Sarah Davis is a Podcast Producer and the host of Breathing Wind, a podcast about parent loss, change, and healing. Sarah is also a Writer and Learning Experience Designer. Sarah shares her grief journey on this week's podcast and why it's so painful when you have to re-find your community and your friends again. She also shares tips on how to overcome your own grief on this week's show.

Key Takeaways:

• Sarah shares her grief story and how she lost her father.
• After losing her father, Sarah discovered the power of community and explored who she was as a person.
• When you're going through the awfulness of grief, you find out who your real friends are.
• The loss of her father brought her back to a place where she was 13 again and she was a different version of herself. Very introverted, shy, quiet and a lonely person who likes to read.
• It helps to connect with other people. When you're connected to a community, you begin to feel the love, encouragement and support.
• You cannot think your way out of grief. You need to feel it.
• How do you move on from this grief journey?
• Find the things that work for you. What may work for you today may not work for you next week and that's okay.
• The good news is, more people experience growth out of loss than they do stress and pain.
• When you grieve, you become one of the real people. You reach a new level of authenticity.
• When you have the ability to create, you are able to put your grief outside of yourself.

Resources

Breathingwind.com

Sarah on Instagram

Momastery.com

Payton Lynch was inspired to write her book, Rise From the Ashes, by her husband's story as a 9/11 surviving child. Payton is also currently going through her own struggles and grief as she is faced with the possibility of never being able to have children naturally. In this week's episode, Payton shares lessons she's learned from her husband about grief, surviving grief, her own journey with grief, and so much more.

Key Takeaways:

• A little bit about Payton and why she's writing a book about the 9/11 child victims.
• Everyone remembers where they were during 9/11.
• We are a very positive and optimistic society, and it can be at the detriment of others because we're not properly prepared for the reality.
• Payton and her husband are going through infertility and the things her friends and family are saying, although well-intentioned, is very frustrating.
• After Susan lost her husband, she didn't think that she had a life left.
• Payton is in grief right now because she might be able to conceive naturally, but her husband has been a big inspiration as to how you can move and grow from grief.
• Grief can sneak up on you.
• All of our experiences shape us towards who we are as people today. It can be painful, but it can often be a blessing.
• Don't make grief an identity where you get stuck in a cloud of misery.
• If you're in hell right now, keep going.
• Payton shares her advice on ways to manage and work with the grief you are experiencing.
• You are way more than the sum of all your grief experiences.
• You are a human being at the end of the day. It's okay to feel a wide range of happy and nasty emotions!

Resources

Payton on LinkedIn

Indiegogo.com/projects/rise-from-the-ashes-by-payton-lynch

Ducky shares her grief story about her husband, Colin, of 15 years passing away suddenly from complications of a heart attack in 2019. Ducky shares what it was like dealing with his in-laws at the time of the funeral, what it's like being a young widow at 36 years old, and how she experiences all the emotions during the last two years in this week's episode.

Key Takeaways:

• It doesn't matter if you're one day in or 10 years in, we are always finding new ways to adapt with grief.
• Ducky shares her grief story. Ducky knew something was wrong with her husband when she saw half of his side was swollen.
• Ducky has to make the tough decision to take him off life support.
• Ducky's husband was austitic and it went undiagnosed for a long time because at the time, it wasn't as wildly recognized/acknowledged.
• Ducky shares some of the challenges of dealing with her husband's parents after his passing.
• Even though she and her husband weren't close to the parents, she wanted to give them an opportunity to say goodbye.
• It was only until a couple of months later did it hit Ducky that she was a very young widow at only 36 years old.
• Ducky feels so blessed she has a good support system in her life to check up on her.
• What do you need, right now? Ducky had a friend who would just sit with her and figure out her life 'for the day'. It started small.
• When it comes to grief and working towards a happier life, it comes down to what feels good to you.
• Ducky does have good days, but for the most part, every day is still a challenge.
• When is it the right time to date? Ducky shares her experiences.
• You can still find little ways to honor your passed spouse with your new partner.
• Ducky shares a bit of advice on how to better manage their grief.

Cris Duvall is a retired Dental Hygienist and has transformed her grief story into helping people discover what they want out of life. Cris is no stranger to loss, having lost two of her brothers as well as her father early on in life. However, when her husband passed away suddenly, and she had to take him off of life support, she made a conscious choice not to let her grief consume her. She shares how the act of thinking positive and not letting the woes and her sorrows get her down when she is getting the most out of life.

Key Takeaways:

• Cris shares her grief stories. Her husband passed away suddenly.
• When her husband passed, Cris made the conscious decision that she wasn't going to regret his loss. You can't change the past, you have to move forward.
• The majority of our thoughts influence our brain.
• Positive thoughts produce dopamine and less cortisol in your body, which is known to seriously impact your physical body negatively.
• Stress kills. You need to make a choice to change your mindset or you're at risk of dying too.
• When Cris took her husband off of life support. She promised him she was going to make the rest of her life matter.
• For his sake, she couldn't stay looking backwards.
• We can have a profound impact on our brain and our health just by our thoughts.
• When you give back, you help both the other person and yourself.
• Cris was sick of her friends asking her 'how are you?'. She instead asked them to ask her, 'tell me something great that happened today'.
• Cris wanted her friends to ask her action questions.
• How can you think good things all the time when you feel like absolute crap?
• We don't have to stay in that place of feeling so crummy and so sad.
• Think, feel, and choose. You can do it.

Resources:

Switch On Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health Book by Caroline Leaf

Tony Lynch is the Founder of the Memories of Us nonprofit, a supportive place for men in grief. Men are traditionally shown over and over in society that they can not be vulnerable. This negatively affects our communities. After experiencing devastating loss, Tony was on the brink of suicide. It took a spiritual awakening for him to get out of it. Tony shares what he was going through mentally when he was in grief, and he didn't even realize it had gotten so bad until it was almost too late.

Key Takeaways:

• Tony hit rock bottom in his life after the loss of several people in his life, including his son. He was ready for suicide.
• Men are told to 'suck it up' and keep moving.
• Men do grief differently. Tony tried to put himself through physically gruelling experiences to see if he could die.
• Men don't like being vulnerable. So, physical pain is used as a way to keep their mind off of their true emotional pain.
• Tony lost everyone he cared about at 26 years old. Life sucked. He knew it would be better to just leave this world.
• As Tony was sitting alone ready to commit suicide, he heard his name call out in the distance, but no one was there. This woke him up. He knows it was a spiritual intervention.
• If you want your men to be good men, you have to have open communication with them.
• Don't be ashamed to share who you are with someone else.
• Grief gets trapped inside us and it has nowhere else to go if you don't deal with it head-on.
• How did Tony take this grief and empower his community?
• Tony's nonprofit shows men that it's okay to grieve.
• Men don't talk. By not talking, you're stuck. Your family wants to help you, but they don't know what to do.
• When Tony lost his child, he stopped talking about it to other people. He didn't want people to know what he was going through.
• It's so easy to feel completely numb to the pain. But if you don't deal with your 'stuff', it WILL come around and bite you.
• You are important. You have someone in your corner. Reach out to Tony for support.
• Tony offers advice to a man in grief right now.

Resources:

Tony on LinkedIn

Memories of Us Podcast

Rachel Kodanaz has been speaking passionately to national audiences of all sizes for 20 years, addressing all aspects of change, growth, and acceptance that comes with embracing life's challenges – those expected and unexpected. Through her books, Living with Loss, One Day at a Time and Grief in the Workplace, Rachel offers a wealth of knowledge, inspiration and practical advice for those who have lost a loved one or are supporting someone who has lost a loved one. In this week's episode, Rachel shares timeless advice on how you can return to the workplace and get the most out of your work environment as you go through grief.

Key Takeaways:

• Grief in the workplace is still a real issue.
• A little bit about Rachel and her grief story.
• When Rachel's husband passed, she lost a bit of her meaning and purpose, especially when it came to work.
• "How can I help?" Is such a loaded question. You can figure out how to help someone if you just observe them and what they are struggling with.
• No two people will behave the same when it comes to grief and work.
• When Rachel lost her husband, she didn't even acknowledge she was a widow, she was just trying to survive as a newly single mom.
• Susan felt like there was just a world falling down on her at work, and she wanted somebody to just help her.
• So many people don't know what they need after a sudden life change.
• What's the difference between a grief coach and a situational coach?
• Managers! Are you listening? You can take a very painful experience and turn that into a beautiful and supportive environment for the griever.
• Susan has been put in situations where an employee was grieving, and she just didn't know or even have the context at the time to support them.
• A co-worker told Susan to not talk about her loss, in fear of making someone else;who recently lost a parent; angry. Despite them trying to be helpful, it was so hurtful.
• Susan ended up leaving her job because that's the one thing she felt like she had control over.
• Grief, unfortunately, is a timeline in the workplace, and you can rarely put a timeline on grief.
• As an employer, you can ask empowering questions to help your employee during such a rough time.
• What piece of advice does Rachel have for both the grieving employee and the employer?
• Companies! Do not get this wrong. Seek additional resources if your team member recently lost someone.

Resources:

Rachelkodanaz.com

Rachel on LinkedIn

Rebekah Saltzman is passionate about the Zero Waste Movement and uses her professional design skills to help her clients create organized and beautiful spaces for themselves and their families. She is the Founder of Balagan Be Gone and it's her mission to have her clients get the most out of their possessions and stress less about managing it all. What do you do with all of your loved one's things when they've passed on? Rebekah sheds some light and offers advice on how to tackle this in a way that still honors the person who has passed on.

Key Takeaways:

• When is it too soon or too late to get rid of something?
• Rebekah's mother passed away last year and her family is waiting for her to come back home to clean out the house.
• It's hard to declutter your house when it's filled with memories.
• You have all the memories you need in your heart. You don't need stuff to fill it up.
• There are only so many items you can have before it becomes less about the person and more about the clutter.
• Inheriting your loved one's items is like going on a journey.
• When Rebekah's grandmother died, her mother kept her stuff in the basement for years before she let anyone in her family have it.
• If you want to sit on these things for a year, that's okay. Give yourself a bit of grace and permission.
• Susan shares how she had to deal with her husband's things after he passed away.
• Find ways to repurpose some of these items. You can honor these items in some way and that can be a very healing process.
• What do you do when other family members get upset by what you do with someone else's items?
• The longer it takes you, the more difficult it becomes to close this chapter.
• How do you declutter your loved one's items without dishonoring them?
• Do you really — need — new stuff right this second? Where is this going to live in the house?
• Why is it important to declutter the house for yourself?
• Most people do not collect things that are valuable in any way.
• Should you sell your items or just give them away?
• Remember, be kind to yourself. It's going to take you time to get through it all.

Resources:

Balaganbegone.com

Phil Pinti is a full-time single parent, widower, as well as a military veteran, philosopher, and ultra runner. He lost his wife to cancer at the young age of 33, which left him reexamining his life and his purpose. Phil believes you can wallow in your story or use your experiences to push you forward. You can be your best advocate or your own worst enemy, but the good news is you can choose.

Key Takeaways:

• It's not what happens to us in life that matters, it's what we do with what we've been given.
• Phil shares how he met his wife, Jen. Phil's wife made him a better person.
• Jen was 33 when she passed away from lung cancer. How did it happen?
• When Jen died so young, Phil felt jibbed by life. There's a natural order of things, and Jen wasn't supposed to pass before her grandparents or parents did.
• Statistically, men marry really quickly after the passing of their wife. It's usually 18 months after, but for women it's 5 years.
• What can you do tomorrow? This weekend? Set yourself up to look forward to something.
• We are either our own biggest advocate or our own worst enemy.
• It's difficult to be a single parent. When you lose your other half, you really have to do everything alone.
• Phil's children spent the weekend with their grandparents, and that's when he realized he was alone for the very first time in a big house. The loss really hit him.
• Phil shares what his mental state was like before and after putting his body through an ultra marathon.
• Anybody can have the excuse to have their story weigh them down.
• For Phil, Jen was a huge intersection and connector piece to his community. When he lost her, he also lost his circle of friends.
• People don't want to catch grief.
• Phil shares why he feels COVID has been a blessing to his family.
• We get to choose how we want to feel and act based on the day we face. We also need to set an example for our children because they internalize the stress you are projecting.
• We need to find what our story is about now.
• No one can give you your midlife crisis, you can only do that to yourself. Phil lost his love, but that doesn't mean he's going to just give up.
• Phil loved that his wife still stayed true to herself until the very end. He admires and loves her so much.

Dr. Kirsten Turkington is a Family Nurse Practitioner and a Forensic Nurse Expert. Dr. Kristen has seen her elderly clients go through this form of financial abuse by scammers who are presented as 'the love of their life'. It's lonely after you've lost someone, but that doesn't mean you should build a love relationship that's purely based on how much money you send them. Here are some of the things you need to be aware of.

Key Takeaways:

• As widowers get so caught up in their grief, they are prime targets for scammers.
• How does Dr. Kristen help her clients beyond being a nurse?
• People scamming older women is elder abuse!
• Susan met an online scammer in Nigeria and was intrigued by how he survived and got these women to send him money.
• These scammers have a million sob stories in their back pocket.
• The more people in the family that are involved, the better it is for the loved one being scammed to see the signs.
• However, a lot of these widows and widowers exhibit addictive personality traits towards this 'new love'.
• This isn't an 'in and out' crime. This is a long withstanding crime and it keeps going until the money runs out.
• This scammer told Susan that when they find out he's a fake, it doesn't matter, they still keep calling because they're emotionally attached.
• Scamming is a full-time job.
• By doing a reverse photograph search can prove to you that this is not the person they're saying they are.
• This scammer pays to be on Match.Com and just go through the motions of talking to various women.
• How do you protect yourself from online scammers?
• Keep your social media profiles locked down. Scammers can get a lot of information off of that.
• There's a lot of people on dating sites. If someone is out of the country and you can't see them within the next 30 days. Just move on!
• If it seems too good to be true, have a bit of curiosity about it. Dig a little bit deeper.
• Most of the time, the individual being scammed doesn't see it as a problem. It's the family members that become aware of it, and concerned.
• 9 out of 10 times, your family members want the best for you. Listen to your support network.
• Suspect someone you care about is being scammed? How can you best approach it without having them become defensive?

Resources:

Dr. Kirsten Turkington

Gennye Lion is a Light Activator, Mentor, and Purpose Visionary. She helps women visionaries become impactful leaders through deep inner work and light body activation. She also helps women unlock their potential, balance their body and mind, as well as their life and business, to find soul success that achieves self-mastery. Gennye opens up about her grief journal and dives into why embracing the 'woo' in your life, as a logical personal, isn't always a bad thing.

Key Takeaways:

• Gennye shares her grief story.
• Susan is a very logical person and she has a hard time believing in some of the 'woo' stuff. However, she made a shift to keep her mind open and take in new information.
• You get to pick your perspective on how you choose to process and look at things. Do you want to be positive or negative?
• During Gennye's grief journey, she lost a piece of her soul. Gennye explains what a 'soul part' is.
• How do you begin to heal? Gennye shares some of her tips!
• How do you find and collect your soul parts?
• Gennye talks about being a medium and how that helps her clients.
• Are you skeptical about this sort of stuff? Gennye shares a little bit about why to keep an open mind.
• Have you ever felt something that had no logic to it?
• The reality is we don't have the answers to everything, let's the best way forward is to have an open mind.

Resources:

Gennyelion.love