Meanderings with Trudy

In this episode, I'm all alone... explaining to you what you can expect from this fall and winter season. How I plan to give you a little more of me with the first episode of each month me alone, sharing whatever comes to mind. Week two, we're back to the "PauseCast with Angie Arendt." We'll explore more of the elements of joy in the every day. Week three each month goes back to the roots of this podcast - talking with regular people about joy in the every day. And week four is new... I'll be doing a book review of books that hold meaning for me. For any extra week in the month, like we have in October, I'll give you something special, maybe a soundscape, or another interview with a regular Jane or Joe, we shall see!

I hope you'll find this a worthwhile way to spend some time together.  I sure do enjoy meandering with you, and playing with sound. 

Comments are always welcome; please send them to me at [email protected] I read everything. And please subscribe and share this episode widely so we can all be reminded to look for how joy shows up for us, in our everyday worlds. Thank you for listening, I know there are many options out there. Thank you for spending this time with me.

Episode Links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Dead Dog Cafe

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

Good morning from Horsefly Lake, BC! It’s our usual summer visit to northern BC, to this glorious spot at Horsefly. Horsefly is a small town with a big heart and we enjoy our trips here every year to visit family and explore what the Cariboo region has to offer. 

Enjoy!

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Horsefly, BC

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

Summer is turning to fall here in Canada, and hubby and I are making a pre-winter trip to BC to check in on my father-in-law, Bruce's dad. The flight from Ottawa takes about five hours, and then we stop off at Bruce's sister's place for a day before hitting the road for the day long trip north to their father's place. This gives me a day to resume my meditation routine, this time in Kathleen's hot tub in her yard in Vancouver, BC. There's a salmon run in her back yard, a yard full of tall cedar trees, just at the edge of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, in my humble opinion.

Please enjoy this soundscape with me, of her hot tub, with the salmon stream and a few floatplanes and helicopters in the mix.

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

The Pacific Great Blue Heron is featured in this bonus episode of Meanderings with Trudy. Turns out, Stanley Park in Vancouver BC is home to one of the largest colonies of these majestic birds, worldwide. The babies had hatched, and the sound was unlike anything I’d heard! We were there in late May of 2024.

Stanley Park is an urban park, and so there is a lot of texture in this soundscape. There were lots of people walking with us, jogging around us, the usual car traffic, as well as buses carrying tourists around. Lot's here to hear! Enjoy!

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Pacific Great Blue Heron Colony at Stanley Park, Vancouver BC

You can see all the action in the nests via the Heron Cam

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

Into every life, some rain must fall… I don’t know who said that, but has it ever been true of the summer of 2024! We’ve had some glorious weather, and we’ve had some incredible rainstorms!

Today, this is what is on offer… one of our summer rainstorms with sound collected from my backyard. I hope you enjoy this reprieve from the summer heat, as we move from August to September, and the fall begins to be more present in cooler nights and back to school sales in the stores.

Enjoy!

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

One of the great things about our short Canadian summers is spending time at a cottage. I’m lucky in that I have a good friend who rents hers out a few weeks a year. Hubby and I spent a week there this summer during one of the hottest weeks we've had so far. We swam in the lake, or lac as they say in Quebec, lite campfires and roasted marshmallows, cooked burgers and hot dogs on the BBQ, spent time with family and just generally soaked up the sights and sounds of nature. It was a blessed time.

Grand Lac Nominique is a small lake, as they go here in Canada. The lake is 8 km long and 3 km wide and it can be found in the Laurentians, which are a mountain range in eastern Canada, in the province of Quebec. The lake is bounded by big rocks, and the water laps against them in a very pleasing way… a snippet of which is what I’m offering you today.

Like the Canadian summer, this is a short and sweet taste of the glories of the Grand Lac Nominique. True bliss!

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Grand Lac Nominique

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

The genesis of this episode lies with an article I read as I was making my morning coffee about the cancellation of three Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna this summer. Threatened by a terrorist plot, authorities closed down the phenom, breaking the hearts of some 200,000 fans who’d hope to attend. On its own, this story is simply a sign of our times. The mayhem on our streets playing itself out in myriad ways from day to day, heaping sadness and disappointment on many… but hey, it’s only a concert, right?

As I try to find and showcase the good in life, this piece about how the fans responded to the cancellation gives me hope that ultimately, things will be ok. In the face of challenge, human beings are amazing, and these fans, no less:  finding meaning in their shared loved, sharing connection, exhibiting resilience through song, sharing rituals and yes, joy… the fans showed it all. All in the face of the cancellatoin of "just a concert."

All this and more is what we meander around every week as we shine the spotlight on joy. I believe that joy, and hope, are antidotes to fear and sadness about the state of the world. 

I hope you don’t mind this impromptu meander from my kitchen, as I made coffee, and tea, and shared my thoughts with you. And please, give the article a read let me know if it gives you a little more hope in this broken, but beautiful, world of ours. The link is below.

Episode links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

“A Terrorist Plot Canceled the Show. But We Swifties Found Each Other on Cornelia Street” By Agnes Callard published in “The Free Press” August 17, 2024

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

In our final meander together with Dina, we explore the final chapter in “Grief Unleashed: Moving from the hole in our hearts to wholehearted.” This Postlude explores the work that Dina is confidently and humbling stepping into, the work of a Grief Doula, which she defines as companioning people in their grief journey. This is such big work, and such important work, as life is full of grief and loss, not just death but losses of all kinds. And learning how to manage grief as a normal, healthy and involuntary activity has been the focus of this book, and all in service of helping us experience joy in our lives.

My take-aways from the book, very high level, are:

1. Loss is simply what happens to us in life. It’s part of living fully. It is natural. Meaning is what we make of it. 
2. We all move through grief, and recovery, at our own pace.
3. STUGs – sudden temporary upsurges of grief – happen because grieving is not linear; we ebb and flow in our experience for the rest of our lives.
4. Listening to someone in their grief is our superpower as humans.
5. Grieving takes effort, awareness, self-compassion, time, and community. We all have a part to play.
6. Grief is love.

My final invitation to you is to consider these take-aways and see how they land for you now. And what, if anything else, did you notice that is meaningful for you?

Feedback is welcome, so please drop us a note at [email protected].

Episode Links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Dina’s company is Grief Unleashed

Dina’s book, “Grief Unleashed: Moving from the hole in our hearts to whole-hearted” can be purchased through her publisher or at Singing Pebble Bookstore in Ottawa

Richard Wagamese’s book “Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations”

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

In chapter five of Dina’s book, we’re looking at the gifts that come out of embodying our grief, of healing the wounds in a healthy way. I found this chapter a wonderful way of pulling together all the threads of learning in this book. In fact, the invited homework from the previous chapter on continuing bonds helped me with this too. 

The notion of post traumatic growth is a centrepiece of this chapter, and it is a much-overlooked reality of our effectively growing through our grief from a loss. This idea spotlights all the ways in which we as people grow stronger, learn more about ourselves, develop resilience and insight by experiencing grief and big life losses. All this helps us as we become our future selves. Or as Dina puts it “… post traumatic growth… describes the positive psychological change that is experienced as a result of the struggle with highly challenging life occurrences.” The gifts of grief are many, sometimes simple, others profound. But always nurturing to us as we move forward into tomorrow.

Invitations:

Out of each episode this season, we are offering people ways to increase their grief literacy. This month, we’re offering an invitation to you to explore one of the seven growth opportunities coming out of grief that Dina outlined for us from the literature. How have you experienced flourishing coming out of a loss experience you have had? And how has this affected your life?

In the meanwhile, feedback is welcome, so please drop us a note at [email protected].

Episode Links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Dina’s company is Grief Unleashed

Dina’s book, “Grief Unleashed: Moving from the hole in our hearts to whole-hearted” can be purchased through her publisher or at Singing Pebble Bookstore in Ottawa

She read us the poem “Hands of a Woman,” the wonderful BC poet Caroline Miskenack

An article from Karl Abrecht on the five basic human fears

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.

In chapter four of Dina’s book, we’re looking at this idea of continuing bonds, of continuing our relationship with people who have died, by way of better owning, embodying, and coping with, our feelings of loss.  The thing about death is that we often can’t accept the reality of our loss. Continuing bonds normalizes our desire to maintain a relationship with those who have died, and for this to be seen as a healthy way of coping. Continuing bonds can look like different things for different people – I like to invite my mom’s spirit to come and meditate with me, for example. And for some, this idea of continuing bonds is not for them at all, and that’s ok too.

Another big part of this meander explores fear. It seems to us that understanding fear a bit better will help us cope through periods of grief, so Dina shares a bit about the five basic human fears, and how these manifest in us, in our lives.

Invitations:

Out of each episode this season, we are offering people ways to increase their grief literacy. This month, we’re offering an invitation to you to explore two things: first, how does fear hold you in unhealthy ways of coping with loss? And second, if the idea of continuing bonds makes sense to you, what could that look like in your life? And if you try, how does this shift your experience of your grief?

In the meanwhile, feedback is welcome, so please drop us a note at [email protected].

Episode Links:

Chapman Coaching Inc.

Dina’s company is Grief Unleashed

Dina’s book, “Grief Unleashed: Moving from the hole in our hearts to whole-hearted” can be purchased through her publisher or at Singing Pebble Bookstore in Ottawa

Dina’s song, cowritten with Leslie Rohonczy

An article from Karl Abrecht on the five basic human fears

The Enneagram Institute on Enneagram types

Royalty free music is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

As always, this podcast is sponsored by the guests who give of their time, and by my company, Chapman Coaching Inc.

Royalty free music is gratefully received and is called Sunday Stroll – by Huma-Huma

Live life joyfully, and always let kindness guide you.