Smiling Again

Smiling Again

By Kim MooreHealth & FitnessMental Health
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Smiling Again episodes

  • #8: How your story can support you along your grief journey - with Eric Hodgdon

    If you've ever loved an addict, you may have reached an exhausted, painful point where you felt broken and we're struggling to just keep it all together. I am Kim Moore, and this is smiling again, where in each episode, we remind you that you are not alone together. One thing at a time, we will take small steps to introduce little changes into your life.

    When we lose a loved one to addiction, the grief journey begins, affecting you emotionally, physically, spiritually, socially and financially.  The journey can begin before they pass away, as we feel they are lost in the addiction. It's this type of grief that is ever so complicated. It can feel incredibly intense, with overwhelming emotions.  In order to heal, you must walk through the grief journey.

    In this episode I speak with Eric Hodgdon,  a coach, author, speaker and Zoi’s dad. After losing his 15-year old daughter Zoi to suicide in early 2014, Eric found a way to get back from loss. Through his grief journey he is sharing the lessons he learned so that no one else has to walk alone on theirs. Eric has trained thousands of people who simply wanted to know how to navigate one of the hardest things that a human can endure - the loss of a loved one.

    Eric and I talk about story, and how talking, telling your story can help you along your journey.


    Let's walk this journey together.
    Together, one thing at a time  we'll take small steps, little actions every day, which can help you let go and start smiling again. Together, we'll support each other as we do the work, taking care of ourself along our healing journey. You'll gain a sense of comfort re-joining a social atmosphere, trying new things, building confidence as you develop new positive habits, and have fun, laugh be playful, making new friends, all who understand what you've been through losing a loved one to addiction.

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    40 min
  • #7: Stop waiting for life not to be hard
    In this episode I'm very fortunate to speak with Alissa who is living in the US on the Jersey shore, the idyllic Jersey shore that we've all seen on TV.  The mom of  two young boys, Alissa has had different relationships in her life, loving someone with an addiction. She lost a younger sibling, a brother, to addiction last year.  She was also married to an alcoholic. 

    Alissa shares her story of her transformation journey, the decision to work on herself everyday to build a happier life.  She talks about how every day, she wakes up and makes a choice to still do the work and, and to still keep going. 

    Alissa shares how she started with small steps and just one thing - going to the gym. 

    I started with the gym taking 45 minutes for myself.  I work on my health because I had young children and I wanted to be healthy and I wanted to be able to keep up with them. And that was my first thing that I decided to do. And what ended up happening was so beautiful. It was 45 minutes a day and I went five days a week. And in those 45 minutes, I wasn't depressed. I wasn't sad. I wasn't thinking about my life. I wasn't worrying about what the next catastrophe was going to be or what tomorrow was going to look like. So I ended up having 45 minutes a day free from my own life. And in those moments that when I came back to my life, I longed for more moments like that. 

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    24 min
  • #6: Calming the Storm in your Head

    I am going to share a difficult conversation with you.  Let's talk about that feeling of having a hurricane in your head. 

    I call it a hurricane. It’s that feeling of so much happening so fast that you can’t hear your self think over the thoughts  swirling in your head. 

    I didn't even realise that there was a storm in my head.  I guess I ignored it without realising I was ignoring it, because to me, it was normal. 

    I heard a comment by Ashley C Ford, the author of Somebody’s Daughter.  She said normal are things that should happen and common are things that just do happen. 

    The hurricane in your head, its not normal. It's common. 

    My life was a frenzy I just didn’t know it.

    The thing is, it wasn't fuelled by my husbands alcohol dependency, no. This the storm in my head was fuelled by me,
    my perfectionism, my self doubt, and my guilt and my longing for love.

    I found that having routines helped to be more able to prevent the frenzy, and to deal with it better when it did come.  

    I no longer feel a hurricane in my head on a daily basis. Sometimes it gets noisy, so I rest, I play, I meditate. 

    I always like to end an episode with gratitude. I’m grateful for my beach hut, and  the me having the courage to rest. To acknowledge my exhaustion and to stop. Even when I felt I couldn’t i stopped.

    Join the Blossome community where you'll find others who are on a healing journey, supporting each other after losing a loved on to addiction

    Resources:

    Join Blossome a supportive community for those who have endured losing a loved on to addiction. Find a pathway to peace, let go of guilt, shame and live with self-compassion and joy. 

    Follow Ashley C Ford on Twitter  
    Listen to Unlocking Us on Spotify, Hosted by Brene Brown




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    14 min
  • #5: Journaling your way to happiness

    Journaling can improve how you feel. It's good for you, and the benefits of putting pen to paper are many.  Years ago, when the progression of my husbands alcoholism accelerated and life started to spiral into chaos, I started to journal,  just free writing journaling, documenting my feelings.  It was a way for me to touch base with myself to try to understand what was happening within me.  My journal became the friend that I could share everything with , all of my thoughts and feelings. Little did I know at the time, but this was the beginning of my healing journey.  

    In this episode, I speak with Klaus White, Founder of The Way of the Tortoise, A Journal to Happiness. We talk about all things journalling, and the slow and steady approach to long-lasting change.     

    Join the Blossome Community

    The Blossome Community helps people who have endured losing a loved one to addiction let go of guilt and find kinder ways to live with self-compassion and joy.   Find hope and connection in a supportive community with programmes and immersive experiences that will help you use your voice,  let go of beliefs that hold you back, establish new rituals that will enable you to find your way back to a better smiling Self. Dare to break free and allow yourself to Blossome.

    You can find our more about The Way of the Tortoise, A Journal to Happiness on their website.

     





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    41 min
  • #4: Recovery takes a lot of honesty - An interview with Lisa
    An interview with Lisa who lost her husband 14 years ago to opiate and alcohol addiction.  She shares her healing journey, the discovery of her enabling and the realisation that her fixing behaviour was impacting her life and ultimately her children. She describes moving from a position of anger to one of compassion, with the need for a lot of honesty central to her recovery. 

    Lisa made the scary decision she made to walk away, leaving  her marriage and raising two children on her own, setting up a business as a way of taking care of herself and her children.   She shares the self doubt she faced, and her perseverance, simply because there was no other option. All the while, she ensured to maintain a sense of family with her ex husband, making an effort to do things as a family., giving her kids memories with their father. 

    Honesty is central to her healing, the self inventory and the realisation that her own trauma impacted the way that she managed her marriage.  She didn't want to talk about their father as the problem, the problem wasn't just addiction, but it was trauma. And the dynamic they all operated in. Something had to change - you cannot control someone else's behaviour. You cannot fix an addict. The only thing that we can control is ourselves. 

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    29 min
  • #3: How to be happy

     If we could  just feel happy everything would be fine.  But the big question is how to be happy.  How to feel happy on the inside? 

    It’s a google search that is showing an upward trend, with how to be happy alone close behind it.   Everyone wants to be happy, and there are many people with lots of tips on how ways to be happy.  I've certainly tried everything and theres once clear thing I've learned.

    Focussing on the outcome - being happy -  isn’t where happiness lies.  




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    16 min
  • #2: Barriers and a mixed bag of emotions - an interview with Simon
    An interview with Simon.  He shares his experience of having a father who was an alcoholic and the impact his father's drinking had on his life. Simon talks about the mixed bag of emotions, the shame, the barrier he put up to shut his dad out and how the experience shaped his life.

    Join the Private Blossome community to connect with more people who understand this experience.  Blossome Private Facebook Group

     




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    23 min
  • #1: Make a decision to start smiling again
    This is our very first episode where I'm going to be talking about making a decision to start smiling again, because change always starts with a decision. And my very own healing journey began in 2010. Yes, I do take my time. It takes as long as it needs to take. And it was in November of 2010, and I had just received a message from my niece.  To put it into context, my niece is just a couple of years younger than me. I had been visiting home back in Canada earlier in the year. It was at a time when that visit back home was at the peak of when life was spiraling into chaos and I spent much of that trip sleeping and really in a state of numbness and shock. So when I got this message a few months later, it was quite a lovely message to receive.
     
     I'd like to read it to you to share it with you. She said, "you looked as though your spirit had been ripped right from you and with good reason, but I wanted to let you know that this too shall pass with time. This will get so much easier. Just remember that you are the only one in control of your feelings and how long you will choose to feel the way.  Do trust that you will find yourself and your true smile again.  Embrace this and know in your heart, it is the right thing you do what is best for you. You first, now. " 
     
    I'd like to say something to her now, Kristi, if you're listening, I found my smile again. And thank you for being there at the beginning of this journey, I am forever grateful for that message and for your love,  

    All of these layers later, I've learned a lot. And I know that there is so much more to learn and to grow and heal. As I walk this journey, changing my life, I've learned that events can alter us emotionally and that we can become emotionally attached to our past. I lost my husband Chris, four years ago to chronic alcoholism. His tired heart stopped. We were divorced when he passed away, but as many of you will know it wasn't out of lack of love. It was an incredibly difficult and painful decision that I made to leave him. And I had to make that decision for the sake of saving my own wellbeing and to protect my children from the trauma that we were living in. The truth is that our love never died. 

    I actually felt that I lost him many years before his death. And it's because you hold on and on and on never wanting to give up hope. So it's not just that one event that alters you emotionally. It's the ongoing events and many of them, which are quite traumatic to live through. And as our stress hormones go up bit by bit, our body starts to break down and we're living in survival mode. We think the same thoughts, where are the bottles? Um, what will he be like, how will I pay the bills? There's just so many things that all start to go wrong and fall apart. So many things to worry about. And then over and over again, the same thoughts take over and we feel the same way again and again. And we perform the same actions again and again, we're literally stuck in a rat and we just can't see a way out of it.  



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    12 min
  • Welcome to Smiling Again with Kim Moore
    Kim Moore introduces her new podcast in which she shares conversations and helpful tips that can help you with your healing journey after losing a loved one to addiction. One thing at a time, walk this journey together and start smiling again. 

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    3 min

About Smiling Again

From the publisher's feed

Smiling Again is a podcast for anyone who has lost a loved one to alcoholism or addiction. Listen to conversations with people impacted as well as interviews with experts with helpful tips that can…