Susan welcomes Elizabeth Kipp to today’s episode. Elizabeth is a Chronic Pain Specialist, Yoga-Informed Addiction Recovery Coach, Ancestral Clearing® Practitioner, Yoga and Meditation Teacher, and international best-selling author of The Way Through Chronic Pain: Tools to Reclaim Your Healing Power. She focuses on helping people realize the power of their inherent healing.

Elizabeth healed from over 40 years of chronic pain, including anxiety, panic attacks, and 32 years of addiction to prescribed medication. She now works to help others achieve the same healing that she experienced directly from the work she teaches. In addition, Elizabeth offers one-on-one and group sessions on stress and chronic pain management and addiction recovery, Ancestral Clearing®, trauma-informed yoga, and meditation. Find out more about Elizabeth on her website.

Key Takeaways:

• Elizabeth shares her grief story which is linked to her history of chronic pain.
• Elizabeth shares valuable information about how chronic pain affects our population.
• Learn not to judge your experiences.
• Elizabeth suffered several losses and she had no place for closure until all those pending matters came back for her to properly process.
• Every time we think and talk about the people we lost, they are back with us.
• Who you are is the staff that can never be taken away from you.
• Elizabeth shares pieces that she wrote about her grief experience.
• Let grief pass through you, change, mold you, and prove how love is embedded in you.
• Not one grief is like another.
• Getting perspective is so important, detaching from the physical plane and connecting to the spiritual one gives a different point of view.
• Elizabeth explains why her approach to grief and chronic pain is unique.
• Elizabeth shares three takeaways around grief: - Grief is Love, - It takes time to readjust, and - In the end, grief is a profound exaltation of our capacity for love.

Resources

Tendrilsofgrief.com

Email Susan: [email protected]

Conquer Chronic Pain: An Innovative Mind-Body Approach, Dr. Peter Przekop

Meet Elizabeth Kipp

Reach out to Elizabeth on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Susan, your host, welcomes Caroline Nadine Helsing to today’s episode. She is an alumna of The University of Hawaii. She currently lives in Newport Beach, California with her husband and their dog, Daisy.

Unapologetic: Tales of the Original Party Crasher is her debut book and is the heartfelt story of a daughter processing the loss of her mother while she examines and celebrates her mother’s story through clues and memories left behind, she weaves an entertaining account of a complicated, enigmatic woman who was equal parts, Holly Golightly, Auntie Mame, Mrs. Maisel, and dare we say, Moira Rose from Schitt's Creek. This funny and poignant memoir-biography follows the author’s mother through life from crashing parties and hobnobbing with celebrities in NYC, to the crashing waves of Hawaii, and back full circle to the city she loved. Including all of the characters she met in between and the lessons she taught her daughter along the way, the book is a portrait of a life lived truly and unapologetically.

Key Takeaways:

• Caroline shares her grief story.
• To relive your experiences with loved ones who passed is a way of celebrating their lives.
• Caroline talks about how she started to write Unapologetic and how she felt the company of her mother all the time she was writing.
• It is all about faith, and if you believe in something, then that is your truth.
• Find an interruption to your grief, having distractions often ease the grief journey.
• Asking for signs and being open to receiving them is a way of staying present and focused on your surroundings.
• Everyone grieves differently.
• It is ok to not be ok, really feeling the feelings you are experiencing is how you are going to heal.

Resources

Tendrilsofgrief.com

Email Susan: [email protected]

Meet Caroline Nadine Helsing 

Before delving into writing, Caroline began her varied career path as an international model and actress. Her work took her from Europe to Asia and all throughout the United States, where she appeared on countless covers and in over 60 commercials. Before she turned 30, she founded an internationally renowned pet products manufacturing company. After selling the company in 2013, she parlayed what she learned in front of the camera to her work behind the lens. Her photography credits are varied. Caroline was chosen by leading philanthropic organizations such as Doc in a Box 360 and Ayuda International to document their medical missions through her photography while traveling to remote areas of Mexico, Peru, as well as deep within the Amazon jungle. She was chosen as the photographer for the Newport Beach Host Town Committee for the 2015 Special Olympics, working with athletes, press, and city officials. Caroline has photographed Newport Beach business leaders and local political figures for the 2016 and 2017 campaigns. She’s also worked as a freelance writer for the Orange County Register and the Newport Beach Independent. Caroline is an active member of the community and a former Rotarian with the Newport Beach Sunrise Rotary Club. Through her endeavors, she’s received the Volunteer Leadership Award for 2016. Other Honors include 2012 Orange County Business Journal's Women in Business Nomination 2011 Orange County Business Journal's Excellence in Entrepreneurship Nomination.

Unapologetic: Tales of the Original Party Crasher (If you are a Kindle Unlimited member you can read the entire book for free!)

Visit Caroline’s website at www.CarolineNadineHelsing.com 

Follow Caroline Nadine Helsing on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok: @CarolineNadineHelsing

Amanda Farrat is the founder of Value Yourself Counseling, a certified emotional wellness counselor, Advanced EFT Practitioner, and professional speaker. Amanda has a prolonged history of education and experience in the mental health and wellness field and social services. She received her undergraduate degree in Family Science from Montana State University and later pursued a Master of Social Work. Amanda left the program to attend to her own needs after facing numerous difficult losses in a short span of time. Although her healing journey has not been easy, Amanda has gained the confidence and resilience to meet challenges head-on with compassion and curiosity. She uses her education, experience, skills, intuition, and passion to help other women make peace with their past, fall in love with their present, and get excited about their future.

Key Takeaways:

• Amanda shares her story of loss.
• Amanda went through a series of losses without having the proper time to grieve until her body said “no” and her health started to deteriorate.
• It is important to return to “life” after a loss but it is crucial to have a space of grace, peace, and forgiveness allowing people to have emotional and psychological safety for them to re-acclimate to the world.
• Pulling back from the world can be a reality when you are grieving.
• When grieving, doing something outside of yourself and for others can be liberating.
• Amanda shares how she learned to hold space for people who are grieving.
• Loss can become an opportunity to rebuild and reinvent.
• We are storytellers and when we have a loss our personal stories need to be rewritten.
• Have some grace and compassion with yourself, find your support system.
• Do nothing and let your higher power show you what you have to do next.
• Amanda teaches a quick trip when you feel tears coming out and you are somewhere when you don’t want to be seen crying.

Resources

Tendrilsofgrief.com

Email Susan: [email protected]

Meet Amanda Ferrat

Value Yourself Counseling

Follow Value Yourself Counseling on Instagram and join the Facebook group

Dr. Kevin J. Payne joins Susan in today's episode. He is a scientist, entrepreneur, and author. He's spent 15 years as a professor and a decade as a startup founder and consulting data scientist. He had the life he loved shredded by decades battling multiple sclerosis. When he lost everything he cared about, he decided to rebuild his life by facing the fear of his uncooperative body in the air and becoming a skydiver. 600 jumps later (and counting), he is at home in the sky.

Born from a decade of research, Your Life Lived Well is his labor of love: a book, a podcast, a curriculum of classes, organizational services, and technology — they all support those whose lives have been touched by chronic illness: diagnosed, loved ones and caregivers, and medical, health & wellness, professionals. There's no one answer to living well, but Dr. Payne is committed to showing you the practical tools you can use to build the life you want. We may be sick, but we can still live well.

Key Takeaways:

• Tragedy in life teaches you how to appreciate life more profoundly.
• Dr. Payne shares his experience on grief living with multiple sclerosis.
• Our grief is always unique and it is about a loss and that forces us to rewrite our stories and identities.
• Dr. Payne compares grief to free falling.
• Dr. Payne shares how he reinvented himself after losing his “tribe”.
• There is shame in a grieving person to recognize that at times they just want to die.
• Dr. Payne went back to sky diving, a real challenge that saved himself every time he jumped.
• Do what makes you feel alive.
• Dr. Payne carried his journey, shared it with others with the intention of easing theirs.
• Dr. Payne and Susan talk about the power of meditation.
• Show yourself some grace!
• You have to build a good and positive relationship with yourself.
• The identity we build is a big lie that we put over ourselves, we are not a unitary self!
• Dr. Payne shares tips to make a grieving person feel a little better.

Resources

Tendrilsofgrief.com

Email Susan: [email protected]

Meet Dr. Kevin J. Payne

Visit Your Life Lived Well and grab your free 100-page book preview, podcast links, webinars, and more.

Follow Dr. Payne on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Susan is joined in today’s episode by  Carmen De La Russe who is a self-independent writer who decided to embrace her mother’s passing by writing poetry.

Carmen is 28 years young, one year ago her mother passed away from complications of COVID and she is still learning to cope with this huge loss day by day. Carmen decided to write away all her pain and published her very first poetry book Poesia en Los Labios which is dedicated to her dear mother, Aurora.  This book contains poems about depression, anxiety, and love written in English and also in Spanish.

Key Takeaways:

• Carmen shares her loss story.
• Carmen’s gut feeling kept pointing her in the direction that something was going to happen.
• How do people who have lost someone due to COVID feel about vaccination?
• Signs are a survival mechanism, but how do you know when something is a sign?
• Carmen talks about unusual ways in which she receives heart signs.
• Carmen shares her inspiration to write her poetry book and how she got it published.
• How did the death of Carmen’s mother change her life?
• Grieving can turn you into a more compassionate person.
• Carmen shares a poem with the audience and suggests: Believe, have faith, ask for the sign you need and you will receive it!

Resources

Tendrilsofgrief.com

Email Susan: [email protected]

Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe, Laura Lynne Jackson

Meet Carmen De La Russe

Follow Carmen on her YouTube Channel

Susan welcomes you to a special New Year’s episode of Tendrils of Grief Podcast. This is a solo episode, where Susan shares the tools that can help you make it through each day at this particular time of the year. Remember that it is ok not to be ok, and in your grief journey, there will be good and bad days. Listen to this episode and learn how to interrupt that deep grief for a moment, focus on something different, and find moments of peace in your life.

Key Takeaways:

• How do you show the world you are grieving? Just because you pull yourself together from the outside. does not mean that internally you are fine, life goes on, even when you are grieving.

Grief is always there, waiting under the surface. Susan shares ways in which you can interrupt grief:

• Find a quick diversion (call a friend, stand under the sun for a few minutes, get a drink of water).
• Breathwork (long deep breaths; inhale to the count of four, hold your breath the same time and then exhale, repeat 5 consecutive times)
• Take a shower, listen to music, or a podcast.
• Create a mantra for yourself  (“I am safe”, “I am going to be ok.”, “I am loved”)
• Spend time in nature.
• Start a gratitude journal.
• Acknowledge your emotions, give yourself permission to feel.
• Selfcare is crucial, do something that gives you joy.
• Refrain from negativity of any kind.
• Learn to set boundaries.
• Journaling is getting something out of your head and onto paper.
• Susan talks about her experience using a manifestation journal.
• “Rage on the page” followed by meditation practice.
• Prayer can be a form of meditation.
• Meditation is about being focused, present, and clearing space in your mind.

Resources

Tendrilsofgrief.com

Email Susan: [email protected]

Susan welcomes Heather Dempsey to today’s episode. She is an emotional health coach and Mentor for life and business. Heather is a cat-loving foodie, personal development coach and self-care enthusiast who has helped hundreds of anxious and overwhelmed individuals and service-based entrepreneurs create radical emotional and mindset transformations so that they thrive. She supports her clients — from feeling hopeless, unhappy, and stressed, as if life would never going to be any different from what it has been — to actually feeling optimistic, like anything is possible, energized, and confident they are capable of having everything they desire as they've never experienced in their entire life or business before.

Key Takeaways:

• Heather talks about the loss of her brother and how grief was experienced in the family.
• Grief is also about losing something you were fond of.
• There can be shame in grieving.
• Grieving people do not want a consolation prize, please do not use the words ‘At least…”.
• Sometimes there is no fixing a situation and “fixing” sometimes might just mean feeling sad.
• Our emotions and feelings have to come through to be complete.
• Susan talks about how families sometimes mismanaged information.
• Show up for the people that you love.
• Heather explains how to turn guilt into gratefulness.
• Heather shares how she works with her clients about the concept of reinvention.
• Make meaning out of your loss.
• Heather shares a beautiful experience of the connection she has with her father that recently passed away.
• Heather suggests everyone struggling with grief to connect with their bodies, it can be as simple as taking a walk, starting with one humble step.

Resources

Tendrilsofgrief.com

Email Susan: [email protected]

Meet Heather Dempsey

Visit Heather’s website

Follow Heather on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

Learn more about Heather’s Course Live Without Limitations.

Susan welcomes Samantha Ruth to today’s episode. Samantha is a Psychologist, Speaker, Best Selling Author, and the Proud Founder of Griefhab: a 24/7 support community open to anyone who has experienced a loss. She helps people around the world turn their pain into their power by guiding them to be their true selves not who they think they need to be, by embracing their differences, and by living life on their own terms.

Samantha's mission is to change the way the world views both grief and mental health, so people can speak about whatever issues they have and get the help they not only need but deserve without fear of judgment, labels, and repercussions.

In her free time, you can find Samantha with her pups on one of their outdoor adventures. Music fuels Samantha's soul, family means everything to her, and honoring her late husband, Jim, and making him proud gives her life daily purpose.

Key Takeaways:

• Samantha shares her grief story.
• Trauma forced Samantha to take care of herself.
• Meeting new people became a huge help for Samantha because there was no expectation there.
• Samantha became more intentional and stopped seeing people that were not resonating with her anymore.
• Listen to your own intuition, despite everyone’s opinions.
• Your job is really to heal. Trust yourself.
• Find your tribe.
• Start doing whatever feels good to you, no reasons, no explanations, find your joy.
• Samantha shares how she managed her own grief while supporting other people who are grieving.
• It is ok to grieve and be uncomfortable.
• People who judge do not really understand the grieving that you are going through.
• Learn your strengths, weaknesses, and when to ask for help.
• Samantha shares a piece of advice: Get through this minute, this is your path, and remember one tool that you have with you always is breathing.

Resources

Tendrilsofgrief.com

Email Susan: [email protected]

Meet Samantha Ruth:

You can work with Samantha individually, in one of her exclusive groups, or you can have her speak at your event or organization. Contact Samantha to determine what's best for you at [email protected]. 

Visit  Samantha’s Website 

Connect with Samantha on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and on ClubHouse

Take part in Samantha’s Facebook Group

Listen to the To Be Ruthless Show 

Maria Price accompanies Susan to today’s episode. Maria is a teacher, a wife, and a mom. She is also the author of Love You Still, a memoir that chronicles Julia’s unexpected stillbirth at term, and the beginnings of the grief journey, complete with depression, a crisis of faith, and an unplanned pregnancy that followed.

As Maria learns how to navigate life without her daughter and its impacts on her relationships and personal well-being, she has become passionate about breaking the silence surrounding infant and pregnancy loss. She tells her story and supports the telling of other parents’ stories of their own much-loved babies in support groups, social media, and in quiet, local coffee shops.

Love You Still is her debut book and memoir. Maria and her family make their home in Iowa.

Key Takeaways:

• Maria shares her story.
• People often misunderstand and underestimate the loss of an unborn son or daughter.
• Maria shares how she started writing her book Love You Still.
• Maria works with families that went through the loss of a child from an unexpected stillbirth.
• People who are grieving need to talk about their lost loved ones.
• Susan and Maria talk about the healing power of remembering.
• Maria talks about what was helpful for her during her grieving process.
• Maria talks about how her faith struggled after losing Julia.
• Maria talks about the unexpected pregnancy that came after Julia.
• Maria extends her advice to those who are grieving and also to those who are supporting someone who is grieving.

Resources

Tendrilsofgrief.com

Email Susan: [email protected]

A Thousand Names for Joy: How to Live in Harmony with the Way Things Are, Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell

Meet Maria Price

Follow Maria on Facebook and Instagram 

Maria’s website is coming soon! www.MariaPriceAuthor.com

Love You Still is available on Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com and  Bookshop.org

Heidi Dunstan is a certified grief educator and best-selling author. Her passion to help others, learn more about grief, and how to support others who are grieving came after losing her husband unexpectedly almost three years ago. Her experience with friends and loved ones saying the wrong thing or completely disappearing gave her first-hand knowledge that many people have never learned how to grieve which often leaves grievers to grieve in isolation.

Key Takeaways:

• Heidi shares her grieving story and how it led her to her current work.
• Susan shares the moment when her life was changed forever. 
• Sometimes people just don’t know how to deal with their own grief.
• Loss and grief cannot be compared.
• You don’t need to know how somebody died, they are not coming back. You don’t want to put people through that trauma again.
• Some people will just leave you when you need them the most and some others will hold space for you.
• People have no idea of what you are going through.
• It is not just death that you are dealing with but the disruption of your entire life.
• Heidi highlights the difference between being a single parent and being a solo parent.
• You still love the person you lost, and that is why time is not always on your side.
• Choosing the people to surround yourself with is critical when you are grieving.
• Some friends will just sit there, witness, let you feel, and grieve the way you can.
• If you don’t know what to do for someone who is grieving, just ask, and offer only the things that you know you can deliver.
• Sharing stories not only brings memories back but for some people has healing power. Ask the person who is grieving how he or she feels about bringing memories of the lost loved one back.
• Heidi shares how to support someone who is grieving: love them where they are at.
• Heidi speaks about how to find comfort when you are grieving.

Resources

Tendrilsofgrief.com

Email Susan: [email protected]

Meet Heidi Dunstan

Visit Heidi’s website

Email Heidi at [email protected] 

Follow Heidi on Instagram and Facebook