Grief That Isn’t Death: You’re Still Allowed

Educational, Emotions, Grief, Grief Tips, Healing, Mind/Body Wellness | 0 comments

Grief That Isn’t Death: You’re Still Allowed

Nobody dropped off a casserole.

There were no cards in the mailbox. No one checked in three weeks later to see how you were holding up. No one said “I’m so sorry for your loss” — because from the outside, it didn’t look like a loss.

But something ended. Something shifted. Something that used to be yours is gone now.

And you are grieving it — even if no one around you is calling it that. Even if you haven’t been calling it that.

The Losses Nobody Names

We’ve been taught — not loudly, just consistently — that grief belongs to death.

That it’s reserved for funerals. For the kind of loss that comes with a date you’ll carry forever.

But grief doesn’t work that way.

Grief is the normal and natural response to loss of any kind. And loss shows up in far more ways than we’ve ever been given language for.

The divorce was the right call, and it still broke something in you. The career that ended, taking your sense of purpose with it. The friendship that dissolved so slowly you almost didn’t notice — until one day you realized you hadn’t talked in over a year. The diagnosis that quietly rewrote the future you thought you had. The move that took you away from everything familiar. The dream you finally had to release. The version of yourself you had to leave behind to get here.

These are losses. Real ones.

And the grief that comes with them is real too — even without anything to point to.

Why “Good Change” Can Still Hurt

Here’s the part that trips people up most — and the part that can make you feel like something is wrong with you:

Sometimes the thing you’re grieving is something you chose.

The relationship you ended. The job you walked away from. The life chapter you closed on purpose because you knew it was time.

And yet — you’re sad. You’re grieving. And somewhere underneath it is a voice asking: Shouldn’t I just be grateful?

You can be. And you can also grieve it.

Gratitude and grief are not opposites. They don’t cancel each other out. You can be genuinely glad for where you are and still mourn what it cost you to get there.

Both are true. At the same time. In the same body.

That’s not confusion. That’s honesty.

When You’re Grieving a Version of Yourself

There’s a particular kind of loss that almost never gets named — and it’s one of the heaviest things I see in the people I work with.

It’s the grief of losing who you were.

The person you were before everything changed. Before the loss. Before the diagnosis. Before the relationship ended or the kids grew up or midlife arrived and quietly asked: Who are you now, outside of all the roles you’ve been filling?

That question can feel like the floor shifting.

Because when your identity has been wrapped around a role — a relationship, a career, a version of your life — and that role changes or disappears, something in you goes with it.

That something deserves to be grieved.

Not reframed. Not rushed. Not turned into a lesson before you’ve had a chance to actually feel it.

Grieved.

Stop Minimizing What You’re Carrying

If you’ve said any of these things to yourself, this part is for you:

💔“I shouldn’t be this sad — it was my choice.” 

💔“Other people have it so much worse.” 

💔“It’s not like someone died.” 

💔“I just need to move on.”

Those are the things we say when we’ve been taught that grief has to earn its place. That it has to meet some threshold of tragedy before it’s allowed to exist.

It doesn’t.

Your grief doesn’t have to be the biggest grief in the room to be real. It doesn’t need to be compared, ranked, or justified.

The grief that doesn’t get named is the grief that gets stuck. And stuck grief has a way of showing up sideways — in your body, in your relationships, in the low-grade exhaustion you can’t quite explain.

You’re not being dramatic. You’re not weak. You’re not ungrateful.

You’re carrying something real. And real things deserve real support.

A Five-Sentence Goodbye

Here’s an invitation to practice for this week:

Write a five-sentence goodbye. To the season that’s ending. To the version of yourself you’re leaving behind. To the life you thought you were going to have.

You don’t have to share it. You don’t have to show it to anyone. You just have to say it — because the things we name lose some of their power to quietly undo us from the inside.

Five sentences. Imperfection is fine. Honesty is the only requirement.

The Grief That Goes Unnamed Is the Grief That Gets Stuck

The losses that never got named are the ones that accumulate quietly — in the body, in the nervous system, in the way you move through your days carrying a weight you can’t quite explain.

I’ve seen it in the people I work with. I’ve lived it myself.

You don’t have to keep carrying it alone. And you don’t need a “big enough” loss to deserve support.

If something in this post felt like it was written for you — it was.

→ Book a free consultation — let’s talk about what you’re carrying, what you’re grieving, and what moving through it could actually look like.

→ Explore the Grief Companion Kit — a self-guided resource for when you don’t know where to begin.

And if you’re not ready for that yet — start with the five sentences. Start with naming the thing you’ve been minimizing.

Start there.

Because the grief that finally gets named? That’s the grief that finally gets to move. 💛

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Every grief journey is different, but many begin with carrying a weight that no one else can see. The Grief Cloak explores that invisible burden and what it looks like when it slowly begins to lift. If you haven’t read it yet, you can check it out here. 

Grief Brain Is Real. You’re Not Falling Apart.

Educational, Emotions, Grief, Grief Tips, Healing, Mind/Body Wellness | 0 comments

Grief Brain Is Real. You’re Not Falling Apart.

You walked into a room and forgot why you went in there.

You read the same email three times. Still couldn’t tell anyone what it said. You said yes to something — a dinner, a favor, a phone call — and have zero memory of agreeing to it.

And then, because the fog wasn’t enough, you started wondering what is wrong with you.

Nothing is wrong with you.

Your brain is grieving.

The Fog Has a Name

When you’re in the thick of loss, your nervous system is working harder than it ever has. It’s trying to process something it was never built to process quickly. The shock of it. The absence. The way everything around you looks exactly the same, even though nothing feels the same.

Your brain is doing all of that — all at once, all the time — and you’re wondering why you can’t remember where you put your keys.

The fog is real. The forgetting is real. The way a simple decision feels impossible? Real.

This isn’t a character flaw. This isn’t you being dramatic. This is what grief does — and the fact that nobody warned you is one of the quieter cruelties of how we handle loss.

We Were Taught to Push Through It

Stay busy. Be strong. Keep moving. Get back to normal.

That’s what most of us were shown — not told, shown — about how to handle grief. So we do it. We show up. We answer the texts. We smile when it’s called for. We perform fine. And “fine” in its essence actually translates to: feelings inside not expressed.

Not because we are. But because we’ve been taught that falling apart is inconvenient. That grief has some kind of expiration date we’re already behind on.

I know that performance well. I lived it for years before I understood what I was actually carrying.

And here’s what that performance costs: energy you don’t have. Mental space that’s already maxed out. And the slow, grinding shame of feeling like you should be functioning better than you are.

So let me say this plainly: you are not behind. You are grieving.

Those are two very different things.

What Grief Brain Actually Looks Like

I want you to recognize yourself here — not feel more alone — so let me name some of it:

In your head: Forgetfulness. Trouble concentrating. The inability to make even small decisions without it feeling like too much. Reading the same thing over and over and retaining nothing.

In your body: Fatigue that a full night’s sleep doesn’t touch. A heaviness in your chest that’s there before you’ve even had a thought. Tension you can’t explain and can’t shake.

In your emotions: Numbness that flips without warning into a wave of feeling. Irritability that catches even you off guard. Crying in the car, in the shower, in the middle of a sentence you didn’t see coming.

In your relationships: Canceling plans and feeling guilty about it. Showing up and feeling invisible anyway. Saying “I’m fine” so many times it starts to feel like a reflex.

If any of that sounds familiar — you’re not broken. You’re in the middle of something real.

What Actually Helps

I’m not going to give you a ten-step plan. You don’t have the bandwidth for that right now.

What I will give you is this:

Stop piling shame on top of the fog. The judgment you’re adding to the grief is its own weight. You don’t have to earn your way through this. You just have to move through it.

Pick one thing. Not a list. One thing that actually needs to happen today. Do that. Everything else is a bonus — not a failure, a bonus.

Let your body have a say. Grief settles into the body before the mind catches up to it. A walk. A cry you stop trying to hold back. Five minutes outside without your phone. These aren’t wasted time. They’re part of the process.

Tell one person the truth. Not the “I’m fine” version. The real one. Even once. Even just to one person who won’t try to fix it. Being heard — actually heard — is one of the most underrated forms of healing there is.

You Don’t Have to Figure This Out Alone

When you’re in the fog, you don’t need someone handing you a complicated plan and telling you to figure it out.

You need someone who can sit with you in it. Someone who can help you make sense of what you’re carrying and give you tools that actually work for a nervous system that’s already overwhelmed — not one that’s fully functioning.

I’ve been in that fog. I know what it costs to stay in it alone. And I know what it feels like when someone finally helps you set some of it down.

If that’s where you are right now, I’d love to talk.

→ Book a free consultation — no pressure, no pitch. Just a real conversation.

And if you’re not ready for that yet — start with naming what you’re actually feeling. Start there.

That’s enough for today.

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The invisible changes grief creates in your mind and body are only part of the story. Not every loss comes with a funeral, yet many leave us carrying profound grief that deserves to be acknowledged.

Continue reading: Grief That Isn’t Death: You’re Still Allowed.

The Grief Cloak: What You Carry That No One Can See

Educational, Emotions, Grief, Grief Tips, Healing, Mind/Body Wellness | 0 comments

 

The Grief Cloak: What You Carry That No One Can See

Nobody can see it.

That’s the hardest part.

You walk into the grocery store, the school pickup line, the work meeting — and you look like everyone else. You answer questions. You function. You show up.

But you are wearing something heavy. Something that was there when you woke up and will still be there when you finally stop moving tonight.

We often wear our life stories like the clothes on our backs — without even realizing it.2.1

Grief is like a cloak.

It moves with you. It drapes over everything. It’s invisible to the people around you — but you feel every ounce of it, every single day.

And nobody hands you a manual for how to wear it.

What the Cloak Actually Feels Like

There’s a reason grievers struggle to find words for what they’re experiencing. It’s not because nothing is happening. It’s because what’s happening is so layered, so physical, so constant — that language almost doesn’t reach it.

So let me try to reach it for you.

The cloak feels like waking up tired before the day has asked anything of you. It’s the heaviness in your chest that shows up before your thoughts do. It’s the way a song, a smell, a particular slant of afternoon light can stop you cold — without warning, without permission.

It’s carrying something that no one else in the room knows you’re carrying.

It’s the exhaustion of performing fine while something inside you is anything but.

It’s being surrounded by people who love you and still feeling completely unseen — not because they don’t care, but because the cloak is invisible. They can’t feel what you’re carrying. They can only see that you showed up.

And you did. You showed up. That matters more than you know.

But showing up doesn’t mean the cloak isn’t there. It just means you’re strong enough to wear it — and strong enough is not the same as okay.

The Weight Compounds

Here’s something nobody tells you: grief is cumulative.

Every loss — every ending, every goodbye, every version of yourself you’ve had to leave behind — adds to what you’re carrying. It’s not just this loss. It’s every loss that never got its proper space. Every grief that got swept under the rug because life kept moving, and you were expected to move with it.

And because grief is cumulative, the cloak gets heavier over time.

Not because you’re doing it wrong. Because you were never taught how to do it at all.

We live in a culture that hands grievers a timeline and calls it support. Be strong. Stay busy. Focus on the good. And so we do — because what else do you do when the world keeps spinning, and no one around you seems to notice that you are carrying something they cannot see?

You wear the cloak. You keep moving. And the weight becomes your normal.

Until it no longer feels normal. Until the heaviness is so familiar you’ve forgotten what it felt like to move through a day without it.

You Don’t Have to Wear It Every Moment

This is the part grief doesn’t tell you — and the world around you certainly doesn’t either.

The cloak is yours. It holds the love, the loss, the history that is uniquely and completely yours. You don’t have to throw it away. You don’t have to pretend it doesn’t exist. You don’t have to be “over it” to set it down for a little while.

You are allowed to put it down.

Not forever. Not all at once. Just — for a moment. For an afternoon. For one conversation where you let yourself laugh without guilt. For one walk where you notice the air instead of the ache.

Setting it down doesn’t mean forgetting. It doesn’t mean betraying the loss, the person, or the life you’re grieving. It means you are human, and humans need rest from the weight of hard things.

And every time you set it down — even briefly — something shifts.

How the Cloak Begins to Change

The cloak doesn’t disappear. But it changes.

When you begin to move through grief instead of around it — when you stop sweeping it under the rug and start actually feeling it, naming it, honoring it — the cloak begins to lighten.

Not all at once. Slowly. The way winter loosens its grip — not in a single day, but in degrees.

What was once a weighted blanket — thick, suffocating, impossible to move in — starts to feel more like a heavy coat. And then, with time and the right support, more like a jacket. And then, on the days when the work is really moving, more like a soft sweater.

Something you can still feel. Something that’s still yours. But something you can breathe in.

And underneath it — underneath all of it — there is a version of you that is still standing. Still here. Taller than you remember. More grounded than you’ve felt in a long time.

That version of you didn’t disappear when the grief arrived. It’s been there the whole time, waiting for the weight to lift enough to let you feel it again.

Standing Taller Doesn’t Mean the Loss Was Less

I know what some of you are thinking.

If I feel lighter, does that mean I’ve forgotten? Does that mean it mattered less?

No.

Standing taller in your grief is not a betrayal of what you lost. It’s the most honest way to honor it. Because the love that created the grief doesn’t go away when the weight lifts. It just stops crushing you. It becomes something you carry with you instead of something that carries you.

There is a difference between grief that moves through you and grief that stays stuck. One becomes part of your story — woven into who you are, informing how you love and how you show up. The other stays heavy. Unmoving. Living in the body as tension, fatigue, symptoms you can’t quite explain.

The goal was never to get rid of the cloak.

The goal is to learn how to wear it — and to know that you don’t have to wear it alone.

You Were Never Meant to Carry This Alone

The cloak gets lighter when it’s witnessed. When someone sits with you in it — not to fix it, not to rush you out of it, but to say: I see what you’re carrying. And I’m not going anywhere.

That’s the work I do.

Whether it’s through grief recovery work or simply a real conversation where you finally get to say the true thing out loud, my whole purpose is to help you find your way back to yourself. To the version of you that is still standing underneath all of that weight.

You don’t have to have it figured out to reach out. You don’t have to be at rock bottom. You just have to be tired of carrying it alone.

If that’s where you are — I’d love to talk.

→ Book a free consultation — no pressure, no pitch. Just a real conversation about what you’re carrying and what support could look like for you.

And if you’re not ready for that yet — come back to this post on a hard day. Let it remind you that what you’re feeling is real, that the weight is real, and that feeling lighter is possible.

Because it is.

The cloak doesn’t have to stay heavy forever. 💛 

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In the next post, we’ll explore what grief actually does to the brain and body—and why what you’re experiencing is a natural response to loss, not a sign that you’re falling apart. Read: Grief Brain Is Real. You’re Not Falling Apart.

Ep 231 Sujala Shastry | A Cross-Cultural Story of Childhood Loss, Growth, and Finding Your Voice

Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Healing, Podcast, season 5 | 0 comments

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY: 

In this soul-stirring episode, we explore the profound journey of Sujala Shastry, who lost her mother to a brain tumor at age 11 in India.

Her story illuminates the complex intersection of cultural silence, emotional isolation, and the transformative power of breaking generational patterns around grief.

Key Takeaways:

  • The impact of losing a mother in a joint family system that provided physical but not emotional support.
  • How 20 years of survival mode led to disconnection, anxiety, and lost memories.
  • The awakening that came with motherhood and the desire to heal generational trauma.
  • The cultural dynamics of grief in Indian versus Western society.
  • Finding one’s voice and creating boundaries after decades of people-pleasing.
  • The launch of her podcast “Discovering Journeys” as a platform for authentic connection.

Sujala shares how one can be profoundly lonely even when surrounded by loving family, the importance of emotionally safe spaces in healing childhood loss, and how unprocessed grief affects identity formation and relationships. This episode will inspire the importance of taking steps toward healing sooner rather than later, not as a means to rush, emotionally bypass, or forget. Instead, one must immerse oneself in one’s inner emotional world to truly feel the hurt and pain so that it can be transmuted to live as full of a life as possible.

RESOURCES:


CONNECT WITH SUJALA:

Finding Strength in Grief – Sujala Shastry’s Journey to Healing

Blog Post: Finding Strength in Grief – Sujala Shastry’s Journey to Healing

In a recent episode of Grieving Voices, Sujala Shastry shared her profound journey through grief, healing, and self-discovery. A native of Bangalore, India, now living in France, Sujala’s story began with the unexpected loss of her mother to a brain tumor when she was just eleven years old. That loss, compounded by the absence of emotional support, shaped her early years and set her on a decades-long path of survival, self-reflection, and eventual transformation.

A Childhood Interrupted by Loss

For Sujala, the loss of her mother at such a young age was an earthquake that shifted the foundation of her life. Left to navigate her emotions alone, she felt numb, dissociated, and isolated. The absence of a safe emotional space to process her feelings meant she carried unresolved grief into adulthood, often feeling like an outsider among her peers.

“I needed someone to tell me it was okay to feel sadness, pain, and everything in between,” Sujala said. But without that reassurance, she spent 20 years in survival mode, grappling with anger, sensitivity, and a pervasive sense of being unmoored.

A Turning Point Abroad

Moving to France in her 30s marked the beginning of a significant shift. Away from the distractions of her old life, she found herself with the space to pause and reflect. It was here that she began the arduous process of sitting with her emotions—acknowledging the pain she had buried for so long.

“I had to face the reality of my loss and allow myself to grieve fully,” Sujala explained. This meant confronting the bittersweet truth of not knowing her mother well and mourning the lost memories stolen by time and survival.

The Healing Process

Sujala’s healing journey was not linear, nor was it easy. It was an “onion-like” process, peeling back layers of grief, anger, and loneliness. Along the way, she immersed herself in books, grief communities, and countless resources to understand the effects of unresolved grief on her mental and emotional well-being.

For Sujala, finding others who shared similar experiences was transformative. “For the first time, I realized I wasn’t alone or ‘mad’ for feeling the way I did,” she shared. These connections, combined with a newfound understanding of her emotions and the boundaries she needed to set, became the pillars of her recovery.

The New Sujala

Emerging from her grief, Sujala has transformed into a version of herself she is proud to love. She describes this new chapter as one where she is more confident, self-assured, and unapologetic about protecting her peace.

“The Sujala of today doesn’t tolerate nonsense, sets boundaries, and surrounds herself with meaningful relationships. People who knew me years ago wouldn’t recognize me now—and that’s a good thing.”

Lessons from Sujala’s Journey

Sujala’s story highlights the importance of emotional support, self-reflection, and community in navigating grief. Her journey reminds us that healing often requires sitting with discomfort and facing emotions head-on, even when it feels unbearable.

Her words offer hope to others navigating similar paths:
“You have to go through the tunnel of hardship, but when you come out on the other side, you find a version of yourself you never knew existed.”

Final Thoughts

Grief is a deeply personal journey, but as Sujala’s story shows, it is also a path to rediscovery and growth. By sharing her experience, she provides a beacon of hope for others navigating the complexities of loss.

For anyone struggling to find their way through grief, Sujala’s journey is a testament that healing is possible, and on the other side lies a stronger, more authentic you.

Episode Transcription:

Victoria Volk: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Grieving Voices. Today, my guest is Sujala Shastry. And she is here today to share a story of loss of her mother when she was a child and just recently launched her own podcast called Discovering Journeys. And Thank you so much for being here today. I know it’s been a while since you have applied and I’m excited to have you as a guest and for you to share your story. And so what before we get into that, I just want people to get a little sense of who you are, where you’re from, what do you do, all of that. So welcome.

Sujala Shastry: Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Victoria, for having me on grieving voices. I am Sujala. I’m basically from south of India called the place called Bangla. And I and I’ve been living in France for close to a decade now. So yeah. I have been a engineer before. Then I moved in here as an expat, leading my life, starting a family and Oh. The life goes. Then then I did my masters because I just wanted to come back to again, go back to carrier and everything. But that didn’t pan out very well. So got a job. I lost a job. Then I was like, okay. This is something was not something was not right. So and the idea of podcasting came and after a year of learning things, again, learning things reinventing myself because I know that my voice is going to be out out in the world. So I was very uncomfortable even though I loved the idea of podcast. So it took a while for me to be Okay. Be comfortable with it and to come. So so very happy that I launched my podcast and happy to be on the other side of the as a guest as well. So that’s been my recent one. And the point of if I have to share my start sharing my story, I lost my mom when I was eleven years old. And it it was not something which anybody expects. It just happens. And she was ill. And I lost her to brain tumor. It was really hard time because I didn’t know how to navigate. I think I think my grief journey started with that not knowing what to do. So my initial feelings were just numb. And a dissociation. Maybe maybe I was struggling with accepting the fact that she was no longer there. So yeah. I think I think those were the very initial things. And Unfortunately, it stayed for a very long time with me because I did not understand I was grieving. I was just I just thought I was not coping well. But now and adult me understand how young I was when I was eleven years old. But I did not understand that time, and I think I understand her very well. Why she couldn’t understand she was in a date of shock and so what happens in a grief when you lose a parent or somebody who is so close to you at such an engage is You don’t know how to navigate this one path. Second thing is you don’t understand what’s happening around you. Within you, around you who in life, everything freezes for a while. And for me, without having I had a lot of people around me. They were all great providers. They took care of me. But, emotionally, there was nobody to held my hand and Help me and tell me that it is okay. It is okay to whatever you’re feeling, sadness, pain, heavy, you can name because many grief grief, you can’t define by one statement because everyone experiences, you know, completely separate ways. So I just wanted, I think, somebody to tell me that it’s okay. Whatever you’re feeling, it will go through. And I think I needed that emotional save space. So that is something I struggled with. And, unfortunately, it went for too long for for two decades, I was in a survival mode of not understanding what’s happening to me. Why why am I angry? Why am I so sensitive? Why I am so lost? I couldn’t connect with my friends. I couldn’t connect with their, you know, the lightings because you I was just before the teenager, I lost my mom. So when you shift to a teenager, you try to know about yourself, I never had Ziel for anything. So yeah. That took a very long time. And finally, after moving to France, I think I got time to be with myself and started to heal, wanted to be a bitter mother for my son. And I I think that’s where I started and Then I then I started to understand lot of things about myself. And yeah. Here we are. So just to put it in a nutshell, this was been my this has been my grieving journey so far.

Victoria Volk: What do you think was the turning point? Or was there something specific that helped you turn that page?

Sujala Shastry: I think something was bothering me. It was bothering me something was not okay. Santa, because I couldn’t I felt I was very different from all of my friends, all of the society and everything. So a typical thirty year old or a twenty year old, I never matched that. So people were interested in, you know, ambition, which party to wear, which clothes to wear. You know, the sort of normal things, and seventeen, eighteen year old, or a twenty year old does. But I was never interested in that. So I think I had I had started noticing it because I’m a very sensitive person and I observe and I care a lot for people. So I started to notice it was there. In my back of my mind, I think it was there. But as I had developed high functioning anxiety, I suppressed it. So I was always in the school mode exam exam, then engineering work, that is push, you know, I deviated myself for a very long period of time because it was comfortable. Because I didn’t know that I have I had to look inward, but that that’s something inside was totally so so messed up. And I think coming to France gave me that space. I think at that point, I think I was also, like, around thirty. So it told me that, okay. You know, you’re very sensitive. You understand everybody. I think it’s time to understand yourself a bit. So I didn’t know that it would be next few years would be so painful for me to start the healing process, but yeah. That was a turning point. The pause helped me. Because I did not have anywhere to escape, you see.

Victoria Volk: So what was what was that like? Because you just described, like, you were, like, walking to this into this abyss of healing and you didn’t know how painful it would be. What were the resources or the tools? Or what were you doing during that time to support yourself in your healing?

Sujala Shastry: I think Vesta had to go through the uncomfortable hang of sitting with the emotion. I think that was the most painful part. Because I allowed myself for the first time in my life to, like, you know, hundred percent feel. What I missed about my mother that I that my mother was dead, I had to tell it out loud. Even though it looks very simple to many of them, but to the grievers understand that when you say it out loud, it hits you Mhmm. Every single time. And I had to deal with that emotion and this took time. And I also had to come face to face with the fact that I didn’t know my mother well. I think that hurt me the most while in the initial time because eleven years you’re a kid. You just know very, very basic things.
And because of being in survival mode for twenty years, I have lost memory of her for so many things. There was dissociation, and I have deep sense of loneliness, and a brain fog as well. So and panic attacks at times. So I think I had to it was like an onion, like a big big onion. And I had to open. And the thing was I didn’t know that how many layers were there. Now I can say, fast forward to know I can laugh about it and everything, but Yeah. That thing, I think, that shook me quite a bit. That shook me quite a bit.

Victoria Volk: Reflecting back, do you feel like a lot of those emotions were coming back up when you became a parent?

Sujala Shastry: Oh, definitely. Definitely. Definitely. That is like I know the name of the head. There is no escape. There is absolutely no escape.

Victoria Volk: That was my experience too because I lost my father when I was eight and my mother was emotionally unavailable. And so just similar experience just flipped different roles. But, yeah, it wasn’t having kids. Like, they bring up every single insecurity that you have about yourself and all of your shadows and everything about you that you struggle with. Right? It they they challenge just the core of of who you think you are. Yes. I’m curious because, like, for me, my journey was a lot of my personal development really started was when my youngest started kindergarten. I had so much of my identity wrapped up in my kids. Right?
And that’s when it really started for me. So self health books became huge in my life at that time. Personal development programs, I was taking every personality quiz known to man just to help myself understand myself, figure myself out, fix myself, get my shit together, and and that went on for a good five years. Until I discovered grief recovery, which completely changed my life. So is there anything in specifically for you that changed your life? A program, a person, certain therapy? What was it? Do you think?

Sujala Shastry: I think books books helps a lot. That helped me a lot. And on the Internet, learn learning about joining a grief community. For a very brief period, I joined a community where griefers can just tell how they feel. And for the first time, I felt, oh, I was not really mad. I didn’t have to be mad about myself or feeling something so normal normal in this line. You know? So I was like, okay. Not bad. Okay. I am in okay. This is my community. And even though we don’t know each other, but the sense of loss that gave me comfort, books made me understand. And and learning about, you know, why I became like this and how it is connected to my grief. And because I wasn’t able to navigate it well, I was I I did lot of, you know, developed a lot of consequences part of it. So this helped me in understanding me, and I think That told me that, okay. Now I need to help. Now I have understood myself. I’ve sat with it. Okay. Yes. It’s not good, but I cannot let another twenty years go by. So I think all of these things helped and and also many grieving interviews like this. Help me. So sometimes it used to be overloaded for me as well because I’m on I’m on m path. So I absorb very easily. So so for me, tap to be breaks, So it has to be in at my own timeline, I had to take space, breathe, understand. So some it was, like, it was gradual for sure, but it was all the pounds were moving together. So if it was one month, was understanding a concept of brain fog. I didn’t know what was brain fog, but I had the symptom myself. So that took me understand. And then it just helped me that others also faced it. So that gave me comfort and that gave me some better strength that, you know, I have I, you know, this was a thing. When you don’t have anybody to navigate, you think you’re not strong enough or you’re not you’re not coping well, you’re not good enough. But I did more than my capacity, and I’m so proud of that little girl of mine now, but unfortunately, that time I wasn’t. So I think that this understanding with various groups and moving gradually everything, then I said, okay. Okay. This is my whole mess. This is my understanding. And what can I do? So that is when I started the this one. So everything helped. I think everything helped. There is nothing. One thing which didn’t help me because I took you know, it’s like surviving again. It is like surviving to understand and surviving to come on the other side. So I took every material, like, possibly I can book, paper, interviews, stories, journeys, lectures, YouTube, and tech talks on grief have done everything. There’s nothing I have left page unturned. It’s just that I didn’t come out and speak to people. That’s probably I didn’t do it. Because I never felt emotionally safe to do that because I felt around me people didn’t understand what I was going through, and that happens. So apart from that, I did everything.

Victoria Volk: You had touched on being an empath and I’m too. And so I imagine as a young child, like for me, I needed a lot of sleep. Like, I slept a lot. Was that your experience too?

Sujala Shastry: Nice to cry myself to sleep. Damn.

Victoria Volk: I would hide to cry. I would fall in the under my bed and fall asleep crying because we’re in the linen closet. The kitchen covered. Like, I would hide to cry.

Sujala Shastry: Yeah. I lived in a joint family, so I think the only time I could cry my heart out while I was crying. I mean, while I was before I go to sleep, So that’s one time I cried. I think I’ve cried. I don’t know. It’s almost every day I can say. Maybe maybe the timings of my cry would vary. But, yes, every day it was. Yeah, being an empath is not easy and losing a parent is not easy. And they’re not having emotional support is also not easy. So it is, like, we are already your personality, your situation doesn’t, you know, give you a give you a strong foundation to navigate.

Victoria Volk: What have you learned about energy? Like your personal energy, energy work, energy healing? Has that been a component of your healing as an empath? No.

Sujala Shastry: Oh. I have just learned that I didn’t have a boundary as an impact. And now I have the boundary maybe speak the same language, but in a different terminology maybe. But yes. This has has been my discipline. So I understood why this whole emotional trauma led to people who are like, why I’ve why was it tolerating them? Why was I tolerating their posiness? Why was I tolerating their snappy attitude? You know? But you do. I did. I clearly did. And I am angry at myself that that’s that that my friends group and everything was was not so we haven’t there for me emotionally as well because that is how you attract.

Victoria Volk: Well, and you’re very selfish as a as a young person. Right? Like, you’re just gonna be selfish. It’s all it is all about you. Right? But I think too, when it comes to being an empath. It’s when you were speaking to the idea of tolerating how people are treating you. I think it’s – I think as an empath, we internalize. Well, that What does that say about me? I did something. And we we almost own the response of other people

Sujala Shastry: Yes.

Victoria Volk: Because we immediately think it must be something about us.

Sujala Shastry: Mhmm. We accommodate them, give give our own reason. For me, at this point, I’m like, what was I thinking? But well, that was a part of me, which is no longer there. So

Victoria Volk: which brings a great segue into the Sajala before. Sajala now, what are the key differences do do you feel about you? If people who know you knew you then like, I’m and I imagine that you’ve had a lot of people fall away in your life. Just Oh, yeah. This is brown.

Sujala Shastry: They just automatically just dropped like, a pack of cuts, you go forward and they just drop. So the before Sujala was tolerating, bossiness, snappiness, and, you know, crankiness of others. Was a people pleaser? Was was always available for others? Always. Whether they have been there for me or not, but I will still be there for them. They can just decision I will I’ll be there and they then people could walk over me with their decisions, with their attitude, or they could just use me as a punching bag. You know, and somebody who was so low like, have no confidence, no self esteem. All of this was me. All of this was me. And now, Sujala, I think I have fallen in love with her for the first time in my life. I can’t remember previously as a baby I had loved myself or not because with the brain forgets that itself, that’s also gone. That memory is gone of me. That I think I fall in love with with this version of myself who do not tolerate nonsense, who who is very caring, who is very understanding, but with boundaries. And I can recognize far off that you’re being, you know, all those attitude, the which doesn’t come. You’re just pushed away. So that one and I am confidence wise, I am getting there. I’m getting there. I’m getting there. I’m getting there. But how how much I have come? I’m happy, Pete? No. Yes. And then I now I have meaningful people in my So people who come into my life match my energy and people who don’t who are not in my life. Either they know the old version of Sakella, and not the new version. And another interesting fact is they cannot the new version of Sadhana. They’re like, what? What happened? To her. I’m like, I am no longer the old version. So this is new me, happy me, peaceful me. So, you know, speak or small mindedness is no There’s no space around me for that. If that the gate is closed and you can’t say whatever you want to my face and I’ll be quiet. I’m no longer that girl. So yeah. It’s been quite a journey, but I’m really be proud of myself. And I feel so happy to say to anybody, you know. Because you asked I feel so happy you asked this question because not many understand that it’s like you have really you know, you have to really go through that that whatever. That tunnel of, you know, hardship, that uncomfortableness, that burning sensation, the sleepless nights, the anger and the and the huge amount of crime. So and you come outside of the another tunnel and you find yourself the new you. Is just amazing. So yeah. Anybody who haven’t spoken to me in the last, I don’t know, seven, eight years. If they haven’t connected to me face to face apart from just a bit wish is not considered I don’t consider wishes as connection. It’s just a wish. But if you haven’t connected me as a person, you don’t know me. I sometimes I look I can’t recognize myself.

Victoria Volk: Imagine if we all just went through, like, our Facebook friend list and just eliminated all the people that really don’t know us. How many how many people would we actually have on our friend’s list or

Sujala Shastry: a friend’s head? One hand, two hands lucky. One hand, I think I think it was okay. Yeah. That’s what I did. I I think it was five or five years back. I just deleted myself from all the WhatsApp groups. School engineering, some office groups. Everything everything I was out. Apart from the family one, I have two or three, the family groups apart from that, none of the groups I’m associated with.
I just deleted myself. And guess what? Nobody bothered. May one or two of them asked, oh, what is it? You’ve logged in. I said, I I just didn’t feel good being part of the group, so I removed myself. And that’s it. No more questions asked. Nothing else. And I’m happy with it. I don’t expect them to understand it as well. So Yeah. It is very surprising that out of all the groups you, like, delete yourself from. They were only I can even count. There are only three people who contacted me. There are so many that what happened. And that when I gave this answer, they all they said they they just said, okay. And just left it at that. So yeah. Because sometimes people don’t want to know more about you. That’s what I realized. They’re not as interesting that I as I was there for them, they don’t want to ask me how I am, what is it, and everything. And and the surprising factors in the initial part oh, this is one thing I didn’t mention during this what helped me to change was blogging as well. So I opened one blog web side called Medley Tales and I just started to write letters to my mother. This one and this helped me and I published it on the WhatsApp group, on Instagram, on Facebook, but apart from because for many people, it was a new it was a news. Not many of my friends knew that I had lost my mom. Yeah. So I was in school, like, till the grade ten. In one school, everybody knew because it happened during that time. So anybody who was known after the age of fifteen, I ordered only one or two, three people. That’s it. Not many of them new. And now I wonder why. And then I know, first of all, I wasn’t comfortable. Second, People never gave me that emotional safe space for me to share it with them. And to the ones I shared, were taken aback, were so uncomfortable, and they don’t want to talk. So many of my friends who even though they know the they know that I have lost my mom, they don’t even know why I know how I lost my mom. They don’t ask that question. They’re so uncomfortable. Do you

Victoria Volk: think this brings up a great point? And I actually have a note for myself. Is Do you think that’s and granted, I know in Western society that’s very true, but in Indian culture? Is that, like, what were the beliefs about grief and death and dying that you learned in your culture? And how is that how do you What do you recognize are the differences now being in France and and knowing what you know now, like, what are the cultural things that you have connected the dots with growing up and what you were taught and learned and and

Sujala Shastry: No. That’s a great question. I never thought about that, but I will try answering it. Back there, there’s a support system in India. So since we are all, like, you know, joint family and close knit it, We have a lot of people. They take care of your food, your is your dress ready, or going to school, everything is taken care of, but emotions are not discussed. It’s it’s wrapped. Another carpet shoved it far away because people I think people don’t know how to support a griever. They they know how to be insensitive. They know how to make very easy. I don’t know. Rough. Rough for a rude comment, but they don’t know how to be good. And and during the course of the last five, six years, I have spoken to a lot of people interactions, sometime one off, you know, just for fifteen, twenty minutes, just sharing. What I have felt is I think whole world were just not comfortable to speak about the dead person, especially to the person who are very close to them. It’s closed. I think this has been a very uniform aspect to what to my understanding is. And in India, what I felt was you have a good support system in this in terms of providing taking care of, you don’t have to cook meals. There are people who will do that stuff for you. That is a good part of that, but the emotional part. I think it was I I I don’t say it’s low. It was zero. Let us you know, let’s be honest, it was zero. They will not talk about they nobody spoke about my mother in front of me. Nobody. Oh, we will make her sad. Oh, we will make her. But that’s the whole point. They got it wrong. I felt that only I was keeping my mother and everybody else were moving on. But that’s not true. They were grieving in a different way, but it affected me more because it’s my mother. But not speaking about your person, doesn’t reduce anything, but rather it increases. It increases the heaviness what I had to hold on to for so many years. It was not needed. Yes. We lost a person. All of us did. They were his my mom had both of their parents. My dad I, brothers, such a closed neck, big family, but we all love somebody we love. And I don’t know why we couldn’t speak. And I think that really breaks my heart. It really breaks my heart to say that why you why it’s not that others were in grieving. It’s not that my grandfather was not grieving. She was the only daughter. Among the boys. So she was scared. She was she was loved. But why you couldn’t share it with her own daughter? There is nobody tell me that, oh, your mom used to do this. Yes. I would miss her, but I would also feel I would have felt good that, oh, okay. She was like that. I’m You’re learn you’d be learning about her. Yeah. Exactly. And I suppressed my emotions so much that all the bad and the good memories. Everything is in a box that sometimes, like, out of the bloom, I just get it top. And I’m like, what? From where was this memory from? So I’m still in that process. I don’t have a lot of memory, but it keeps coming up in the most unexpected day all the time. I think that is the most uncomfortable thing because sometimes you’re outside and sometimes my son say something and something just strikes back. I’m like oh, I’m like, okay. That night, I’m like, okay. What was that memory? What was that memory? I’m now I’m curious because now I’m not in a separation mode. Does the opposite. So I’m trying to dig deep and sometimes it is half memory and it hurts me. It hurts me to the cover that I don’t have a complete memory of that at least particular situation. Yeah. Yeah. I I think we deviate I think I deviated what was the question?

Victoria Volk: No. You answered it and actually Okay. You have a lot of pictures.

Sujala Shastry: Yeah. Some. For those for that time, yes. It’s quite a few. No.
It is not now that you can have twenty.

Victoria Volk: No. No. Exactly.

Sujala Shastry: But yeah. I do have I do have the memories I traveled with her. I do have memories of playing board games with her. Yeah. Yeah. I do. Yeah. Slowly. This yeah. It’s there, but I’m happy. It’s there.

Victoria Volk: You mentioned Well, and I was just gonna say too, the art for my podcast is me on an island holding a megaphone. Right? And I think that’s when you were speaking, that’s what I envisioned as, like, as a family. Right? You’re each putting yourselves on these griving islands. But if only you would just talk about it, you could come together on the island and Oh. It’d be your own community. And so has that started to shift and change as you’ve been talking more and going through your process or no?

Sujala Shastry: No. No. Because not everybody is still the is still uncomfortable. They read my blog they get emotional. They say you’ve written it very well, expressed it well. That’s it. So I think it’s difficult for them as well, and I think it’s I think it’s a generation. Right? It’s the whole generation. Just didn’t know what to do with the emotions. And I am glad that we are there is a wave of change in terms of emotions. In the last five, six years. So somehow it coincided with my healing journey and my age as well. But yeah. I think it’s it’s sad, but I feel I think if after hearing on the podcast, maybe if somebody picks up the call and shares some memories about my mom, I think I will I will let you know. I think it is a win. It’s a start. But sleep chances. I don’t have any expectations.

Victoria Volk: But I think the most important thing too is I know the impact my healing has had on my parenting, which in turn has an impact on my my the journey my children will take emotionally. Yes. And that’s why I always say the greatest gift we can give our kids is our own feeling and why it’s so important for us to dust and sweep our own doorstep first before thinking our kids are the problem, our kids have behavioral issues, our kids are have emotional issues, what have you look in the mirror And what is it that you are not looking at that is being projected onto your kids? Or what are they emulating and learning from you? Because we

Sujala Shastry: learned yeah.

Victoria Volk: We learned by the age of three, seventy five percent of how to respond to life. The rest comes by age fifteen, those formative teen years. So and it’s not to say, once they hit fifteen or three or four or five, it’s too late. Mhmm. It’s not it’s not too late. You know, it took me thirty years, three decades to figure my shit out. But, you know, how many times I’ve said to myself, man, I wish I would have discovered grief recovery sooner. I wish I would have, you know, that’s grief too. That’s grief too. Always. And you did touch on job loss. And I don’t want to gloss over that because that’s that’s a loss too. Nobody has to die for us to grieve. Right? And so that was a catapult for you to lean into your creative urge to do your podcast, but I’m sure at the time it was painful.
Yeah? Yes.

Sujala Shastry: You bought a very beautiful thing. They always think I grieve about my mom, but I have so many other points to grieve. I would really like to tell that. I had you I also have to grief about the girl I would be if my mom would be alive. Yep?

Victoria Volk: Yep. What what could have been?

Sujala Shastry: Yeah. What could have been. I agree for that girl. Who could have been and I just changed the trajectory of it because of one death and that’s my closest person. And second one is for all the last years of me being in the survival mode. That’s a grief too. Mhmm. I still grieve it, and it angers me. So, yeah, it’s like twenty years I was alive. Okay? But I lost those many years in coping. Copying the unknown. I don’t I didn’t even I was coping something, but I didn’t even know I was coping. I didn’t understand. So I have to so People talk about always the grief. Your mom won’t be there on your wedding day or when your kid is born. That is a given. But what people don’t understand is all the in between days, you grief, there was this one instant where I think it choked me so much. My son was two years old. He had a very bad year infection. My husband was done with vital flu. I had to take care of everything in the house. At that point, You know, I I still remember. I just screamed in the night saying that why you had to die and make me struggle so much because mentally, physically, it was exhausting for me. Do all the work, keep up everything, and no way to look. And I know one person whom I could have backed on blindly was my mother. And I haven’t had her for twenty eight years. So I have to grieve for that as well, not for the glossy part of, oh, he she will miss my, you know, my son’s birthday. Birth birthdays, you know, parties and everything. That’s a given. That’s a given. Everybody knows that. But they don’t know that that feeling what you have. It’s every day in different ways. And it hits you like like just like a sudden slap pat and you’re like, what? Oh my god. You grieve again that night. So it’s like it is so much and this also makes me feel I have never heard my mom on the phone because I lost her in nineteen ninety seven. The mobile phones were not in our hands yet. And it was only landline. And I and I stayed pretty much with my mom’s who never had a chance to. I was not college or anything. So I’ve never heard my mom’s voice over a phone. I don’t have a call that says, I’m a calling. I don’t have it. I have never experienced that to this one. So I grief. I can’t take a selfie with her. You grieve. So there are so many different ways you grieve. And it’s sometimes the pain brings you to numbness. You stop thinking, you stop missing, you stop feeling, and sometimes your body and your mind can’t take it. Just can’t take it. It goes to that blank state. And I just let like, it’s like a big wave has hit me and I have to just stand there Allow the big wave to pass however long that is because sometimes it’s just that. I think that this part, people who have increased, don’t understand.

Victoria Volk: Or allow themselves to grieve. Yeah. What gives you hope

Sujala Shastry: for your future? It’s just that I allow my son and people around me to be themselves. And in one of my therapy session, I was called the black sheep of the family. Because nobody speaks emotionally in my family, like the way I do. So in at my therapy at one point, I so he asked me, this this this this he’s like, you know what you’re called? I said, I don’t know. You know, the flagship of the family. I’m like, what that was the first time I got even introduced to that word and he explained to me what it is and I was like, oh, okay. So I think I would I’m happy that I had to bear all these things, but I’m happy that I can be an example if not for many at least for my son. And to be who he wants to be, how he wants to be, and I am his emotional safe space no matter what. And I give this to all my closest people, who are my people. And I feel this is my like, personally how I can change. This gives me hope that I am the change in my situation. Secondly is I started this podcast. I lost the job, and I wasn’t ready to relocate because for me family comes first. So I got lot of opportunities to move to Netherlands. Germany, but I can’t I can’t travel back and forth. So I said no to many of the offers and because family comes first to me no matter what. So I already had this idea of starting a podcast, but I thought after working for a while I’ll start, but then I think God redirected me to earlier. So I started it. So the the whole concept of podcast is also to just to listen to other people’s journey. That’s it. Because if nothing, I can be in this world. I just I just want to be I just want for that one hour, the other person feels that somebody listened to me. I think that is all I would like to give it to that person. And in a way, if it reflects to the huge audience, so let it be. I think somewhere we have lost the capability to listen to other people, emotions just because it gives us makes us feel uncomfortable. So that is my little part of and I want to build a community over it, and I have I I can’t even say I have begun. It’s just that I have made up of mind, I’ve just opened the door. So let’s see where it goes.
So These are the things. And thirdly, when I see other people, there are so many podcasts like yourself and like so many people who are there to listen. Like, it’s very warming to me that you asked there was this old versus new nobody had asked me that question. So thank you for that. So it just feels that somewhere as a community we are going, somewhere. Maybe it’s a small, but I always believe a change will be small. It it it takes it takes years to see the see what it what wave can it bring about. So, yeah, that gives me hope. So these are the three different areas I feel it’ll hopefully.

Victoria Volk: And what would you say your grief has taught you?

Sujala Shastry: That it’s so lonely,

Victoria Volk: but it doesn’t have to be.

Sujala Shastry: Yeah. But it was. So whenever whenever whenever somebody says grief, I don’t I think it’s a scar. It’s a trauma. I still carry. So I still feel lonely about it. That is how I feel, but what it has made me learn is you can also cherish people who are dead. In a vein, and you

Victoria Volk: can build your own community.

Sujala Shastry: You can build the community that you need. Yes. So it doesn’t have to be doom and gloom. Grieve. You can’t cherish it. You can share ish a person personality or something they loved or something you share something. You can share ish. That’s what the healing part of the grief has taught me that Yes. It is painful. Nobody says it is easy. It’s not that all but once you cross that path of accepting and feeling the pain, you can cherish the person.

Victoria Volk: What is one of your cherished memories of your mother? Mhmm.

Sujala Shastry: One of my cherished. I think never left me alone. She was always present with me. Like, whether I was doing my schoolwork or playing with her board games, she was always present with me when she was around me. As I said, was in a joint family. I was I lived along with eleven other people in the house. So so which of a little bit time I got with her after school and over the weekends, she used to be completely present with me. And I think this is something I I think I’ll feel her, you know. So that her presence makes me feel so when this I think why now I understand why it was so so painful for me because her presence were so comforting and wow. So yeah. I think playing board games with her was the most I think all the board games, the classic board games I learned from her. And we used to always go for haircuts together. She used to get hers. She used to get mine regularly. Second and third one was I think we used to I used to go with her for everything. Even she has to buy a small thing in the next door, I used to run with her all the time. So I think these are the few moments, I think, which comes to my mind currently. Oh, at the time?

Victoria Volk: I think one of the lessons that you’ve shared without sharing it as a lesson is that you can be completely surrounded by many people who love you and yet still feel completely alone. Yes. And that the one key differentiator that we have to those we are in relationship with is emotional connection. Yes. And had you maybe felt that your grief journey would have maybe taken a different path?

Sujala Shastry: Yes. Definitely. I wouldn’t be stuck in a survival mode for sure. At at least that would have changed. What

Victoria Volk: is all your family still in India?

Sujala Shastry: Yes.

Victoria Volk: Do you see them often? Or

Sujala Shastry: Yearly? I go yearly. Yeah. I break them.

Victoria Volk: You you mentioned you have broke. No.

Sujala Shastry: No. I’m the only kid. I have cousins.

Victoria Volk: Only child.

Sujala Shastry: Okay. Yeah. I’m the only child.

Victoria Volk: See. And that’s another aspect too. It’s, like, one thing I’ve learned in doing my podcast and and just the importance of siblings is that they kind of fill the gaps of your childhood for you, especially if you have an older sibling. And I never really looked at my siblings in that way, but it is. It’s a relationship that is so unique. They’re the people that know you in a way that nobody else does. What is one tip that you would give a hurting heart today?

Sujala Shastry: If somebody gives you the emotional space, don’t be reluctant or or to take it. Please do. Please do take it. You can pay it forward, but please do take it. If somebody is giving. And secondly, if there is nobody, try to be self aware of what you’re feeling and try to find books or online help something which you can do with your own capability. Don’t don’t prolong. It does no good to you. Forget about others. It just doesn’t do good to you.

Victoria Volk: That’s very good advice. Is there anything else you would like to share that you don’t feel you got to?

Sujala Shastry: No. I think I’ve shared so many bits of it. You you have answered I mean, you’ve questioned me so beautifully that I have shared few of the things which I haven’t shared so far with, I don’t know, with many of them. Maybe my husband, I have shared, but not not to anybody else.

Victoria Volk: I feel honored. Thank you so much.

Sujala Shastry: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Victoria Volk: On my podcast, your story. And I feel like even through cultural differences grief is the one thing that unites us all. It doesn’t matter Yes. It doesn’t discriminate and we all grow up learning these unhelpful and almost hurtful ways to cope and and and how to grieve. We do it very poorly. And that’s why my program is called do grief differently. It’s time we do grief differently. And so thank you so much for sharing your insights and what you’ve learned on your path, and for starting your podcast because the more voices that get on the mission that is similar to mine, which is changing the conversation wrong grief, talking about it, like we talk about the weather, the more that do that. The better off our next generations will be.

Sujala Shastry: Yeah. And thank you so much for I never thought I would share so many things that you were so warm and your questions made me think and Doug’s memories out of me. So thanks to you, and thank you for, you know, I really enjoyed speaking with you. And as you say, I strongly believe the how we support the grieber and how we speak about grief needs to change, and there is no doubt about it. And and I’m happy that somewhere you and me are trying to bring about a change in our own little ways. So thank you for giving me this space.

Victoria Volk: You’re welcome. Where can people find you if they wanna connect with you? Unless it’s your podcast.

Sujala Shastry: Yeah. I’m on although I’m on it is called Discovering Journeys. And you can find it on YouTube, on Spotify, on Apple, on Amazon, and then you can connect with me on Instagram, on FB, on LinkedIn. I’m there on pretty much everything. And I will I will give you the I’ll share the links with you.

Victoria Volk: Yes. And I’ll put those in the show notes. So thank

Sujala Shastry: Thank you very much. Thank you.

Victoria Volk: Have a blessed rest of 2024 as we record this. It will be published in 2025. So happy early New Year to you and holidays. I wish you a great end of 2024. And and remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life, much love.

Ep 227 Takeaways and Reflections From 2024

Grief, Grieving Voices Podcast, Healing, Podcast, season 5, Takeaways and Reflections | 0 comments

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:

In this week’s New Year’s Eve episode, I reflect on 2024 as a year of laying the groundwork for future growth. As we look forward to 2025, I want to emphasize themes like introspection and personal development that can help us all prepare for a more balanced and fulfilling year ahead.

Reflecting on the past year often brings up negatives, but it’s crucial to focus on lessons learned. Inspired by Mel Robbins’ podcast episode about conducting yearly audits, I plan to engage with her seven-question exercise myself. This process encourages thinking about what we want to feel in 2025—like inspiration and fulfillment—and how to make those feelings a reality.

This year, I’ve discovered new passions. Lifting weights at the gym has given me incredible fitness results without relying heavily on cardio. Faith played an important role, too. Additionally, I’ve found creativity beyond traditional art forms and realized that solutions often hide within our challenges if approached thoughtfully.

Key takeaways from this journey include mastering time management, resisting impulse shopping, and ensuring there’s always room for fun amidst hard work. Trusting my intuition has been vital—it never leads me astray—and I’ll rely even more on it in 2025 and more that I share in this episode.

Give yourself some time and space to reflect back upon where you’ve been. We can glean so much gold from the past if we are not afraid to look at it.

RESOURCES:

Reflections and Resolutions: Harnessing Potential for 2025

As we stand on the cusp of a new year, it’s natural to reflect on the journey we’ve traversed over the past twelve months. In this insightful episode of Grieving Voices, our host takes us through a personal audit of 2024—a year dedicated to laying down foundations for future growth—and looks forward with optimism towards a balanced and fulfilling 2025.

Embracing Introspection and Growth

One key theme from this episode is introspection. It’s easy to get caught up in what went wrong or focus solely on challenges faced. However, as our host points out, there’s immense value in reflecting on lessons learned. This reflective process isn’t about dwelling on negatives but rather drawing inspiration from them—much like Mel Robbins’ approach in her podcast where she shares an annual seven-question audit exercise aimed at fostering self-awareness.

Key Lessons from 2024

  1. Fitness Transformation: The host discovered joy in weightlifting workouts without relying heavily on cardio exercises. This not only led to impressive fitness results but also instilled confidence that change can be achieved by stepping outside one’s comfort zone.
  2. Faith and Belief: A small miracle involving their son’s scholarship underscored the power of faith and belief—reminding all listeners that sometimes hope pays off when least expected.
  3. Resourcefulness & Creativity: Beyond traditional art forms lies creativity waiting within each problem-solving opportunity; often solutions are hidden beneath layers if approached thoughtfully enough!
  4. Time Management & Impulse Control: Effective time management combined with resisting impulse shopping became pivotal takeaways which allowed room for fun amidst hard work commitments throughout last year’s endeavors too…

5 .Trusting Intuition : Learning never steers wrong has been another significant realization along life’s path thus far – trusting oneself more deeply moving forward into next chapter ahead seems wise indeed!

6 .Metaphysical Support Awareness: Recognizing support beyond physical realm offers strength during challenging times; leaning further into spirituality might just unlock untapped potential awaiting discovery…

 

 

Ep 221 Christopher Cochran | What’s Good About Today?: A Father’s Mission To Honor His Son’s Legacy

Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Healing, Parent Loss, Podcast, season 5 | 0 comments

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:

In this heartfelt episode of Grieving Voices, Chris Cochran shares the inspiring legacy of his late son Christian, who faced terminal cancer with remarkable positivity and resilience. Despite his illness, Christian lived life to its fullest up until his untimely death at the young age of 23—all while asking, “What’s good about today?”

Christian’s spirit continues to inspire through Chris’s nonprofit, What’s Good About Today?, and the book that bears the same name. Today’s episode highlights how Chris and his wife navigated the highs and lows of working diligently to get Christian the best possible care while supporting their other children. They then grappled with the profound loss of Christian, emphasizing patience, love, and being present as crucial elements in healing.

Key takeaways include acknowledging that each person’s experience of grief is unique; fostering an environment rich in understanding and compassion can aid healing amidst life’s unpredictability. Chris’s story also underscores a shift from material pursuits toward deeper spiritual connections post-loss—focusing on empathy over goals.

Chris recounts how he’s felt Christian’s presence following his death and how the ongoing relationship with his son has supported his healing.

This conversation is a powerful reminder that even amid tragedy, there is potential for enduring hope through community support, and living purposefully driven lives filled with kindness ensures loved ones’ legacies endure.

RESOURCES:

CONNECT:

_______

NEED HELP?

  • National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
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If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.

CONNECT WITH VICTORIA: 

Embracing Positivity and Resilience in the Face of Grief

In a poignant episode of Grieving Voices, Chris Cochran shares an inspiring narrative about his late son, Christian. Through this heartfelt discussion, we uncover invaluable lessons on resilience, positivity, and the enduring power of love amidst profound loss.

A Legacy Built on Positivity

Christian Cochran’s story is one that resonates deeply with anyone who has faced adversity. Diagnosed with terminal cancer at a young age, Christian chose to focus not on what was lost but rather on “What’s good about today?” This simple yet powerful question became a guiding mantra for him—and later inspired both his father’s nonprofit and book under the same title.

Despite battling cholangiocarcinoma—a rare form of liver cancer—Christian maintained an unwavering zest for life. He excelled academically, graduating magna cum laude while nurturing various artistic talents. His journey serves as a testament to living fully even when time feels limited.

Chris describes how he and his wife navigated their grief after losing Christian by seeking therapy and leaning into each other for support while caring for their two other children who were also profoundly affected by this loss. Their experience highlights the importance of acknowledging individual grieving processes within families—a reminder that patience, empathy, and presence are crucial during such challenging times.

Through candid conversations like those featured in Grieving Voices, listeners gain insight into coping mechanisms necessary when dealing with familial grief dynamics; understanding compassionately fosters stronger bonds amid life’s unpredictability.

Inspiring Change Beyond Loss

The ripple effect left behind by individuals like Christian extends far beyond immediate family circles—it inspires communities toward purposeful pursuits aligned more closely with personal values than societal expectations alone might dictate otherwise! Friends influenced positively have embarked upon careers centered around helping others due largely because they witnessed firsthand how someone facing immense challenges could still embody hopefulness every single day despite everything else happening simultaneously around them too!

For Chris himself? Sharing stories publicly through speaking engagements offers healing opportunities alongside connecting meaningfully amongst fellow grievers experiencing similar emotions firsthand themselves perhaps unexpectedly so initially until realizing newfound camaraderie exists naturally between all parties involved ultimately leading everyone collectively forward together unitedly towards brighter futures ahead regardless past tragedies endured previously now finally being processed constructively instead destructively anymore thankfully indeed…

Episode Transcription:

Victoria Volk: Hey, hey, hey, thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today, my guest is Chris Cochran. He is a father, husband, and founder of Blue Chip Solutions, inspired by his son, Christians, enduring positivity, Chris authored what’s good about today to share a message of resilience and gratitude. Professionally, he has over three decades of experience and leadership roles across various industries and serves on the Board of Coeptis Therapeutics. Through his nonprofit, also named what’s good about today, Chris is committed to spreading kindness and hope. I hope I said that right, coeptis Therapeutics. Is that correct?

Christopher Cochran: That’s right. Yeah. Great. Much bigger that.

Victoria Volk: I am on a roll, and it’s on Tuesday. So thank you so much for being here. And I before we hopped on, I was actually checking out it’s your son’s the website is christian cochran dot org. Correct?

Christopher Cochran: Correct. Yeah.

Victoria Volk: And I was reading a little bit about how that the backstory of why that got started, but I will actually leave that to you to share with our listeners why what’s good about today came to be?

Christopher Cochran: I lost my son to cancer, terminal cancer in two thousand and twenty one. Christian was diagnosed at the age of twenty to with something called cholangiocarcinoma. He just graduated college. He was everything was going swimmingly. Everything’s been going well. Obviously, he’s a family and, you know, sort of back story to this is, you know, I’m I’m married to my high school sweetheart. We’ve been together since I was fifteen years old. So our dream has always been to build a family together. And you know, we knew early on, we wanted to name our son Christian because the the name had so much importance. Right? Christian, it means what it is. We are Christians and we knew he was destined for something very important in this world and he didn’t he didn’t fail us on that because, you know, even as a young age, he showed this incredible form of empathy and just, you know, understood how life really worked even at a young age. He had great compassion and kindness whether it was at Christmas time, she wanted to give his his gifts away to his friends. I mean, whether it was just we used to refer to him as mister Comfort as a child because he had a way of comforting us when we were not feeling well or not doing doing well. So he he just had this incredible knack. And that kinda carried all the way through his life as a teenager. You know, I always think he kids as being teenagers. They’re horrible. And their Christian was fantastic. He was just a kind and gentle soul to everyone.
Giving of his time, his love, always said he loved you. And then, you know, Christian, very talented by the way, but his biggest talents, of course, were his kindness. Christian went to college, he graduated Magna Kamblad from from college, from the Honors College here in Pennsylvania. And, you know, when he got home, he started to experience some back pain, we took him to doctors, it seemed to be, you know, he was healthy. You know, everything about him was healthy. And he got physical therapy in his back, but this didn’t seem to change. But as it got, you know, in the summer months of two thousand twenty, his pain became overwhelming and so went and course, we had blood tests and ultimately he had a CT scan to be safe. And I remember them saying, hey, they found a lesion, a scar on his liver. And of course, you know as a parent, you’re like, okay, that’s not so bad. We can, you know, you know, that could have been from birth or whatever, and then they said you need to go to Hillman Cancer Institute.
And I remember thinking, oh, no. What does that mean? I kept reassuring Christians. Okay. Now Christian through this whole thing is, It’s okay. I’m not worried about it that. You know, it’s still going to be okay. Reassure this whole family. But we went to the hospital, and this is during COVID, so I can only go with Christian. And I’ll never forget, you know, just before they walked in and telling Christian, it’s gonna be fine. You know, they were gonna sort of talk to us. Five coats walked in the door lapcoats with the mask, and I could I could read their eyes in that instant what they were about to deliver to us that I knew was gonna be life changing for Christian, life changing for his family and his friends, and ultimately they told Christian that he had a great fruit sized tumor on his liver and that this was cancer. And that it was likely terminal. At the time, we weren’t fully positive, but I think Christian knew because he asked the doctors immediately. And I money started to shake. I I started to go black. Christian put his hand on my shoulder. He looked me in the eye. He said, dad, don’t worry. Everything’s gonna be okay. Once again, comforting me in the worst of moments for him. And he asked him how long did he have to live? And he he they when they answer that question rightly so, I assume. But I knew and I think Christian knew this is what was gonna happen. Of course, we left, had to go home, had to tell his mother, what had transpired. He had to be there with us. And I remember my wife and I telling Christian that says we’re we’re obviously in shock and sad and just saying Christian, we’re so sorry that you have to go through this. You know, what this has happened to you. And I remember Christian saying, dad, mom, don’t you know, it’s okay. I would rather this happen than me than anyone else. This is my burden to take. And, you know, again, he just showed us his his way of comforting us. I can tell you that Christian not a single time from the moment he got diagnosed. To the moment he took his last breath on September first of twenty twenty one about a year later, did he ever complain? He never said, why me? He said, dad, how could this happen to me? He did the opposite. He would say, what’s good about today? And so it was his way of showing us that even in the worst of moments, in the in the most tragic of circumstances that you can truly find goodness in moments. And so he used to remind us of that. He used to say what’s good about today when we would cry and we’d be upset. We’d try not to cry, of course. Remain very hopeful. But we knew the circumstances. You know, Christian had a less than one percent chance of life even to get the five years. And with cholangio carcinoma, which is by layman’s terms called Biodec Cancer. It’s mostly seen in old people, Southeast Asia. It’s not something you find for a kid in North Pittsburgh, you know. And he so he we knew the I knew ultimately what was going to happen here. And and in young people in particular who get this, when they get it, it’s very rare.
They don’t live past six months. So, you know, we knew we were up against the fight. And so the so to to answer your question, it’s a long story to get to it, but the point being is that Christian used what’s good about today to remind us of the beauty that you can find every day even in the the most difficult of moments. And that’s what I try to do is to, you know, remember that constantly so that I can put that out into the world, remind people that, hey, here’s a kid who had everything going for him. I tell you he had everything going for him in this life.
But he was handed the worst worst thing you could ever ask for. And he turned it completely around and he thrived. He he got a job. Who goes and gets a job? With a major company because we had to stay in turn. He he took a job for four months. They hired him. He was honest when he said, look, I’m not gonna be around in the year. Just so you know. And they were like, it’s okay. You know? God bless them for doing that. But he wanted to show us and guide us that his life hadn’t stopped. And he wasn’t going to stop showing his other his brother and his sister that and us, that he wasn’t gonna stop. He was gonna continue to move forward. He he made music. He did podcast. Which are still out there and they’re very good. And he just he just had that way about him and he laughed and he he he always was making you laugh and so he was just an extraordinary human being. And I just wanna help in you know, I’m inspired by Christian, so that my job is to continue to get that message out as much as I can.

Victoria Volk: Sounds like he was an old soul.

Christopher Cochran: Yeah. He was an old soul. He probably lived five other people’s lifetimes, you know, in in the short, you know, twenty two, twenty three years of age. He had traveled the world. He had been to India. He had been to to Prague. Study abroad, state of abroad in India. He’d done a lot. He lived big. And when I say big, he was, you know even as a character, he was the lead in every musical and every play. He’d been nominated for Gene Kelly, works here in Pittsburgh, which are a big deal. He was a kid who had already done it, been in a major motion picture. And he was moving everything forward. But I think instinctively he knew that I think he knew his life was gonna be short. That’s probably why he lived so big. And we just I think it makes sense. I guess now in a sense, how big he lived that that that it was so short, but but that’s that’s what we have to deal with today. That was three years ago. So, yeah, he passed away.

Victoria Volk: What was he studying in college?

Christopher Cochran: So Christian was an international studies major. He minored in Asian studies and he was a theater minor. So he was also in in college. He was at he would be in plays and things like that. He was in comedy troops. He was also on the he was also a d I say, I can keep going because there’s so much this kid did. He was a local limelight radio station in in Indiana, PA. He was also on there as well. So which we love to listen to and just his parents, we were so happy. We loved just hearing his voice. And so, you know, we listened to him. So, yeah, that’s what he studied. And, like, he he loved the travel. He was a minimalist too. You know?
He wasn’t he was an extreme minimalist because, you know, I do pretty well for myself. You know, I’m not I always have and do well, and my kids have always been have been lucky enough to live in a a nice home, nice neighborhood, and nice cars, and all those things. Christian was such a minimalist. He didn’t even like to drive our cars. You know? He was he he just didn’t he thought any of that stuff was too showy or, you know, the act of just packing a suitcase was enough for him to to go somewhere to to meet people. Whatever was on his back was fine with him. He was very authentic extremely funny, but at the same time, incredibly compassionate about a fellow man. Just incredibly compassionate. And there’s and I’m I knew that. But, you know, as when you’re some your your son passes, your child passes, and things start to pour on. You’ve been on the website Christian crocodortorek. You can see the messages, the stories that just pour in of the legacy that he has left. Upon so many and continues to this day to leave on so many. There there’s not enough earthly words to use other than they’re extraordinary. And I’m I feel so privileged that I got to be his dad.

Victoria Volk: We never really understand or know our impact, do we?

Christopher Cochran: I think Not till we’re not here, I guess.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. Yeah. What’s your favorite memory of him? Do you have a few or one that you would like to share?

Christopher Cochran: My favorite, ma’am. Well, I mean, of course, there’s so many. There’s no real favorites. I think anything where I got to be in the light of Christian was my favorite moments. I don’t you know, he he was funny. His jokes were sometimes his jokes were so they were so big. They they went over my head. They were like multilayered jokes. I and he had this because he was incredibly intelligent too. Right? He was just he had a photographic memory. He he could he had a quick wit, which can, you know, you you if you you heard his pockets, he’s just quick witted. He understood things quick. He was very knowledgeable. But, you know, my my best memories of of Christian and best stories of Christian their stories, of course, while he had cancer that are funny, But, and I can tell you that one, you know, I don’t I like to focus on the things when he didn’t have cancer, but I can tell you that I went on a long walk with Christian up to the point which, you know, he used to go on walks because I wanted him to continue to be, you know, walk and keep himself healthy and eat right and and we would go on these walks.
And it was one of the latter walks probably three months before he passed away. I don’t remember walking with him. And I said to Christian, Christian, what what regrets do you have in this life? You know? What what can you what can you put on to me? Because I always looked at Christians like a philosopher. He understood things so deeply. And and he said, dad, yeah, I have one regret. I do have one regret. I hung on every word of that regret. I said, what what’s the regret son? He was probably, like, something I did wrong or something. I yelled at the number. And he’s, like, no, dad. He’s, like, I did too much homework, and I I just started laughing. I said, what do you mean you did too much? There’s no, I I mean it that. That’s the biggest regret I have in this life that I’ve been on this earth is that I did way too much homework. I could have been doing other things, you know. And it was just and I used to just laugh because he hardly did any homework. You know? I mean, he really didn’t. This was the kid. I tell you this. His roommates would laugh because and and be so jealous a Christian. He would go to class. He never bought a book. I never had to pay for a book for college. Ever. Think about that.
He meant he he just would go to class. He memorized the information. He would take class. He was a straight age student. I remember his first year in college, he looked at me. He goes, because I was always on him. Like, you gotta get in. You know, you’d be good student. He goes, he looked at me. Is this a big scam?
Is this a scam? I go, what he means is this a scam? He goes, college seems like a scam. It’s too easy. I don’t understand. Now he’s in the Honors College too, so they’re pushing them. You know? But he he just he he yeah. He he didn’t like to do his homework. I buddy, clearly, he said he did too much homework. But he was just that made me laugh and and, you know, there’s he he just he had this incredible laugh too that I loved to just be in the aura sometimes the last year of his life, I moved all a lot of his he liked video games because he got to speak to his friends, you know. And this is during COVID. And I I always positioned my chair in the living room where we’re at that I could get a glance in to see him play his video games because I I just like watching him. You know? Because he was funny.
And he was making jokes, and he and so so I found that, you know, those moments were Christian. It’s it’s his laugh and his stories, his jokes, his his comedy, and just how he made you always feel made you feel good. He was the grown up. He was the only grown up.

Victoria Volk: You know, parents that have lost a child, especially, like, with a terminal illness. Well, I I would say anybody who has a family member that’s diagnosed with a terminal illness. There’s this phase of denial, I suppose, even towards the end, you know, it’s really difficult to let go and accept what’s happening. What did you how did you navigate that for your you and your your wife? And what advice would you impart on to people listening to this who find themselves in the same situation?

Christopher Cochran: That’s a tough question because, you know, everybody goes through it so differently and how they manage this. I mean, I’ve learned a lot, of course, after the fact, right, to so I can impart some knowledge whether someone is going through it you know, I think someone would tell me that, would I be able to take that information properly? I’m not sure I could. You know? I have learned that I’ve learned two things. One is to be humble before god. That’s my most important, you know, I’m always humbled, you know, then I I’m not I’m not worthy of his love. The the second thing is, you’re not in control. And when you realize you don’t have the control, you you kinda let go a lot of things. You can flow a little bit easier in this life, I think. But to answer your question during that time, I’ve been around and I’ve listened to your podcast, you know, and I’ve heard people talk and some people haven’t been around the end of life situations. They’ve either, you know, it’s new to them. And for me, you know, I was raised in a Luthrom family. I’m a catholic now, but who’s racing a Luther and a strong mother who was very religious. She took me a church all the time. I was an altar boy, you know, all those things. But I would my mom would take me to nursing homes, and she would So death was always sort of part of life. I understood that as a kid. I never I always accepted that as sort of the reality of how life was going to work. Certainly, it’s not I don’t like the reality that my child is taken from me. It’s in the natural order that your parents go and I’ve lost my parents and I know what that felt like and doesn’t feel anything like this. It’s different. This is like sticky glue. It’s so stuck on me. I can’t you’re never gonna get it off if you can’t. But I think The answer to your question is, I think from my perspective and how we navigated that, for me, I understood the ultimate outcome. I knew early on what was going to happen. Now, I never told my wife that. I never told my, you know, they were looking for hope. Right? And I always gave hope. I’m not a downer guy. I’m and I did. We worked very hard and we went to every doctor in the world. We went to the best facilities around this country. It had the means by which to do this. I was fortunate. Christian felt guilty. He’s his he’s dying. He feel guilty. He felt privileged. He said he felt so challenged by the guilt of that we gave him the special privileges to meet with the best doctors in the world on this, to try to solve this problem. He got on the best possible drugs, DNA’s and RNAs and sequencing. I mean, the amount of things we went through to save this kid’s life was not good enough. And but I knew ultimately time was it was always ticking in my head. Clock was always ticking. And I could hear the clock ticking constantly. And I think for my wife, I tried to shield my kids and my wife from those those the reality of that. It’s only towards the end when his body would break down in the last month when you could see what cancer does to the body and everything. But, you know, Christian remained humorous to the very end and continued to think about us to the very end. But I think the way you navigate the only way you can do is is to to push yourself forward to know that you just do the best you can. That’s all you can do and show immense love for one another. And know. You have to show love for one another when it ends too. Because that part that part of the year is extraordinarily difficult. I try not to think about it. I write about it, of course. But it’s even difficult to even think about it because there’s so much that went on that was difficult to go through, especially the last the last month and a half. But afterwards, it’s incredibly difficult for families. And for husbands and wives, statistically, they don’t stay together. And families fall apart because we don’t understand each other’s grief. And that’s true. I can tell you for the first year, I didn’t understand my wife’s grief because I might she’s grieving to me. Who else can she grieve to? And I’m and I’m grieving to her. And you cannot when two people do that, one has to, I suppose you have to listen, you have to be able to absorb it. As best you can and be there for that person to and recognize that each person is going through grief very differently. My kids are going through. Just lost their best friend, their brother. And how do I, you know, how do you navigate that and and be compassionate and patient? And so I think give yourself patience and love and give it as best you can to everyone around you. In the end, it it never gets I like to get better. It just gets it gets a little smoother, I suppose. He gets his arm is rough. And you can navigate a little bit better. You can navigate this life daily a little bit better. That’s really how we do as a family. We navigate it. I navigate life daily. It’s a daily thing. I don’t look in the past too much and I really don’t look to the future. Because the future is uncertain. I have no idea. Witten is something that I thought I understood. The future was so bright, but it got taken from me, and the family and from Christian. And so I can’t look too far in the future. I know what I have today. I know and I think that’s important. Be present. Be grateful for the moments that you have. And And if you know you’re you’re someone who’s gonna pass and and I knew with Christian, I memorized every crease on his body possible. I have it. It’s locked in my head. So I I think it’s just just making sure you do those things.

Victoria Volk: So what did that look like for you and your spouse and then holding the weight of your children’s grief as well? I mean, did you seek support each of you individually outside of each other?

Christopher Cochran: Yeah. Well, the first year, I think anybody goes through this and just doing my research, you may know better than I, but for us, it was like being a zombie. Is this if it didn’t even happen? I couldn’t even tell you that year what I remember. To me, it’s just a complete black hole because it wasn’t I wouldn’t even say it was bad. If this makes sense because the second year was the worst. And the third year is horrible too. You know, I’m in my third year. It’s still not good. I mean, it it I still it’s worse than the first year because the the first year you’re in such shock that life that turned on the dime so quickly And that happens to families all over this this world. Right? The life gets turned on the diamond an instant. And a second, life can be so beautiful and perfect. And then it gets turned and you’re upside down and you have no idea what’s Why would this happen? And you asked those questions of why God? Why God you do this? Why could you have done this to us? You know, we’re a good family. We go to church every week. We love each other. We’re always trying to do all the right things. That’s asked of us. And it still happens to us. So once you get past the whys and all those things and acceptance, I think for us it was, yeah, we did go to therapy. I’m not a therapy guy.
You know, not a a guy. I I’ve I’ve tried it, of course. And that’s a that’s something for individuals what they whatever they want to do, what’s good for them. Right? That’s why we say grieving is different for every single person. Part of my grieving or part of my therapy is talking to you. Part of my therapy is being able to talk about Christian’s story, writing the book, having interactions with others that gives me the chance to express whatever I feel and be authentic to that. Right? But I do therapy when my wife will ask me to do therapy. If she’s going and she says, hey, let’s go as a couple. I want you to come with me. Whatever she wants, I will do that. That’s no, I will do it in a heartbeat. It’s no problem for me. And I’m fully engaged with that. But you just don’t feel like I find when I come out of therapy, I feel worse. So in some ways. Because I’ve I’ve I’ve because I it is a safe space that I unload a lot in my head. And and some people can go, oh, that must feel good because you get everything out. But for me, it’s like I just unloaded and it’s too it’s it’s just I it resonates too much in my brain and I’m I’m you know, I think for for me as a person, it’s just it’s difficult. But for for most, my wife, it’s great and it works. Yes. That define the right person who’s compassionate and loving and English sentence and there’s no judgment. And if you do that, you it’s a wonderful thing. Very important to navigate it.

Victoria Volk: Your other children there close in age to Christian?

Christopher Cochran: His sister is fifteen months younger than Christian. Yeah. So they’re like, you can wait just beyond the Irish twins, as they call it? I think it’s what did the twelve months or something. Yeah, they’re like Irish twins, best friends.
She went to the same college she went to. All my kids go to the same college. It’s about an hour and a half away from here. And, yeah, they were they’re best friends and they were at college together, and he wrote all her papers. He poor kid.
He was she would rely at them. But

Victoria Volk: Maybe that was that homework he kept doing.

Christopher Cochran: Yeah. It was. It was. He was always doing things and he’s he didn’t just do it for my kids. I mean, he didn’t have his friends like friends at prestigious schools like Purdue and amazing schools and they go, Christian, I need help writing a paper. Can you help me write something and come up with ideas? And he was that smart. He just come up with great ideas and help, you know, he’s a beautiful writer. His matter of fact, during Christian’s cancer, I put this it’s actually, I think, on his website, Christian wrote his his entrance paper, just, I guess, I don’t know what they call that, but his entrance to get into grad school. So this is a kid again. In the summer, he passed away September first, he applied for graduate school in, I think, June or something, May or June. He got accepted. His paper was beautiful. And it was just all about, you know, how privileged his life was, how fortunate he has been, and he wanted to dedicate his new his life. I mean, if he survived, that he was gonna dedicate his life to helping those who were left alone with this awful disease. He wanted to be with I mean, he wanted to go over he felt that the world there were a lot of people dying overseas that had this disease. That were dying alone with someone not with them, and he wanted to be with them. So, you know, it’s a beautiful paper, well written. And so, yeah, his sister you know, was fifteen months par you know, below him. Totally different than Christian. She’s she’s in the wild one. She’s just full of energy and what was causing trouble. She’s sort of in between two boys. I I my youngest is a boy. And so she’s, you know, she’s got to fight with those two boys, you know. But the it’s a good girl, and she’s married lives in Norfolk, Virginia, married to a naval officer who serves overseas on the USS Coal. And So but she’s at work for a bank major bank. And then my younger son, he is a Nicholas. He is a junior now at the same college, studying the exact same thing as Christian at at college.

Victoria Volk: How did you support them through that whole ordeal that that year that he was when he was diagnosed and and after that? And

Christopher Cochran: Well, during the year,

Victoria Volk: I don’t Like, how do you hold all of that? Right? Like, how do you hold all of that?

Christopher Cochran: Well, my wife’s a nurturer. Okay? She’s she’s a it’s truly a beautiful human soul and she’s a yoga instructor, so she’s in tomb. She’s just just a beautiful person and beautiful. She’s nurturing. So she, you know, she’s there for those she’s there for the two kids and I think my mindset was very different then. You know, I was all about trying I’m I’m a doer, you know. Someone says, dig a ditch. And my head’s focused on digging the ditch. I’m not really thinking about everything else. I’m throwing dirt out. Right? I’m just to me, I was digging a ditch. I was I was trying to save my son’s life, you know. So it was a twenty four seven operation, you know. And I and I mean, it was twenty four seven, you know, I didn’t sleep a ton, catch catnaps when you could. But it was always my daily routine was just work, work, work, not my work. My work was doing what it needed to do, but was working on solving this challenge with Christian. And I wasn’t alone in it. My wife certainly helped. Her sister and her brother-in-law helped. We called the CC Advisory Group. We were just a client sort of this group that we get together to talk about solutions, figure things out. Where’s the best place? Don’t agree with in in I say this, don’t agree with what the doctors don’t know everything at all.
I figured out that I am the smart I was smarter than doctors shockingly. That should not be the case. But I am I was substantially smarter than doctors, that because of the hard work that the group us did, we were able when they originally didn’t find Christian’s DNA and RNA sequencing. I won’t name the facilities. I don’t want to get in trouble, but they didn’t find it through their sequencing. And it wasn’t good enough for us. You know, we’re like, I’ve got to keep searching. We’ve got to do more DNA. We’ve got to more find this out, sure enough somebody out in, I think Seattle a major DNA and RNA facility. And by the works of John and we went to John Hopkins as well, a doctor there helped us. We found the sequencing that Christian had very specific that allowed him to get onto a drug, pemigatinib, that is a full fledged FDA drug that’s out there for people with cholangiocarcinoma that can give you extra time. It’s not a it’s not a game changer, but it just gives you extra time. And we were able to find that sequencing after hard work and getting him on that drug. But unfortunately, it just it didn’t work. It just It didn’t Maybe it made I don’t it didn’t work, you know. We we we did everything. And Christian was one of the experimental kids for T cell therapy here in Pittsburgh, which the NIH in DC is one of the originators. Of this. And it’s where they basically harvest the t cells out of your body, grow it in a petri dish, grow billions and billions and billions of these things, and then ultimately shut your body down, you know, put it all back in you, and eat the cancer away from the inside. It’s the only way we were gonna win here. And I knew of one case of this happening. I knew I know her well. She’s a friend of mine. She’s very well known in the in the world of cancer. But the problem is to go on to that, he had to go off of chemotherapy for thirteen weeks.
And in that thirteen weeks, I’m sure his cancer. It it’s extremely aggressive and it attacks every part of the body. And so it was by that point, then we’re you know, it’s extremely. Once we realized the messaging, t cells were they weren’t working, you know. You get that coal. And you’re you just gotta scramble, like, fast. Get on the horn. Let’s get back on Kimo. What do we do? But, you know, towards the end, Christian just said, we had been doing experimental drugs. Guys, like, it’s okay. He never got involved. Christian never got involved his own. His own treatments. Meaning, he just said, whatever you guys wanna do, because I’m fine with it. You know? He was resigned to it all. He he was fine with it all. But I think towards the latter part where things were just not working. And he said, guys, this is I’m fine with no more. It’s okay. You know, I know I’m doing this for you basically. It’s what he was doing for us. Right? He was like, whatever you wanna do, but I’m okay.
You know? I’m at peace with what’s happening. You know? So So I’m not sure if I answered your question there, but, you know, I think we were talking about my other kids, but they, you know, they I think we’ve just for me, it was just I was so focused on solving Christian’s thing. I think my wife did a fantastic job just nurturing them. And then, you know, obviously, over time is when things were good and we’d have good days or Christian, you know, you you focus in on them and make sure they’re getting everything they need. But his his sister was at college, so she benefited from that. During that time in sense, they should have to be around it. Unfortunately, my younger son, I think, has felt the brunt of a lot of this because he was honed during COVID. And so he’s in the house all the time.
And he you know, he was there with Christian when he passed. He was in her house surrounded by his family. He was heavily involved as a as a sixteen, seventeen year old boy. That’s not exactly what you wanna have to go through. But, you know, he’s he’s he’s a good boy and he’s doing well.

Victoria Volk: Has that changed his trajectory of what he chose to endeavor in his life that experience?

Christopher Cochran: I don’t know yet. I mean, he’s obviously doing the same major. He’s had some, you know, get too much in the nick. Nick doesn’t like to Nick’s taken a different approach to everything. You know, his sister can talk about this. This is not something Nick can talk about. It’s not something that he is open about. You know? I had to make sure, you know, before I put the book out, I wanted Nick to read parts of the book that where I’d mention his name, some things I did take out, you know, things that are so personal to to Nick that he just wants to keep it for himself. Mhmm. But, you know, he he’s getting better at it, talking about it. But in terms of trajectory, don’t know yet. I know a lot of his friends, trajectories have all changed. You know, his his best friends have all changed their some are changed from being artists to now being their counselors for helping those with challenges because of Christian. There’s those who have followed their passions that they wouldn’t otherwise have followed. No one in particular is a CPA. A great job from left, graduate Penn State, CPA. Now he’s a comedian, you know, New York. He just told you He

Victoria Volk: just he just

Christopher Cochran: he just he just they just changed their directory because trajectory because of Christian that Christian because Christian of the group was going to be in many ways, you know, I say famous, but the most well known. He was from a young age, anybody in or in this whole community or neighborhood or Pittsburgh from a new Christian. I mean, he was incredibly talented and he was he was definitely destined and he was scheduled to go to LA before all this. I mean, he was destined just got he had everything he was ready and he was good looking boy had it all and he’s likable. It’s not like he had all the facets and he didn’t have this burning desire I don’t he he was okay. He, you know, you think like, oh, you better have all this desire to be the be famous. He didn’t have any of that. He just he took life as life came to him, and he got successful always doing it that way. Right? He always got everything he he whether it was grades or being in parts and things like that by not even trying. He just because he had that aura of just likeability and passion and fun to work with, and he just had that. And I always I just knew he was going to be incredibly successful. Even if he failed at something, he was just the one kind he’s not the one that let it bother him. He just was like, yeah, it’s fine. You know, like, we’ll do this, you know. And someone will be like, I like that about this this kid had something very different, you know.

Victoria Volk: He could pivot, you know.

Christopher Cochran: He pivot, yeah, he pivot on dime and never affected him. And he and I think that’s a major strength in anything, you know. And, yeah, he had that. So

Victoria Volk: Sounds like he taught everyone around him too how to be in the flow of life.

Christopher Cochran: And I talked about that in the book. Right? There’s Christian’s Dow. It’s a section in the book. And Christian believed in baptism, and and he understood the to your point, which is not flowing against the the current, flowing with the current. And he lived that very much that Christian was a strong Christian. We were Catholics. But the thing about Christian is he was very spiritual and he understood faith. He understood he respected them so much because there are a lot of similarities between all the faith. But the way Christian lived his life is does just being able to take things in and and and never afraid to be himself.
He would wear the goofiest clothes and he didn’t care. He could be bright colors. It could be googly sweaters, you know, from the eighties, you know. He’s an eighties guy. He loved his last tweet on Twitter. Is him in a wheelchair? This is the comedy of Christian. And he understood things. He’s got a a walkman on. And he goes, he goes jam into my eighties walkman or he may I I’m not gonna do this justice, but walkman, not lately. Meaning he’s not walking. I think he could just you you can’t walk anymore because of the Kansas market. Yeah. He he he just yeah. He he could make something that you would otherwise go and feel bad for him, but he would make you laugh about it. And that that’s such a unique trait to have under those circumstances.

Victoria Volk: What has your grief taught you?

Christopher Cochran: Well, my grief taught me that there’s much bigger grief than mine, I guess. There’s having a platform, you know, the book is is simply a a tool, you know. And my voice meaning people and connecting with people is the best form to understand grief. I recommend that to anybody who’s listening to to connect as best you can. I’ve connected so I I I go and I speak. Sometimes these speeches are about inspiration how to find the the light in the darkness or And sometimes it’s the students, young adults, university level, but sometimes it’s adults. And that will draw different crowds. So sometimes the crowds I will get will be those who are going through immense grief. Those who have either read the book, wanna get the book, you know something about the book, you know something about my story, and they wanna come and I make a very distinct point to try to talk to every single person who comes to see me. They’re going out of their way to see me. There’s something going on with them. And they’re using me. And I’m there to be a person to listen and to help. And so I listen to stories. And so what it’s taught me to answer your question is, The grief that I hear from others is far greater than my grief. If if that makes sense because some people are hurting so badly. I I mean, the stories I hear whether it’s they’ve lost their husband and two children. Or, you know, two children. I I can’t even fathom that, you know. So I I’m I think it’s taught me to understand my fellow, man, it’s also, breathing has helped me. To look at people as true souls. And what I mean by that is I don’t think I looked at people before cancer as souls. Meaning, when I look at someone I just saw them as a person and they’re on their way, whatever, I spend a lot of time when I sit or if I’m out in public and I watch people and I look at them and I realize they have a soul, they have a life, they something’s going on in their life, could be good, could be bad, much like all of us. And and I I think I’m just connected that way a little better now? Maybe I wish I wasn’t. Sometimes it can drag me down. But I guess it’s my purpose. You know, that’s I’m still trying to figure that purpose out, but I think that’s how I’ve learned the grief has helped me. That’s what I’ve learned from it. Yeah.

Victoria Volk: How would you describe and that kind of leads to my next question. How would you describe the Chris before Christian passed and the Chris now? You mentioned more connected, you know, maybe to even more spiritual in that way.

Christopher Cochran: Mhmm.

Victoria Volk: How else would you have described yourself before Christian passed?

Christopher Cochran: I was like a lot of people. I just I had goals, money, better car, bigger house, more stuff maybe. Give I love my kids, give them whatever they need, be there for my wife. I mean, I don’t know. I was just in a different mindset.
It’s a different it’s because life is perfect, you know. I mean, yeah, there’s there’s the normal things of life. Right? I mean, we all go through whether it’s maybe not enough or bills or someone passes away or it just I mean, it’s just normal stuff. But you navigate that pretty quickly and and you’re just on to to and and I used to hear of other people who would get sick. And I would do the be part of the cookie driver or whatever food drive and, you know, but I just did it, you know. And I had compassion for it. I just don’t think I really truly get it till I’m the guy getting the food drive or my son. I’m the guy who signs out in front of my house. I’m the one who’s, you know, where they give you the pity face or whatever that is, you know.
And It’s not about me. It’s just Christian. You know, I I I think I just I yeah. I I mean, I’m not I’m just not that guy. I don’t even know who that guy is. I I I I tried to look back on that guy and I just kinda think of him as kind of a not a I don’t know. I don’t like that guy. And I I mean, I mean, I wasn’t a bad guy. I’m just saying, I’m not sure I recognize that person because now I look at life very differently. I look at other people differently. I try to give everybody kindness at the fullest extent. You know, even when someone’s mean to me. It’s okay. I’m okay with it. The old one be like, you know, say anything. Be mean right back to you. You know? That’d be brutal. But I I don’t I mean, I don’t want any of that. I don’t I want nothing to do with that.
Because I think in the end, you know, for me, it’s I think for my family too is the ultimate goal is I wanna go see Christian again. I’m not gonna get there from a do good things. It’s not gonna happen. So I I I think my focus is how do I get to see this kid again? Because I miss them.
So

Victoria Volk: How do you think it’s changed your wife in your marriage?

Christopher Cochran: Yeah. It’s changed it. Definitely changed her. I mean, you know, she’s it’s her first born. You know? He’s Yeah. It’s changed her. Totally. You know, she’s still sweet, loving, but it’s a daily routine. Right? It’s a daily it’s a daily struggle. I’ll put it that way. It’s a daily struggle. You know, in terms of marriage, we love each other and what is different? You know, how can it not be different?
Mhmm. It’s just different. It’s just different. It’s not bad. You know, I mean, we but it’s different because, you know, it’s you you you struggle you’re I think it’s a struggle for her too. Right? The witness if I go through difficult things too. Right? Doing doing talks or speaking. Even this discussion today it takes a lot out of me.
Right? It will end. When you go about our lives, it still takes a bit of chunk of my body out of me. And I think that’s the same way for us. It’s like when you talk about her, you go through it. It’s a reminder. Right? Nothing’s changed in my house. Right? And since Christian’s room is the same as when he left it, his shoes are here, his, you know, nothing from that perspective, but he’s just not here anymore.
So for her, it’s yeah, it’s it’s she’s a mother. Right? And I’m sure mothers who listen to this will get it. I mean, it’s it’s bad for a dad too. Don’t get me wrong. It is. It’s horrible. But I just think a mother has a a different connection with their children. They bore that child. They brought that child into this world. And she’s a nurturing parent. She she in a ways his kindness is driven off of his off of how she’s Raised him? We both raised him. I’m more of the tough. Get it done. Let’s go. You know, she’s soft and gentle and caring. And so, you know, I think it’s yeah. It’s tough for her. It’s tough for her.

Victoria Volk: How have you taken care of intended to yourself as a grieving man and spouse? You know, it’s easy for women to talk about self care and all of that, but when it comes to men, which, oh, no, of course. You know, you kind of alluded to that, but a lot when parents are grieving a child or a lot of the focus does go on the mother. Right? And the husband in the spouse, the father is not disregarded or not, but they don’t get as much attention.
Right?

Christopher Cochran: No. I I get it.

Victoria Volk: And so I wanna, you know, what helped you personally, like, in self care in the year’s sense, particularly.

Christopher Cochran: Yeah. I mean, it’s just staying busy. I mean, I’m a simple guy. I’m on a you know, there’s no complexity. I have I have certainly have my moments I talked to Christian a lot, so I have a relationship with Christian, you know, much like I have a relationship with God. It’s sometimes good, sometimes not so good, but it’s a relationship. I talk I just talk to Christian. That’s and I hear him. So, you know, that gives me a lot of comfort. I I can absolutely hear. So, for me, it’s it’s stay busy, stay active, stay constantly engaged, with guy things, I guess, whether it’s working on a car or just working on my business, you know, writing, you know, those are the things that occupy me. As a man. And of course, being engaged with my other children, you know, and my wife doing things. Right? It’s very important. Going on vacations together, you know. We’re gonna go to Europe, I think, this December. For a couple weeks to get away. So we do things together. You know, we’re we’re tightening it and we love being around each other.
And so I think, you know, I I try to put a lot of effort in as best I can. To those things. And most importantly, my family, my kids, talk to them every day, always communicate constantly. Sometimes my daughter does one hear from me, but, you know, like, have you just called me, leave me alone. But I just like hearing my kids, so make sure they’re okay. I mean, I’m so I’m part of, you know, it’s so funny back in my day. My parents probably didn’t care where the heck I want. You know? I don’t know if you were the same way. I was like, I I got on my bike and as a kid and when it started to get darks when I came home. And my parents, you know, they were great parents. It’s just the way life was. Right? And today, we’re like, helicopter parents. We don’t know where they’re always at. I mean, my daughter’s married, and I still have my find my iPhone. I know where she’s at all the time, you know.

Victoria Volk: She knows I turned that off on you.

Christopher Cochran: No. No. She knows they do it, you know. And she’s okay with it. She she knows that. And she’s fine with it. Plus, I think I pay her bills though. I don’t know why I still do that, but before I go to sleep at night and lame, I’m go to sleep. I wanna see where they’re at. Are they okay? Are they safe? You know, my wife too does the same thing. So I mean, so we’re probably a little obsessive on that, but you know, I think you know, it’s natural for us too. Right? We were always that way when Christian was here, interestingly enough, probably more for Christian, even before the cancer. I always you know, my wife and I would always you know, so one thing we prayed about is our whole life having kids is just to keep them safe. I don’t care about anything else. Money is irrelevant. Everything’s irrelevant. Right? Being safe, healthy, alive is all that matters because you can fix everything else. Everything’s fixable. Money’s fixable. Relationships can be fixed. You know? But I can’t fix death. I can’t fix it when they’re hurt. And I think with Christian in particular, I always was nervous about Christian. Always. I’ve never not been nervous about Christian in particular, not because he got into bad things or something like that. It’s just he was such a good kid He was always doing good things. He was just so good and a nice boy and loved us deeply. Loved his family deeply that it always was a concern of mine that something was gonna be happen. Just because he’s just too good. Can’t be this good.
I can’t be allowed to have it this good. You know?

Victoria Volk: Sounds like he had an adventurous spirit too.

Christopher Cochran: Oh, yeah. I will tell you that, like, we would go. We would go on trips as a group, and he was always the most daring of all of us. So if there was a road like like gooey like here and he Christian would be the one to take us down a beaten path. Like, he was always the one that got like, we need to go down that road because there’s gonna be something really awesome down that road.
I’m telling you, and be like, Christian, please stop this shenanigans. You know? Like, we’re we have a destination. We have time schedule. He said, no. No. No. No. No. Yeah. We trust me on this. It’s gonna be great. And we trust him because he’s smart and he Sure enough. It’d be something extraordinary, you know. It’d be like a giant mountain west and you’d be like go here and it’d be a giant crater in the middle of the desert. And and it is goofy as that is and baseline as that is. It’s like the beauty of it all, just to gather, see this. It it creates a incredible feeling and he but he knew that. He knew that he was gonna create something special for us. And so he had a way of doing that all the time, which is constant. So, yeah, he’s adventurous and always sort of creatively thinking of ways to to think differently.

Victoria Volk: What do you look forward to most in co creating in your life that has been inspired by Christian?

Christopher Cochran: Well, to continue for me, it’s the legacy of Christian is what’s good about today. Right? I think the truth is I don’t really know. I don’t again, I don’t look too far. You know, that’s my point. I really do focus on today. I focus on the moment my present moment with you. I’m all in with you. Right? I haven’t thought really other than the questions you asked me. It’s it’s just about you and me today right now. Some often students, something else and present there. But I think I have found that things kinda come my way. Right? It’s the dows them of things, I let things flow the way they’re going to flow. And in Christian’s legacy things tend to flow, come up out of nowhere. Whether it means someone wanting me to speak somewhere, whether it means someone else taking the initiative to to build something around Christian. Right? There are a lot of things that are going on around Christian that I’m not always I get, you know, if you wanna call it approval, but people call and say, hey, we’re doing this whole thing around Christian. What’s good about today, and they’re implementing it in school districts now. Right? It’s they’re working with teachers now to implement what’s good about today in K-twelve. Especially younger kids where they have a board says what’s good about today and kids come in in the morning. Right? What’s good about their day? And the first thing in the morning, and then the day they erase it the next day, come and do it again. And it’s a teaching tool prepared for teachers to be able to see how their students How their day is? Right? They can identify kids who are not having good days

Victoria Volk: of that.

Christopher Cochran: And they can see where things are not going well in certain areas. But it’s just a way to help children too young because I do believe you know, sometimes when we’re old and we don’t get this messaging when we’re young about understanding the beauty of every single day. We forget about it and we got old. And we forget about gratefulness. We forget about presentness. We forget about all those things. Because we get caught up in the minutiae of keeping up with the Joneses and doing all these things, things, you know, to dos. But I do think, you know and Christian used to have something used to call him to love list. He didn’t have to do list. He had to love list. And so I try to do the same thing. It’s just how much love can I give out today? And so I to to I don’t know where it takes me. I only know, you know, what tomorrow will come and and and new things will pop up. And and and I’m usually a yes, you know, the yes guy is like, yeah, let’s do it. Whatever it takes, whatever it is to educate, whatever it is to to get this word out about what’s good about today. Help them ask themselves that question in the morning, the afternoon, in the evening, so they can reflect and see that life was so beautiful and and and it is. So that’s my help.

Victoria Volk: I love that idea too. My sister-in-law is super intended. I’m gonna mention it to her.

Christopher Cochran: Please love to get it out there in North Dakota. Right?

Victoria Volk: Yeah. Yeah.

Christopher Cochran: That would be amazing. Yeah. That would be wonderful.

Victoria Volk: He kinda touched on it that your relationship with Christian has continued when you talk to him. How do you how would you describe how that has helped you in your healing, your spiritual beliefs around that, that there is something after?

Christopher Cochran: Great question. Well, I I firmly and absolutely believe there is somewhere we all go. I do I know this because I I actually talk about it in the book that Christian came and visited me about two weeks after his passing. So this happened prior to Christian passing, I remember being close to him and asking him with crying. I remember this. And this buried in his neck and say, Christian, I need you to do me a favor, and he said, sure dad, whatever you want. And I said, look, I I need you. You have to. You have to. Come see me after you’re gone. It’s it’s so important because we’re gonna be a wreck. It’s you know, I said, we need I need some understanding of this stuff, you know. He said, dad, I promise. I promise you. I will be back. I promise you. This is absolutely and this is a kid when he meant he said it, he meant it, and I knew it. So about a week after Christian passed, hope you don’t mind me going into the story.

Victoria Volk: No. I don’t.

Christopher Cochran: Okay. So a week after Christian passed, I was muddling down to the mailbox, down my hill. And as I’m walking down the hill to my mailbox, I can see the male carrier coming down the street. And she had a green bell in her car for rep, Christian left green. And she subsequently had written this before again and said, listen, I wanted you to know something about your son that we didn’t know. Your son, every time I’ll be on my mail routes and he saw me, he’d pull over and come and talk to me. And tell me, and he’s I don’t have anybody who does that. Everybody runs from the male person. She goes, I don’t know why. But your son was the one who would come to me and wanna know about my life and ask if I was doing good and how my life was and you know, and so she’s like, he’s so important, you know. And I was like, yeah. I hear that from a lot of people. So as I’m walking down, instead of reaching about where she’s coming out, she hands me the mail. As I’m reaching out for the mail, this beautiful blue butterfly flying. I don’t get butterflies around here. Beautiful blue butterfly huge lands on my hand. And I’m, you know, I’m in a bit of weird state anyway, and I looked at her and I said, am I am I seeing things? Because I thought maybe I was hallucinating. I didn’t know probably was on medication at the time, but she said, nope. That I’m seeing exactly what you’re seeing. And I was like, okay. And that butterfly sat there for ten, fifteen seconds, just hanging out on my hand. And I’m home in the mail, not moving. And fluttered and disappeared. And I was like, okay. And I I I always had the sense of butterflies and people talk about butterflies and what they mean. And I’m okay. It’s what it is and told my wife and showed up to another week later, a lane in bed. And I remember this as if I’m here talking to you, I was put in a position in a basement. I got I’m in a basement. I’m there’s cinderblocks I mean, it’s a cinderblock old home as if it’s just been built. And there’s a a patio walkout door, and it’s green. It’s green. Bright lights, really pretty. Oh, and oh my gosh.
I’m in somebody’s house. Why am I what are we doing here? As soon as I said that, I got moved into a foyer. And the foyer’s an old it was tile, you know, a little square tiles Mhmm. You know, kinda like bied by fives, tiles, gray. And the door is like a nineteen seventies door, eighties door had a had a step ladder windows, if you you remember? Mhmm. Couldn’t see out of them. And it wouldn’t do her. And I remember thinking, oh, great. I mean, what the heck am I? And I remember turning to my left and about ten, fifteen, feet away is Christian at a mantle fireplace. By the way, lots very bright, very beautiful. There’s two chairs sitting to the left in front. They swiveled, and there were two people on them. They were shadow a figure, but they were moving. They were shadows. I couldn’t make who they were or what they were. And Christian’s in his beautiful, beautiful hair in his one of his sweaters, smiling. He had that he had this smile that it was like, see, told you I’d be back. You know, he didn’t have to say it. And I, of course, immediately wanted to rush to Christian, you know, run. But as soon as I had started to move, he immediately was in my face. He was right there in my face. And I, of course, put my arms around him I I could smell Christian. I could and he started to talk to me. He said, hey, dad. He said, listen. I love you. I need you to tell mom everything is okay. Everything is fine. I’m very happy. Everything’s gonna be fine. And you guys need to move on. And I said, Christian, I love you. I love you. I’m just I’m talking. I’m feeling that every bit of him and you know, I didn’t see any ellipse movie and I, you know, kind of wrap me talking to me and is and and I remember by the way I should say that not only did I see these two people, I could design the whole room to you because there was like a step kitchen up there and people are mulling about in shadows. Like, it was almost like I was invited to a dinner party or something, like I was somebody’s house. I don’t know whose house. I just assumed it was Christian’s house maybe or his apartment makes sense because of the door. I don’t know, but I I know for a fact what I experienced was not a dream because I didn’t wake up. I was in this weird state. I can’t remember any dream I’ve had, honestly. The only thing I remember and was that moment and how deep it was and how real it was. And so he just faded away and I faded back into who I was. And I sat there for about an hour. Just I didn’t wanna wake up my wife. She was next to me and tell her, But I for about an hour just sat there, so I can’t believe what just happened to me. You know, I I’m just I’m in this unbelievable you know, I can’t believe it. You know? He said he do it. He did it. I went somewhere, I wasn’t supposed to go. This was not a dream. I was like, then I tried convincing, yeah, it was a dream. Oh, wait. Well, I couldn’t have been a dream. I smelled him he was real. I was there. And so my wife woke up about an hour later and I told her what had happened. It’s verbatim. She says, Chris, last night, I went out on the porch. I prayed to Christian so deeply. Just ask him to come see us come see us please.
Because I never told her, you know, this discussion I have with Christian. And then I told her this, and this is what happened. And he’s never come to visit Danielle. It’s never happened. And I have subsequently not seen Christian since then in any form of state like that. You know, I’ve had dreams that are weird and but nothing to this that was as crystal clear as this. Christian does talk to me. I do hear him. I’ll ask him questions. Sometimes about life and just the other side, what’s going on?
Sometimes I’ve tried to reach out to him, he doesn’t get back to me. It’s not instantaneous. Sometimes he’ll come back to me and with frustration. Like, what do you need now? Like, I’m I get a sense he’s very busy. So, you know, he compassionately, sweet, nice to me. Just my like, hey, what do you what can I do to add? I’m busy with stuff, you know? Any What can I get you? You know?
What do you need? And Sometimes it’s just reassurance, you know. So that that’s what I hear. It’s gotten a little less now, but I still do it. Just just not not constantly.

Victoria Volk: There’s a I I had a conversation. Thank you for sharing all of that. Mhmm. First of all, I had a conversation with an intuitive Helen Gretchen Jones. It’ll be coming out around the time of your episode too, but I’ve had other mediums that say that those who have crossed over describe it like school, and it’s almost like community. It’s like they’re in community. So when you said that, it reminded me of those conversations of how they’re never really they’re not alone. Right? They’re they’re in community with others mingling. Yeah. Yeah.

Christopher Cochran: Yeah. I’ve asked Christian that question too, actually interestingly enough, like, you know, when you die, I’ve I’ve said, oh, do you have famous? Because there’s so many people who die, you were famous. Right? I mean, this lifetime. And like are you friends with famous people? Do you hang around with famous people? And his answer is no. I don’t. You know, that’s not my and that makes sense. I do hang around with people who are famous, but they’re not people you would ever know. Like, they’re obscure famous people. Like, the most obscure people that no one’s ever gonna know, but they were in their moment, had some form of they were they were important or, you know, yeah, I find that interesting. But I much of his friends are just regular people. You know, just normal people for the most part from everything he tells me that it’s just a it is communal. It’s it’s not much different as it’s explained to me in the way that it has been explained in the short conversations, Krishna, is that it’s not dissimilar to this. In many ways, you know, there’s much to do. You’re never bored. You know, there’s lots of choices and you can be with your friends. You can you know, you can check-in on people, loved ones, you can do all those things, which so sometimes he’ll tell me things that are so above me in my brain, and sometimes I can’t even explain them. I don’t know how that even makes sense. Like, he’ll explain a a multi level thing that’s something happening that I don’t even know how to explain it. Like, I I wouldn’t even know how to I’m not smart enough to be able to regurgitate it back out to another human without it sounding like I’m completely insane. Like I it’s not like he said something so it’s just like it it has so many layers to it that it that I don’t know how to explain it properly. And just leave it with inside my brain of sort of rolling around and figuring it out as best I can.

Victoria Volk: Is there anything else that you would like to share that you don’t feel you got to?

Christopher Cochran: No. I think you’ve gotten a lot about me. Like I said, it sounds like I was in therapy here. No, I just think those who are listening who are going through grief and I think what you offer here is very important. It’s very important because Grief is something not everybody’s gonna go through.
It’s it’s a universal trait that we all are gonna have it. You don’t think you’re gonna have it. You’re gonna get it. Mhmm. But I think it offers an opportunity to explore how each of us navigate it, how best to navigate it. And ultimately, for me, it’s I I want people to remind themselves is that and I I say it, what’s good about today is because I want them to focus on today. Focus on the beauty and what you have around you right now, your family, kids, anything that can bring you a little bit of pieces of joy into your heart. Right? Because if you’ve lost someone there’s a chunk that just gets ripped out of you. And your job is just to continue to fill it with little pieces. Happiness is that elusive thing. Right? I don’t know that I’ll ever be happy. Maybe I’ll be happy when my daughter, and as you’re first born, and that will bring me some happiness. And I’m sure it will. And I’m sure I I find those things when I can. But joy, pieces of joy are what I I try to pick up along the way. So I tell people pick up pieces of joy every which way you can. Something that makes you brings you some joy in your life and I think if you continue to build upon that, you build something in a good solid puzzle in your heart and you can can learn to continue to move forward in this life, you know. It’s all very short anyway.
I mean, that that’s not the downer part of me. I’m not trying to be a downer. It’s just that when you really think about it, it’s extremely short. And you just wanna leave a good legacy. You wanna do the right thing. You wanna help as many people as you can. Help put your energy into helping others. And I think that’s that can help you in grief. Right? Helping others who are hurting. Right? It’s a it’s it’s a good way to navigate your own grief is to see other people’s hurt and help them because now you’re just suffering is it is part of the human condition. It is what we do to get closer to God. It’s what gets us closer to all things. The more we suffer. Unfortunately, I think that is by many means and at least I’ve convinced myself that I’ve been asked to suffer. My family’s been asked to suffer because it gets us closer to god. It allows us to get to where we need to be forever. This is short. That’s what I would leave.

Victoria Volk: That’s beautiful. And it makes us more compassionate is what we’ve described as it brings out the compassion. Our suffering comes out our compassion. It can bring we have a choice. Right? It brings out our compassion or or if we project out our pain onto others.

Christopher Cochran: That’s true. And I I think suffering isn’t in the form of your own suffering, of course. But the more you take on of other people suffering know that sounds a lot of people run from suffering. Most people run from suffering. Right?
Because they don’t wanna deal with it. Right? I don’t wanna deal with that problem. But I would tell you to run to it.

Victoria Volk: You know the bunch

Christopher Cochran: of suffering.

Victoria Volk: Is the Buffalo?

Christopher Cochran: Yeah. Oh, what’s the Buffalo?

Victoria Volk: Well, Buffalo. I’m in North Dakota. Remember Right. I guess you buy some.

Christopher Cochran: Right?

Victoria Volk: But Buffalo actually run through a storm because they know it’s a shorter path to where they need to go instead of taking the long way and going around it. Buffalo actually go through the storm.

Christopher Cochran: I didn’t know that.

Victoria Volk: You

Christopher Cochran: see, I’m in Pittsburgh. We don’t get buffalo. Oh, there used to be buffalo around here, you know. It used to be a lot of buffalo, but But, yeah, you you have it, so you would know.

Victoria Volk: Bison is it’s very good too.

Christopher Cochran: I know they I see it on the menu a lot. I see it a lot. But, yeah, no, that’s I I think run the suffering. Can be a big reward.

Victoria Volk: One final question.

Christopher Cochran: Mhmm.

Victoria Volk: What’s good about today?

Christopher Cochran: Good about today? Well, it’s easy. I’m here with you. I get to talk about this. I get to speak to your audience. I get to share Christian’s story. I get to remind people the goodness in the day. So today, what’s good about today is that I am here with you talking about this. So that was an easy one because and with you. So anything I’m doing in the moment is what’s good about today.
So it’s it’s definitely what’s good about today. And I I’m very appreciative of the opportunity to speak with you.

Victoria Volk: It was wonderful having you.

Christopher Cochran: Thank you. Where can

Victoria Volk: people find you if they would like to reach out? Learn more about the foundation, organization, the book, all of that?

Christopher Cochran: Yeah. So first and foremost, if you go to you could Google Christian Cocker and you’d probably pull up all kinds of stuff. If you went to christian corker dot com or dot org, you’ll find all kinds of information on Christian, which is really the most important thing to me is just that you know my son. And everything else after that is good too, but that’s most important to learn about his legacy and how he lived his life. Because I do believe that, you know, the more you learn about Christian and the things that he did, he can help you learn little pieces how to lead a purposefully driven life. You can certainly pick up my book on that website, but you can also find me at chris cochronspeaks dot com, which is where I do speaking engagements, sell the book. And the book is available on Amazon. It’s available at Barnes and Noble. It’s available for global distribution, and I hope people hope people read it. It’s a love story. So I wanna make sure people understand that this is not a, you know, certainly you can get a lot from it and learning about how grief, the navigate grief. But I try to explain this is really a love story. It’s a love story about a family. Love story about family has gone through the worst thing and how we navigated it, but telling a story about how Christian led his life And that’s the point. To me, it’s a it is a book about a purposely driven life, not my purposely driven life. That’s why it says Chris Cochrane inspired by Christian Cochrane because it’s really him. And it’s me trying to explain how he lived a life that we could all take pieces from. And do do better in this life.

Victoria Volk: Thank you so much for sharing. And I will put those links in the show notes. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.