Grief Unplugged®

Hello & welcome to the Grief Unplugged podcast. I am your host, Heather D. Horton.  Grief Unplugged is a podcast that frees professional women from the blockages of unresolved grief so they are able to find purpose in their pain and embrace their new “normal” while sustaining productivity at work and in life.

In episodes 1 & 2, I told my story about the event that changed the trajectory of my life and gave specific details of how I have navigated my 13-year grief journey. 

In episodes 3 through 7, I provided you with a vast toolkit of resources to begin shifting you from grief to a place of gratitude when you are ready. Episode 3 explored giving yourself permission to grieve as one of the most fundamental ways to begin moving forward instead of remaining stuck in your grief. In episode 4, I showed how you can stand firm in your faith and face your fears because there is nothing wrong with you.  You are not inadequate as Marianne Williamson, Our Deepest Fear, describes in her poem but you are greater than you could ever imagine because of where you are right now and what you have gone through. I also talked about what therapeutic support means and how you have to be intentional about it to support you on this journey. 

In episode 5, I showed you how to leverage your emotions, invite them to tea or your favorite non-alcoholic beverage and then escort them out the door and take back your power.  In episode 6, I showed you how to start to transition from focusing on the death/loss you experienced to remembering and honoring the life of the person you loved or the thing or situation that no longer exists.  In episode 7, we talked about the importance of Incorporating new traditions into old traditions as you navigate your grief journey. 

The focus today is taking all the tools in the toolkit and beginning to embrace the gift of now. If you knew you could handle anything that could/would happen to you, what would you be afraid of?  Nothing.  That’s what Susan Jeffers says in her book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.  Remember that whatever happens, you can handle it.  If you need to, feel free to listen to episodes 3-7 again as many times as necessary.  You can handle it. 

One way to maintain your momentum on your grief journey is to create a gratitude journal.  Every day for the next 30 days, I want you to write down 3-5 things for which you are grateful.  At the end of the 30 days, you could create an ebook to help others be able to find that same gratitude in their lives or even choose to live another day after experiencing loss.  I believe small gestures like this will help to empower individuals, impact communities and ultimately change the world. 

I encourage you to be the change you want to see in the world.  You have an obligation to live your life for the rest of your life.  When you get to a state of being powerful, you begin to openly affirm what your legacy will be, what your life will look like in six months, one year from now.  What deferred or unfulfilled dream(s) are you ready to pursue now that you’ve begun to shift your grief to gratitude?  If you find it challenging to determine what your legacy will be, I want you to think about some causes/activities you were passionate about in the past.  What excited you about that cause/activity?  What have you done in your past that you think you could stick to now?  What will you celebrate in three months?  I encourage you to journal your answers to these questions to help you map out the future you. 

I hope you realize that you are developing the blueprint for a successful journey to a place of peace, love, and gratitude.  Give yourself permission to move beyond grief.  Embrace the journey, embrace who you are, embrace all there is……  Melodie Beattie who wrote the book, The Grief Club, says “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.  It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events.  Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.” Remember everything in life is temporary, including life itself.  

Decide to Say Yes to the Gift of Now.  As renowned Certified Professional Coach Dora Carpenter says, when you decide to say yes to the gift of now, no one and nothing can shake your tree.  When you are ready, I want you to yield to the present, embrace the possibilities of your potential, and surrender to the outcome.  In August 2017, I decided to say yes to the gift of now.  I realized that my personal story of overcoming adversity had the ability to redirect the trajectory of individual lives, empower communities and change the world.   I accepted the call to action and decided to no longer keep my story to myself.  I resigned from my Federal government career after 18+ years to help professional women navigate through the wilderness of grief by leveraging their emotions to find purpose in their pain, to embrace their new normal and sustain productivity in their personal lives and their careers. 

How did you wake up this morning?  If you didn’t wake up happy, why not?  When you wake up each morning, I want you to ask God four things before your feet hit the floor - What would you have me do, where would you have me go, what would you have me say and to whom would you have me say this.  Then take a moment to listen for the answers before starting your day.  I want you to stop existing and start living.  Friends, the best is yet to come when you are able to move from grief to gratitude and embrace the gift of now.  To further maintain that momentum, you need to create a personal power plan. 

You need you to set powerful intentions for your life starting now.  At the beginning of each month, I want you to set powerful intentions as if it was the last day of the month and your intentions had already come true. Write your intentions in the present tense; I have, I am, not I will.  For example, I am 5 lbs lighter.  I have completed a 5K.  Use positive, inspiring, and concise language.  Be direct, strip away any doubt, worry or hesitation. Your words have power, they speak to your mind.  When you set powerful intentions, you create your own life and circumstances instead of settling for what someone hands to you or waiting for a handout.  If you are bold enough, I challenge you to also set three powerful intentions for your life.  Think about it as if it were the last day of your life and your intentions had already come true.  What would you family say about your legacy when making your final arrangements?  As part of your personal power plan, I need you to eliminate all excuses.  Know the obstacles that lie ahead for you and plan for them.  Also celebrate your wins, whether you make baby steps or huge leaps.  Always find something for which you are grateful.  And constantly evaluate your support system – your circle of influence.  Make sure your support system is always supporting you even when they don’t agree with you.  You see, you need the following people in your circle of influence: 

Peers – those who are where you are and supporting you, your network of likeminded friends & associates;

Mentors - those who are where you want to be, you look up to them;

Those who you can mentor - you only want those that really want to give back and help – if you give 100% and they give you 100% - who appreciate your help. 

The people that are the closest to you (your family) may not be as excited with you about this new journey you are on – it’s called innocent envy.  Instead of helping you, they may retreat or distance themselves from you.  I need you to be ready for that! Don’t be disappointed, don’t let anyone or anything steal your dream, let nothing or no one shake your tree.  Embrace the gift and possibilities of now!  Go in peace and prosper! 

I want to thank you for listening to this episode. I hope you will join us for our next episode of the Grief Unplugged podcast.  I truly believe that community = strength.  So, if you are interested in engaging further with our community, you can join our private FB group, Professional Women Transcending Grief by searching for my FB business page -  @hortonheatherd, and click Visit Group right under my picture! 

If you are interested in one-on-one grief support, access my website at www.heatherdhorton.com and click on GET SUPPORT to schedule your breakthrough session and learn more about my 90-day intensive grief coaching program, Reclaiming Your Power.  

To stay engaged with the podcast, search for Grief Unplugged on iTunes, GooglePlay, SoundCloud or Libsyn.  Please subscribe to the podcast, so you know when the next episode is available and feel free to post a review, let me know what topics you want to hear discussed and share the podcast with your tribe.  Until next time, keep moving forward.

Hello & welcome to the Grief Unplugged podcast. I am your host, Heather D. Horton.  Grief Unplugged is a podcast that frees professional women from the blockages of unresolved grief so they can find purpose in their pain and embrace their new “normal” while sustaining productivity at work and in life.

In episodes 1 & 2, I told my story about the event that changed the trajectory of my life and gave specific details of how I have navigated my 13-year grief journey.  In episodes 3 through 6, I provided you with a vast toolkit of resources to begin shifting you from grief to a place of gratitude when you are ready.

Episode 3 explored giving yourself permission to grieve as one of the most fundamental ways to begin moving forward instead of remaining stuck in your grief.

In episode 4, I showed how you could stand firm in your faith and face your fears because there is nothing wrong with you.  You are not inadequate as Marianne Williamson, Our Deepest Fear, describes in her poem but you are greater than you could ever imagine because of where you are right now and what you have gone through. I also talked about what therapeutic support means and how you have to be intentional about it to support you on this journey. 

In episode 5, I showed you how to leverage your emotions, invite them to tea or your favorite non-alcoholic beverage and then escort them out the door and take back your power. 

In episode 6, I showed you how to start to transition from focusing on the death/loss you experienced to remembering and honoring the life of the person you loved or the thing or situation that no longer exists.

Today I will show you the importance of Incorporating new traditions into old traditions as you navigate your grief journey. It is an opportunity for you to create renewed attitudes, behaviors and perspectives resulting in transformational awareness and actions.  At this point, we have come to realize that we can’t change the past.  Noted author Corinne Edwards says it best; we have to give up the hope for a different or better yesterday. 

Stop hoping things would have happened differently or that things could be like they were in the past.  Create new traditions to remember your loved one or that loss.  The only point of power you have is right now.  You can still include something old in the new tradition.  Brides are even able to include something old on their wedding day.  Maybe just tweak the old way by including something that puts your signature on the occasion. 

You may be hesitant about changing an old tradition.  You may be concerned that you are moving on from the person or situation or letting go of that memory.  Without beating yourself up, I want you to allow space for you to open your heart to consider other possibilities.  One of the new traditions I created after losing my mother was how I celebrated the holidays.  From childhood to adulthood, my extended family all lived within a 5-10 mile radius of each other.  We did everything together, sporting events, church, family dinners on Sunday, birthdays, anniversaries, holidays.  You name it; we were together.  After my mother passed, I didn’t want to see or be around anyone related to me.  Not that I blamed anyone for what happened, but as an introvert, I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts for a long time.  But I had little say over that because I wore a C-collar to mend my neck fracture for three months after the accident.  Someone had to drive me everywhere, or I was always with someone which is hard after living alone. 

The moment that I was able to drive again and eventually move from Louisiana to Arizona, I began to create my traditions.  I decided for my sanity that I would spend one holiday by myself each year.  No family. No friends. No one but me and whatever I decided to cook.  My mother loved to cook, and I was very fond of her cooking.  I had managed to learn how to make a few dishes just like she did.  I would set the table for myself and enjoy the dish by myself in peace and quiet and focus on memorable times with my mother.  My extended family and even the families that adopted me while I lived in AZ thought it was a bit extreme, but I had to create boundaries for my sanity. 

As the years passed after my mother’s death, I begin to tweak the traditions again and starting coming home for the holidays more after my nephews were born.   I had to make a new tradition to get back to the place of gratitude for appreciating being with my extended family during the holidays.  

If you need a little inspiration to get to the place where you can think of something new, I encourage you to try this exercise.  It’s called the 50 Smiles Project.  Take just two minutes to write down everything that makes you smile.  You can this once a week or daily.  One of your ideas may help you to create that new tradition.  One of the biggest roadblocks you will encounter when trying to incorporate new traditions into old traditions is forgiveness.  The antidote to forgiveness, however, is love.  It frees us from emotional suffering, being held hostage to bondage emotionally, physically, and psychologically.  Letting go of the hurts and even perceived wrongs opens one up to receive the abundance of life.  Don’t let unforgiveness rob you of your joy. 

Grief is usually heightened during the first year after trauma/loss.  You begin to ask yourself, am I supposed to celebrate this? Is this honoring that person or experience? Am I reopening wounds by doing this?  Planning helps to eliminate the challenges that come up during these times.  It may seem silly, but it is so important that you plan for the all the special days that will occur especially in the first year.  Things go much more smoothly when you have a plan.  A tool that I use when coaching clients is called the Firsties project.  It gives you the opportunity to show gratitude to a life well lived and the opportunity to honor that person’s life and legacy.  It also gives you an opportunity to cherish the memories of your experiences that occurred before your loss by adding your unique touch to the new tradition.  This exercise is not only good for firsties but just in general when special days occur whether it be birthdays, father’s day, mother’s day, the anniversary of the death or experience, etc. 

July 30, 2017, would have been my mother’s 70th birthday.  A flood of emotions came to my mind just thinking of that milestone and what we would have done if she were still alive.  I don’t officially celebrate Mother’s Day regarding my mother anymore; however, my mother’s birthday has become my mother’s day celebration of her.  I would take a sewing class as my mother was a supreme seamstress in her memory or spend the day at the spa with one of my adopted mother figures in the area to honor my mother.  I knew it was her 70th, July 30, 2017, but it didn’t hit me until the actual day came.  I didn’t have a plan.  It was on a beautiful Sunday, not a day to be inside.  I normally volunteer for several hours at church on Sundays that year.  I just thought that I would find some way to celebrate after my volunteerism ended. Surely someone would be available to help me reminisce and celebrate.  However, everyone I called was unavailable.  I called my sister in NC to make sure she was ok.  Then afterward I was so distraught that all I could do was take a nap. 

My energy was zapped.  I slept for 3 hours.  It didn’t seem like taking a nap was the thing to do to remember my mother.  I honestly felt like I let her down.  But in the end, I remembered that she loved to rest on Sunday.  So once I quieted my spirit, I was able to enjoy that same rest and honor her in the process.  It was nothing big, but I still celebrated her with the new tradition I created.

When thinking of incorporating new traditions into old traditions, I want you to ask yourself this question and truthfully answer it, in what areas of my life do I need to prune?  It is only when you make the choice to let go that you can fully allow and receive all the beauty and joy that is available to you.  If you don’t prune negative people, unhealthy lifestyles, non-supportive people from your life, you tend to remain stuck in your grief.  My challenge to you is for you to think about the areas of your life where you need to prune as you incorporate new traditions into old traditions and continue to shift your grief to gratitude. 

I want to thank you for listening to this episode. I hope you will join us for our next episode of the Grief Unplugged podcast.  I truly believe that community = strength.  So, if you are interested in engaging further with our community, you can join our private FB group, Professional Women Transcending Grief by accessing my business page on FB by searching for @hortonheatherd and click Visit Group right under my picture!  Or if you are interested in one-on-one grief support, access my website at www.heatherdhorton.com and click on GET SUPPORT to schedule your breakthrough session and learn more about my 90-day intensive grief coaching program, Reclaiming Your Power.  

To stay engaged with the podcast, search for Grief Unplugged on iTunes, GooglePlay, SoundCloud or Libsyn.  Also, please subscribe to the podcast, so you know when the next episode is available and feel free to post a review, let me know what topics you want to hear discussed and share the podcast with your tribe.  Until next time, keep moving forward.

Hello & welcome to the Grief Unplugged podcast. I am your host, Heather D. Horton.  Grief Unplugged is a podcast that frees professional women from the blockages of unresolved grief to find purpose in their pain so that they are able to embrace their new “normal” and sustain productivity at work and in life.

In my three prior episodes, I have provided you with a vast toolkit of resources to begin shifting you from grief to a place of gratitude when you are ready. You know that giving yourself permission to grieve is fundamental to moving forward. Next, I showed you how to stand firm in your faith and face your fears because you are not inadequate as Marianne Williamson describes in her poem but you are greater than you could ever imagine because of where you are right now. We talked about what therapeutic support means and how you have to be intentional about it to support you on this journey.  And lastly, you learned how to leverage your emotions, invite them to tea or your favorite non-alcoholic beverage and then escort them out the door and take back your power. 

Now, I want you to take the next step and start to transition from focusing on the death/loss you experienced to remembering and honoring the life of the person you loved or the thing or situation that no longer exists.  Think about and focus on the essence of who your loved one was or what that special thing or experience meant to you, the values the person or thing instilled in you, the accomplishments gained by having experiences with that person or thing, the lessons learned, gifts shared, memories treasured and the legacy the person or thing left with you. 

When you begin to think about showing gratitude to a life lived or a situation experienced without someone prompting you to do so, you are beginning to shift yourself from grief to gratitude.  Remember that the reason you grieve is because you loved that person, thing or situation.  They added value to your life and validated you.   Grief can also teach us something about life if we allow it to.  Repeat.  I believe that after listening to my prior episodes and really applying the principles I discussed in your life, you may now be more open to this revelation of honoring the loss.  So, I want to ask you a question - What can you use or what did you take from the experience you gained after having spent time with that dear deceased loved one or dealing with that specific situation? 

Honoring the story about your loved one or your experience is synonymous with opening up to grief.  When you are able to talk about it, healing occurs more successfully and rapidly.  I want you to think of a way to deposit the value that you received from your loved one or experience into someone else’s life to not only help them to move forward but also to help you move forward.  There is a quote from Thomas Campbell that says to live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die.  Repeat.  If the memory that you cherished about the person or that thing still lives in your heart, that person still lives with you or there is still hope despite your situation.  After my mother passed away, my sister and I sold her house and divided all my mother’s remaining possessions amongst the two of us.  We had given away tons of clothes, home goods, furniture, etc. but kept the things that were most sentimental to us. 

Among the items I kept were my mother’s wedding gown and her wedding ring.  I moved at least four times after her death but I never managed to let go of much of anything each time I moved.  Normally when people move, they tend to declutter somewhat so that they can start afresh in the new space.  That was not me. I wanted to hold on to my mother’s things for as long as I could as a reminder of her and the memories we once shared.  Instead of decluttering, I just always rented an apartment home large enough to accommodate my things and her things that I took from my childhood home. And I carried around those items for 10 years.  Finally when I moved back to Washington, DC in December 2014, 9 years after my mother’s passing, I felt it was time to determine if I really needed all the things I cherished from my family home so that I could begin to start to live in the present rather than the past.  I specifically rented a space that was half the size I would normally rent to force myself to declutter to make space for other people and situations to come into my life.  I became so overwhelmed by the lack of space and the amount of clutter and unpacked boxes around me that I hired a professional organizer in 2015 so I wouldn’t lose my mind because I had to bring my A-game to work in this new position in the C-suite. 

When in doubt, hire a professional is my motto.  Remember I said in an earlier episode that I realized my grief experience was God-orchestrated.  Well, my organizer’s mother worked in a ministry that collected old wedding gowns used to make funeral gowns for preemies since they were not sold in stores.  While we were decluttering, my organizer waited patiently before presenting me with the opportunity to repurpose my mother’s wedding gown.  Once he had learned more about me, my upbringing and what my mother meant to me, he encouraged me to donate my mother’s wedding gown to his mother’s ministry. 

My mother was a supreme seamstress so acting on this opportunity was a no-brainer.  My mother’s dream was to be a fashion designer.  She lived in the pageant world for a few years before committing her life to help students advance in the classroom and being the best mother my sister and I could ever have.  As a mother to us and so many others, she taught and led, my mother, exuded servant leadership and showed unconditional love to any and everyone that graced her presence. 

I realized the moment my organizer shared that opportunity with me that this was the reason I still had my mother’s wedding gown 10 years later.  To donate her dress to such a cause would be something she would have felt honored to do if she were still living.  I also realized that I was not ready to let go of the dress until that moment.  We took pictures of the dress so I could remember it in its original splendor.  When he left my house that day, it felt weird that I no longer had that box, but I focused on the legacy it would carry in serving someone else’s need.  Then, months later on a day that I was having a major grief burst, uncontrollable outburst of tears that happens with or without a trigger,  on a day I just wanted to see and talk to my mother, my organizer sent me a screenshot of a FB post where his mother posted a picture of my mother’s original wedding gown alongside the funeral gown she’d made for a preemie that had transitioned.  It was truly the highlight of my day, although bittersweet.  That picture helped me move one step closer to a place of gratitude for having experienced the wonderful love, the life, and legacy of my mother, Cherral Ann Jack Horton. 

She would have been 70 if she were still here physically.  In what way can you make someone else’s life better in honor of your loved one?  What lessons have you learned as a result of the loss or grief that you experienced that you can incorporate into your own life?  Has your grief/loss taught you anything about forgiveness?  How can you take that lesson forward on your journey?  What action step can you take to build the legacy for which you want to be remembered? 

Another way to honor legacy is to create rituals of remembrance.  You can create personal, family or community rituals to honor your loved one or commemorate a life experience that reminds you of a lesson learned as a result of your grief/loss that can help others.  For personal rituals, do what feels right for you.  A personal ritual for me is to go to the cemetery every time I travel home to Baton Rouge, LA to change the flowers on my mother’s gravesite.  I bring flowers in her favorite color home with me.  Her favorite color was yellow. I go to Southern Memorial Gardens and I clean the area around the gravestone, I change the flowers, and I sit down and just have a conversation with her and reminisce.  I can’t buy her beautiful clothes and jewelry any longer, but I can adorn her gravestone with the most gorgeous flowers just the same. 

It gives me such peace just to be there even though I know her soul is with the Lord.  A family ritual that my sister and I just started was making my mother’s famous potato salad for either Thanksgiving or Christmas.  It was a recipe that my mother never wrote down.   Every time we had a family gathering, my mother would make pounds and pounds of potato salad.  I know because my sister and I would have to peel and cut up all the potatoes and help stir the pot.  For years after my mother’s death, I had no desire to make or eat potato salad. 

In my opinion, no one’s potato salad could ever taste as good as my mother’s potato salad.  Then all of a sudden two years ago, my sister and I were both home for Christmas.  We bought all the ingredients from the store that we thought we remembered in our mother’s potato salad.  We put our heads together and we were able to create my mother’s recipe impeccably.  So now we continue that ritual annually and get praise from our family members that we are outstandingly carrying on the torch. I even make my mother’s potato salad by myself as my dish when I attend holiday gatherings I am invited to in honor of my mother so others who never met her can experience her to some degree.  There was definitely love in that potato salad.

One thing I desire to accomplish as a community ritual is to create an endowment in memory of my mother to the Southern University College of Agriculture, Family and Consumer Sciences to honor her legacy as a distinguished graduate of our alma mater so that some young lady or young man can realize her/his dream of becoming a fashion icon as my mother always dreamed.  Focusing on the legacy left with you is a vital part of helping to begin to create your new normal and sustain your productivity at work and in life.  It gives you something else to live for.  

I want to thank you for listening to this episode. I hope you will join us for our next episode of the Grief Unplugged podcast.  I truly believe that community = strength.  So, if you want to engage further with our community, you can join our private FB group, Professional Women Transcending Grief or if you are interested in one-on-one support, email me at [email protected] to get more information about my 90-day intensive grief coaching program, Reclaiming Your Power.  

To stay engaged with the podcast or learn more about my products and services, access my website at www.heatherdhorton.com. Also, please subscribe to the podcast so you know when the next episode is available and feel free to post a review, let me know what topics you want to hear discussed and share the podcast with your tribe.  Until next time, keep moving forward.

Hello & welcome to the Grief Unplugged podcast. I am your host, Heather D. Horton.  Grief Unplugged is a podcast that frees professional women from the blockages of unresolved grief to find purpose in their pain so that they are able to embrace their new “normal” and sustain productivity at work and in life. 

In the second episode or part two of my story, I detailed how I sought therapeutic support while navigating through the wilderness of grief.  But I want to go back and explain what therapeutic support means because therapeutic support is vitally important to help you to continue to move towards a place of gratitude, or even to find purpose in your pain after you have begun to give yourself permission to grieve.  You have acknowledged that your all your feelings and emotions are normal and natural, that there is nothing wrong with you. 

You have begun to accept that you can’t change the past and are beginning to take action to live out this new normal but also realizing that this is a cyclical process and you have to prepare yourself for the next thing that is coming.  It is how life works.  So, therapeutic support, what does that mean?  The term therapeutic is an adjective meaning having a beneficial effect on the body and mind or producing a useful or favorable result or effect.  Support is defined as the act of helping someone by giving love, encouragement, etc. or something that holds a person or thing up and stops that person or thing from falling. 

When we seek therapeutic support, we allow others to hold us accountable, and we exercise good self-care – meaning we are aware and recognize the need to make time to care for and nurture our body, our mind, and our spirit.  Time spent alone processing your grief will move you forward only so much.  You must be intentional about taking action as grief never goes away.  But life continues.  Your reaction to your triggers and emotions are what change if/when you do the grief work.  People tend to label emotions around grief as “negative” hence the grief avoidance society in which we live.  

Those emotions include but are not limited to, fear, sadness, discouragement, jealousy, blame, revenge, worry, disappointment, frustration, anger, and guilt.  However, what makes any of these emotions inherently negative except perhaps the way make us feel physically?  May I submit for your consideration that there is no such thing as negative emotions. 

How would your life be different if you were able to move from just coping with your emotion to leveraging your emotion for growth?  A power principle that I gained from my Coach Diversity Institute training states Emotions show us the way.  They point us to our next level of growth.  What could you learn from your emotions if you fully embraced them and all of your unique life experiences?  What would be different for you if you were able to use your emotions as a springboard to reach that place of gratitude after experiencing grief? 

As a certified grief expert, I help clients process experiences that do not feel so great and help them find meaning and purpose in those events.  I help them to understand their anchor and find purpose in their pain.  Unresolved pain will continue to rear it’s ugly head until you deal with it.  It is like waste, it must come out of the body in some form or fashion.  Similarly, the pay we experience must come out of the body otherwise it is harming us.  If your trauma or grief experience were tailor-made just for you, what would the lesson be?  If your trauma or grief situation happened to make you great, what could you learn from it? 

I believe my trauma experience was tailor-made for me.  I survived my accident to make manifest the glory of God that is within me.  From childhood, I have always been a deep thinker.  I was smart, but I have also presented myself to the world as a closed book.  I remember the first time in middle school when I saw the statue of Le Penseur in my French textbook.  It portrayed how I saw myself perfectly – head down, hand under chin, sitting slightly bent forward deep in thought.  I was never one to share my thoughts openly unless I was forced to share.  Either I didn’t think my idea was smart enough to capture anyone’s attention or I didn’t think the receiver was worthy of hearing my breath. However, the day of my accident in 2005 was the beginning of my Awakening, my journey from Heather 1.0 to Heather 2.0. 

My training with Coach Diversity Institute took the shame I felt about my traumatic experiences and brought my voice to light.  Coach Diversity Institute placed the microphone in my hand to help me to begin to share my story with others and make a choice to live an abundant and purposeful life by leveraging my emotions to find my power or reclaim my power.  I was reminded that I already knew how to overcome any challenge that crossed my path.  It has taken me more than twelve years to get to this point despite my varied professional experiences over the past 18 years. 

My story of resilience in the face of adversity is rerouting the trajectory of individual lives, empowering communities from diverse backgrounds and ultimately changing the world.   When people, professional women, begin to release the pain, the guilt and the shame that they carry around with them daily, through the transformative power of coaching, professional women, particularly women of color and marginalized communities, can begin to dismantle injustice and create systemic change in our lives and in the world. 

When you find you are experiencing grief or any of the other emotions I described earlier that are associated with grief, I want you to use this exercise to shift your mindset from being powerless to being powerful. The shift can happen in an instant.  I want you to close your eyes and imagine that grief is a guest of yours in a beautiful setting, maybe a park or a garden.  Take a few deep cleansing breaths to center yourself. 

Imagine that you are having grief over for a cup of tea or your favorite non-alcoholic beverage.  What questions would you like to ask grief?  If you could name grief, what would call it?  I want you to gently engage grief by asking questions of it and take your time to listen for the answers.  You could ask questions like what is your intent?  How do you plan to hinder me today? What are you doing here?  What do you want from me?  What do you want me to learn from you? What are you offering me today?  What do you want me to know?  What do you want to show me about myself?   When you have all of the answers you need and the time comes for a visit to end, thank grief for stopping by and escort it out the door. 

When you open your eyes, I want you to take a moment to journal your insights so you can refer back to your journal as necessary when grief returns.  Know that you can always invite any emotion to tea and visit with them and escort that emotion out the door when you are done.      

Power is the ability to co-create the future by standing present in the moment connected by your purpose, vision, desires, and acting by trusting your creative impulses.  Standing in your power means not allowing the past, current reality, systems of oppression or anyone or anything else define who you are.  Power is being able to chart your way forward no matter what happens.  How will you activate your power going forward?

I want to thank you for listening to this episode. I hope you will join us for our next episode of the Grief Unplugged podcast.  I truly believe that community = strength.  So, if you want to engage further with our community, you can join our private FB group, Professional Women Transcending Grief or if you are interested in one-on-one support, email me at [email protected] to get more information about my 90-day intensive grief coaching program, Reclaiming Your Power.  

To stay engaged with the podcast or learn more about my products and services, access my website at www.heatherdhorton.com. Also, please subscribe to the podcast, so you know when the next episode is available and feel free to post a review, let me know what topics you want to hear discussed and share the podcast with your tribe.  Until next time, keep moving forward.

Hello & welcome to the Grief Unplugged podcast. I am your host, Heather D. Horton.  Grief Unplugged is a podcast that frees professional women from the blockages of grief to find purpose in their pain. Our last episode focused on giving yourself permission to grieve.  But how does one maintain momentum after giving yourself permission to grieve? 

One of the first steps is by leaning into your faith and facing your fear.  Fear and faith cannot live in the same house.  One of the powerful principles that I received during my training with Coach Diversity Institute states – We receive only as much as our faith will allow (REPEAT).  Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see according to Hebrews 11:1 (NIV).  Whatever your faith, belief is a powerful tool. Faith in the process, even in yourself, is powerful and important.  For me, faith is everything; it is my foundation.  In 2005, my faith and what I believed in was tested to the utmost. 

On May 17, 2005, I was involved in a single-car accident that claimed the life of my mother one day after the accident and my aunt two weeks later when a relative fell asleep at the wheel while driving long distance.  My injuries were quite severe but not life-threatening – fractured neck, fractured thumb, cuts, bruises, and abrasions.  For weeks after the accident and the funeral, I kept asking God why am I here, why didn’t I die in the accident, how am I supposed to live without my mother, my best friend. 

One day I was reading my devotional as I did most days after the accident to try and make sense of things, and the scripture of the day gave me a reason to keep living.  It was John 16:33 – I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace.  In this world, you will have trouble.  But take heart! I have overcome the world.  I begin to recall other scriptures that I constantly used to ground myself throughout my life – No weapon formed against me shall prosper (Isaiah 54:17); I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phil 4:13), God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7); For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11);

All things work together for the good of them that love the Lord, that are called according to His purpose.  That last verse, Romans 8:28, was, in fact, the exact scripture that my mother’s pastor spoke from when delivering her eulogy.  What I began to realize as I focused on all of these verses was that the accident that I experienced was all God-orchestrated and that He had prepared me to go through if I was able to stand firm in my faith. 

I want you to think about the last time you experienced trauma/loss, and I guarantee you if you look back six months, one year, two years, there were clear instances of things that happened that you now realize, oh that’s why that happened.  God was preparing you for whatever you went through, or He prepared you for whatever you are going through or for whatever you are about to go through.  God prepared me for the trauma I experienced in May 2005 and even when I survived Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, three months later.  I had a lot of time to think while I recovered from my injuries. 

When I looked back on my life experiences six months, one year, two years before, I could see clear instances of things that happened where I could say I didn’t understand it then, but now I understand why that happened.  God was preparing me to live without my mother when after my unexpected surgery in 2004, my dad, not my mother, spent two weeks with me in DC helping me to recover.  That had never happened before.  Another God-orchestrated move occurred when I received a firm job offer in New Orleans when I was pursuing opportunities to work in DC after graduating from GULC with my LLM in Tax.  What I didn’t know but came to realize later was that job in New Orleans gave me the opportunity to spend the last year of my mother’s life near her instead of being long distance.  We saw each other almost every weekend during that time. 

Because of these and many more God-orchestrated experiences, I chose to live that day.  Knowing that my faith in God had prepared me to handle the trauma/loss that I experienced in 2005, that his plans were not to harm me, but to prepare me for my future, for such a time as this, healing began, and I could face my fear.

Fear is one of the many faces of grief and also one of the pitfalls of grief.  Because we are dealing with new or unfamiliar territory after we experience trauma/loss, fear can cause anxiety and stress (another pitfall of grief) that keeps us stuck if not acknowledged.  If not dealt with, fear can paralyze you.  Let me remind you that fear and faith cannot live in the same house and you must choose one or the other.   What is the purpose of fear?  For some it is survival, protection, it is what drives us.  

Fear gives us the excuse not to be powerful, to do something different.  But on the on the other side of fear is freedom – one of the power principles I received from CDI.  When I let go of my fear after experiencing trauma I was able to experience freedom – I was able to take off my mask that I didn’t even know I was wearing.  I didn’t feel safe to be my true self.  On the outside, I projected one persona to the world after my accident.  On the inside, lived my pain, my flaws and my shame of what happened.  Once I healed physically, I wanted to forget that 2005 ever happened.  I refused to share my experience with the world because I thought my suffering was all about me.  I actually tried to hide my scars and fly under the radar.  I thought sharing would expose me to the world in a way that would leave me open and vulnerable.  However, my experiences while training with Coach Diversity Institute re-opened my wounds and showed me that I am the cure to someone else’s cancer.  I can save a life with my story. 

I suffered trauma/loss but now I have found my purpose to restore hope and change mindsets globally, one person at a time.  I now help individuals in diverse communities release their hurt, shame and pain after suffering any type of loss.  What if you were able to develop a different relationship with fear?  What if you embraced fear as fuel that could lead to your greatest transformation or your greatest moment in life?  What if fear only showed up for no other purpose but for you to notice it?  How would you react to fear differently?  

The author of the book Return to Love, Marianne Williamson said it best – “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the Glory of God that is within us.  It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

I want to thank you for listening to this episode. I hope you will join us for our next episode of the Grief Unplugged podcast.  To stay engaged with the podcast or learn more about my products and services, access my website at www.heatherdhorton.com. Also, please subscribe to the podcast so you know when the next episode is available and feel free to post a review, let me know what topics you want to hear discussed and share the podcast with your tribe.  Until next time, keep moving forward.

Episode 002- [Grief Unplugged Podcast] - Give Yourself Permission to Grieve

Hello & welcome to the Grief Unplugged podcast. I am your host, Heather D. Horton.  Grief Unplugged is a podcast that frees professional women from the blockages of grief to find purpose in their pain.  This episode is fundamental to your grief journey - giving yourself permission to grieve.  I will explore and unpack what is grief and the grieving process, identify the many faces of grief, and validate the uniqueness of your grief experience.

How do you keep going when you would rather stop waking up or crawl into a ball and never come out?  Give Yourself Permission to Grieve.  Grief is an inevitable part of life.  Remember that we live in a fallen world, where blessings and sorrows intermingle freely.  Grief knows no zip code.  It touches us all at some point in our lives in more ways than we realize or recognize.  It is unpredictable.  It is not mental illness or a sign of weakness. 

It is the normal and natural response to trauma and loss. It is an act of love and compassion to ourselves when you allow yourself to work through it.  Trauma, includes not only serious injury to the body, as a result of physical violence or an accident, but also experiences that causes severe anxiety or emotional distress or that causes great disruption or suffering in our lives.  Loss is similarly defined as the condition of being deprived or bereaved of something or someone.   Grief is like the trunk of tree, but it has many, many branches – they are endless. 

You may have recently experienced the loss of a loved one, be it a family member or friend, or years may have passed since the death occurred.  You may have just lost a job or been unemployed for some time.  You may be going through a divorce, just ended a relationship or need to end a relationship.  You may have now have an empty nest as you children/child went off to college or got married.  You may have a special needs child or be serving as the caregiver for a parent with dementia or cancer.

For any of you with children, do you remember your first-born’s reaction when the next sibling came along?  Maybe something caused you to lose sight of a dream you once held and you no longer can envision a way to get back there.  These are some of the many faces of grief – again, they are endless.  The most notable time where I had to give myself permission to grieve occurred after my mother and I were involved in a car accident 13 years ago.  I touch on that more in the first two episodes of my podcast that detail my story.  I suffered severe non-life threatening injuries but she succumbed to her injuries almost immediately. 

I will be even more transparent and tell you the latest thing that I had to give myself permission to grieve over – leaving my job to become an entrepreneur.  Although I knew that God had called me to help individuals navigate through the wilderness of grief, I had to adjust to no longer doing what I loved which was being a lawyer and working to create more diversity and inclusion to elevate others within my organization.  It was a great disruption to all of a sudden leave what I knew for the last 13+ years but I realized once I accepted that my feelings were normal and natural, I was able to see my greater purpose in being able to elevate others in a different way, a way that could save lives, empower communities and change the world.  I was able to give up the hope that things would have happened differently and focus on taking action to move forward and embrace my new normal.

I need you to give yourself permission to grieve.  Your family needs you to give yourself permission to grieve.  Your workplace needs you to give yourself permission to grieve.  Your community needs you to give yourself permission to grieve.  The world needs you to give yourself permission to grieve.  I say that because I truly believe that the mass shootings, murder-suicides and other violence manifesting itself in the world on what seems like every day no is because we as humans are walking around with so much unresolved grief.  Why do we grieve?  We grieve because we loved the person or that thing or situation that added value to our lives.  No one can tell you when or how long to grieve because your grief journey is unique to you. 

Often you hear that there are 5 stages of grief that everyone must go through as if you go through those 5 stages and it is over.  1. Denial; 2. Anger; 3. Bargaining; 4. Depression; 5. Acceptance.  The Kübler-Ross model, or the five stages of grief, theorized a series of emotions experienced by terminally ill patients prior to death.  Most times the stages don’t occur in order.  Some people never experience depression. Or they are angry before you may work through denial. 

Some losses/trauma may require the person to work through shock before denial.  There is no right order; your journey is unique to you.  No one knows the relationship you had with that person or thing but you.  Has anyone ever taught you how to grieve?  I believe the answer is No; why, because we live in a grief avoidance society.  A prime example is when I tell people that I’m now a grief coach versus being a lawyer, people look like they want to run from me.  When someone close to us dies or we can’t get out of bed because our spouse has asked for a divorce, you may only get a few days to plan and/or attend the funeral, or you start to exhaust your leave because you can’t deal with the pain.  However, when someone has a baby or needs to take off to care for a loved one, the mother and the father are allowed to take off work for months, or the caregiver can take leave under Family Medical Leave Act. 

On average, it takes about 5 to 8 years to recover from the loss of a loved one.  With the way society views grief, avoidance mode, you may ask how does one get past grief.  The only way out of grief is through it; you must take action and work through your grief to overcome it.  We want grief to be linear, but it is like a maze with dead ends and crooked paths.  Sometimes we minimize grief itself, but I would submit for your consideration that at least 2% of unresolved grief can affect every area of your life – physical, psychological, spiritual, and emotional. 

So how do you give yourself permission to grieve?  The Triple A Effect - Acknowledge, Acceptance and Action.  The first step is to acknowledge that you are grieving; that all of the emotions and all the feelings associated with your trauma/loss are normal and natural.  It is okay to feel the way you are feeling and no one can rush you through those feelings.  Your grief journey is unique to you.  The second step is to accept the reality of the death of the person, thing or situation – this may take awhile and that is okay. In order to accept the reality, Author Corinne Edwards said it best, you must give up the hope for a different or better yesterday. (REPEAT)  What I didn’t say is forget the cherished memories of your loved one or that thing.  I didn’t say deny those feelings or band aid the situation.  I am simply saying stop hoping that things would have happened differently.  You can’t change the past.  Think about it.  All you have is the gift of Now.  After you’ve have time to acknowledge the emotions, and accept the reality of the death/loss, then you must take action to move forward to living in the present.  Why?  Because grief never goes away – it is never eradicated, it is always there.  However, your reaction to grief changes as you start to work through your emotions.  20 years from now you can have grief bursts –uncontrollable, unpredictable outbursts of tears, some event may trigger you or there may be no trigger at all, and they seem to come at the worst of times.  That’s okay, I still have them myself.  The latest one was on mother’s day.  But know that crying is a miracle that leads to healing. 

You have an obligation to live your life for the rest of your life.  CPC Dora Carpenter lives by this mantra, Everything in life is temporary, including life itself (repeat).  Once you give yourself permission to grieve, you will start to focus less on the hole in your heart and more on honoring the life and legacy left with you.  In my coaching sessions, we take as long as necessary to walk through the acknowledgement and acceptance phases of you giving yourself permission to grieve. Imagine being free to move through the limiting blocks of unresolved grief in your life to a place of gratitude.

I want to thank you for listening to this episode. I hope you will join us for our next episode of the Grief Unplugged podcast.  To stay engaged with the podcast or learn more about my products and services, access my website at www.heatherdhorton.com. Also, please subscribe to the podcast so you know when the next episode is available and feel free to post a review, let me know what topics you want to hear discussed and share the podcast with your tribe.  In the future, we will feature episodes with guests who will share their part of their grief journey from a professional as well as personal perspective.  Until next time, keep moving forward.

Hello & welcome to the Grief Unplugged podcast. I am your host, Heather D. Horton.  Grief Unplugged is a podcast that frees professional women from the blockages of grief to find purpose in their pain.  This episode is Part 2 of a 2-part series detailing my own story of my grief journey.  Part 1 focused on the accident/death that rerouted the trajectory of my life.  Today, Part 2 will take you through my 13-year grief journey and how I was able to transform my trauma into triumph and shift from grief to gratitude.

While moving to Phoenix, AZ seemed ideal at the time.  What I didn’t realize was that I had to start my life all over again.  I had a support system in Louisiana, but now in AZ, it was just me.  Anything or situation that has a beginning and results in grief that must be processed, or it will chip away at your joy constantly.  Joy is something no one can take away from you, unlike happiness which can fluctuate on a whim.  While I had a job, I had no family in Phoenix.  I had to establish new friendships, find a new church, a new hair stylist, and learn my way around a city that was completely foreign to me. 

That was a lot for me to take on when I was already dealing with one of the most difficult situations in life, losing my mother suddenly in a tragic accident.  I had left the one place that I had known for more 30 years of my life.  I had lived there all but three years of my life at that time.  Were my silence and solitude worth moving all the way to the other side of the country away from everyone and everything that I was familiar with?  As daunting as it seemed, my answer to that question was a resounding yes, because challenges are what I lived for.  This was the opportunity to start my life anew, and I was going to chart my path, create my new “normal.”  I began to immerse myself in seeking therapeutic support after moving to Phoenix.  Time spent alone processing my grief only moved me forward so much. 

There were a number of ways that I sought therapeutic support over the last 13 years on my grief journey – I tried a number of things because I felt that life was too short and I never imagined the day I would live without my mother so I wanted to live and thrive every moment thereafter.  I engaged in physical therapy and massage therapy to recover from my injuries, seeing a psychologist/therapist, traveling the world, season tickets to sporting events, spa retreats, broadened my horizons by white water rafting, ziplining, feed my soul with Bible Study Fellowship International, using essential oils for physical and emotional support, leadership/empowerment/grief coaching, yoga and most recently The Dinner Party. 

I will briefly share my experiences with mental health support, essential oils and the Dinner Party in this episode. There is much stigma around seeking mental health assistance, therapy, and coaching, in this country and particularly among marginalized communities and communities of color.  When my mother passed away suddenly, it was like I lost my best friend.  I needed to talk to someone, or I thought I would burst.  I didn’t want to talk to anyone in my family because they were all still trying to process their grief in their way. It was in Phoenix that I first sought mental health assistance. 

I have to admit I was more open to seeing someone in Phoenix because I was new to the area and no one knew me there or what I’d been through.  I saw my therapist or psychologist biweekly for almost five years, or the entire time I was in Phoenix as she diagnosed me with PTSD as a result of the accident.  I thought I had worked through my grief and that I was done with it once I left Phoenix in 2010 and moved back to Washington, DC.  What I didn’t realize is that the last time I lived in DC (2004), I spent my final week in the city being a tourist with my mother.  When I came back to DC in 2010, I started to grieve all over again as if I had never seen the psychologist. 

I didn’t try to find another therapist immediately. Years later when I finally began to shift from focusing on the loss of my mother and began to focus on her life and legacy, I realized that I still had grief left to unpack and that I needed to heal my relationship with my father if I was ever going to move to a place of gratitude.  So in 2016  specifically sought out a therapist/psychologist who also happened to be a coach that focused on healing that relationship, as it was affecting my adult relationships with men and my heart, is now open to love again. 

In 2016, I was introduced to essential oils and started using them to maintain my emotional health, as well as my physical health, in lieu of relying on prescription and over-the-counter drugs. The results were so phenomenal that I became a doTERRA Independent Wellness Advocate. doTERRA, meaning "Gift of the Earth," offers an Emotional Aromatherapy System specifically formulated to provide targeted emotional health benefits and promote self-care whether used aromatically or topically – the six blends are Peace, Motivate, Cheer, Console, Forgive and Passion.  If you would like to know more about how to incorporate essential oils into your life, please send an email to [email protected].  I will also share the most recent jewel that I was introduced to called The Dinner Party.   It is a community of people of diverse ages and backgrounds who’ve experienced significant trauma/loss that get together over dinner parties to talk about their trauma/loss and how it continues to affect our lives. 

The intimate dinner parties work to turn our most isolating experiences into sources of rich community, empathy, and meaningful conversation.  There are tables located all across the country.  They are so inundated with demand right now that the organization recently hit the pause button on accepting new dinner partiers.  However, if you are interested in hosting a table as I have done, please apply at www.thedinnerparty.org.  As of February 2018, I now host the first Women of Color table in Washington, DC.  I have been blessed beyond measure by the fellowship and sharing each month that we gather together to break bread.

In 2012, I participated in a coaching program that offered one-on-one coaching as well as group coaching for managers to assist me in leading my team of attorneys at work. My coaches created safe space, listened intuitively and asked powerful questions that allowed me to shift my focus from feeling powerless to walking in complete power in all areas of my life, including the grief bursts that I still experienced years after the tragic loss of my mother.

In 2016, I began training to become a coach to help foster more diversity and inclusion at my workplace.  What I didn’t realize was that I truly had to work through all of my issues before being able to coach someone else - the remnants of unresolved grief - it never goes away. My training with Coach Diversity Institute (CDI) took the shame I felt about my traumatic experiences and brought my voice to light.  CDI placed the microphone in my hand to begin to share my story with others and make the choice to live an abundant and purposeful life by leveraging my emotions to find my power. 

I was reminded that I already knew how to overcome any challenge that crossed my path. My story of resilience in the face of adversity is redirecting the trajectory of individual lives, empowering communities from diverse backgrounds and ultimately changing the world by shifting human viewpoints and actions.   When I began to release the pain, guilt, and shame that I carried around with me daily (the masks I wore) through the transformative power of coaching, this professional women realized that I could help others create systemic change in their lives and in the world. 

My training to become a grief coach not only helped to discover my purpose but opened my eyes to the reason I survived the accident – to help others navigate through the wilderness of grief. In August 2017, I stepped out on faith, resigned from my Federal career after 18+ years and committed my life to empowering communities and changing the world through grief coaching, education, and support.  I coach and support professional women who are ready to find purpose in their pain. 

My mission is to dispel the myth that grief is limited to death.  As a Certified Professional Diversity Coach and Certified Grief Coach, along with years of personal experience navigating through the wilderness of grief, I create safe space for professional women to give themselves permission to grieve.  Through my transformational coaching program, they can freely remove the masks they wear in the world daily, work through their blockages of unresolved grief, and fully embrace meaning and purpose In life again or for the first time. 

I want to thank you for listening to my story and learning more about me.  I hope you will join us for our next episode where I will focus on giving yourself permission to grieve.  To stay engaged with the podcast or learn more about my products and services, access my website at www.heatherdhorton.com. Also, please subscribe to the podcast, so you know when the next episode is available and feel free to post a review and share the podcast with your tribe.  Until next time, keep moving forward.

Hello and welcome to the first episode of the Grief Unplugged podcast. I am your host, Heather D. Horton.  Grief Unplugged is a podcast that frees professional women from the blockages of grief to find purpose in their pain.  I am so excited to welcome you to this community where you will receive education and support while navigating on your grief journey.  Community = Strength is what I truly believe. 

My mission is to empower professional women to unmask their pain, leverage their emotions and transform their trauma into triumph.  Each episode will help you give yourself permission to grieve and fully embrace the gift of now.  You will learn that grief not only encompasses death but includes so much more.  Anything that has a beginning and an end requires you to process the grief around it. 

This podcast is for you if you’re a professional woman whether you are just starting your career, mid-career, or in the C-suite who has experienced the loss of a loved one, whether suddenly or anticipated after an illness and you feel stuck and unable to move forward and enjoy work, home/family or your relationships. 

This podcast is for you if you’re a professional woman who is tired of feeling completely lost in life and stuck in your grief, unable to decipher your feelings or begin to accept the loss but everyone around you just wants you to bounce back and get over it. 

This podcast is for you if you’re a professional woman who wants a community to engage with that creates safe space to explore your emotions around grief/loss which are normal and natural by the way. 

This podcast is for you if you’re a professional woman who is ready to stop masking your pain, and focus less on the loss but are not sure how to embrace meaning and purpose in life again or for the first time.

I am Heather D. Horton.  I am a Certified Grief Expert not only through training as a Certified Grief Coach and a Certified Professional Diversity Coach but also through years of personal experience with trauma and grief. 

I will share more about my personal experience later in this episode.  But first, I want to tell you a little bit about myself.  Before August 5, 2017, I was a highly successful GS-15 attorney manager in the C-Suite of one of the most talked about agencies within the US Department of Treasury.  I was on the verge of walking into the next level of management - SES - Senior Executive Series after serving 18+ years. But I left it all behind to start my own location independent grief coaching and speaking practice. And I have never looked back. 

I am the co-author of an anthology entitled “The Roots of Holiday Grief: Transcending Loss During the Holidays and Beyond” which is available for purchase on my website - www.heatherdhorton.com. The anthology includes my inspiring personal story of loss, hope, healing, and gratitude as well as the stories of other resilient authors. I am also writing a book detailing my grief journey which will be available in Late Summer 2018.  Personally, I love attending sporting events, horseback riding, traveling the world, supporting the arts, zip-lining in NC and spa retreats.

This episode is Part 1 of a 2-part series detailing my own story of my personal grief journey.  Part 1 will focus on the accident/death that rerouted the trajectory of my life.  Part 2 will take you through my 13-year grief journey and how I was able to transform my trauma into triumph.

I now invite you to journey with me to the year 2005.  I experienced two unique tragedies that year that altered my existence.  I was 33 years old, so all this occurred during my Jesus Year -  Jesus lived as a man for 33 years on earth and then resurrected to heaven.   The 33rd year of life is regarded as the year you are reborn in some sense.  I wholeheartedly agree that I was reborn in a number of ways that year. 

On May 17, 2005, a beautiful sunny morning, my aunt and uncle (my mother’s brother), two of their grandchildren, my mother and I were traveling via car from Atlanta, GA to Baton Rouge, LA after attending my cousin’s graduation from Clark Atlanta University.  Shortly after 12 noon that day, my uncle fell asleep at the wheel on Interstate 65 South.  I sat asleep as well on the front passenger side.  It felt as if we were drifting versus taking a straight path.  I awoke, still half asleep, to find the mini-van heading into oncoming traffic on the opposite side of the highway and alerted my uncle of our trajectory.  Startled, he woke up, began to accelerate and overcorrected.  The mini-van hit a pothole on the right side of the highway causing us to flip at least four to six times before coming to rest on its right side.  My injuries were quite severe – fractured neck in two places, fractured right thumb, abrasions and glass cuts all down my right arm and on both hands and wrists.  Unfortunately, my mother and my aunt’s injuries were ultimately fatal.  My mother succumbed to her injuries on May 18, 2005, the evening after the accident.  My aunt passed away from her injuries on June 2, 2005, two weeks later.  This incident shook me to my core.  My uncle and the grandkids were clearly shaken up emotionally but suffered very minor physical injuries.  The day of the accident was my awakening, or rebirth, my journey from Heather 1.0 to Heather 2.0. 

The second event occurred about three months later when I returned to work on a part-time basis after recovering from my injuries.  I had time to begin to deal with the shock of the trauma I experienced, heal from my injuries, and start to grieve the loss of my mother.  However, within two weeks of returning to work in New Orleans, LA, Hurricane Katrina hit the city on August 29, 2005.  I watched the destruction on the television, like most people across the world, from my mother’s home in Baker, LA.  The devastation was heartbreaking and numbing all over again. 

It was six weeks before authorities permitted anyone to re-enter New Orleans in order to assess the damage to their property.  I only anticipated being away from home two or three days as is typical for most hurricanes.  As each day passed that I was not able to return to my home in New Orleans, I slowly began to realize that life would be different yet again moving forward that year.  My office did reopen in November 2005, but I had come to the conclusion that I no longer had a reason to live in Louisiana despite the fact that my dad and extended family all lived there.  I just wanted to be alone.  My best friend, my mother, was no longer with me physically.  So when the opportunity presented itself for me to move clear across the country to Phoenix, AZ, I headed to the wild, wild West in December 2005.  I was so eager to run away from everything I knew and begin this rebirth phase that I didn’t realize that moving triggered my grief on a completely different level. 

We will start here with the next episode - Part 2 of this 2-part series of the story of my personal journey with grief which will briefly discuss the highs and lows of my 13-year grief journey.  Thank you for listening and I hope you will join us next week for Part 2.  To stay engaged with the podcast and learn more about my products and services at www.heatherdhorton.com. Also, please subscribe to the podcast so you know when the next episode is available and feel free to post a review and share the podcast with your tribe.  Until next time, keep moving forward.