Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, season 5 |
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
D Paul Fleming, a retired Navy veteran and spiritual healer, shares his lifelong journey from trauma to healing. His story is a testament to resilience, as he recounts overcoming severe childhood abuse detailed in his book “2,442 Steps To Crazy.”
Through writing and sharing his experiences, Fleming found therapeutic relief while inspiring fellow veterans facing similar challenges. D Paul and I discuss the systemic issues within the Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system. Despite its flaws—such as inconsistent care and bureaucratic hurdles—our conversation highlights the need for holistic support addressing physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual pain.
Fleming’s narrative underscores the power of storytelling in healing processes and advocates for creating safe spaces where veterans can freely express their vulnerabilities without judgment. He emphasizes unity among veterans regardless of their roles or experiences during service. Reflecting on personal anecdotes about confronting suicide temptations due to VA shortcomings further illustrates these struggles’ complexity.
Ultimately, Fleming inspires hope by urging others to share and listen deeply—a call to action reminding us that through collective understanding comes strength and healing beyond individual battles faced alone.
RESOURCES:
- Book, 2,442 Steps to Crazy
- Book, A Date with Suicide
- Donald Dunn – Hero Stock
- Operation Deep Dive
- Gretchen Smith | Code of Vets
- Grief Recovery Method
CONNECT:
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NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Healing Through Storytelling – A Veteran’s Journey
In a recent episode of the podcast “Grieving Voices,” I had the great conversation with D Paul Fleming, an individual whose life story is as compelling as it is poignant. As a retired and disabled US Navy veteran, his narrative weaves through personal trauma, spiritual awakening, and relentless advocacy for fellow veterans. The episode offers profound insights into the challenges faced by veterans while simultaneously providing hope and inspiration.
Unveiling Childhood Trauma
Fleming’s journey begins with his difficult upbringing—a childhood marred by extreme abuse at the hands of a stepfather he refers to as “Crazy.” His book 2,442 Steps TO Crazy serves not just as a memoir but also as an act of catharsis. It was only after sharing this deeply personal account that Fleming realized its impact; other veterans have credited his work with saving their lives. In writing about physical injuries such as broken bones alongside more insidious verbal abuse, Fleming opens up about psychological scars that can often feel invisible yet profound.
Spiritual Awakening Amidst Turmoil
Despite such adversity, Fleming found solace in faith—a guiding force throughout his tumultuous journey. He speaks candidly about moments where he felt watched over by something greater than himself—an awareness that spurred him on even when despair loomed large. This spiritual connection aligns closely with both his Native American heritage and Irish Catholic upbringing—two worlds merging into one path toward healing.
A significant portion of this dialogue critiques systemic issues within the Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system—a quagmire rather than sanctuary according to many narratives shared during discussions like these ones held between host & guest alike! From inconsistent care plagued by bureaucratic obstacles downplayed mental health concerns especially around suicide prevention summits attended mainly non-veterans themselves lacking firsthand understanding military life experiences altogether!
Fleming recounts how systemic failures forced him towards private healthcare solutions ultimately yielding better diagnoses long-standing medical issues highlighting inadequacies inherent VA structure itself which fails address integrative needs encompassing physical emotional spiritual realms simultaneously necessary comprehensive treatment plans tailored specifically each individual’s unique circumstances histories backgrounds etcetera…
Episode Transcription:
Victoria Volk: Oh, friends. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Greeting Voices. If this is your first time listening, thank you for being here. And if you are returning, thank you for coming back. Today, my guest is D Paul Fleming, he is a retired and disabled US Navy veteran, life coach, business consultant, public speaker, and published author. In alignment with his native American heritage and spiritual gifts, he is also a seasoned holy man. Spiritual adviser and healer. And today, we are going to be talking about your work and what you’re doing for veteran suicide. And so I’m very honored to have you as a guest.
I am also a veteran. My husband is a veteran. I come from a long line of veterans. And so thank you for sharing your story today and for bringing this awareness to my podcast.
D Paul Fleming: Well, I’m grateful to be on your show. Thank you so much for having me.
Victoria Volk: Often people do the work that they’re doing because they often have a personal story and there’s something that led them to take that path of being a healer, being a spiritual adviser, in your work, doing the work that you’re doing with veterans and suicide. But I wanna start back in your early life and what were the messages and lessons that you’ve experienced in grief and trauma or anything in childhood. Because what I have found is that especially people who have had a lot of grief or trauma in their childhood and they go into the military, it can be compounded. And I really firmly believe that there’s a larger conversation there as in terms of when it comes to aces, like adverse childhood experiences and with veterans. So I’d wanna dig deeper into that later in the conversation, so we’ll put a pin in that. But let’s start first with your origin story, if you don’t mind.
D Paul Fleming: Yeah. That’s a that’s a big topic to cover. I actually put it out in the very first book that I ever wrote, two thousand four hundred and forty two steps to crazy. And it kinda takes you from my first memory, which is being tossed through the air and in the corner of a couch and breaking a couple of bones through the my last day with the stepfather, which I call crazy for for good reason. The part that kind of dovetails into a veteran’s life is everything I wrote in that book I never talked about. I’ve been married for, as I like to say, fifty years Right? And never said anything to my wife and certainly never said anything to my kids. So when I wrote the first book of my childhood and handed it to my wife and published form, was the first time she knew anything about it. It took her a few days to kinda come around to to talk to me. And, you know, when she did, you know, the first things out of her mouth was you weren’t abused. You were tortured. You know, you kind of kind of made me draw back and say, you know, I never really looked at it that way, you know. From my experience, abused children kind of blamed themselves for everything. Right? So whether you whether you really believe it’s your fault or not, that’s kind of the overall feeling that you’re left with that that life of, you know, being told from first memories to you know, when you finally get out of those situations that you’re you’re nothing. You’re never gonna amount anything. You’re terrible. You’re you’re relying on this and that and and so on. You know, the verbal abuse is probably the most destructive, you know, the physical abuse, the broken bones, the, you know, the concussions, the, you know, all the things that I had to survive through, you know, are are not as memorable as the as the verbal abuse. That that sticks with me to this day. And it’s very very difficult to to overcome. Very difficult.
Victoria Volk: What does that look like for you?
D Paul Fleming: You
Victoria Volk: know overcoming it? I mean, I imagine that it was very therapeutic to write the book, but what how did you get to that point where you were even able to put it into words on paper?
D Paul Fleming: Yeah. I I do my best to try and keep these answers not long winded, but the but to really answer that is a very, very long conversation. So let me see if I can kinda cliff note it. As far back as I can remember, I’ve had a deep, deep faith. And it, you know, a couple of points in my life I got pretty pissed off and started blaming God and so on as many of us do that live through top stuff. Right? But my faith is what kinda kept me upright. And in the end, it was my faith that kind of time. My faith is is kind of my cornerstone. And even in the darkest times when I was, you know, terrified and terrorized and brutalized, I always had in the back of my head somewhere that feeling, that sense, that something was there watching over me and kinda fast forward through life, if you will. It started coming to me that I need to I need to write this book, I need to start telling these stories. And I had an argument with myself, the baby Jesus, God, every spirit known to man forever. I’m not writing a book, I’m not telling a story. Who the hell wants to hear my crap? Right? I nobody’s gonna read this. Nobody. Well, I finally had to give up and and say, alright. Fine. If if the baby Jesus is gonna leave me alone, I better write this book. So I sat down and wrote the book, and that was brutal. It was absolutely brutal. It took me, you know, year and a half to to write it. But I wrote it four or five times, threw it out, started over. It was it was difficult. But once I got through remembering and then my wife reading the book, the relief that started coming along. And again, it didn’t all happen at once. It kinda happened as I was writing it. But the relief that came along was transforming. I mean, it really was. It was it was, like, spring cleaning or or emptying your closet, you know, getting all the crap out of there and, you know, turning a light on. You know, I could see what was what had happened to me. You know? And I still blame myself, of course. Right? You know, I can’t undo that piece, but I don’t feel the burden of self blame. You know? And then, of course, when I start talking to other people who start telling their stories, you know, I’m like, jeez. You know, I’m I’m dumbfounded at how many people had, you know, abusive childhoods or relationships and how many people have come to me and said that this book has helped them. And between this and some of my other stuff that I’ve written, I’ve had people, especially veterans, come to me and say, quote, your book saved my life, unquote. So that’s kinda where, you know, that’s kind of the cliff notes that that got me to write the books and tell the story. And then after you do a couple hundred podcasts, you kinda start getting I don’t wanna say numb to it, but, you know, it’s it’s a lot easier to talk about it.
Victoria Volk: May I ask what happened? Where was your father, your biological father, and your mother Oh,
D Paul Fleming: you’re not my father?
Victoria Volk: Yep. Your biological
D Paul Fleming: father. And Yeah. I I didn’t know. I don’t know. I have no idea.
My my mother had first my myself and my brother, you know, out of wedlock and never met him. My brother’s never met his father. And then my mother hooked up with crazy and had a couple kids but I I I don’t know. My my lineage goes through my mother, to my grandfather, it was a full blooded native American junked reservation and the Carlisle schools, if you will. Joined the navy, claimed he was white, and rose to the ranks of being an enlisted man riding submarines in world war two to retiring in nineteen sixty five as a lieutenant. I’m still disowning his Native American heritage because, again, back then, you, you know, you’re a a cook or a, you know, a Boson’s bank. Right? If you’re a black Native American, you know, so That’s kind of the extent of my lineage. You know, I know that I I know from my mother, I know pieces of who the guy was, but, you know, never met him.
Victoria Volk: And as far as the relationship with your mother, because I imagine she’s, you know, brought this gentleman into your home and was there it was I imagine it was just a home of chaos, but what did you Were you able to have a relationship with her?
D Paul Fleming: No.
Victoria Volk: Okay.
D Paul Fleming: No. No. I I to this day, I still can’t understand how a mother can, you know, let somebody abuse her child. You know? I mean, I just don’t I don’t understand how people can hit women. I just don’t. It’s it’s something I’ve I’ve screamed about my whole life. You just don’t hit women. Period. Period. You just don’t do it. And you don’t hit kids. You know what I mean? I I got six kids, but I gotta tell you, I’d love to smack a few of them around. Right? Not some Jesus. Right? But it’s just not it’s not what you do. Again, I’m not telling people you can’t smack your kid on the ass and, you know, crack them in a mouth for custiny or something. I’m not I’m not telling you how to raise your kid. What I’m telling you is, you know, there’s a there’s a pretty significant difference between smacking a kid on the button and, you know, breaking his arm. Or the scar on my nose is from waking up with a a waking up on, you know, I had something thrown at me in the middle of the night from crazy and, you know, I’m clustered and blood and, you know, no idea what the hell is going on. That’s abuse. I mean, that’s just brutal brutal abuse. Right? So no. There was there was never a relationship. You know, I don’t really talk to my mother much. She’s in her eighties now. I’ve seen her once in the last I don’t know a year, but I probably only seen her two or three times in the last five or ten years, you know.
So
Victoria Volk: Sometimes in cases of abuse, there’s one child that kind of gets the brunt of everything, but sometimes
D Paul Fleming: winter baby. Winter, I was the one.
Victoria Volk: So you were the were you the only one that then were all was all were all the children have used to some degree? Or was it were was it pretty much just you? Like Yeah.
D Paul Fleming: I might my brother would get smacked around and I had two younger sisters, they never got touched, you know. But I was, you know, like the like the dog in the pound. Right? I’d step in between them. Mhmm. K? And I would defend my mother. I’d defend my my siblings. I would even instigate to get his attention on me so that he wouldn’t, you know, start beating on the other ones. You know? But my brother has a completely different outlook on all of it. You know? You know, we we don’t talk about it. When I told him I was writing this book, he he he got pretty upset. You know? I mean, bent out of shape, you know. But he doesn’t judge me. I don’t judge him. You know? So kind of we’re we’re still good friends. Right? You know, but just some subject to don’t talk about. He sees he sees our mother, you know, I I wanna say every day, but, you know, he’s constantly constantly whether or around her. No.
Victoria Volk: And there’s grief in that. Right? Like, the the loss of hope streams and expectations of what a family unit could have been and what what could have been, I imagine that Maybe you maybe Yeah. I’m through at some point.
D Paul Fleming: Yeah. I I was never able to identify fairly what I wanted for a family. And when I when I hooked up with my wife, she had two kids, and we had four together. You know? So from day one, I felt lost. You know, I didn’t I didn’t know how to be a father. Right? So I would do as much digging as I could to find out the how to do things. And I, you know, couldn’t tell you if I was a good father or bad father. You know, I just know that I did everything I could to the best of my ability. You know, they never went hungry. They never went without paid for their colleges, you know, paid for cars, did it all, you know. But, you know, I’m I’m not a classic father of the sense who I never missed any of the kids sporting events from you know, for decades. Right? You know, I was always there. But, again, I’m kind of a, you know I mean, a veteran by itself is a is an outcast to a degree. Right? You know, we don’t really fit in tomorrow. And I and I kind of preach the veterans. Stop. Stop trying to fit in as a civilian. We’re not civilians. Let’s accept who we are. Right? And be us. Right? We don’t have to fit in anywhere. So and I’m very good at not fitting in. Right? You know?
Victoria Volk: You know, one of the things that came up for me as I was listening to you is sometimes what happens is too, like, children will I mean, they run away a lot. In the case of abuse, they’ll just they’ll run away. Is that, like, did you run away? And
D Paul Fleming: So how funny is that? Along the lines of running away. I In book two of David’s, I don’t know, two thousand four hundred and forty two steps to crazy. That’s that’s about my personal life. Right? In book two, I start talking about this family, Frankie Pilaries, old Italian family. Right? And I mean, old Italian parents didn’t speak English. Right? Wine in the in the shed scrapes all of it. Okay? Well, it was a number of months ago. I I haven’t seen Franki Polari in fifty years. Right? Okay. But he used to have he used to have two or three of the most beautiful sisters on the planet. Again, when you’re ten years old, right? You know, any woman that puts her hand on your shoulder, like, oh my god. Right? I’m in love. Okay. Well, my wife and I are at this farm shop, not not far from our house. I haven’t been there in forever. And this girl’s looking at me and she’s looking at me and finally says, are you dog fleming? And I’m like, yeah. Why? She goes, I’m Frank Pulary’s sister. I’m like, you gotta be kidding me. Right? Why why am I saying that? Well, I think I ran away to Frank Pulary’s shed three or four times. I don’t remember, but she bought the book and she was she was unbelievably shocked at the level of abuse. Because they they had seen it. You know, I I used to run there and run away there and eat and hide until they kinda turn me back over, like like the Gestapo. Right? But, yeah, I’d I’d ran away I I don’t know how many times. I mean, I’d ran away so many times. I’ve never really counted them, you know, And then the final time, the ending of the book, you know, why do you read that? I mean, that was the the ending of steps to crazy. Okay? You wanna talk about something that’s gonna make you think about anything and everything that’s happened in your life? Because I sat there on the razor’s edge. K? Was I going to be murdered or was I going to commit murder? Right? Which was it? Was it self defense? Okay? Because it was one hell of a brawl the last time I was under crazies roof. Right? And all the Right. Last time the cops broke fourteen. Thirteen or fourteen? And that was it. I I I was on I’ve been on my own ever since. So I left Where
Victoria Volk: did you go?
D Paul Fleming: So I I lived on the street for a while. My my first hiding place with a cemetery, but that didn’t work out real well because turns out more homeless people hang out in the cemeteries and you can shake a stick at and, again, this is back fifty years ago. Right? So now I I lived in a cemetery, but I had had strategically placed in different chunks of woods, you know, survival gear. Because I when I couldn’t take it anymore, I would I would leave and, you know, hide in the woods for a few days and, you know, finally it gets so cold, so tired. So I saw much you could do. You know? But yeah. So he used to live in the woods, and then in and out of state, shit for a while, and that that was horrible. That was horrific.
And I mean, horrific. So I was determined never to go back to the state care. And then again, if you kind of if you have faith folks that have a belief in, you know, the supernatural god and so on. You know, you you kinda know that you go through things. And then right when you think it’s all over, right, something walks in and kinda helps you out. Well, for me, there was two people two families that kinda took me in. And as I as I like to say, I would be their debtor and present if it wasn’t for them. So if you’re thinking about being a foster parent or helping out, you know, some young bunk on the street, and I’m here to tell you, you can you can you can change lives. You can change history.
Victoria Volk: My husband and I have talked about it actually.
D Paul Fleming: Now, even even temporary. Now, even even temporary. Right? You know, holidays are just even to this day, holidays to me or a nightmare. Now, I can’t stand absolutely can’t stand. Hate Christmas. Hate my birthday. Right? I don’t want anything to do with it. Right? You know, but but why? Because my memories of those events are horrific. Right? I don’t mean horrific as in, you know, you didn’t get presents right there. I mean, you know, holidays are stressful enough when you’re young raising kids. Right? Now, stressful paying bills. Right? Now, mix crazy into that mess. Into that mess. Okay? And I do mean crazy. Right? No.
Victoria Volk: What happened to him? Was he ever arrested? Was he ever I mean, was your mom married him long after you were he left? And
D Paul Fleming: Yep. You’re you’re ready you’re ready to throw up? He died at the age of seventy three, and my family asked me to to read his ulogy. And to God, I did.
Victoria Volk: You did?
D Paul Fleming: Oh, I I did. Okay? Again, I when I say I I would do anything for my family, I have. Okay? Some of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life have been done because, you know, my family has asked me to do something. Right? Again, my wife said to me, if you don’t read it, nobody’s gonna read it. You know? So say, what do you think? She goes, I think you should read it or she didn’t know anything about it. Right? Because the book only came out.
Victoria Volk: Read your story at the time?
D Paul Fleming: No. No. Nobody did. Oh, we did. So we were supposed to be down in Florida at a wrestling event for three of my kids who were in high school. But, you know, we had to put that off to the side and that left me with, you know, the two oldest and and my youngest who was probably, I don’t know, seven or eight. So I’m up there in Saint Joseph’s Church. I’ve got some great stories about Saint Joseph, by the way. It’s pretty cool place. Anyway, and I mean, I’m struggling. I’m struggling internally. I’m having a a a fist fight of how in god’s name can I be standing here doing this? Right? The other side of my brain is saying, you know, listen, just suck it up, get it done. Right? You know what? A veteran military approach. Right? Just get just get it over. Just get it done. Get it done. Get it done. Get it done. And then I got stock. Okay. And I mean stock. All of a sudden, I see my youngest kid hop out of the pew and comes bounding down the aisle, up onto the center stage of the church and grabs my hand and looks at me and goes, you got it. I was like, okay. Alright. So I I then understood the importance of doing things, especially things you don’t, you really don’t wanna do. I wasn’t there for him, and I certainly wasn’t there for me. I was there for what funerals are meant to be, for those who are living. Right? So, of course, I didn’t say any of the bad stuff. I just kinda, you know, fluttered in a few things that, you know, certain people would pick up on. Right? But others wouldn’t No. Let me dovetail that into another short quick story. Anybody that believes in the afterlife and paranormal, okay, if you’ve gone through any form of trauma, abuse or even a life and death situation. Okay? I always say you get a peek behind the veil. Okay? You get so close to Jesus when you’re in those moments that you can actually see on the other side of the veil. Okay? One of the things that used to drive crazy crazy was that I could see things that nobody else could. So I could see what was around him and the amount of darkness in our evil that was around him is staggering. Okay? So I would point things out as a as a gift. And it would make him go crazy. Okay? Or crazier. Right? So here I am sitting in this church knowing these things and knowing how evil he was. And it kinda hit me as my youngest son, Dakota, is holding my finger. Right? Just hold on. It was kinda got his head up against my thigh. And I’m saying, alright. So that’s the life he led Now I understand why he was so terrified to die because now judgment’s coming into play. Okay? And I survived all of that, and I spent my life helping people. Even even back as a kid, I’d I’d help people. Right? And it kinda dawned on me. It’s like, I just keep keep living as clean of life as you can. And again, I’m not a I’m no angel. Trust me on that. Right? But he was so terrified of dying that he did everything he could right to his last breath. And I’m sitting there saying, listen, man, but he’s a good day to die. Right? I’ve got no regrets. Right? I’ve done the best that I can. I’m happy to go see the baby Jesus. I’m sure I’ve got some things to answer for, I will, but nothing like he has to. Right? How’s that, grabbed you?
Victoria Volk: It’s a perspective, I think, that people don’t think about in peep you know, as far as, like, people in our lives, who maybe didn’t live the most loving of a life, who might be holding on and afraid like you said, it’s a different perspective. So thank you for sharing that.
D Paul Fleming: Yeah. So all all our fellow vets out there, you know. Remember, I’m not advocating, you know, that today is a good day to die. What I am telling you is that if you’ve lived your life every day to the best of your ability, then and and don’t be afraid to die. Okay?
There’s good stuff on the other side. Okay? But that doesn’t give you permission or or my consent to commit suicide. It’s not happening. Okay? You do that and you you know, I don’t wanna I don’t wanna say it. I’m gonna say it this way, but it’s not really how I mean it. Okay? If you commit suicide, you give up all that good stuff that you did. Right? Suck it up, let’s keep moving forward. Okay? And, you know, when you whenever you do get into the the part about talking about suicide, listen, I I lived it. All the anxiety, all the pain. I I get it.
Okay? But you you you gotta you gotta look at everything you suffered through, everything you’re dealing with, and say, you can you can keep dealing with it one more day. And tomorrow is gonna be another day and it will get better. I guarantee it. It’s gotta get better. It’s gotta
Victoria Volk: You have to have hope.
D Paul Fleming: Faith. Right?
Victoria Volk: Faith. Yeah.
D Paul Fleming: Right? You gotta have faith. You gotta have faith in something. Okay? And What
Victoria Volk: what do you think kept you? Because you’re sitting here. Right? And you’re talking about suicide. I imagine you came close.
D Paul Fleming: Yes.
Victoria Volk: He attempted.
D Paul Fleming: Yeah. As I write in my in my book, a David suicide, the first two paragraphs call it out. You know, I sat there with the opportunity and the means. Okay? Not just once.
Right? But why why didn’t I finish what I started?
Victoria Volk: Aldria.
D Paul Fleming: The first time? Mhmm. You know, I sat there? I would I would mid twenties. Mid twenties. But as I said, I was I was a keynote speaker in North Carolina American Legion Galla for suicide awareness. And Laurie Mhmm. Writes the who has the Christmas trees with suicide veterans photos on them coming in from all over the country. It’s a great she’s doing a great thing for all veterans. Anyway, I point out that everything I went through including the military. I never thought a suicide until I left the VA for the first time in my life. And when I walked out of the VA and that’s in one of these chapters in here. Okay? I remember saying, I’ll kill myself before I get caught in that nightmare in this mess. Okay? And it didn’t really dawn on me until I sat down and wrote the book a date with suicide, and I had I had the answer to my own question. When did I first when did I first say it? When did I first think about killing myself? And then I think about all the shit I did, you know, up until I was fourteen and how I survived all that? And then the military, right? I I never I never thought of killing myself until I got in the quagmire of the VA. So when I say the VA is PTSD, the VA is suicide, listen, I’m living proof. And I I can’t tell you how many veterans I talked to. Let’s say the exact same thing. Okay? The the backstop, the net, if you will, that’s supposed to be there for us. Just just simply isn’t. It just simply isn’t. So expectations of the VA are like therest of expectations in our lives. Right? Expectations, the mother of all let down. Right? So if you don’t have hope and purpose, if you don’t have faith, you what what what is your net? What’s the net that’s carrying it?
Victoria Volk: Can you share a little bit more about that just because I’m personally curious because on the flip side of that coin, I’ve had a really wonderful experience with the VA, so it was my husband. So it could be your location to be fair. And so what was it that there were just weren’t the services there? Or there was a delay? Or there wasn’t enough help?
D Paul Fleming: Yeah. So I’m gonna spin that around on you. The reality is there’s a handful of VAs that are doing well, and I mean a small handful. There’s a facility done in Fort Myers Florida that I’ve heard great things about, but it’s a small place. Okay? And for the most part, the VA system, if you can find a a a functioning group, inside that VA. So let’s just say you’re, you know, you’re having, you know, you just need check up. You just need basic healthcare. And you get into a VA that has a good doctor in there. Right? Most people have great experience from them. I’ve seen one or two vets that have said to me, you know, they treat me like a king in here. It’s great. And I hear him saying this as we’re walking out or others are walking out ready to kill themselves. Right? So I think it has a lot to do with, yeah, location. Okay? But what are the limits of the issues of the veterans who say, you know, they’ve they’ve had a good experience with VA? When I listened to the director of the American Legion say that he’s talking with veterans all over the country and he’s and he says, and he brags about this. The one thing I haven’t heard is anybody complain about the healthcare they get at the VA.
Okay? I mean, that draws me so far back that I I’ve I’ve I’ve I’ve stopped getting my bet on my Legion magazine because that is so misleading it’s sick. Right? When you sit here and you when you watch the hearing last week where the VA was called before Congress, then a Navy Seal congressman looks at these arrogant bastards and the VA rep says, well, in the last two years, statistically, veterans who call the nine eight eight number are ten times more likely to commit suicide within the next twelve months. Again, don’t believe me, just Google it. Okay? It’s an open hearing in Congress. Right? Then he has your audacity to say, but our numbers are thirty percent down on suicide. Again, that’s just a bold faced lie.
That’s just an absolute abstract lie. Okay? So folks that have a good experience in the VA, tend to have a primary doctor somewhere in there. That’s kind of overseeing what’s going on. Okay? But I guarantee you, you pull that doctor out, the whole thing collapses. It’s everyone I’ve talked to can relate to one person or one department, so to speak. Right? I personally have been in the system for about forty years. Right? Plus or minus? I have had somewhere north of thirty different primary doctors. Wow. Okay. Well, let me correct that.
Half of them are doctors. Right? They had one doctor who was his license was taken away. Okay? The best doctor that I had, flat out said to me, She says, I can’t take this anymore.
I’m leaving. The best mental health therapist that I had left. Right? So the inconsistency, the inability to have trust and confidence in the VA is a key factor. Now when you take someone like me, I’m already walking into a fight. Right? That’s just the way it’s been for me for over forty years. When you see somebody new coming off the street and they go to the VA, and they have an initial great experience. Okay? Well, what are the issues? What are you going to the VA for? Are you going to solve physical pain, mental pain, emotional pain, spiritual pain? What are you going to solve? The VA does some things very well, like, limbs. Right?
But what do they do for spinal cord injuries? They’re horrible unless you get into a couple of the niche places that have high end doctors that are affiliated with universities. In Connecticut, Yale University is affiliated with the VA. But if you read the history of the VA in Yale New Haven, in nineteen eighty six, they got caught by the OIG for injecting patients with experimental crap that was killing dozens and dozens of veterans. That’s widespread throughout the VA. Again, I’m gonna step down off my VA bashing box, if you will. And tell you when I first went to the VA was in Boston. Now I’ve been in VA’s up and down the East Coast. Right? I had to go to the seventh floor and the short version is when I got off the elevator and I write about extensively in the book, When I got off the elevator, the hallways were lined with veterans. There was feces and urine everywhere. It’s stumped to high hell. There were veterans of their arms out begging to help. Please help me. Help me.
Help me. Okay? I’m in my early twenties going, what the fuck did I just walk into? Right? I was discharged from Navy at the end of my four year active hitch to VA because I got hurt, physically got hurt. Okay. A couple of times. So I’m there for I don’t know why. My assumption was that to solve the problem of why am I in so much pain? What happened? Okay? Right. Next thing I know I’m in a closet with a mop and a bucket, and a guy in a white jacket who says he’s a doctor. Spend five minutes with him and he says, we’ll have a decision to you soon. That was it. That was my experience with the VA. It took all day I got there at seven o’clock in the morning and at three thirty in the afternoon. That’s when I saw the doctor. Okay? And I write about it extensively in the book. For the next ten years, that’s how the system operated. Okay? Until I got up until they finally medically retired me. Now, fast forward to twenty eighteen when they signed the Choice Act. Okay? And I went to private care after thirty years, forty years, I finally got answers by going to the Yukon Health getting into Yukon Health. Right? Not only did I get answers, they solved problems. They solved problems, the VA couldn’t even imagine. Okay? My shoulder, the last time I was at the VA was roughly two thousand ten for any form of treatment physical treatment. I was going in for a steroid injection. Right? Or I’m saying steroid. Right? I think it’s not steroid, but injection. Porges. Porges. Okay. So the lady pulls my shirt up. It’s a doctor. He pulls my shirt up, drabs the needle and squeezes. Okay? I start screaming. Again, I never go to VA without somebody, normally my wife. Okay? This thing hurt for weeks on end. Right? Now fast forward eight, nine years. When I went to private care, they say, yeah, you yeah. Cortisol injection would help. They pull out this paranoid. Right? They pull out all this hardware and they’re scoping it and everything else and they direct this needle into this spot and the pain of of the needle hurt. But once they took that out, the relief that I got in my shoulder was night and day. Right? So when you wanna talk about veterans who commit suicide or on that path, mental pain is one of the was one of the forefront reasons for suicide. Just can’t take it anymore. Physical pain we can deal with. But when you start adding or decreasing physical pain, it affects you mentally. Affect you emotionally, affect you spiritually. Right? So all of a sudden, I’m in private care and I’m starting to get answers. They solved the problem of my lower spine where the VA for, you know, the twenty, thirty years said there’s nothing wrong with you. Okay? Well, it turns out there’s a little bone chip in there that there was something wrong with me and it’s gotten my fecal sac. Okay? Now next thirty years in the VA, two appointments at private care and we solved the problem. Okay? And I can run down the list of things that private care took of took care of that VA said, either I was crazy, it doesn’t exist, or they had no logic for it. And I’ve got all of my every record ever. I’ve got my MRIs. I’ve got my x rays. All my medical record. Okay? Anyway, when you look at the VA and people like me who are struggling to figure out what’s wrong with me and the VA doesn’t give you answers. Okay? What’s left? So aside?
Victoria Volk: Yeah, I can totally understand that. Totally see that. And the Choice Act was probably the best thing they’ve ever done just to handle the influx of the veterans that are needing care that aren’t getting it. And so even for my husband and I, like that was a huge positive for us as well, I can say from my standpoint of I facilitate a program called the grief recovery method, And I tried for the first two years when I got certified in early twenty nineteen and I attended a mental health summit for veterans that was put on by the VA. And topic of suicide. And never once was the I mean, they had social it was a roomful of social workers, psychologists, therapists, whatever. Not once did they use the word grief, not at once. They didn’t even mention trauma, not once. So afterwards, I go up to this psychologist and I talk to her a little bit and I share with her what I’ve been trying to do because I had meetings with local VA, I had meetings with our seabock, yeah, the seabock, the local VA, and then also the veterans, which is it called, I can’t like, it escapes my brain right now, but they facilitate services for in the community. It’s outside of the VA, but it’s affiliated with the VA, of course. Of course, ran by social workers and things. Talk to them about the program because the grief recovery institute has been trying to get this program onto military one source for years. It changes lives. So that hasn’t been happening. So what they’ve been doing is the institute has been training chaplains and social workers within the system and anybody who’s willing to get certified with who are already in the system. But it’s like for the military to say that this is an approved service has been so much bureaucratic red tape I gave up after two years. I was just like, I wasn’t getting anywhere. Doors slammed on my face, but we already have our thing. We already do a certain thing. They didn’t wanna hear it. And it’s like, I’m telling you, as a veteran myself, this changed my life. It’s changing people’s lives. They didn’t wanna hear it.
D Paul Fleming: So in that group of college boys, as I as I love to call them, how many of them talked about the with with the topic of suicide, how many talk to about mental pain?
Victoria Volk: All of them. I mean, there were people that share there were soldiers that shared their stories.
D Paul Fleming: Okay. How many talk about emotional pain?
Victoria Volk: All of them.
D Paul Fleming: How many talk about spiritual pain?
Victoria Volk: I think one guy even, to your point, like, he was home ended up homeless for a time. And, of course, that would he didn’t say the word spiritual, that his spirituality suffered, but that’s what happens. That even happens just with anybody in grief often. You know, we we struggle with, like, answering those questions, like, why me? And God did this to me? And of course, that’s gonna translate into having someone to blame. Right? And so who do you blame? You blame God? I did. I had my own traumas and stuff in childhood. I mean, that’s what happens. So yeah,
D Paul Fleming: I So how many of the VA employees? K? Talk about the four corners of what leads to suicide. Physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional pain or trauma.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. That’s what I’m saying. That’s like they didn’t they didn’t I mean, granted this was maybe they do now, but at their summits or whatever, but this was six years ago, five years ago?
D Paul Fleming: Nope. When this when I when this came out, I I was shocked at the number of professionals that responded and posted reviews. One lady said she was a VA trauma nurse for thirty years, going in the mental health industry. I think she was in Coatesville. Right? Pennsylvania. She said she wrote a review saying after thirty years of dealing with this, you’re the first veteran who actually told the story. She’s been trying to get veterans to tell their story what happened to them for thirty years, and nobody would. Right? Now, I know the reason why. Reason is nobody trusts the VA, so you’re not gonna tell them stuff. When you wanna talk about suicide and the VA solving the problem, listen, oil and water. It’s not happening. Okay? First and foremost, because what they do is, like you said, they surround themselves with social workers and how many of those people are veterans?
Victoria Volk: Yep. And they’re misinformed about grief, which is why I started this podcast.
D Paul Fleming: Okay. How many how many of those people had that and that seminars that with the college degrees and the social working experiences? How many of them are veterans?
Victoria Volk: I don’t I couldn’t tell you, but I’m pretty sure probably very few.
D Paul Fleming: I agree. Coming out of world war two, what did they say at the VA? World war two veterans forced the VA employees to be world war two veterans. Period. Period.
So you had world war two veterans dealing with and relating to one or two veterans. Right? The shift came when the when the VA started unionizing, okay, and putting all these requirements out of what you have to be to work at the VA. Okay? That happened in what?
Fifties and sixties. Right? And then Vietnam. So you go to Vietnam and you watch the number of veterans drop from work at VA to this day. You’ll have people that say, I’m a veteran and you ask them, well, what did you do? Unfortunately, far too many of them are already in the VA type system somewhere in the military. Okay? Very few of them are SandBox vets. Right? Very few of them are submarine vets. Very few of them are aircraft carrier vets. So how is a veteran who’s dealing with physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional pain supposed to be able to communicate, trust, and relate to somebody who’s never been there? This is why the veteran community, things like you’re doing, are so highly successful because people like me are willing to open up with people like you. I’ve talked to my wife for fifty years about my childhood.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. The the grief recovery method was actually founded by Vietnam veteran. It’s near and dear to my heart, but Did
D Paul Fleming: you get all your answers from my childhood? Did you wanna kinda go back there? I’m happy I’m happy to talk about it.
Victoria Volk: No. I think it shapes who you become. It shapes who you are, of course. And I guess well, let’s go from you deciding and choosing the military and particularly the navy.
D Paul Fleming: Yeah. I as long as I can remember, I knew I was going in the military. Right?
Victoria Volk: As an escape? Because many people choose it as an escape.
D Paul Fleming: No. No. No. I you know how you just know certain things? K?
I I just knew, but I knew it. I knew it from a very young age. And then, of course, you know, between fourteen and seventeen, you know, I’m working full time. I’m trying to get through high school. So on and so on. And I wasn’t always a I wasn’t always a good kid. Right? So the the final straw was was in front of a gentleman who had a very, you know, well done tie and black robe and he sat up on a bench elevated above the rest of us, you know. Until till the to my left was a a really pissed off guy in another suit and was telling a judge what he thought. Right? So the judge wanted to see my enlistment papers, you know, I wanted to go into marines I was seventeen, so I needed a parent to sign for me. So I had to go see my mother. Right? So she wouldn’t sign for the Marines, but she agreed to sign for the Navy because her father was in the Navy. So that’s kinda that’s kinda how I ended up in the military, but it goes back to the fact that I I always knew. I knew I knew my path from as far back as I can remember was was was gonna be going through the military.
Victoria Volk: What did you do after I mean, so while you were in service and training and things like that, did it bring up anything from your past?
D Paul Fleming: Yeah. So you never you never you never you never far from it. Yeah. Right? I mean, it’s always right next to you, right behind you. You know, it’s a wet blanket that’ll snuggle up to you for far too many times and you can’t remember. Right? You just you you can’t shake it. You can you can get past things. You can you can accept things and you can they can stop bothering you for the most part. But they’re they’re always right there. But one of the things that it did for me was it taught me that you you you have to kill me to beat me because I won’t quit. I just won’t quit. Right? You know, when that, you know, all growing up in a nasty, abusive childhood, you know, you either quit or take the beatings or you never quit and take the beatings. Right? I I never quit. I never backed down. I never bent the knee. Every time you knock me down, I stood back up. Well, not every time it was times they took me out in ambulance. But, you know, so my focus in the military was Listen, you I don’t care how bad you this is gonna get. I ain’t quitting. And then, ironically, when I went to boot camp, I was bored. It was the worst thing that happened was you gotta yell at? You know? I mean, like, I was like, jeez. This is it. This is boot camp.
Victoria Volk: You became
D Paul Fleming: you know, you didn’t cuss that. Oh my god. Perming. But when I wrote the book, a date with suicide, and I draw on my transition, like you said, from seventeen to like, going to boot camp, if you will. Well, halfway through boot camp, it it had pointed me massive arms. I wasn’t charged everybody inside the barracks. So remember, you’re getting no sleep. Right? Boom camp is boom camp. K? So you have cherish your four hours of sleep. Anyway, two o’clock in the morning, I get shaken out of my rack, my roving watch. He goes guys killing himself. Jesus. So I go see this kid, tough kid from the Bronx. Right? Sitting there, blood everywhere. You had busted open his back, taken the razor and slashing his wrists and everything else. That was blood everywhere. And I remember saying, you have to be effing kidding me. I’m gonna lose sleep because you wanna kill yourself to get out of boot camp Okay? No empathy. No sympathy. I was pissed. And I it didn’t dawn on me until I sat down and wrote the book a date with suicide. That even though the trauma of being yelled at him, bootcamp meant nothing to me. You know, it was it was a joke. It was so so so traumatic for this kid that he had to go the path of getting out of the military by attempted suicide. Right. Did you
Victoria Volk: know his story though, his background and his childhood?
D Paul Fleming: You know, again, you know, seventeen, eight year old kids, eighty of them in a barracks. Right? You tend to get to know each other, but Right? How how well do you get to know him? So no. I mean, he was a a kid from the Bronx. K? Yeah. He wasn’t he wasn’t a squid is a a skittish kid. He was a tough kid. He was a tough kid. Right? But when I when I wrote it in the story, it made me lean back and realize, and it kind of solidified this statement for me. You can never judge somebody else’s trauma because what doesn’t seem traumatic So you or me could be devastating to somebody else. So you you can’t judge their trauma. Only the person dealing with trauma can judge their trauma. I don’t care if you’re I don’t care if you have ten college degrees. You can’t judge somebody else’s trauma. That trauma is so connected to the four corners of our existence, our physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional bodies. That when a trauma happens and we think it’s physical. Right? You get shot. You get you you fall out of a helicopter. You get run over by a submarine. Right?
Whatever it is. That’s physical. But so few of us realize how spiritual, emotional, and mental physical trauma really is. Now take any one of those four parts and just keep mixing them. Think about it. When when you’re in your when you’re young in the love, right, a puppy love, your first love ever. And then she breaks up with you and your heart breaks. Which is it? Is it physical pain or is it emotional pain? Well, it’s kind of both, isn’t it? Because it does physically hurt. So just a girlfriend breaking up with you can send you into a traumatic fit that stays with you the rest of your life because every one of us can think back and say, I remember my first love. Right? But over time, the pain of that breakup kind of fades. You don’t remember why? Okay. So the physical part kind of takes care of itself all by itself, but the emotional part stays there and you never heal it. So one thing the VA one thing the VA or the military never introduced, keeling. Right? Until I sat down and started writing these books and and got very deep deep into my own personal on voyage on faith. Right? I didn’t think about healing because I thought it was poo poo. Right? What is this healing crap? Is this? Wait. Where are you supposed to heal from? How does this work? And then the more I studied, the more I dug in the years and years of research and practice. And I realized how critical healing is. But again, you know, you take the psychologists. They wanna focus on what? Why we’ve gotta deal with the mental? What about the physical or the spiritual? So if you’re not dealing with all four, you’re not solving the problem of what? Grief. Because grief encapsulates the four elements of who we are, period, full stop. In order to solve Grief, you have to address the four corners of your existence.
Victoria Volk: And you have to look at the past and address
D Paul Fleming: the
Victoria Volk: past as people will say, I don’t have to look at the past. The past is in the past. It’s under the rug. I don’t wanna look at it. I don’t need to look at it. I can’t change it. It is what it is. That’s what a lot of
D Paul Fleming: people. Tell me why.
Victoria Volk: Why did they do that?
D Paul Fleming: Why do we need to look at the past?
Victoria Volk: Our past is what informs every decision and where we are in the present. And it will influence our future unless we bring it to our awareness and look at it.
D Paul Fleming: That’s probably the best answer I’ve ever heard.
Victoria Volk: Good.
D Paul Fleming: I really hope you cut that clip out of this of this video and you replay that on in on whatever meetings you’ve got. Nonstop. That is the best description I’ve ever heard. Okay? Only follow-up with it.
Victoria Volk: I also can I just add to that know we’ve talked a lot about physical abuse and and a lot about physical abuse because that’s your story? But I just want listeners to be also consider and veterans listening to this also consider that neglect in a home, this indifference of you existing, a veteran that doesn’t even feel like they exist, that don’t feel love or experience love, know what love is. Right? And that’s true for maybe a child too that is being physically abused, but neglect is also trauma. So I just want to clarify that too. Howard Bauchner:
D Paul Fleming: I absolutely agree with you. The the the two keys to neglect abandonment. Mhmm. When you’re neglected, you are left feeling abandoned. K? And anybody that’s dealing with childhoods like mine or older in life and you’re in an abusive relationship. You feel abandoned. So when you go looking for help, right, the cops maybe, and they don’t do anything, you’re not only neglected. You’re abandoned. And then you go to the VA who you have a contract with that swears on the Bible that they’re going to take care of you, And then they do the same things that you do that did they did to you when you were a child. Mhmm. Right? K? You’re you’re not only neglected, but you’re abandoned. And once that car is its path deep enough into your spiritual emotional and yes physical bodies. It is next to impossible to get it back out. So I agree with you. You have to go into your past. And tell your story. Okay? It is next to impossible to kill yourself while you’re telling your story to a veteran who needs to hear your story.
Victoria Volk: Several years ago, there was this art exhibit that was kind of being trans like shared amongst seabox around the country. It was like a traveling museum of sorts or exhibit, art exhibit. And what it was, was veterans who the project was to paint a mask. They take the make a plaster of their face, and they paint the mask that they’ve been wearing. It’s like take what you feel in this mask that you wear and paint it onto this canvas, this plaster of your face. And little snippets of their story were included with those masks and I was standing there reading it and just like sobbing. There were so many masks and so many stories. And it’s just a just a it’s just a little small handful but it was a way for them to share their story. And so I just want listeners to know, veterans listening that it doesn’t have to be a written story. It could be some sort of art project or you talk about your native American heritage. I imagine that there are so many different outlets of creativity that you could probably create a group of veterans that you know to come in and and share their story in that sort of fashion and a creative and arts sort of fashion. Just ideas that are just flowing through me, I just wanted to share. But it doesn’t have to be a written story is kind of why I’m sharing that.
D Paul Fleming: Telling your story is the key behind it. The mask is the same thing. You’re telling your story by taking that mask and putting it down and saying that’s my story. For me, it’s helped in a in a in one way I do something similar is, look, we have a fire. Okay?
We take all of that crap or just one piece of it. Write it on a chunk of cedar. Write it on a piece of paper and burn it. Okay? Now it’s two parts that some people look at that and go, well, you’re just kinda burning the piece of paper. My belief is that you’re burning that piece which used to reside in you and and control you. And you’ve taken that piece out and you sent it and you’ve purified it. So it is it is no longer.
Victoria Volk: Words of energy?
D Paul Fleming: Right.
Victoria Volk: Words are energy, and so I’m glad we’re getting into this healing piece because I would love to hear more about that. As far as what your healing did look like. And one of the things too is I’ve had people on this podcast before talking about their suicide attempts and experience with suicide. And one of the things that I’ve learned is that connection is the antidote to suicide. And so what in what ways did you find connection healing for you? And what did your healing look like?
D Paul Fleming: Yeah. So my healing is a, you know, ten, twenty year process right now. K. But my focus is on my time with my wife. And spirit. Those are the two things that I love being around. My wife’s my best friend, absolutely adore. In every chance I get, I tell the world she’s an absolute saint. Okay? Not because she’s walking around with, you know, a couple of wings on her back. But to me, she is the same. The caretakers that provide for people like me are not just the salt of the earth, but god coded those folks with a piece of his own soul because that’s what it takes to deal with folks like me. And there’s far too many of us out there. Okay? The greatest people out there are the caretakers that take care of veterans. The wives, the spouses. K? The siblings. That said, my path had to come back to finding I I live in two worlds. I live in my Native American world. My wife’s Irish, Catholic, and I have a deep faith in the baby Jesus. Okay? So I I kinda step in I play in both of those worlds. Reconnecting with both pieces of that have brought my soul back to life. Learning how to clear, learning how to get rid of the dark energy that’s in me, around me, near me, trying to creep up on me. Right? And facing things that some people will look at and go, man, that’s witchcraft and crazy. Like, well, we’ll see. So once I learned and accepted things like meditation, because I swore from here to hell, there’s no way I’m gonna meditate. Okay? Listen, I meditate almost every single day. In one form or another, whether it’s a five minute break or whether it’s an hour long, kumbaya leave me the hell alone moment. But the the journey of picking up those pieces that fit me, not everybody else. That fit me. I don’t tell people to meditate. I encourage them to take a look at quieting your mind. Because once you can quiet your mind, the physical, the spiritual, and the emotional bodies follow. But your mind, like a computer, needs to reboot. And the only way to do that when you’re dealing with anxiety, when you’re dealing with racing thoughts when you can’t get a grip on yourselves and you can’t slow down, you have to figure out a way to turn your brain off. For me, the first time I said, I gotta I gotta do something in that voice. Said, fine. I put my head back in my chair, turned on some native American drumming, and I said, alright. What the hell am I supposed to do now? Breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth and concentrate on my breathing. That’s it. Just concentrate on my this is stupid. Right? So after the mental argument for a couple of minutes and then all of a sudden, I’ve realized I’m someplace else. And then as I started thinking again, I said, oh my god. It’s quiet in here. And then boom. Right back into my world. But for that briefest moment, I was at peace. And I said, whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Wait a minute. That Bob wired barley nastiness that was flown around in my gut that college boys call anxiety, the one that runs up to your throat and down to your bowels, it just rips you to shreds. It was gone. Gone. I was only gone for five or ten seconds, but it was enough to make a believer out of me. So when did I start healing? Listen, I think all of these pieces are healing. Right? For me, I was waiting for this. Let’s pour the gravy on this and that’s healing. The gravy’s a healing. Right? Do some work, gravy it up. We’re good to go. No. It’s little pieces of all of it. That that first time that five minute. Because the next time I did it nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I couldn’t quiet my mind and say my life. But then the next time after that. Okay? And then I was hooked. Because when you live with anxiety and I mean brutal anxiety, and for the darkness moment it’s gone. It’s a whole another world. Then it dawned on me. Wait a minute. That’s what it feels like when I have my second beer. That’s why I sucked down two beers as fast as I can for however many decades I drank. I I quit drinking already. And I mean, I got them quite. I just said enough for the drinking and stop drinking. Right? But, right, you know, beforehand, and it but then it clicked on me that, why did I drink? I drank to get rid of the anxiety, self medicating. Right? But it was those aha moments of doing one, of telling my story. Now again, this is one version of tell your story. The other version of me telling my story is me having that conversation with myself. What happened? And then before I released this book or before I wrote the the first book, I went and saw my sister. And I said, listen, tell me if I’m crazy. Did I really get beaten like this? And man, her tears just started flowing? Okay? She’s like, I don’t know how many times you he was gonna kill you. I swore you were dead four, five times. Okay? We couldn’t wake you up. We couldn’t get you back. Okay? So she gave me confirmation. That I wasn’t crazy in imagining these things. And I fear that that’s what far too many of us veterans do. You know, we go through boot camp, we go through the military world and what warriors? What warriors? Right? Well, one percent we’ve been taught trained and rough backed through. Suck it up. Get that thought out of your mind. Right? Don’t be a coward. Right? So I’m thinking how much of this crap am I making up and how much of it’s real. And then I can’t talk about But getting confirmation from my sister was another piece of healing because when she said it to this day, I can feel the whole shift inside of me drop down one notch. It was like, see, it did happen. You did survive that. You are a good person. It’s like, well, how did that would come from? All of a sudden, good comments start filtering in once you start healing. So for me, when people ask me about how’s the healing? You know, many of us look at things linear. Right? Listen, it’s pop marked with little pieces everywhere that say, this was a good piece to add to that healing process. Okay? Mine’s ongoing. I’ve got a ton of healing to do. I I work on it. You know, I I love I love to say daily daily, but, you know, I I would I would say I I don’t. Right? I definitely work on it. Not too many days ago, I’m not aggressively working on my path forward.
Victoria Volk: And that’s what it takes. It’s and it’s being open to receiving these intuitive messages like editing, you know, and following those bread crumbs and having the courage to follow that wherever it takes you. What are some other practices that you have incorporated other than meditation that have served you well?
D Paul Fleming: Well, one of the biggest things that know, I’m trying to promote especially to my fellow veterans and their, you know, their family, spouse isn’t solid. You gotta learn to clear yourself. Right? What does that mean? Do what what does it mean to you to when I say clear yourself?
Victoria Volk: You know, I’ve had I’ve been having this conversation lately with people that because, of course, when you’re in relationship with people, there’s conflict bound to be conflict at some point. Right? And what I have noticed in how I know that I am have done a lot of work on myself is when someone can say something and I feel something I feel certain way about it. I feel activated by it. I won’t say triggered because that’s I mean, you can be activated or triggered, but when I’m feeling activated by something, I can step back and be like, okay, why is this why is the why is why am I feeling this way about this? And, you know, and I can also hear things and it go in one year and out the other and not stick to me because I have done my I’ve swept my own doorstep. That’s how I know that I’ve come a long way because I used to take things so personally. I used to think there was something wrong with me and, you know, it’s been a really long journey. It’s been a ten year journey for me in my healing. And so I wanna hear what you were going to say. So
D Paul Fleming: earlier you had mentioned energy. Right? Mhmm. Energy is everywhere.
Victoria Volk: Mhmm.
D Paul Fleming: And as scientists have proven, right, the good side of college boys, I imagine. Right? Energy never never disappears. It just changes its form. Mhmm. Okay? So where does all that anger go? That we veterans have, goes out into the universe, or does it stick to us, or does it do both? So I’m sitting there watching my wife going up and down the aisle every Sunday to get the communion. Right? I’m like, you know, why did they do this? Why? The body of Christ? The blood of Christ. What are they doing? Again, I’m kinda condensing a lot until a very short and I’m looking at my Native American is not on. And I’m starting as never before. And when warriors would come back from a battle, shaman, the medicine man, the holy man, would hold him outside the village, and he would sage him, sweet grass, cedar, tobacco, he would clear them. Why? Because he wanted to get all the dark energy off and out of them so they didn’t infect the village. I’ll infect the village by a little strong word. Right? Okay? So I’m I’m studying this and I’m saying, okay. So for me, I started saying, where’s all this dark energy going? Where’s all this darkness? Right? Every time we get mad, you can feel it, and it takes so much work to release it. To clear yourself. So I found myself after walking this path doing exactly what you did, where I used to get mad when somebody would say something, it’s starting to go out one. Okay? And it doesn’t register. Unless I’m starting to get backed up. I’m starting to get blocked. I’m starting to have too much of other people’s energy around me. Okay? So again, I had to learn What is it to clear? What what am I doing? We need to get the darkness out of us. Okay? Again, physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional. If we’re physically in pain, is it radiating energy? Of course it is. So is our spirit? So is all the energy around us? And when somebody comes at you with eight or you for me walking into the VA, that place is just vile. You’re picking up and absorbing all of that energy. So what I did was I I focused heavily on the Catholic. I focused heavily on my Native American and I watched. And I studied what the community is. Well, the greatest way to to to draw that piece together is with father Amos. He died a little while ago. He was the he was the Vatican’s chief exercise. Okay? And he wrote, I’ve read almost every one of his books. Great, phenomenal guy. He wrote that I do hundreds of exercises every single day. And I’m like, what the fuck is this? I’m thinking peace soup and all that. Right? He goes, no. These people come and they line up at my door so they can get the body of Christ so that they can get the blood of Christ. So that he can put their hand on him and invoke God’s will and light to come through them and to clear all that doesn’t belong inside of you, to clear the darkness. And people wind up every day to go do this. They go every Sunday and what are they doing? They’re renewing their connection to what they believe in in the Catholics, the baby Jesus, the light of Christ, and so on. Native Americans. Same thing, different approach. You watch the Catholics use a wafer or a jug of oil or a jug of wine. Right? Oil. Right? For baptism. Right? Merriages. Right? And this smoke for burials. Right? What do Native Americans do? Sage, cedar, sweet grass, and tobacco. Now listen, if you mix all four, you’re neutralizing all the darkness around you and all the darkness in you by doing the same things the Catholics do. Getting exercised or cleared.
Victoria Volk: Mhmm.
D Paul Fleming: Once I started going down his path, I could start feeling the darkness other people’s anger coming at me. Okay? So I said, how do I how do I protect against this? So I learned how to protect against this. And then I went from being, you know, on the wrong side of things to being on the positive side of things. Right? Now I’m doing it daily daily. Okay? Claireing people, Claireing houses, getting rid of darkness. I’m doing this often.
Okay? So when I say when you asked what, you know, kind of, what do I do? So that’s why I I love being around my wife and I love doing spiritual work. Okay. To me, this this is all part of his spirit to work. How how do you like that one for an answer?
Victoria Volk: No. I love it. I love it. Thank you so much. I actually am Catholic and to hear you share your perspective of that, and I wasn’t always. I’m a convert. So to hear your perspective. And and to be fair, I mean, that was a huge part of my healing as well was finding something I believed in again to find my faith, which, you know, thanks to my husband at the time. But It wasn’t pressured on me. It wasn’t forced on me. I had to come to that myself. And I think we naturally do when we start to open ourselves up to more, that more is possible. And I think when we’re talking about suicide, I mean, I’m I’m imagine you would agree is that you don’t feel like that more is possible, like more goodness. Like goodness is possible.
D Paul Fleming: Yeah. You’ve you’ve given up on all of it. You’ve absolutely given up. There is no more. Okay? The reason I wrote the reason the title is a date with suicide is what I’ve what I learned from talking to many veterans was that, you know, we’re so anal that we’d line everything else up. K? And then the last thing we do is set a date. Now, veterans that have attempted suicide almost to a man or a woman tell me the same thing. Okay? Few with few exceptions. Someone will say, well, I thought of a date, but I need to put everything in line before I set the date. So we’ve got to get the veterans before they set that date. Because once they set that date, the the the week after my last book came out of date with suicide, a guy who served with forty years ago committed suicide. For me. K? I couldn’t believe it. Guys, served with a reaches out and says, I’m reading your book and I’m playing back, you know. Just buried blah blah, who committed suicide. I’m like, okay. Statistically, if you look at what the VA says, whether it’s seventeen or twenty two, it’s a it is a miscarriage of fact to be to be a nice k? The VA take is aware of about twenty percent of the veterans, but they’ll claim they claim they’re engaged with thirty five percent of veterans. So let’s use their number thirty five percent. In two thousand fourteen through two thousand eighteen, the VA redid a study and came back in eighteen and said we’ve decreased the number to seventeen veterans suicide a day, and they were all proud of themselves. Right? Okay. Operation deep dive picked up from there. And for the last seven or eight years through a couple of different universities, including Duke University now. They they focused on eight states and it’s now going national. It’s called Operation DeepDive. If you if you guys are all familiar with Navy Carmen, Christine Walker, she’s the chief editor of Eddie’s Magazine, Jones it. She puts an article for Operation DeepDive in her magazine every time every quarter comes out. Okay? Operation DeepDive is a great piece of literature to read and and look at the research. And it’s two page conclusion, it says that the VA used bogus numbers to come up with their seventeen per day. But even based on their seventeen per day, the reality is it’s two point four times higher than the suicide rate, which puts it in the forties. So their position is it’s in the forties. My position is if it’s seventeen a day and you’re only seeing a third of the veterans, why can’t we just do the math and say, well, that’s fifty plus. So that’s kind of the conclusion of where I come from fifty veterans a day or committing suicide. I believe the reality is so much more than that. Okay? Because so many of our veterans, especially our young veterans, I’ve and I’ve handheld quite a few of them to try to get them into the system and it’s a it’s a nightmare. How many or more are we losing when they bang on the front door or the VA? They need mental help. Right? And they get turned away. Alvea will say they don’t turn you away. That’s bullshit. Okay? If you don’t have a rating, the only thing you can do is walk into the day clinic and sit there for as long as it takes in that spot until somebody can see you, if they can see you. In the last in the hearing last week, I watched this guy say that, well, we’re only having two veterans commit suicide on our property. And the congressman retired Navy Seal, lost it. And he says, that’s bullshit. There’s twenty different facilities that have reported at least two, so that’s forty. And his response was while most of those are off VA grounds. Okay? Well, why? Because a lot of VAs have certain places, and then the parking lots are on private land or state owned land. Okay? Gotta won’t jump back on that soapbox. Okay. But, anyway, I kinda lost where we were going with this, so they kinda widened that topic up. Sorry.
Victoria Volk: No. I’m glad we brought it back to the suicide topic. And thank you for mentioning Operation Deep Dive. I I I wasn’t in my awareness. Before Yeah.
D Paul Fleming: Do you wanna give a read to that?
Victoria Volk: In your life experience, the grief trauma, what what has grief taught you? And what is the message that you would like to share with veterans listening to this, who may be struggling today?
D Paul Fleming: The second part is easy. The first part is difficult to answer. It’s not difficult to answer because I’m reluctant. It’s difficult to answer because I’m a I’m a very odd duck. Alright? I have a I have a deep faith in the baby jeans, and I have a deep faith in my native americanism, but I also believe in reincarnation. I believe in we’re here for a reason. Okay. My first suicide was Randy Smith. Can a guy I served with? That’s starting right in the book. Right? That’s why I kinda coined the phrase, who’s your Randy? Meaning, who’s your first suicide? So for me, I look back at this now that I’ve, you know, kind of spent over a decade digging into and learning about my spiritual faith, I see all of this happening so that I can write the book. I see everything that I went through so that I would I would grow my soul and be able to relate to people more have empathy for, to learn something that I never thought I would even have the conversation with, like, you can never judge somebody else’s trauma. I never would have drawn that conclusion and I not gone through boot camp, dealt with what I dealt with, and then sat down and wrote wrote the book. Right? So I have a I view this from a a very limited way where most people don’t. K? For my fellow veterans. Listen, there’s so much more that we’re supposed to do. So I’m gonna guelter here a little bit and tell you that the civilian suicide rate is exploding. And I’m gonna tell you that we all know that what we do as veterans, civilians follow. So a little bit of a guilt trip here, we’ve got to stop killing ourselves to save civilians lives. Because they’re looking at us saying, well, if they can’t deal with it, then it’s then it’s easy for them to say, I can kill myself. Right? I personally think the civilian suicide rate is north of a couple hundred a day, and I think it’s exploding. Anyway, tell your story. If you’re not familiar with Don are you familiar with Donald Dunn out of Missouri? Mhmm. He wrote a book that is this thick. Okay? I mean, it’s it’s literally that thick. Okay? Donald Dunn. Phenomenal book. Right? I usually have it with me to show on these podcast. Alright? He tells it I I swear if it I think he wrote this with a crayon, and then somebody typed it Okay? It is that down home. It is straight to the point and it tells all the same stories I tell except I spent forever writing it in long form long form. Okay But he really comes out and lays it out of how close he came to suicide. And to a man when people have come to me and said, okay, your book stopped me from committing suicide. My next question is, why? And they said, I read in there things that I didn’t know I didn’t have. One, a purpose. Two, I didn’t know other veterans were dealing with transitioning out of the military like I was. Okay? I was shocked that people are shocked that veterans saying, how many of us realize that we were abandoned when we’d left the military again. It it the system is what it is, but that feeling of abandonment jumps right back at us when the gate hits us in the backside, especially if you’ve gone through childhood trauma. If not, then it’s your first real feeling of abandonment, and it’s hard to refine yourself. So you’ve gotta find yourself and find a purpose. Well, what is your purpose right now? Well, I’m giving you one. Tell your story. So if you don’t think you have a purpose, reach out to me. And I’m gonna help you understand that you have a purpose. If you tell your story one time, you have no idea the pebble and the pond effect that can have in helping others. But to bring it back to Don Don’s book, he didn’t tell his wife anything about what was going on. Wait a minute. Didn’t I already say this? No. That was me. I said I didn’t tell my wife for fifty years. Until I handed to the book. Well, Don Don didn’t tell his family anything until they read the book. Are we seeing a trend line here? K. So we’re keeping all of this inside of us. Because we think we’re helping our friends, our family, our loved ones by not burning burning them with our story. Well, listen, I’m telling you. Your loved ones need to hear your story. We all need to hear your story. The more of us that come forward and tell the story, the easier it’s gonna be for the rest of us to keep telling our story and to help others take a step up and tell their story. You gotta tell your story. Read other people’s story and just sit down and write it. You don’t have to print it. You don’t have to you just just write it right up on all the longest email to yourself you’ve ever done. And then burn it. Tell your story.
Victoria Volk: It’s good advice. Thank you for sharing all of that. There’s one thing I wanna say and it’s about the word committed you know, when we say this person committed suicide. The Great Recovery Institute helped me reframe that and shared a different perspective of that word because when we say committed, you know, when it’s like someone committing murder, that’s a crime. So when we say committed, it’s like they’re committing a crime. So the grief recovery institute actually has helped me realize the importance of words. And so instead, I say completed suicide or died by suicide because it takes off that it feeling like a crime. Because there’s a lot of shame in that that families feel, the people that are left behind. Right? You know?
D Paul Fleming: Yes. I do. I do. I’m in a fist fight, if you will, over getting people to stop hiding suicide. Mhmm. K? It’s like, listen. K? Get them. It’s gonna take me a while to not say committed, but okay. Your loved one killed himself. K? If you think that reflects on you, then you’re not helping the rest of us.
Victoria Volk: Mhmm.
D Paul Fleming: Because the it seems to me like the last taboo subject in this world is suicide. Everything else we can talk about. Right? Well well, why? Why? Why is it? Why is it so taboo? Well, the Bible frowns on suicide. Right? Says you commit suicide, you’re it’s a mortal sin. You’re going to hell forever. Do I buy that? Nope. Not at all. K? Do I tell people that they should buy it? Listen. You gotta figure out your own path. K? It’s not my place to tell you what to think or to believe. You figure that out. Right? To me, it isn’t. I’ve had to forgive everyone that I know that’s committed suicide because it’s not mine to keep. It’s not mine to take. And more importantly, I survived the physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional pain that brought me to that point. The pain is so overwhelming. How can anybody that loves a person want them to continue to live with that kind of pain? A razor blade tumbling constantly in your gut, your mind refusing to shut off, your body and so much physical pain, you can’t take it. There’s no end. And you’ve lost your faith so your entire existence getting absorbed by darkness, evil thoughts. How can you hold it against somebody? I just can’t take it anymore. I can’t. I’m not advocating for suicide. I’m advocating for those of us who have survived. And those of us who have to live, you know, with the memory of those who killed themselves. Right? You gotta think along these lines. When the pain got so severe, it took its toll. Okay? Few people talk about what it took to get to that point of suicide. And I’m here to say, telling you, look at it. And and again, like the mental health professionals that are reading my book are saying, They’ve never I’ve never heard any of them approach it from the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual standpoint of you have to attack all four. At the same time, pick one and get moving and the rest will follow. Then you need to learn to keep the faith and keep moving forward. So at the end, a veteran is still a veteran. Suck it up, find a path forward. We can do this. Reach out. We’re all here. We’re all suffering the same crap. Different levels You’re no different than us. You’re not alone. We get it. Your stories are no worse than everybody else’s. It’s no better than everybody else’s. We’re all the same. We’re one percent. We’re veterans. We got issues. We got stories. And we need to be telling them to ourselves. And the last thing I was saying, any veteran out there that maligns another veteran? You know, like saying something like, well, what makes you think you’re a veteran? You weren’t in combat? Right? Like, why would you say that? Or well, I did all these things and you didn’t. You know, why would you say that? Why would you say that? I went to boot camp with a kid who tried to kill himself because he couldn’t take the yelling. When I was in a school, I watched the e two shaking like a leaf because he had two captains and an admiral around him. Kid couldn’t function. And that’s when I swore I don’t ever be in one of these scenarios. I wonder what happened to that kid. All I know is he was so terrified around two captains at an admiral, he couldn’t function. Another kid would chain smoke outside like there was no tomorrow. Why? And he was never in combat, but something happened to him because he signed the line join the military, successfully move through boot camps, successfully move through the next things, and something snapped. Something happened. Combination of life, girlfriend leaving them, wife, kids, what? Don’t know. It’s not our story to tell. But don’t judge somebody else’s trauma and don’t harm another veteran by, you know, downplaying what they did. I’ll close that little soapbox with this. One guy I talked to, never left the United States. In fact, went to Maryland, spent eight years there. At the eight year point, the end of his enlistment, he was doing one of two things. He was getting out and or killing himself.
I couldn’t decide which one was gonna be first. He didn’t kill himself, but it was close. When I asked him, what what what’s your story? What because I couldn’t take it anymore. What? His job was to be in perfect uniform and carry fellow dead soldiers off of the planes flying into Maryland or Delaware. Right? Andrews, were they were they flying in? That was his job. Oh, he did. For eight years, boot camp school got picked up for this thing and stayed there. The stress and trauma of carrying dead servicemen took its toll on him to the point of becoming like the rest of us who are, you know, chasing a date with suicide. Right? Doesn’t matter what we did in the service. It doesn’t matter either line cook or front line infantry. Doesn’t matter whether you were a navy seal because they are killing themselves too. Or if you were just a Boson’s meat painting the battleships. Right? Battleships. You don’t have any of those doing? Aircraft carriers. K? Everyone’s just as important and we have to suck it up and stick together. Can’t be maligning. We can’t be maligning each other.
Howard Bauchner:
Victoria Volk: It’s a great way to end, but I wanna ask, is there anything else that you think of that you didn’t get to share that you want to?
D Paul Fleming: Oh, no. I think you got a great format. I think you do a great job of of getting the message out to veterans. They’re easy to talk with, so I encourage all of that to reach out and get on your show or listen to your show. And, you know, thank you for all the things that you’re doing. You know, it’s it’s very helpful. To have the wide breadth of conversation that we’re having. Howard Bauchner:
Victoria Volk: And thank you for sharing that. I appreciate you and your time today and the work that you are doing, because it does, like you said, it takes all of us. Yeah. Just so much gratitude for you. So thank you so much. Where can people reach you or find you? Where are you on socials? If they wanna reach out to you and connect?
D Paul Fleming: Or you can you can find me on Facebook at D-Paul-Fleming. If you wanna find me on Twitter, same thing, DPaulFleming, but I also have a a big account that’s that wellness. Okay? If you don’t wanna get engaged in the politics, don’t reach out to me on that one. Right? But if you wanna just do vet stuff, DPaulFleming, you can email me or, you know, my my contact information out there. Yeah. dpaulfleming.com. Okay.
Victoria Volk: You know You
D Paul Fleming: know, go ahead. Buy a book and pass it on to a to a veteran. Alright? And tell you a story.
Victoria Volk: And I will put the links to those where people can find you in the show notes. And Thank you again for everything. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grief, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, season 5, solo episode |
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
In a world increasingly defined by division and isolation, radical belonging offers a powerful antidote to the epidemic of loneliness. Joe Primo’s article, “Radical Belonging in an Age of Othering,” featured on Grateful Living, delves into this pressing issue with profound insights that resonate deeply amidst our post-pandemic reality.
In this week’s episode, I read his article out loud because, although I tried, I couldn’t have written it better myself. This article (and episode) hits on individual responsibility, which couldn’t be more important as we face an election year in the United States, which goes right into the holidays when we will gather with friends and families, many with opposing views, beliefs, and diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, and preferences.
The Loneliness Epidemic
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has sounded alarms about a growing crisis—loneliness. This isn’t just about feeling alone; it’s a public health concern with wide-ranging societal implications. As social structures were disrupted during COVID-19, many isolated themselves from their communities and support systems. Now more than ever, rebuilding connections is vital to societal well-being.
Understanding ‘Othering’
Primo introduces us to the concept of ‘othering,’ where differences are highlighted not as strengths but as reasons for exclusion. This binary thinking creates barriers between people based on race, religion, culture, or politics—a misguided attempt to find belonging through conformity rather than embracing diversity. The danger here lies in mistaking fitting in for true belonging.
The Power of Belonging
Belonging is akin to love—it’s unconditional and rooted in internal and external acceptance. To belong means being comfortable with oneself while honoring others’ dignity despite differences. It’s recognizing that everyone holds inherent value simply by existing.
RESOURCES:
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NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Embracing Radical Belonging in an Age of Othering
In a world where change is constant and uncertainty looms large, the notion of belonging becomes more significant than ever. This theme resonates profoundly in Joe Primo’s article “Radical Belonging in an Age of Othering,” featured on Grateful Living. As we navigate the societal shifts post-COVID-19, particularly within our relationships, Primo’s insights offer a beacon of hope and guidance.
The Loneliness Epidemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has left us grappling with not only physical health challenges but also emotional ones. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy highlights a critical issue—the epidemic of loneliness sweeping across the United States. With isolation becoming a norm during lockdowns, many have experienced disconnection from their communities and loved ones. The consequences are dire if we fail to rebuild these vital connections.
Understanding ‘Othering’
Primo delves into the concept of ‘othering,’ which he describes as segregating individuals based on perceived differences—a misguided attempt at achieving belonging through exclusion rather than inclusion. This binary thinking pits people against each other based on race, religion, culture, or politics, undermining their inherent dignity.
Fitting In vs. True Belonging
A key distinction Primo makes is between ‘fitting in’ and true belonging. While fitting in demands conformity and adherence to gatekeepers’ standards—often leading to self-betrayal—belonging celebrates individuality while valuing diversity among people.
True belonging parallels love; it requires being comfortable with oneself first before extending respect towards others’ uniquenesses without judgment or prejudice.
Practicing Grateful Living
To combat ‘otherness,’ Joe advocates for practicing grateful living—a mindset that views life as precious gift worth cherishing every day despite flaws present within ourselves or others around us alike! It encourages deeper exploration into what makes each person valuable beyond surface-level appearances alone!
By acknowledging interconnectedness amongst all beings through gratitude practices such mindfulness meditation exercises (or simply taking time appreciate small moments), radical sense community can emerge naturally over time even amidst chaotic environments like upcoming U.S election year holidays fast approaching soon after this writing date too perhaps?
Episode Transcription:
Victoria Volk: Hello. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, whatever time it is, you’re listening to this week’s episode. Thank you for being here. I appreciate you. And today, I want to share something that somebody else wrote. It’s an article I came across that really is fitting for our times right now, especially if you live here in the US, a lot of change and uncertainty, and I think just astrologically. There’s so much happening in the in the galaxy, in the universe with the stars, and the moons, and moons, moon, all of that. If you follow any of that, there’s been a lot of stuff coming to the forefront. Probably in your life, it has in mind, particularly as it relates to relationships. I think relationships have been a huge focus in what I’ve been reading and what I’ve learned from friends who follow that stuff more so than myself, but I think there’s a lot to be learned from the stars and there’s cultures that knew this, that whose lives depended on the stars, right, and the sun and the moon, and they set their lives to the universe, to what was happening in the skies. And so anyway, I digress all of that. The point of me sharing this article though is what I just said, is all the change and uncertainty that has been happening, particularly since COVID, what we learned from COVID, individually, collectively. And what’s to come? All that uncertainty as it unfolds. And what it means to each of us and our relationships and for ourselves, our relationship with in with ourselves. And I couldn’t have articulated this any better I wouldn’t I didn’t even wanna I tried, but I just this is just perfectly written, and so let me get to it. It is an article written by Joe Porrimo. I hope I’m saying his name correctly. It’s an essay and he titles it radical belonging in an age of other ring. And I found this on a website called Grateful Living and I will link to it in the show notes if you care to read any of his other work. So I’m actually going to read this word for word because I feel it is the perfect share for what is happening again. Here it goes. There is an epidemic of loneliness. The US surgeon general, Vivek Murphy, says, if we fail to build more connected lives, we will continue to splinter and divide until we can no longer stand as a community or a country. As we try to understand the societal illness, I think we need to ask whether we are sick from loneliness, or from not belonging to each other and ourselves. In the depths of our isolation, we quickly encounter a darkness. It is our world closing in on itself. Our entanglement with each other becomes disentangled. We are no longer woven. We are a single thread under tension pulled taut. We’re at risk of far more than fraying. John a Powell, director of the other ring and belonging institute, says that we create other ring to create belonging. Think about this for a moment. In order to feel at home in ourselves and with others, we rally around contempt, prejudice, oppression, and exclusion. If we want to understand this epidemic, it seems that this may be a source of sickness. Could it be that our need to belong, took a misguided route and fueled a pandemic of othering? This pandemic of othering is sustained by binary thinking, which dismantles the inherent dignity of those different from us, religiously, radically, racially, culturally, politically, intellectually, etcetera. Rather than thriving in relationship with each other, many groups find themselves in profound opposition. What is the point of this opposition? What are groups and people trying to protect? For some, it may be the comfort they find in their structure, order and perspective. For some, it may be a desire to feel the nurturing and supportive sense of belonging, but the desire has become confused with fitting in. It’s important to distinguish fitting in from belonging. They are two very different experiences. One has a gatekeeper and requirements. The other is innate. Fitting in asks us to mold ourselves to things like ideologies, appearances, and dogmas. You can fit in if you subscribe to the group’s prescriptions. Belonging on the other hand is not about being affirmed for your likeness others or your methodical virtue keeping. Belonging is not interested in group think and mutual paths on the back. Belonging is where dignity, the sacred, and redemption meet. It is where you can be wally you while also being in relationship with those wildly different from you. Belonging is a both and. The paradox of belonging is much like the paradox of love. Father David Steingle Rast says that to live means to be in relationship and that requires love and action. In order to put love into action and experience belonging, you also have to be at home in yourself. When you belong to yourself, you are better equipped to see, appreciate and respect someone else’s dignity. This is because you can imagine, remember, or acknowledge the pain you’ve endured and how it shaped your perspective and behavior. The unkind and hateful words that are only one grievance away from being spoken. The wars you might be tempted to fight if the opposition was on your stoop. The destruction you might cause if all the power was yours, the food you would steal for a child, the walls you might build at fear was your guidepost, the sicknesses that could fill your mind if you believed your fears, When you can imagine being uttered, then you can see the only path is understanding. A grateful orientation to life is in opposition to other ring rather than unifying around exclusions a practice of grateful living challenges us to seek, observe, and understand. The many ways in which we are never fully alone, never independent or separate from others. The practice of grateful living helps us address the origin of our societal ailments, because it illuminates our interconnectedness by focusing on and acknowledging the details of every lived moment and the network of people required to sustain our lives. This perspective understands that when we lose sight of our inner relationality. We can trust that everything will go sideways, making us sick with fear, greed, violence, exploitation, loneliness, despair, and war. These and other detriments who are well-being fill the enormous cavern where belonging should live and thrive. To avoid falling into the trap of the rage machine or binary thinking, The practice of grateful living asks us to ground ourselves in the root belief that life is a gift. From this root, we grow a perspective that all people have inherent value. Rather than anyone being dispensable and disposable, We know that to be alive means to be in possession of something sacred. And when the sacred is not easily discoverable in another, gratefulness invites you to look more deeply for it like a hatchling in the grass. Stop. Look. Keep looking. When you’re tempted to quit, stop once again and look more. This is what it means to be alive, to be in relation and always on the lookout for all the opportunities put love into action. This perspective challenges you to observe someone’s worth or worthiness even when it is far from sight. Worthing of what you may ask. Well, what are you worthy of in your life? Love, acceptance, safety, nourishment, shelter, redemption, and connection are a few things your dignity bestows on you. When we individually or collectively other, we strip people of this worthiness. We categorize people into good and bad, worthy, and unworthy. We need to ask ourselves how anyone can survive these dichotomies. The response to loneliness and othering must be radical belonging. This is the challenge. This is the work of grateful living. If loneliness is a malady born from a plague that is unraveling or interconnectivity, then gratefulness is the only remedy large enough to treat an illness that is pulling us apart when life requires us to put love into action and remain in relation. There are some reflection questions at the end of this article, and those are, what does it feel like to be otherwise by a person or group that does not understand you? How do you process that pain? If you catch yourself othering, what is coming up for you? What is the fear behind those thoughts? And finally, where do you have an opportunity to invite someone in? To a conversation gathering a meal instead of excluding based on differences. I know this episode was a little bit different than my typical format, but I was really inspired to share this and I just followed the inspired nudge. And I hope this article that you heard me speak to you today has sparked something within you to really look at especially as we’re coming into if you live in the US, it’s an election year. We’re gonna have the holidays soon after. You’re gonna be getting together with families, people, friends, maybe many of those who have opposing views and opinions. I want you to think back to this episode. Listen to it again if you have to. Read the transcription if it’s easier for you to take in information that way. Really, it it is up to each of us individually to sweep our own doorstep. Personally speaking, I’ve had some unraveling of personal friendships and relationships in my life. And I could have just kept pulling that thread and just letting it just come all apart. Right? I could have. But it mattered too much to me. And if a relationship matters to you, you will look at yourself, You will find what do you own in that relationship. What is yours? What do you need to apologize for? What do you need to forgive within yourself? Or others, which just side note forgiveness is not for the other person. It is for you, by the way. So it’s not something that I recommend that you do in person to somebody else you know, I forgive you because, what if they don’t feel like they did anything wrong? Right? You know, they could you don’t you have no idea sometimes what the response would be if you say to someone, I forgive you. Well, what are you forgiving me for? You know? So forgiveness is for you. It’s not for the other person. But this article just really inspired me and brought up what I’ve personally experienced as of late.
And I chose to put love into action. Because that those relationships mattered to me. I know that those relationships are what sustain me. They’re grounding for me, but not only just for me, for us as a collective, for us as a whole, for our group as a whole. And again, like, this article just beautifully shared what’s been on my heart lately, and And it’s an invitation for us all to really look into ourselves. And, you know, do we want to fit in or do we want to belong? And sometimes when you know that you have this knowing and of belonging. It’s sacred. It feels sacred. And There’s a quote here it says realizing that I am from the very beginning. Embedded in a network of relationships makes me ready for an important insight. The innermost essence of the word I is relationship. And that is my brother David Stindel Rast. He must have written a book called you are here. I will do a search for that and see if I can find the book the link and put that in the show notes as well. But again, if you wanna check out this article, read more of Joe Primo’s work on Grateful Living. I will link it in the show notes, so check it out there. And I hope this episode gave you some food for thought as we’re getting closer and closer to an election and following. After that, the holidays. Yay. I’m sure many of you are feeling quite anxious already about that. So if you have any questions, you want to continue this conversation. I encourage you to reach out to me, Victoria at the unleashtruck dot com, my website, the unleashtruck dot com, You can see there’s a contact form there. If, you know, you have a question that you would like me to answer on the podcast. I love doing those episodes too. I haven’t done one of those in quite some time. But until next time, remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life, much love.
Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, season 5, Uncategorized |
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
In a world increasingly defined by division and isolation, radical belonging offers a powerful antidote to the epidemic of loneliness. Joe Primo’s article, “Radical Belonging in an Age of Othering,” featured on Grateful Living, delves into this pressing issue with profound insights that resonate deeply amidst our post-pandemic reality.
In this week’s episode, I read his article out loud because, although I tried, I couldn’t have written it better myself. This article (and episode) hits on individual responsibility, which couldn’t be more important as we face an election year in the United States, which goes right into the holidays when we will gather with friends and families, many with opposing views, beliefs, and diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, and preferences.
The Loneliness Epidemic
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has sounded alarms about a growing crisis—loneliness. This isn’t just about feeling alone; it’s a public health concern with wide-ranging societal implications. As social structures were disrupted during COVID-19, many isolated themselves from their communities and support systems. Now more than ever, rebuilding connections is vital to societal well-being.
Understanding ‘Othering’
Primo introduces us to the concept of ‘othering,’ where differences are highlighted not as strengths but as reasons for exclusion. This binary thinking creates barriers between people based on race, religion, culture, or politics—a misguided attempt to find belonging through conformity rather than embracing diversity. The danger here lies in mistaking fitting in for true belonging.
The Power of Belonging
Belonging is akin to love—it’s unconditional and rooted in internal and external acceptance. To belong means being comfortable with oneself while honoring others’ dignity despite differences. It’s recognizing that everyone holds inherent value simply by existing.
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.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Embracing the Grief Recovery Method – A Journey to Unleashing Your Heart
Grieving is a universal experience, yet each individual’s journey through it is deeply personal. In a recent episode of Grieving Voices, the host opened up about her transformative encounter with the Grief Recovery Method—a structured approach that not only helped her confront over three decades of unresolved grief but also catalyzed profound personal growth and self-realization.
The Grief Recovery Method stands out for its evidence-based framework, which offers more than just coping mechanisms; it provides a pathway to genuine healing. Our host’s story illustrates this beautifully. Initially skeptical and hesitant, she was eventually drawn into this method by what seemed like fate—a training trip to Austin, Texas—that marked the beginning of her transformation.
One memorable moment from this journey involved an encounter with another traveler whose presence underscored her readiness for change. This incident highlighted how physical symptoms can manifest when we are on the brink of emotional breakthroughs—akin to purging before true cleansing begins.
Beyond Loss: Broad Applicability
What makes the Grief Recovery Method particularly compelling is its flexibility in addressing various kinds of loss—not just bereavement but relationships with living people, inner child issues, and even abstract concepts such as money or addiction. One client’s story exemplifies how entrenched coping strategies can obscure one’s emotional landscape until they are gradually dismantled through guided self-awareness and expression facilitated by this method.
Hopeful Steps Towards Healing
Our host passionately advocates for maintaining hope throughout your healing journey. She emphasizes that consistent positive actions contribute significantly towards recovery—each step forward being an essential part of unleashing one’s heart (and thereby life). Her own program “Do Grief Differently” aligns perfectly with these principles offering both online & in-person support tailored specifically toward deep emotional work.
Join Me On This Path To Fulfillment
In closing remarks during her podcast episode—and here too—the invitation remains open: become part our community! Engage actively within spaces where similar stories unfold daily because together lies strength needed while confronting deepest sorrows head-on…unleash YOUR heart today so tomorrow becomes brighter than ever imagined possible!
Episode Transcription:
Victoria Volk: Hello friends. Welcome to another episode of Grieving Voices. Thank you for tuning in this week. If it is your first time listening, thank you for being here. And if you’ve been here before, thank you for coming back. This week, I just wanna talk a little bit about what it means to me when I say at the end of every episode, with every guest or a solo episode. When you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. It came up during one of my recent sessions with a client and who inspired this podcast episode actually because one of the things I haven’t really shared with on its own episode is my personal experience going through the grief recovery method and and how it changed my life. You’ll hear little snippets here and there and podcast interviews whether I’m guessing on another podcast or whether it’s during an interview with somebody else. But really, it’s that experience that had me come up with this slogan at the end of every podcast episode because through that experience of going through grief recovery, I truly did feel like I had unleashed my heart and so much of my life unfolded and the potential within me just kind of blossomed because I had addressed my grief and worked through a lot of painful and traumatic things in my past and continue to do so. So it’s more than just a slogan to me. It really is a belief system that I have. And so when you hear it at the end of every episode, I hope that you hear hope really because without hope, what do we really have? You also need some faith in there, right, trusting the process, feeling supported, that life has your back, that life happens for you, not to you, even the worst of things. It’s really difficult to look at the lessons at the time you’re going through something that’s really challenging or difficult, but there is a beautiful unfolding and an evolution of one spirit after you’ve gone through a difficult time. If you lean into the unfolding. If you’re open to the bread crumbs, if you’re open to receiving new information, new tools such as that with the grief recovery method, or any other modality or think something, you know, coaching or what have you that you’re looking into. So my experience with the grief recovery method in the beginning of twenty nineteen was one of excitement and also, you know, a lot of uncertainty. I didn’t I felt certain that that was the very thing I needed, that was going to help me personally in my grief. I also felt very confident in what I had read and the research I had done and testimonials and all of that that I had come across. That it was going to be, at the very least, informative and a great way to explore my past in a supported evidence based framework which really spoke to me too because I’m kind of a skeptic. I’m not kind of. I am. I am a skeptic. And after trying different things throughout my life and seeing this personal development experiment unfold over at that point five years heavily I will say that if you have children, if you are a parent, or raising children, even if they’re not yours, they bring up all your insecurities. They are the I I phoned myself saying lately, children. Your kids, like kids that you’re raising are the best personal development project you will ever endeavor. Anyway, going into it, I was hopeful that Finally, there would be something that would would help me. And it was way more than I bargained for in the best of ways or the experience. Let’s just say, the very first day of training or the certification or the class or what have you. I woke up that morning. I had issues out of both ends. I was I had diarrhea and I was puking. I was it was, like, the purge before the purge, I call it, And I had actually met somebody. I had come into I did my training in Austin, Texas because initially where I was going to drive for my certification was canceled. So I decided to invest way more than I had to and I went to Austin, Texas for mine and went on a tour bus and met somebody Metigail from I think she was from California. Therefore, a different type of training, not for the same one as me. And we connected and rolled the tour bus together and ended up going to dinner afterwards and had great conversation and we actually ended up having the same thing at the restaurant. And so I texted her the next morning and she was perfectly fine. We had the exact same thing and she was perfectly fine and I was not. So I can only surmise that I was having the purge before the purge, but fortunately, for me, I had already read the grief recovery handbook, which we were going through in our program. And I had done so in between the first before I being count my my first training I signed up for to be canceled and deciding to do the second or deciding to sign up for Austin. So in the meantime, I thought, you know, my husband was like, well, you’ve taught yourself so many different things. You can teach yourself this and that was, you know, I did attempt to do this alone. I attempted to work through my grief alone because there was I I had signed up months in advance. And so there was still some time for me to attempt to do it alone and that didn’t go so well, which prompted me to sign up to go to Austin. And I’m very glad I did. It was not only a learning experience which I knew it would be, but it was also very transformative for me. I I often say that I I was not the same person coming on the plane home as going down there. And everything that I’ve accomplished in the time since grief recovery was because of that program, was because I addressed my grief, because I did the hard thing and looked at thirty plus years of resentment and anger, lots of anger, a lot of anger, which can really be an uncomfortable emotion for a lot of people, by the way. And I would do it in a heartbeat all over again. And I had a lot of regret. I felt a lot of sadness actually after coming back from that training that I hadn’t found it sooner. And that was grief. I had grief around that. I had grief around the me that was apparent to young children who was projecting so much anger and pain onto their kids. I had grief over that. You have so many awarenesses that you discover through going through this program that it’s I’d sum it up in one episode just I don’t even know that I I could. So in a nutshell, it’s it’s transformative and it’s life changing. And it is knowledge and information that is yours forever. You have it forever. This framework, you can apply it to so many different relationships, not just relationships to those who have died, but to those living, to your relationship with alcohol, to food, money, your inner child, it’s so versatile. I don’t know of any other program or anything of its kind that although it looks like it’s cookie cutter and it’s for anybody and everybody, which it is. By the way, it’s still unique to you because it’s your brief story that you are working through. So what you are unleashing your heart from when you go through the grief recovery method or through my program which uses the grief recovery method do grief differently, which is a twelve week one on one program. You are unleashing the unresolved pain and grief that is probably sitting in your body right now. As you’re listening to this, if you are going about your day and something reminds you of a painful memory, there’s probably unresolved grief there. A client of mine I’m currently working with had a beautiful awareness where she recognized that how she was taught to approach someone in her life who was struggling with the mental illness was so ingrained in her over so many years to tap into her own emotions and how she felt became difficult. Like, it wasn’t it wasn’t even the default. Like, the default for her became focus on the other to, you know, try and fix it, to try and make it better, and make sure that the other was okay. That there’s so much focus on that and using the correct and proper language around that person as to not upset them or make them feel a certain way. Right? Because not only was the is the was the person struggling with mental illness, but also addiction, you know, it’s this two pronged issue, She realized, I’ve been so focused on the other for so many years. I didn’t even know how to tap into my own emotions and communicate that with people around me. And so what she’s learned through this process is really how to open up and communicate with other people, how she is feeling, how she is feeling, and what she’s experiencing. She’s slowly unleashing her heart, And I see this unfolding with every client I work with because so many people that go through this program don’t even it’s like you don’t even recognize yourself after at the end of it. You do, but you don’t. It’s like, I think you recognize the parts of you that you’ve buried so deep, that even you are surprised by what you see in the mirror at the end of this. And it’s a beautiful thing. And if there is anything that I can share with you today that would be helpful, is that whatever you are doing to move yourself forward, whether it’s grief recovery or not. You know, grief is cumulative and it’s cumulatively negative, but healing is cumulative and it’s cumulatively positive. So every little thing that you’re doing daily, your daily actions, things that are moving you forward are still a very important part of your healing, are still a very important part of unleashing your heart. But if you want to really dig in deep and get to the nitty gritty and dense time really, the time it takes to do all these other things and, you know, one thing stacked on the other, whether it’s yoga and meditation or, you know, all these things stack up. Right? And are good things, you know, grief recovery, do grief differently. This is like my one hundred and forty four hertz fork when I use in that I use in biofuel tuning, it just really gets to the nitty gritty. And if you want to get to the nitty gritty, to unleash your heart so you can unleash your life. This is the one program that I wholeheartedly stand behind. And I wouldn’t have experienced it myself and continue to do the work I would have quit doing this a long time ago, but I believe in it so much. So that’s what it means to me when I say at the end of every episode, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. It’s a belief that I have. And if you believe that it’s possible that you can unleash your heart and unleash your life, I would love to work with you. Or just be a part of my journey, be a part of this community. Share this episode. Share my work. If you’re not ready to dive in deep. You’re paying it you’re still paying it forward and every little bit of information that you take in is just one step in front of the other. And I encourage you to keep doing so. He is again. Holding on to hope is one of the most important aspects of healing and I never thought it was possible for me to let go of my anger and pain and resentment and work through the trauma that I had experienced in my past, but I did. And I’m sitting here talking to you about it. Because I guarantee you for you, the you know, the worst has already happened. And what do you have to lose? What do you have to lose by not unleashing your heart? My friend, it’s really difficult to unleash your life if you haven’t, unleash your heart. So I hope that was inspiring for you. I hope that you feel a sense of hope after listening to this. I hope that your curiosity has been piqued about to grief differently or grief recovery with I mean, there’s specialists all around the world. You can go to the grief recovery method dot com You can find a specialist near you. There’s certain training that needs to happen to do this work online, which I have. So I can do this work online. I can do this work in groups, in person, and groups online. So if you’re interested, please reach out for more information. That’s it for today. Just wanted to share my experience of going through grief recovery and It’s not easy work, but it’s so rewarding. And I still reap the rewards going on five years later. So I wish that the same for you. Alright. My friends until next time. When you unleash your heart, you unleash your life.
Much love.
Grief, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Healing, Podcast, season 5 |
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Amidst the challenges of her daughter Dahlia’s rare condition, MERRF Syndrome, this week’s guest, Jessica Fein, also faced the crushing blows of losing her father and both sisters during the same trying period. Her story is a tapestry of sorrow and strength, woven with threads of love and loss that resonate deeply with the human experience.
The uncertainties surrounding her daughter’s diagnosis added layers of complexity to Dahlia’s health, making it a daunting task to predict her future. Jessica’s unwavering determination to advocate for her daughter, alongside the weight of her losses, paints a poignant picture of courage in the face of adversity.
As Dahlia’s health declined, necessitating intensive care and tough decisions, Jessica grappled with the harsh reality that not everything could be fixed. Her transition from seeking a cure to enhancing Dahlia’s quality of life reflects a mother’s boundless love and commitment to her child’s well-being.
Throughout the episode, Jessica’s reflections on witnessing her loved ones’ pain and her journey through grief and healing resonate with a profound sense of vulnerability and resilience. Her ability to find glimmers of joy and connection (with herself, friends, and spouse) amidst the darkness speaks volumes about the human spirit’s capacity for hope and strength amid hardship.
Jessica’s story reminds us of the intricate dance between love and loss, woven together with threads of grace and fortitude. Her journey embodies the transformative power of facing life’s most challenging trials with unwavering love, compassion, and a resilient spirit that shines through even in the darkest times.
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Embracing Joy Amidst Grief – Lessons from Dahlia’s Story
In our fast-paced world, the juxtaposition of joy and sorrow often leaves many bewildered. We tend to compartmentalize emotions, believing that happiness and sadness are mutually exclusive. However, life’s complexities defy such simplistic categorization. This profound realization came to light through a remarkable individual named Dahlia.
The Essence of Dahlia
Dahlia was an embodiment of joy despite her battles with MERRF Syndrome (Myoclonic Epilepsy with Ragged Red Fibers), a rare degenerative mitochondrial disease affecting about 2 in 1,000,000 people. Diagnosed at five years old after showing early developmental delays, she lived until seventeen radiating spunkiness and charm even as her condition worsened over time.
Her mother Jessica Fein shares how Dahlia taught her invaluable lessons on navigating life’s dichotomies—how it is possible to feel immense pain yet still find moments filled with laughter and love.
Balancing Joy And Sorrow
Jessica observed how seamlessly Dahlia managed to intertwine joy amidst suffering—a lesson reshaping our understanding of emotional coexistence:
“She was able to feel honestly everything there was—to feel like sadness or anger or jealousy—and still be joyful.”
This revelation underscores that embracing all facets—fearful anguish alongside fun-filled meaning—is essential for holistic living rather than viewing them as opposing forces.
Compartmentalization As A Coping Mechanism
One effective strategy shared by Jessica involves ‘compartmentalizing’ overwhelming situations into manageable parts akin to pointillism art technique focusing on specifics without getting daunted by the bigger picture:
“I consider myself proficient at compartmentalization which I view essential functioning amid overwhelming circumstances.”
Such mindfulness helps navigate daily challenges while preserving mental sanity during trying times like caregiving responsibilities coupled with work commitments simultaneously balancing personal aspirations too!
Episode Transcription:
Victoria Volk: Thank you for tuning in to this week’s episode of grieving voices. I’m excited to share with you today my guest, Jessica Fein. She is the author of breathtaking, a memoir of family, dreams, and broken jeans. And hosts of the podcast. I don’t know how you do it, which features people whose lives seem unimaginable and who triumph over seemingly impossible challenges. Her writing has appeared in Newsweek, Psychology Today, The Boston Globe, Huffpost, scary mommy, zippy zippy Maeg, kebler, kebler, kebler, kebler, kebler, kebler, kebler, kebler, kebler, kebler, kebler, kebler, kebler, kebler,
Jessica Fein: kebler, kebler, kebler, kebler, kebler, kebler,
Victoria Volk: kebler, kebler, kiabler, and and, and more. And, more. And more. And more. Jessicaiahiah, and to a rare disease in twenty twenty two. Her work encompasses hope and humor, grit and grace, the tools that make up her personal survival kit. And thank you so much for your time today and sharing your story with my listeners and myself.
Jessica Fein: Thank you for having me.
Victoria Volk: And so I actually would like to start out by taking us back in time to how this rare disease came about? How you learned about it? What your daughter’s name is? First of all,
Jessica Fein: My daughter’s name is Dahlia.
Victoria Volk: Oh, what a beautiful name?
Jessica Fein: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So I have a mama three, three children. My husband and I adopted from Guatemala. So we had had kind of a long and twisty road to parenthood and ultimately landed in Guatemala. And we adopted three babies, not all at the same time. Two years apart, and then two years apart. And Dahlia was our middle child. And what happened was in terms of your question regarding the rare disease diagnosis, she, from a very young age, seemed to be developing a little bit differently and a little bit slower than I thought was probably developmentally appropriate. Let’s put it that way. So her speech was garbled. She was having balance issues. You know? I had that mother’s instinct and tried to get people to pay attention, doctors, early intervention. But, you know, I was told just give a time, she’ll catch up. And it wasn’t until she was four years old that I finally got the attention of a doctor who said let’s do a hearing test. And at that time, she was diagnosed with mild to moderate hearing loss. And that was a condition that would be able to be corrected by hearing aids. But there was a question which was why? Why did she have the hearing loss? Did something happen in utero? Did she have a virus early on? We brought her back to the Boston area from Guatemala at six months. So there were a lot of question marks. And we were sent for genetic testing, which really is a blessing because so many families have to fight for a really long time to get genetic testing. In this case, we got it very quickly, and that genetic testing led to a very clear diagnosis. Another thing that doesn’t always happen. And she was diagnosed at that time with a rare degenerative mitochondrial disease called MIRF syndrome, which stands for myochronic epilepsy, ragged red fibers. Again, she was five years old, and that diagnosis seemed like crazy to us. We couldn’t understand it, couldn’t wrap our heads around it. She, you know, while I had been concerned, never my wildest dreams? Did my concerns lead me to the possibility even of something that grave? And she was the same person she had been, you know, before the diagnosis. So it was very hard to understand. And and even technically, Nobody had heard of this illness. We didn’t know what mitochondria were. We didn’t understand what a degenerative disease meant. And so then we took off on a very lengthy journey that lasted until she was seventeen. Daria died one week after her seventeenth birthday.
Victoria Volk: Wow. And do children typically I mean, what is the life expectancy generally of this
Jessica Fein: Yeah, well, so to begin with MURF syndrome is extremely rare, it’s two in a million, so there’s not really much data to go on. Also, Dahlia had a secondary diagnosis later on, which made her one of six in the world. So the thing with a rare disease is you just don’t know. Now, when we look at MIRF syndrome, what we understand is that people can be impacted even within the same family in really different ways. So, for example, when I googled it that night, there was this long list of possible ways it could manifest. And it went everywhere from short stature all the way to death. So, you know, I did what any mom does, which is two things. Number one, I read the list and I decided it was a menu and I would choose, okay, she could be short. You know, I’ll take that one. I’ll take the hearing loss that I could deal with. But when it got to things like dementia and obviously truncated lifespan, those I wasn’t I wasn’t go anywhere near that. And I felt like, you know, look, I’m the mom. I’ll solve it. I’ll fix it. Right? Because that’s what we do. We think we can fix things. And that was a big transformation for me. One of the ones I cover my book, which is understanding that there are things we can’t in fact fix. What what do we do with a world that seems so wildly out of control? And how do we create any kind of meaning in that in that situation?
Victoria Volk: How did you do that?
Jessica Fein: Yeah. Well, it was a long it was a long journey because like I said, I decided I was gonna it. And remember, I didn’t even know what mitochondria were. So, I mean, the idea that I would fix it was totally fantastical, but and I really did try to do everything I could and I became a big advocate and I looked for every study, and I wanted to, like, travel the world and look for some kind of, you know, miracle. But ultimately, what happened was Dahlia’s disease being degenerative, was getting more and more serious. When she was nine, we were in the hospital for three months. And at that point, she had a tracheotomy which meant she had a hole in her neck with a tube that she began to that she could breathe out of because she had lost the strength in her lungs to breathe and she was ventilator dependent and she had lost her ability to speak and to eat and to move it walk it all. Ultimately, she lost her ability to move it all. But at that point, she was just in a wheelchair, she could move her arms, and she could shake her head in point and things like that. So she became too weak to participate in any studies. And I had a choice at that point because here was Dahlia, who just wanted to be a kid. Like, she wanted to have fun and snuggle and read and bake even though she couldn’t need and live a life and have a childhood. And as the mom, it was my job to facilitate that. And I learned from her in that respect, and I decided that I could not cure this disease. I would do everything possible to try to make the symptoms less to try to understand the nuances of how she could feel better with everything she was dealing with, but also to understand that I had three kids who wanted to be kids?
Victoria Volk: I’m sitting here and I’m just thinking putting myself, trying attempting to put myself in your shoes. And as a mother parent, it’s so difficult to watch your children like you said, the grief of wanting to give them their childhood, them wanting to feel like a child.
Jessica Fein: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: What were some of the things that I mean, I know you did your own research and what did that look like? How did you do that? And what were some of the things that helped you advice that people gave? I mean, did you connect with other parents who Yeah. Paid full time caregivers and you know, of
Jessica Fein: Right. So and first of all, yes. We seeing your child suffer is unbearable. And let look. Yeah.
I have a seventeen year old. And yesterday, I got a text a very healthy mainstream seventeen year old. Okay? And so he was at school yesterday and something happened in one of the classes and a couple of the kids were mean to him. And he texted me. I mean, he was not even that upset about it, but I was, like, wait, are they being mean to you? And and he was, like, kind of. And I was, like, you know, totally devastated if my stuff occurred. And I was, like, you know, wanted to, like, run into the high school and be, like, stuff. You know? So so that’s how we are as parents. Right? So what do you do when you have, you know, this this very serious, serious, as serious as it gets situation? And, you know, I did not at the time connect with too many other people. I did become part of my do action, which is the mitochondrial disease advocacy and research education group. And I’m actually on the board of that, but I didn’t at the time connect with too many other parents. I have since my daughter died connected with way more people in the community, partly because of my own podcast, partly because of my writing, So I now know so many people and I do know what a lifeline other people going through it can be. And it doesn’t need to be people go, you know, it’s not going to be in my case, other people whose kids have MRF syndrome. It’s too rare. But it’s other people whose kids are medically complex or have rare diseases, who are child loss, who, you know, have intense special needs, all those things, parents whose lives look so dramatically different than what they had envisioned. But at the time I didn’t, and there were a few reasons. Number one, I didn’t have time. I was working full time. My daughter was an eyes on patient from age nine to seventeen, which meant she was home but our home was an ICU of sorts and myself or my husband or a nurse trained specifically in her care had to have our eyes on her twenty four seven. He was very intense and I became a highly skilled medical provider of her medical needs. I mean, it was intense. And so between working full time and then being a full time caregiver and then trying to create this childhood and this environment for my three kids and also writing a book at that time, I didn’t really have time to connect with many people in the community. So to your question of, what did I do? I first of all, so, so, so lucky to have a great partner and my husband. And that’s not always the case. I mean, you have single parents going through something like this, or you have parents who aren’t on the same page. And we know that more than fifty percent of couples who have a kid with special needs, let alone living on the precipitously, split up. So that that was a real blessing, you know. And for us, that we had each other. And I have some other, you know, really close friends. I couldn’t I didn’t see people very much, but people that I knew were there were my corner. And also my husband and I try to give each other some space to have some time to ourselves because that can so easily get lost in this situation. And I will say, because I know we’re talking about grief in general, that a couple of things along this journey, I did lose all of my family members in terms of my family of origin. And that is part of my story in my book, which is losing two sisters and three parents, which happened a lot in the way. And so I’m very reluctantly familiar with all kinds of grief. And it’s not just the grief of losing somebody, but it is other kinds of grief, what I call non hallmark kinds non hallmark card kinds of grief. Right? So ambiguous grief, for example, was something that I became very familiar with. I’m not sure if that’s something that you’ve talked about much on your show, but, you know, there there are so much loss that can even precede or surround or be separate from loss that comes from a death. Howard Bauchner:
Victoria Volk: Yeah, I I just talk about grief. Whether it’s I the labels might be helpful, you know, to understand it, but Yeah. As far as, like, healing and stuff like that, I don’t know that I yeah. It’s just all grief to me. Yeah.
Jessica Fein: But for me, it was a real eye opener because I didn’t under stamp that there were other kinds of grief. And I didn’t feel like it was appropriate at the time to be grieving when my daughter was here. It was in front of me. It was alive. And I really, for me, it was such an important thing to understand that there are other kinds of grief. And it is okay. And we can grieve a life we had imagined. And we can grieve a voice we’ll never hear again. And, you know, all of these other kinds of things. We can grieve for somebody who’s still alive. And for me, That was very helpful because once I understood that this was valid and that this was real and that this had a name, it took away some of the power and it allowed me to integrate that grief and to move forward more effectively.
Victoria Volk: So you lost three parents and your two sisters during that eight year span that you it was twenty four seven.
Jessica Fein: Well, my I lost I mean, my my first sister actually had died when she was thirty. So that and I was twenty seven. So that was the first major major loss. And then my mother and my father and my father-in-law died during that time as well as my older sister. That’s a lot. It’s a lot. And, you know, it wasn’t like they were all together. It wasn’t like everybody you know, sometimes when you think about a whole family dying, it’s like, though, they were all in a car. Mhmm. I’ll take that. It’s not like a hierarchy. It’s not better or worse
Victoria Volk: than ever.
Jessica Fein: But this was like one one offs. And it was also not like there was something that was running in the family. This was like just, you know, all all different kinds of things. So it it’s it’s pretty inconceivable. And yet, that’s what happened.
Victoria Volk: And yet, here you said,
Jessica Fein: And yet here I sit and it’s interesting because I know it sounds, it’s like when I’m telling my story to somebody who I’m just meeting, it it’s like I now I have written about it. I can speak about it. And it’s so much to take in. And I have two friends who are therapists who said to me, my goodness, if you were to come and just be telling me all this, I’d be like, oh, she’s I don’t even know there were some like a diagnosis of like that can’t possibly be true, that can’t possibly be with that because it seems so crazy and yet when you’re in something like this and underlying all of it is this intense care and intense situation and this life on the precipice, you you integrate it and and move forward. Like, there’s no time to be to lay in the fetal position. Like, there’s no time to be on the bathroom floor crying. Twenty four seven. You can’t. You cannot.
Victoria Volk: One of the things that tends to go to the wayside when the life life, like, just throws, you know, the shit our way, basically, is our self care and just caring for the self. And so how what did that look like for you amidst all of that?
Jessica Fein: Was I’m really glad you asked that because and I actually talked about this in the book. Working outside of the home was important to me, and I did get judged for it because there were people, even medical caregivers in our home, who felt that it wasn’t appropriate for me to continue working. And to be clear, I was the primary breadwinner and this life was expensive that we were living and nobody questioned my husband working. But I will say that when we talk about self care, Part of that to me was getting out of the house and working in a job that I knew how to do that I had been doing before I became a mother. That was very helpful for my identity. And that was also I think an important break during the day. Mhmm. And I think it was able to make me more present when I was home. So that was one thing. Another thing for self care for me was I’m I’m not like a big exerciser, but I did start to do pilates and just having this like twice a week that I would get out of the house and do this thing. Was also a nice break. And then also when we talk about self care, I think that the writing was important for me. You know, I wrote the book while at my daughter’s bedside. And I think that that was a really important outlet. And it allowed me to tell my story my way, which meant I was able to make some order out of the chaos. So I think those were things, oh, the other thing for self care is that my husband and I as much as we could did a date night until COVID hit, we really kept that up. And it was complicated because in order for us to go out together, we needed to have two people at home, a nurse and a babysitter because we have these two other kids and also the nurse was not a babysitter. She does not be hired to entertain. So we would need a team of two. Which first of all is an expensive proposition. But second of all, we needed to make sure that they got a lot. I mean, I remember we had this one nurse and babysitter and the babysitter was like part of our family. And afterwards, she was like, I was really uncomfortable with that nurse. You know what I mean? So that’s like a whole other dynamic. So it was complicated, but getting out of the house for about two hours on a Saturday night was such a sense of normalcy for us because our lives were so abnormal. So to be able to do that. And every night, every Saturday, we’d get in the car, and we’d look at each other, and we’d say, we’ve never needed a date more. And every Saturday night, it would be true, even more so than the week before, you know? And so So there were those things. I think it was having I think what all of these things did, whether it was the writing or the Pilates or the date night or whatever is my work. It gave me an identity separate from being the mom slash caregiver. And I think that’s important, you know, for anybody in any situation.
Victoria Volk: When you were describing you and your husband getting into the car and recognizing that you never needed to date night more, I physically, like,
Jessica Fein: I just had this That is what we would do. Literally, it was that huge exhale and the looking at each other. And I always you know, it didn’t even matter, like, if we were engaging on that date night or if we were just sitting there in if we had the one restaurant, it was close by, so we knew we weren’t, you know, we do what we were gonna do. We would go there. We still go there pretty much once a week. And, yeah, just to have that that ability to be outside of all the other roles that had become such an integrated part of our lives.
Victoria Volk: I think that’s a key point what you said is to put yourself in a different role. And in that moment, you too could be husband and wife.
Jessica Fein: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: And connect.
Jessica Fein: Mhmm. Exactly.
Victoria Volk: And one thing too, like, people may be listening and something that comes up for me as I’m hearing you share is many people who experience a child that is a lot of care or what have you. They have that support system around them as in the parents. Sometimes even the grandparents move in to help support and care and you didn’t have that either.
Jessica Fein: We didn’t have that either. And I will say that That was another thing I was dealing with. So my eldest sister had lung cancer, and she was diagnosed in the middle of all this. And I was kind of her primary person, and it was insane. It was so out of the blue and that was a whole other ride. So I was really torn. I mean, we talk about the sandwich generation caring for our children and our elderly parents at the same time. This was like triple decker sandwich or something because I had the sibling thing too. And it was really hard and I did I did, you know, I think that what I was going through may just compounded, was compounded by the other losses and those became so much more present for me because I so wanted to be able to just like you know, cry to my mom and and, you know, be be parented. Right? And and when for a while, I was taking care of my parents. And then when they weren’t here, it was incredibly lonely.
Victoria Volk: And that brings me to the topic of friendships. I mean, you probably didn’t even have time for friendships, and maybe the friendships you had fell away because you know what happens too.
Jessica Fein: I will say, I’m very lucky that I have a circle of friends, people I’ve been friends with since I was a kid. And the reason I feel so fortunate about that is because I feel like meeting new friends when you’re going through such intense things. Is so hard. Right? Unless it’s people who are also going through intense things. But it’s too much to catch somebody up on. You know what I mean? It’s just like it’s a lot. So what we were going through was so unrelatable that people who knew me before, that became very, very important for me. Even knowing they were there, they weren’t in Boston, you know, they’re all over the place, but knowing that I had these people was important to me. And I think that we see in grief, right, how hard it is to maintain friendships because people are so awkward and they’re so uncomfortable, and they don’t know what to say. And God forbid, they bring up your kid’s name, which is all you really want to talk about. You know? But they just don’t know what to do, and this is such a problem is that we’re just, as a society, so uncomfortable. And it always blows my mind because I feel like grief is the single most universal thing.
Like, every single person is going to be a grieffer. And yet, we’re so awkward. We’re so weird about it, where it should be the great unifier.
Victoria Volk: That’s what I talk about. On the podcast, like, that’s what I talk about. It is the one thing that unites us all that none of us differ on. Like, we all like, we are all creepers.
Jessica Fein: We are all creepers. Every single week of us
Victoria Volk: at a
Jessica Fein: hundred percent, like, And and with all other life cycle events, we understand how to be there, how to show up, how to sit with somebody in all other life cycle things, and yet when it comes to the thing that is the loneliness. And the thing that is the most universal, we don’t know how to do it. We don’t know how to show up. We don’t know how to sit in the silence. Right?
Victoria Volk: And that brings me to the question of how were you taught as a child to grieve and express grief, and how was it what beliefs were passed down to you about grief in your household growing up?
Jessica Fein: You know, I don’t really remember too much from growing up. What I remember with every cell of my being is the sudden death of my sister when I was twenty seven and she was thirty. And she was my best friend and we had been on the phone this morning, that morning, excuse me, and she died suddenly that afternoon. And that changed my worldview, more than any other loss. Even more, I will say, than the loss of my child because by the time that I lost Dahlia, which everybody will say, the worst thing that can happen is losing a child. And I’m not saying what’s worse and not worse. I’m just saying that that first loss changed my worldview. Because before that, I saw the world through a bubble. Right? I was looking at a bubble every, you know? And that loss punctured the bubble. Then I saw the world through the clarity of the puncture, not through the hazy sheen of the bubble. Right? It changed everything for me. And I think that I probably then I was not living with my parents at the time, but I had them as models of how it is possible to carry on, which they both did. After losing their child. Right? And so it was forever altering for them. And they were absolutely different people on the other side of it and they carried on and they engaged in the world and they had lives, you know. And and I think that probably that somehow sunk in that it was possible to have an other side, to have, you know, life on the other side of what seems like, how can you continue on?
Victoria Volk: Is do you what’s your sister’s name? Both sisters.
Jessica Fein: Yes, my first sister and thank you for asking. Her name is Noomi and my other sister who died of lung cancer more recently is Rachel.
Victoria Volk: Do you speak about them in your book too?
Jessica Fein: Yes. Yes. I mean, you know, the book opens with the with the sudden death of my sister, Noomi. It’s not a big piece of it, but I couldn’t tell the story without starting with that because it was a life changing for me. And then Rachel’s a character in the book because that happened much more recently and so out of the blue. I mean, they were both out of the blue, but one was like totally out of the blue sudden and then of course lung cancer we know can happen you know, when you’re diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, often that means that you don’t have a boatload of time.
Victoria Volk: What were the lessons that you learned from the loss? Of the grief of your sister your first sister. Know me since that was the one that kinda cracked you open. Yeah. What are what are the things that Dahlia taught you about grief then too?
Jessica Fein: Oh, two very different answers and so important both of them. With know me, what I learned was I never would nor would I want to get over the loss of my sister. This is not something I was trying to put behind me. It was something I was trying to figure out how to bring forward in a healthy way with me because she is such a core part of who I am and it was very important that I mean, I I would never want to not be grieving for her. Like, I can’t even imagine that. So it was not how are you gonna get over it. It was how are you going to move along with it? And And that was, you know, a learning because I didn’t know much personally about grief before that. Dahlia, I learned everything. I mean, here was a kid who lost everything that a kid has. She couldn’t move at all. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t run. She couldn’t, you know, she couldn’t do all of these things.
And she did not become bitter, angry. You know, all the things that I think I would become. She wanted to continue to have have joy. And and not in a, like, kind of denial kind of way, but in a like, this is my life. Like, I want to be out there. I want to be experiencing it. So so watching her do that made me realize that joy and sorrow can live side by side. They can hold hands. You can have grief and you can have beauty. And all of these things that I would have thought were mutually exclusive, fear and anguish and anxiety and, you know, moving or all the things. And then on the other side, you know, joy and fun and meaning and all these things like they can all be intertwined. And in fact, I think they become stronger in the presence of the other.
Victoria Volk: I’m just trying to imagine how, like, did you compartmentalize, like, when you would come into the room and, like, just I mean, because you essentially have to, in some respect, like, set your your stuff aside, right, to fully be present with her
Jessica Fein: Okay. I think I’m the queen of compartmentalization. I think I’m like, I don’t even know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing or whatever, but I do think it’s key to for me to being able to function because, you know, here, the the situation was too big to take it all in at any time. It would have blown us down. We couldn’t do that. I compare it to a pointalism, you know, the the kind of art where when you’re standing up close, you just see the the dots. And you have to back up to be able to tell that it’s, you know, a canoe or a field or whatever it is in the picture. We couldn’t back up. We couldn’t take in the big picture. It was too big. We had to be real up close and understand what each point was and and be attending to each point. And it wasn’t until after Dahlia passed away that I felt that I could back up and begin to take in the enormity.
Victoria Volk: One of the things that I had a previous guest on, she is the author of always a sibling.
Jessica Fein: Yes. Andy Orangestein.
Victoria Volk: Yes. Have you read the book?
Jessica Fein: No. But I have it, and I’m about to speak, I I have an upcoming thing where we’re gonna be together,
Victoria Volk: and she’s coming on my show. So Awesome. Yeah. She is wonderful. And one thing that I didn’t really think about until reading her book was that and she came on my podcast, was that our siblings are the people that know us the best who they’re the longest relationships that we have. And so for you when you shared about Nomi and how that grief was harder, in some respect.
Jessica Fein: That’s right because I have never been a day on this earth without her. Mhmm. Twenty seven years she was by myself. For, you know, the second that I came into the world, she was, like, celebrating me. And we, you know, they’re they’re that connection.
There’s nothing like it. And I remember at the time and I will say, she had been married for five years when she died and she had been with her husband three years before that. K? So I remember so vividly thinking even right then, his goal will be ultimately to move on. Right?
His goal is going to be you know, here’s a young guy and they had a baby. And ultimately, I mean, he’d always remember her, but this would end up being an eight year chapter of his life. And his goal would be to move on. And I say that with all the love in the world for him, but that that was the situation. Whereas my goal was to hold on, I’d never wanted to let her go. And, yeah, I mean, a sibling relationship, I think it’s interesting that that, you know, Annie said that and and I understand it because you it is the longest relationship that they know you in a way nobody else will ever know. When you have a good, healthy, great, and in my case, when you have a sibling who’s your best friend. And also like she shared too, they fill the gaps of your childhood. Like, totally. There’s they know your childhood, like, nobody else. And that’s why, you know, earlier when we were talking about my friendship circle, I’ve got some friends that I’ve had since, like, eight years old. And so I think they now have stepped into that role, and they know all the players you know, and they’ll remind me. Remember when your mom, you know, because we all grew up together. And that’s why those friendships are so important. I mean, you know, for other reasons too, but but right?
They are the the safekeepers of your history.
Victoria Volk: That’s so true. Like, I have friendships since I was in five kindergarten. Like, we’re still close and I cherish those. Yeah. For sure. What is the one thing that you would say to parents who and I know we kind of alluded to it or kinda started this podcast talking about how you have three children. But so many parents I know we’re jumping around here a lot because you’ve had, you know, such a variety of losses, but when parents seem to struggle with the question who have lost a child, how many children do you have? And, you know, I
Jessica Fein: was like, well, do I say, do I even get into it if I had a child lost? Like, you know, if I have my kids with me and there’s there’s four, but I actually have five. And do I say I have five? Or where’s the fifth one? You know? Like, how how do you navigate that? Yeah. So what I would say is to every parent, It is entirely up to you at any given moment. How you want to answer that question? If you are in a place where you don’t feel that the person asking it is a safe place or if you’re with other people or if you just don’t want to get into it, say what you want. Say to if you’ve lost your third. That’s fine. You don’t have to feel guilty about that. This is up to you and it is how you are going to feel best and safest. I will say I am the mother of three. I believe I will always be the mother of three. I often think about it with somebody who had one child and lost one child, but But the inevitable next question always is how old are they? And then what happens is you find yourself apologizing to the person, listen, I’m sorry, this is gonna be really hard for you. Right? But I got because you know you’re about to make them so uncomfortable, So it is a total minefield as is so much else.
The question, how are you? Is a total minefield? Right? Like, what am I supposed to If I’m feeling okay in that moment and I say, oh, you know, things are good, then you feel totally guilty. Like, how could I answer the question that way? Mhmm. Right? And I mean, there’s so much we just there’s so much we make ourselves feel bad about, and we don’t need to do that. We need to do what’s gonna be in that moment. And you can run into two people in the grocery store and feel like you wanna answer that question two different ways.
It’s okay. It’s up to you. You know? I will find myself I I I for me, I just can’t imagine saying, I’m a mom of two. I can’t. Dahlia is such a huge part of who I am, you know? Just like it’s very, very hard for me when people say, oh, do you have siblings?
Victoria Volk: Yeah. Exactly. I was just I was thinking that too. It’s it’s kinda nice sort of thing.
Jessica Fein: Yeah. I always will have to I mean, I’m always I’m the youngest of three.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. Well, that actually brings up another question because I didn’t assume you had more siblings, but I thought maybe there was a chance you had more siblings and I didn’t ask. And now you’re in now it’s I
Jessica Fein: am orphaned. Yes. Yes. I know. And when my eldest sister was diagnosed, we had lost our parents and our other sister. And she said to me, I’m gonna be okay because no god would ever do that to you. And that’s what she believed. It would be There’s no way that reality that is my reality now that that could happen. And I suppose as I get older, it will be less shocking because it’ll be more in the natural order of things. But I’m nowhere near the age yet when one would expect that, you know,
Victoria Volk: That just made me well up. Yeah. I know on your website, you talk about you mentioned the personal survival kit, and you’ve talked about I think you have alluded to Grace the grace you give yourself, the grace you give others. But what does hope and humor and grit look like for you in your healing?
Jessica Fein: Yeah. Well, hope, I’m I’m a big believer in hope. And I think what we hope for changes all the time, for a while I hoped for a cure, and then that wasn’t going to happen. Then I hoped she wasn’t in pain, or I hoped we’d be able to have a successful outing that afternoon or I hope, you know, but but the idea of living without hope is not compelling to me. And I think that we get to choose if we want to be hopeful about things.
And we get to choose what we want to be hopeful about. As for humor, I think you can always find humor. I mean, as long as you’re willing to open yourself up to dark humor, there’s there’s humor. I mean, life is ridiculously humorous and, you know, ridiculously punishing and all the other things. But but I I feel like humor is important too. And and in my writing, I mean, that is probably one of the things I hear most often is, oh my god, I did not expect your book to be funny. You know, people will say, I expected to cry, I didn’t expect to laugh this much. So, you know, fair, fair, you know, warning or promise to anybody who’s gonna pick it up, hopefully, you will feel an array of things when you read the book. You gotta have grit to carry through. I mean, you have to be able to pull on the the the rain boots and get on, put yourself in the muck every day. And that to me was the grit. It was getting up and doing it again day after day after day.
Victoria Volk: And I would also want to ask because I I did think of another question. I’ll circle back to that. But were there any books that you because you had books on your thing too and you’re a avid reader and you’re a writer. So are there any books that you would recommend that you found most supportive to you as you were going through all of this?
Jessica Fein: Yeah. Well, I’m a huge reader and I would say that for me. And, you know, when you talked about self care earlier on, I didn’t mention, but reading for me. And and at the time, in particular, I just wanted to read fiction. Anything that’s gonna take me out of my situation. So I would say that for me. And then in the book, I do talk about three other books. One is or or three other authors who meant a lot to me. One was James Baldwin, who whose life situation couldn’t have been more different from mine, but wrote so much about people meeting tragedy and standing up to tragedy rather than letting it blow them down, and that was very important to me. Also Mary Oliver is an amazing poet, and her work just really, really was was very important to me. And then my father was a writer in reading his his words and understanding what he had to say about loss, having he had written a book about the loss of my sister. So that was very important to me as well. Yeah. It was and and I quote him quite a bit in my book.
Victoria Volk: That’s beautiful. You also have on their cores cores corners of beauty? What is that? Yeah.
Jessica Fein: And that’s a big part of my book as well, which is this idea that I’m talking about a letter that I received from my father. I he had left me some letters to read after he died. And we talk about creating a world of beauty and where that’s like a really tall order. And none of us really can do that effectively. We’re not that powerful, but we can create corners of beauty. That’s something that’s within each of our control. And that can be how you respond to somebody you see out in the world who maybe needs a hand. That can be how you make something out of a lousy situation, a horrible situation that can be having a candle light dinner in your daughter’s room next to the beeping monitors. You’ve created a little corner of beauty. So corners of beauty is something that I think is in all of our control.
Victoria Volk: That that’s juicy. That is really juicy. I think there’s something there for you to really dig into and elaborate on if you haven’t already. I’ve I’m not assuming you haven’t, but if you haven’t, like that that’s very intriguing to me. That’s I love that.
Thank you for
Jessica Fein: Thank you. Alright. So maybe that’s book maybe that’s the follow-up.
Victoria Volk: And also writing it down. And of course, because you had that on your website as well, writing it down, and writing was very much therapeutic for you. It sounds like at the bedside of your daughter. And Yeah. And having that emulated for you too by your father, I bet that was such a gift.
Jessica Fein: It really it really was. And, you know, one of the things that I learned from it was that his book was not a book about my sister, but he handed me the manuscript. He said he wrote a book about Noomi and I read it, and I said, this isn’t a book about Noomi. This is about your know me. If I were to write a book about know me, it would be a totally different book. And that was really important to me. I’m sure if my husband were to write a book about what we went through, it would be a totally different book. Right? I mean, people are so different for each of us. And even the very same loss or the same situation, you know, two parents of the same kid or two siblings of the third sibling. It’s a different loss.
Victoria Volk: Because all relationships are unique. Exactly. And so how can I ask this is my last question and because I you brought it up and I I actually wrote it down? Husband grief. Like, how Yeah.
Jessica Fein: He it’s totally different. I mean, he would never in a thousand a million years have a conversation like we’re having. Right? I find it I would talk about this all day long because for me, it’s an opportunity to bring my family, my losses forward, to have them be present, to tell their stories, to allow people to get to know them, So it’s very, very important for me. And I am so grateful for the opportunity to to do that. My husband is much more private, so he’s very supportive of me doing what I want to need to do, but think he doesn’t even like to come to my book reading. He still likes it in the background and maybe, you know, so he can sneak out if he needs to because he’s a much more internal private person. And I think that that’s, you know, we need to be able to respect that we’re all gonna go through it in our own way. And there’s no wrong way. And there’s no timeline. That’s a big thing. I see a lot of people. I see a lot of people out there who say, well, jeez, it’s been x number of to, you know, why isn’t that a person over it yet? And it’s like, no. No. That’s really why
Victoria Volk: I started this podcast was to, you know, banish the misinformation and the myths of grief and all these things that were taught like time heels and grief alone and replace the loss and, you know, these behaviors that we find ourselves doing to bypass our feelings and not feel them. Right? And to feel better in that period of time. And so, you know, what may have destroyed another couple sounds like it really just brought you two together and allowed you each to honor each other the losses and the way that you found helpful for you as individuals, and I think that’s a beautiful thing. Is there anything that you would like to share that you don’t feel you’ve got too that you feel is important?
Jessica Fein: No. I think that this this covered it. And you know, I love, as I’ve mentioned, connecting with people on these topics, and I invite people to connect me on social or well, first, please check out the book. You know, wherever you get your books. Whether that’s Amazon or BookShop dot org, Barnes and Noble, breathtaking. And, you know, I’m having some really interesting conversations with book groups who are reading it together, and I’ll go to any book group I’ll zoom in or whatever if if people choose to read it with with some friends. And then, you know, yeah, my website is where I keep up to date on everything in terms of, you know, other writing I’m doing, events that are happening. So, yeah, you can check that out at jessica find stories dot com and that’s fine at the EIN because post people hear it and think it’s the other way. So just the fine stories dot com.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. And we say fine and grief recovery. We say fine as feelings inside not expressed and that is not you.
Jessica Fein: So That is that’s alright. That’s very funny.
Victoria Volk: I look forward to checking out myself. I love me some dark humor. So thank you so much for being my guest. I will put all of the links in the show notes and thank you for sharing your warrior story. Really? It’s a warrior through grief. And, you know, we all don’t have to do some grand things with our grief and share it with the world. But if you can connect with other people, like, and create those corners of beauty like you shared, That’s healing. So thank you for sharing your story because storytelling is healing too. Storytelling is healing.
Jessica Fein: And I also, you know, I didn’t mention I do a column in psychology today called grace and grief. You can find that online. I write a lot about not only our own individual grief, but how you can support others in their grief. So if people wanna check that out. Thank you so much. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life, much love.
Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, season 5 |
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
I’m excited to share this episode with Amanda Popovski, in which we discuss everything related to being an empath or highly sensitive person (HSP).
I could feel the energy behind the words Amanda used in her application, and the synergy I felt with her was one of being a kindred spirit. Sometimes, there are people in this world you click with, and it was refreshing not only to be and feel seen by Amanda but, more importantly, I hope she felt seen by me as well.
This episode is a masterclass of sorts for empaths (HSPs). We discuss everything from personal growth and evolution as an empath (HSP), the energetics of what it means to be an empath (HSP), how it shows up in our lives, the challenges we face as empaths (HSPs) in a world that isn’t exactly fully accepting of us deeply feeling and emotional beings, and how we can leverage this energy as our superpower.
From childhood experiences as an empath (HSP), leaving corporate (against her family’s wishes), people-pleasing, entrepreneurship, dating, friendships, and everything in between, I hope you feel seen in this episode, if you find, like myself and Amanda, where being an empath (HSP) has just seemed to feel like a cruel curse at times.
This is a love note from Amanda and me to all empaths and HSPs.
Dear fellow empaths/HSPs,
You are a powerful and necessary force that is deeply needed in the fabric of humanity. 💛
RESOURCES:
CONTACT:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Embracing Your Sensitivity and Setting Boundaries with Amanda Popovskiy
In a recent episode of the podcast “Grieving Voices,” hosted by Victoria had an insightful conversation with Amanda Popovskiy, a life and business coach for women. Both highly sensitive people (HSPs) and empaths, they delved into topics that resonate deeply with many individuals who share these traits. This blog post will expand on their discussion, offering additional context, insights, and practical applications.
Understanding High Sensitivity
The Journey of Self-Acceptance
Amanda shared her journey from pursuing a degree in Spanish to founding her digital marketing agency and eventually becoming a life coach. Her path was marked by personal challenges related to being an HSP and empath. These traits often made her feel overwhelmed but also endowed her with deep empathy—a double-edged sword she has learned to wield effectively.
Example: Imagine feeling every emotion around you intensely—joy becomes exhilarating but sadness can be paralyzing. For HSPs like Amanda, everyday interactions can sometimes lead to emotional overload.
Childhood Experiences
Both Amanda and Victoria recounted their childhood experiences as highly sensitive individuals. They often felt different from their peers—Amanda described herself as an “old soul” who found solace in introspective activities like reading.
Insight: Many HSPs may have similar experiences where they feel more mature or emotionally aware than those around them during childhood. Recognizing this early on can help parents support their sensitive children better.
Reframing Sensitivity as Strength
From Curse to Superpower
Initially perceived as burdensome, sensitivity was reframed by both speakers over time through setting boundaries and self-acceptance. They recognized it not just as something to manage but also as a strength that allows deeper connections with others.
Practical Application: Start viewing your sensitivity not merely as something negative but acknowledge its positive aspects too—such as heightened empathy which enables you to understand others profoundly.
Episode Transcription:
Victoria Volk: Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Grieving Voices, which I am highly excited about because I’m a highly sensitive person and my guest who is joining me is also a highly sensitive person in Empath. If I could find her bio. I will read it for you here in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Let’s go. Alright. So Amanda, oh, I even practice this. Amanda Popovski.
Amanda Popovski: Yes. Popovski. You got it. Popovski.
Victoria Volk: Yes. Popovski. You gotta say it like, Popovski. Yeah. Alright. It’s Macedonian,
Amanda Popovski: so it’s very, like, very like Eastern European, a lot of conviction.
Victoria Volk: Popovski. You got it. Alright. So now that we’ve got her name straight, she is a life and business coach for women. And through her action awakening process, she’s helped dozens of women go from overwhelmed and overthinking to taking great action and creating discipline that works, so they can grow their business and shine. Going from a Spanish degree to forming her own digital marketing agency to combining the corporate climbing the corporate ladder and finally taking the leap into her coaching business, Amanda has had her fair share of life transitions and has grieved her past self in each and every one of them. She’s here today to share more about the sensitive side of coaching and personal development as a highly sensitive person and path an overall emotional creature. Based in Buffalo, New York, Land of the Chicken Wing, she enjoys cuddling up with a good book, meditating and trying new recipes in her free time. And thank you so much for bringing your energy and your story to the podcast today. I as we briefly shared with each other before we started recording, I’m excited to have you on because there’s a lot of impasse and highly sensitive people that listen to this podcast because I am one and I speak to that. I have content on my website that is about that. And doing energy healing work, that’s a lot of the clients that come to me are also highly sensitive themselves. And so I’m really excited to start there in your story because I know how shitty my childhood was and the grief that came with it just being a highly sensitive empathic person, there are so many pictures of me. And I don’t have a lot. Like, all of my childhood pictures fit in a sandwich ziplock bag and if not like like this thick of a snack. And so there isn’t a lot of pictures of me, but the ones there are, there’s a lot of me sleeping. Random times of day, like, middle of the day, missing birthday parties because I’m fully clothed with my shoes on. I fell asleep on my bed and missed the birthday party. And, you know, so I’m curious to start there with your story and how what your childhood was like, being an empath and highly sensitive person.
Amanda Popovski: Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, first of all, obviously, thank you so much for having me on. I’m really really excited to talk to you and to hopefully share some wisdom that I’ve gained in this process for your HSPs and your empaths. My childhood, it’s funny I work with my inner child a lot, but I don’t really reflect on my childhood too often. And I’ve noticed with other highly sensitive people that sometimes we just can’t remember. Like, there’s maybe some emotional overload or something that we’re just like, oh, yeah, my childhood is good and then move on to present day, at least that’s how I operate. But I very distinctly remember feeling super different from a young age, like deep down knowing that I was different and not really knowing what to do with that information. Like, I can distinctly remember being in student council and drama club and, like, doing all the things in high school. And even though I felt like I had a group of friends and I felt like I belonged somewhere, I still felt like I did not belong. Like I was this old soul, this indigo child, this person that was just really doing a lot of observing, and picking up on things, I remember I do remember kind of a super cool trick that empaths have is to be able to read between the lines and understand what people are saying without saying it. So my parents would be like in an argument or whatever, passive aggressive at each other. And in my head, I was like, it’s so obvious. Dad wants this and mom wants this. Why are they telling each other? And, you know, it wasn’t until recently that I started to use my throat chakra and actually start to speak out loud about these feelings and sensations that I had. And that’s kind of what coincided with the whole, like, food thing that we’re gonna hopefully talk about PMD, all of that. So I would say that my experience was lonely. It was I found a lot of solace in myself I found a lot of solace in my books. I found a lot of solace like rolling these huge ideas around in my head that no child probably should ever have to think about or want to think about. About the state of the world and why things are the way that they are. And for a long time, I saw my empathy as, like, this burden. Like I would speak to the universe very often, especially in my early twenties, and be like shouting at the moon, like why did you make me this way? I can’t stand it. Why can’t I just be normal? Why do I have to be different? Now luckily, I and you, I’m sure, have come to embrace the superpowers that empathy and high sensitivity gives you, but only with the introduction of very strong boundaries.
Victoria Volk: You I thought you were gonna use use the word that I use, like empathy, like, you know, highly sensitive person empathic is a curse because I felt like it was a curse for me.
Amanda Popovski: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How so?
Victoria Volk: It’s like, why do I have to feel things so deeply all the time? And it makes people perceive you as neurotic. Like, people would feel like people would, like, Why are you so sensitive and just get over it? And why do you read into things? It’s like reading between the lines, but it’s like, it’s No. This Like, I know now. I’m not reading into things. I’m reading between the lines. On connecting dots that you’re not seeing. And but it comes off to other people as not insightful. No. We don’t come off as insightful. And wise, So, yeah, it was definitely a curse. And and it was like, you know, why do I have to be this way? So I I yeah.
Like, kindred spirits. Yes.
Amanda Popovski: Alright. I super resonating with that actually, especially with PMDD, which is the experience it’s called premenstrual, dysmorpheric disorder, and it’s basically PMS on steroids, where the week before your period you just feel like a completely different person. Like, I’m, you know, I’m a bubbly person. I’m a happy person. But on the inside, it’s a little bit of torture. And so I can really relate to feeling super emotional all the time and having people not really understand and even in my relationships. Currently, sometimes it feels difficult to be like, how are you not experiencing all of the things that I’m experiencing? And what I love about what you said is that we’re reading between the lines, yes, but we’re reading the energy, really. Mhmm. It’s what we’re reading. And that’s the stuff that most people think is between the lines or can’t really perceive. But we have this beautiful gift of being able to read and interpret a language that is really the whole creative spirit of the universe. It’s really cool. It’s a blessing. I think after all this time. I think
Victoria Volk: Yeah. In hindsight. Yeah. Yeah. You can talk about after we’ve implemented boundaries. Right? Which we will get to. But I just wanna share just because it’s at the forefront of my mind when you talked about PMDD because I haven’t been personally diagnosed with that, but just how you described it, like, oh, yeah, maybe that’s been my issue. And because I would just turn into this like, oh, anger, snappy, brain fog, like, all these things, but I’m gonna share something with you because I’m, like, in the perimenopause and that then that just adds another layer to things. Right? But I was listening to a podcast with Dr. Stacy Sims on Huberman Lab and it’s an excellent episode on Perry Menopause and Menopause, Women in Health, and Fitness, and all of that. And one thing that she suggested or shared with listeners was a supplement called DIM, d I m, two hundred milligrams a day. And I thought, you know what, what the heck? I’ll try it. It’s especially helpful for women who are estrogen dominant. And I I have been on this now. I have not shared publicly in my newsletter, which I plan to this next newsletter because I want to give it a full month. I’ve been on it a full month. And they are legitly a game changer. Have been for me? Yes. It’s like And it’s literally like a crap ton of broccoli and cauliflower in a little pill. It’s unrealistic. It’s natural, but it helps your body excrete excess estrogen. And I tell you what, I’ve been more productive in this past month than I have in several months and my mood Definitely. My mood, they are my happy pills. I’m legitimately there. My happy pills. This is not a sponsorship episode. This is not an affiliation or anything. I’m legitimately sharing what is been the biggest game changer for me. I am ever so grateful for her for sharing that. I’ve shared it with my friends. People that I’m, you know, know and love who, you know, what it’s that it’s working for me. And it’s definitely really helped me. And, you know, this is after, like, going through a cycle now and another yeah. So it’s been a full month. And I’m hooked. I’m hooked. So
Amanda Popovski: any little bit helps, I think. Yeah. But it’s simply that it’s natural. That’s so beautiful.
Victoria Volk: I know. I know. Yeah. So anyway, not to derail what you were talking about. But yes, it’s like all these different layers of of And then you get to that period, menopause, menopause, and it’s like, as a highly sensitive person, buckle up.
Amanda Popovski: So I’ve heard.
Victoria Volk: So I Yeah. So how did, like, now as an adult, like, how what did how did the boundaries come about for you then? And how did that then shift dynamics and relationships? Because I know what implementing boundaries did to some of my relationships, which it can friends just really kind of fade in the background when you when you start to, you know, use your throat chakra. Right? And speaking up and using your voice for the first time often because as empaths and highly sensitive people we’re often taken advantage of, you know, our emotionally responsive energies can, you know, people not everybody can sit with people in their deepest pain. And so we are very good at that, but it can also be very draining on us if we’re not looking at our own energy and managing our own energy. And energy healing work has been huge for me in that regard as well as boundaries. So what did that look like for you?
Amanda Popovski: Well, the first thing that came to my mind while you were talking about this is that as empaths, we are chameleons. So we if if anybody is not an empath, basically what it means is that what the other person is feeling, you viscerally feeling your body. It’s like It’s like they’re kind of their energy overtakes your energy. You’re kind of thinking what they’re thinking. You’re feeling what they’re feeling. And in hindsight, I think the power of us is not to be chameleons. But to be like a gazelle, like something beautiful that’s sitting there peacefully listening, but then goes around and treats us around really beautifully and like sends their sparkle of everywhere. So my chameleoning really came to an end or was highly influenced by the first self help book I ever read, which was you are a badass by Gencicero, and it actually kick started my entire coaching career and everything that I would go on to do. But something in me clicked and I realized that I had a purpose that was so much greater than like a ninth five or a box or something. And I was like, yeah, I’m made for more and that’s really important to me and I need to figure out what the heck that more is in my lifetime. So I started the self development journey as I’m sure many of your people are on. And I had always heard the word boundaries. They sounded kind of harsh to me. They sounded like something that only highly aggressive or action take any people would set. I was like, I don’t need to set boundaries, whatever. But I noticed that the more that I tuned into the fact that I was an energetic channel and that sometimes that energy did not make me feel good. I was like, no. No. No. I I can’t be a part of that because I have a big purpose. So it was less about Over time, it has become less about hurting other people’s feelings and more seeing boundaries as a sign of self respect and reflecting on the fact that boundary people, resourced people in my life are some of the coolest people that I look up to so much. And recognizing that when they set a boundary with me, I feel safe. And when I set a boundary with someone else as difficult as it is, I feel safe too. So it’s funny you bring up friends because I remember the first major friend breakup I had was so painful for me. It was so hard. I leaned into the self development books. I was like, okay. Yeah. This person is an energy vampire. I gotta get him out, blah blah blah. But then to sit down and have that conversation, again, it’s like that person’s energy overtakes your body. And so What I had to learn to do really was follow my intuition very deeply. And if my intuition, that little voice in the back of my head was still like, you gotta let her go, then I would follow through on that and trust that I was held in that decision. Trying to think of the first time that I set a boundary and what that might have been or felt like. Yeah. The first time I set a boundary was actually breaking up with my boyfriend very shortly after I read that self development book. And on paper, he was perfect. Our relationship was perfect, but I remember feeling energetically in my body, like, this isn’t right. I don’t think I wanna be with him. I don’t think I’m going to marry him long term. And so I’ve noticed that once I’ve set those boundaries with people and with things in my life like food, social media, all of these things, I’m a better person which makes the people that stick around so much better because my energy is so golden and nourishing, like you said, to the people around me. In order for me to be the best Amanda for me and for others, I need to have some really strong energetic containers around me so that I don’t fizzle out because especially if any of your listeners or you know about work burnout or corporate burnout, it is the worst feeling. And once you experience it, then you’re like, oh, god. I gotta set some boundaries. But don’t really know how. And so I have this like micro action awakening process. Do you mind if I share it with your listeners?
Victoria Volk: Absolutely. Go ahead. Yeah. Okay.
Amanda Popovski: Cool. So this is really great for empaths because it’s a micro action awakening process. So when you’re looking to take a brave action in the moment, which in this case is setting a boundary. So do you have an example of Victoria of, like, a boundary that your listener might want to set with someone?
Victoria Volk: When others are not seeing you in your in your glory, when they’re seeing the you that you used to be. So as you’re evolutionizing yourself, as your evolving in your own growth. And the people around you are not growing themselves and you go into that environment.
Amanda Popovski: Oh, okay. Before I share this process, I need to share some quick backstory on this because like I said, I started life coaching. I don’t know if I mentioned, but I was in college. And I was a straight a four point o student and I decided to drop out. And my family did not see that coming. They did not appreciate my ambition. They thought that I was making a huge mistake, and they did not hold back from expressing their opinions on that. And one family member in particular said that I was crazy and that I should go to a mental hospital if I was really considering this decision. And I believed them, I believed them for a really long time because I was super young and I wasn’t established in my boundaries yet. And so I shifted away from coaching, like you mentioned, went to digital marketing, corporate always danced around this idea of helping people, but it wasn’t until I really confronted and faced. Those family members and said, you know what? This is my purpose. This is what I want to do. I know I believe you when you say that you think I’m crazy. I totally believe that you think that. But I don’t and I like my decisions. I like the choices that I’m making. It’s not because I’m crazy. It’s just because I’m first in my community to do that, which is a concept from Jamie Curran Lima and her book worthy. So I have so many good things to say about this, especially when it comes to close family members, about them not seeing you in your glory, seeing you still as a young woman maybe, still seeing you as their daughter, as their sister, as their niece, and feeling like they have the right to protect you and make you feel safe by sharing and smudging their fears all over you. So to this person who is stepping into their glory and their purpose that is so deeply needed on this planet. This micro action awakening process will hopefully be really helpful for you to set a boundary of I’m I’m imagining that someone is starting to say to you, but that’s not and then the brave action is for you to set a boundary vocally. The cool thing about the throat chakra is that it’s the connector between your head, chakras, and your body chakras. So like your mind may be racing, but your body knows exactly what to say, and it’s just got to bubble up from your throat. So the first step is you’re in this conversation with this person and they start running their mouth in ways that are not helpful to you. What I want you to do is take a deep breath. Okay? And what that does is not only does it ground you in the moment, but it also interrupts any neural pathway that is going in your brain that says, I shouldn’t talk back to them. Right? It’s just interrupting that pattern. And even if you do that for a week, you’re starting to interrupt that neural pattern and eventually you’ll be able to crack it and introduce something else in its place. So when we are in these moments and feeling really nervous, take a deep breath. And what I want you to do is think about your future self and or the version of you that is fully living in the story. You could consider that. You can consider your higher self if you’re a bit more woo like me. Or you can just think of somebody that’s really brave and bound read and someone that you wanna be like. And just consider what they would do in this situation. That’s not only going to break the neural pathway even further, but it’s going to connect you to a positive and long term person. Because so often we don’t speak our minds because we’re afraid of the short term discomfort, but discomfort in any emotion it never killed you. And it’s so much more important for you to speak your mind for that long term version. Than it is for you to continue to sit in wrong energy. So okay. We’ve taken a breath. We’ve thought about the most badass, sparkliest version of ourselves. And what they would do in this situation? And then we count down from five. And this is a Mel Robbins tactic. It’s five four three two one. Right? And then we do the thing. We take the brave action, we say the boundary. And The last part of this process is that when you take the brave action, I’m sure a lot of your folks are people pleasers, maybe perfectionistic to a fault. We want to do a b minus brave action rather than waiting for an a plus. So even if you stutter your words and you’re like, wait. Wait. Stop. Stop. Stop. You know? And if you think you sound like a child or whatever, whatever dynamic this person is with you, that’s going to come up and you’re going to feel your palm shaking and you’re going to feel your feet tingling and sweating. But if someone is not supporting you in your glorious purpose, and you continue to allow their opinion to influence you. You’re choosing other people and their opinions over your purpose. And that’s not good for anyone. And again, discomfort, it sucks, but it’s never gonna kill you. So basically, take a deep breath, consider this future version of yourself, push through the short term discomfort, and take the action of setting that boundary. So that you can at least start to feel free in yourself and help the people that you’re really meant to help in this lifetime.
Victoria Volk: To piggyback that, I think it’s important to be to have emotional honesty in whatever it is you articulate to, not not twist it in a way that the other person maybe you think needs to hear it or how do I wanna say that? Just what’s true for you, not what you think the other person needs you to say or, you know, don’t mince the words. Say, be impeccable with your word, basically? Yeah. Four agreements? Yeah. Four agreements.
Amanda Popovski: And to piggyback off of your piggyback so now we’re piggybacking out. A book that I think will be super helpful when it comes to boundaries is the book of boundaries by Melissa Urban, and she’s the founder of Whole30, but she’s also a rollicking badass. And she makes boundaries so accessible. She provides concrete examples of things you can say. One of the best things that I learned from that book is to be clear but kind or to be No. No. Clear is kind. Clear is kind. So if you’re hopping around your emotional truth like you said, that’s not kind to them or to you. And so as long as you are super clear, you are going to feel a lot better about that situation than if you were just kinda like, you know, that wavering kind of emotionality.
Victoria Volk: So it’s called book of boundaries?
Amanda Popovski: A book of Boundaries. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: There’s another book. The one that I read was called Boundaries. Oh. And two two male doctors. That covers a whole lot of scenarios too.
So if you want, whether a feminine spin or the male version. There’s two books there that we each of us recommend. I have not read the book of boundaries, but I I have a feeling the show notes are gonna be a lot of recommendations there. No. I know. Which is great. This is, like, you know, this is, like, a personal development development self help master class. And now it’s highly sensitive people. So go us.
Amanda Popovski: I have a question for you, Victoria. As an ex as as a highly sensitive person person as an empath. Why do you think like, I can picture a lot of people listening to this and being like, yeah, yeah boundaries are fine. But why do you think that they’re really important Like, how are they life changing to people like us?
Victoria Volk: If they are aligned with your values, they are your guidepost. For navigating life. As long as you’re clear on what your values are, which may or may not be reciprocal. Right? Because values can be internal. Like, I value growth. But I don’t expect other people to value growth. Right? But if I value honesty, I expect honesty from others. I expect honesty to be reciprocal. And so if someone is not being honest with me, there’s my boundary. Right? So I think our values inform our boundaries. So if you can get clear on your values, you know exactly where your boundaries are missing. And if you get confronted with a boundary from someone else that feels activating within you, there’s something there for you to look at within yourself. I had once someone just a simple this was a really clear example of a boundary. It was it gets explicitly outlined in her email message responder. I do not reply to messages between blah blah blah whatever it was. And I thought, wow. And and she had, like, this way to articulate it in the message too, like, I respect my inbox. You know, you don’t need permission to respect your own, but it’s someone who’s setting an example of what a boundary, a healthy boundary looks like. Right? And I thought, oh, that’s really awesome. I love that. You know?
And so when we get confronted with the other people’s boundaries, sometimes we wouldn’t know a boundary if it slapped us in the face. But if as an empath or highly sensitive person, you can feel yourself energetically responding to that. It can help shape and mold your own. Right? And by looking at at yourself and self reflection and all of that. So they’re so important just for navigating life, I think.
Amanda Popovski: I completely agree with that. And to take a bit of a more woo spin because that’s just my whole thing. I think when I often say that when we’re procrastinating or overthinking or whatever, and we don’t take the brave action in our life or business. It’s you’re you’re not just hurting your productivity, you’re actively tearing at yourself relationship. You’re disappointing yourself again and again. And so when you don’t set boundaries, you’re not protecting yourself, and that indicates to me that your perception of your own value is extremely low. And that’s really sad if the majority of the world feels that their own value is not even worth speaking up about or not even worth protecting because your energy, when you’re an empath, naturally unbounded in a bad way is bleeding out all over the place. You’re everywhere. You’re feeling everything. You’re inheriting and inhaling the vibrations of everything around you, especially in crowds. My God. I don’t know about you, but I’m like, crowd phobic. I can’t do it. I’m a homebody for sure. But if I’m sacrificing my own value and values for someone else, I’m telling everyone, I’m making a proclamation that I don’t value myself or my purpose or the goldenness of my energy because we empathize, we have such a a gift with our energy and everyone’s energy is so unique and beautiful and worth protecting that even thinking about this listener that is stepping into their glory but isn’t able to set those boundaries. I just want to give them a hug and be like, hey, you are super valuable and it’s about time that you saw it for yourself and started to really speak up. And I love what you said about being confronted by other people’s boundaries too, and how when someone sets a boundary that we don’t like, all of a sudden we have the the clarity of insight of like, oh, crap. Yeah, I get it. I do respect that person for setting the boundary, but it can hurt sometimes. And that’s okay.
Like, that has to be okay in a world where we respect ourselves and others. In equal, if not slightly skewed measure?
Victoria Volk: The pendulum can also swing way the other side. Right? Like, where we create boundaries to keep people out and to isolate. And to give ourselves a pass for not leaning into our energetic bigness. Right? Are you familiar with human design? I bet you are.
Amanda Popovski: Oh, girl. What are you? I’m a generator.
Victoria Volk: Nanafaster. Oh. So I’m gonna double whammy. For anyone listening, it’s a double whammy, it’s an empath or a highly sensitive person to either be a projector. Or a manifesto?
Amanda Popovski: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Because we we generators.
We’re here to work. We’re here to build, you know, legacies and and our work here. But as a manifesto, You know, projectors wait for the invitation. Right? So how do you what is your strategy to inform?
Victoria Volk: Oh. And you’re boundarying all over the place and initiating. Like, it’s I’m here to initiate others. And so that’s created a lot of grief in my life. Like, people feel my energy before they encounter me. And I I’ve always and, you know, when I learned about the repelling aura that a manifesto can have. I’m like, no wonder. What day of my life? Like, no wonder I felt rejection over and over and over throughout my life. Like, rejection is huge for a manifesto. And as a generator, you can easily be taken advantage of. Your energy can easily be taken advantage of, which is so highly important for generators and manifesting generators alike to to have boundaries, right, around their energy because you really have to be lit up as a generator to what you’re giving your energy to.
Amanda Popovski: Yes.
Victoria Volk: And that’s how you burn out. And I burn out by by well, kind of the same thing, you know, because manifesting generators and manifestors manifesting generators have a little bit of manifestor in them, right, obviously. But I have to put my energy into initiating and creating things. And if and being able to initiate people in the work that I do, especially, I have recognized just because I’ve only been really playing around with my own experiment in the last year. But it’s been huge for relationships in recognizing why things went the way they did, why friendships faded. It’s helped to come to acceptance, I think, more readily just by recognizing that oh, yeah. I initiated that. Like, I I started to use my throat chakra. Right? Which many manifestors have been taught to really shrink down. So, yeah, it’s it’s huge for like, this podcast has been huge for my my throat chakra. Huge for my throat chakra. But anyway, this is not about me.
Amanda Popovski: That isn’t it?
Victoria Volk: No. I know. But I think it’s great conversation for anyone listening to in respect to being an empath or highly sensitive person and blending in human design. I think it’s I’m going to put that in the show notes too and I have many times because I sprinkled it in throughout many episodes. But How has human design helped you as an empath and highly sensitive person as a generator?
Amanda Popovski: Oh, good grief. It’s been a total game changer. It human design I don’t know how it works. I don’t know why it works. Sometimes it makes me so mad that it does work because I’m like, this can’t be real.
I can’t I can’t be so connected to something that I have no idea where it came from or who made it.
Victoria Volk: No. No. No. No. Actually.
Amanda Popovski: Exactly. It has helped me understand that my energy is worth protecting that I need to that I do need to value my purpose. And the work that I do and that I need like Mandy needs to be feeling good in order to create her purpose because that’s the life thread, this golden thread that a generator pulls from is their own, I’m an emotional authority. So if I’m, oh hell yeah. Okay.
Cool. You might do. So if if my emotions ain’t happy, then like no one’s happy. I’m affecting the emotions of everyone around me. When I’m in a mood, Everyone can feel it. And part of that is empath, but the other part of it is that it’s my authority. It’s how I author my life. It’s through my emotions and feeling good and vibrant and excited. That’s really what led me to the decision to leave corporate is that I thought that it was I really wanted to leave corporate once I matched my income with my business. But then someone like a financial adviser was like, okay, yeah, we can we can look into and project if you’re there for one year, for two more years, for three more years, and I felt it, I was like, oh, no. No. No. That’s not gonna be happening. I am probably going to leave, and I did a lot of intuition, worked a lot with my mindset, things that coaches do, and got to a place where I was able to leave, that was a month and a half ago, and I have never experienced more success personally, professionally in, like, vibrant feelings. It’s like I took a dim, like, a thousand milligram. It feels amazing because I’m really where I’m meant to be. So that was a huge boundary for me to set with myself, with my employers with my family who might not understand and with the universe of being, like, I’m ready to go big. Let’s do it. Let’s see what’s on the other side.
Victoria Volk: I just got, like, truth bumps. Oh. So what did that? I mean, you know, I have a day job. Oh, you you know? I do. I’m in in corporate and I don’t talk about it much and where I struggle is and I’m only sharing this because I think it would be helpful for listeners too because I don’t talk about it a lot. And it’s not that I you know, is it my passion? No. Because my passion is being of service in this way of energy healing work and grief work and all that. But it it’s what it allows me to do. Because I do have a lot of freedom in it, and I do have a lot of flexibility. And it kinda checks a lot of boxes for me. And it does provide safety and security. Right?
And I do have a family, and I cover the insurance. I have a lot of layers to to a decision like that, but it if I would not I would be lying if I say, I do not think about that day when I can cut the umbilical cord. You know what I mean? Mhmm. And so when you said that, I’m like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 0: That sounds like heaven.
Victoria Volk: And as a manifestor, to do what I want, when I want, like, it is the ultimate living in alignment. Right? And so it’s like, I feel like this constant push and pull. Yeah. And my energy, right, is constantly, like, I and I have three kids and, you know, one’s in college and one is, like, taking college classes. And the other one is starting to take college classes too, and they’re still in high school that one’s graduating this year. And so I’m at that age of, like, well, in three years, I’m gonna be an empty nester and, oh, like, that’s just crazy to me. You know? And so I’m kind of getting to this. It’s like, you know, waiting for my ship to come in. Right? And taking that leap of faith into the dam ocean and, you know, with a life preserver and know that I’m being held. Right? So please speak to that a little bit more if you could. Please because Oh, yeah. Not only help me, but anyone listening, I’m sure.
Amanda Popovski: Okay. Yes. Beautiful. So the bio that you gave is what I filled out when I filled out the application, but it’s actually changed. I forgot to ask you that.
That’s a okay. That’s a okay. What I do now is still a life and business coach for women, but I help them play bigger, tap into their limitless potential, like, I’m still articulating the messaging around it, but it’s really about that, about leap of faith, trusting in the universe. How do we manifest all of those things? So this is very topical and top of mind. That leap of faith that I took was the week before I decided to do it, I had plans, grand plans to do it in June. And I didn’t do it in June. And it felt okay to me. I was like, oh, well, I’m just like working on my business on the side. And then come June, I started to notice that when I walked into the office, I started to get anxious. I started to feel my body, like my soul leaving my body, but I still denied it. I was like, oh, god. It’s so scary. I don’t I’m not ready. I had zero clients at the time. And I was like, yeah, I’m I’m not ready to do this yet. But the feeling in my body persistent and I started to worry and ruminate And then I got to a point where I was doing like a card reading or something, and I pulled the card yes. And it just says yes. And it says yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, all over it. And it was at that point that I was like, I couldn’t leave my job, and I just kind of let that sit in the air. And as a generator, we respond. Right? So I said that and I waited for my response. And the response was like, yeah, soon, probably. You’ll be leaving.
The real thing that tipped me off was that I had set some three month goals that took me to October, and it was for eight clients or something. And one of my sucky thoughts as I call them, one of my obstacles was like, I can’t make that work with corporate, and the universe was like, you won’t have to. I was like, oh my gosh. So when you’re making a decision like that, it is imperative that you continue to listen to the universe and heed its call. Because your mind is going to be like, yeah, I can leave whenever. I’m a badass. But if the universe keeps saying soon, soon, soon, like it did to me, and you rebel and you’re like, what the hell? Like, I’m ready now. Why aren’t you letting me leave? It really takes a sense of release and surrender to be like, I know that in the right time, at the right moment, I will be able to leave. It was terrifying. The week before I decided to put in my two weeks, I was a mess. My mind was all over the place. It was like, what are you doing? Here are all the reasons it, like, rolled out the scroll and it was like, hey, here are all the reasons that you should not be doing this. But I just continued to listen to that voice in the back of my head that was like, you’re gonna do this. And I trusted that whatever was on the other side was so much better than what I was going through at that time. And my job in corporate was the least corporate corporate job. I worked at a startup who was all young and fun and hip. But In the end, I just had this feeling that as I was leaving, that I wouldn’t regret it. And I had to really lean into faith, like you said, and also lean into my body to make sure that everything was still feeling good in the core at its core. And it did and I left I left with a bang. I threw everyone at Taco Party and I gave them a presentation about what I learned and I made them cookies and I just like made it the biggest celebration of all time. And then I signed my first five figure client, like, within three weeks. But I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I hadn’t listened to my energy. I think as empaths, we have this really incredible ability to be highly sensitive, not only to other people, but once we set those boundaries, we start to gain like master level sensitivity to ourselves. And our intuitions and our next steps. And it’s such a beautiful gift.
Victoria Volk: Thank you for sharing that. And what came up for me was I haven’t I I’m not there yet. Like, it’s like this. It’s like this. Yeah. I know Sunday, but it’s not like this, oh, hit my stomach. You know, I don’t mind what I do. Right? I don’t would I rather be doing something else? Yeah. But it’s not like this visceral response. Like when I was with a different company, that was visceral. Like, you know, I’m in a much better environment doing the same work, but I’m in a much better environment now. And so for an empath or highly sensitive person, our environment really matters that we hold the container that we have ourselves in, where we work. Our environment is really really matters. Now it’s our home environment. That’s where we work, where we choose to play. I think that I think that’s understated. I don’t know why. Like, that just came to me right now to share that. And so I feel like my environment is supportive right now. That’s probably why I’ve not had this visceral experience to, like, cut the cord right now.
Amanda Popovski: Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. Oh, I love that you said that about the environment because our boundaries with people are important and so are our boundaries with inanimate objects, concepts, things like that. Like screen time.
I’m super sensitive to screen time. I’m super sensitive to the food that I eat. I’m very sensitive to, like, watching TV at night. I know what rituals are going to make me feel like Oh, return to my body in my environment. My favorite places my room.
I love to be in my room. That’s like where I recharge. And I think for an empath or highly sensitive person finding that place. That feels rejuvenative to you can be such a rewarding and deeply nourishing process.
Victoria Volk: I was just reflecting this morning on my sleep last night because I wear a garment and it tells me like my sleep score and it was it was really poor last night and it showed my stress level because it it uses heart rate variability and it like my stress, I can definitely when I when I when I drink alcohol, which isn’t often, but when I do my stress level at night, my sleep is not great. It’s horrible. And even if I just have one or two, like, it really affects my sleep. And, you know, my stress level is higher. And I ate last night late, later than typical, like, around eight o’clock.
I usually don’t eat that late. And I don’t know if that’s why. There’s other things going on with someone I care about. So it’s like, is that why? But it’s like, again, it’s like, like, what’s happening within my body that did cause me not to have this rejuvenative, rested sleep. And I was in bed for over nine hours, but and I you know, it said I slept like seven or seven, but it wasn’t restful and it wasn’t rejuvenating. And so I would just encourage people too, like, to your point about food and sensitivities and things like that. Like, if you’re sleeping like crap, just kinda keep a journal and keep track of what, you know, for like a good two weeks to see how things are affecting you and impacting you because that’s how you connect the dots and that’s it It’s just data. Right? I think it’s so important for us as highly sensitive people to kinda take ownership of our energy in that way and and track and find these data points that are blatantly clear if we just attend to them.
Right?
Amanda Popovski: Yeah. And what got up for me was grief of the normal for highly sensitive people. So, like, my boyfriend, for example, is the most normal person I’ve ever met. He loves pizza and beer and video games, he loves football on Sundays, he goes to family parties, like all these different things. I think when you’re highly sensitive, you start to set boundaries, you start to move into your purpose. There is this grieving of, why can’t I be normal? Like, I I I I wish in some ways that I enjoyed a glass of wine because I think it’s so chic and cool, but I get like really sleepy and I get a headache so I’m like, no, no, that’s not for me. I have very recently been playing with nutrition and what really nourishes the body like an anti inflammatory diet. And so I know now that sugar gluten, corn, peanut butter, cry, peanut butter. All of these things like they don’t they don’t make me feel good and it is actively hurting my body when I eat them. And it was such as much as it was a process of releasing those foods, it was a process of releasing the person that can just go to a restaurant and order like a turkey club. Right? Or a person that can just go out on a Friday night and like party it up, you know it a club or whatever. But when you’re different like us, I feel like there’s real room for you. This listener, for example, that is stepping into her purpose and everyone around her is like, what the fuck? Can I swear?
Victoria Volk: Yeah. It’s already explicit. I spoke to you.
Amanda Popovski: Okay. Good. Everyone around her who’s like, what’s going on? Like, they’re basically asking her why aren’t you normal. Mhmm. And it’s really critical, I think, for us during these transitions to take that time and grieve who we were, the ideal daughter family member, restaurant, a tender, right, the ideal student, whatever, when we have these divergences in what is considered normal in society, that grief is something that I don’t think we talk about enough. It’s like grieving the person that was compliant, the woman that did play small. Those are big concepts, deeply rooted concepts. And what’s beautiful is that on the other side of that grief is real power to step into that process. But sometimes there’s an ugly in between of like being the goop in the butterfly chrysalis before it becomes that butterfly.
Victoria Volk: I love that metaphor. Also, I think when it comes to nutrition, I think that’s been huge too for me with my human design because the digestion piece, because I I had tried this you know, eating a hundred and fifty six grams of protein and over two thousand calories. And I was like, I felt so heavy. Yeah. And after a week of, like, trying to, like, Making sure I got my over ten thousand steps and doing these intense workouts and eating so much food, I never felt so horrible after a week. And, like, this is not for me. I completely found something that has now. I’m at a calorie that I’m at a calorie count that feels doable, manageable, typical, like normal for me. I don’t feel weighed down. I feel lighter. I have more energy actually. It’s really ironic. I’m lifting more. I’m moving more weights. My age after three weeks on my health fitness age has decreased. My three years? Yes. So I’m, like, I’m a line now. And it’s more of, like, I should be more of a grazer and more, like, not such heavy meals and, you know, not those three square meals a day and eating so much and There you go. I had my big meal last night before bed, like, duh.
Amanda Popovski: Oh my god.
Victoria Volk: I ate too much.
Amanda Popovski: My bad.
Victoria Volk: I solved it. I ate too much.
Speaker 0: I kinda knew that. Like, why am
Victoria Volk: I eating before? Yeah. See, here’s a lesson for y’all. Like, learning human design. Learn about your digestion.
Do your body a favor. Take some damn.
Amanda Popovski: Don’t be afraid to be abnormal either.
Victoria Volk: And Don’t be afraid to find your normal.
Amanda Popovski: Yeah. Your natural. Yes. Yeah.
Victoria Volk: So let me let’s we’re gonna pivot and I mean, we’ve talked about food, but in like that familial acceptance, and I’m just kinda looking at my notes here. I want you to I don’t remember if you know what you said. When I asked in my form, I asked, what would you like to stream to the world? In the past or recently and wish people knew about your grief. Do you remember what you said?
Mm-mm. Okay. I’ll read it to you, and you tell me if it would change or if it’s what you would say today. I wish people knew that I wasn’t weak, soft, or a woozy, that I’m strong, and my inner world has vast and rich, but my emotions can be fragile. In a grieving period, I like to be as alone as humanly possible, and that doesn’t make me strange. It makes me a good steward of my own life force. You don’t have to understand me to love me, but I always trust that in loving me, you must allow me to make my own decisions about what can help me process and understand my experience. It takes more time and emotional energy than most of the world may allow, but affords me a wealth of experience and empathy that most of the world may never know. I thought it was so beautifully written. And so maybe you wouldn’t wanna change it, but is there anything you would like to add?
Amanda Popovski: Oh, mama. That was an a stirring experience to hear that. Back because as if I recall as I was filling out that application, especially the way that you structured and how your energy is imbued, I felt very free to speak openly about these concepts. And you caught an Amanda that exists underneath like the coaching layer that kind of took me a back and and was really moving. So The only thing that I would add is that I wish this to be the attitude of all HSPs and empaths.
That deep down, we see the true beauty in who we are, and we see the power of the way that we process, and we see the beauty that we in our emotional vastness affords the world. We are like the artists and the feelers and the tender beating heart of humanity, and we should never squash that down. Because if we do, then we lose the fight to the robots and nobody wants that.
Victoria Volk: Thank you for bringing that up. That’s a great segue. To a comment I made before we started recording and in talking about, like, AI. And and I encouraged you to jump on the podcasting bandwagon because I think there’s nothing more important now than storytelling. And even, you know, children’s books, I’ve been I’ve been seen how people are kind of bucking AI in that way and how people are really wanting I mean, it’s through storytelling that we have deep connection that we find connection with other people. And in that and written word has energy. Right? The written word has energy. And so if everything we’re reading doesn’t have humanness to it, are we then desensitizing ourselves as a society to what it means to be human. I mean, that’s a huge concept. And I’m maybe it’s like a download. I don’t know, but with so much happening and especially in the US right now. And the how AI is in all aspects of our lives, I think it’s in the human connection, the storytelling. Rather than the number of characters that one can type. Or I just heard a brilliant idea for someone shared with me, a good friend shared. There’s a subscription where you can it’s a different way. It’s like, think book reading, but it’s in a letter form where you’re you’re you’re reading you get a letter sent a written letter sent to your inbox. And it’s like you become invested in this story. And it’s in a subscription. I’m like, oh my god.
That is genius. Why didn’t I think of that? Like, sending people letters. Like and I don’t know how the letters are Like, if it’s, like, just I don’t know. Like, if is it, like, handwritten and then just reproduced for people who are subscribers, I’m not sure. I didn’t, like, look deeply into it, but I’m, like, that’s brilliant. And I just think it’s in the storytelling that we see ourselves and other people’s stories, that we, I think, can look beyond what someone is projecting and look at them as more human when we know their story. Right? It’s hard to be angry at someone when we know their story. You know? Did you ever have somebody just ever ask you, what’s happened to you?
Amanda Popovski: I have had someone tell me you seem different. Which I thought was interesting.
Victoria Volk: Different as in, like, the Amanda now or different as in as a child or as you were growing up?
Amanda Popovski: The Amanda now versus the one that they knew in the past. Which because I value growth as well, I saw as a sign of a very positive sign. Mhmm. Like, yes, I am moving up in the world and, you know, all those things at the time that that, like, career trajectory and all those things were super, super important to me. But I love the idea that we can everything you just said about storytelling is just still rolling around in my head. Because when we ask someone, what happened to you. We give them or maybe in slightly kinder words, maybe. We give them the opportunity to share their story with us. And that creates circles where AI technology just create lines. You know? Like, there’s real connection between people when we tell stories. I was listening to a podcast a while ago and they were talking about the writer strike about using AI and chat GPT in screenwriting. And one of the hosts pointed out that when we view a film that is so to us is so perfect, part of what we love about that perfection is that it was created by another human being. With the same brain as us, but they access something different. They, like, did they made something beautiful with their mind.
And so, I think, valuing the imperfection of human experience rather than the productivity and perfection and, like, cold metal hardness of AI. Is valuable. And I like to think since I learned about digital minimalism, which is basically like being really intentional with what apps you have on your phone, how you use it, etcetera, making your smartphone dumb basically. I’ve become a true believer that I think the pendulum will swing in in our lifetime, that everyone will get so anxious and fed up with all of this vast communication networks that the majority of us will actually take a step back, start to align our values with what we do, and we’re gonna see kraft’s people come through. And we’re gonna see people using the Internet for like an hour a day instead of eight hours a day. And I have a lot of hope for humanity that the things that I value that feel really true to me, will start to disseminate in the world and that there will at least be a few of us who are more like, put your feet in the grass rather than play a game on your phone.
Victoria Volk: What has been the one grief experience that you think has in the catapult for your glow up, your your evolution, like your Oh. Yeah. The amount of now.
Amanda Popovski: Oh, yeah. It was the grieving. So when I I decided I got my corporate job and I was about a year and a half in. And I’d gotten to senior level, which was very exciting. And I had always wanted a company to pay for me to travel. And I was traveling, I went to San Francisco for an accounting smart last, which sounds super nerdy, but I freaking loved it. And it was the week of my birthday. And I remember waking up on my birthday. And in this really nice hotel, in this new city, and just being like, I can’t I can’t do this. This isn’t my dream.
This is the dream of someone else. And at that time, I hired a coach and I started to work on expanding my digital marketing business and like going full ham with that because I was so wounded by my previous experience with coaching and what people I loved had sent to me. I pushed it off. But it got to a place where I realized that I do wanna be a coach for whatever reason. It just pulled to me.
It pulled to me. It kept pulling to me. It was the single thread of pull through my life in the past. And I made this hundred slide PowerPoint presentation. I sat my parents down and I walked them through it and explained very rationally and very logically. That I was working with a coach and that I wanted to be a coach and that their love and support had gotten me to this place and I understand if they don’t understand, but this is what I want my career to be. Were they okay with it? I don’t know. We’ve gotten to a good place with it now, but I deeply remember doing that presentation, getting their quote unquote blessing, which was important to me at the time. Going up to my room, sinking to my knees, and just crying, like, crying, crying, crying. And I think that what this was is the grieving of the Amanda that I thought could make my parents proud, my immigrant dad, my hardworking mom whose upbringing was really tough. My family who saw me with so much potential in the corporate world, my friends who I had who didn’t understand what coaching was or entrepreneurship, and myself the version of me that was like, yes, I finally did it. I twisted myself into the pretzel that everyone wanted me to be. And with this decision to be a coach, I untwisted that whole pretzel and I stopped being someone who accepted, someone who was palatable, I guess. And that was hugely grief inducing for me a especially as a highly sensitive person whose goal was to be understood and to feel like she belonged and to feel like she had a place. I had made a place for myself and corporate where I felt spected by my family, by my peers. And it was just the realization kind of clinking into place that I would never be this normal person. That I had successfully fooled myself into being. Once I processed that, I looked back a few times, but I I didn’t look back and I made it my mission to be more in line with my purpose than with anyone else’s opinion of me and set boundaries along the way for that. And now, I feel like the Amanda in this chair today is the Amanda that my soul has always wanted me to be, someone who’s present and grounded and really changing lives and trusting deeply and herself.
Victoria Volk: And it sounds like to me that you’ve aligned your life with your values.
Amanda Popovski: Yes. Yes. With my values, not necessarily anyone else’s values.
Victoria Volk: Which doesn’t include people pleasing. Yeah. This is what I heard a lot of in what you shared, because we can do a lot of people pleasing for acceptance as highly sensitive and empathic people.
Amanda Popovski: That’s good. Thank you for reflecting that back. I haven’t thought about that in a long time.
Victoria Volk: What is the best piece of advice did you receive? From someone that as you were kind of going, did you first of all, I mean, it’s it’s hard to find people. Right? Like, because oftentimes the people closest to you who have skin in your game are not the people who are gonna be in support of your dreams. Let’s not be real.
Amanda Popovski: Yeah.
Victoria Volk: And so, I guess, my piece of advice for highly sensitive people are in paths and all people in general is to find that person that doesn’t have skin in your game. Meaning, whatever choices or decisions you make will not have a direct impact or effect on them. And so did you find that for yourself or what was the most helpful piece of advice or something that you discovered that was really helpful for you in navigating all of that.
Amanda Popovski: Can the advice come from a book? Absolutely. Okay. We’re gonna have a thousand books in the description, but this book is untamed by London Doyle. It is a very good read. If you’re ready for it, it’s It encourages you to play big in a way that’s absolutely awesome. She was an alcoholic. I think she still identifies as an alcoholic, but sober. And in one of her first AA meetings, she shared her story and someone someone came up to her afterwards and was like, hey, thank you for sharing your story. I relate to it a lot. I wanna tell you that Something nobody told me at the beginning is that your feelings are there to be felt, all of them. And Glenin reflects on the fact that she she thought only good things were meant to be felt, that the negative emotions were meant to be swept away under the rug and meant to be solved and figured out, but that to fully feel them, that’s why a soul floating in the ether chose you to be the human that they inhabit. Right? The the highs and the lows, the terrible, terrible pain, and the absolutely ecstatic bliss. This is what souls floating in the ether are like, I get to be human yay. You know? So that had a massive impact on me and it allowed me especially as a highly emotional person to see to have like an almost cool detachment from my emotions to want to feel them, to want to be vibrantly in on the game of life, but not let them toss me around to still be the leader in this time of grief.
Victoria Volk: I love that. Yes. Another resource for the show notes. Now, I can tell you’re probably much younger than me. And so you’re probably in the throes.
Well, you have a boyfriend you stated, but you’ve been in the dating game, of course, as a,
Amanda Popovski: oh, girl.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. So can you just reflect a little bit on that experience as a highly from the perspective of a highly sensitive and path like person in finding your match.
Amanda Popovski: Oh, yeah. I love this story. Okay. So I have a a a long history with dating apps in today’s day and age. I we’ve come to them and then flood them and then leave basically. And I did this a few times before I decided really intentionally a few summers ago, maybe four or four years ago, that I wanted to be intentional, and I wanted to set that boundary. And I wanted to only go on dates. Like, I wanted to stay open, but only go on dates that I felt like I couldn’t have a real connection with, not just someone who was very attractive. And that led me to Well, it’s fun about highly sensitive people. They’re often very intelligent and ambitious. And my ambition, I was like, I’m gonna read a blog post about going on ten dates in four weeks, and then I’m gonna beat famous. And so I set up all these dates And I went on most of them, and all these guys were great. I could see them being a match. But by the sixth date, I was like, oh, gosh. I don’t feel good.
And I was feeling burnt out by the experience. So I was like, yeah, okay. I’ll never be famous for this, and I I deleted the app. And my boyfriend and I met through a blind date, through my mom, and line dates, especially through moms, are super uncommon nowadays. Yeah. But I I had decided after that whole summer of love or whatever that I was just going to focus on my relationship with myself as absolutely corny as that sounds. And it was when I wasn’t looking for a relationship that my mom texted me and was like, if I set you up on a blind date, will you go? And I was like, yes, absolutely. Just tell me when and where. Can you transfer?
Can I just send a text to her? Yeah. Yeah. Oh my mom’s the coolest. Of course, I trust her. But maybe maybe other moms. Might be a little crazy, but we I went on the state not expecting a lot. I looked him up on Facebook. He didn’t look me up. He didn’t know what to expect that I couldn’t handle the tension of not knowing.
And we went on the state and it was fine. We talked for a while. I remember the waiter put we both ordered two sushi rolls And on our plates, they had put one of his sushi rolls and one of mine, and on his plate, one of his and one of mine. And I distinctly remember me finishing my side on my plate and waiting, you know, being polite and like first lady and being like, oh, you know, maybe he’ll notice that I have his role or whatever. Immediately, he was like, hey, give me your plate.
What’s going on here? And I was like, oh, interesting. He anticipated my needs. But it was it was fine. Like, I didn’t feel an instant connection. And I got in the car to drive home And my intuition was like, you’re gonna go on a second date. I was like, oh, okay. That’s fine. And then by the fourth date, my intuition was like, yeah, this this guy is really good for you. This is the one. And this came from someone who is
Victoria Volk: A one.
Amanda Popovski: Yes. Yes. Yes. Crazy. Because we we didn’t have a lot in common. I pictured always pictured myself with someone, highly entrepreneurial who would vibe with me on an intellectual level and we’d have all these conversations, whatever. But he’s like, just this this Irish boy that I can speak to from an energetic perspective no one has made me feel more secure or grounded in my energy. And I felt very early on that my inner child was welcome to come out to play with him in a way that had never happened with his, like, highly intellectual man that I had been dating. I think if someone’s on the dating scene now who is an empath and highly sensitive, I recommend What I did because of the digital minimalism thing is I would delete the app during the day, so I wouldn’t be tempted to check it. And that really helps me establish good boundaries of like this is not my entire life I don’t need to be stuck doom scrolling through these guys. And that helped me just do an automatic barrier between my energy and theirs. And then I didn’t do a very good job of this, but something I would tell someone is to really, like, mitigate your energy on a first date because you are trying so hard to be so smiley and attractive and, like, suck them out. They’re trying to suss you out. So my recommendation is to set it at like an hour and then leave and then see how you feel and if you wanna do a second date. That’s great advice.
Yep.
Victoria Volk: And also maybe before you even open the app, make sure that your energy is aligned with finding someone who is aligned with you rather than this desperate I need someone in my life energy. Right? Like, because you’re gonna attract someone very different depending on your energy. Right? Like, you’re gonna be looking for different things based on, like, no, I’m I’m coming into this.
I want someone who can match me in this energy that I am in now who values growth and, you know, has that forethought vibe about themselves where they’re grounded in the present moment but still have or, like, this visionary person or whatever it is you’re looking for. Right? Mhmm. I think that’s equally important to go into it with the energy of what you’re trying to match with and whom you’re trying to match with, I should say.
Amanda Popovski: That’s good advice, you know.
Victoria Volk: I also heard
Amanda Popovski: Yeah. Go ahead.
Victoria Volk: I also heard through I love the radio show, Brooke and Jeffrey in the morning. It’s hilarious. Mhmm. On Spotify, they do second date updates, they do, like, there’s been some really funny stories on there. It’s it’s my daily dose of humor and black out louding to myself. But anyway, one of the things that I’ve learned I’m not in the dating world. I haven’t been for, like, over twenty years, and I couldn’t imagine being in the dating world today, which is why I wanted to for you to share. But one of the things that someone had talked about was they had a because the dating apps can be exhausting and for, like, all the reasons you said, and they have what some women are doing now is they’re having, like, these dating app parties with their girlfriends. And their girlfriends are choosing who they go on a date with. Whoo. How fun does that sound? Right? Like, you’re trusting the people closest to you to find a match for you rather than your own ego and your own like getting all in your head and all of that. The people that know you the best. Right?
And so that’s why I think like no one knows their child better or no one knows you better than you know yourself, number one. But secondly, if you are all, you know, if you can’t get the emotion out of it, that’s, you know, especially if you’re an emotional. Right? You gotta ride the emotional wave and sometimes that can take weeks and You know what I mean? So you kinda need some support in that way, like someone who can be objective. Right? So that’s why I think that’s a great idea potentially for highly sensitive empathic people. So, Jamie, I just thought I’d throw that out there too.
Amanda Popovski: I love that because then you’re not a lot of the time if we see someone very attractive and very well matched for us, we’re gonna talk ourselves down from it. But your friend, your BFF is gonna be like, oh, totally. I see I see this, this, and this, and you, that would make them a really great match. So I think it gets you out of your head really good way. So good.
Victoria Volk: Yeah. Is there anything else that you feel like you didn’t get to share that you’d like to share?
Amanda Popovski: Only thing that comes to mind is when you are grieving, use your voice. I don’t really know what it means,
Victoria Volk: but I like it. That is good advice. These so many of us crave alone, especially as empaths and highly sensitive people. It can be very easy. To get to a point where especially as children, you know, children have no filter. Children show us I mean I mean as babies we cry. Right? That’s all that’s our language. We cry. And the longer we are in society and we grow up and we’re around people who don’t even cry, we don’t even cry anymore. We get to a point where we don’t even cry. And as this, I think, a highly sensitive person in empath, I think that is our love language. For ourselves, that’s the love we can give to ourselves, is to allow ourselves to cry. As I know for myself, you know, I was taught to if, you know and I and not just highly sensitive people in in paths alone, but that’s one of the things that many people will say, like, as a child, you know, you wanna cry, I’ll give you something to cry about. You wanna cry, go to your room. I was told that as a child. And I did. And to the point where I would fall asleep under my bed. Like, I didn’t just go on top of my bed to cry. I went underneath my bed. I went into the linen closet. I would hide to cry. The kitchen cupboard, a hid to cry. One time they even sent a search party out, that’s the time I was in the linen closet. They didn’t know where I was. And I reflect on that as an adult. And doing the work, the personal development work, and going through grief recovery myself, I cried it was like the the dam broke and thirty plus years of tears came out. And I left that experience a different person than I went in. And that that’s when I started to use my voice. It’s like the tears that were so bottled up. It was like they were choking me. You know? And I think that’s what grief does too to us. It especially as a highly sensitive person or empathic person, it, like, just tangles everything up. And you just gotta start pulling the thread.
Amanda Popovski: And I love that you said it centralized. You made a motion at your neck. And that’s that’s the throat chakra. Connection between the head and the body. I think it makes us so in our minds and may be so surprised when our body finally shows up and has these retching knobs coming through us. But if we can get into the practice of using our voices when we’re grieving. Think it allows us to heal mind and body together through that connection.
Victoria Volk: Let me ask you this. So I think one of the greatest gifts I gave to myself was because I, you know, I also thought something was wrong with me as you did too. You expressed that. Like, you feel like you’re different. You know you’re different. You feel like I was the kid ordering home reading books from this elastic in elementary school and my friends were ordering like books to read or comic books or whatever it was. And here, I’m reading, like, ordering Paul, reading books. And I collected stickers. And, you know, yeah, the weirdo. Right? And actually someone in my graduating class on the back of his senior picture he gave me. He even stated that. Like, you were weird, but you know, good luck to you or something. I didn’t remember exactly, but he he called me weird. My kids have called me weird, but I look at it now or I feel like, you know what? I’m gonna let my weird way let weird flag fly. And I’ve definitely learned how to embrace it, but I was looking for anything and everything to discover and learn about myself because it’s like I was so disconnected from and because a lot of that had to do with my grief and trauma growing up, but and things I experienced early on in my life, but to really connect with the the child within me. Right? And I remember, like, because I was like, I have Simeon lines on the whole fans.
Amanda Popovski: Oh, I don’t. Wow. So this is
Victoria Volk: all, like, head and heart so confused, like, head and heart, like yeah. So I’m like, okay. Well, that, you know, explains my indecisiveness and my emotional roller coaster I’m constantly on. And then in the last five years since going through group recovery and stuff, I discovered you map and Clifton strengths, gout, Clifton strengths and stuff. And here I have, like, all mostly thinking themes, well, okay, no wonder. Yeah. Sounds like all of these little pieces and just and then human design, like, all these tools and little pieces of knowledge that I’ve picked up along the way have really helped me get to where I’m at now, you know, to and understand. I have this NAT. A lot of plants and then there’s they come with NATs and they drive me crazy. So But no. I, you know, I think any little piece that we can find to help us better understand ourselves gives us one step closer to really embracing our uniqueness. And so, I guess, you mentioned self help books, but were there any tools and things that you feel like have really been pivotal in helping you embracing your uniqueness.
Amanda Popovski: The big thing that comes to mind is actually human design. Yeah? Yeah. That’s been a like a real game changer. And then not to be biased, but having a coach has been there’s a very distinct difference between who I was before. I worked with a coach and who I am now. Just in terms of what I truly believe is possible for myself is so highly elevated that it’s like I kind of thought I could be this person but I didn’t really know until I was consistently pushed to my limits and had different perspectives and mentorship offered to me. I don’t think I could have done it just with human design or just with books. I think I needed that one on one relationship with a mentor, a coach, someone that knows how to help you excel. That’s a that a
Victoria Volk: huge modality for me. Like my dear friend says, you can’t see the label from inside the jar.
Amanda Popovski: You can’t see the cover from inside the book. That’s what came to mind. Yeah. I love that. Your friend is very wise. He should be on the podcast.
Victoria Volk: She has been. Early on. Yeah. Early on when I started.
Amanda Popovski: What was it for you?
Victoria Volk: Well, if I would say most recently, Most recently, it would be human design in the past year, just in really understanding my manifesto energy. But what unlocked my life and my grief was grief recovery. Was going through that experience and doing that really deep work that I still continue to do. It’s you know, I’m all I’m a work in progress. We all are always. And also coaching. Like, I’ve had my own coaches, you know, and that’s an investment in yourself. I had a my grief. I have a client right now and she asked me a really insightful question. I made a note of it. But she asked me, Like, how is the grief recovery method or how is the program that she’s in different from therapy and and wanted me to explain it? Mhmm. And What came up for me was the theme that you and I have been sharing this whole time is storytelling. And I think that’s what really sets grief recovery apart is that because in the work that I do with clients, I always go first. I share first.
And I think that is just it’s disarming for the other person. It’s how we connect with each other. It’s how I connect with my guests when they’re on this podcast. It’s this back and forth. It’s this in communion with our life experience. Right? It’s a breaking of bread of our grief, so to speak. I think that’s why this podcast works, at least I think it does. I mean, the stats are showing it does. And sometimes with therapy or therapists, people who are, you know, like psychotherapists or psychiatrists, and that’s I think the missing piece. Is that there’s this barrier that’s kind of put up and she expresses herself. She’s like there’s this wall almost because the therapist is not sharing anything from their lives. And of course, they have, you know, there’s, I suppose, a boundary of practice. Right? Like, you know, when I get too close to your patients or clients or whatever the case may be. And I think that’s the beautiful gift, though. Of grief recovery is that that doesn’t exist. That wall doesn’t exist.
Amanda Popovski: Oh, that’s that’s so beautiful. Because you make them feel safe, but I think especially amplified by your highly sensitive nature and your empath powers are coming through in the perfect way that really is your purpose. And so tactically, it makes a lot of sense that you would go first. But when you do, Victoria, it’s like this lightning bolt of safety that is created. Like brain drops on a window almost because you have that superpower of empathy and that gift of being with others.
Victoria Volk: And have you shared that with your clients?
Amanda Popovski: Coaching that I do, the clients come to me to learn things about business strategy, about manifestation wisdom, about mindset mastery. And while I feel a kinship with my clients, I feel more like a teacher who’s leading. Which I think works. There’s a certain amount of self disclosure Mhmm. Especially with me because I’m a very Instagram focused in my marketing. So my day is I invite people to my day. But I think that they come to me because they see something in me that they want for themselves or that they feel as a part of their journey rather than being in a place of I’m experiencing this deeply sensitive time. How do I move through it with someone next to me? Right? It’s like that maybe cliched now thing of, like, there’s two footprints on the beach and Mhmm.
This is carrying you on his back. I think I’m more sitting across from my clients. Standing in what is possible, which you are as well. But I wonder what it would look like for my practice. If I were able to I think I think the nature of our work you and I allows empathy, and pastness, and high high sensitivity to blossom in two different ways. Like, we’re both flowers, but just have a different shade. Like, how your eyebrows are cousins, not twins? Like, we’re cousins, not twins.
Victoria Volk: No. That’s beautiful. I I just you know, because the work that you do in this question that she posed last night, it was just kinda stuck with me and I just kinda kinda wanted to get what your thoughts were on that.
Amanda Popovski: Someone just today actually said that we were talking about how coaching is different than therapy. And my view is that therapy is can be very past focused and very focused on the past and the present. And I think that coaching at least the kind that I do is very much focused on goals in the future. And being embodied in the present and like these concepts that because the therapist has that act of self disclosure, they they might not talk spirituality with you or human design or business strategy. Right? They’re there to be a therapeutic outlet. Whereas I I like to think that after a coaching session, at least this is me with my coach, and from what I can tell my clients with me, it’s like I feel like a superhero. Like, I just plugged into a five hundred watt amp and I feel clear and and ready to go make sure it happened. Mhmm.
Victoria Volk: And I’m kind of like, I want those people who want that for themselves, who are ready to open their lives up to that, but let’s look at the past. So then we don’t repeat it. Let’s become empowered by our past. Let’s look at our past with a new perspective so that we’re not pulling it and dragging it with us into our future.
Amanda Popovski: And that work that you do is ultimately such a strong foundation for the work that I would do. Mhmm. Of like, damn, you are so well regulated you know your shit, let’s just springboard and see where you can go, whereas someone who might not have that grip on the pass, more time is taken to dissect and to go back. So imagine
Victoria Volk: Imagine now. If I just referred people on to you after they’ve worked with me.
Amanda Popovski: Oh my gosh. Is a match made in heaven?
Victoria Volk: Vice versa if people come to you and you’re like, well, I think we need to look at your foundation first. Maybe you should talk to Victoria. Not quite ready. No. This has been amazing. I loved our conversation. I hope the listeners can feel our dancing of energy because I feel it and you feel like a kindred spirit. You’re like the blonde version of my very beautiful friend. And she’s a red head. And actually, your hair is really similar to she’s got this beautiful full red hair that I’ve been MDSO forever.
But yeah.
Amanda Popovski: So cool. I felt the same. This was such such a good conversation. I feel like we were talking and then our antennas were also talking.
Victoria Volk: Yes. Yes. We are a vibe together.
Amanda Popovski: I’m so sorry.
Victoria Volk: Well, where can people reach you if they would like to learn more about your work and what you do, and your awesomeness, and your beautiful golden energy?
Amanda Popovski: So it’s on my website at amanda popupsky dot com and then Instagram at amanda popupsky. If you have trouble spelling it, it’s okay. It’s in the title of podcasts. But those are my main two places that’s where I’ve been hanging out and where I’m announcing new programs and things and yeah. Thank you for the opportunity to share that.
Victoria Volk: I will put the winks in the show notes. Yeah. Thank you so much for this beautiful conversation today. It’s been a gift. Thank you. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, season 5, solo episode |
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Inspired by recent discussions, this episode offers a new perspective that’s been noodling around in my mind. In this week’s episode, I explore the question: Is there a wrong way to grieve?
Key Points:
Societal Struggles with Grief: Despite popular belief that all grieving methods are valid, society often fails at effective coping—indicating a need to reevaluate our grief practices.
Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms: People frequently turn to short-term harmful behaviors like substance abuse, gambling, or workaholism as an escape from grief rather than confronting their emotions head-on.
Cultural Responses to Grief: Common advice such as “be strong” or “stay busy” reflects societal discomfort with grief rather than offering real support for healthy emotional processing.
Impact on Children: These unhealthy responses are often learned in childhood and perpetuate ineffective grieving cycles; teaching children healthier mechanisms is crucial for breaking these patterns.
Rethinking Language: Instead of saying there’s no wrong way to grieve, acknowledging that better ways can be more constructive in framing our approach toward grief.
This episode challenges listeners to reflect deeply on their own experiences with loss while encouraging a transformative shift towards healthier approaches to dealing with grief—for individual growth and the betterment of society.
RESOURCES:
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CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Rethinking Grief – Is There a Wrong Way to Grieve?
Grieving is an inevitable part of the human experience, yet it’s often misunderstood and mishandled. In a recent solo episode of “Grieving Voices,” the host delved into the provocative question: Is there a wrong way to grieve? This discussion was spurred by conversations on The Light Within podcast and reflections shared in The Unleashed Letters newsletter. Let’s explore this thought-provoking topic further.
Societal Struggles with Grief
Despite the widespread belief that there’s no wrong way to grieve, society’s ongoing struggle with effective grief management suggests otherwise. People frequently resort to short-term coping mechanisms that are more harmful than helpful—substance abuse, gambling, overworking—all in an attempt to escape their pain rather than face it head-on.
Cultural Responses and Myths
Cultural responses often exacerbate these unhealthy practices. Common advice like “move on quickly,” “stay busy,” or “don’t feel bad” reflects our collective discomfort with grief rather than providing genuine support. These myths perpetuate ineffective grieving processes and prevent individuals from truly processing their emotions.
Impact on Children
The consequences extend beyond adults; children learn these behaviors early on, creating a cycle of ineffective grieving across generations. Teaching healthier coping mechanisms from childhood can break this cycle, fostering emotional resilience for future generations.
Language Matters
Instead of saying there’s no wrong way to grieve, acknowledging that there are better ways could significantly shift our approach towards more constructive practices. Words shape perceptions and actions—they matter immensely in framing our experiences.
Call to Action
The episode concluded with a powerful call-to-action: listeners were encouraged to become trailblazers within their families by adopting healthier grief practices themselves and advocating for them among loved ones.
Essential Takeaways:
- Disparity Between Beliefs & Reality: There’s a gap between believing any form of grieving is acceptable versus recognizing harmful patterns.
- Challenge Cultural Myths: Questioning societal attitudes toward grief can lead us toward healthier approaches.
- Healthy Coping Mechanisms: Identifying effective strategies promotes better emotional well-being.
- Educational Role: Changing personal habits influences broader cultural shifts over time.
Reflecting on one’s own experiences and making conscious efforts towards healthy grieving not only benefits individual mental health but also paves the way for societal change—a crucial step towards collective emotional well-being.
Episode Transcription:
Victoria Volk: Hello. Hello. Thank you for tuning in to this solo episode of Greeting Voices. And when I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about today, It’s something that’s kind of come up quite a bit in conversations lately, and it was the topic of my latest newsletter, the unleashed letters, which comes out every other Wednesday. There is a link in the show notes if you’re interested after hearing this episode because this is the kind of content that I often share in the newsletter, just a variety of different topics, things that or maybe on my mind at the time or conversations I’ve been having, just inspirations and nuggets and things that I’m kind of discerning for myself and and learning and and whatnot. But anyway, today, I don’t wanna talk about this idea that the question really, is there a wrong way to grieve? In a recent podcast guesting interview that I had with Leslie Draffin, she’s the host of the light within podcast. I made a statement that had stopped me after the words left my mouth. But in that moment, they felt like truth and still do. I made mention that we’re fed this crap of how there’s no wrong way to grieve. And I’m pretty positive that even I have said such a statement at one time or another However, what struck me after I said it was how much sense it doesn’t make to me because if there’s no wrong way to grieve, then why are we struggling so much as a society with grief in general? If we knew a better way to grieve, people wouldn’t continue to turn to germs, short term energy relieving behaviors like gambling or porn or sex or substances shopping, workaholism, exercise, food, romance, fantasy, all of these things in an effort to feel better rather than actually feel and sit with the hard feelings. So as a society, if there was no air quote wrong way to grieve, then we’d be doing it better, where we wouldn’t tell people or ourselves that they should get over it and replace the loss and not feel bad and time will heal and just to keep busy, These are the things that are said and done in response to grief more commonly than not. So are these things really the right way air quote to grieve? If your child were to succumb to alcohol use? After a devastating break up, would you tell them that they’re grieving in a healthy way, a way that is air quote right and will move them forward? Or would you feel and know that they’re grieving in an unhealthy way and that there is better, more productive, and healthy way. Any logical adult with a fully formed frontal lobe would agree that there is a better way to deal with a breakup than getting drunk and losing all sense of self agency. I am speaking from experience by the way as being someone who succumb to alcohol abuse following a devastating breakup, but perhaps it’s the language we need to change. Rather than making the statement, there’s no wrong way to grieve. We should make a more honest statement and instead say, there’s a better way to grieve. You see, words matter. And I’ve come to the belief that until as a society, We recognize all the unhealthy ways we are grieving, things that we would deem as negative or, quote, unhealthy. This misinformation will continue to perpetuate the ongoing, unhealthy responses to grief that we learn as children. And my mission is to change that so that our children can grow up learning healthier ways to cope. I do feel like there’s been progress, but the statement that there’s no wrong way to grieve, I think is part of the problem. And I hope that just in this very brief episode that I’ve illustrated well enough why I believe that to be true. The myths of grief are still alive and well and how we’re responding to grief. Don’t feel bad, replace the loss, grief alone, time heals, keep busy, and stay strong. Think back to your own experiences growing up and how you were taught to respond to grief. Were difficult emotions and experiences swept under the rug and not talked about? Were you told to go cry in your room if you wanted to cry? In other words, grieve alone? Have you been told that there are plenty of fish in the sea or they’re in a better place, God needed another angel? All of these are unhelpful and can be hurtful to a griever. And yet statements like these is what caused so many of us to grieve alone. Is that wrong? Or is it instead that we just don’t know a better way? We can do better. For ourselves and for the generations behind us. But for things to change, we need trailblazers to go first. And in my family, I’ve been the trailblazer. The question is, Will you be the trailblazer in yours? Until next time, with so much love and light, remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life, much love.
