Emotions, Grieving Voices Podcast, Mental Health, Podcast, solo episode |
I Can’t Stop Crying
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
What is your opinion or belief about crying? What has been your life experience with crying? As a child, were you told to stop being a “crybaby?” Or, if you wanted to cry, your parent would give you something to cry about?
If you reflect on your relationship to crying for a moment, you may see that the patterns and behaviors about crying likely haven’t changed much as an adult. That is unless you’ve done considerable emotional personal development work. Just like we have to build our self-confidence muscle, our emotional intelligence, like a muscle, needs attention, too.
Do you know people who have used crying as a manipulation tactic to get what they want? Have you known people who have used crying to bypass what is emotionally going on – using it not to have to talk about what they’re feeling? Maybe you’ve done one or both of these things yourself. Most of us have, at some point in our lives, particularly as children, when there was something we wanted. Depending on the behavior emulated for you as a child, perhaps these behaviors were learned and are tactics you rely on today.
This episode aims to get you thinking about crying and your relationship to it. As well as to consider how the ways others respond to the grief and loss in their lives may differ from you – and allowing that to be okay and not judging the other person for it.
And for funsies, if you haven’t seen the 1990 movie Crybaby with Johnny Depp and Ricki Lake, it’s a fun role to see Johnny Depp play.
RESOURCES:
Victoria Volk: Hey, Hey, Hey. Thank you for tuning in to today’s episode. This is episode one sixty-two already. And I just wanna take a moment to thank you for being a regular listener if you are, if you’re brand new, Thank you for being here. And if you found me through someone else sharing it with you, I hope you paid it forward and share it with someone else you know her love. Let me find the content of grieving voices helpful. I really enjoy bringing on guests who I am personally curious about and love to know more about. In an effort that what they have to share will be meaningful, and helpful to you the listener. And so if this podcast is, I asked that you please leave a review five stars if you would please. It really helps the podcast continue to grow but more importantly sharing it with someone who really does maybe need to hear whatever that episode is that you feel inclined to share. I hope you share it. Follow that nudge. If there’s someone that you’re thinking about, like, oh, so and so should really hear this hear this episode, follow that nudge. Share it with them because that nudge was given to you for a reason.
Victoria Volk: There’s many examples in my life where I follow the nudges and you just feel really good when you do. You can’t be wrong when you’re listening to your inner voice, which really knows better than our ego. So listen to that inner voice if you feel called to share this with someone or any other episode for that matter. And I greatly appreciate a review if you have five minutes to do so.
Victoria Volk: So, yeah, let’s get into today’s episode where I wanna talk about crying. Growing up, I cried a lot. I had a lot to cry about, but I cried a lot, and it was I’m I would I would say that I’m a highly sensitive person. And as a child going through so much grief and loss, traumatic things happening and a lot of change, just from age five on it was a lot for a child to take in for any child to take in and a lot of children are going through really difficult times. And what do you do with those big emotions? Adults really I mean, we as adults don’t even know what to do with their big emotions half the time, particularly with anger. And so when a child is expressing these things, including anger, it can be confronting for adults. You don’t know what to do, and so it’s easier to just say just go to your room and cry. I don’t you know, they don’t wanna see it. Adults don’t wanna see it. They don’t want it in their face. I’m not saying all adults, I’m just these are very generalization, very much generalizations.
Victoria Volk: But as particularly, I will say, adults who have not address their own emotions or really have sat with their own emotions. Maybe their children who grew up and are continuing those behaviors because that’s what they were taught. That’s all they know. You get angry, you punch a wall, you spew words to other people that are just out of character. We just don’t know what to do with their big emotions including grief, anger, sadness, all of these things that are part of the human experience.
Victoria Volk: In particular though, I wanna talk about crying though because we have this idea that when someone passes away and no one’s and the person isn’t crying, that they’re somehow detached or they just that’s abnormal. It’s abnormal behavior to not cry when someone close to them passes away. And so I just think that this is an important topic to talk about. And on the flip side of that, I mean, people can use crime as a way to manipulate as well. Right? Like, we can turn on our acting skills on a dime sometimes to get what we want. This is if we have needs that aren’t being met, our egos can really get creative and our minds can really get creative on how we obtain what we desire, what we want to help us to feel better.
Victoria Volk: So I wanna dive into crying today, and I think there’s a lot of confusion about crying. Like how much crying is enough? If I start crying, will I be able to stop? Do I have to cry at all? I’ve cried and cried, but I still don’t feel better. Is there something wrong with me?
Are men and women different when it comes to crying? So I wanna talk about all of these things and you might be recognizing yourself in some of the scenarios that I share. Many of you listening may have yourself experience this first scenario. Let’s say you’re an older child and you’re very worried about your father or your mother because several years ago the other parent passed away and you believe that your parent is devastated by the death of their spouse, but your surviving parent hasn’t cried yet. And we can use the word yet in an air quotes because you might have this belief audious belief that in order to grieve that you must cry. And the fact is that maybe you did not see your parent cry. Does that mean that they haven’t cried? And it doesn’t mean that they haven’t cried in private. Or that they will or will not talk about it. So well-meaning children are concerned because they believe that there is this absolute and direct correlation between grief and crying. And of course, you believe that your parent’s heart is broken. And surely, that is usually the case. Right? And so where is it written that you must cry when you are sad? I mean, think about that. Not everybody displays an outward expression of emotion. In the beginning of this episode, I shared how as a child, I would cry to hide. I think I’ve said that on this podcast a few times. I still do. I still do. Because I think there’s still probably a part of me that feels like it’s not safe to or that it’s not allowed or that there’s something wrong with me because as I mentioned, I’m an emotional person. I feel deeply about things, about people, about experiences. I feel it very deeply, good or bad, you put those in air quotes because it’s not good or bad, it just is. Right? It’s part of being human.
Victoria Volk: But I think it’s important for us to recognize that not everybody grows up in a home where it’s okay to cry openly. And especially, like, older generations where you did not display that type of weakness, deemed weakness. I say crying as weakness, but it’s not. But there is this mindset that exists, that it’s weak to cry and it’s a societal norm that women, yes, cry more and men not as much, and if men cry, then that’s somehow, oh my gosh, this guy’s crying, you know?
Victoria Volk: So I think it’s becoming more acceptable in society for men to openly express themselves with tears and that takes strength. It does take strength to openly share your emotions. It’s vulnerability that we need more of truthfully in this world. And it’s an authenticity that It’s not acting, like, you can’t act that when it’s coming from an authentic and vulnerable place.
Victoria Volk: So let me ask you this, have you ever known anyone who cries all the time, but never seems to change or grow? Have you ever known anyone who uses crying as a manipulation to get something? And there is a high probability that you will answer yes to both of those questions. And both of those questions are designed to explain the fact that crying in and of itself does not necessarily lead to completion of the pain caused by death, divorce, or any other losses. And at best, crying acts as a short-term energy-relieving action and relieves temporarily some of the emotional energy generated by loss.
Victoria Volk: So you might know people who’ve been crying over the same loss daily for years and years. And we know that the crying has not helped them complete what is emotionally incomplete in their relationship with their loved one who had died or the person for whom they are divorced or restrained or whatever the circumstance maybe. As our society is continuing to evolve, we are seeing the shift in the public display of emotion as I mentioned. And in today’s world, it is not at all unlikely to even see a retiring professional athlete, with this all this masculinity, weeping openly in a televised press conference. So it is hard to imagine that the same scenario occurring thirty to forty years ago would have a different outcome that was not the thing thirty to forty years ago. So if you’re male parent is seventy years old or older, he is more likely to be affected by different beliefs about the open play of emotions than you are. Even your female parent is liable to be less willing to communicate sad, painful, or negative emotions than you. And we must fight this trap of applying our emotional value system to others. And it may seem odd since your parents are the ones who taught you but that you have a different emotional view than they do.
Victoria Volk: And I think that’s where, especially, today, with that, like, people in my generation, the sandwich generation, our parents, my mom is eighty years old they didn’t openly talk about the really painful stuff. They just didn’t. And so it’s as time goes on and we learn and we grow and this podcast like this one exists and the more we talk about grief, the more this will shift in society as a whole. And maybe when I’m eighty, I will be the opposite. I will be more communicative about painful times. And I am already. I am already, but I’ve come to know this stuff and I’ve done a lot of personal work on myself. And I think that’s the key. Is so many of the people on that generation, the older generation there wasn’t, like, talk space and better help and just it was a different time. It was just a completely different time. And so as we’re evolving as a society, I do see this shifting, and I do see this changing, and it already is. I mean, here I am sitting on and I have my own podcast and I’m using my voice in ways that I never did and never felt safe to as a child. And I think I’m I mean, that’s a whole another podcast. I could do a whole podcast on throat wounds. The throat chakra wound of just being having your voice suppressed or not being able to express yourself, which maybe I will do an episode on that because I think it’s hugely important that we recognize our wounds so that we can heal them within ourselves. And this podcast and doing the work that I’ve personally done on myself has helped me to heal my throat wound were crying wasn’t, something that was acceptable. I mean, yes, go cry, but I don’t wanna see it. Go hide to cry was the message I received and I did. And so I guess, again, as we come into our own, we recognize where we need to do the work for ourselves. And for me, it was in the expression of emotion because I suppressed so much. And I think as grievers, many of us have grown up in homes and in this belief system that we just don’t talk about what is hurting us. And so just keep that in mind as I’m continuing on with this episode.
Victoria Volk: So the short of what I’ve just talked about is basically that it can be dangerous and counterproductive to attach our personal ideas and beliefs to how other people express their grief, given the fact that many people will communicate tremendous depth of emotion and never shed a tear, while others cry all the time, but don’t seem to complete the pain, nor derive any long term benefit from crying.
Victoria Volk: And so let’s talk about the gender issue and uniqueness of individuals and relationships as well as what function crying serves and for whom. There is research that indicates that tears of sadness differ in chemical makeup from tears of joy and that tears perform the valuable function of washing the eyes and women cry on average five times more than men. And the grief recovery institute has actually tried to find research, like psychological basis for this five-to-one ratio of women crying more than men, and they couldn’t find it. And failing to find any valid studies on crime would support a physical distinction by gender. But they couldn’t find the research.
Victoria Volk: So what the Great Recovery Institute did do is do their little own anecdotal research that they believe represents the truth. They had called some nurse friends whose life experience is working with infants. And without exception, they indicated that the circumstances and frequency with which very young infants cry is not dictated by gender. Little baby boys and little baby girls cry equally. There are clear personality differences between individual babies. Some cry more than others, not by gender, but rather by individual uniqueness. And they did not limit their research to those who worked only with newborns. They got some of the same responses from experts who worked with children up to the age of five. From age five onwards, distinction by gender and attitudes and beliefs began to magnify. This informal study led to the inescapable conclusion that socialization, not gender, was the key to later differences of attitude and expression regarding crying.
Victoria Volk: So although there really isn’t an innate physiological difference between males and females when it comes to crying, we must still ask what purpose or value, if any, does crime have in recovery from loss?
Victoria Volk: So let us say that crying can represent a physical demonstration of emotional energy attached to a reminder of someone or something that has some significance for you.
Victoria Volk: In fact, during grief recovery work that I do with clients when someone starts crying, I ask them to talk while they cry. The emotions are contained in the words that the griever speaks, not in the tears that they cry. And so what’s fascinating to observe is that as the thoughts and feelings are spoken, the tears usually disappear and the depth of feeling communicated seems much more powerful than just tears alone.
Victoria Volk: And I can add in my personal experience when I was going through the program myself in Austin, Texas in early twenty nineteen, I was overcome with emotion. And I don’t know that there were enough tissues in the box and snot was coming down my knows and I mean, I was a mess. I looked like an emotional mess and a wreck. However, I continued on with the exercise just as I was instructed to do and at the end of it, I can tell you, like, even now when I reflect back on it, had I just been crying, had I just let my tears fall and not have been communicating through this exercise, what I was feeling, I don’t know I don’t believe the impact would have been as great as it was because the person that came to that training and that experience was a different person on the flight home. I was completely emotionally transformed from that experience. The work that you put into it is exactly the output that you get, the more that you put into the experience, the more you get out, and that’s with anything. That’s with any kind of program or coaching or anything as long as you are open and willing to put in the emotional work into it, you will get a return of that investment.
Victoria Volk: And again, like just sitting home alone and crying is not gonna get you the results in your life that you’re looking for. So when we think about this idea that it’s not the tears, but yet the communication that helps people heal. And in talking about our experiences, let’s bring that back to the conversation about the adult child and the parent whose other parent passes away if you believe that your parents’ heart is broken, it doesn’t take words to show that. Right? We can see when someone’s heart’s broken based on their body language, their tone, and other factors that show us that someone is being deeply affected by a loss of a loved one or an experience they’re having in their life. And for some people, it might be unusual or uncommon for them and may be even uncomfortable, for them to cry.
Victoria Volk: And frankly for some people, it might not even have any real benefit. But brace yourself for this next part because on the other hand, don’t be fooled by those who cry frequently. In one of the strangest of all paradoxes, people can use crying as a way to stop feeling rather than to experience great depths of emotions so it can go the opposite way. The tears can become a distraction from the real pain caused by the loss. The key to recovery from the incredible pain caused by death, divorce, and all other losses is contained in a simple statement. Each of us is unique and each of our relationships is unique. Therefore, we must cover and complete what is emotionally unfinished for us in all of our relationships. Our personal belief systems about the display of emotions are also unique and individual. We may not even have a conscious awareness of what our own beliefs even are an alert to everyone, young or old, don’t let anyone else dictate what is emotionally correct for you. not even your children, or your parents ,only you get to determine what is correct for you.
Victoria Volk: If you need help, in discovering or determining what might help you deal with a broken heart caused by a death or a divorce. I highly recommend you get in touch with me or check out the book, The Grief Recovery Handbook. I will put a link to it in the show notes, that will I guarantee you, that will have you connecting so many dots and you’ll have so many aha moments while you read that book. I really firmly believe that it could be a game changer as you are on your path working through your grief and looking at it and trying to recover from it. But don’t take this podcast episode that I’m any way against crying. Like I mentioned several times now throughout this episode that I’m a big cryer I can be. Not near as much as I used to be because what’s changed for me from a child to an adult is that as a child I didn’t have the skills or the know how and how to process what I was feeling to work through my feelings and the emotions. I didn’t have a way to do that. I didn’t know how to do that. Most children don’t and most children are not taught how to do that. And so as we grow into adulthood, we continue those behaviors until we learn differently, until we learn better healthier ways to address what’s happening for us emotionally. And so I don’t have to cry, I don’t feel the need to cry as much as even near as much as I used to. I have to be really emotionally charged, feel either like, an immense an immense an immense amount of gratitude in a moment or an immense amount of sorrow or hurt or pain, emotional pain, whatever it is, to cry. And that those moments are far widened in between and that’s not good and that’s not bad. It’s just what is and but I’m connecting why that is. And for me why that is, because I have the tools to process what I’m feeling emotionally. I have energy work that I can use in those tools I can use to process my emotions. And to catch myself before I get to a place where I can’t control my emotions. This is what it means to develop our emotional intelligence. And as we do that, we don’t feel the need to cry as much because we have gain skills and tools that support us so that we’re not using tears as a way to bypass our emotions, and we’re not using tears to manipulate. And we’re not using tears as without that emotional component we’re addressing.
Victoria Volk: So I’m not against crying. And in fact, I expect people to cry when I’m working with them one-on-one or in groups. In grief recovery. I expect them to cry. I cried. Right? You’re learning this stuff for the first time in that situation. I expect that you’ll probably cry. And that’s okay. But to get to the point where you’re in recovery from the emotional pain, that’s really the end goal. That’s the end game for the people that I work with, and even for myself and my own healing. So when fond memories are turning painful, we wanna use these tools so that they don’t turn painful anymore. So that it that’s where those tears will come. Right? I’m here for you to have a life of meaning and value even though a loss or losses may have made your life drastically different than what you had hoped or dreamed. And trust me, I have plenty of relationships in my life, and I’ve had plenty of relationships in my life that are different and were different from what I had hoped and dreamed.
Victoria Volk: And so I hope that this episode has gleaned some insight into crying a little bit. I know this is something that we don’t really even think about. Right? We just you think crying is always a good thing. And yet, there is a there is a shadow side to crying. It can be used to manipulate. It can be used to bypass our own emotions, yes, an emotion is prompting the crying, but is it a painful memory? And that’s a thing. So if it’s a painful memory, then you probably have something left there that’s emotionally incomplete for you. And that’s where I’m trying to get to the heart of. That’s what I work with people to address. And that’s what I’ve put a lot of work into myself to address.
Victoria Volk: So what do you think about crying now? Share your thoughts with me. Find me on Instagram @theunleashedheart or on Facebook, Victoria The Unleashed Heart. Or shoot me an email [email protected] and share your thoughts about this episode. I’m really curious what you have to say about crying. And if you found it insightful, share it with someone else who you think might find it insightful too. And if there’s any questions that you have that you would like to be addressed or here addressed on this podcast, then you can reach out me on social or via email as well. Alright, my friends, thank you for tuning in to this episode, and I hope to reach your listening ears once again. And in the meantime, remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Emotions, Grieving Voices Podcast, Pespective, Podcast, solo episode |
The Gift and Grief of Self-Doubt
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Today’s episode is an example of the type of content that I enjoy sending within my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
I received lovely feedback on my last newsletter, which included a personal story about a time when I experienced self-doubt (and fear), so much so that it changed the trajectory of my life. Who knows where I would be today or who I would be spending my life with had I made a different decision?
We all experience life-altering moments and make life-altering decisions; however, our minds cannot even fathom the ramifications, consequences, or blessings of those decisions until later in life (sometimes decades later). And what if those moments or decisions were made from a place of self-doubt (and fear)? It’s a grief experience most of us can’t put our finger on unless we have cultivated some self-awareness.
There is definitely grief experienced as a result of self-doubt, but there are also gifts in doubt. Doubt leads us to ask questions and come up with better solutions.
Learn about my recent awareness and the dots I’ve connected in having Gate 63 (the Gate of Doubt) in my Human Design (as a 4/6 Emotional Manifestor). I hope you find it interesting enough to be initiated into wanting to learn your Human Design, too.
The more you know your grief and yourself, the less you look to others to tell you how you should show up in the world.
RESOURCES:
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NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hey Hey Hey, Hello, this is episode 160, and thank you for being here and for pushing play on this episode. And I wasn’t sure what I was actually going to talk about until about five minutes ago before I sat down to record. And I realized that instead of reinventing the wheel and pushing out more content that I would actually share something that I’ve already shared to my newsletter subscribers that I received some really great feedback about. And so I thought why am I creating more content when people seem to like this? And it also gives me an opportunity to and it inspired the idea really to give you a taste of what I talk about in my newsletter.
Victoria Volk: It is the place that I generally get a little bit more personal. I share a little bit more personal stories what’s currently going on in my life or in my business. Yeah. It’s kind of my little sacred space. And sometimes it can feel like I’m talking to the ether and no one’s listening. Sometimes, like, with this podcast too, but I can actually see the stats that people are listening in fact. But it’s kinda different with a newsletter like, you really don’t know what people think about it or I mean, I guess they let you know if they unsubscribe, which that happens. I mean, I’m not gonna be for everybody. Right? But and that’s okay. But I can see who opens them. Right? I can see that people are reading it. But I just don’t always know how it lands, like how people feel about what I’ve shared.
Victoria Volk: But this newsletter was a little different. And I thought I’m gonna share it because first of all, I think it’s a great story. I personally think it’s a great story. And it’s my story. And it’s a story that I really I don’t know that I’ve shared on social media at all. I don’t believe so. Maybe just like a sentence or something but I haven’t shared the story and related it to something I’ve been learning about myself that I’ve expressed on this podcast already which is human design. And I’ve just been having aha moments left and right and a lot of self-awareness based on my human design by graph. And so I will put the link in the show notes again for this episode. I think I put it in the last episode. If you’re curious about learning what your energy type is, such as mine, I’m a manifestor, or what your authority is, which is, either emotional or splenic or ego. I’m an emotional. Mine’s emotional. And then also what your strategy is, like mine is to inform and initiate, and manifestors here to inform and initiate, whereas, like, manifesting generators are here to respond and then inform. And there’s other different energy types and things like that. But if you’re curious at all, there’s so much free information out there. You can get your body graph and then just Google. Just go to the Googles and find all the rabbit holes because there are so many when it comes to human design. It can be very overwhelming. But I would just read about your energy type, read about your strategy and your authority, and just start there first and foremost.
Victoria Volk: And and then also, like, what your I forget what they’re called like, your lines, like, I’m a four six. I think that’s also important to read upfront and get an understanding of. But to my story now, in why I wanted to share this or why I shared it in my newsletter is because I have a gate of doubt and you’ll I’m gonna read basically. I’m gonna read my newsletter because why reinvent the wheel again. But and because I received great feedback on this, I’m just going to read the newsletter and if it resonates with you, maybe it’s something that you wish to sign up to receive on the regular. It’s something I send out biweekly. It’s not weekly. It’s not daily. I don’t spam you with salesy stuff. It’s just a place, my sacred space, where I go to share some deeper thoughts. Really? That’s really what I do. And then some funzy things I put in there too.
Victoria Volk: So today is a story about doubt and there is a great gift in grief when it comes to self-doubt. After graduating high school, I was to attend a four-year college for a degree in clinical lab science. However, as quickly as I moved in, just as quickly I moved out, self-doubt roared in my head so much so that I drove around the city while smoking cigarettes and I didn’t even smoke. So, lo and behold, when I came to my human design and I’ve been learning about this stuff that I’m a four-six emotional manifest and that I have gate sixty three, the gate of doubt. I also realized I have gate sixty-four, the gate of confusion.
Victoria Volk: So no wonder I was paralyzed with fear at that time because gate sixty-three, the gate of doubt, is also a hanging gate for me and I’m not gonna go into a whole explanation of that, but meaning I don’t have the opposite gate, which is gate four. The gate of answers. So I’m someone that is always seeking the answers. But the thing is with this gate of doubt, in not having the gate of answer, like, I just have to trust. I have to trust that the answer will come when it’s supposed to come.
Victoria Volk: So do you see the conundrum I was in to add insult to injury, the motivation of a manifestor energy type coincidentally, which really is not a coincidence at all, is fear. And so no wonder I packed my bag so fast. What I know to be true now is that I would have had everything within me to achieve that bachelor’s degree. If I only trusted myself and could have had the wisdom to tune into my inner knowing with my defined heart or ego center, which is all about willpower and courage. And also my defined spleen center, which is also about intuition and the place of fear. And my defined solar plexus, which is our emotional center, where I could have taken a breath, stepped back from the decision, and from the situation, got into a neutral, emotional state instead of making a decision based solely on fear. My doubt and my fear got the best of me in that situation, and many others throughout my life. And that’s the thing about life. It will keep dishing out lessons until we learn them. Hence, history repeats itself until we get it. Really get it.
Victoria Volk: I suppose you probably have experiences of doubt and fear where the Voices of fear and doubt were the loudest in your head. It may be interesting for you to learn how those have been expressed through the lens of your human design. I just think it’s all fascinating. But the gate of doubt is skeptical. And questioning, and it seeks proof. So to protect ourselves, those of us with this gate we look for evidence with this gate. Usually, it supports how we failed in some way. And this gate explains why I’ve always been my worst critic. And also why trust of myself and others has never come easily. My mind has been completely blown just by this one awareness, all alone like, just this gate this gate explanation within my human design, like, explains why I packed my bags? Why I didn’t even give myself a chance? And it’s been a theme throughout my life.
Victoria Volk: But here’s the thing, doubt isn’t all bad though. It has been a growth catalyst for me. As has fear, once I started aligning with my intuition and my will. So in the garden of critical thinking, doubt can be likened to a seed. Cultivated with care and nurtured over time, it can sprout into a healthy thriving tree of wisdom.
Victoria Volk: And today, as I’m talking about this concept of these seeds of doubt that we can experience in life, these small, persistent questions aren’t encouragement to us to a question and explore and ultimately learn and grow. I mean, I can tell you I learned a lot in all of those situations where I let fear and self-doubt get the best of me. But doubt is often misunderstood as a negative force. I mean, we really think of doubt as this bad thing. Right? And that it’s something to be avoided at all costs. However, it is, in fact, a fundamental aspect of human nature and a powerful tool for intellectual and personal growth.
Victoria Volk: Doubt catalyzes curiosity and critical thinking and we can open new doors to ideas and discoveries when we allow ourselves to quest in the status quo. It’s interesting too, like, there was I can’t remember what the quiz was. It was some personality thing, and it said that I was the questioner. No. It’s fitting. Right? Like, I’ve taken so many different personality tests and there’s, like, different pieces they all fit together. Like, there’s a common theme with all of them. But seeds of doubt can be sown in various aspects of our lives from science and politics to personal relationships and like I’m talking about in self-reflection.
Victoria Volk: So here are a few ways you can intentionally plant these seeds. Well, you can question authority. Don’t blindly accept what authority figures tell you. Challenge assumptions ask for evidence and seek multiple perspectives before forming your own opinion. I’ve been known to do this and you can bet it’s most often met with resistance, which it most likely will. Because here’s the thing about being questioned. A lot of people don’t like to be questioned. Right? And so they take defense to that. They get offended if you question. But it’s for someone like me with the gate of doubt, it’s how I learned to process and under stand, the perspective of other people like, I want, I am seeking my own conclusion. I am seeking my own answer. So do you see we’re questioning or if I’m questioning, people can feel like I’m questioning them or I’m challenging them, but that’s really not the case. That’s where this gate of doubt has caused a lot of grief for me.
Victoria Volk: Self-reflection is something you can do regularly to examine your own beliefs and actions. Ask yourself why you hold certain views or make specific choices. Are they based on solid reasoning or merely tradition and habit? This is a huge component of the grief recovery work. And you can, I can’t even begin to tell you the skepticism that I had initially when I first came across grief recovery? I knew it was what I needed just based on what I was reading, but I personally went into it like I thought, this is something I knew I needed it, but I thought more importantly, I was thinking about how I could be of service, how I could help other people. So that was really the huge driver was, yes, I wanna help myself, but I think this will really help other me help me to help other people more.
Victoria Volk: So I went into it with some skepticism as to if it really would help me because I had been a griever at that point for nearly forty years. Well, not quite that long. Thirty-five years, something like that, and fortunately, my intuition was much stronger at that point and I had more self-awareness to make a more aligned decision. And choosing to do that. And despite the fear, I did it anyway. And everything in my life has changed since then, like, everything, literally, like, I feel like I have evolved, I have changed and evolved in ways that I don’t think would have happened that was a catalyst for me, for my growth. It’s why I’m a huge proponent of it.
Victoria Volk: Critical media consumption. So in today’s digital age, it’s easy to fall victim to misinformation. So cultivating a healthy skepticism towards online content, fact check and cross reference sources. I actually shared in this newsletter on that note. I shared a resource that I came across, it’s called fourteen forty and I’m just gonna make a note for myself here to add a link to it in the show notes because that is the best unbiased news I’ve come across in a long time. It it comes to your inbox, it’s daily, and it’s awesome. It’s a great way to not have to watch the news, but still be in the loop of what’s going on in the world. So I’ll link to that in the show notes.
Victoria Volk: Embracing uncertainty. It’s okay to not have all the answers. And this has been, like, I you know, this is for me, this has been a difficult thing, like, I need to find the answer. And in fact, it’s often a sign of intellectual honesty. Embrace your uncertainty as an opportunity to learn and explore. So when we’re cultivating doubt, once the seeds of doubt are planted and they require nurturing to grow into something meaningful, this is some things that we can do to flourish this tree of knowledge. You can do research, deep dive into topics that peak your curiosity, like for me it’s human design right now, seek out reliable sources, academic studies, and diverse perspectives to gain a comprehensive understanding. Engage in debate. Engaging in respectful discussions with others with different views can help sharpen your critical thinking skills. It also provides an opportunity to refine your arguments and consider alternative viewpoints. Stay open-minded. As you explore new ideas and perspectives, remain open to changing your mind. A flexible mind is a hallmark of intellectual growth.
Victoria Volk: And learn from doubt rather than fearing doubt, see it as an ally in your pursuit of knowledge. Doubt is the impetus for progress and innovation, driving us to seek better answers and solutions. In the garden of our minds, seeds of doubt are not pests to be eradicated, but rather precious gifts that when nurtured can lead to bountiful harvest of wisdom and understanding. By sowing these seeds intentionally, embracing uncertainty, and fostering a spirit of curiosity and critical thinking, we can cultivate a richer, more nuanced understanding of the world around us. And I’ll add end of ourselves.
Victoria Volk: So as you navigate the ever-changing landscape of information and ideas, remember that doubt is not the enemy, but a faithful companion on your journey toward enlightenment. Embrace, nurture, and watch as it blossoms into a garden of knowledge and wisdom that continues growing season after season. And I’ll add that the more you know your grief and yourself, the less you look to others to tell you how you should be showing up in the world. And by me learning about myself and you learning about yourself, whether it be through human design, whether it be through grief recovery work, energy healing work, the work that I offer or other modalities that you are curious about that may be able to support you, it’s just peeling back the onion. We’re just layer by layer uncovering and discovering who we are. And what we’re here for, and what we want to be doing, how we want to be showing up, and just learning about ourselves, making ourselves, less, less, I don’t know what the word is, unleashed from the past Right? I mean, this is really where the unleashed heart came to be is because this understanding that yes, my past is a part of me, but it doesn’t have to be my future. It doesn’t have to repeat itself. And how do we break these patterns of repetition of experiences? Because like I said, these lessons will continue time after time until we get them. It’s maybe part of the journey and it’s part of your human design of these things that you will go through, like, four, four, a four, six lines in the human design.
Victoria Volk: We have three phases of life. First, we’re like, just in it. We’re in the thick of it for the first thirty years. We’re having all these experiences. And then from thirty to fifty, it’s like we’re the observer. We’re seeing how these things play out in people other people’s lives were learning by observing. And then after fifty, fifty and older, we’re we’re on the roof. We come off the roof, I guess. Thirty to fifty, we’re on the roof, just observing. And fifty and older were off the roof and have all this wisdom behind us. So that’s in particular to the four six. So if any of this interests you and if anything that I said about the gate of doubt or any I could really talk about the other gates that I personally have and have how they’ve expressed themselves in my life, but this is a big one I think just because we doubt ourselves and our abilities and imagine the grief that causes us. Imagine the growth that that the growth the growth. Again talk. The growth that we stifle because of fear in that self-doubt.
Victoria Volk: So I think this is a very important area of grief to dive into and reflect on within ourselves. So I’ll ask you, what parts of your life have you experienced self-doubt? Have you had what have been your experiences of self-doubt? When have you let fear? Get the best of you. And moving forward, how do you want to change that perspective? Like, what are the questions that can help you come up with a better solution for when that feeling comes up again.
Victoria Volk: And that’s actually plays into my Youmap because one of my top five strengths is strategic. I strategically help other people come up with their own solutions. And with my strength of connectedness, I help them connect the dots from their past to their present to see how those patterns have repeated themselves. So I am seeing all of these things like, even Myers Briggs. Right? But that and that kind of assessment can be manipulated a little bit, but with Youmap and human design particular, I’m looking into how each of them are kind of playing into the other. It’s something I’m just gonna I’m just starting to explore and I’m curious about.
Victoria Volk: And so who knows where this curiosity and human design will lead me. But for the time being, I’m committedly immersed in learning about myself. I think what’s important for anyone who does work that I do in particular is especially with grief, which can be a very heavy area to work in. I mean, obviously, and it comes with a lot of responsibility, I feel. It’s important for me that I can make sense of myself and that I know myself as much as possible. Because that helps me serve others even better. And if I can connect things like self-doubt to stories that I have, that I can demonstrate and illustrate to my clients, people see themselves in other people’s stories. Right? Like, I just think it’s really important for any guide, mentor, leader, coach. I really don’t know what to label myself as, but I think it’s anyone that works in the capacity of one on one or group where there is an exchange of you know, if I’m giving feedback or I’m giving support for grief and or life coaching or whatever it is, I just think it’s really important for the the coach, the mentor, the leader, the guide, whatever, to know themselves and to understand themselves. I think it really helps to negate the risk of projection where I project my beliefs or my wounds. Right? My deep wounds onto other people. My values onto other people. Like, if you don’t know your values and you have that awareness about that, you can unwillingly and not intentionally, but people tend to give values based advice. Right? Like, For example, if I value success and I value money, I’m gonna give advice based on my value of success and money if someone’s coming to me with a question about money or about money. Right? Like, so I’m I’m gonna be like, yeah, take that risk. You know, if, you know, if I’m a if I’m a risk taker with money, or that’s how I made my money. You know what I mean?
Victoria Volk: So it’s really important for us to recognize ourselves first, to know ourselves so that we can be objective observers of other people in their lives, especially when we’re if you’re in a position like I am, where you’re supporting others like I am in grief or in their life. So that’s my two cents on that, but I hope this episode was enjoyable. I hope you found entertainment in my story. And if you did enjoy it, maybe you’ll feel inclined to sign up for my newsletter, which it’ll be coming out not tomorrow. When this episode goes live, but the following week. It’s every other Tuesday at Three AM Central Standard Time. I have a live a new episode goes live. So yeah, I hope you join me there.
Victoria Volk: And if you have any questions that I could answer on the podcast, I am always taking submissions. You can email me at [email protected] and just put question for podcasts in the subject line I can answer it you can be anonymous if you prefer.
Victoria Volk: I think that’s it. So I’ll put the link in the show notes for fourteen forty, the unbiased news in your inbox, the link for my newsletter. And for human design again, that’s right. I was gonna put that link in there too. So I hope this was helpful. If it was, I asked that you please share it or leave a five-star review or even some thoughts. It just takes a few moments of your time, and it really helps me to put a put some words in maybe a name. I don’t know. Sometimes people don’t use their name to a listener. Right? Because I don’t see who’s listening to this podcast. But, yeah, I can feel kind of lonely sometimes, when you’re putting out content and you just really don’t know what people are thinking about it. So if you love it, I would love to know. Inform me, please, because as a manifestor we do love to be informed as well. So with that being said, much loved to you today and have a beautiful rest of your week. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Emotions, Grieving Voices Guest, Mental Health, Mind/Body Wellness, Podcast, solo episode |
Navigating Tears Through Changes and Transitions
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Changes and transitions are inevitable; we can’t stop the world from turning and time marching on. Our lived experience is filled with phases and stages of life, and through those phases and stages, we are given the opportunity to grow through the changes and transitions that change us.
In today’s episode, I share several examples of the changes and transitions that I’ve gone through throughout my life. We often don’t think of going from dating to married life or becoming a parent as having loss experiences woven in. However, because we are in a relationship with others through these changes, and many others that I mention, it’s impossible not to experience some loss and grief as we navigate the tears that often come with those changes and transitions.
One of the definitions of grief that the Grief Recovery Institute shares is that grief is a change to, or end of, a familiar pattern of behavior. If we think about how our lives hum along day after day, and we do relatively the same things day after day with the same people, when that suddenly changes or ends — surely you will have some feelings around those changes, right?
Explore some of the common changes and transitions I address that you may have also experienced or reflect on some more that aren’t mentioned today. Toward the end of the episode, I offer up an invitation of things to keep in mind as you navigate the tears of whatever change or transition you’re experiencing. And know, too, that you are not alone in your experience! We are all grieving something (or someone)!
RESOURCES:
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CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hello. Hello. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Grieving Voices, episode one fifty-nine already. It’s crazy to think that yeah One fifty-nine. I’m on my fourth year of doing this podcast and it’s been one of the joys of my life really to have this space to use my throat chakra. And to share what I’m learning, what I’ve learned throughout the years about grief, and to inform which plays into my human design which I’m diving deep into as of late, as a manifestor energy type. Shout out to all my fellow manifestors. If you are familiar with human design, and if you do follow human design or you know you’re a human design, I am an emotional four six. Fine. So six, meaning I’m here to tell stories, I guess. From what I’m learning. It is why I use my own personal experience to share my insights and what I’ve learned. I draw from my personal experience. And today, that is actually part of today’s episode. Where I’m going to be talking about changes and transitions and navigating the tiers through all of that. I’ve been through a lot of changes in transitions over the years and throughout my life as many of you listening probably have as well.
Victoria Volk: And so today is actually an episode two to highlight some of those grief experiences that really aren’t thought of as grief. Too often in conversation, like, when we talk about these things, we’re not talking. We rarely use the word “grief” or we rarely use the word “loss” when we’re talking about these things. But I thought it was important enough to share some of these things that I just was taking notes before I recorded in the last few days, I’ve been jotting down notes, things that I felt were important to share with you today. And I will try to be concise, and I’m sure I’ll be going round and round and some parts of this podcast episode, but my hope is that by the end of this episode, you will recognize some experiences in your life as grief experiences, as moments of loss that you may not have thought of before.
Victoria Volk: And so one of the first things that comes to my mind is just recently we moved our first child, our first born to college. And that’s a huge transition. It’s a huge change for any family because when you’ve been a family unit for eighteen years and all of a sudden one of your pop sleeves the nest or birds. Birds leave the nest. One of your birds leaves the nest. Or one of your pup sleeves the pack, I should say. It can be a little like a roller coaster. It can feel exciting and it can feel like a joyful time of growth and freedom for both. As the kids start to leave the house, you as the parents, have a different chapter of life to look forward to. All of a sudden, you have freedoms that you may not have had before. Right? You have more time to do things you enjoy. And more free time. Right? Because you’re not chasing to one activity to the next and although if your child plays sports in college and you’re probably chasing after those things, but it’s still a change because there’s that empty chair at the table. We eat as a family and that’s kind of a time where we reconnect. And especially when all three kids were at home and doing different sports and things, certain parts of the year, the school year in particular, there wasn’t a lot of meal time together and I recognize that more so probably this last year when all three of my kids were working jobs in addition to school and things.
Victoria Volk: So I guess I’ve had a little practice in getting used to this change that was coming just with the fact that we weren’t always together as a family in this past year. And it didn’t hit me until we got home. I didn’t cry graduation. I didn’t cry after graduation, I didn’t cry on the way up to the college. I didn’t cry on the way home from the college. It hit me in the evening and the next day in particular, waking up and realizing that my son’s not in his bed downstairs and, yes, he’s, maybe ninety miles away, which isn’t too far. And I can go visit him anytime. I want to and he can come home. It’s just different.
Victoria Volk: It’s not you know, and people might say, oh, they’ll be fine and oh, you can go visit. They’re not that far away. And kinda be dismissive about how you’re feeling. And that’s not fair, is he going to be okay? Yes. I most certainly know he’ll be okay just like you probably know your child will be okay after, if you did the same thing as I did and moved your child to college, but that’s not the question. I’m not questioning if he’ll be okay. What I’m feeling is deeper than that. It’s this knowing that things will be different from here on out. It’s the knowing that he is now an adult on his own. It is knowing that I don’t know what he’s really thinking or feeling. I can’t see him or his face or his mannerisms or his behavior when it changes. If something, it’s like when your kid is living in under your roof and in your home, you get a sense of their emotional state from day to day. You don’t get that once they leave. You don’t get that sense of okayness. Like, I know he’ll be okay in terms of, like, he’s got a good head on his shoulders and I trust that he’ll make good decisions, but it’s a different kind of mother instinct, I suppose, this mother feeling, I feel that, I want to know in my heart that emotionally he’s okay. I think that’s what it is for me. Because I am such a feeler. I am an emotional energy. Anyway, I feel very deeply and So I just it’s I think that’s where that’s coming from. And just the change. Right?
Victoria Volk: The impact it has on me and that it probably has on him because he’s now away from his pack. I can’t just because a child goes off to college doesn’t mean that they’ve craved this independence and they’ve craved this aloneness. Although that may be true, it’s still also true or can be true that they will miss their siblings, that they will miss their family pet, that they will miss their bed, that they will miss the consistency of having that safety and security of being home. So it goes far deeper than well, they’ll be okay. You can see him anytime. That’s not where I’m coming from as I’ve just shared with you.
Victoria Volk: And so many of you can maybe relate to that experience of dropping your first kid off at college. Right? And what I will also add to that is that every relationship is different and unique. So maybe the people that say that don’t have as close of a relationship with their child because every relationship is different. My son and I really didn’t get close until after he had his accident. And before that, actually, I was feeling of some sadness around, how our relationship was struggling a bit. We both had this. He was sixteen and struggling for his independence. And we were pretty strict. I mean, we weren’t we had rules and it wasn’t to control. It was because nothing good happens after midnight. My friends, like, nothing good happens after midnight. And so we did have rules and things and still do. But our relationship was not near what it is now. And I think it’s because of everything that he went through, he realized how good he had it, and he realized how loved he is. And how blessed he is just as we did. Like, wow we are so lucky that accident didn’t go a different way.
Victoria Volk: And there’s previous podcast episode about that. I can try and find it and link to it in the show notes, but it was a really difficult challenging time for our family and I think we all learned a lot from that experience, but it was that experience. I think that was the catalyst for bringing us closer as a family. And so to have that and to feel that so strongly and then for it to be gone, not gone, like, of course, we’re still gonna be close and I still feel like we are. It’s just different. It’s just different. It’s a transition and it’s going to take time to recalibrate our family dynamic and to recalibrate moving forward as four people living in the household instead of five because he did bring a lot to our home.
Victoria Volk: And we just you don’t get that sense on a day to day like you did, like we did before. And so what grief is is the change of familiar pattern of behavior, and so there is a lot of change that comes with your kid going off to college. Now let’s say your kid didn’t go off to college and you might be feeling this failure or this pressure from society. The child might be feeling this pressure and things from society that, oh, I should be going to college or I should be doing this. And parents might feel like, well, their child should be moving out of the house or what have you? Like, there’s all these societal norms that we project and expect other people to follow these specific set of rules, like, well, you go to school for twelve years, you graduate, you go to college for four or two and you get married and you have kids. Like, that’s those are the societal rules. Right?
Victoria Volk: And I’ll just want to share with the parents whose child maybe has not chosen the path of college. For whatever reason, it doesn’t matter the reason that they’re not less worthy or they’re not less smart or what have you and you’re not less of a parent because your child is not choosing college. I went to college, I started college, I did not finish. And does that make me not as intelligent as someone who did or went and got there bachelors, master’s, doctorate? Like, we all have our gifts. We all have our strengths. And it doesn’t take a degree to develop those. In fact, a lot of our skills and our strengths are developed because of life experience, which you can’t get from a degree. Right?
Victoria Volk: I’m a huge proponent of education, of course. But in this day and age, there are so many means of learning that I don’t think there is one specific way. And I’m just gonna plug Youmap here for a moment because I had my son go through his I had my son do the Youmap and it turned out that a hunch that I had was accurate and healthcare was a good fit based on his Youmap, based on his strengths and his themes of mostly thinking themes and that is what he’s going to college for nursing. And he did become a certified nursing assistant, for college, and he was loving that work.
Victoria Volk: And so I just wanna plug any college bound kids or kids that are contemplating college or maybe not contemplating college and just wanna go into the workforce to check into Youmap, and maybe parents listening to this, if you have a child who is unsure what they want to do, to check into their Youmap. And for those that might be thinking, well, a piece of this a Youmap is not gonna tell someone what they should do for the rest of their lives.
Victoria Volk: And I’ll tell you that it’s not a document to tell you what to do with the rest of your life, but it is a place to start where you are right now? Because like I said, your strengths change over time with experience. It is knowledge that will evolve and grow and change with you. You want to take your Youmap every few years. So once you’ve but the thing is that doesn’t change, what doesn’t change? Is your personality, like how you’re wired. And that is actually taken to account for the whole Youmap. So there are very key components of it that really won’t change. And I just wanna encourage you guys to check into it. If you are feeling a little lost in your life, which often happens when we are going through a phase of transition or change. We can feel a little lost.
Victoria Volk: A thing to consider is with the change and transition of child leaving the nest is honoring boundaries. One of the things that I’ve been educated on by my son is boundaries. And boundaries are two sided. Right? It’s not just the boundaries that I have. It’s the boundaries that he has in place. And I just so happened to send a text that was too long. He said, I don’t wanna read a novel between classes. And I said, well I was just trying to find out, I was trying to actually organize when I was gonna stop in the next time I go to see him between his classes. And I had all sorts of things I was trying to work around for schedule wise and so I put it in a text and he’s like you could have just said, call me when you get a chance. And you said, and I said, you know what? You’re right. I’ll do that next time. Keep it short and sweet is his boundary. So dutally noted, I will keep my text messages short and sweet and just say call me when you get a chance if I have more I need to talk out.
Victoria Volk: But honoring that this is his time. To find himself. This is his time to have the full college experience that I do want him to have and not be worried about, oh, I gotta text mom back or I gotta call mom back or I gotta make sure she’s okay. Like, I’m okay. I’m okay. I don’t need him to assure me that I’m okay. But will I text him every night and tell him good night I love you? Yes, I will, even if he doesn’t respond. And that’s just me needing to inform him of the thing that I said to him every single night since the day he was born. So that will not change. And I don’t care if he doesn’t respond, I will still tell him that I love him and wish him a good night.
Victoria Volk: The other thing that came up recently was and synchronistically that I wanna talk about in as it relates to changes in transition, is holding onto our youth. And moving your son to college it does cause me to reflect on my life and the time that I went to my college dorm and moved in and then moved out that same weekend because I freaked out because I was financially scared. I had a really overwhelming fear of debt. And later, I didn’t end up going to college for a year and a half, and then I was deployed with the military, and so that’s where that came to a close. But It caused me to reflect on my youth. Right? And my college experience that I didn’t get right? Because by the time I did go to college, I was in a little bit older adult.
Victoria Volk: And one thing I heard the other day and it’s really struck me and I’ll just share it. It’s a quote. And it was, it goes like this, “Everyone gets to be young, but not everyone gets to grow old.” “Everyone gets to be young, but not everyone gets to grow old.” And think about that the next time you have a birthday coming up. Maybe it’s your fortieth. Maybe it’s your thirtieth, fiftieth, one of those milestone-type birthdays that people make a big deal of. I did when I turned forty, like, oh my gosh. I’m forty, I’m like, half dead. I think I got one foot in the grave. We can be so dramatic about getting older. And here’s me. Like, I’m just wishing gosh. I wish I had this wisdom when I was eighteen. I wish I had this wisdom when I was my son’s age. I wish I had the wisdom I have now at eighteen.
Victoria Volk: And there’s that transition too of a parent than becoming a grandparent. That’s another transition that we get that we receive with age. If we’re so blessed to be a grandparent. Right? Not everybody gets that opportunity. So just like everyone gets doesn’t get the opportunity to grow old, not everyone gets the opportunity to be a grandparent. That’s a blessing to see your children have children. Like, not everyone gets that. And so if we focused on those things instead of the extra wrinkle we have, or the saggy skin or the, the breasts finding their way south, whatever it is. The lack of stamina, less energy, these things that can happen as we age. It just highlights the importance of self-care even more so that we can enjoy those things so that we can look forward to those things and feel vitality and joy instead of the pain in the back and the crook in the neck in the, what was me of aging? That so many people experience because they haven’t taken care of themselves.
Victoria Volk: Another thing you may not have thought of a transition or a change is going from being single to married. Some people might feel a loss of self or be fearful of feeling a loss of self. Oftentimes when people become married, they have to move. That comes along with grief experiences. It could if you’re in a neighborhood you love, or you had a job that you loved that moved you and you had to move. And then you lost your job too or you had to change careers or jobs because of a move. My husband moved for me, but I told him, I moved for one guy. I’m not moving for another. So he moved to be near me. And that was a sacrifice and a choice that he made. But I had a very clear boundary around that. Like, I did this ones before. I’m not doing that again. A lot goes into when you go from being single to married or dating to married. That’s a lot of change. It’s a lot of transition. And again, I think it comes down to honoring the boundaries that are two-sided.
Victoria Volk: And I’ll actually have a list of things to keep in mind. In any change or transition, but that’s one that keeps coming up as I’m talking here is the boundaries thing. And boundaries can be taken as a negative connotation, but boundaries are really I mean, they don’t have to be like, set in stone, like, verbal. I mean, it can be an energetic boundary too. Right? Like, just a way to protect your peace. It doesn’t have to be this negative thing that you impose on people. It’s honoring your peace, really.
Victoria Volk: Circling back to the so societal norms. Right? So you go from being single to dating to married, and now you have kids, well, now your new parents, oh my gosh, that’s a huge transition and a huge change. Not to mention, like, as a female, like, a woman, like all these hormonal changes, it’s so overwhelming. I just remember like, oh my god. How do people do this? And what I’m learning too with my energy type as a manifestor and having all three of my kids being manifesting generators like no wonder I was exhausted. Like they had energy to no end. And that’s not me. That is not me. Like, motherhood when they were little was, like, absolutely draining on me. And so when I started my business, it was I think out of survival of my sanity because I needed an outlet. I needed something that lit me up because parenting only drained me when they were little, drained my energy.
Victoria Volk: It wasn’t and the previous episode I recorded on this was how motherhood wasn’t necessarily the most fulfilling thing to me when my kids were younger. And I felt a lot of guilt and shame around that. So if you’re interested in that episode, that’s the one before this one. I mean, these are just few examples that I have been going through about change and transition and the grief that comes with it. So moving job change, I kind of mention that with relationships. Is often when that happens or once you become a family, the children are supposed to start school. You wanna put some roots down somewhere so they can get into a school system that, is the best fit for them or whatever the case may be. And with that, with a move or with a job change, I’ll plug Youmap again because if you’re feeling lost in that space of well, that wasn’t for me like, because all these experiences. They’re clarifying. What do I really desire? What is this showing me? What is this telling me? What do I need to learn here? Because if you’re feeling anger, if you’re feeling frustration, if you’re feeling those types of emotions, those are indicators that something isn’t right. You’re not in alignment, energetically, with yourself.
Victoria Volk: So what needs to change? And oftentimes with careers and jobs, that’s a very common experience is that if we are not in alignment with what we’re doing and spending most of our time doing that can create a lot of grief for us. A lot of people can experience loss of their loved ones, significant other, their spouse. And with that, you might come a new love into the picture. Someone another person you wanna share your life with. And depending on the phase of your life, like was, are you a young widow or widower? Or are you in your forties or older? Like, all of these things they influence how you might respond to the loss. If you have adult children, your spouse passed away of adult children. You’ll probably handle things. You will handle things much differently than if you had teenagers or younger children. So that’s a huge transition transition and change for the entire family. For the kids, whether they’re adults or young children, going from being in the office in your career job to being fully remote. A lot of corporations went fully remote. What is the impact on the social connection and support that employees feel in the workplace? I mean, we’re some for some people that was their only connection to the outside world. Let’s say you have a very small family unit, and your family unit lives two thousand miles away. And you’re living somewhere where you go into the office every day. And then all of a sudden, you’re not going into the office. You’re stuck in your apartment or are you stuck at home? You went fully remote or even hybrid. Hybrid is a little bit better for some people. Because especially those who, like, for example, I’m saying, who don’t have a lot of support system around them? So maybe that’s the only place where people might have connection and support or feel that in their lives. That’s an unfortunate place to be in. And so how can you widen that circle and expand and find your people.
Victoria Volk: And again, I mean, we can come back to the Youmap on that because I’ve actually given clients ideas on where to find expand on their interests to widen their circle of support. Because especially with COVID, I’ve had clients who’ve lost friends through that experience, whether the person died or it was a conflict of beliefs, which brings me to loss of friendships, and relationships, how we outgrow people, which is possible, like we can outgrow people, we have those relationships that may have just taken their course. Like, they’ve fully just ran their course and it is what it is. And if you were in close relationship with a friend and that ended that’s a hard loss too. Like for so many people, friendships are some of the most sensitive heartbreaking losses for some people. And so, yeah, we don’t think of those relationships necessarily all the time either when it comes to grief and loss. Everything has its season. Right? And so that brings me to seasons.
Victoria Volk: Some people have a really difficult time with the changing of seasons. You know, just like all these changes and transitions will have their seasons of ups and downs we have nature that reflects back to us, that nature itself has its ups and downs. It has this energetic thrusting of life to this polar opposite dormancy, especially where I live. We are in the darkness, most of our days are dark six months out of the year. When winter comes, it’s dark by five thirty PM until probably eight AM the next day. We have a lot less light. I didn’t realize how affected I was by the changing of the seasons until probably five, six years ago when I got a sad light, seasonal effective disorder light, I had to use that religiously for the first two years, like, to help me, like, when I know when I need it, I can feel it when I need it. It’s like, there’s something psychological too. I’m sure there’s a psychological component, because we need sunlight. Sunlight is our life-giving force. It’s our energy source for all life.
Victoria Volk: And so when that greatly decreases, we can experience these effects, these impact of that. I just wanna mention things to keep in mind through changes and transitions like these. As I’m thinking about wrapping this episode up. And there’s so many more. Like, if I would’ve taking more time to really think about reflect on my life, I would probably would have thought many thought of many more different changes and transitions over the years. But some things I want you to keep in mind when you’re thinking about things like this or you think of something new that you’ve experienced is that your response is up to you. It doesn’t it’s not up to anybody else. How do you wanna view the changes in transitions that you experience in your life? And your level of awareness is up to you as well. This is where emotional intelligence can play a role and how we build that is through our self-awareness. How do we become more self-aware? We pause and reflect.
Victoria Volk: So I encourage you as you’re going through a significant change or transition to pause and reflect on how you’re feeling, like checking in with yourself on how you’re feeling, how you’re doing, what your level of awareness is? Maybe try and put yourself in the shoes of those around you. Like, what is the impact I may be having with those around me as I go through this change or transition, like how am I projecting anything onto others? What do I need? Like, what are what are some of my needs as I go through this change and transition? And the things that are out of your hands need to be out of your mind. And I know that’s easier and said and done, but we only have so much mental real estate. And I have to remind myself often that if it’s out of my hands, I need to let it out of my mind. I am not doing myself any favors by bringing it to bed with me and ruminating and stewing on it. Write it out, talk it out, get it out in some way, let it out, let it go. Don’t let it take up mental real estate because you can’t let anything new if you’re bogging up your mind with shit that you can’t control. And that probably won’t matter in five days or five years. And the last thing is boundaries are two-sided, and I know I mentioned that a few times throughout this episode, but it bears repeating again that boundaries are two-sided. It’s not just your boundaries. Other people have boundaries too. And so where can you compromise? Do you need to compromise? Like what are the things you will not compromise on? Again, that comes back to what are your needs? What are your wants? And then picking your battles along the way.
Victoria Volk: I don’t know if you know this, but on my website, there is a link to I wrote a book. I self-published a book in twenty seventeen. It’s called “The guided heart moving through grief and finding spiritual solace.” And in a hundred and fifty-nine episodes, I think this is the maybe first or second time I’ve even mentioned my book. That book was written as I was reflecting on the changes and transition of closing my business and of my youngest going to kindergarten and just all of this spiritual stuff I was kind of experiencing and going through this a lot of growth was happening as I was writing that book. And so that book is really the stuff that I had been leaning on and leaning into for my own personal work and development, and healing. And so if I were to write a book today, which is brewing. It would be a very different book. Right? Because I’m in a very different phase of my life right now. And that is my intention to write another book. But I just wanted to share that with you that we will continue to have changes and transitions in our life because we can’t stop life from happening. My kids are gonna continue to get older. They’re gonna continue to move on with their lives. I’m going to continue to get older. Did I mention that already? Like, we can’t stop the age bus for ourselves or our kids. And just today, I’m just leaning into that message of not everyone gets to grow old and how blessed will I be if I get to. And so what do I want that time to be between the dash for me. I think there’s a poem between the dash. I’m gonna have to look that up. It’s a really moving poem about this one shot at life that we all get. And what do you want to put in that dash. What do you want your life to be made up of from the day you were born till the day you die? Because inevitably, it’s going to be filled with tears and transitions and changes.
Victoria Volk: And so if you need support as you navigate these things that will just can that will inevitably happen in your life, I do offer a in case you don’t know this either, I do offer a heart with ears session. It’s a one-off session or maybe two to just kinda talk through maybe a challenge or transition that you’re going through and you aren’t sure, you just need someone to talk it out. And to reflect back to you, something you can’t see yourself because we can’t see the inside of the jar of our own lives pretty much. So it’s helpful to have an outside perspective, someone who doesn’t even really know you. Who has nothing invested in your life and in your story. Right? Because it’s really hard for us to be biased unbiased rather. It’s really hard for us to be unbiased when the people we love are seeking our advice or counsel because we love this person or we’re close to this person or we’ve got some skin in their game. So that’s the benefit of talking with someone who is completely unrelated and doesn’t know you is that, I don’t have any skin in your game. So I’m gonna be completely honest with you. And so that’s something that I offer. It’s called a heart with ears. I can put a link to that in the show notes as well.
Victoria Volk: But yeah, yeah. Navigating tears through changes and transitions. Life is such a ride, isn’t it? I send you the biggest hug, lots of love today as you navigate, whatever change and transition you are going through. And I implore you to remember when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, solo episode |
An Announcement and A Poem
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
This week’s episode is a special announcement and a poem for you.
Wednesday, August 30th, is National Grief Awareness Day, and National Overdose Awareness Day is August 31st here in the U.S.
In light of these special days, I feel encouraged to host a virtual gathering this coming September, which is perfect timing because it will coincide with World Suicide Prevention Day. This virtual gathering about understanding and managing grief will be held on Sunday, September 10th, 2023, at 1 PM PST / 3 PM CST / 4 PM EST.
We will meet virtually over Zoom, and it will not be recorded. Please note that it’s also limited to 100 attendees, so register today!
What you will learn at this virtual gathering is:
- General Grief 101
- Why Grief is So Challenging
- How Grief Impacts Our Lives & Our Bodies
- The Ways We’ve Learned & Have Been Conditioned to Manage Grief
- Healthier Ways To Cope & Manage Grief
- Resources & Tools To Support Yourself & Others
- Answers to Questions You May Have (either during the Live or via email afterward)
Let’s Learn, heal, and find solace together. This is your space if you’re seeking a supportive community, expert insights, and practical strategies to navigate your grief journey. Let’s unite, share our stories, and build connections that uplift us on this path of understanding and healing. Register now and take the first step toward healing and growth.
Virtual Gathering Registration HERE.
I share a special poem about grief a little more than mid-way through the episode. If you’ve experienced grief due to the loss of a loving or not-so-loving relationship, I know you will resonate with the poem. Let its verses remind you that you’re not alone in your journey, and hope awaits you.
This is to remind you not just during this National Grief Awareness Day and National Overdose Awareness Day, but every day is a reminder that you are not alone in your journey. These days remind us of our collective strength, resilience, and capacity for healing. Reach out to your support network, share your feelings, and honor those no longer with us. Your story matters, and by coming together, we can uplift each other, raise awareness, and work towards brighter days ahead. There is strength in unity; we can positively impact ourselves and our communities through understanding and compassion.
RESOURCES:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hey, Hey, Hey, Thank you for tuning into grieving voices. I am your host Victoria V. and today’s episode is actually was unplanned. I had an episode recorded, a Q and A episode where I actually answered my own question. One that I had been wondering for the past eighteen years. And yeah, so I hope you come back for that episode. I’m actually really excited to share that one. I’m excited to share all the episodes, but it was a big aha moment for me. And I think if you’re into and particularly if you’re into human design or if you’ve never heard about human design, maybe actually take this time in this coming week to investigate that for yourself. What is human design? Maybe get your own body graph chart, so you kind of have an idea of what I’m talking about next week.
Victoria Volk: But anyway, through this rabbit hole I’ve gone down, I’ve really had a lot of awareness about myself and reflecting on my life in the past and things like that and relationships. And so I’m really excited to share that episode just because I’m learning and sharing as I’m learning. So anyway, but this week is inspired by this week’s episode is inspired by my virtual assistant actually, she helps me a lot with my publishing my social media and graphics, creating the graphics and things like that. But this coming week, tomorrow, actually, it’s like, I’m recording this earlier, but tomorrow, as you’re listening to this Wednesday, the thirtieth is National Grief Awareness Day. And this Thursday, the thirty first is National Overdose Awareness Day here in the United States. And so I always want some special type of post on days like that. On my social media, but she had a great idea that this would be a great episode for your podcast and I couldn’t argue. I was like, yes, that is a great idea.
Victoria Volk: However, I had a synchronic moment where I had read her email and I was actually going through I don’t know what I was reading something about workshops and things like that and seminars and I’m like, yeah, I haven’t done that in a long time. Like, I was just reflecting in my in my own mind, like, man, it’s been since probably like twenty twenty since actually pre-COVID, where I did any type of workshop or webinar or public speaking informational type thing. And that was really when I was kind of fresh into I was only a year into working with grievers. I was doing I could only that first year, I was certified, I could only do actually, first year and a half, I could only do work with grievers in person.
Victoria Volk: So I started one-on-one in groups in person, and then COVID hit in that you know, changed all businesses, how all businesses do business. And the institute through which I’m certified, the Grief Recovery Institute, for my grief work, they had to change how they did things. And so I actually got my advanced certification during COVID where then that allowed me to work with grievers online because it’s not the method isn’t different. It’s just the approach is a little different. And also there’s a lot of, you know, tech things that, you know, they touch on and things like that, which was never wouldn’t have been an issue for me, but it’s just additional training that they require for you to work with grievers online, and it is an additional training.
Victoria Volk: So anyway, I got that out of the way during COVID and also my end-of-life doula certification too. All that to say is I, after that, reflection. I went to Facebook for something entirely different and just to quickly check something. Actually, my I really am not a heavy I’m not a heavy Facebook user at all. Most of actually, anything that you see on social media is auto-posted. So social media is like the necessary evil for my business. It’s just not my favorite thing. I much prefer to sit down with coffee, one-on-one, or a small group in person. Like, in-person is more of my thing.
Victoria Volk: But anyway so I go to Facebook to check to in one of my groups I’m in for my coach that I have for my fitness and nutrition and things like that. And I stumbled upon. I see that I had a notification on my business page and it was this complete stranger. No idea who they are. No idea if they even like my page or follow my page, but they liked two posts that I shared in twenty twenty, and both were about doing a workshop, like an informational thing. In-person, one was in person, and one was online. And talk about synchronicities. This is what I mean friends when I say and I’ve said this in episodes before, like, following the bread crumbs or listening to the nudges or when you knew the universe, when God, your guiding angels, the divine, whatever you wanna call it, whatever you identify with or whatever resonates with you, when you get those moments, pay attention. Like, we get so wrapped up in the day to day life and you know, just in the home. We’re just constantly in the home. Like, doing going from one thing to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing, like a well-oiled machine. Right?
Victoria Volk: That we kind of miss these magical moments. Like, it was a magical moment to me. And I thought, oh my gosh. I gotta do this. I gotta do this. And what a perfect time? It is perfect timing. So this episode is actually me to share with you that I’m going to be doing a free gathering. I’m calling it a gathering because I don’t really like workshop, symposium, lecture, session, webinar, like, all that, whatever. I don’t think this to me feels like more of like, let’s come together, let me teach you some things, and let’s talk about it, and so that’s gonna happen actually on September 10th, which is World Suicide Prevention Day. Perfect day for me, for I feel to have this. And so I’m calling it understanding and managing grief.
And check out the show notes for the link to register. You do have to register. It is limited to a hundred people just because I don’t pay any. I do pay for Zoom, but the max that I can have is a hundred people. I’m not quite ready to dive into, like, several hundred dollars for something like that when I don’t do this stuff that often.
Victoria Volk: But Anyway, so it’s live, it’s virtual, and it’s going to be from three to four thirty central standard time on nine ten on a Sunday, and I hope you join me. Because I’m gonna teach you some things, and we’re gonna hold space for each other. And so I’m really excited to do this because like I said, I haven’t done this since twenty twenty, April of twenty twenty. So it’s about time. And apparently, the universe thinks so too because they gave me all the signs.
Victoria Volk: So what I’m gonna do now is I wanna read something to you that because I wanted to give you something else for today and for this week being National Grief Awareness day, and National Overdose Awareness Day, I want you to listen to what I’m about to say and feel it. And I know you’ll feel it because I feel it when I’m just reading it to myself and when I’m sharing it out loud because I like to read poems out loud even to myself. I wanted to give you something today to let you know that there is always hope that grief comes from the depths of our souls, and we all have a story to tell. And so I think this -this little poem is just devoted to all of those hurting hearts this week, this month, this year, this day, today, tomorrow; we’re all experiencing something. There is not one soul on this earth that is not untouched by grief. I don’t give a crap who you are, even warm buffet grieves, and I’m sure. Because grief comes in many different forms. It takes many different shapes and, you know, it can I mean, I’m sure Warren Buffett lost money in his day. And I’m sure that caused him some grief. But all that to say is, there is no one unscathed on this earth, so when it comes to grief.
Victoria Volk: So I’m gonna read this to you and leave it with you today. And whenever you wanna come back and listen to it, it’s about twelve minutes in. Twelve minutes, thirty seconds in. You can fast-forward and just listen to that.
Victoria Volk: Grief’s journey, a poem. In shadows cast by silent tears, grief’s heavy veil, a shroud appears. A haunting ache, a mournful song, a journey where we all belong. In tender whispers of the breeze, the echoes of what used to be we find our hearts held by the past, a love, too precious, and too vast. The empty chair, the vacant space, along in gaze we can’t erase. Yet in this pain, we still can see the bonds of love that set us free. Grief cars a path through depths of soul, a rivers course both deep and whole, it teaches us to hold our pain and slowly find our peace again. And memories like fragile light, we find the strength to face the night, to honor those we’ve had to part and heal the ache within the heart. Though tears may fall like gentle rain and healing feels like distant terrain, grief’s journey shapes us, molds us new, emerging stronger, tried, and true. In shadows cast, by hearts, estranged, grief tendrils twine a truth unchanged. Where love once bloomed, now withered with tears, into less than loving bonds, it’s clear. A dance of size, a silent pain, where once was sunshine, now is rain. The hollow echoes of what was lost in a love that faltered at a cost. The bitterness of words unsaid in hearts that ache where hopes have fled, the ache of longing unfulfilled, and empty spaces, grief distilled. Two soles adrift in separate seas, once entwined, now brought to knees. The scars of love turned cold and gray, in fractured bonds that fade away. The grief finds its place and loves debris appointment reminder of what could be, in less than loving realms we roam, projecting remnants of a broken home. So let us share this weight we bear. Reach out to others in despair. For through our pain, connections birthed and in each other loves unearthed. In grief’s embrace, we find our way, to brighter skies, a hopeful day for as we navigate the pain, we find that love will still remain.
Victoria Volk: I hope that resonated with you. And if it did, please share it with someone you know or love who might be struggling today or this week or this month. You never know what one little piece of encouragement can do for another. And I hope you can join me on September 10th. Again, it’s limited to a hundred people, so I encourage you to register early. And the link will be sent out after you register and it will not be recorded. I wanted to create a safe space for people to feel open and sharing if they feel called to. And I think if it’s recorded, people don’t necessarily feel like they can share openly and freely. And so it will only be live you will not receive a replay. And but I will provide some handouts or some things that I don’t want people to be taking notes during this either. So I’m going to provide whatever it is that you need you know, if you there’s information you wanna come back to, things like that, and some resources as well. And there’ll also be some time for some Q and A too. So I hope you can join me again September 10th, It’s Sunday, three to four thirty Central Standard Time, understanding and managing grief.
Victoria Volk: Thank you again for tuning into this episode. I send you all so much love and light this week as we go into National Grief Awareness Day and National Overdose Awareness Day just reach out to someone that you think might be struggling and say, hey, I’m here for you. Just sending you some love and light and thinking about you and it can go a long way. You just never know. So again, lots of love to you. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Podcast, Mental Health, Mind/Body Wellness, Podcast, solo episode |
The Grief of Burnout and Not Knowing Yourself
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
In today’s episode, I will cover the other two pillars of YouMap®: Skills and Personality. If you listened to last week’s episode, I discuss the first two pillars of YouMap®, which are the Strengths and Values.
This week, I’m diving deeper into:
- The difference between Preferred and Least Preferred Skills
- The 6 Personality Interest Types (as they relate to career/life satisfaction)
- The 3 Levels of Coaching
According to Korn Ferry International, 85 percent of skills can be transferred from one job to another.
This means the expertise, knowledge, and abilities gained in a specific role can be applicable and valuable in a different job or industry. However, many individuals might not fully recognize the potential of their transferable skills, often underestimating how their existing competencies can be leveraged in a new position they have not previously experienced.
Understanding and acknowledging these transferable skills are crucial in maximizing career opportunities and navigating job transitions successfully. Emphasizing transferable skills can empower job seekers to present themselves as versatile and adaptable candidates to employers, expanding their possibilities in the ever-changing job market.
Why does this all matter? Considering we spend the majority of our lives in our careers/work life, isn’t it more satisfying when you’re doing something you enjoy and maximizing everything about you that is expressed through your YouMap®?
RESOURCES:
_______
NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE. Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hello there. Thank you for tuning in to this week’s episode of grieving voices. This is going to be continuation from last week’s episode where I’ll be talking about skills and personality type as they relate to what’s called the Youmap. If you did not listen to last week’s episode where I talk about the Youmap more in-depth like an overview. And the first two pillars, I cover more in-depth, strengths and values, then I highly recommend you go back to that episode because it’s going to lay the foundation for what I’m going to cover today.
Victoria Volk: So today, we’re gonna be talking about skills and personality type. And skills are important to know just because, you know, we might think we know what we like to do, or we definitely know what we don’t like to do. But just because we are good at something doesn’t mean we like doing it or enjoy doing it or just because we think we might like something, and then we actually go do it that might not be the case either. We can actually be really good at something too and not enjoy it, and then overuse that skill. And then it becomes what’s called a burnout skill. And so it’s very important to discern for ourselves what our most preferred and least preferred skills are because we can really hone in on opportunities that may come our way.
Victoria Volk: We can find a resume or an application or things like that, organizations or any even volunteering, we can apply this knowledge about ourselves to these opportunities and make a more informed decision as to if that opportunity is really for me. And again, this is one aspect of the Youmap. Strength also plays a role and what you value is huge as well. Because if you are working for a company that lacks integrity, but you are integrity is very important to you. Probably not gonna be very happy in that work environment.
Victoria Volk: So, anyway, today, skills. We’re gonna talk about skills. And skills are the abilities and expertise that contribute to an individual’s capacity to perform competently in a role and those skills are usually portable across many jobs. According to Korn Ferry International, 85 percent of skills are transferable from job to job. And many people don’t even realize how their skills can transfer to a role they haven’t even held in the past. We see this a lot with veterans military people, personnel, often find themselves in law enforcement. Now you wouldn’t think that someone who was in the military, like myself, let’s say, as a medic, would end up in, you know, as a police officer, but that happens. Because there are so many different skills that we learn in that environment, you know, going through the different training and things like that are transferable to civilian world in, let’s say, law enforcement. And so understanding what skills may be transferrable is important too if you’re wanting to make a career change or you’re like the military, you’re coming out of the military. Well, what are you what are you gonna do with that experience and skills, and knowledge that you learned from the military, how are you going to translate that into the civilian life? If you are a veteran or you are in the military and this as part of you’re finding yourself in that process right now. I encourage you to reach out to me. The military offers so many opportunities to learn.
Victoria Volk: And I think there’s a lot of really intelligent and motivated people out there whose skills were utilized in the military, but maybe they’re being underutilized in the civilian world right now. There are as many companies that love hiring veterans, and so I’ve actually come across many resources. So if this is you and you’re struggling to find work, I encourage you to reach out to me because I have a lot of resources I could share. In that regard. But anyway, the most preferred skills are defined as a skill that you are good at and enjoy using. The keyword, “enjoy using”. A skill, a client hasn’t had a chance to use yet, but believes they would enjoy using also. So like I said, you know, you may not have had the chance to do that certain thing, but you believe that you would enjoy it. So that’s a preferred skill as well. A least preferred skill is defined as something you’re good at, but you do not enjoy using. It is something you are not good at and do not enjoy using. And it’s also something you may haven’t had the chance to use, but you believe you would not enjoy using that skill.
Victoria Volk: Now, you can have a skill that you’re not good at, but you believe that you would enjoy. Could be something that we would work on or could be flagged for development. So then we would assess, well, what could you do to build your knowledge around that skill and gain more experience and things like that? Especially if it’s a leadership role, you know, what are other ways in your community that you could get more familiarized with leadership roles or things like that, for example. So anyway, we have these we go there’s a whole list of these skills. And then we do some math, and we figure out the total number of most preferred skills. And we figure out total number of the least preferred skills and we calculate a percentage and and this percentage will tell us if you are a specialist or if you are a generalist where you like to wear many multiple hats at work. And then we can also determine based on some calculations, if you are using burnout skills, too many burnout skills, or if you’re being underutilized. So we really glean a lot of information from this part of the Youmap assessment. And you can actually see in different categories as well.
Victoria Volk: For example, let’s say most of your preferred skills might be for example, expedite or make arrangements, manage time, plan, or organize. That tells me that you love and you love managing processes and projects. However, if you don’t enjoy adapting to change or customer service, or multitasking, these would probably be burnout skills under management process under managing processes or projects. So those are things important to know because if you’re going into a certain job, a new job, or you’re looking to transition and customer service is like one of their main things. And that’s part of your job description and but that’s a burnout skill for you that might not be the best role for you to take on.
Victoria Volk: And so all of these, it’s not just a matter of spitting out this information and now you know what your skills are and things like that. There there’s so much more to this and it’s a really deep assessment compared to probably many others that you’ve taken. In how and what we do with the information. So it’s not just it’s like, okay, now I know this stuff, but now what? And for the work that I do with grievers, it’s not enough to just know themselves. It’s and for anybody in general, actually, it’s not just grievers, but it’s not enough for us to just know ourselves or know these things about ourselves and see it in black and white on paper in the u map, but it’s what do I do with this information? And so this is where the coaching comes in. And there are three different levels to the coaching. You can just get the Youmap, which involves no coaching whatsoever, or you can get the u map and a mini debrief, which is a brief overview, or you can go through the full coaching that goes through every pillar more in-depth specific to your u mab. And so that’s where they differ a little bit, but just having this knowledge is great. And but again, it’s how do you implement it in your life? How do you use this? Information as a guide moving forward. As, you know, what’s the word I’m trying to think of? A roadmap moving forward. And on something to fall back on to discern opportunities as they come your way or even to assess relationships in your life. If you know, maybe your loved one, maybe you want him or her or, you know, someone special in your life to take the u map and you can gain a better understanding of each other, right, before you dive into marriage or, I mean, it’s a really great way to talk about what it is that you bring to the relationship individually. And I did touch more on a lot more on that on in the last episode.
Victoria Volk: So again, I’d encourage you to go back to that one. So now that we’ve talked a little bit about skills. Let’s move on to personality. So the fourth pillar explores your personality and the interests aspect of the personality is determined by the person’s traits. So in the u map, we use a personality inventory, and there are six different interest types, realistic, which are the doers, investigative are the thinkers. The artistic type are the creators. The social type are the helpers. The enterprising type are the persuaders and the conventional type are the organizers. Now for example, I am artistic investigative. So those two together makes what’s called the idealist. I am the creator and the thinker. So how the Youmap uses the descriptor words for artistic investigative are intensely verbal, private, opinionated, somewhat antisocial, highly idealistic, perpetually thinking, extremely perceptive. And the idealist is most fascinated by the work that is in their head exploring ideas and creating They are soulful, deep thinkers, and they are also passionate. They need intellectual challenge and creative stimulation or their minds tend to wonder. And you would be amazed when you actually get your Youmap, how spot on it is. And this is me to a t. They have very high standards and ideals and crave being alone, which I do. They need autonomy to think and create, which I do. They tend to work long hours to see an idea through to completion I do. Idealists are intellectually curious and need to be challenged. And any work that involves repetitive tasks is bad fit. So is highly technical work or anything that involves working directly with customers, which I work directly with clients, but working in customer service when in my younger years definitely taught me a lot. But I definitely need and it’s not that I hate customers. I don’t it’s not that I dislike customers. I’ve seen my clients as my customers of course. But it’s those short-term interactions where you really don’t get to connect with people I’m much more of a let’s connect more deeply one on one or in a small group. And, you know, it’s just very different dynamic So what the u map personality type gives you is kind of, like, really what what is your best match for the type of work that you could be doing? So we take these six interest type.
Victoria Volk: And I’ll go over just each of them briefly again, more in-depth sold the realistic or the doers. Individuals with a realistic career code tend to prefer work that involves practical hands on solutions to problems. They value things they can see, touch, and use. They’d rather work with their hands than sit behind a desk for example. Well. And then we also get occupation samples or, you know, different ideas for occupation based on the different interest types. So the realistic or the doer would be the ambulance driver, the EMT technicians, veterinarians, elect things like that, investigative, the thinkers, those with an investigative career code are intellectual, curious, and reserved. And they like to solve problems and engage in challenges in their work. They do not like routine work that forces them to check their brain at the door. In fact, their work often involves ideas and heavy mental lifting. So they also tend to avoid careers that involve leading or influencing people and selling. So some ideas for the invest gate of thinkers are fire investigators, registered nurses, software developers, analysts, market research, analysts, database, architects, things like that. I which really is funny because I really geek out over like kitchen gadgets and like any any types of gadgets. And I love learning new software. So That is totally me. Artistic creators, this type of code, they’re imaginative, creative, original, independent, and expressive. In general, they tend to avoid work that involves highly structured or routine activities. And these individuals are inspired to create weather through activities such as music, writing, drawing, dance photography or art, which in my previous years, I had a photography business. So it’s kinda interesting, you know, reading through these and recognizing, like, oh, I used to do that. And, you know, it’s like, it’s not that we don’t know ourselves.
Victoria Volk: It’s like we know these things intuitively, but it’s like we don’t understand ourselves. Like, why do I do the things I do? The Youmap helps explain that. Moving on to social, the helpers, individuals with a social career code are interested in serving society and making a difference in people’s lives. They like to help people and their work is often centered around people. Like social careers, nonprofits, education, healthcare. They are helpful, friendly, loyal, generous, you know, these are our teachers, dietetic technicians, midwives health educators, patient representatives, for example. Moving on to enterprising, the persuaders, these individuals you’ll often deal with business, leadership or politics, involved in making decisions, starting up and carrying out projects, selling ideas or things. They are generally energetic, ambitious, dominant, outgoing, and and competitive. So think about financial services, sales reps, CEOs, judges, human resource specialists, supply chain managers, people in charge basically. The conventional, the organizer type are the glue that holds organizations together. They provide structure, process, and order that all organizations need to run smoothly. People with this career type are generally methodical detailed oriented, cautious, organized, responsible, and quality oriented. So for example, insurance claim clerk or medical secretary’s accountants, pharmacy tax, loan officers, research assistance, or financial analysts, So these six personal personality types provide a glimpse into a person’s internal, interpersonal and environmental preferences. And when we hone in on their two strongest codes, for example, like I mentioned, mine are artistic and investigative, more specific preferences are then revealed. And so then we take this information, all of this information, your strengths, your values, your skills, and your personality inventory type. And you have what’s called a workbook.
Victoria Volk: And the workbook is where you really answer questions that integrate this information more deeply. It helps you gain a better understanding and assimilate all of this information because is a lot of information that you receive in a u map. We also have what’s called dealmakers and breakers. It’s a worksheet for that. We have an ideal day worksheet.
Victoria Volk: There is so much information that you receive with the Youmap. It’s not just this assessment you take and you get this printout and then it goes in a drawer and it sits for years and years. This is something that you can use in your daily life, like I said, in your relationships for better understanding, and probably nurturing compassion because in understanding that we’re all different, you can be more compassionate towards others in your grief. Like, if you’ve lost a breadwinner in the household, like, what are you gonna do now? Right? Like, if you have to go out and get a second job or you have to get a job maybe for the first time after many years of not being in the workforce because now you have to go to work for whatever reason. Or you’ve been a stay-at-home parent and now you’re gonna enter the workforce again after being home with your kids for a while.
Victoria Volk: There are so many different scenarios where we find ourselves having to reinvent our lives, reinvent ourselves. Maybe you’ve had a change in health. In their the career that you had, you can no longer physically do that. But what can you do? There is something else you can do. You can still contribute to the world, you can still make a difference in people’s lives and as long as you’re not dead, you still have something to contribute You can still contribute to the world, you can still contribute to your life, and you can create your life with this information armed with this information, how you see it, how you want to see it, that fits you, who you are, and where you are in your life. And how you want to move forward. And this is the whole goal of Do Grief Differently and the Youmap together is moving forward, onward, and upward in a positive direction and creating lasting transformational change that leads you to have a fulfilling, soulful, self-honoring life.
Victoria Volk: Because when we honor who we are, what we get back is joy. How can it be any other way? If you’re interested in the Youmap, you wanna learn more there’s a link on my website where you can email me [email protected]. If you are interested in working with me and receiving your Youmap and diving deeper. If you’re a veteran or you’re in the military and you’re gonna be sitting soon, coming into civilian life, and you’re kind of feeling overwhelmed. Like, what are you gonna do? This is perfect for you.
Victoria Volk: We actually have a specific workbook that is specific for military personnel. If you’re an entrepreneur, or if you one that’s geared more towards life coaching, there’s a specific workbook for your specific situation. If you are looking for employment, there’s a workbook specific for that.
Victoria Volk: So lots of information to share and help help you process. And I’m more than happy to do that and be there for you in that journey. And I hope this was helpful and maybe you understanding, yeah, there really is a lot more to us as human beings. They’re we’re complex. We’re so complex. And any tool that can help us better understand and just kind of make sense of everything, the better off we are for it and those we love. I encourage you to go back and listen to last week’s episode if you haven’t yet and check out my website for more information and reach out to me because life’s too short to be staying in a cubicle you don’t wanna be in or doing something that is sucking the joy out of your life. Right? And perhaps like me, you’ll receive the Youmap and it’ll be life-affirming like I am doing exactly what I meant to be doing. This is a perfect fit for me. And that’s what the Youmap did for me. It was very life-affirming, but what it also did then was it gave me the language to articulate what it is that I really do. Thank you for listening. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, solo episode |
The Grief of Not Knowing Your Strengths and Values
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Grief puts this veil over your face. When you’re bogged down emotionally, it can feel like a chore to make it through the day, much less connect emotionally with others (or yourself). Once you address the emotional weight, little by little, you see potential where you saw heartbreak. You feel connection where you once felt disconnected. And you recognize the only limits placed on yourself, or others are those imposed by the mind.
*This episode is connected to last week’s episode, which is titled Ep. 150, What It’s Like Working With Me*
In today’s episode, you will learn:
* How YouMap was the missing piece in finding the language for who I am and what I offer, but more importantly, in my work with clients and understanding them better.
* How YouMap can help you find your purpose in life.
* Grief Recovery and Youmap are a beautiful marriage of transformation.
Did you know that only 1 in 33 million people will have the exact same five strengths as you? Yes, that is a fact.
In this episode, I discuss what the YouMap® is and how It helps individuals understand their unique strengths, values, interests, and personality traits and guides their career choices and life goals accordingly. By clarifying these aspects, individuals can make more informed decisions and find greater fulfillment in their personal and professional lives – thereby experiencing less (self-inflicted and unnecessary) grief.
If you are looking for YouMap® Coach to help you discover your unique gifts and skills and how you can show up to the world, I am here to help and guide you.
RESOURCES:
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NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.
Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.
CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:
Victoria Volk: Hello. Hello. Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. I am your host, Victoria. And today, I want to dig into a topic I think is not really talked about as it relates to grief. One thing that I’ve learned in the years since becoming an advanced grief recovery specialist and working with clients in those first couple of years, there was a piece missing for me. People would work through their deepest losses and it was kind of like this now what feeling? Even I felt it or had that sense. And so I was looking for something to that could be kind of this roadmap for people moving forward, like moving beyond.
Victoria Volk: Okay. I’ve addressed all this icky stuff and I’ve swept my doorstep so to speak. And now what? What do I want for my life now that I’ve addressed how this very important person has passed away from my life or the relationship came to an end, whether it was divorced or estrangement or whatever it may be, there’s this once we repair this gap and this hole that we have felt. What do we fill it with? We can fill it with purpose. With meaning, things like that. That’s what I was looking for as a missing piece for my clients that I was working with.
Victoria Volk: So when I came across Youmap, it was the answer to that very question for me. I went through it for myself and it was very life-affirming that I’m doing exactly what I am to be doing in my work with grieving clients in energy healing. I’m utilizing my strengths and really honoring my values of personal growth. And bringing that to other people’s lives to make lasting transformational change. And that’s really what the Youmap helps us do. It becomes our lighthouse. Any opportunity that comes our way, we can put it up against our Youmap and say is this align with my values? Is this going to get me into the shore? Is that going to guide me where I’m ultimately wanting to take my life? Based on my values, based on my strengths, based on what I really want to be doing based on how I’m wired, just who I am as a person and as a human being with all of those things combined.
Victoria Volk: And so much misunderstanding happens among relationships, especially and it can be, I was gonna say, especially family and friends, but I was going to say even in your work relationships like people that you don’t necessarily wouldn’t call up at three o’clock in the morning, but you see them every day. Just having this background knowledge and information of how different we truly are. And but yet how grief is the commonality for us all? Like grief is it knows discrimination. It doesn’t matter what your skills, values, and strengths and all of that are. It doesn’t care. Grief doesn’t care. But when you understand these things about yourself, it can really help pull you out of a deep hole that you feel that you’ve been in. After we address the root of the issues of your emotional dis-ease through grief recovery.
Victoria Volk: And so this is why these two combined brief recovery and Youmap are such a beautiful marriage of transformation for my clients and why I believe that they needed to be together. And so I put them together in my program Do grief differently, which is twelve weeks long. And it flies people. Like that twelve weeks, it goes so fast. But it really has shifted how my clients move through grief recovery as well because they’re making these connections for themselves and through my assistance of course, making these different connections to how these misunderstandings are happening, why they’re happening, and how to move forward with them. Right? Because as long as we have people in our lives, we’re going to have grief. And that’s just a fact.
Victoria Volk: So today, I just want to dive deeper into two of the four pillars of the u map, four pillars are strengths, which is I mentioned last week in the episode briefly, but just for a recap, Strength is pillar one and that’s it’s what we prioritize. It’s how we work. So the there’s different kind of buckets that the strengths fall into, and we use the Clifton Strengths guide for this, that assessment as part of the Youmap assessment. So it’s not secret knowledge or anything like that, but it’s the Clifton Strengths, the values, the skills, and the personality type that all combined make the Youmap.
Victoria Volk: So yes, knowing your strengths is great information to have, but by itself, it’s not giving you the whole picture. And what’s really mind-blowing about the Clifton Strengths is that only one in thirty-three million people will have the exact same five strengths as you. Isn’t that crazy? That is absolutely bananas to me.
Victoria Volk: So it really just speaks to how unique all of us really are. And how we bring different things to the table in our relationships in our jobs or careers, in our philanthropy work or in our volunteering work, And again, in our relationships. And so it’s important to understand ourselves in this way because as you can see if you haven’t figured it out already, it can cause a lot of grief, not knowing who you are, what do I want? We often ask ourselves for so many years, what do I wanna be when I grow up? Sometimes even in our thirties, we’re still asking ourselves that, or it feels stuck in our career because we followed a life path that someone else paved for us. Maybe both of our parents were doctors or had construction business or something. And so we felt like we had to follow on their footsteps or keep the family business going it can be the same for farming operations. Maybe you don’t wanna farm, maybe you don’t wanna come back and take over the farm as an adult.
Victoria Volk: And so there’s a lot of grief that can come about as I’m sharing with you today in not understanding ourselves or sacrificing who we are in order to please other people. And where does this all happen? Why does that happen? Maybe somebody’s bringing their own values. They’re pushing their values onto you. They’re projecting what is important to them. It’s important to me, so it should be important to you. Right? Or this is how I do things, so this is how I want you to do things. And yet, we all do things differently because we’re different because we bring different strengths. Because we have different values, because our skill sets are different, because our life experience has been different. And we’re just uniquely ourselves that we are unique in our own right based on our personality, like, when we were born. Right? So there are so many influences that affect and have an impact on who we become and what we do with our lives.
Victoria Volk: And why we do them? What’s motivating us? So this is why this stuff is so important. And again, if you can’t tell now, maybe you’ve related to some of the things I’ve already said and you’ve experienced grief as a result, This is why I am encouraging you as a listener to take a look at understanding. Be open-minded to understanding that maybe you don’t know yourself exactly as you think you do. Or you don’t know how you don’t have the language to communicate that. Right? And so often too, that’s where misunderstandings happen is we don’t have the language to communicate why we do the things we do, how we do the things we do, why we do it that way. Right? So what the Youmap also does and through grief recovery is you find the language to express to others why you do what you do. So for example, like, I’m one of my top five strengths is strategic. And but not only do I have strategic, but I also have input and intellectually. So input, intellectually, strategic, three thinking themes.
Victoria Volk: So I spend a lot of time analyzing the world in my head. So I’m not necessarily gonna be the person that’s going to be openly communicating my thoughts or being upfront about what I think about something I’m going to read the room. I’m going to take in what everybody else is showing in their body language and what they’re saying. I’m gonna read the room and assess and reflect on what I think about that before I communicate. And when I do communicate, I’m gonna communicate with connectedness and empathy. I’m going to that’s how I relate to people in relationship. That’s how I create relationship building is through empathy and connectedness, helping other people see the connections. Right?
Finding helping other people see the purpose.
Victoria Volk: So often, I have felt grief or experienced grief in careers and different jobs or in with other relationships with people because I didn’t understand why I was doing something. I need to know, tell me why I am doing this. If it doesn’t make sense to me or if I don’t see a point or a purpose with that connectedness again. If I don’t see a purpose to the madness, I’m going to not be a very happy employee or a happy friend or what have you. Right? So I need to and so it’s helping me know that about myself so that I can communicate that because I know that not everybody has three thinking themes like I do. Right? And so, again, this is why this stuff matters.
Victoria Volk: So today, again, we’re gonna talk about strengths a little bit more and then values. Values explain our why. It’s based on what’s most important to us. It’s why we work. Again, tell me why I’m doing this. Right? So if I value personal growth like I do, I’m going to want clients who also value personal growth. That is going to be aligning with my values. And often some values are reciprocal. Right? So honesty is almost always reciprocal. If I’m if I value honesty, which I do, I expect honesty in return. Sometimes that doesn’t feel good. Right? But I would rather there was a quote once I heard. I would rather take an ounce of truth over a pound of lies any day. And that’s absolutely true. Tell me the truth, chances are with my empathy. I can kind of pick up on BS anyway. But again, it comes back to reading the room. Right? But or the body language or the tone of voice or what have you, those social cues that because of how I grew up in an environment that it was really and you can go back to the last episode where I talk about this a little bit, but when you grow up in an environment that’s kind of chaotic or emotionally charged like you really learn especially if you have empathy as a strength or you’re empathic because not all people have both. Like, you’re not you can be empathic but not have empathy as your top. Strength.
Victoria Volk: So I just want to make that clear. But as an empath or highly sensitive child, this is it’s no surprise to me that I developed empathy as my strength because I see I grew up seeing many different emotional responses from people in different scenarios and situations and learn through my own, right, that became not healthy responses to life because that’s what I was around, that’s what I learned, and so that’s how I responded to life. In life’s challenges sometimes in an unhealthy way. Emotionally. Right? So Anyway, I’m kind of all over the place I feel like, but I get really excited about this because, again, it comes down to knowing yourself? And what grief does is that I’ve said this so many times to clients and this podcast, and I’ll say it again. Grief puts this veil over your face and you really have a difficult time seeing yourself clearly. And because you have this veil over your face that this mask that you’re wearing your whole self isn’t shining through. Right? Because you’re burdened by grief. So you’re not seeing yourself clearly. You’re not living your life fully. So, therefore, you’re not seeing other people clearly either. You’re not seeing what they’re bringing to the table. You’re not understanding that they’re trying to support you maybe or what have you. Again, it comes down to misunderstandings, which are oftentimes at the root of a lot of grief too in relationships is just misunderstanding. Again, because we all do things differently. And view life differently and have had different life experiences that shape our personality and shape our skill set.
Victoria Volk: So there are again four buckets of strengths. The relationship-building strengths which explain how people build connection with others. There are influencing strengths which explain how an individual moves. Others to action. And there’s executing, which is what pushes an individual towards results. And then the last bucket is thinking. And it explains how a person analyzes the world.
Victoria Volk: And so let’s say you’re married to somebody who has more executing strengths than you do. Let’s say you have none. I don’t have any. I have zero. I have zero executing strengths. But let’s say that person has discipline as an executing strength. And you have harmony okay? So as a relationship-building strength. But the person executing doesn’t have harmony. Someone who is has executing as their strength. They are going to be diligent about time frames and deadlines, take a vacation with someone with discipline. It might be great for some people. Like, yep, handle it all, take care of it all. I don’t want anything to do with all of that. But then at the same time, let’s say you have adaptability. For example, adaptability might show up like when things don’t go right, For this person with discipline, things don’t go as scheduled. They might be struggling a little bit. But here, when with you and adaptability, you can come in and swoop in and kind of put out the fire a little bit. So this is how in marriage, in particular, it’s really great to know each other’s strengths because you can understand why certain conflicts happen the way they do. And for someone like me, I have a lot of thinking themes. I’m not going to necessarily be the let’s sit down and communicate. Like, my every thought right now and share every thought. That’s not me. That is not how I operate in the world. But someone who has more relationship-building strengths, let’s say my spouse had more relationship-building strengths, he was he’d probably be more keen to share every thought he has upfront.
Victoria Volk: It’s also important I think I just wanna mention. It’s great to know all of your strengths because it’s great to know your bottom strengths because we can also look at the and there’s you can think of these as weaknesses, but when we talk about Youmap, we don’t discuss them as weaknesses. These are just strengths that just are not ours. Right? But when we’re building a team, let’s say you have a business and you’re building a team, you probably want people on your team who have some of those other strengths that are not yours. This is where it’s also important to know about Youmap. And implementing Youmap, especially if you have a business or, you know, a large company, a lot of conflict can be resolute. I don’t know if that’s a word resolute. But you can really eliminate a lot of those issues if you are placing people, first of all, in their strengths and skill sets in in the right role, first of all, if they’re feeling like they’re in the right role for them in within a company, they’ll be happier employees. And that’s good for everybody. Right? That is good for everybody. So if you can match your future spouse, exactly who you are, what you’re looking for in someone else, you can become a really great team for the long term, for the long haul because and I’m not saying that if you don’t match with some maybe I should do matchmaking with Youmap. It was an idea. Anyway, it’s just so important, and I think you may have gotten the point by now.
Victoria Volk: But relationship building and influencing together these are what we call people-facing strengths. And the executing and thinking themes are the inward-facing strengths. They’re the task-oriented people. And so a lot of executives, you’ll see a lot of executives or CEO’s probably have either executing or thinking themes. They’re more of the top the person that comes up with the ideas and it’s the purse the people below that implement them. Or see them through to through to fruition. And, again, your strengths, your skills play into that as well. And your personality. So again, it it it it all ties together. All there’s this constant through line in the Youmap. And when people are telling me different stories that, you know, they’ve experienced as a grief client, Actually, I’ll just say this real quick. So someone, a client of mine, valued honesty. And so we’ll get into values right now because I’m gonna share the story. But again, values are why we work, like, why we do the things we do. But she valued honesty and yet she didn’t have honesty on her list of values. But I heard enough stories and enough, she shared enough with me through working with me in the grief work that I’m like, well, there’s honesty again. Like, you value honesty, but yet you don’t have it listed as one of your values. And that was a big aha for her. And the thing about honesty is, again, it’s reciprocal most of the time. If we value honesty, we want to receive that back. And so we can dishonor our own values. And this is exactly what she was doing. She was dishonoring her own value of honesty. And a part of it too is not being honest with herself, so you can dishonor your own values, yourself, if you value personal growth and you’re not doing anything to grow as an individual, you’re not learning and taking in information to become better than you were yesterday, you’re dishonoring your value of personal growth. That was a lot. Well, that was a lot of information within twenty-five minutes. And I feel like I barely scratched the surface. I hope you can see now how important this really is.
Victoria Volk: Let me just share a little bit more deeply about each of the some of the examples from each of the different buckets of strengths. So again, relationship-building strengths explain how people build connections with others. So people with this theme or mostly have strengths in this theme, build connections with people one on one, but those connections are made very differently depending on which strength you have. So the relationship currency that you have with people is largely based on your theme. But if you don’t have relationship-building themes, you can compensate with some of the other strengths. So some examples of how some of these relationship-building strengths can play out is Like I mentioned, empathy. Empathy understands where they get people. Harmony, they’re the peacemaker. They find common ground. So if you got a bickering table of, you know, employees, you’re and you have harmony, that’s a wonderful strength to have on your team because you can that person can help the team find common ground.
Victoria Volk: Individualization. I love this one. This is great for like coaches to have, but they appreciate the differences in people and they recognize individual strengths. Relator, they’re real and genuine makes connections easily with anyone. This is like the friend of the friend, like, there’s they know a they know no stranger anywhere. Like, there this is where a lot you might see a lot of people, especially because again, this is a people-facing strength. So you’ll see these are the people that exude warmth and inviting energy, I would say. So connectedness, they help others see purpose and believe that we are all connected, which I do. I have connectedness, and I totally believe that. Another influence or excuse me, another people facing strength is the influencing strengths. And these explain how an individual moves others to action. So some business people, business owners, might be just appointed like I was at first that I had no influencing strengths. I have none. There’s one in particular Woo, which means winning others over. And people with Woo, it’s almost like they can sell ice to an escomo. It’s yeah. So a lot of business owners can feel discouraged when they don’t have some of these influencing strengths.
Victoria Volk: But people with influencing strengths persuade or move people to action differently, based on the strengths that they have. They tend to work through people to accomplish goals like unlike relationship-building themes who form deeper connections. So again, you know, the relationship building, they want deeper connections. People with influencing strengths often prefer working with a variety of people. They tend to prefer a broader network versus fewer deeper connections like the relationship-building themes. And people with a lot of influence and strengths may tire of working with the same team of people day to day. So if you have a lot of these themes in your top five, maybe this is you, maybe you are kind of burned out from working with the same people. I do have maximizer in my top 10. But people who lack and I I think this is important to note. People who lack influencing strengths tend to be uncomfortable influencing or persuading others such as sales or fighting to have their voice heard, raising my hand or influencing people without any authority.
Victoria Volk: So for example, project managers are accountable for the results of people that don’t report to them. If project team members are missing deadlines, Someone without influencing themes likely not would likely not enjoying, enjoy motivating others to complete their deliverables. Right? And so when you see this translating onto a team of people at a company, that doesn’t bode well. And so this is where it is. Again, I come back to under standing yourself and understanding the importance of understanding others because as a manager or as a CEO of a company, it’s so important to have people in the right roles and this is why. This is a huge reason why because it does affect your bottom line. Right?
Victoria Volk: So the next bucket is executing strengths, the inward facing, the first of the inward facing. Or explains how an individual pushes towards results. And some examples of those are Achiever, arranger, belief is actually my sixth strength. I think, yeah, belief in maximizer are after my top five. Consistency, discipline, focus, responsibility. So responsibility is huge too because if you have responsibility, you are likely a someone who has takes that that takes responsibilities very seriously. Who probably, to their detriment can be a yes man, yes woman, yes a yes person and over commit themselves and then burnout. But people with executing strengths are the doers. Who like to get things done and put plans into action. Again, you’re motivated differently based on the strengths but you tend to be internally motivated since executing strengths are an inward, task-focused strength. People with several executing strengths may prefer to work independently to accomplish a goal and may also struggle to delegate. Some and but not all executors are not interested in strategy and may focus more on implementation unless they also have the thinking themes.
Victoria Volk: So people with discipline, for example, like planning as well as fusion. And last but not least, my favorite, the strategic thinking strengths, explain how a person analyzes the world and views the world too. Some examples are analytical, context, futuristic, ideation, input, intellectually, learner and strategic. So people with these thinking themes prefer mental work, particularly if they have two or more thinking strengths. So I like the mental game. I like the mental work. People with thinking strengths are often quietly effective. Because their most influential work occurs in their head. And this is also called the executive bucket because as people move up the career ladder, they are paid to think more often than they are paid to do. And so that’s where I said, you know, the CEOs and the executives are often have mostly thinking themes. And so this is just a really brief overview of the strengths and values and I didn’t go too much into depth, into values. But values are also so important because of what I said earlier if you are dishonoring your own values, you’re gonna experience grief. If you have people in your life close to you who you love and love you who are dishonoring your values, there’s going to be grief. And values vary so widely. Therefore, it’s important for a person to reflect on what’s most important to him or her. For example, like, listening to the advice of others can be helpful, but you have to understand that when taking values-based advice, it’s not necessarily advice that’s right for you. So people, for example, with who value security, will steer a person away from bold or adventurous risks. Others who value wealth and status might encourage someone to pursue a career simply because of the salary potential. And this comes back to again, let’s come back I’m circling back to, like, taking over the family farm or taking over the family business or, you know, choosing a career path because you’re that’s what your parents did and that’s what your parents want you to do and things like that. So a person’s work must align with their values. Not the values of others. And there’s exercises so along with Youmap you get a workbook and there’s exercises that really help you deepen this knowledge and apply it to your life and really look at and also too in the coaching with working with me, we actually go over each of these. In the Youmap and Do Grief Differently too and so into more depth.
Victoria Volk: And it’s individualized because you’re an individual and you’re unique and your Youmap is unique. But to define the values, there’s actually a whole list and you choose from this list because there can be a lot of values out there. But these values are kind of broken down to it takes it weeds out the similar similar ones. And so it’s a really easy. It’s not like you’re pulling words out of the sky. And what you do is and because I have three thinking this was probably one of the hardest exercises for me because in my mind I have to, like, like, it’s almost, like, pitch one to the other. Like, I have to do I value honesty more than I value growth. And you kinda have to weigh them out, like, especially if you have thinking themes. Like so this is kind of a difficult exercise for me to choose and weed out, but it’s doable. And some people just look at the list and like, yep, this is Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. This is what I value. But then through working with me, they miss some or realize that they didn’t have a value on their list, or they feel like, you know what, that isn’t necessarily true for me. I’m more so I value this aspect of myself more. So it’s all part of self-discovery, and that’s a lot of what Do Grief Differently is. It’s a lot of self-discovery. That’s what Youmap is, but it becomes once you’ve gone through the assessments and we’ve talked about and applied it to your life and you have some connections made through real life examples of how your Youmap is playing out in your life. It’s a lot easier to assimilate the information because it is a lot to take in even just for this episode I think I feel like it’s a ton of information at once, but and this is just too. This is just strengths and values. I haven’t even talked about skills yet or personality type. So that’s gonna come up in the next episode.
Victoria Volk: But in the meantime, think about what you bring to the table. Is it Do you feel like your life is aligned by your values? Do you feel like you are living out your strengths? And you can also overuse your strengths too. That is that is a possibility. And like, with empathy, for example, If I overuse empathy, I can seem like I’m too invested in someone’s life. Like, too invested in how they’re feeling and how they’re doing and almost take on this, save your role. And I know there’s a lot of people that can do that when they come into relationships with other people that they feel like they can rescue them. And that’s not your job. That’s not my job. And so that took a lot for me. It took a lot of personal growth and reflection and in doing the work that I personally did on myself to realize that I can only save myself. And you can only save yourself. It is your job, no one else’s.
Victoria Volk: And so I hope this information sparked some self-reflection in you and made you realize, there’s a lot to know here. And if you’re interested in learning more, just check out my website there’s a Youmap tab on there. You can check up more information about Youmap and see my Youmap on there as well. Or if you’re interested in combining it in grief work. There’s Do Grief Differently, and there’s information on that on my website as well. But it’s when I’m working with clients, it’s so much inform it’s educational. It’s not just let’s you know, dig up all the dirty laundry and talk about how I failed at life or what I’m doing wrong. It’s none of that. It is none of that. It’s or how this person hurt me. We don’t get wrapped up in the story because when you’re working with me, it’s action-focused, it’s action-based, evidence-based, educational based. We lay a foundation and you learn so so much about yourself. More than I think most of my clients bargain for in the best of ways.
So, anyway, I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day wherever you are. I hope the sun is shining. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
