Ep 107 | Michele Neff Hernandez

Cancer, Death/Dying, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Widowhood | 0 comments

Michele Neff Hernandez | The Soaring Spirit of a Widow and Fatherless Daughter

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:

In this week’s episode, Michele of @soaringspiritsintl and a 2021 Top 10 CNN Hero, shares her story about the challenges of blending a family, but then enduring a devastating loss and grieving as a blended family.

But because grief is cumulative and cumulatively negative, a previous divorce, followed by the sudden death of her spouse, then the death of her father, taught her so much more about what it means to grieve well.

It’s hard enough to be a widow and raise your own children, but few talk about the challenges of grieving with the children you raised as your own with a spouse who is no longer living.

By the time her father’s health was declining and he was put into hospice care, Michele had been around the grief block and was able to support her mother in a way she had never anticipated. And, the loss of her father, starkly different than the recent loss of her spouse before his passing, opened her up to have meaningful conversations at the end of his life that she still treasures today.

Grief has been the catalyst for what was initially going to be a book but later morphed into a movement in what is called Soaring Spirits Camp Widow which takes place in several locations around the United States and now in Australia, too.

What is your grief trying to open you up to receiving? Michele allowed her heart to soar in the wake of her devastating losses. Let this episode inspire hope and instill the understanding that grief is what we make of it.

We can allow grief to destroy our spirit, or we can allow it to aid us to transform our suffering and soar. 

RESOURCES:

• Soaring Spirits Camp Widow
• Book, Different after You: Rediscovering Yourself and Healing after Grief and Trauma

CONNECT:

• Website
• Facebook
• @soaringspiritsintl / @micheleneffher

______

NEED HELP?

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
• Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor

If you or anyone you know is struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.

Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.

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SUPPORT THE SHOW:

• Rate & Review: Apple Podcasts
• Purchase my published book about my grief journey.

CONNECT WITH VICTORIA: 

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• Website
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• Facebook

Victoria Volk 0:00
Hi this is Victoria of theunleashedheart.com and you’re listening to grieving voices, a podcast for hurting hearts who desire to be heard. Or anyone who wants to learn how to better support loved ones experiencing loss as a 30 plus year graver in advanced Grief Recovery methods specialist. I know how badly the conversation around grief needs to change. Through this podcast, I aim to educate gravers and non gravers like spread hope and inspire compassion towards those hurting. Lastly, by providing my heart with yours and this platform, Grievers had the opportunity to share their wisdom and stories of loss and resiliency. How about we talk about grief, like we talked about the weather? Let’s get started. Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. I’m your host Victoria Volk. And today my guest with me here is Michelle Neff Hernandez. She is the founder and chief executive officer of soaring spirits International, a nonprofit organization providing peer support programming for widowed people worldwide. Michelle is the author of different after you rediscovering yourself after grief or trauma, and is set for publication by New World library in February of 2020. To her passion for supporting widowed people in the power of integration feels her presentations in her community activism. She is also one of the top 10 cnn 2021 Heroes of the year for the work that you’ve been doing, and also for the impact. So thank you so much for being here and for the work that you do. So needed.

Michele Neff Hernandez 1:50
It’s a pleasure. And I am Thank you, thank you for those kind words.

Victoria Volk 1:53
What was your life like before all of this?

Michele Neff Hernandez 1:59
So different. Which is is a part of the reason why the title of the book is different. After you I was a personal trainer, I owned my own personal training company. And I was parenting a blended family of six, my late husband Philip, and was just actually in the process of building his own air conditioning and heating business. And so we were both self employed. And we had a combination of six kids together, he had three from his previous relationship that were teenagers, and I had three from my previous marriage where my oldest was when we got together. My oldest was eight. So we had three littles we call them and three older ones. And you can imagine blending a family of six, I am actually the oldest of southern children. So it wasn’t as foreign to me as it might have been to other people. But we lived a very active lifestyle. He was really he was a truck Coach and an athlete. And so we shared kind of this passion for all things like and then we were sharing this big, crazy wild family as well.

Victoria Volk 3:09
Wow can you speak to a little bit about, like, I don’t know what that’s maybe the possible grief that even just a blended family and trying to navigate the relationships among the children. You don’t have to go into detail or anything. But just with those first few years, or maybe like,

Michele Neff Hernandez 3:26
I’m so glad you asked that because one of the one of the key messages in the book is about integration. And it’s about taking all of the difficult things that have happened in our lives and technology, what we grieve about, what about what that experience has brought to us. And then also taking those things that we’ve learned from moving through that experience to help us with other experiences. So when I got divorced, I was crushed. I had I got married at 20 years old, I was only 20. And I thought it was forever. And I was really just I went through a really difficult period of disillusionment when my marriage ended. But it wasn’t a choice that I would have made but ultimately participated in. And so here I was, with three little kids and feeling like I had to recreate my life and I didn’t want to, I went through an angry divorce kind of attitude for a little while and then finally sort of settled into knowing that I needed to do something different and right about that time, Phillip Hernandez walked into my life on a track actually. And again, he had had his own experience of not having the relationship that he started very early in his life, work out the way he had hoped. And so when we came together, we came with two very different parenting styles. We came with different loss experiences around how our relationships ended. And it was hard work. And I think I never really thought that the work that I did around I divorce or the blending of the family that Phil and I then sort of came into was going to be useful in any way. But I will tell you that after he died, though I didn’t want to single parent, I knew that I was capable of single parenting because I already had. And I kind of leaned into the lessons that I learned while we were bonding or what it’s like to really honor and recognize the different needs, because you can imagine, right, there’s eight of us. And everybody had needed something different. They needed something different from each other, they needed something different from each of us as parents, they needed a different thing from each of us as a as a perinatal unit. And so when I’ve told people wanting that family is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Because the unique pole and push of what people need from this family experience less so tough. And we wrestled, I will say for sure it was difficult. What we kept coming back to was that we really loved our time together. And we wanted to make that work. And so I tell people, make sure you have dates. Because if you can’t remember why you chose your partner. I mean, I think that’s true for every relationship, but particularly if you’re blending a family because you have to remember what brought you together during the times when it’s really difficult to find a path forward. And I had heard every member who told me that at some point, somebody said something like takes really about five years, and I was thinking to myself, No way. No way is it going to take five years to make this family feel like a family. And really, he died after five years and three months. And I can tell you that we had really kind of hit our stride. Like we felt like a family. And it wasn’t that it was easy. But I don’t think any family is really easy. But it did feel like we were a family for him to die. Right at that time. It felt like we were robbed of what might have been, I think,

Victoria Volk 7:03
And the kids too, because I’m sure that they settled into this new life and new family unit. And

Michele Neff Hernandez 7:13
Yeah, and without him, we sort of ended up in two different camps of trying to figure out how to grieve Him. And so that definitely was another was we talk a lot about in the grief world about secondary losses. And in the early stages, I was a primary loss, but going forward in my life has remained a secondary loss, which is they really needed to find their own way. And, and in a lot of ways that didn’t include me. And I needed to be okay with that, even though I wasn’t. And so that’s been another piece for all of us, I’m sure. But for certainly for my three kids and myself, that was another piece of what we had to make our way through. After he died. He was the linchpin, right?

Victoria Volk 7:55
Well, and even the relationships that kids had with his kids. Yeah, for sure. Layers and layers and layers of loss and

Michele Neff Hernandez 8:02
So many layers. Yeah. And I feel like that’s, that’s a part of what has brought the deepest lesson. So it’s that these differing layers of loss, I think, I never went feel died, I had never grieved anyone very close to me, my grandfather died. But I, it was at a time in my life where, you know, that’s sort of not exactly expected, but it was it didn’t affect me personally in the same way. And so I never really had an adult brief experience. And I think my initial thought was be the hardest part is going to be the early parts. What I learned was that the harder part was learning to live without him physically present, and figuring out how I maintain a connection with him and how we as a family navigate what each of us needed. Because once again, we’re in a place right where there are seven of us and the seven of us all need something different in order to move through our grief experience. And I think as a parent, that was the hardest part was I was living my own experience. And then in addition, each of the kids was gonna be theirs. And as we know, for children, no, they process at the age they are and have to keep reprocessing at every new age. And so I just felt like it was an eternal grief wave that kept coming from every different direction, each different kidney and a different thing. And as they understood it differently, being pulled back into that it really was an evolution for us of walking through each new step. And for me as a parent, that was I think the hardest part was just knowing that each one of them were never done grieving. In my opinion, I think it’s just a way of life and it becomes a part of who you are. But for kids in particular with the new understandings that comment different ages, there’s a deep processing that can happen at each different age. And I think I had a sense of that initially, just because as an adult like I thought he’s not going to be present for any of this kid’s weddings, he’s not going to be present for any of our children’s weddings. And so, when my daughter got married a couple of years ago, we found ways to honor him. It had been, he had probably been dead 13 years, I think, yeah, it’ll be 30, it would have been 13, I’ll be 60. Now they’ve been married for three. So he’d been dead for 13 years. And, and all of us felt the absence of him, let’s suspend sort of our ongoing understanding of what it’s like, when you live with grief.

Victoria Volk 10:29
I understand that deeply, too. I was a child Griever, my dad passed away when I was eight. And so I can speak to that, that we grow with our grief, like our grief changes with us every phase of our life and manifests differently to at different phases as well, if it’s unprocessed and on undealt with or not looked at. Yeah,

Michele Neff Hernandez 10:53
Well, and we talked to you and a tiny bit before we began about my name, and my dad just died will be a year coming up in April. And she was a key part of my life and a key part of my process. And I’m recovering from my grief. And I really wanted his name to be on any book that I would publish. And so right about the time that I decided that I wanted to write a book, I returned my maiden name to my name in order to be able to make sure that, that any book that I would eventually publish would have my dad’s name on it. And so it has been just wonderfully bittersweet for him to have been, he was able to be a process of the writing. He knew that I that I had gotten a publisher, he knew the book was coming before he died, he got to hear the title. And there were just a lot of pieces of it that he was able to participate in, but having his name on the book made a big difference to me. And that’s something acknowledging that that desire to continue to have a connection with the people we love goes on and on, no matter how old we are, or what our grief experience, where it may take us. I feel like that ongoing connection is such an important piece.

Victoria Volk 12:12
Even in unloving relationships, the relationship still continues after the person passes away living or dead. I mean, those relate, or you have relationship with people, and D, have you looked back then I’m sure you have. But when you father passed away, which I’m sorry, during COVID, were you able to be with him?

Michele Neff Hernandez 12:32
We were so fortunate, I mean, and and to speak to how my past grief experience has influenced my current grief experience. That’s what I was getting on? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, I mean, and again, all this while that he’s dying, and I’m writing about this. And so we’re writing about the power of integration, and how allowing myself to be changed by what I experienced my grief experience with film led me to understand better the tools that I that I used to survive that and those exact tools were such a gift to my family. So as I said, I’m one of seven, and my dad decided that he wanted to access hospice care. And we were able for six months, during COVID, to take care of him all of a sudden of us. And so we ended up with an incredibly beautiful death experience, especially with the work I do. We’ve participated in providing care and support and resources for COVID, widowed people since the beginning of the pandemic. And so I’ve heard the stories that are heartbreaking, and understand very deeply how fortunate we are to have been able to care for him at home, right to the end of his life. It was some of the hardest work I’ve ever done, for sure. But because of my grief experience, I was able to kind of lean into it in a different way. And my husband was killed in a cycling accident. So there was no opportunity to care for him, there was no opportunity to say everything you might want to say. And because of that I understood how valuable that was with my dad. And we didn’t leave anything unsaid. And I again, I recognize that that’s a gift of both the relationship we have the family dynamic that we are fortunate to have built and and maintained. So there’s a lot of pieces there right now. But you know, ultimately, our ability to be present was impacted by my grief experience for sure.

Victoria Volk 14:36
Well, you bring up a good point, just in sharing them. Thank you for sharing because it isn’t that way for so many people. And so we can’t assume that people have it, the same way we do or the same type of even relationship that we do with our loved ones. And so assumptions really can create some hurtful comments.

Michele Neff Hernandez 14:59
And I I think that because I’ve worked with so many widowed people over my career, I just have a breadth of stories and and what I always feel is what I love about community for grieving people is that it gives you the scope of experience, right. So you may not have had a great relationship with your father, and you may not have a great relationship with your siblings. And maybe you weren’t even able to be present for your, your father’s death. And so that’s one that’s one side. And then there’s the story I just told, and then there’s so many in between. And it helps us to know that there are so many different ways that we live in relationship, and that the way we live in relationship is going to impact how we grieve, as well as every situation related to how our person died. And so I value that about our community, because it gives you this sense of, there isn’t one way to do this, there can’t be because there’s no one situation. And so every situation is going to be influenced by relationships, by what we know about breed by what we’ve experienced in the past. And that’s the key work of integration is being able to allow ourselves that I feel like there’s such power in that. And that became because of that belief, the focus of my vote.

Victoria Volk 16:11
So do you feel the first step for many people who find themselves in a situation of loss with not knowing where to go or where to turn to? The first thing to do is to look for support?

Michele Neff Hernandez 16:24
I do, and a recognize in saying that, but some people will say, I don’t have any, there just isn’t it because again, some of us are walking this route alone. But what I know for sure, is that people who have access can find that access to a community will be able to understand that there are other it’s lonely and isolated, and grief is isolating all on its own. Even if you have the best possible support. We’ve all heard stories of people saying I was in a room with 100 people. And I felt because my grief isolated me in such a way that I didn’t feel connected to anybody else around. And so that is true already in the best of circumstances. And when people are struggling on their own. And using my Dad’s experience, just as one example, I kept saying to my siblings, I don’t know how we when we when one of us would be on vacation or need a break for whatever reason, or have something that had to do. We were like, who’s going to cover and there were seven of us, including my mum eight. And so knowing widowed people who have done that, caregiving for years on their own, with literally no one else made me just so hyper aware of how hard that would speak for them. Because it was hard for us. And there were many, many hands to do to work. And so when you think the not single person is thinking, how am I supposed to find support, when I’m just overcome with five years worth of caregiving, I’m exhausted, and I don’t know where to turn. And there wasn’t anybody to help me when my person is dying. And now my person has done the work of soaring spirits provides that kind of for widowed people virtually and in person so that they can connect in whatever ways feel right for them. And my first sense whenever anyone’s grieving is to look for a community of support. Look for other people who are grieving the way you are. Social media, while it has all of its challenges has really allowed us to be able to find groups. And I’ll say, it’s also really important to make sure you find a group that fills you up and doesn’t drain you because certainly the tenor of your group makes a difference. But finding a group and a group could be one. It could be two, I’m not, it doesn’t need to be a community of 1000s. It could be just a community of one or two. But connecting with one or two people who are also agreed, just helps normalize the experience all that stuff you yourself and you are talking about in your brain. It’s helpful to get that out and have someone else say that makes sense to me. It helps remove that sense of am I losing my mind, this makes me feel out of control. There’s so many things there that can be normalized, just by knowing someone else had the same feeling.

Victoria Volk 19:12
You said a key phrase earlier and you said, you’re allowing yourself to be changed. And I think for so many of us, Grievers for me personally knowing it intimately and acutely well and how it changed throughout my life. It’s why my art for my podcast is me sitting on an island with a megaphone, because you feel like you’re just you want to scream to the world and nobody’s listening and you’re screaming on the ends. That’s why my art is what it is because that’s that’s how you feel as a griever so often sure, yeah.

Michele Neff Hernandez 19:50
And that’s especially when there isn’t anyone to validate. And for me, that’s the that’s the beauty of the community piece. But coming back to the chain Just I think one of the most harmful things that Grievers can do to themselves is set going back to normal as the bowl, I need to get back to normal, I can just get back to normal, then that means that grief hasn’t won, I’ve made my way through. But the reality is that we are absolutely changed. And every time we pretend that we aren’t, we’re fighting ourselves, and we’re setting ourselves up for failure, because we keep telling ourselves when Trump’s gonna get back to normal. But life isn’t, what was normal can’t ever be, especially for someone who’s grieving, but really, for anyone who’s lived through a traumatic experience. And I like to bring it down to this just one simple thing, which is you can’t unknow what the things that that you’ve learned, whatever day your tragic experience happened, you will never forget those. And so just by virtue of that one single thing, things can never be the same as they were before. And then here we are fighting to make it the same, feel the same be the same person that I was before whatever happened for us, it’s a grief before my person died, I want to go back to that version of me, that version of you cannot be returned to. And so then then what does that mean? I’ve heard so many greeting people say all the while I’m not as good as I used to be. I’m less than because of my grief experience. And there was a time in my life where I was parenting six kids, I was working two jobs. I was building a community for widowed people. I was trying to write a book, I was maintaining a relationship with my family and friends. And all I wanted was feedback to the other girl who could manage all the things better. And so because it didn’t matter that I was doing all those things, if I couldn’t wreck that this person that was surviving, this horrible thing was valuable, it wouldn’t have mattered who else told me it’s valuable, didn’t matter what number of things that I did, nothing mattered until I decided that this new person that was born from the experience I lived through was not. And so I needed to allow that change, I needed to allow myself to be changed. And that’s been such a critical part of my personal growth. But also the ways in which I’ve been able to support other widowed people have been the crux of that, which is being able to find the value itself you are now.

Victoria Volk 22:27
So what did that look like for you? early on? When you mean you were starting to build that community and you were doing all these things? But what was what was helping you I know you were reaching out to other widows to better understand and in build community. But what did healing look like for you? What was that process?

Michele Neff Hernandez 22:47
I think that the key for me, was coming to a place where I realized that I it couldn’t be the same as it was before. And I think the key is being able to allow yourself to be broken. And that was the thing I wanted to do would be broken at all costs. If I could just not be broken. That’d be good. And so my constant need, I’ll give you one quick example from the book. I was going to run a marathon when I turned 40. And Phil and I were going to do it together. So we had set this goal, he ran a marathon. And he wanted and he was like, Okay, it’s going to be your turn. I was like not right now. How about when I turned 40, we’ll go white, and we’ll run a marathon and you can be my support person. Great. That was the goal. Then he died when I was 35. So I’d five years. And I thought, okay, that’s still going to be something I must do. In order to prove that I’m not broken, I have to meet every goal that we set prior to his death. So I start training for this marathon, I’m in trouble. I am struggle, I have all of those things that I just listed going on. And now I’m also trying to run a marathon. And by myself, I don’t have the support that I did, then I don’t have anybody else in my life who lives close enough to me to be able to support this marathon thing that I’m doing. And so just keep doing it. Keep doing it. One day I went 80 miles, I run nine miles through three cities, I get to the third city, I’m turning around because it’s turnaround route. And I start crying. I’m like, I have to run all the way back. And I thought, why am I and the reason was because I didn’t want to be. And I thought that if I did not meet every single one of those goals. I’m literally nine miles from home. I can’t there’s no one to call. I can’t call someone and say come and get me. I have to run back. So I run back those nine miles because walking was just going to take longer. And I got home and I thought I mean I’m just not doing and freeing myself from the judgment. I ended up I had the nerve and I was training for the LA Marathon because I had decided I’m not going to also travel so I’ll just run the same one he ran. I watched it on TV from the couch. And I thought this was the right choice. Assuming, and that was just the beginning of understanding, okay, you don’t have to do all that you can be different. That doesn’t mean you’re out valuable, it doesn’t mean. And ultimately, to end that story, it even didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to run a marathon. Three years later, my daughter decided that she loves running and through a crazy situation of one thing after another, she and I ran a marathon together. And so it was that it was, I don’t know that that would have been possible, I hadn’t been able to release myself from that first spirit on, because I’m telling you, it would have been miserable, I would have been miserable. And I probably would have been like, I’m never doing that again. Instead, I said to myself, I don’t have to do this, I’m only doing it to prove it to myself, no one else cares. And allowing, and even if they do, I can’t, I don’t want to, it’s been in a position where you’re able to say, I can free myself from having to be who I used to be in the exact same fashion course, there’s going to be a lot of things that are gonna be similar about the person you were before your person, your grieving died, and the person you are today. But there also might be some differences. And allowing for those differences was the beginning of me understanding the value of accepting that when we’re broken, when we can be broken, that means there’s space for healing, for as long as we pretend like we’re not broken. What are we healing from?

Victoria Volk 26:25
So much there? I’m curious, was it just this thought process that you had within yourself this dialogue that you had within yourself? Or did you look to external things to help you process your grief? What I’m getting at is, are some people just built differently as Grievers? Like do you just have this thing in you?

Michele Neff Hernandez 26:47
Well, I mean, I think that’s true, right? Just because we’re different as people. So yes, I think that’s a part partly true about every person. But at the same time I was, you know, this, I was also building that community and hearing story after story. And the thing that people would say to me most often was, When am I going to be back to myself? When am I going to recognize myself again? And so we think the, for me personally, the pairing, the desperation, I heard from other people, when I could clearly see their vote. And so then that was the beginning of understanding, okay, well, if I can clearly see their value, and they’re telling me that they want to be back to the valuable person to use it, then how does that apply to me? And so I think that there was this pairing of coming back to what we talked about, in the early part of the episode, this stand of what you understand, when you’re in community, you get the access to all these different experiences that may or may not be like your own. And I think some of the most valuable ones are the ones that are totally different from yours, because now it’s okay, I have this scope of experience to reference when I’m thinking about and processing my own grief. And so I think for me, personally, the combination of, yes, I am a person who is able to self reflect, I am a person who has had that experience in my lifetime, right. So when we think about how we come to greet and come with experience in our life, and for some of us, that will include self reflection, and for some of us, it will not. And so that will be harder for people who haven’t had that experience before. It also will be one of the gifts of their grief experience if they allow themselves to self reflect. And so each one of our experiences in our lives, whatever they are, the difficult ones seem to have the most impact, right, that we aren’t as impacted. We think by the big beautiful things that happen to us, as we are sometimes by the things that break us. And I think being able to have access to so many people who had been broken in a similar way to me, helped me to sort of see a path forward. It was kind of like if you saw markers all along the road, and it was like, Well, wait a minute, this path seems to be delay. When I look at all of these markers that have been provided by the number of widowed people that I was fortunate to have access to. And I come from a family of community, our family always believed in community. And so again, when we talk about integration, I was integrating the lesson I learned as a child, which was community can be built, and it’s valuable. And because I knew that, I was able to say, Okay, I need a community. That’s what I need. And then building one was both by accident and design, because in the early stages of widowhood in the early stages of grief for anyone, right? We’re all struggling with whatever that early stage looks like my early stage included, please tell me where my people are, because I need them. And that’s something that I learned from my life. And so for people who haven’t had that experience, I think they don’t have that same natural desire to find it. And that’s why I like to talk about it. Because if you don’t have a natural desire to seek community Need, it might not seem valuable to you. But I have met person after person after person who has said, I’m typically not a joiner. I’m an extreme introvert wants nothing to do with people, I don’t really like people. And all of them have said I can’t believe community is because suddenly, there are those markers along the road. And that’s going to be different for each one of us. And the path forward will be slightly different for each one of us. Being able to have some markers makes a difference.

Victoria Volk 30:30
I want to just highlight one thing too, in that you are actually an entrepreneur when you experience this loss. And so I think, when I always tell people like they’re nothing will teach you more about more life lessons than entrepreneurship, motherhood, breeds.

Michele Neff Hernandez 30:49
All of them bringing my age, yes,

Victoria Volk 30:51
your age. And yes, I think just being an entrepreneur, it’s you have this sense of sense of self that maybe a non entrepreneur doesn’t and it on entrepreneurship brings out all of your insecurities, as does motherhood. And so we bring these lessons. And then when grief hits, if we already have some sort of sense of leadership of our lives, or in our lives, I think we naturally will, like you said, like you created that community, you were a leader to create this community.

Michele Neff Hernandez 31:21
I think that is definitely true. And also, we should say, I’m the oldest of seven children. So I’ve been bossing people around since I was born. But I do want to mention, like so many times. And when people hear my end, even if we talked about seeing the years, it’s the same, it’s look, this is what you build, which is true. What I always want Grievers to know is that we each individually have our own path forward. And we’ve lean on, like you said, all of the lessons that we have already learned in our lives. And so because it’s different for each one of us, I’ve had people say things to me like, well, I didn’t do what you did, it doesn’t matter what you do. It matters, how will you give yourself spacing, that’s the key message is being able to allow yourself your unique path. And so those markers on the road for you, when other people community, they’re going to be different. And that’s all going to be influenced by everything you already know, everything you’ve already experienced. And absolutely for me, it’s natural for me to lead. And it’s natural for me to gather people. And so this community came together, because it’s what I needed. And in order, I thought I needed it clearly someone else needs it, too. And so that desire really was to provide that space for other people that it’d be easier for them to find it. And yet, I didn’t really ever think about the fact that people might say, well, you have to do something big with your grief experience. I think what you have to do with your grief experiences, integrate it, and then your life will take you in the direction and sometimes a very new direction. But surprising because when we allow ourselves to be changed, then we can ask new questions. What does this need this need, did not need to run a marathon when I was 40, it didn’t work for this knee, it would definitely have worked. If I feel confident it would have worked for my 35 year old self had my husband stayed alive. And we had planted that together, we would have been very excited about that. But because that was no longer the situation, if I didn’t respond to that change by allowing myself to have what this version of myself needed at the time, then I’ve robbed myself of that growth and that ability to be different. And I needed that I needed to and even still, even those first five years. So think like I feel died when I was 35. That experience was when I was 40. And so I’d already been widowed for five years when I needed to make that choice. And I was still telling myself the story that if I didn’t meet all of the goals that he and I set together, I was failing. And so even five years in with an organization, it was a baby then but it was an organization that was started with events that were being held with standing on front of the stage in front of widowed people talking about my experience still holding myself to a standard that was not good for me.

Victoria Volk 34:01
Did that make you sick?

Michele Neff Hernandez 34:03
It’s funny is that I did some I did some interviews in the early the first year of my grief. My first the the actual idea initially was I was gonna write a book, having interviewed 30 Other widowed people. And so I went on this crazy journey starting when I was four months widowed, to interview people across the country on weekends, because I still had to work and mother and do all the things. But anyways, I got sick after every interview. And it didn’t really realize it until I had finished all the interviews and I was going back to my calendar to write them all in. And every time I looked, I had a paper calendar at that time, every time I looked, I would see that I had rescheduled my appointments after I got back. And not only did that when I’m sick, and I got sick after every single one. And so definitely that physical connection and the thing was that that’s very natural for me, because as a personal trainer, I would train people about how their physical selves were responding to their emotional selves. And so now I’m here I found myself in the reverse of that really being firmly rooted in my emotion, and sometimes forgetting how that was going to play out in my body. And so it was a really interesting lip of story for me as a athlete, and for me as a person who was breathing to really recognize that to see that in action was was, at some point really cool and other points super annoying.

Victoria Volk 35:25
So we just had Valentine’s Day, how did you spend it?

Michele Neff Hernandez 35:29
I am remarried. And I have a lovely husband, who has been so supportive of all of this. And so today is book launch day for me. So yesterday, we celebrated with sushi and an eating in so that we weren’t out with all the people who were lined up hoping to get a table, but it was lovely. And you know, what I tell people, my post actually on social media was about remembering that, while Valentine say seems to always be focused on on the romantic love, it’s really about like, it’s about love. And it’s about all the left. So I posted pictures of everybody I love because, for me, you know what, one of the things I think that’s been so valuable about my grief experience, in terms of my relationships is Phil and I were pretty insular, we were very, we were busy with each other pretty much all the time. And I still continued to name team, my family connections and my friends, but we were pretty much each other’s one person. And after he died, of course, that was really, really painful and difficult. And I developed a lot of relationships in the aftermath of that, that become very important to me. And so in this new version of my life, my husband is a key person in my life and one of my best friends, but he is also a part of a collection of people who matter to me. And I’m really hyper aware of that, of maintaining all of the connections that fully up and recognizing everybody has a part to play. And so Valentine’s Day yesterday, I posted my nieces and nephews, my siblings, my mom, my dad, my friends, my work team, like I was posting all the pictures of all the people just to remind everyone that love is something that never dies. And because of that, the more love we have, the more opportunity we have to continue this loving connection with the world. Because we are loving more and more people. I love that

Victoria Volk 37:25
I actually posted about self love if you felt like Valentine’s Day was not bringing all the warm

Michele Neff Hernandez 37:31
fuzzies you if it’s chocolate and the bunnies.

Victoria Volk 37:34
Yeah, take all that love that has nowhere to go and and give it to yourself and for widows especially right.

Michele Neff Hernandez 37:41
And I think for Grievers in general, because like I’ve said, so often, we’re so hard on ourselves. And people have often asked me, What’s your best advice to give someone who’s newly bereaved. And I would say, Talk to yourself in the same way you’d talk to your best friend. Because we, we so often will hold ourselves to ridiculous standards and forget how difficult what we’re doing is and we wouldn’t ever say that to our best friend. If our best friend was living our exact circumstance, how would we care for that person, or for yourself that way. And so I love that idea of making sure that we’re and self was on my list of self love people for that reason, because if we can’t, and that all circles back to what I said in the beginning about this list of things that I was doing, and I still saw myself as less than because I hadn’t been able to look at myself and say, you’re valuable, just as you are. And this experience has not changed how valuable you are. It has changed your life circumstances, and you need to adapt something new. That doesn’t make you less than you used to be. And I can’t I mean, I honestly can’t count the number of times I’ve said that to people who are grieving because we want to somehow honor our person or honor the experience or stay connected by making sure that nothing has changed. And it’s just, it’s just a an impossible standard.

Victoria Volk 39:06
I often say that grief puts a veil over our faces, and we just we can’t see ourselves clearly. And you don’t see others clearly and creates this disconnect really within ourselves. And when we’re disconnected from ourselves, we truly can’t connect with others. And so I think part of seeking out community or why it might be difficult for so many to seek out community is because they feel so disconnected to themselves. And so I would suggest to that people start there, start with yourself really asking yourself, what is it that I need today? Or what is it that I’m trying to forget? Or what is it that I want for my life moving forward? What do I see for myself in the future?

Michele Neff Hernandez 39:49
I think that the other part of that that’s so difficult or creepers is that as you said because we can’t see ourselves and oftentimes that clouds the way we see our relationships with others. If it feels like there’s just nothing in the future, and we don’t know the answers to any of them splashes. And I think that’s the one of the key reasons for seeking community, even when we can’t see ourselves, even when we can’t see clearly other people because that helps with one of the things we lose when I personally love guys is that witness the witness to who we are the cheerleader, and recognizing that some relationships are not good. And maybe they wouldn’t have been those things. But there certainly is this witness that happens, we’re sharing life with people. And there are expectations around how we will interact with each other. And when that person dies, that whole dynamic shifts, and there’s no replacement. And so you find yourself swimming in the unknown, trying to figure out how to find your footing when, even when and maybe even especially when the relationship you’re in wasn’t good. There’s this flooding loss where you’re like, but now what? And so being able to be in community sort of helps you to if you look at someone else, that’s what happened for me, right? Like when someone else would come to me and say, I’m not as good as I used to be. And I’m telling them that yes, of course you absolutely are, then I’m hearing myself, say it someone else and thinking that can apply to you too. And so it’s helpful to see other people, sometimes we’re able to see what we’re feeling reflected in, and being able to see that helps us to kind of see through that veil. And I always tell people, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have answers, if you’re willing to keep asking questions, and even make those questions teeny tiny as possible. So what do I want more of in my life today? Well, I want more sleep. Okay, then that’s one thing you want more, that’s one need that you can see. Okay, so now your energy can be focused on that. And and then as you as you continue asking yourself that question, new thing will come up, I want more sunshine, I want more time to write, I want more love, I want more joy, I want more. But you know, we have to be willing to accept I want less pain, I want sleep. I want a break from this going swirling around in my head. Like sometimes the things that we want are, are not going to be the fluffy fun things, or even really forward looking exactly like we are taught to think of forward looking, what do you want your 510 15 year plan? If you can give yourself the smallest opportunity to answer the question would want a lot more of in this moment. What do I want more of in the next hour? Where do I want more of for this day? Sometimes that can be a good place to start and practice being able to answer questions that sometimes just feel unanswerable.

Victoria Volk 42:49
And overwhelming.

Michele Neff Hernandez 42:52
And annoying and and sometimes hurtful. Right? When my fence fell down in my back five months after Phil died, the fence blew down. And I’m looking outside my window into my neighbor’s window. And I’m like, Oh, my gosh. And so I’m thinking to myself, I need to get three estimates. So I started doing that one guy says to me, Do you want a five year 10 year or 15 year events? And all I wanted to do was take a little fence post and smack him with an arm with it because I did not want to eat I couldn’t. I couldn’t I don’t want to know why I’ve 1015 I mean, I can’t think about next week. Why asking me that question poor man. But you know, it’s that sense, right? Of? And then what do I feel like at the point of failure? I feel like I can’t even answer a simple question. Do you want to add 10 or 15? Your friends? That’s because be capable of thinking that far ahead. And so being able to just give ourselves grace around what? So what I wanted the answer to the question is I want the fence to go up today, which one of us could go up to date so that my dog doesn’t get in my neighbor’s yard and allowing ourselves that small thinking? Because we’re trained to think bigger. And when we are trained to think bigger, and we are unable to the story we often tell ourselves is that we can’t and that that’s terrible, but it’s natural. Of course. It’s so painful to be at this moment sometimes that I cannot even imagine the next five. And so what do I want more of? I want more relief. That’s okay. That’s a that’s a perfectly great answer.

Victoria Volk 44:23
What had Phil’s life taught you?

Michele Neff Hernandez 44:26
She was a person who did not live with regrets. And sometimes I found that very annoying. But I have learned what a gift is not to second guess all of the things that he he would make a choice and he would run with it. And if it didn’t work out the way he wanted it to. He didn’t regret making the choice. He just pivoted and it’s really been good for me, I think because I’m a perfectionist by nature. And so I don’t it’s been hard for me to make mistakes and allow myself the pen It’s a bit of a mistake. I always thought when I don’t know about that, I don’t know about the benefit of mistakes. But I’ve learned that there’s just so much that’s a gift in mistakes. If we allow it and he was just fine with it, he would go right on to the next without regret without beating himself up about it, for the most part, and I’ve really appreciated being able to, to allow mistakes and to and try to avoid that longing for perfection that is part of my nature.

Victoria Volk 45:30
And actually, it’s very fitting because this week in my newsletter, it’s I’m digging into the word regrets. Oh, great. And then I flipped it on its head because so often when we hear the word regret, we think of it in a negative connotation. We think the things that we didn’t do specifically Well, I do anyway. But that’s that’s usually the thing that comes to mind is what I don’t do. What if we thought about regret in terms of what do I regret starting? I’m sure you don’t regret study only starting to write a great starting your group of widowed women Bay. So if we flip regret on its head and think about it, what do I regret starting? Or what will I regret if I don’t start it?

Michele Neff Hernandez 46:12
Yeah, there you go.

Victoria Volk 46:13
You know that too?

Michele Neff Hernandez 46:16
For sure. Yeah. And you know what, you’re right. It is interesting how regret? Definitely. I mean, for me, anyway, such a negative connotation right away. And I think the other thing is, What won’t you regret? What things won’t you regret? And when we look back, especially for relationships, right, I don’t regret that even knowing that we would only have five years together. I don’t regret the choice to spend my life with. And so that’s another road for regret is the things that we value and would do again, even when their heart

Victoria Volk 46:49
What was your dad’s name? What is your dad’s name?

Michele Neff Hernandez 46:52
Not why dad’s name is Dan net. I am endlessly fortunate to be his daughter. He was the proudest Papa, you can imagine. And so in fact, he would often come to our events are called Camp widow, and therefore any person who’s widowed, so any gender any relationship type, married, not married, if out speaking, he would sit at the front, and he would tell the people on either side of him that curl up there, that’s my daughter. So he was not a good person himself. But he would be one of people in the bed friends also been a really Hello, in some ways, amazing, other ways challenging, emotionally challenging to watch my organization serve my mom. And for her to step into this space that I created as a widowed person, I guess intellectually, I always knew that that was the likelihood my dad has struggled with his health for more than a decade. It was always in my mind, of course, that that if you were to ask me who was going to die for us, the likelihood was always going to be him. And so it’s been incredible to witness my mom’s stepping into this space. And again, my parents are the people who told me about community. So she’s a natural community builder, and she is at home and community and she fits right in and is creating her own communities within the community. So it’s been a really heartwarming and also heartbreaking experience to witness her stepping into the widowed world. And partially a one that, you know, that I built for this purpose. And partially just understanding on a personal level, what it’s like to be changed by widowhood. And knowing that, on the one hand, there’s nothing I can do to, to change anything about pain that she’s living in. And I and I realized the value of it, I know that she will be changed in ways that are, are necessary for her, because my dad is dead. But it’s been really, I keep saying, I feel like I have a little bit of widowed PTSD, because every step that she’s taking into these things that I had to do myself is like stepping back into my young, widowed self and looking at this experience from her perspective, while also of course, seeing it from my own as a daughter. So it’s been a it’s been an intense couple of years, for sure. I imagine it’s brought you and your mother closer. Yeah, for sure, including the care experience, because we were all together. I mean, it was also interesting, because of COVID. We were only the siblings. So we all have partners who would have loved to be able to help but because of COVID We were trying, it was pretty early in COVID. So we were being testing and doing all of these things to make sure that we could be there. So we had to limit the number of people and so ended up being literally like our seven siblings. And then towards the end, a couple of grandkids would come and my daughter was able to be there for a good portion of the end of its life. So that was beautiful too. But when what worlds would you be back together in your adult as adults, sort of reliving your your childhood it was it was an interesting gift.

Victoria Volk 50:00
And I never really thought about that either. And that’s really kind of often what happens right at the end of life when you’re given if you can look at it like an opportunity and but again, not all relationships will allow that. And that’s the unfortunate thing. But it is possible to have a good death. It is possible that I will my end of life doula training really opened my eyes to that with a bat.

Michele Neff Hernandez 50:23
So my mom is a birthing doula. So yeah, and so it’s also just all those lessons of birth and time because birthing doula is also deal with that, when births are don’t go the way people hoped they would. And so, so much of what she leaned on while taking we would, we would call it mom’s do Lane dad, because we could do so much. But there were times when it was only her that he wanted. And so we’d be like, mom, dad need to do it. And it would, it wouldn’t need to be her in that moment. But there was a beautiful, like she said, I think the thing is that for our culture, that we are because of our fear of death, and because of our desire rate for perfection, and for us not to be changed, like all of these roadblocks that we put up for ourselves, we make it difficult for us to embrace the reality that can happen. Because death itself, you know, in our culture is often the enemy. And so we don’t want death. And because we don’t want death, then nothing about it can be good. But the reality is he couldn’t have. I mean, it was hard, really hard, but beautiful. And, and we gave we weren’t able and fortunate as we were to be able to give him what he wanted. And to juxtapose that with what I knew about other people who had had a loved one die from COVID. It just really just like I said, drove home how fortunate we were and how grateful I was for his death experience. And one of my brothers, they said something about looking back, because we’re now approaching a year anniversary. So all of us are kind of remembering where were we this time last year, and I said something to my brother about it’d been a hard day or something. And he said, I look back on that time. And I think it’s one of the best times in my life, that we could be together that we could be in service to dad, that mom had the support that she needed to be a caregiver, but not have to do it all on her own. He was like I I just look back at that time. And Bill. Yep, so grateful. And we’ve said many times, that’s not I don’t put that out to pretend that that’s what everyone is fortunate enough to build. But I do think that we more often than we than we can see have the chance to make death, a beautiful experience, when we allow ourselves to see it not as the enemy will true.

Victoria Volk 52:56
Again, it comes back to the different layers, so many layers of grief, when you can have seven siblings growing up in the same household and every single sibling is going to have a different recollection and perception and experience of growing up in that home. And that’s that adds a real different dynamic at end of life for sure.

Michele Neff Hernandez 53:18
I think it’s also worth saying out loud that it’s not because it was beautiful, doesn’t make the grief easy. Exactly. So I mean, that’s the other piece right is we can welcome a beautiful bath. And we can live and I can feel endlessly grateful for this particular part. And that does not make what comes after it easier. And I think that was another piece of my personal understanding of what we were doing was that I knew that we could make choices that would make his death easier, and that we could come together in this way. And also that it wasn’t going to change anything about how party was great. And that we were all gonna have to do that work. And we are definitely eight different people doing it in eight different ways. And each of us living that each of us watching my mom witnessing and as you said, I am witnessing it from my load perspective. My siblings are witnessing it from their perspective of their mother. And while I also have that, of course, that I have this other layer and so a lot of times I’ll say we can’t we can’t do that for can’t take this from her. It’s impossible. I know. It’s hard to watch her BMP. I know it’s hard to watch. Knowing Valentine’s Day is a perfect example knowing that last year Valentine’s Day, we created this whole league Valentine’s Day scene and left them and everybody went home for the night came back and so of course she’s Of course she’s missing him and there’s nothing you can do about it except for tell her we love her and be available if she wants to talk. And so it’s been an interesting role for me to play because I uniquely know that I know that there’s nothing they could have done on the first Valentine’s Day to make it easier. I’m except keep loving me If I had to make my way through, so no we not for people, we don’t imply that a good death makes the grief easier, a good death just that that passage between life and death can be smoothed by a willingness to allow the love and the conversations and and also to let people just be who they are. No one’s going to change in their last five minutes before they die. And so being able to recognize that relationships may be what they are, it doesn’t necessarily negate the opportunity for a good death.

Victoria Volk 55:36
Yeah, I agree about 100%. There’s no half grievers.

Michele Neff Hernandez 55:40
that’s true situation is true. Try as you might agree with 50%, it will not work.

Victoria Volk 55:45
So what is I mean, you’ve given so many tips and things throughout our conversation, but what gives you the most joy and hope for your future?

Michele Neff Hernandez 56:01
Well, I would answer that in two ways. One of the things that brings me so much joy is the privilege of witnessing the evolution of my widowed population, like when I meet a widowed person who has just been widowed, and then get the opportunity to be a part of their lives for five or six or eight years, and be able to witness where they are eight years later. It’s an incredible gift. There’s nothing like it. And the fact that they can look back on their experience and say, that being a part of this widowed community continues to be a blessing to them is, is the whole purpose of my work. And so I feel very fulfilled in that way. And then on a personal level, one of the things that Phil’s death taught me just in such an a deep way was that the time we spend matters, and being able to make space for things that might not seem that important to the moments if one of them for example, if one of my kids calls, I turned my phone off today, because if one of my kids calls I’m always going to answer like, I’m always tend to dance, like look at the phone. But you know, of course, that seems like something that people would always do. But you know, my nieces and nephews, I don’t really special relationship with them. And I look to Phil’s death, as the beginning of that, because it was like, okay, you know what, my 11 year old niece does not care if I have a big organization for whatever people, if that means that I can’t come to the recital, or the I can’t make time to talk about her latest book, or that I can’t spend time I have 10 nieces and nephews who are between the ages right now. But will this one just turn 1414 and eight years old. And they’re my little buddies. And, and I honestly believe that that’s because Phil’s death taught me like, you only get to do this one time for real. And if you want to leave a legacy, that legacy can be build one phone call to someone you love at a time. It doesn’t have to be bigger than that. And so I’m always filled up by taking those times, even last night, Valentine’s Day dinner, you don’t take that for granted anymore. And those those moments are ones that build a legacy of making time for the people I love. And I’m super grateful for that lesson, because it’s changed the way I’d spend my time.

Victoria Volk 58:35
Has it changed your camps that you nurture and bring together for widows? How have they changed over the years?

Michele Neff Hernandez 58:44
Where they are always in? Yeah, I think the thing, the most thing, particular about my own grief, I’m in a different different space now. Right from I started this journey, having nothing to do with nonprofit knowing nothing about what I was doing. And now we’re going to nonprofit professional for 14 years. And that experience alone rate has shifted some of how we do what we do. But I think the key thing about my own experience is that we make sure that people don’t feel like they have to outgrow our programs. And by that I mean if we go back to that example of someone who’s newly widowed, let’s say five years into their experience, they have a new person in their life. And if they’ve disconnected from their widowed community, that learning how to love somebody, again, and finding a balance between the lobby pad for your person who died and the love you have for the person who’s alive and how you especially because if you marry them, then husband or wife is the same word, right? Like I have another husband and so how do you how do you balance that? If you’ve lost connection with your community, who else is going to answer those questions for you? The people that you need are the people living that experience and that isn’t ongoing. We talked about my daughter’s wedding like now Knowing that there are other widowed people who’ve made their way through weddings, what did they do to honor that person? I mean, I had this deep reservoir of experiences and people and connections that will serve me for the rest of my life. And I know that that’s true for them, too. And so what I have learned is that I’m going to need my widow community forever, because they are a part of my witness, they are part of my evolution, they are part of each other’s evolution. And so we build programs that people don’t have to outgrow. And that doesn’t mean that you stay stuck in your brain. That doesn’t mean that you’re not moving through the natural ebb and flow of life. In fact, it supports the natural ebb and flow of life by having an ongoing community who has witnessed the depth of your grief has walked with you through the healing process, and has come to be the people you rely on when secondary losses come up. When a new experience comes into your life that requires you to kind of dig into that grief again and figure out how does the grief play into what I’m living right now. So the biggest message for me has been building a community. That’s a lifelong community of friends. And I’m super, super grateful for that.

Victoria Volk 1:01:15
So what happens if someone comes to experience camp widowhood? Like what what happens,

Michele Neff Hernandez 1:01:22
but I always tell people about the blend of the conference and retreat and or high school reunion. Because our programs 40 40% of every program is returned campers. And so those return campers are coming. Why? Because they’re coming to this event to experience new information for where they are in their grief process right now, one, and oftentimes to come back to visit their friends and reconnect with the people who, like I said, have witnessed the depth of their grief, they just become such good touch points for each other. So when you would come to camp widow, there are a selection of workshops that are all designed to address where you are in your way of life. So we call newly widowed to be a year or less recently widowed to be one year to three years middle widowed, which is kind of like the growing years of three to five years where this life is you’re starting to put it together. You’re you’ve lived it for a little while, but then often the question comes, but what do I want? What do I want more of, and that can be more of a long term conversation or a long term thought process, and then seasoned whatever we call five years and more. Those are people who have been living or widowed life who have oftentimes, re partnered have changed childhoods have done a lot of different things to to adapt to the death of the person that they grieve. And so all we we plan workshops to address every one of those areas. And so when you come to camp, you have the opportunity to interact and workshop you have entered the opportunity to interact in this group of people. So we divide people into workshops, where all of our newly wounded people are together, all of each of those other groups are together so that they can address the things that are unique to that experience. And then their social activities, people. Prior to COVID, we had a huge dance floor. So we’re sort of adapting to what this next this next version of Camp looks like. But people would often say to me, one year we had a ballroom and they said, Well, I mean, we could add larger dancer, but I can’t imagine that that would be what you would need. I was like, Oh yeah, double the dance floor. Because you can be with people who understand that dancing, and smiling and laughing doesn’t mean you’re over it. It just means that for this moment, you’re allowing the lightness of being with people who have made you feel free for a minute to be the primary experience you’re having at the time. And so our dance floor typically is a rocking dance floor of people who are so grateful for the relief of movement and music and camaraderie that speaks to a life affirming board. So that’s that’s the template experience in a nutshell. And it lasts from Friday to Sunday. So we start first thing in the morning on Friday, and we go all the way through midday on Sunday. And then those connections that people make, they tend to make lifelong friends. We have many people who have with one particular group of whatever people who met at their first Kimbo they all were together, I think it’s probably been seven years, they’ve had that same tech stream for seven years. So they continue to be the people who something great happens. I tell my seven my text stream something horrible is happening. I tell my extreme I need a little bit of support. I’m missing my person for some unique reason or I’m missing my person just because I miss my person that all of that can go into that space and imagine the power of that. If you have that for a year upon year upon year and each one of them has gone through their own evolution of the variety of things and they celebrate it together. Where is this located? We have four different location one is in Tampa. That one’s coming up in March, March is Tampa, Florida. July is Cindy in California, August will be Brisbane, Australia and November will be Ontario, Canada. And then we’ll have one, and we call them pop up camps. So pop up camp is just a one day camp where we kind of coalesce as much of the three days into one as we can. And this allows us to kind of move around the country a little bit, we’ll had one of those in Denver, Colorado.

Victoria Volk 1:05:25
It’s amazing. Do you see it’s new this this coming year for it?

Michele Neff Hernandez 1:05:32
The popups are relatively new, we started them before pandemic, having the opportunity to move around a little bit is going to be in for us. At our Australia camp is also a new camp. We’ve only done it once before we partner with another organization in Australia. And it’s been an incredible thing to watch what I imagined in and did the first time with my whole family as volunteers because they didn’t have any volunteers, they’ll also be working in a different country is really incredible. We’ve got a great partnership in Toronto, we just incorporated actually. So sorting spirits, Canada, is the organization that runs the Toronto event, it’s just been kind of amazing to watch it grow. And we’re very focused on making sure that we continue to provide quality programming we’ve had, as you can imagine an increase in demand, in part because of pandemic in part because of the CNN Heroes exposure. And so there’s been kind of a lot of people coming in. So we’re we’re really focused on making sure we take care of you.

Victoria Volk 1:06:30
And your book, are you on a book tour this year?

Michele Neff Hernandez 1:06:32
And my book, I am on a book tour this year, I actually have it doesn’t the first time I button, hold it up so that people can can see and see it in my hand. So yeah, I’m really excited about the book, the book tour will be from March to November, I’ll be touring all over the US, Australia and Canada as well. And, of course, including books at Campo. And it’s it’s such a full circle place I started initially, I thought I would write a book. And what I used to tell people was the book that I thought I would write in my first year of would have became a community. And it was really clear that I was really supposed to just focus on the community. And I, I really thought that meant just the book would come or it wouldn’t, and I didn’t worry about it too much. But then over the years, learning more and more about how I could bring to grieving people and anyone who has experienced a traumatic events, to help with some just practical steps towards rediscovering yourself and allowing yourself to be broken so that their space for healing. And so that’s really what the book is focused on. Of course, it’s not a book I could possibly have written a year into my widowhood. So I feel like the timing is is as it was always supposed to be. And I’m eager to get the message of the book into people who are struggling to accept this new version of themselves, because I see such potential there. And I really wish for people to be able to give themselves the kind of grace they would give to someone they love. So that’s, that’s the hope of the book to get that message out stance.

Victoria Volk 1:08:10
That’s my hope with this podcast to the people

Michele Neff Hernandez 1:08:13
That weren’t a perfect pairing,

Victoria Volk 1:08:16
Can see that there is another side? Yeah, allow yourself to get there.

Michele Neff Hernandez 1:08:21
Yeah, and be kind in the process.

Victoria Volk 1:08:24
And I feel like those really sad associations for yourself?

Michele Neff Hernandez 1:08:27
Yeah, and the thing is that we are, it’s so easy to fall into the trap of negative self talk. And you’ll hear a lot about that. And when people are struggling with self esteem, what we sometimes don’t translate is that reef consistently has an impact on self esteem. And so with that negative self talk takes a totally different tone. When you’re just saying too tired, I’m lazy, I can’t get off the couch, and it doesn’t acknowledge how much of your body, heart, mind, spirit are all involved in trying to figure out how to reconstruct your life without this criminal, this person living, to be able to address that negative self talk and to be able to say, be kind to yourself, like that’s the biggest that’s the biggest message for every griever be kind to yourself be kind as kind to yourself as possible.

Victoria Volk 1:09:24
I just had a thought too. And in especially in I think well again, depending on your background and in how you were raised and things like that. But when we put so much of our if we look so much at someone else right? To fill, what it is within us that we never filled ourselves and then that person is gone. That’s it deconstructs everything we thought everything and about ourselves and about my worthiness and everything. And so I think that’s would you agree that that’s why partly it’s so difficult because you really, it’s almost a reconstruction of yourself, knowing who you were before you put so much of of yourself into this other person? Well,

Michele Neff Hernandez 1:10:11
I think I absolutely agree, first of all, but I think it’s even, it’s even more complicated in that one of the things that I wrote about was, how surprised I was that my sense of self was shattered by my husband’s death, because remembering I had been divorced. And so in my first marriage, I was very young. And we were growing up together and having three babies. And so we were at when we divorced, I was like, I need to be independent, and on my own. And one of the things that was struggled for Phil and I was my, like, Uber independence, like I was super independent, I was not no interdependence, none. And so we struggled to find a balance there. And so the last thing I thought, what happened when he died, like I was so independent, how in the world did my entire self image shatter when he died? And I think it’s because we see ourselves in the world that I think this is true for every creeper in and as you said, particularly true when the person who died is your partner, is that we live in a world where they’re alive. And we are a person in that world when they’re alive. And when they die, we have to ask ourselves, who am I in his world now that they’re dead? And that is a question every guru has to answer. Right? And so I think often about the experience of the death of a child, who am I as a mother, when my child died? Right, so that we have we have to answer, we have to be willing to ask those questions in order and not assume that because we need to ask the question, there’s something wrong with us, right? Because that’s a natural part of living in relationship is we impact each other. And whether or not we want to recognize our interdependence, there is an interdependence, that is a natural part of having someone be a part of your life. And the more the larger the part of the life that they have, the more difficult it is to redefine yourself after they die. And so again, those those that redefinition, it may seem similar. It’s just that you have to be willing to ask question, I was shocked that I could not believe that my sense itself was impacted. I would have never believed you. If you had told me that before he died, I would be like, well, I know that I’ll grieve. I would tell I’d be terribly sad. But I know who I am. After he died, I was like, Oh, am I like this? It’s a disaster. I felt like it was a disaster. But what I didn’t know is that it’s totally normal. Of course, of course you do. And so normalizing that experience, I think it’s so important, because then we get to just ask the question. So is it the right time for me to run a marathon? Or isn’t it? That’s not a judgment call? That’s not a my a good person. That’s just, I am now living in a different situation. Does this new version of me need this? And the answer might have been Yes. Maybe I didn’t need it. In this case, it was no. And there’s so many other things that we do that we asked our jobs. So many people when they’ve had a deep grief experience, look around them and think I don’t care about this anymore. Hobbies, where we go to eat, what our room looks like, if we had the same house, all of these can be up for question, which for some people that will be uncomfortable. For other people, it will be freeing partly depends on our life experience. But whether or not it’s freeing or terrifying, still, asking questions allows us to consider if something different might serve this person we are today better. It’s all normal and natural. Totally normal. And and it’s just so sad that it’s unexpected. Because it feels it felt to me like a punishment. I felt like I was being punished. If I did all that work to learn who I was, Are you telling me I have to do that.

I was just so surprised by it. And also just depressed by it. I didn’t want to do it again. And so, but what I discovered through the process of it was that it allowed me to create a life that better fit who I am. Until you can recognize that there are differences. You don’t know how to build something for the person you are in order to build something valuable for who you are now have to be able to look at the things that have changed, grieve what you’ve lost, acknowledge that you’re different grieve what you’ve lost. And then you can start kind of asking questions. What do I like? What do I not like and and then begin building from there. So it’s insightful. Your comment is so insightful in that it is the Forget when it’s a partner. But I think it’s also so much a part of any grief experience. And it’s unexpected in many ways, because we think we know who we are. And we do well, to the extent that we do, right. But you could say we do in the situation that we are in, but when the situation changes, it’s worth asking, what about me has changed as the situation has shifted?

Victoria Volk 1:15:27
So good, so good. Is there anything else that you would like to share?

Michele Neff Hernandez 1:15:31
I do really want to just point out that the book, while it is the foundation of it, of course, this grief is really intended for anyone who’s lived through something traumatic, because the the traumatic experiences we live, you mentioned a toxic relationship that had had been traumatic those changes, too. And if we can allow ourselves to kind of consider how we’ve been changed and integrate what we know about ourselves now, it’s so valuable for us as we shape our future, and utilize those tools in our present to create something that matters. And so the book, it does have a foundation of grief. But it was intended always for anybody who’s lived through a traumatic experience and then feel like we all had through pandemic then impacted in in unique ways for everything from a person died during a pandemic. And of course, the biggest possible shift all the way down to I decided I really actually love working from home, I never want to go back. So we’ve been shifting all of us and they’re in the array of, of conversation in between. They think it’s, it’s something if we can acknowledge that we’ve been changed, and we don’t make getting back to normal the goal, then we’re better able to craft us what’s happened to craft something valuable. So my hope is that people will be able to see not only, even if what they come to the book for is a grief experience, they see not only that great experience, but the other experiences in their lives and be able to begin to integrate some of what they’ve learned through that to be able to craft a really mean like today.

Victoria Volk 1:17:08
Is an invitation to pivot

Michele Neff Hernandez 1:17:10
Definitely is an invitation to connect that’s perfectly said.

Victoria Volk 1:17:14
Where can people reach you if you’d like to connect, learn more.

Michele Neff Hernandez 1:17:18
Love for them to join me on my website. It’s Michelle, I spell that with one L thanks to my mother. So Michelle Neff, Hernandez with a z.com. And you can find information for sworn spirits there. It’s for saying soaring spirits dot o RG. So it’s soaring and spirits as a plural dot o RG, you’ll find all the soaring spirits programming there. And then like I said, You can reach me on my website, the book is there. So you’ll have links to purchase a book if you’d like to do that, and can also contact me there.

Victoria Volk 1:17:47
And I will put all the links in the show notes. Awesome. Appreciate it. And thank you so much for your time. I know you’re in the midst of an exciting time and you’re feeling great. Yeah, it was this has been a treat. So thank you so much.

Michele Neff Hernandez 1:18:03
I appreciate being invited. And I love what you’re doing. And so these ongoing conversations, I feel like this is the way that people have the opportunity to understand that they can be changed is by hearing exactly this. And I should also say listening to a podcast Community Councils community to that doesn’t have to necessarily be a one on one interaction. So in whatever ways you can expand your circle. Those are the ways that you get to access those kinds of cones that we talked about on the road.

Victoria Volk 1:18:32
So thank you. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love. From my heart to yours. Thank you for listening. If you liked this episode, please share it because sharing is caring. And until next time, give and share compassion by being hurt with yours. And if you’re hurting know that what you’re feeling is normal and natural. Much love my friend.