that still truthfully blows my mind because I have clients that find me through this podcast who listen to my podcast and it’s a great joy that people feel connected to me in this way.
Victoria Volk: And can feel connected and supported even if I’m not working with you listening one on one. I hope that this podcast first and foremost helps you feel supported and that you’re not alone. And also is a resource of information that you can count on to be true and helpful and yeah just not more of the myths that society seems to perpetuate. So thank you again for being here and for just supporting the podcast, for sharing, for liking, for leaving a review. And if you’ve never left a review, but you love the podcast, that would be I would be immensely grateful if you took a few minutes to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Share your thoughts. I would love to hear how the podcast is helping you. If there is something in particular you want me to address, you can send in a question just like others have at [email protected] or reach out to me on social media. And I will bring your question to the podcast. And you can be anonymous if you prefer.
Victoria Volk: So anyway, with that being said, let’s move on to today’s question which comes from Amy and she asks, my twenty eight year old son died unexpectedly five years ago. Many people say I shouldn’t be so emotional after this long when I talk about him. His brother and father don’t talk about him because it makes me emotional. I tell them they just need to give me a box of tissues, but we’ve never had a talk about him as a family since his death. Is this unusual?
Victoria Volk: First of all, I can’t imagine what it is like to lose a child and you know, we had a scary moment with my son where we didn’t know what was going to happen. And I can speak to that fear but to actually lose a child. I imagine that as a heartbreak that any parent never really truly gets over. Right? It’s like it I don’t know that that phrase is even honest. Right? It’s not even an honest phrase that you need to get over. A death of losing a child. And really if people say that, it’s quite hurtful and harmful. Grief is unique and the pace that people experience, the emotions of grief, there’s a direct relationship to how they normally react emotionally to other life events. So this question is great for anybody listening because you may have people in your life who seem unaffected. Or they may not be as expressive emotionally about a loss that was maybe close to both of you. We all display our emotions differently too. And our grief is unique because our relationships are unique. And so this is where a lot of misunderstandings can happen within family units. But for Amy, if it’s your natural inclination to be more emotionally expressive and that’s your natural style to be open and emotive. It would be normal for you to still have feelings five years later. As it will be in ten or twenty years. If that’s true, then that’s great. This is a normal and natural response to the death of someone important to you as a unique individual.
Victoria Volk: And I want people listening to keep this in mind who may not be as emotional may not react to life in a more emotionally expressive way that just because people in their life do doesn’t make them wrong or bad or, you know, just like they should be over it.
Because I can actually speak to this even as a child. I’m very much a feeler. I’m a feeler. I feel things. That’s how I actually make a lot of decisions. How it makes me feel And so when something tragic happens, I’m really wound up in my feelings and especially children can be said that told that they’re cry babies or this is where this whole, like, if you wanna cry about something, I’ll give you something to cry about and this is where children who are emotionally more expressive who maybe wear their heart on their sleeves, are shut down as children, where we’re not allowed to speak to the fear, speak to the anger, or speak to the sadness, or express it. And so you can be a very emotional person, but if you’re shut down as a child, imagine what that does to you as an adult when you’re shutting down your natural inclination of how to respond to life’s challenges. Do you think you’d probably experience manifestations of physical nature like migraines or overall body pain or gastrointestinal issues, things like that. So I just want to highlight that because the way that we express ourselves and emote as adults is probably what we learned as children.
Victoria Volk: But back to the question, we can become sad by the nonactions of other people in our lives, in this instance, the brother and the father, in not talking about the sun, even in their incorrect belief that they’re protecting you from your own feelings. They actually rob you and themselves of sharing the very emotions that are helpful for you to feel and express. So that’s not to judge them because grieving people need and want an opportunity to talk about what happened. And their relationship with the person who died. But sadly, that’s not unusual for families to avoid or ignore the emotional pink elephant in the living room. Right?
Victoria Volk: And while I would love to encourage you to suggest to the brother and the father that you have an evening of memories about your son who meant a great deal to all of you. I don’t know that they’d be at all receptive. And then there’s that feeling of being rejected, right? Of not feeling like you’re in how do I say that? Like, in communion of grief with your loved ones, like, it’s not it doesn’t feel like it’s this shared experience. And that’s another brief experience after the loss, right? That so many of us can experience within a family unit or family dynamics So if that’s the case, if you have loved ones who are apprehensive about their own emotions and are afraid to let it all out. And if that’s the case, and they don’t want to have the joy and the sadness and other feelings in relation to the person who passed, then you need to look around your extended family. For people who know you, who knew your loved one, in this instance, your son, who might be open to sharing stories and feelings. Because it is important for those who are more expressive to not isolate and don’t shut other family out just because you’re grieving differently. Your life experience has shaped how you respond to life’s challenges. This is where we honor each other’s grief because all grief is unique in individual, and all relationships are unique in individual. And it doesn’t make one person right. It doesn’t make one person wrong. It’s honoring what your needs are as the individual in your grief experience.
Victoria Volk: And I’ll tell you many times, you will not find that person within your family unit. So I really highly suggest that anyone listening to this to try not taking it personal because we all just express ourselves in a way that we’ve been taught or we’ve learned and there’s no right or wrong of that. It’s just different. And so even just accepting that can really ease the pressure and expectations that we place, not only on ourselves and how we grieve, but on others too and others that we love within the family who mean be going through their grief differently than we are. And so I hope this was helpful in helping you, Amy, and others listening understand that there is nothing wrong with you, that there is nothing wrong with those that you love who just simply don’t express themselves in the same way.
Victoria Volk: So I hope anyone listening can find that person who can share in the love and in the joy and in the challenges of their relationships, mutual relationships of someone who has passed. And if you are struggling to do that and you need to heart with ears, where you will not experience judgment, criticism, or analysis. Then I am here to support you whenever you are ready. I actually have an opening for a one-on-one client right now in my Do Grief Differently program, which is 12 weeks long. And in this program, you work through two of your most painful relationships. And not all relationships give pain, right? Many do. And in fact, most do. I mean, I’m sure you can find things that or ways that people have hurt you in your life even if it was a loving relationship. But through Do Grief Differently, we work through all of that. And I would challenge anyone who thinks they don’t need to dig up the past to move forward. I challenge anyone who believes that because I guarantee that there are many aspects of your life where the past is dictating your present and will highly influence your future. And so it’s only when we become emotionally complete with the relationships of those we have loved and lost. Or who may be challenging to love and are still in our lives, whatever the case may be. Right? Because all your relationships are unique. That this is a wonderful program to address those things in a safe and in a safe way. So I hope this was helpful. And if you have any further questions about this topic, please reach out to me. And in the meantime, remember when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Miscarriage, Parenting, Podcast, Pregnancy & Infant Loss, Where Are They Now? |
Patti Herr: Where Are They Now? | Grief, Grace & Gratitude in Motherhood
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Patti was my second guest on this podcast back in 2020. In our first recording, Patti shares more about what it was like being a young widow and later dealing with infertility with her now husband.
In this follow-up episode, Patti shares some wonderful surprises God had in store for her in the last three years, including the impact working through her grief with me has had on her life and parenting in the time since she participated in one of my grief recovery group programs.
Patti’s story proves that there are rainbows after storm clouds, how impossible it is to know God’s plans for us, and how beautiful the outcome can be.
Motherhood isn’t easy. However, handling the grief that inevitably comes along the way is possible with a little grace and gratitude.
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 another episode of grieving voices. Today, my guest is a recap episode. A Where are they now with my second guest of grieving voices when I first launched in 20202, Patti Herr and thank you so much for being here and catching us all up on the past three years. Can you believe it? Almost three years.
Patti Herr: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. It’ll be three years since September since we initially recorded. That’s wild to me. The original episode was episode 13 and it was titled widow, miscarriage, and IVF. And a lot’s changed. Yeah. So let’s go back in time and talk about a little bit about that struggle with becoming pregnant and in your life at that time and what has happened since?
Patti Herr: Well, I it was kinda it wasn’t fresh but the being a widow was still fresh, I guess. And when I got pregnant, I was like, oh my gosh. How did this happen? I mean, obviously, you know how, but why, you know, I couldn’t give my husband my first husband a baby, and now I’m pregnant with someone who isn’t my husband. And so it was that was a struggle to do, but Now looking back, it’s crazy how I feel like he placed every single child into my life. He knew.
Victoria Volk: You had a struggle getting pregnant and you went through IVF. How and I know your last child though,
Patti Herr: You wouldn’t be. It was a surprise.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. It was not that idea. So can you explain a little bit? Like, what you’ve learned about infertility and about all of that, you know, experience?
Patti Herr: I questioned it. I was like, did we need to do IVF? Did we need to spend all this money? Like, why, you know, how did we get pregnant so quickly after knowing blah blah blah. But, absolutely, secondary infertility is still a thing. And I don’t think had anything to do with stress or anything. I just think that when you have a baby and when you get pregnant, like, your body almost, like, resets And I think that’s kinda what happened. I think my body reset and I ambulated one month and surprise surprise. And we didn’t think we could get pregnant. So
Victoria Volk: Divine timing, I suppose. Right?
Patti Herr: Yep. Yep.
Victoria Vokk: So how far are you
Patti Herr: They’re 23 months apart because she’s December and he’s November. So
Victoria Volk: Okay.
Patti Herr: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: That’s so fun. You know, my older too are 18 months apart. And I wouldn’t change it. I wouldn’t really change it. No.
Patti Herr: It’s hard for me. Enorous kind of hard. But
Victoria Volk: yes. It my last one was a little hard
Patti Herr: In there.
Victoria Volk: But they’re the girls are two years apart. Mhmm. So but I did have them all within four years. Yeah. But I
Patti Herr: don’t know how you did it
Victoria Volk: I wouldn’t change it. It was it was crazy. It’s you know, those years are blur for sure, but now I wouldn’t change it, you know.
Patti Herr: Yeah. I think when they get older, it’ll be better because they’ll have to stay at each other and but right now it’s life is crazy. My house is messy. My house is lived in and Yeah. Life is good.
Victoria Volk: Grace.
Victoria Volk: Grace. Grace. Grace. Yeah. Lots of grace to go around.
Patti Herr: I was born people in, like, just or you know? I have three kids and it’s a mess in here.
Victoria Volk: And why do we think we need to apologize? Right?
Patti Herr: Yeah. I don’t know.
Victoria Volk: I know.
Patti Herr: Because some women have their lives together. I do not.
Victoria Volk: Well and you know, it’s like a lot everybody’s circumstances and situations are different too, you know. It’s, you know, it’s I think in this day in age too where you’re working outside the home, and then you come home and, you know, they call that the second shift. That didn’t exist for a lot of women way back when, like, for
Patti Herr: Well, I’m not working right now.
Victoria Volk: But you are.
Patti Herr: Well, I am. Yes. You’re right. You’re right.
Victoria Volk: You are. You are.
Patti Herr: But we’re home all the time, and I think that’s part of it is, like, when you do work, your house stays a little bit cleaner for a little bit longer because the kids aren’t in it.
Victoria Volk: That’s true. That’s very true.
Patti Herr: When you’re home all day, they’re here all day.
Victoria Volk: There is a trade-off there. There is a trade-off. So you are also a client of mine when we first initially recorded. It was shortly before that, like the year before that, you had gone through the grief recovery program. And how do you think that that has I mean, does it still influence your life in certain aspects or ways?
Patti Herr: Mhmm. It’s still a huge eye-opener for me. Like, I still tell people about it, and it still kind of like in awe. Like, I went in to do this about my husband who passed away and I did about someone who was living. Like, it just in awe, like, how people grieve and who they grieve and it kinda just puts it into perspective. And I think it still and I still like, I don’t write letters out anymore, but I do them in my head kind of or, like, in my heart, I guess.
Because it’s been nine years. And, like, recently, June 9th was nine years for me. So But I still I mean, I still struggle with that living person every day, every single day. So
Victoria Volk: And how have you managed to have a relationship with this person?
Patti Herr: To kind of make my not my life easier, but to manage my life and my well-being. I’ve distanced, I guess, in a way I’m not close with that person. But I still have a relationship with them.
Victoria Volk: And I think that’s the gift of going through grief recovery is that you realize where you need boundaries. Yeah. Maybe where you didn’t have them. Would you say that that helped you kinda implement those boundaries?
Patti Herr: Yep. And it’s I used to feel guilty about it, like, not having that person close because, like, my grandpa’s always like, oh, we need to, like, be together on holidays and, you know, bury your family, blah blah blah. But at the same time, I can still have a relationship and have bound laundries and still saved my heart and my family’s heart a little bit. And our feelings, I guess. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: Have you experienced any loss since we past recorded?
Patti Herr: Not personally, but friends, I guess, I’m not super close friends with some friends, and then just in the community, they’ve had losses. There was just a widow last week. I guess, a lady a woman in Westlake that lost her husband to a tragic accident, and I had planned on going to the funeral and I just could not. Leading up to the funeral, I got very anxious and I just I wanted to be there, but I knew it was not gonna be good, so could not do it.
Victoria Volk: Have you thought about working on that relationship with your deceased husband?
Patti Herr: I haven’t, but It has been 9th years. You think I’d be over it by now, but it just Well, those things and it’s it was the day. Like, June 9th was the day we buried him. It was my fifth wedding like, it was my we got married on that day, like, my now husband. Like, I think it’s a really good day to do all this. But then also so that person, that lady in town buried her husband on June 9th, and I just It was too much on June 9th. And then there’s this there’s a lot in history on June ninth for people in Wishik as well. There’s just a lot of a lot of in the mid beginning of June, I don’t know why now, like, a lot of grief in the beginning of June. But
Victoria Volk: Oh. Yeah. And that’s I wanna circle back to what you said. Like, it’s been nine years. I should be over it by now. And I think we tell ourselves that even two, three, four years in, forty years in. Mhmm. You know, people would say that people say that to other people. You should be over it by now. Okay. The thing is is what that process. And you know this, what that process helps you do is become emotionally complete so that when those days come, they aren’t as they don’t feel a sharp. You know? It’s like it it kind of softens the hurt a little bit, you know.
Patti Herr: I should have done a letter that day, but, like, because I’m good with the day with Jared. Let good with it, but, like, I know how to manage it. But then when that funeral came up, it was it was hard. And I knew it was like yeah. So I took a salad and I did some things around the church, but I just couldn’t do the funeral.
Victoria Volk: And that’s okay. Yeah. That’s okay.
Patti Herr: And I didn’t even know him really that well. I just know her and her family and I still just I mean, it brings back so many memories and it’s hard for that day.
Victoria Volk: I had someone ask me yesterday, you know, what do you they’re gonna go visit somebody who is very ill and die essentially. And she had asked me, what do you what do you say to somebody? Who’s dying or what do you say to somebody who’s going through something like that? And because you had that experience of being a widow, is there anything that you would have liked to have said to her or would like to share with anybody listening who may be experiencing that right now, that that you found helpful or that, you know, from your experience that you would like to share.
Patti Herr: Looking back, during, like, the planning process, I don’t feel like I was there really because I don’t like, then a year later, we buried my husband than dad. He died, passed away the day before, a year later. And I feel like I don’t remember planning any of that stuff. I feel like I left it into a lot of the family’s hands. And sometimes I wish I would have been more involved in picking things and but I just emotionally could not do it. So I just think, like, as for as far as advice, grieve, like, how you want because and there’s no timeline. Like, I say it should be over it, but there really is no timeline. And there are some people that are quick to judge and it’s been this long, you know. But can you really put a timeline on that? I don’t know. I don’t think you can. It would children, with husbands, with anyone in your life. Like, I don’t think you can put a timeline on how long you should grieve. Because or how? Like, I just don’t think so I feel I and I have told the widow this, like, you should just grieve how long you want, how you want, don’t let people influence you, keep those people close that wanna be close, like let them in because that’s those are your true friends. I lost people. Lost friends when Jared died in. It’s not like I did anything. Like, I’m not the one that made him pass away. And I still lost friends. So I just feel like your life will change, and you’re just gonna have to learn how to cope with that. And I think your class would be a great and for that when you’re ready. I don’t think you should have to do it right away or push to do it right away, but eventually, you need to start coping and learning how to cope. I didn’t do the counseling thing. I maybe should have, but I didn’t. So but just talking to someone, learning how to do deal and cope with things is very very high up there, I think, on the advice.
Victoria Volk: And one thing I learned too, just working in the groups, having you in the group and working with other clients one on one in the since, you know, in past three years, four years is now I actually have lengthened the one on one program to twelve weeks, and we work on two relationships. Because I think yeah. Because I think that you know, it’s not this one and done. Mhmm. I think once you work on one and then you work on another significant relationship, it kinda solidifies what you’re learning. And I think it just helps to really get a hang of the process because it is learning. It’s a little bit of a learning curve. You know, it’s new knowledge, it’s new tools, and so I’m happy to report that I’ve learned that you can’t just work on one. It’s working on two can help get that ball rolling so that you feel like this really does impact me in a positive way. Mhmm.
Patti Herr: How long does it agree?
Victoria Volk: Yeah. You you kinda wish it would have been too.
Patti Herr: Yeah. But I can tell that I’ve done it not to the full capacity, but, like, I’ve done it with other people in my life. Not not probably as in-depth or whatever, but I have done it with other relationships.
Victoria Volk: That’s good to hear. How do you think it’s going through this program and as your kids are getting a little bit older now and maybe asking different questions, you know, how has the going through the program and what you learned influenced your parenting maybe, and even you yourself, like, and how you parent.
Patti Herr: So I remember specifically part of the class who made this timeline and you’re, like, your dog dying, your fish dying. Like, that can impact every little thing in your life. And so I tried we tried to explain things like eastern kind of a few years ago, went through a thing with a death. And so I got a few little kid books or whatever to be able to read to him. And now I can read those to Norrie and Will and I I think explaining things and making it so that they know, like, I feel like it was kinda taboo. Like, you go to a funeral, like, people die. That’s what goes on in life. Well, you still need to process it. Like, a dog dying, you still need to process it. We had a dog die a year and a half ago. Like, we needed to process it as a family because it was kind of traumatic. So I feel like that’s helped me try to explain things to my kids too.
Victoria Volk: Do you have any tips on how you did that with your children?
Patti Herr: Let them ask the questions and no don’t let them feel like questions are bad or any question is bad. Just, like, let them ask the questions and give them the answers that they need and don’t fuel the fire, but don’t make it taboo. Don’t make it like, you shouldn’t talk about it. Hush hush.
Victoria Volk: Right. Be honest. Help your children be emotionally honest. You know? Yeah.
They’re angry. Let them be angry about their dog dying. You know, that’s okay. You know,
Patti Herr: My oldest is very an an empath and he feels a lot. So I have to do all the emotions with him.
Victoria Volk: That’s good. I mean, and there has to be space for that especially as a child who takes kind of in everything around them. It can be very over the world can be very overwhelming. Even the news, you know, it’s like you’re watching the news and you talking to your friend and your friend maybe went through something and then your dog dies, you know, like all these sad heavy things can really be devastating to a child who is highly sensitive. And so thank you for bringing that up, that not a lot of parents really consider that their child isn’t a cry baby. Mhmm. You know, because a lot of parents might say, quit being a cry baby. Mhmm. It’s you they’re just sensitive, more sensitive.
Patti Herr: You had a half meet, they had a father, passed away a few years ago, and Well, I guess it’s been a year a year and a half. And he he said, that’s so sad. And, you know, I said, well, you just need to be a good friend. You need to be there for him. And So I think that I mean, he asked a lot of questions about that too.
So he feels a lot.
Victoria Volk: Any resources that you have found, that you have utilized yourself other than grief recovery or anything else that you’d like to share?
Patti Herr: I really haven’t. I don’t use money. If I do, I would go to, like, Pinterest and sometimes there’s worksheets or something, but
Victoria Volk: for the kids.
Patti Herr: Oh, well and so I I had put it out there because Easton was very interested on on death and everything. And so I put out there, like, on Facebook, what people did. And they I can’t I have the book in one of their bookshelves, but there is a book about death. It has it’s like dinosaurs and stuff and kind of explains things. And I think I asked my pastor to ask actually, I did. I and I said, well, can you talk to him about it? Like, is there like, can he ask you questions and but I got this book, and then he did some research and gave me some other book titles, and I don’t have those at the moment. But on me but yeah. So I did go to my pastor and ask him and We have driven around cemeteries before and talked about things too. So
Victoria Volk: And even art — Yeah. — allowed children to express themselves through art. Yeah. Play Play Doh crayons, colors, watercolors in that way too.
Patti Herr: We got memorial flowers for the dog.
Victoria Volk: Oh.
Patti Herr: Yeah. Easton and his dad saw them in the store, so they got her memorial flowers. So
Victoria Volk: that’s good.
Patti Herr: He still talked about her. He talks about the cat that passed away four years ago. So he remembers a lot.
Victoria Volk: And how old is he now?
Patti Herr: He’s seven.
Victoria Volk: Old enough to understand.
Patti Herr: Yes.
Patti Herr: He’ll he’ll say, I miss this person. I miss this person. I wish I could have met this person like he knows.
Victoria Volk: And so many adults will underestimate what children truly understand. You know, I was eight when my dad passed away and people just didn’t think I understood. You know? It’s like, okay. Well, you see your dad. Yeah. You see your dad, in a coffin, and then, you know, he’s put in the ground, and then you don’t see him anymore. It’s like okay. Well, I understand they’re not in my life anymore, and that’s really sad. You know?
It’s like, don’t tell me I don’t understand. You know?
Patti Herr: Your mind’s understanding at five six seven, you definitely were understanding at eight.
Victoria Volk: By three years old —
Patti Herr: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: — About 75% of how to respond to life.
Patti Herr: Yeah. Well, in that three, that’s when he was asking about death. So
Victoria Volk: Yes. Exactly.
Patti Herr: Very important.
Victoria Volk: And I’m glad this came up too because it’s been something that I’ve I’ve said before, I think, on a different podcast episode, but I need to put resources for books, for children, and stuff on my website.
Patti Herr: And you need to have a class for children too.
Victoria Volk: I can’t actually work with children. That is that’s creating a thing. Yeah.
Patti Herr: And you have to take another class. Right?
Victoria Volk: Well, I can work with the adults of the children. So there’s the program helping children with loss but it’s for the adults to help the adults work with their own children.
Patti Herr: Okay
Victoria Volk: And that’s through the book, actually, this might be a good resource for you when children grieve — Mhmm. — is the other companion book to the grief recovery method is when children grieve. And are helping children’s loss program is based on that book. So that would be a resource for anyone listening. But there is actually a program that I had a guest on my podcast, and she started an organization called shielding hearts. And I’m going to look, I have just I’ve told her and I plan to look into her program because this program, you actually work with the kids, but it’s not it’s kind of along the lines of art and things. That you bring it into schools, the school system. So I’m gonna yeah. I’m gonna look into doing that. So it’s I’m not a licensed social worker, so that’s where some yeah. Get get the poo poo on that. We’re having kids, but It is a passion of mine, for sure, because I’ve I’ve been there, so I understand that children just don’t necessarily have that person in their life where they can feel like they can open up and share. Because oftentimes what happens too is let’s say dad or someone close to you is dying or sick and if or passes away and your your child is asking, what about grandpa? And then you don’t want to talk about it because it makes you sad. So then your child doesn’t talk about it because they don’t wanna make you sad. So then what happens is nobody’s talking about it.
Patti Herr: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: And it’s this thing that you just don’t talk about. You don’t you don’t talk about grandpa, you don’t talk about grammar, whoever it is that passes away.
Patti Herr: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: So what are you looking forward to in the next three years?
Patti Herr: Surviving, if we could.
Victoria Volk: Giving them all in school. Right?
Patti Herr: Yeah. Yeah. One won’t be, but the other ones will be. Yeah. But just building our life and working still working on our relationships, like even me and my husband, we I mean, we’re constantly learning single day. Like, I don’t think you ever I feel like you learn about your your spouse and everything, but I feel like you just you’re learning together every single day because you’ve some things you’ve never dealt with or, you know, your kids are getting older, so then situations change and you just learn I mean, we’re learning constantly together how to handle things and how to deal with things. And I just see us having so much fun as a family. And also, I know in the next three or ten years, probably we’re gonna be seeing some losses in our family and that we’re gonna have to deal with, and that’s something that I’m dreading. But it’s just the reality, I guess, and it’s not gonna be fun for any of my family.
Victoria Volk: But, yeah, tools.
Patti Herr: Yeah. Yep.
Victoria Volk: And I gotta say too, like, just is there anything that you would like to discuss about being in the trenches of motherhood and, you know, because you can kind of feel like because you weren’t anticipating. Right? You weren’t anticipating them at all. Right? And so, like, now being kind of in the I’ll say in the trenches of it. You know, I was we’re just talking about this and friends and I just the other day. I and I said, yep. You know, people always told me that the days are long, but the years are short, and then it’s so true. It is so true. You know, and when you’re in the trenches of it, it’s like, it’s really easy to lose yourself.
So how are you doing as far as that goes if you’re open to sharing?
Patti Herr: I go through my little tips where I’m like, I can’t keep this house clean and I get my little crying moments where I’m like, I’m a bad mom and blah blah, but the last couple of days, I realized, like, the house can be messy. It will get clean be cleaned someday, and we’ve been outside all day because it’s been so beautiful. And that to me is the best medicine and that’s what’s what makes my kids happy, what makes all of us happy, and dad is busy working in the field, and so we miss him terribly, but we just we play and we have fun. And when we can be with him. We do, and we have fun with him too. And life’s just crazy, and I would say when it slows down, but it never has yet. It’s just crazy busy and I just let them enjoy life and we play and play and play and eat and eat and eat and clean and clean and clean and clean and I just think you have to just have a little bit of faith and hope and everyone tells you, like, just relax. You’ll have kids, you know, when you’re going through in fertility, and that’s not always the case. Sometimes, you just have to take life into your own hands and believe in science and god put science on this world for a reason. And I think that IVF was a beautiful thing for us and our baby was a beautiful thing for us, and the first one was also beautiful because we didn’t think we were ever gonna get that chance. So I just think life is beautiful and it’s short and you just need to really enjoy it and it’s too short to be miserable. Obviously, you go through those moments where you’re not miserable, but you’re just sad. And I feel like you have to be sad to you. It’s a balance. You can’t always be happy happy happy, I guess.
Victoria Volk: Well, and that can be exhausting too to put on that front of all — Yeah. — like, you know, it’s I’m fine. Yeah. And there it that takes effort and energy. It’s a waste of effort and energy instead of — Yeah. — it takes less energy to be emotionally honest, like, No. I’m not good today. I kinda need a mental break.
Patti Herr: Yeah. Some well, my kids need mental breaks sometimes. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: Right? And from each other,
Patti Herr: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: That’s the hard balance too. It’s like that was the hardest part I think for me too. It’s like trying to find that individual time.
Patti Herr: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: It’s like that firstborn gets so much attention. And then the second one comes along and it gets a little harder. But that third, it’s really tough.
Victoria Volk: Throws a wrench into things.
Patti Herr: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: That’s really tough to, like, to feel like you’re giving each child what they need. You know? So that you can feel like you’re failing in a lot of ways. But
Patti Herr: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: you know, you do the best you can and
Patti Herr: and lean on each other. Like, you have friends, you have other moms, or dads, or whatever, like, lean on people, you know? Because they’re going through the same thing. They just maybe don’t show it as much or you don’t think they do or, you know, you might think you’re alone.
Victoria Volk: I just heard of a cup there’s a couple of working moms and they exchange, like, their day’s off, like, they’re watching on each other’s, like, that’s how they do it. They they’re killed. They’re both newborns or new oh, they’re new parents, and they’re that that’s what they do. So they just you know, they’re raising each other’s kids. They’re doing it together, and I think that’s a beautiful thing that you can find in friendship. You know, if you have that support. And if you don’t, find it. Create. Ask. You know, how many people are so afraid to ask hey, I have this idea. What do you think? You know, if we just you know, here’s one tip that I’ll share with you. And it is something that we still talk about to this day, our kids talk about it to this day is so I don’t live on a farm. I never have. But a friend of ours did and or does. And we would have what’s called farm days.
Patti Herr: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: So everybody brought their kids to the farm and like the rest of us had, well, two of us were lived on farm two of us lived on farms and two of us were city gals. Right? But, anyway, everybody brought their kids the water, water games, whatever they did, and we just got together, like us women, moms, got to talk and catch up. The kids got to have fun doing whatever they were doing. It was the best. It was the best. And, you know, we did this in the summer sometimes. And Those are the best memories. And oftentimes, they weren’t even planned.
Patti Herr: Mhmm.Victoria Volk: Hey, let’s just have a farm day today. And it doesn’t always work, of course, you know, because things and the phases of life. Right? You go with the phases of life. Now, most of like, there’s yeah. Two of us now. Two of the four have about three of the four have day jobs outside, you know, like, we have places we need to be and things we need to do, so it doesn’t always happen. But That’s my tip. Create a farm day. Ask the girlfriends, you know, especially the other friends that live on farms. Just get together, bring the kids, make it a
Patti Herr: We have a crazy idea. Sometimes, we go to the zoo with all of our kids and we’re like, why did we do this? But then in the end, it’s really fun for them. Yeah. They might cry on the way home because they’re so tired. But
Victoria Volk: But that’s what I’m saying. You don’t even need to drive anywhere. Yeah. To, like, take them out anywhere. You need to, like, mess with the strollers and the diaper bags and just come together —
Patti Herr: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: — one spot and just let them explore and find bugs.
Patti Herr: We do try to get together with friends, but it’s I mean, everyone’s so busy. It’s kinda we just need to and that’s my thing too is, like, you just gotta make the time.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. Just ask. Yeah. And I you know, a friend of mine too. She was like, you know she’ll ask me and I’ll say, ah, I just I can’t today, but And I told her just recently too, I’m like, you know what? This was a good idea. We went kayaking. She’s like, I was like, this is a good idea. She’s like, I guess I just I said, just never stop asking.
Patti Herr: Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: You know, it wasn’t it wasn’t planned. It was, like, she was she wanted to go. So she’s, like, hey. I’m I wanna go, Kaye, do you wanna go? Yeah. I’ll go. You know? It’s Mhmm. So I think a lot of the times it’s the spontaneous things that is where the best memories are made. So that’s my suggestion to any mom just get together with the girlfriends. It’s important. It matters. It makes a difference. And
Patti Herr: You need to make time for yourself too.
Victoria Volk: That’s true too. That’s true.
Patti Herr: Get a babysitter. Don’t I know it’s expensive and I know, like, oh my gosh. I have to have it babysitter watch my kids, but get the babysitter because you need to have your own time, you need to have date nights. Like, we don’t definitely do don’t do an update switch we will someday when the kids are older. Right now, we just we’re focusing on our children, but get the babysitter.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. And speaking of which, people might be listening to, like, your house is really quiet for three kids. Do you have a babysitter?
Patti Herr: This summer, I got my littles into daycare for two and a half days a week. So they’re in daycare today. And at my older one, I made him out of the house for a little while. He might come in here in a little bit. I told him a half hour, so that’s about coming up rather than that back.
Victoria Volk: Oh, so that’s good. I mean, that you’re taking your own advice. Right? I mean, it’s just one day a week. You know
Patti Herr: I do work at McTwist, the Dairy Queen in town one day a week. So I I get an adult interaction.
Victoria Volk: And that’s important. And that is kind of you time. That is mental health time.
Patti Herr: It is. Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah. It’s only for, like, six hours, but I love it.
Victoria Volk: It’s something to look forward to to get out of the house. Right?
Patti Herr: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: Just Yeah. Yeah.
Patti Herr: And the fact here, like, I need to do this and I need to do that.
Speaker 0: And leave the house without a diaper bag.
Patti Herr: Yeah. Yeah. Or I mean, could I forget a kid? Or
Victoria Volk: Yeah. Well, I’m so glad things have really just the sun has just been shining on your life and it’s I’m so happy to have been able to catch up with you today. And thank you for sharing what’s been up with you. Yeah. And you know, I do offer alumni groups.
Patti Herr: And she made it to somebody.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. Well, and I could do it online now too. I don’t have to pack a diaper bag. So yeah. So I’ll have to maybe get something like that lined up in the future. Yeah. Is there anything you prefer? Yes. there aren’t. Is there anything else that you would like to share?
Patti Herr: I don’t think so. Just live life to the fullest because it’s so short. You never know. You never know.
Victoria Volk: You never know. That’s for sure. Especially, as you just described, you know, that accident that happened. Right? You just you don’t know. You can leave your house one day and not walk in the door later.
Patti Herr: Yep.
Victoria Volk: So
Patti Herr: Yep.
Victoria Volk: All I was gonna ask you too. Do you ever go out to the farm where your husband’s work and have a picnic with the kids?
Patti Herr: We go out there because we have a horse named Marlin, and the kids wanna go see the horse all the time. So we go see Marlin quite often.
Victoria Volk: Okay? But where your husband is farming, though. Yeah.
Patti Herr: Oh, yeah. We well, we take him food, and I actually have to take him chemically. He called me right before this and said, can you bring me some chemical? Oh, so I’m also farmland. Like, I yeah. And we want to move to the farm someday. So we’ll be out there probably in a few years, I would say.
Victoria Volk: Oh, so you’re not on the farm?
Patti Herr: Nope. We’re in town. We live in his grandma’s house. We bought his grandma’s house.
Victoria Volk: Oh, my mistake.
Patti Herr: Yeah. But we will move to the farm his parents live out there, but they’re kinda transitioning. So
Victoria Volk: Well, farm days are in your future, I bet.
Patti Herr: Yeah. So women can come find out for farm days because I plan to have all the things. My husband’s like, oh, we’re gonna have funny farm and I’m like, you better believe it. I’m going to that exotic animal sale and we’re gonna have fainting goats and
Victoria Volk: Oh.
Patti Herr: Peacock
Victoria Volk: That’s really fun. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Patti, and it’s been so fun catching up with you. And I wish you a wonderful rest of 2023. It’s halfway.
We’re halfway through. That’s crazy.
Patti Herr: Time goes too fast?
Victoria Volk: Sure does. Well, many blessings to you and your family.
Patti Herr: You too. Thanks.
Victoria Volk: Thanks. And remember, when you unleash your heart you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Podcast, Growth, Mental Health, Mind/Body Wellness, Podcast, Q&A, Spirituality |
Q&A | The Grief of a Midlife Crisis
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Did you know that the term “midlife crisis” was coined by Elliot Jacques, a psychoanalyst who came up with the term in 1965 after noticing significant changes in one of his middle-aged clients?
A lot has changed since 1965; the way we eat, how we eat, what we drive, societal views about marriage and children, etc. It’s as if Mr. Jacques saw the writing on the wall back then. Fast-forward fifty-eight years, and the “midlife crisis” has become, in some respects, a societal joke. Hit forty, and you might have an affair, buy a sports car, or make some other radical, life-altering change due to aging panic…or is it due to something else?
In this episode, I explore the idea of a midlife crisis, or rather, a midlife unraveling, and the accompanying grief. Which comes first? Grief or the midlife unraveling?
I believe that we all experience a midlife crisis to some degree. The question is: what do you do about it? Well, you’ll find that there’s more to a midlife crisis than meets the eye.
Listen, reflect, and connect with me on social media – I’d love to continue this conversation!
🎙 Do you have a question you would like addressed on the podcast? Message me on social media or email me at victoria [at] theunleashedheart [dot] com with “Grieving Voices Q&A” in the subject line.
RESOURCES:
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CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hello. Hello. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, no matter what time you’re listening. Thank you for being here. And tuning in to grieving voices. I am your host, Victoria Volk. And today’s episode is number 147 and it’s a Q&A episode talking about a topic that I think hits a lot of people. And it’s the grief of a midlife crisis. This topic came up, I believe it was during a podcast interview I was guesting on. And I want to bring up a article that I came across and I’ll put the link to it in the show notes. It was on HealthLine. And I’m just gonna I mean really this article kind of talks about midlife crisis as as we age. As being like this issue that you have when you’re aging. And there’s a part in here that says a period of soul searching is relatively common but only about 10 to 20 percent of people actually face some kind of crisis in middle age. Experts mostly consider the midlife crisis, in air quotes, a cultural phenomenon, a western myth fueled by tired media tropes. I don’t know about you but I think I personally believe that we all experience a mid life crisis or a midlife unraveling, whatever you want to call it, to some degree in our lives at some point. Their phase in our lives.
Victoria Volk: And so let’s define a midlife crisis. Typically, it is around ages forty and sixty with ten years of wiggle room according to this article. New roles and responsibilities not to mention changes in your career, family life, and health can create a perception of middle age before you reach the momentous, big four or birthday. Maybe you’ve had children at a young age, so you’re still in your thirties, when they leave home or perhaps early success prompts you to retire early, leaving you financially secure but somewhat dissatisfied at loose ends. In short, midlife can begin at a different point for everyone.
Victoria Volk: And actually the term midlife was developed by Elliott Jaques, a psychoanalyst who came up with the term in 1965 after noticing significant changes in one of his middle aged clients. According to Jacques, this crisis prompts feelings of depression, anguish, and loss related to the approaching end of life. He also noted that it often involved a loss of creativity and confidence along with the first inklings of mortality, the transition of middle age is often suggested to involve other emotional turmoil. Such as declining happiness and life satisfaction, aimlessness or loss of life purpose, self-doubt, frustration with changing life roles and responsibilities, boredom and dissatisfaction with your relationship career or life in general, concerns about your appearance and how others perceive you, thoughts about death, the meaning of life, and other existential, that’s a hard word to say. Existential concepts, changes in energy levels from increased restlessness to unusual fatigue, less motivation or interest in pursuing goals and activities you use to enjoy. Mood changes, including anger, irritability, and sadness, and changes in sexual desire.
Victoria Volk: Well, I don’t know about you, but I think all of us experience some of this to some degree. So the fact that experts air quotes believe that this is that a midlife crisis is a cultural phenomenon and a western myth ought to wake up and smell the coffee because why do we see people resorting to behaviors to feel better if they were so satisfied with their lives. If they did not feel self-doubt, if they didn’t lack purpose, if they didn’t have thoughts of death in the meaning of life and purpose, or if they’re bored, not dissatisfied with the relationship career life in general. Like, are these surprising reasons? Like, are we surprised that most people that we know, maybe even new or ourselves, like, I know I have experience this sense of a midlife crisis or midlife unraveling, which I like to call it. Because I think, especially like turning 40. It is like this midphase. Like, you’re you’re looking to the past you’re thinking you’re reflecting on the past, you’re thinking about all the life that came before you, all the experiences, maybe there’s been a lot of hurt and a lot of pain and a lot of sorrow and grief and loss. And you’re thinking ahead, well, what do I have to look forward to? What do I want my last however many years to look? What do I want to produce in the world? How do I wanna show up for myself or my loved ones or my family and friends? What legacy do I want to leave? Like, it’s overwhelming when we think about having maybe thirty years left to live or twenty years left to live in the fact is that we don’t know how many years we have left to live.
Victoria Volk: And so especially as we get into the 40s, what happens when we start to get into the 40s? We’re almost we become like this sandwich generation. We’re still raising kids and yet we have aging parents, so we’re taking care of the young and the old. We’re having to transition from being the child, to being the caregiver and the caretaker, and the responsible one for the care of our parent, an aging parent maybe. We’re having to make big decisions, big changes possibly in our lives. This is a huge transitional period. And for anyone that says that the midlife crisis is a myth I do wholeheartedly wholeheartedly wholeheartedly absolutely disagree. I think it’s something that we need to talk about more. I think it’s something that we need to less stigmatized as being something that this period of time, or you have an affair, or you spend all your money, or you buy the race car or the fancy car or you go have liposuction or BOTOX and it’s not just an aging. It’s not just about aging. Yes, that has a lot to do with that, I think. But at the same time, like, what is the bigger picture? What has happened to you in your past that makes you reflect and bring into your future. Like, what has happened in the past that you’re bringing into your present moment that you will take into your future. That is affecting you right now.
Victoria Volk: Because I guarantee you you’ve had experiences in the past that are coming up again, especially if you have become the caregiver to your parent. I can bring up a lot for someone. It can be a very difficult position to be in. When maybe it was a less than loving relationship. Maybe you’re struggling with your child. Maybe your child is struggling. So your relationship is struggling. Maybe your marriage is struggling. Like, there’s so many things. This is the period too where you know, the friendships might change. As your kids get older and maybe move off to college and things, like the things that connected you with your friend group, the children. Right? You connected with these people because of your kids and now your kids are gone or now your kids are older and leave the house and go to college and what have you, those friendships can change. You can lose friendships because now there is not that commonality, that common ground that brought you together in the first place.
Victoria Volk: And so it’s a really huge time of transition. And in all of these signs and symptoms of a midlife crisis that I mentioned earlier, decline in happiness, self-doubt, frustration with changing life roles, responsibilities, mood changes, changes in sexual desire, etcetera, etcetera. It is par for the course. Like, these are things that we will experience in our lives, all of us, no matter what your gender is or how you identify or what have you. Like, we all go through these things. Not all of them may be necessarily, but many of them. Right? Like, we can have boredom and dissatisfaction with a relationship career or life in general because maybe we’re looking back and the things that we used to love to do we haven’t had the time or made the time because maybe we are that sandwich generation of now caring for small children or getting children that are growing and a parent at the same time. So it’s we’re put in these different roles as we get older and our roles change. And with change, can comes grief. Because grief is a change in familiar pattern of behavior. And so during this huge time of change, in midlife, we’re going to experience grief. No doubt about it.
Victoria Volk: They say that this that happiness is a you. Research has found some evidence this article says to suggest that happiness or general satisfaction with life takes the shape of a you. It begins to decline by early adulthood, eventually reaching its lowest point in the mid to late 40s. But then it begins to rise once more. This finding is pretty much universal. It holds true for people in a hundred and thirty two countries around the world independent of any outside factors that might affect life satisfaction and happiness. Experts don’t yet understand why this dip happens, but some believe it could represent an evolutionary stage. In any case, it may help explain some of the distress you experience in midlife. And offers some reassurance that these feelings aren’t permanent.
Victoria Volk: I would agree with that too. They don’t have to be permanent. But I think that a lot of these things that people experience self-doubt, aimlessness or a loss of life purpose or declined in happiness or life satisfaction. These things can take root. They can take hold and they can impact the remaining years of your life. If you allow it because I think too, coming back to reflecting on the first half of your life, maybe a lot of loss and grief. And all these things can resurface with life experience and midlife. Again, with aging parents, it can bring up a lot of stuff. Even having kids can bring up a lot of stuff, especially getting when they get into the teenagers, kids bring up all of our insecurities. Maybe you’re venturing into entrepreneurship and that can bring up a lot of insecurities and things from your past, belief systems. Again, I’m going to say that I believe all of us experience a midlife unraveling to some degree or another. And I do believe that it can be something that can help you evolve and grow if you’re willing to embrace the change. Embrace the transition because it really is a phase of transition and transformation. It can be. And it can really knock you on your ass at the same time.
Victoria Volk: This article goes on to say, well, how long does it last? Well, there’s no set timeline for supposed midlife crisis. There’s no timeline for grief either is there. Everyone experiences it differently, processes it, differently. But at the same time, everyone has different stressors. Everyone is experiencing a different trigger, I guess in their lives that catapults them into this midlife unraveling. And So I think everyone’s situation is very unique to them. But again, I will say that how you respond to that midlife unraveling, definitely I think plays a role in how quickly you rebound from it as well. And that’s the same for loss. If you’ve experienced a lot of loss in your life and you’ve never really looked at it and never allowed yourself to feel everything that you’ve experienced, processed it emotionally and with your body, you’re probably holding on to some junk. In there, and it’s probably manifesting as some physical symptoms, fibromyalgia, or hypertension, or migraines, things like that.
Victoria Volk: But a midlife unraveling can also lead you to behaviors that kind of exasperate those things that are already existing. Those behaviors that you already are participating in, a midlife unraveling can exasperate that. You can, like, go deeper into the alcohol. You can dive deeper into prescription drugs or promiscuous behavior or risk ski behavior or gambling or shopping, it comes back to the grief. Again, the grief of a midlife crisis, the grief of a midlife unraveling. It’s all tied together. And so, like this article says, how do you handle it? Well, how do you handle grief? Right? You gotta acknowledge it and acknowledge your feelings. I like how this article says to remember that your life is expanding and not shrinking. And I think it can be really easy to look at our age or if we’re looking at a midlife crisis as an age-related issue, which I don’t necessarily fully believe it is. I think we can have a midlife unraveling kind of at any point. I mean, you can be 30 years old and have had a really traumatic life up to that point where it feels like you’ve lived five lifetimes. Where you’ve experienced more in your life than most people experience in a lifetime. And so I think it is unique to you. I don’t know that I don’t fully believe that it has to be that it would be in your 40s necessarily. But again, it comes back to that societal just how society looks at midlife and the midlife crisis and the getting the fancy the midlife crisis car or things like that. But I like how this article says how you recognize that your life is expanding and not shrinking. And I think that’s where gratitude comes in. It’s really looking at the past for what it is and looking ahead with hope. And not like that with this idea or this belief that the best years are behind you.
Victoria Volk: And it reminds me of a guest who said Quandell. He was a recent where are they now episode and he had shared. What if everybody lived their lives as if the best years are yet to come? And I think that’s where this whole idea of when we think about the midlife crisis or midlife unraveling is thinking about our lives in that way, that the best years are yet to come. It’s not in the past, it’s and not necessarily the past was may be good to you either, you know. So I think it’s giving gratitude for the lessons of the past. And looking ahead to the future of asking yourself those big questions, the deeper questions, getting more curious about what you want your life to be like at the end of life. There’s an opportunity there to expand rather than look at your life as if it’s shrinking.
Victoria Volk: And I think this is where too as the article shares, to take stock of your relationships, how important relationships are, friendships are. I’m gonna mention in this episode again, I’ve ahead and episode. My guest shared this and I’m gonna share it again about the four people to have in your corner. This refers to women women friendships, but men can apply this to their lives as well. But you always want that wise person. You want the wise friend. You want the emotional support who only listens. And you want the go-getter. And four, you want the late-night talker. So those are the four types of friends or four people to have in your corner. The wise person, emotional support, the go-getter, and the late-night talker. And I think that’s an important aspect to have in relationships as a part of your life especially when you’re going through a challenging time such as grief or loss or midlife unraveling, right, which can be triggered by many many number of different things. And the importance of your taking care of your mental health. And I think if we’re addressing the relationships and we’re addressing gratitude in looking at our past with thanks and appreciation for what it was and what it gave us. And what we experienced and looking ahead to the future with opportunity, with opportunistic eyes and potential, seeing the potential that we yet have to bring joy and light and love into the world. I think the mental health will follow suit. I think that life becomes more like. So be the light, be the love, and you’ll get more of that in return. And maybe that’s the cure for a midlife unraveling is making those things a priority. And seeking support wherever you need it.
Victoria Volk: And I’m gonna have an episode coming up or I’m gonna talk about more about life satisfaction as it relates to grief. I’m finishing up with a Do Grief Differently client and we had our second to last session recently, and she was sharing all of these amazing basically testimonials of what she’s experienced the past eleven sessions with me and through the program itself and the importance of having Youmap as a part of the program. It’s not just about working through your grief. It’s looking ahead to the future, which she does now, which she does now. And it’s such an important topic to talk about because what I do, it’s not talk therapy. It’s taking action. And action is where it’s at. Action is where transformation happens. And so I’m gonna be talking about that in a future episode coming up real soon.
Victoria Volk: And in the meantime, I want to leave you with something that I’ve never brought to the podcast before or shared, but I kinda like Oracle cards. And I don’t read them, you know, like, it’s not a session I offer. Like, I don’t, like, pull a card for people as an offering or anything like that. But when you work with me, it is something that if I feel called to, I will ask if you know, at the end of a session, energy healing session or end of a, you know, Grief Recovery, Do Grief Differently session. I’ll ask if the client wants me to pull a card. And generally speaking, I don’t choose the deck that I pulled the card from. I let my pendulum decide. But today, just for funsies, I decided to pull a card for you, my audience, and it’s from postcards, from Spirit. It’s a 52 Card Oracle Deck by Colette Baron-Reid. She’s the bestselling author of the map and Uncharted. I have not read the books, but I absolutely love this Oracle deck. And so I’m gonna read this card. I’m gonna leave this with you today because this is it’s absolutely perfect for what I’ve just shared, which I pulled the card, and then I recorded, so this is interesting. But perfect for the topic today.
Victoria Volk: And the card is reads. Dear you, There are times in life when taking a risk is better left for another day. Other times are perfect for taking that leap. No matter how dangerous it might seem. Well, hold on to your parachute strings for today is leap time. Realize that no matter what, we will not let you fall, drown, get lost, or hurt yourself in any way on this one. Even if it may feel like you are in a free fall, we are here for you, and you can stop freaking out about getting hurt and relax into this transition to something new. All the elements are in place and your soul is ready for a new experience. No matter what you’re asking about, it’s time to take the risk and do that thing that scares you. No matter what happens, you will land softly right on target. Don’t worry about the outcome. Spirits got that covered. It’s taking the leap itself. That’s the point. We love your courage, embrace it.
Victoria Volk: And thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. If you loved it, I would love to hear about it. And if you would like more cards, shared with you at the end of these episodes. Let me know. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Childhood Grief, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Healing, LGBTQ+, Mental Health, Mind/Body Wellness, Podcast, Where Are They Now? |
Jordan Brodie: Where Are They Now? | Redefining Success & Grief with Best Friend and Brother Loss
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
This “Where Are They Now?” episode with Jordan is a follow-up to the first conversation we recorded on 01/19/2021. Jordan’s first episode went live as episode 44 on 4/27/2021. You may want to check out that episode first, then come back to this follow-up episode.
In this follow-up episode, Jordan shares about the devastating loss of his older brother to a fentanyl overdose only a week after we recorded his first episode. In the time since, Jordan has been able to maintain his sobriety. However, in this episode, he goes into more depth on the impact the loss of his best friend, followed by the loss of his brother, had on him – and his sobriety.
Sobriety aside, Jordan also shares how his spiritual beliefs have been shaped by the loss of his best friend, Chase, and his older brother, Josh. And what he looks forward to in the future. Jordan is currently traveling Europe after living in Los Angeles for 11 years. He shares how leaving the glitz, glam, and city life has offered him the opportunity and experience of a lifetime. And maybe, for the first time, the time and space to discover how he wishes to define what success means to him moving forward.
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CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today is a Where Are They Now episode. And it is a follow-up with a guest who I originally spoke to on January 19th, 2021, Jordan Brodie. And his episode went live on April 27th, 2021. It is episode 44. And it is titled Growing Up Gay, CODA, and with Addiction. And so if you haven’t listened to that episode you might wanna check that one out first and then come back to this one but I am so excited to catch up with Brodie. There has been a lot going on in his life since then. And also, actually, the week after we spoke, his brother had died of an overdose. And so that is where we will start today. But first of all, Jordan, thank you so much for being here. And you’re all the way over in France. So thank you so much for joining me from France. And I love the idea of following up with people after a couple years and because if I’m wondering how you’ve been, what’s what you’ve been up to, what’s changed in your life, I’m sure other people are too, And so thank you so much for taking the time to catch us all up.
Jordan Brodie: That’s so nice. You’re welcome. Thank you. Victoria, and so grateful to be back here today. So much has happened since Chase Guy. And even after that podcast, we recorded eight days after my older brother died. And, God, I think speaking with you, and, like, having been prepared from losing my best friend. It really helps me, I think, because Joshua’s death, my older brother was even more difficult for me emotionally. And Chase is definitely very difficult. I think, kind of, like, having this platform to tell my story I think it really helped my grieving process. And I just wanna thank you because it really did help me to talk about it right away. It really did. I don’t I think I really think I breathed well, and I’m still grieving. Chase and Josh and another’s losses in my life. Like, it’s a continuous thing, I think society prepares us to get things. Like, we’re in a consumer capitalistic society where we’re, you know, get get get we want this, we want that, we want new things, we want a new dog, a new puppy, a new bike, a new car, a new house, a new boyfriend, a new girlfriend. We always want new things. We gotta get that new iPhone every year. Our society doesn’t teach people how to lose things in a proper and healthy way. And you know, when some when you lose something, a lot of times people are like, oh, well, don’t worry. You can get another one. And that really invalidates the emotions. I’ve learned it’s not good to say that to people don’t say, oh, well, you can get a new cat, you can get a new dog. It invalidates the emotions. And also, I don’t like even people offer me, like, tissues or phoenix when I’m crying. Like, I don’t like being blocked. I want to just let it flow because I think it’s healthy. We have such a shame around crying and and losing things. But it’s a part of life. It’s inevitable getting on here here with you. It was about two years ago really helped me, like, with my grieving process because if I keep things bottled in, I go crazy. I really do, and I need to talk about what’s going on with me. And everyone does, not just on a podcast. We don’t just need to be on a podcast to talk to people who can talk to our friends, our family, our therapists, but I think it’s important to talk to someone and He really helped me, so thank you.
Victoria Volk: Thank you so much for sharing that because I really had no idea. I mean, I know we had kinda just talked over social media a little bit after I had heard that your brother had passed, but I had no idea. Those are the very things that we talk about in the program Do Grief Differently. Like, you know, when I try and educate people, like, don’t hand a tissue, you know, that stops someone from crying and so just the fact that you’ve re you remembered those things and that you found them helpful and you’re probably actually helping other people too and educate dating other people along the way in the past two years just based on what you’ve learned in our first conversation.
Jordan Brodie: Yeah, I really hope so. I really hope to be just a light inspiration by being vulnerable on social media, on the Internet, on YouTube, in public with people just being open and honest and authentic. I really hope it helps others, and I know it helps others. I’ve had people say, they look up to me. I do know I have people that looked up to me and I’m really grateful for that. It used to make me feel uncomfortable, but I’ve worked through my impostor syndrome and I think everyone, not just me, everyone can help anyone with their story. We all have a story to tell. You, Victoria, have a story to tell. All the listeners on here have a story to tell, and it’s important and it’s valid. And it doesn’t matter if you’re just a grocery store clerk or you’re just a farm Boy or you just you’re just a high schooler with no extracurricular activities or you are the football player or whatever you are, you have a story. Everyone has a story. It doesn’t matter who it is. You don’t have to be a royalty, a rich person, born into a rich family, a celebrity. It’s not just the celebrities that have stories to tell. It’s the little Joe’s and Bob’s and Dina’s and Susie’s in the middle of America, in the middle of Europe and then in middle of France. Everyone has a story and I love your podcast because you do interview everyone. It’s not just celebrities, it’s not just these people, it’s normal average job people dealing with free and everyone deals with Green in their life and it’s something we need to talk about. I don’t think any topic should be taboo. In this world because we’re all human. We all go through the same feelings and emotions and desires maybe different ways. But why should any topic be taboo or shameful when everyone is experiencing that?
Victoria Volk: In church recently, the priest had shared, we should not hide our wounds. When we hide our wounds and we don’t talk about our wounds, they kill us.
Jordan Brodie: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: And that speaks to what you’ve just been sharing.
Jordan Brodie: It’s very, very true. So since Josh and Chase died, by the way, Joshua’s death very difficult, and he actually died from the same death as Chase, a similar death. It was a fentanyl overdose. I don’t know the exact details about Chase, and I don’t even really know the exact details about Josh, but I know that he had COVID and had been isolated for two weeks, and then relapsed and it was an overdose on fentanyl. I did similar thing with Chase with Chase. I was like, how can I give service to his mother, like and being of service throughout Chase’s death process, like, after he died and asking his mother, like, how can I help? Like, I love Chase so much. Like, how can I help? She asked for help putting together his because it was during COVID, his Zoom memorial service for friends and family because COVID, we could she couldn’t have a big open funeral. It was only close family members, no friends. So I did that. I put together, I found a pastor, to run the services. And I got the made invitations. I invited a bunch of people. Like, It is really hard to do, but it helps me stay focused and help me stay safe. I had some friends donate money to pay the pastor because he was on Zoom and he was a friend from the Unitarian University of Church. We did this service. It was a beautiful service. I think I sing and my other friend saying and read a poem and it was very beautiful. Chase would have loved it because Chase was an artist, he was an actor, he was a performer, I still think about him. He’s still a superhero to me. He was obsessed with SpiderMan. When the new SpiderMan movie, came out. It was on I think it was on Joshua’s birthday. Josh’s birthday was February 18th, and he died from January 27th. It was somewhere around his birthday that the new SpiderMan movie came out and Chase was obsessed with SpiderMan. Chase where he had all these furnishings with him. It was kinda silly. It was like an adult child that became this part of that. But I would just the message of that SpiderMan movie. I don’t know if you saw it. Let’s just see the new SpiderMan. It was I don’t wanna ruin too much of the story for but for those who saw it that are listening, there was a message of forgiveness to those who have done you wrong. Because it’s a long story, but I don’t wanna ruin the plot, but there was a character in the movie who hurt SpiderMan. And SpiderMan had a choice to be to he had a choice to make. And he would have done something wrong if he wouldn’t have chosen to forgive And the thing about Chase and Josh is they go back from a fentanyl addiction, which drug dealers are lacing drugs of fentanyl. So I was angry. Like, at drug dealers, when Chase moved to LA, he was a very handsome he was very handsome and fellow people all the actor agents said he looked like the next action cooker. Sorry, handsome. And everyone just so many old guys came around promising him fame and fortune and I’ll be your agent. A lot of them just fed him drugs and got him high and took advantage of him. Like, it’s true. And it happens to so many people that move to LA. So many people I’ve seen it happen. I’ve been I was in LA for eleven years, and I saw so many people get chewed up and spit out And I’m so sad that she’s happened to be one of them. I luckily kind of avoided that. I avoided the drug part because I already got it up that out of my system in high school, but Chase fell into that. All these old gross men I was always so I was so protective of Chase. I mean, I knew him since I was eight years old. And I had a big crush on him. I didn’t realize that he was kind of my high school crush, but he only liked older thighs and I wasn’t necessarily as type. And I think we were both kind of afraid of each other in that way. I’m afraid of intimacy and being hurt and I was afraid to be honest with him about how a truly felt for him, and that was one of my biggest regrets. When she died. I was always so angry with Chase. I was like, Chase, why are you hanging out with this guy? You just want to fuck you. You just want systems like, oh, yeah. That he helps me with my scripts when I have auditioned. And I was like, I can help you with this script. Someone else can, but this guy is not confused. There were so many of these to be fair, like, one of these guys that I’m talking talking about, I don’t wanna say his name. He like, two years ago. He’s a really fit a popular agent in LA. And he literally got me tuned and canceled, and that he actually died from cancer, like, a few months ago, this guy in particular. And I was always like, Chase, why are you hanging out with this guy? Like, he’s not promising you anything. He’s just using you. He’s getting you high. He’s leading you on. And, you know, this is good. To share because I heard of the superficiality of LA. I’m tired of seeing it. It was so heartbreaking to me. And all these influencers, all these people are coming every day, every year, and falling from this trap. And so many people get caught into drug addiction. Think about the amount of famous people you know with drug problems that, like, goes spiraling down. For every famous person, there’s probably like ten thousand not famous people who never make it, who die from an overdose in LA because they get stuck in that whole trap. It’s really dark. And messed up. And I think people should know, like, when they move to LA to have boundaries and not lose their backbone, like, keep your morals and your standards or you will get lost. Like, I got lost. Thank god. I got back on track. Chase actually helped me get back on track. He was my eskymo of I went to anonymous twelve step programs at first to support Chase. And then I stuck with it. And now, yeah, I have six years sober. I’ll have seven years on January thirteenth. So help me God. But
Victoria Volk: Congratulations.
Jordan Brodie: Thank you. It’s just really heartbreaking and I’m tired of seeing people just fall into this superficial chase of fame and fortune. I have different dreams now. I still want I still desire to be famous for my music and well-known or successful and be paid from my art and my music. Fame represents success for me as an artist. But I don’t it’s not if I’m making a living as an artist or even if I am still making art, but I have all my needs met, like I have a home, a place to live, food to eat, As long as I’m doing music recording, I don’t care if a thousand people are listening or not. I just want to have a place to sleep some food to eat and be doing music. And I realize I don’t like big cities. I feel anxious in big cities. So I’m actually traveling Europe right now. I’ve been in Europe almost for two and a half months doing work away. I’m traveling right now around the world. I’m gonna probably be doing this for, like, a year or two. Until I figure out where I wanna live. Getting European citizenship to my grandmother. She’s born in Estonia. It’s not guaranteed, but we’re starting the process to apply for my citizenship. And, yeah, I love Europe. I’m loving it. And I feel like Chase and Josh are with me and but, yeah, for everyone that’s planning on moving to LA or New York, any big city. It doesn’t matter. Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, London. All these major cities have huge drug problems. So it’s really important to stick with your morals and ethics and your backbones. Like, wherever you’re going, think about find a role model from your childhood, like, maybe it’s a grandpa, like, or someone that you really admire that has good qualities of integrity and service and love. They don’t have to be perfect. My grandpa and some of my role models are not perfect. They have mistakes. They’ve had flaws. But I admire their good qualities, and I aspire to be like them finding role models in my recovery has been what’s helped me. And I think going back to the SpiderMan thing, that’s what Chase’s well one of his role models was SpiderMan because he was he’s such a positive hero. Like, I think he’s such a great world model. And when I watched that movie, God, I’d boggled so hard in the theater. But Like I said, the moral of that story was forgiveness to those who have done you wrong and hurt you. If you watch it, you will know what I mean. You will see this message. It’s pretty clear. And it’s exactly like, I was so mad about Chase, like, I blamed basically any old gay guy. This sounds really brief is a seductive kind of messed up it can put some messed up voices in your head, like my ego. And any, like, older gay guy, I was just angry at. I was, like, everyone’s a predator. I hate all of you guys. Like, just so many people I was so mad at, and I was blaming all these people and it was really hard. I was so angry at everyone. I was just angry at the world, like, for just being not understanding of my friend and not respecting his humanity because he was a very handsome person and just so many people, like, threw themselves at him and try to take advantage of him and I was just, like, always there on this side, like, supporting him with my love, and I was, of course, hoping one day. Well, no. I appreciate him as a friend and I was content with their friendship, but I really was and love on him. Looking back at it, I was very much in love with him. Like, I was too disassociated for my own addictions. To know that it was, like, what I was for. Like, he was always when I went in high school, I had a big crush on him, I had a huge crush on him. He’s so charismatic. He’s so funny. He’s so handsome. And I had a big crush on him. And then I always did, and he knew it. Like, he liked older guys.
Victoria Volk: How do you honor his life today?
Jordan Brodie: As I’m traveling, going to things like that SpiderMan movie is very helpful. I got to see Demi Lovato perform at Avida, like, the week before I left for Europe. And Chase was the biggest Demi Lovato fan. Like, I wasn’t that I love Demi, but, like, I’m not, like, I’m not obsessed. Like, she’s not my diva. I love her. I love her music. I’m obsessed. That like, I do love her. Okay? But Chase was obsessed. Like, the biggest demi lovato fan. So I felt like he was there with me and, like, he was so happy and like, I just felt him there. And then I just feel his energy a lot, and I talked sometimes I’ll reach out to his mother, see how she’s doing. We talked on social media a lot, and she’s just really supportive of me. And I know she still misses him a lot. And Chase was very, like, he was, like, very risk-taking, very adventurous. It’s on my list of things to do to go skydiving with some of his friends, like, in Chase’s memory because Chase was such a risk-taker. So I wanna get some of his friends and I wanna go skydiving because I am so scared of how it’s and like, Yolo and his memory. Like, I wanna jump for him and, like and then I and then I worked my program my recovery programs and my sobriety honors him. Like, I feel like when he died, I don’t know if I talked about this in the podcast, but I I didn’t handle it the best when it came to my recovery in some of my behaviors because I still, like, I acted out like, sexually, like, to, like, cope with the emotions I was experiencing. And like, because I’m an addict, but I’m not just, like, a drug addict, an alcoholic. Like, I also struggle with sex addiction, and love addiction and emotional anorexia. When Chase died, I just I kinda I relapsed. I really did. I don’t I didn’t talk about this. When we did the interview, but I did relapse, like, when he died. And it took me, like, a week or two, like, get back on track, and that was really hard. Like but when Josh died, I think since that had already happened, I didn’t relapse when Josh died. I was ready. I was prepared. And so that was really hard. And my sex and love addiction is still very difficult. I do still get really lonely. And I have a lot of pain, like, anxiety, emotional pain, and I think it’s good not to latch onto someone when you’re grieving or you’re sad, but it wasn’t ready for that. Like, no one prepares you to lose your best friend or, like, to lose your older brother, like, I had never experienced any significant loss like that in my life. It was the first. So I was not ready for that at all. At all. Like, I wasn’t that close with my grandpa. When he died, I was, like, it wasn’t that big of a deal for me. I mean, he’s a grandpa. He’s older. You know? It’s part of life. And he was kinda angry towards the end of his life. So I was kind of relieved for him because he had cancer and he was in a lot of pain. It wasn’t very nice to me. My little brother’s, and I didn’t, like, carry through to my little brother’s. So when he passed, I was a little bit relieved for his pain because I knew he was in a better place. He was in so much pain. Presented his life. And I don’t know. But Chase, like, I thought he was doing good. Like, he had just gotten six months sober. And Yeah. I still really miss him a lot. And honestly, like, I was really delusional about their dads like, I don’t know, like, last January. I was this January, I was, like, oh my gosh. It’s almost been a year. I was texting my stepmom. I was like, it’s almost been a year since Josh died. And she was like, Jordan, it’s been two years. Like, that’s how, like, disassociated I’ve been when it comes to my brother and she it’s, like, I was still in denial about his death for a really long time. Like and I’m still a little bit in denial. About it. Like, I really am. Like, I delusionally, I’m a fantasy addict, so I live in fantasy. I live in my head a lot. And I escape into these fantasies of being all these different characters. It’s something that I do. It’s kinda crazy, but it’s normal for artists. Like, I guess, a lot of us do this, you know. Like, Nicki Minaj has her personal. Awesome. I have mine. I’m just not as vocal about it. It’s all in my head, but I escape into fantasies of them still being here. Like a lot of the times, which I don’t think is very healthy. No one prepared me for this. Like, having this platform being able to talk to you also, my recovery community, I do gratitude list every morning. Doing that gratitude every morning when Josh was when after Josh died and after Chase died, really helped me keep, like, a glimmer of light and hope as that dark period went. And I don’t wanna say, but my sponsor in one of my recovery programs was, like, one of the first people I called when I found out Josh Knight. And he was the first person I called. And he, like, helps me, like and so many people helped me. And, you know, it’s really important to know that shit’s gonna happen in life. People are gonna die. And there’s gonna be people there for you. Like, no matter what, like, and it’s important to let them help you. My best friends all kind of, like, kidnapped me too, like, when they found out Chase and Josh die. They kind of just, like, kidnapped me and, like, took me. Like, and, like, I stayed with them in Orange County. For a few days. Unless all my friends came around me, I’m so lucky. I have really good friends. And Yeah. But it’s really hard. Gosh. I was not expecting to cry like this. I guess because, like, doing work away, so I’m how I’m doing Europe is I am doing work away, so it’s an exchange. I’m here at this house that’s on a farm in Normandy, France. And ex and the guy who owns it’s a single gay guy. And in exchange for a house, to stay and food to eat. I help him twenty hours a week with whatever he wants. Like, I help to make a costume, like a gay he has some of that this weekend, so I may help them make a gay alien custom. And I helped him. We’ve I’ve they have been weeding. I help cook. I help with this animals, like, clean up donkey poo. Each job is different. I was in Switzerland before this for three weeks, and that was I was, like, an assistant to the housewife. I was, like, picking up the kids from school tutoring, and the first one was similar to this. So but these last three days, it’s really scary. Out of my element, these last three days have been hard for my sex and love and mix gen, I guess. Like so I think that might be why I’m crying a little bit because I just didn’t reminded how difficult it was, and I really I relapsed when Chase died. And I know it’s pretty common. A lot of people relapse in recovery programs when a loved one dies. Or they break this is why it suggested not to get in a relationship the first year of recovery. It’s not a requirement. It’s a suggestion because it cannot get iteration or end up get out because significant changes in our emotions. We use drugs in alcohol effects, our addictive patterns to numb our pain and our sadness. So if we shift things and we experience big changes, the chances as of us relapsing before we have the right tools are higher. So Yeah.
Victoria Volk: May I ask
Jordan Brodie: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: May I ask if so how long have you been doing work away? When did you leave the US?
Jordan Brodie: Oh, the end of March. So March, like, 29th, and I started my first position, like, April second.
Victoria Volk: Do you feel as though I mean, because It’s one thing to, like, leave your home country for a couple weeks and knowing you’re coming back and knowing when you’re coming back. But in doing work away and having the intention that you’re gonna do it at least a year, maybe even two years, and being away from you know, it’s one thing to, you know, we have the devices. We can stay connected in that way. But to not physically be in proximity to those we love and our family and our friends and things like that. I’m just asking, do you feel like potentially a part of this resurfacing for you is just the fact that you are away from your home. You are you’re I mean, this is a huge change. If you think about it, I mean, this is a huge change. You’re you’re plopping yourself in
Jordan Brodie: That’s a good question. That’s a good question. And I think that might be some of it. But the thing is I don’t feel like I actually miss anyone. It’s kinda weird. Like, I miss people. I would love to see my friends, my family, like, if they showed up or if I went and visited them, I would be elated. I’d be so happy and excited to see them. But I don’t feel like a yearning for them. I might go, it’d be nice to see them. I feel like I don’t I’m just having so much fun. Like, it’s so exciting for me. I’ve never been to Europe. So I’m so excited. I’m so inspired. And also, I’ve been in LA for eleven years, and my mother lives in Montana. All my loved ones live in New Mexico and Montana. And then I have friend all over the country and the world that I grew up with, so I’m always missing someone. Like, at what I have a really big family and they live all over. Like, I’m always missing someone. I’m used to this feeling because I’m kinda spread out a little bit thin. It’s, like, the perks of having a lot of people you love in your life. Like, I have a big family a lot of friends. I have a big community around me of people in real life. It’s not just social media, like most of my friends and family and loved ones have a large majority of people that don’t even use social media. So, like, I just always missing someone. So I’m used to this. So the truth is, yes, I do think that’s part of it, but I thoroughly enjoyed the host here, and I’m here with two other workawaiters. And I go out on walks a lot I pray a lot and meditate. I do outreach calls all day long with fellows and thank god for technology. Like, you’re out North Dakota. I’m here in France and we’re able to talk. I’ve been able to call my friends in LA. New York, in New Mexico, like, I’ve been able to call people still and FaceTime them. It’s not the same as personal connection, but I get that from them. I guess I’m a little bit lonely and the fact is, like, I think also Chase served he wasn’t my brother. He wasn’t family. Josh was my family. It’s different. I didn’t have, like, romantic feelings for Josh. It’s for my older brother, you know. I didn’t he was my brother, we were blood, and but chase, I kinda had some intimate romantic feelings, and I didn’t really fully understand that until he died. And it’s really sad. I think it’s really sad that I didn’t know. Because, like, I knew I liked him and I was kind of obsessed with him. I didn’t know they were those in feelings until he died and I felt those feelings. I think that’s why I relapsed. When Chase died and my sexual live addiction is because I didn’t know how to handle those feelings. That feeling of loss, that feeling of grief. I’ve had a few other, like, guys, like, people that I’ve had these really intense feelings for, like, since Chase died. And it’s weird because I feel like having him die kinda gave me permission to, like, move on. I guess, I’ve spread myself out too thin emotionally and sexually because of my past as a sex worker, because of my promiscuity, emotionally, I was a little bit of an emotional horror. Like, just my emotions are all spread out all over the world. So, like, having Chase died, like, kinda help me reel it in. My emotions I have better boundaries now. I don’t hoard or myself anymore, emotionally. I don’t I don’t I tried to I’m way more conservative than I thought I was, like, emotionally and sexually. Like and it’s new to me, but she’s gonna help me with that. And, yeah, I’ve been able to forgive those guys that I mentioned that I was mad at because of Chase’s death. I kinda blamed them certain characters in West Hollywood that I know was I really angry at? And they’re still doing the same shit. These old older men that work in the industry having these parties, inviting all these young new gays, giving them drugs, giving them alcohol, telling them they’ll do this, they’ll do the app, but they really just wanna get laid. It’s still happening. The same people are still doing the same shit. As eleven years ago when I moved away. This same shit. It’s not different. And I’m like, how do these people sleep that night. But I don’t think they’re fully aware of what they’re doing. It’s kinda like if they knew they knew and they would stop doing it. But it takes two sides. So so but I’ve been able to forgive them. Like, you know, I don’t and I’m leave I’ve left LA It’s a new experience for me. I do wonder am I escaping? Am I doing escapism by being out here? But I’m really enjoying Europe. I don’t plan to, like, move here and get a house here and, like, be here. But I plan to go back LA. But back to New York, back to New Mexico to my parents, back to Montana, I still plan to stay connected to America. I’m always gonna be an American Like, even if I get my Estonian citizenship and I so, like, I don’t know.But yeah. I think I am feeling a little bit lonely. But last night, I made a friend. I made friends with this local girl. She was really nice. And I’ll go to Paris in two weeks and see one of my friends, and there’s a big recovery convention that week. So I’ll see people that I’m only, like, three hour train ride from Paris right now. So it’s pretty cool.
Victoria Volk: Do you think a part of this too could be a little bit of being ready maybe to settle down? Maybe just wanting someone to share this experience with?
Jordan Brodie: Definitely. I was talking about this last night with someone. Okay. I so part of this too, I thought that it’s so funny because Miley Cyrus on Flowers came out on my sobriety birthday, which is January 13th, like, the album was released. And my it’s, you know, the the theme of the song itself, love, like, a renaissance flower was I can grab my name and the saying a quote directly from Chase. He always told me this. He’s like Jordan, God provides music always at the exact right time when they need it. Like, that was Chase’s little quote. That was one of his quotes that he always told me, and he always said if it’s not nice, don’t say it at all. And he would always tell me that because I was kind of more of a bitch than he was. It was always very, like, snarky and he and saying these things. And he was like, my mom always taught me. It’s that nice, don’t say it at all. So he kind of has this consciousness need to, like, be a nicer person. Anyway, So it to me, it was God. It was Chase. It was, like, music. Also, on the year so on so his death was December 27th, I think, or December 1st. December 1st. It was the day of the Equinox when the bright star, the north star, whatever was brightest. So in some ways, I’m like, chaste must have been like Jesus or something because he died on that day. What a great day to go out was the day that the whole world did that international meditation together. Everyone did it. He died that night. The North Star was the brightest. So I think it’s a beautiful night to pass. The energy was amazing. And okay. So a year later on the year of his passing a year prior. It was either the week before or the week after a few weeks. Tim Petris, one of my other favorite pop stars put out a song called Coconuts, which Coconuts, you know, it’s like it’s tropical themed in the middle of winter. So random. She’s the queen of, like, putting things out at random times. Chase and I, five years before he died, We were very silly together and played together. He wrote a song. We wrote a song together called Coconuts. Chase and I did. It was just a joking stupid song. We were obsessed with coconuts. We were like, anything coconut, coconut oil. It’s good for your skin. It tastes good. It’s good for cooking. It’s good as lube for seg. Like, you can do anything with coconuts. You can eat it. You can do anything with coconuts. So so the fact that that song came out like near during a year from his passing was God to me. I was like, Chase is on the other side manipulating shit. Kim Petress has put out a song called Coconuts. And that song is really stupid. It’s a dumb pop song about her boobs, basically, coconuts, Mac, coconuts, it’s, like, totally random, which is also chases humor too. So to me, it was God, like, that song is spiritual to me. It’s funny because everyone’s like, oh, this is a dumb pop song. But that song is spiritual for me. Like, whenever I hear that song, I it’s like, god speaking to me. And then similar things like on Josh’s birthday this year, pink put out her single to her next album, trustful, the song closed, your eyes, and leave it up behind, go with love. It’s on our side, and it’s stressful. And I remember, like, I was playing it on repeat. And that evening of I was going to someone’s birthday and I was in West Hollywood. I was in the Candle Delirium store and I was buying a candle for my friend. And at the register, the guy I will see him there. He owns the store or whatever, but he was, like, Are you okay how are you, by the way, are you okay? And I broke down crying in the store. Like, in front of I it wasn’t, like, I because I was, like, I’m and then it just kinda cracked. And I was, like, crying because I couldn’t hold it because I was just I was dealing with it was I was just listening to music and I was alone. And then I just told him, I was like, oh, on today’s my brother’s birthday, he died, like, two years ago, and I really miss him. And so, yeah, I’m kinda sad, but thank you. And then they, like, they, like, gave me a big hug and they gave me, like, a really big discount on the candle that I was buying. And, anyway, that it was, like, really sweet. So it’s always good to be honest. Like, we don’t wanna get vulnerable when we’re doing bad. But if you just say if someone asks you how you’re doing, you’re not feeling good, there’s nothing wrong with saying, I’m not feeling good. I’m not doing good today. How are you? It’s good to be honest about what we’re feeling. That’s been the biggest lesson with all this and Yeah. And the best way I can honor my brother and Chase is by continuing to work on myself become the best version of myself. I feel like they’re here with me. I pray to them all the time. I talk to them. I danced with them. I, like, I went to EDC last year, and
Victoria Volk: What does that stand for?
Jordan Brodie: Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas. It’s the biggest wave in the United States. It’s a big music festival, like, all the big big DJs, like Calvin Harris, David Geta, like, than even NASA, like, Gorgon City, Zoo, Grimes. All these DJ’s, like, perform. There’s, like, hundreds of d j’s five hundred thousand people in Las Vegas at the speedway from all over the world to go and I’ve been wanting to go for a really long time and it was my first time going and I went with two of my best friends, and it was so much fun. And there was a moment. Okay. So my friend Phoenix and Sean both really love this artist. His name’s excision. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, but He’s a electronic music producer. His music has a lot of heavy metal references in it. So it’s not Like me, I’m candy pot. Like, I love pot stuff. I’ve always been great name Adzana, Michael Jackson and Paris Hilton and Christina Aguilar. If it’s gay, shiny, and sparkly, I’m all over a girl, and I’m listening to it. Like, I don’t even like horror movies, dark I’m the sugar to my friend’s spice. Like, I’m the bright one that’s very gay and happy. I do have a dark side Don’t get me wrong. I have a dark, angry, evil, twisted, bitch side of me too. Sorry. I don’t know if I can cuss back.
Victoria Volk: It’s okay.
Jordan Brodie: But okay. So so here we are. And I Josh and I wrote music together. We had a business together, my older brother. We made his songs together. Josh produced classical music He played the guitar. He played the bass. He played the saxophone. He played the piano. He played he taught himself all these instruments. He never had, like, probably, like, a few lessons when he was younger in piano, but he was a musical genius. He produced hip hop music. Classical music, hot music in the end. He was so talented. And I kept trying to get Josh to move to LA. Like, to, like, for us to work together, but he couldn’t ever his addictions problems and stuff would always get in the way of are working together, and it really frustrated me. And I don’t know if he was an addict or not. It’s not fair for me to say that, but Some of his behaviors would get in the way of us working together. Music was our bonding thing, my older brother and I. And same with Chase. Chase and I whenever we were driving in the car, it was like it was like you’re in a concert. Chase and I were jamming out. We listen to music all day. Chase was always messaging me songs. A lot of my favorite songs. I have a whole playlist with Chase music, Demi Lovato, just chase loved music. And he really helps me grow my love of music as a consumer because Pace wasn’t making music. He was an actor. He wasn’t interested in writing. He was interested in being an actor, but he had a love and a passion for it as like a fan. So I was writing music. Chase loved my songs. He was one of the first people to buy, like, the physical copy of my first, like, single make it right. Like, he bought it online when he could stream it for free. And, like, he was just so proud of me and he loved my music. And so it meant a lot to me because I moved he moved to LA a year before I did from my hometown, and he let me stay with him for a few weeks, and he helped me get start up because he moved there to pursue his acting dreams. And I moved to LA to pursue my music dreams. So anyway, at EDC, it’s a music festival, so it’s all about music. Of course, I was thinking about Chase and Josh the whole time. Like they were there with me. There was this moment. And Josh also was in heavy metal bands. He played heavy metal music, and I loved all kinds of genres, but heavy metals not really my cup of tea. Like, I love metallica, I love whole you can still understand the lyrics, but heavy metal, screamo music. I love the guitars. I love high-intensity guitars and music and rock music. Like, I love Ramstein. I’m obsessed with Ramstein. It’s because they’re really hardcore. But they speak German so it’s like, I already don’t understand German so it’s okay. But screamo music. I don’t know what they’re saying. I don’t I’m not the biggest screamo fan. I will go to a screamo concert. I will go to a heavy metal concert. I’ll address the part, and I will have a blast. And I’ve done it. And I supported Josh was obsessed with Bingo. I think it helped him presses emotions. He was in so many metal bands. He was, like, producing metal music, blah blah blah. Had all these things going for him. And so Sean and Phoenix both love excision. I’ve never heard him. Has a lot of heavy metal influences. We’re, like, up at front. All jammed out look like Barbie dolls. Like, headbanging in the front of the excision, like, looking gay AF in front of all of these because excision, people are they what’s that called, mosh, they mosh pit. Like, you know, it’s EDM, but people are mashing. Like, It’s aggressive energy. It’s not really me. Like, I’m not that like, I was the little gay boy on the in ballet class on this side. The boys ballet class watching the other boys who were just there because their sports coaches made them do ballet. They were all tackling each other, and I’m there rolling my eyes. Like, I’ve never really been the type to, like, do that. So anyway, we’re, like, head-banging. There was a moment where excision because it’s, like, hard more metal, like, idiom. And then all of a sudden, he he saw us, like, in the front row. I where he did this for the three games on the front, because he played a quote on Britney. He was, like, it’s Britney Bitch. And then it just went back to the And then there’s a moment where he slowed down the music. He was like, I just wanna take a moment. I just recently lost someone that was really close to me, like, a few days ago or a year ago. I can’t remember the exact time period, but he was like, tonight, I’m really thinking about him and I’m really honoring him. And if there’s anyone out there in the audience, that’s like experience is significant loss recently. I just want you to know that you’re not alone and I don’t remember what else he said. But it was just I started crying, like, during a heavy metal EDM, set because I knew Josh was there, like, with me. Like like, your loved ones are always is there with you and your memories and your heart. And I am someone who believes in afterlife. I don’t believe in energy. I don’t know if it’s actual heaven or hell, I don’t really believe in that. But I do believe that our loved one’s energy, like, is there and guiding me. I feel like I have this, like, this, like, team of, like, almost, like they’re, like, in the van of, like, the spy van. They’re, like, up there. I can just, like, be, like, yo, guys. Hey. What’s up? Like, I just feel like I have access to all these people in the spiritual realm, and they’re always with me. So whenever you’re getting Jordan, you’re getting all it is. And to add go back to your question about eye flowers, Miley Cyrus song music. When I always thought I would need a boyfriend, a husband, a partner, before I came to Europe. I would need a rich sugar daddy. I would need this. I would need that.
I can’t go alone. It’s romantic to go to Europe. You know? So the fact that I’m out here by myself without a man or a partner, I haven’t even I’m still not ready to date yet until I finish my steps. So I haven’t gone around any dates. I met some guys, and I was kinda trying to meet up with this guy that I met in Brazil, like, in Switzerland, but he goes to me. So I haven’t kinda sad about that, but you said it would wouldn’t it be nice to share this? In the past, I’ve always thought, yes, it would be so nice to have a partner to share all these amazing things with. But you know what I’ve been realizing lately is, yeah, that would be nice and that will happen eventually. But right now, I’m sharing my life with you, Victoria. I’m sharing my life with these work away hosts. I’m sharing my life with my family, my parents. They’re so excited for me that I’m traveling. They’re so supportive of this. My dad started sending me money to help with this adventure, which I was not expecting. And then a lot of my friends are so supportive and so proud of me, like, I am sharing my life with people. Like, I’m sharing my life with amazing people. Like, I don’t I already am sharing my life with an amazing beautiful community. Like, I really am. It’s not I’m not missing anything. I have everything I need right now. I have food to eat. I have a house to sleep in. I have friends. I have family. I have love. I have animals. And, yes, it would be nice to have a intimate, romantic, love partner to share all this with, but it’s just gonna add to what I’m already sharing with other people.
Victoria Volk: I absolutely got full-body chills with you sharing that. And I think that is the most beautiful message. Anyone listening to this can hear today. And that and that is self-love. Right? That is self-love. Opening yourself up to share what you have with where you are right now. Yeah. And that’s what you’re doing. And so thank you because you just It’s such a gift. Like, you’re our share in your life with me and to not want. Right? Isn’t that, like, the isn’t that what peace really is? What other peace feels like is to not have a feeling of want, like to be at peace.
Jordan Brodie: That in Buddhism, they always talk about the four pillars of Buddhism. Buddhism is always about It’s all about the relinquishment of suffering. And suffering is defined as wanting something else outside of us. That is suffering. So when I’m sitting there, yearning for Chase to come back or yearning for Josh to come back or yearning for this guy or yearning for this or yearning for anything that’s not right here physically in front of me right now. I’m in a room by myself talking to you sitting on this bed. This room’s really pretty. It’s I’m this is my present moment. This is what I need to be an acceptance about. This is exactly where I am right now. It’s exactly where I need to be. It’s exactly where I’m supposed to be. This moment has never happened before ever. In this new time, it’s happening right now. This instant present moment. And that’s the present moment is where amazing things happen. It’s where really bad things happen. The present moment is where we need to be. And it’s all that matters because the future will give us anxiety if we obsessed about it and the past will depress us. So so, yeah, it is piece to let go of the wanting. It doesn’t mean we can’t have desires, but when we have desires, I’ve learned it’s important to make a plan of action and set some goals, and then start working towards those goals, but not obsessing about when they’re gonna happen. Because they’re gonna happen if they’re supposed to happen, we can’t control that. And I have my goals and do you have everything I want? And Yeah. Sometimes when I’m sad and lonely, I yearn for a romantic partner and sometimes I’m sad about why Chase, like, why Josh, like, why my why this why the and sometimes I have to stop myself and be like, well, it happened. It is what it is. It did happen, and I have to be in acceptance. Because if I’m not in acceptance, I get depressed, I get sad, I get kiss them. I know my brother and Chase and my aunt Julie and all my loved ones. They loved me so much. And they wanted me to be happy. They really did. They wanted me to have love they wanted me to be free. Josh was very supportive of me as a gay person and very protective. Actually, when I was acting out promiscuously, Josh should be, like, Jordan, that’s not who you are. Like, what are you doing? Like, that’s not my brother. Like, and he really loved me. And Chase too. Like, Chase was really trying to help me get closer to God because he could see how lost and broken I was. An eye cutting. It was a light in a dark place. And my aunt Julie, she was always like Jordan. Don’t hide from us. We know how gay you are. She’s like, you are fabulous. And she’d be like, why are you hiding from us because I was still hiding from everyone. I was the one who needed to accept me and love me. Everyone loves me and loved me so much. They love how gay I am. They love how feminine I am. They love it. I was the one who didn’t love it yet. And I’ve done some work, and I’m still working on that every day, loving myself and accepting myself as my daily journey. And my point is, Julie, Chase or Josh, would not have wanted me to be sad and miserable. They want me to be happy. They want we just celebrate life. They want me to be successful. They want me to be extra. They want me to dance around. They want me to make billions of dollars. They want me to have that a nice guy who takes really good care of me, they want me to be happy. I know that. It’s not a question. And so I know whenever I’m starting to feel sad and I get sad about them, I’ll say, guys, I’ll, like, kinda say I miss you. I’ll express to a friend that I miss them or I’ll write something or I’ll allow myself to cry or this song has been really helpful to me lately. The next right thing from Frozen two. Oh my gosh. That song just gets me. I listen to it every day sometimes. It just really helps with these emotions because that’s all we can do sometimes. Is the next right thing? What is the next right thing? I know after this, I got some stuff to do. That’s all we could do is the next right thing. And, yeah, I know that that they would be happy and mad with me. I’ll say one more thing too. I’ve learned this recently. There’s a great docu-series, by the way. On Disney plus that Morgan Freeman does called God, and he talks about lunch of different religions and their views, not just Christianity. He talks about Buddhism. He goes to India. I forgot the name of the city. It’s like Varnasse or Varsini India, which is one of the spiritual capitals of India. And he talks about in Hinduism, how they celebrate. They celebrate death. It’s not a taboo. It’s not this grim, sad thing. They believe and after life, they believe it’s a journey into a new thing, a new place. So they is a passage. They’re excited for their loved ones to go on and continue. It’s a celebration for them. And I kind of I have in American culture and eastern western culture death is seen as this morbid sad thing. Taboo talk topic, it’s awkward. We don’t know how to handle grief. We bat we don’t know how to handle it. We don’t have these social systems in place. Whereas in Hinduism, it’s celebrated. They’re like, hell yeah, like, I loved one died. They get to go on. They could have a new experience. It’s like going to college or something. I’m like, we’re getting a new job. It’s like in a new thing. It’s citing. So I’ve been trying to think about that with Chase and Josh and Julie and my other loved ones. It’s like, I make I’m excited for them. What are they doing now? They’re probably having so much fun. Like, who knows? Like, what? Yeah.
Victoria Volk: I had a psychic medium on my podcast, her name’s Siri Burnson, and she spoke of a client of hers at one time who hurt this the client’s son had completed suicide. And the mother was just so concerned that her son was not in heaven. And he came through through the psychic and Derseri and she said he wants you to know that he’s in school. Mhmm. He described to through to Siri, like, where he is at, it’s school, that whatever lessons he didn’t learn in the three d he is learning now. And I’ve actually heard that different said a different way multiple times through other psychic mediums or through people who have had near death experiences or people who have actually died and come back who have talked about it like, looking like this experience or being this experience of, like, school.
Jordan Brodie: I love that. So where I’m at in Normandy, the host he teaches yoga and chi dong, Chinese like it’s kinda like tight. And then he does acupuncture. I did she gong on Monday with him Monday morning, and I had a spiritual experience. It’s like she energy and Chinese spirituality is God. It’s the energy of life, it’s the electricity, the spirit electricity, the realm that runs through you. And Shi Gang is just, like, movements like this. It’s just It’s not a hard exercise, but the whole point of it is the connectedness between heaven and earth, like the sky and earth And I had an epiphany during on my day. Because they always say the spirit realm. Right? It’s like energy. It’s not heaven. It’s whatever you believe it. It’s the afterlife. It’s it’s not tangible to the like you said, the three d plane, the this plane that we’re in right now. It’s another realm. The earth the real realm that we’re in right now is you know, tangible. We can touch things. Our blessing humans serve a huge placed in the universe because we’re the only creatures and animals I believe too that are the conduit the middle the middle ground between the spiritual realm and the real realm. We get to experience both. We get to experience the physical pain in existence and the spiritual pain. When we tap into God energy and we tap into our loved ones or past, it’s a blessing. It’s a huge honor to be human. And I had an epiphany that that’s what it means to be human. To be human means to be a conduit from this spiritual realm. And the and the physical realm. It’s a blessing and we have a purpose here to take care of each other and to take care of the animals who aren’t as advanced as us, I think it’s our responsibility to care for the animals, the and for the people that’s fortunate, the people that aren’t born with legs, the people that are born with diseases, if you have a privilege and you have legs or you have money you have resources, it’s our responsibility to take care of them. I had just had this whole epiphany during qingong, which is like so that’s why it’s good to be open-minded too. Like, I was raised, Christian, I read the bible. I do believe in Jesus. I do pray to God. I do believe in that. But I do think it’s important to be open to other things that aren’t out of your comfort zone to, like, new cultures and new things because the Chinese have been around for way longer than Americans have, so they’ve had plenty of time to think about things. They’ve I’ve so it’s, like, I had this a mate. I highly recommend Xevon for anyone. You really feel like the energy. Like, I felt you can feel it. Like, you can feel God. It’s so cool. I love it. Anyway, it kinda got off a tangent, but yeah.
Victoria Volk: I recently did Tai Chi at a retreat women’s retreat and I really phoned. Okay.
Jordan Brodie: Takes you off.
Victoria Volk: I really like that too. Can you just share a little bit for those listening? How does work away work? Because First of all, it’s amazing that you had that experience. You had that epiphany because of work away. Like, you’re experiencing all of these things and meeting all of these people because you took a chance on this opportunity to do this. So can you just explain a little bit how it worked? Like, you know, do you have to pay obviously, you probably have to pay to get yourself overseas and, like, how does that work?
Jordan Brodie: Yeah. I’ll explain. Okay. So this is something I’ve been wanting to do for, like, seven years. I don’t know how I discovered it, but there’s a website called workaway.info. It’s the website workaway.info, not .com .info. It’s been around for a really long time. It’s a social media platform. You can make a free profile, but in order to message host or message people, you have to pay fifty-six dollars or sixty dollars for the whole year. It’s like a subscription. And what that pays for is basically like, it helps filter out, like, kind of shaving people.
Victoria Volk: They’re vetting the people that get on that platform.
Jordan Brodie: Exactly. Because And then I there’s some type of background check process. I don’t know, actually, how that works. I don’t know if I don’t remember filling out a background check form, but they might do that. They do some type of thing verification process. I don’t remember. But It’s just a website anyone can apply for an e make a profile. I put on my profile. I’m good with children. I can cook. I’m good with animals. I worked at the doggy daycare. My grandpa had a farm when I was little. He told me to work when I was fourteen. I was always working on the tractor and the grass, this kind of stuff. My parents would always have me do tasks. I explained all of this and I explained my interest, and I’m learning French, and I know a little bit of Spanish. I put all this in my profile. You just make a profile. And then there’s workaway hosts. So people all over the world. There’s some in Austin, Texas. They’re all over the world. Every country, South Africa. There’s this really cool one near Cape Town. This guy has a Safari company where she takes people on Safari tours. And he just needs people’s help. The maximum hours you’re supposed to work is twenty hours a week, by the way. They’re not supposed to ask for anymore. And so for me, it’s usually about four to five hours a day, five days a week, Monday to Friday. I work about. So it’s not much. And this guy in South Africa wants people to help do marketing on for his safari business. There’s people who want nannies for their kids. There’s people who have the in Switzerland, Bern, I was helping her Flyer for her. She was starting a high school in her area. I was helping pass out flyers in the city center. And they help them cook, can I help them clean, and help them go shopping? The first work away, she could I was helped She broke her leg last year as older lady. So I was helping her with things she couldn’t do because of that her leg pain. And there’s all kinds of jobs, all of it. So you just make a profile, you pay for it, and then you message place you you can search by country where you wanna go, and then you just start messaging host. You say, hey, I’m interested in this and it’s completely volunteering. So it’s a way to get around. They want people to stay for longer than two weeks, usually two or three weeks, a month, two months, three months. One girl is staying here for eight months because they have long-term projects and they want someone to stay for a while. And it’s a lot of very interesting people that do the hosting. And you’re helping out. You’re like, living in, like, living and helping. And you get food, you have access to food, and a place to stay, but you’re volunteering so you I don’t have to get a special visa. Like, if you if I get paid from someone, I’ll have to get a work visa in this country. Wherever so I don’t have to get a visa because I’m volunteering. I when you come here, I say I’m I’m traveling. I’m a tourist because I technically am still traveling. I’m a tourist, but I am working in exchange to stay here. It’s just kind of a loophole. I feel like I found like hitch hiker’s guide to the galaxy, and then come on. What was my thumb? But I am offering some ands it’s pretty scary, but you just wanna make sure you message them. And I’ve made sure to have video chat with each of the host before going and seeing if I got along with them. There were some people I said no to because I didn’t feel comfortable. I didn’t want anyone that just wanted me to crash and pooch because I knew that would harbor it with them in them. I wanted to work. I have to work twenty hours a week. Because I don’t want to freeload. And, yeah, that’s what I’m doing. It’s a great way to travel because I’ve always been wanting to do this for seven years. I was terrified to do it. I almost canceled this trip. So many times, I had just lost my job. I was in limbo. I used my last bit of unemployment money. To buy my plane tickets out here. And you can get some Gritty cheap tickets to Europe. What you do is you type your city in the US, in flights dot Google.com. Type in your city. And in destination, you can put Europe. So you don’t have to put the country, and it’ll show you what the cheapest flight to fly into. And I found a really cheap flight to Norway. It was only three hundred dollars. And then and then from Norway, there was, like, ten dollar fight from Norway to London. And then March, that’s how I got here. So so you can do that. Like, you just find the cheapest place to fly to. And once you’re over here, they have a airlines called Ryanair, which is kinda like Spirit Airlines in US. It’s just really cheap flights and ten dollars, twenty dollars, thirty dollar flights. It’s two other like, my flight to Edinburg was, like, forty dollars. Like, I’m going at the end of this month or next month. Wow. So So, yeah, my next workaways in Scotland. I can only be in Europe for ninety days because I don’t have citizenship and I don’t have a visa. But in the UK, you can be there for six months without a Visa. So I’m gonna go to UK for at least ninety days and then come back to Europe, and I’m just gonna bounce around between UK and Europe until I get my citizenship. Once I get my citizenship, I can get a job out here I can get an apartment, get a house. So so that’s what I’m doing. And it’s a great way to travel. I recommend it for anyone. Because you get to have a cultural experience, you get to meet locals, you get to hang out with some I’m not just in a hotel and going to guided tours. Like, I’m meeting locals. I’m experiencing the culture. I’m experiencing the history. Like, I’m in a small town. You get to feel what it’s like to live in another country. And I’ve always been very interested in how of first generation American feels like an immigrant, someone who moves to America without like, knowing the language. I’ve met people like that and they’re so inspiring me for me. They’re such hard workers they barely know the language and they have to build an entire life and they’re usually sending money back to their family. They’re just inspiring amazing wonderful people to me. I’ve always been fascinated with what with them. So I think that’s why I’m so attracted to being here in Europe and kind of being an immigrant here. I don’t like the word expat. It sounds too I technically am, but I don’t I’m not yet, but I don’t it sounds to, like, like, boosie, whatever.
Like, I’m an immigrant. I’m an immigrant as someone who migrates to another place. Like, It’s there’s no bad terminology about it. Alright. Nextiva, whatever you wanna call me about. World traveler. World traveler? Jitsi. Jitsi. An Experiancer. Listen to ladyaga Jitsi a lot.
Victoria Volk: This has been so fun catching up with you, and I’m excited to see how this experience will change you. Over the next year. And I am actually, like, let’s plan a catch up maybe not as long as two years, maybe in eighteen months or something like that. I would love to see. Yeah.
Jordan Brodie: I’d love to see you another one in a year. Yeah. It’s exciting. I’m I’m curious to know for the listeners, like like, what people what their experience with grief is and traveling and I’m really curious to know if I’m the only one who feels this like connection with, like, with my loved ones that have passed. Like, if you will if I’m just kinda delusional about all this or.
Victoria Volk: No. I can even tell you just people who I’ve talked to and had who have been on this podcast that that’s not true, that you’re not alone in that.
Jordan Brodie: Are thinking about them a lot. And, yeah, no one really prepares me for it. And it’s kinda like a splinter. Like, you just gotta rip out which just happens.
Victoria Volk: It’s very true.
Jordan Brodie: Well, thank you. Yes. So wonderful.
Victoria Volk: Yes. Thank you so much for being here and for catching us up on your life. And I look forward to seeing what workaway brings to you in the future? Because I think it’s
Jordan Brodie: I’m still working on music. I’m actually looking for recording studios right now because I have I’ve have a song written that I want to record And so I’m still doing my music stuff. Like, I haven’t given up on my influencer music artist’s dreams. I’m just trying to make a more deeper, more personal brand than just, like, like, some candy, pot, like, superficial, like, three d like, just two-dimensional person. I’m just trying to be authentically myself, but I’m still gonna do music and stuff. One thing I haven’t done, sadly, since Chase and Josh died, I haven’t really written about them. Or about their death or about any of that. I want to. I’ve been kind of procrastinating and printing it off. One of my favorite artists is Grimes. I don’t know if you know her, but she’s amazing. I love her. She’s so wonderful. And I learned this that her first album of Libya was written in Vancouver, Washington, her best friend died from a drug overdose, and she was to deal with her grief. She locked herself in her apartment for, like, a week and wrote oblivion, which was her first like, landmark album that, like, blew her up. And I’ve been wanting to do this. But I haven’t known how. I have actually brings up some pain like mention like, I’ve been afraid my impostor syndrome says, I’m not good enough to produce all the songs by myself. That I need a microphone. I need this. I need that. I need this. Like, there’s all these excuses that I have. And I really hopefully, by the next time we talk, I will have done a lock-in for a week and written about Jason. Josh, and Julie, and my other loved ones. I’ve written about Julie. She is my aunt. I didn’t really mention that. I mentioned to her a little bit. Right? She died, like, a while ago, something overdose. But, like, I didn’t I still haven’t written about Jason Josh, and I really I think I need to. I’m kind of waiting for the right time. It’s gonna happen when it’s supposed to happen. And but this next song I’m doing is called it’s it’s gonna be like a chill kind of pop song like asking people to get to know me because I want people to get to know me. That’s why I love doing this podcast because I really hope some of my friends and loved ones watch this and it helps me connect with more people because I want an audience that’s real and not superficial. Like, we all have a reason why we’re connected. It’s not just because I’m hot or just because I have good music. It’s like, they have a reason. You know?
Victoria Volk: Well, and I imagine that the loss of your loved ones aside that just traveling over the next year or two that what you experience will inspire your writing for sure.
Jordan Brodie: Oh, definitely. And I haven’t really written about traveling yet. I’d like to, but I’ve been writing. I’ve written a few songs yesterday. I’ve been writing. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. Let the environment inspire you because it sounds like it is, so that’s wonderful.
Jordan Brodie: Well, thank you, Victoria. Bye now.
Victoria Volk: Thank you. Love you too. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life, much love.
