Widow Q&A: Anger, Belongings & When Grief Ends

Ajouté : 2026-05-23

[00:00:05]Hello. Hello.

[00:00:10]Come on in.

[00:00:14]Me get myself set up. Hey, Christine.

[00:00:19]All right. Tell me in the chat, where are you in the world? I'm gonna see if I can get us live on YouTube real quick.

[00:00:30]because that's what we said we'd do. So, we're going to do it.

[00:00:37]Check my phone and verify a code.

[00:00:41]Who has time? Okay. So, tell me where in the world are you? And then also, is this your first call or not? And while I'm doing this, I would love also for any questions that you have, you can pop them in the Q&A. Don't pop them in the chat. pop them in the Q&A so that I can see you there. Uh your questions because sometimes they get lost in the chat.

[00:01:04]You know what?

[00:01:06]We're not Sorry, YouTube folks. It's not working. I'm going to focus on the folks that are here instead of spending time figuring out a code that I don't understand. Okay. [laughter] I'm Christa. If we've never met before, I'm glad you're here. I like doing these calls to answer any questions that I can help you with specifically about widowhood, grief, anything that is on your mind.

[00:01:32]So, I am here to help you for that. And we'll do this for a a whole 30 minutes.

[00:01:37]Um, I'll answer as many questions as I can and then also if you want to actually talk then click the raise hand button and I will see that you have raised your hand and then I can promote you to panelist and then we can actually see each other. You don't have to please don't feel like you have to be as long as you're not naked, we're good, right?

[00:01:56]But you don't need to be wearing makeup or please don't be naked or driving a car. Um, otherwise feel free to raise your hand. Okay, let's do this.

[00:02:08]There we go.

[00:02:11]All right, so you see that little Q&A box? You can pop any questions that you have in there or you can raise your hand and let me know. And let's see. Coming up on husband's oneyear anniversary of death, how to prepare. Got a question about that.

[00:02:27]Okay. Hi Karen. Nice to see you, by the way. Or see your name. Um there is I I get why we want certainty, right? We we want to feel prepared. We don't we don't like feeling out of control. We don't like emotions that catch us off guard or emotions that overwhelm us. We we want to be able to control our experience.

[00:02:55]And especially when we've been feeling particularly unsafe, which is so common after we lose our person, right? It there a huge portion of our experience is that we don't feel safe in our bodies. Our nervous systems have detected danger and we don't feel safe.

[00:03:11]So because we don't feel safe, then we want to control. And so this is a question that I get all the time is like, how do I prepare? How do I and and what's sometimes under that question, how do I prepare is how do I control my experience? How do I guarantee myself that I'm going to be okay? And as much as I I want to tell you that there's a way to do that, there really isn't a way to do that, right? There's no way for us to control our our emotional experience.

[00:03:39]We can decide what we want to think about our emotions. Um we can decide how we talk to ourselves when we're having intense emotions. We can notice when we're disregulated and figure out ways to create more safety in our bodies. So so it's it's less awful, but we can't really control the experience that we have. So if we know that it's counterintuitive, but we can kind of breathe a little bit easier. We can say, "Okay, if I know that emotions are temporary, if I know that and look back at my past and think about all of the emotions I've already allowed, we could all we could all say most of us have been through a whole lot of emotions, right? Maybe maybe more than a lot of other people around us. I don't know. But we've been through a lot of emotions and so far none of them have killed us. We we've done okay with all of them, right? We've made it. We may not have loved them, but we've made it and we can leverage that. Okay, the worst thing that can happen is a feeling. I don't have to control my feelings, but it does help me if I believe that feelings can't hurt me, that I can allow any feeling that I experience to pass. And so when I think about preparing for days that I know are probably going to be emotional roller coasters, it's better if I loosen up and and not try to control and focus on just letting myself feel whatever shows up, right? Then I have an easier experience of it. I'm not resisting it so much. I'm not so tight and grippy. I can just kind of relax.

[00:05:14]Sometimes when I'm talking about emotions, I like the idea of thinking of them as beach balls. You may have heard me talk about this before, but if you're trying to shove a beach ball under the water, you can do it temporarily, but you can't do it for very long.

[00:05:28]Eventually, what happens, right, we push all that energy down trying to shove that beach ball under the water. It pops back up. We get tired. It pops back up.

[00:05:36]Sometimes it smacks us in the face and we're expending a lot of effort trying to shove that ball under the water. The easier approach applicable to any death ofversary or hard day is what if I could just let the beach ball float? What if I could just let it float on the water with me instead of trying to make it go away or trying to shove it under water? What if I could just be there with it? And so Karen, that's my that's my best advice for you is don't try to control the experience because you can't. Just try to allow the experience. Let the feelings flow through and know that you can be kind to yourself as you do, right? If there's a critical voice, you don't have to listen. So, that's what I got for you.

[00:06:20]Yeah, Terry. That's the idea because there's I mean, there's there's so many things that we haven't even yet experienced in grief. We've already experienced a lot and yet there are many secondary losses that are still coming and we can't predict them. We can't control them and they're going to be there. And so if we can let ourselves relax into that with the belief that we can handle it and we don't need to control it, it gets a lot easier to tolerate.

[00:06:50]All right, I want to see who else is here.

[00:06:53]Um, hey Eileene.

[00:06:57]So Arkansas, Texas, Boston, Cleveland, Colorado, a couple of first timers.

[00:07:01]Great. Several first- timers. Michigan, Janine, Vermont, not my first call. Love it. San Francisco. Yes, first time here.

[00:07:10]Okay. All right. Another question. Let's see.

[00:07:14]I started dating someone eight months after losing my husband. I'm 48. And my adult children and extended family refused to meet him or let me talk about him around them. I'm happy with my choice to date, but it's hard for me because my family and I have always been very close and spend a lot of time together. Now, it seems like I've been living a split life. Any tips on how to navigate this? First, I just want to say I'm thinking of you. And that sounds very hard to have someone that you are enjoying spending time with, and then to have your family not want anything to do with that. Um, tips would be focusing on what you can control, which it sounds like you're actually probably doing a really good job of, Sarah. Um, there's nothing we can do to really change their opinions. there's nothing we can really do to make them like someone. And if we were to say that, you know, we we're not allowed to feel good until they like him, that would be a problem, right?

[00:08:12]Because we can't make them like him. So, if we can let them have their experience and let us have our experience, that makes things a little bit easier.

[00:08:21]I don't know that a split life is necessarily a bad thing. If they if you don't want them or if you don't want that to bring him around because you don't enjoy their response of um what they're like when he's around, then maybe it is better to keep them split.

[00:08:37]If you have any other questions like more specifically, let me know. But it sounds like it's just probably really hard and you're handling it well.

[00:08:47]Another option, I don't know how often they are coming to you as opposed to you going to them. Um, but if you are having things that they come to you and you want him to be a part of those, you know, that could be something that you do where you help them understand that they're welcome to come to things and also he's going to be there, that you love them even if they don't come, but he is a part of your life and and he's [clears throat] going to be there.

[00:09:13]So, okay. Um, my husband died on March 31st, 2025. I was so sad and missed Dan immensely.

[00:09:23]However, I'm now feeling anger, maybe even rage. My husband drank too much alcohol and could become very angry and abusive to both me and our two kids. I was so shut down in our marriage and didn't feel much love or affection. I'm just I'm just waking up now, and the anger toward Dan is huge. I also feel a lot of guilt for not leaving the marriage.

[00:09:42]You do not need to apologize for that being so long. That was that was beautiful. So, you're not really asking me any questions here. Um, but let me just say uh yes, this is often how it happens that sometimes it's like an emotional onion where we we spend time with one emotion and maybe we're noticing one particular experience and then some time passes or something else happens and then all of a sudden there's another experience. And so, um, it's common that that would happen, right?

[00:10:13]That you would feel so sad for a long time and then now feeling so angry. And I guess my question would be, how are you supporting yourself as you feel angry? Are you letting yourself feel angry? Are you is there any judgment or resistance to the anger that you're noticing? Or is it free to to flow and move? How you talk to yourself about how you feel is really important. So, you would want to notice that. So if you have your own back about how you feel, not because it's about being right or wrong, but because that is how you feel currently, it will make it easier for that emotion to shift and move. So if you have any more questions about that, let me know. I I don't really see a question in your answer other than just to say, oh, okay, thank you. There's another question. So she wrote, "Yes, I'm letting out anger, but it's scary."

[00:11:03]Okay. So, so tell me a little bit more if you can about what's scary about uh letting out anger. How are you letting it out? What are you noticing?

[00:11:13]Is there actually anything that um is scary or is it more the idea that it could become scary? Maybe tell me just a little bit more about that, Pat. And then while you type that, let me answer another question. Oh, also I want to tell you all while we're here, I just created a brand new training for you.

[00:11:29]We'll pop a link to it in the chat.

[00:11:31]Hopefully Jamie has that link. If not, um, it's in Slack, Jamie. Um, but I just created a brand new training called the phase of grief that no one warns us about. It's completely free. Jamie will pop a link in the chat if you would like it. Go and check it out. It is fairly short but good. And there is a phase of grief that we are kind of not warned about. Pretty much every widow I ever work with finds herself there. And so I created this training for it. And in it, you'll help. It's a workshop kind of learn like how do how do we even get there? What is it like? How do we stay stuck there? And what has to change if we want to get out? So, just know that that's there for you. I just came out with that today. Been working on it for a bit.

[00:12:13]Okay. Um, it's been four years now since my husband's passing. I'm having trouble disposing or donating my husband's clothes and personal possessions. How do I do that? Okay. I have a podcast called The Widowed Mom Podcast.

[00:12:29]I did an episode specific to this issue called How to Deal with Their Stuff.

[00:12:33]Wow, Suzanne already has the link in the chat.

[00:12:39]My team is good, y'all. I have the best team. Okay, so I would start by listening to that podcast episode because I walk you through a process that I think will help. And then I will just say generally speaking, the less pressure you put on yourself, the better, right? If we can just let ourselves do this slowly and gradually over time if that's what we want to do.

[00:13:03]It's it's okay if you do it fast and furious if that's what feels better to you. But a lot of us don't want to do that. But we're putting pressure on ourselves because of our thoughts about how much time has passed and how we should have already dealt with it or something's wrong with us if we aren't dealing with it or whatever. we put pressure on ourselves. What I think tends to be the most supportive experience is if instead of trying to do it all at once or putting pressure on yourself to do it faster than you're ready to break things into categories that feel more manageable to you. So you will probably notice that certain possessions are feel like there's a high emotional charge to them and other possessions don't. They feel a little bit more neutral. So, I would recommend that you start with the things that feel more neutral for you. So, to give you an example, for me, I didn't really have a huge connection to like Hugo's pants.

[00:13:55]For some reason, like jeans and pants for me, I didn't have a huge emotional connection, but shirts were harder and especially Hugo was really well known for plaid shirts. That's like all he wore was plaid shirts. And so, the plaid shirts were extra hard. So, I didn't put any pressure on myself to deal with any of those supercharged items. I dealt with the ones that felt more neutral to me first and then kind of let over time the readiness shift, which it did. So, generally speaking, I think that helps.

[00:14:29]But definitely go and take a listen to that podcast episode um handling his stuff. I also have if you end up needing it, um Pat, I have I created a a class that I can we can get to you for I don't remember it was like 20 bucks or something like that, but momentos and memories is what it was called. And I actually walked people through a process and over um several sessions. So you can email us supportcoachingwithchrista.com if that's something that you're interested in. We'll we'll find that. I don't I kind of forget where it is, but it does exist.

[00:15:07]Um, okay. I start a new job. Okay, Debb.

[00:15:11]Hi, Deb. I start a new job next week, and I'm having anxiety. My job is in the same field that I've been working in for 37 years, but without my husband here to support me, I'm feeling like I may not be able to do my job as well. I just keep questioning my capabilities. What would you suggest to help me through this? Thank you. You're always so helpful. Thank you, Deb. Okay. So, I would not expect yourself to feel confident.

[00:15:35]I would I would expect and I don't mean as in we're willing you to be more anxious. I mean normalize the anxiety that you feel. Right? It makes sense.

[00:15:45]You're doing something in a way that yes, you have done this before. It's it's not an unfamiliar field to you, but you're doing it new in a new way in that you may not have done it without him there to support you. And so, of course, it you you have some feelings that come with that. of course you're having some doubts and some anxiety. And so if we can normalize that, we can make our own experience make sense instead of telling ourselves that it means something is wrong with us or you know we're never going to figure it out. Like we don't want to have any judgment about the experience we have. We just kind of want to normalize the experience that we're having and and make it make sense. And then know that over time what's going to happen is that you're just going to take the next little step. You are going to get in there gradually and do this job, right? And maybe you won't do it perfectly and maybe it will be a challenge to kind of readjust, right?

[00:16:35]But eventually you will because you're going to keep doing it, assuming that you want to. And then because you keep doing it, assuming that you want to, of course, permission to quit if for some reason you decide you don't want to, but assuming that you want to, you're going to keep doing it. And then eventually you're going to feel confident about your ability to do it, right? You're going to feel confident because you did it and you didn't quit and you just kept going. And you will at some point look back and go, "Wow, I remember how anxious I felt when I came back into this field. I remember that. That was a trip." But now I don't feel that way anymore, but I remember when I did.

[00:17:12]That's what's going to happen. Right? So confidence is going to be what happens at the end, not what we go into it with at the beginning. And we normalize everything that we feel. Of course, this is uncomfortable for you. Of course, you're having some thoughts questioning your capabilities. And we're still just going to do it and we're gonna figure it out. That's that's how I would do it, Deb.

[00:17:33]Okay. Okay. Great. A follow-up question about the anger. So, about a month ago, I screamed at Dan and told him that he acted like an So, we're we're blanking, but I think it's effing bleep check. I let so much rage out that I was tremulous and felt breathless. It helps me to hear that this is normal feeling.

[00:17:51]Yeah, I mean feeling angry. I guess that my question was, "Is it normal to feel feel anger and rage toward your deceased husband?" Yes. Which I've already answered today. She says, "Yes, it is normal." Right? Especially when you like grief is is so it's just there's so many layers sometimes, right? It's like at first you're grieving the fact that he died, right? And and you didn't want him to die, I'm sure, or at least in in a large part you didn't want him to die.

[00:18:17]And so there's a lot of sadness. And then there can be a lot of sadness because you look back and you think, man, you know, not only am I grieving the life that we had, but I'm grieving the life that we could have had you not been the way that you were, right? And so then there's grief around that. And then it would make sense that then you would feel some anger around that. Maybe you would feel angry towards him. Maybe you would feel angry towards yourself for staying. All of it common. None of it abnormal.

[00:18:45]Um, and I I love that you let yourself scream and let it out if that's what helps you. There's so many things we can do to let emotions shift and move.

[00:18:54]Rage rooms are are available right now.

[00:18:57]That didn't used to be a thing. Um, one of the women in Mom Goes On has had a couple of really positive experiences that she's been talking about with rage rooms. She's got one in her local area.

[00:19:06]You can go and book a a time and just basically break some stuff, right? And just let that energy shift and move.

[00:19:13]Now, for some people, that's not appealing at all. Even if they feel a lot of anger, that not might not be how they want to let it out. In Mom Goes On, we teach tapping. I I think tapping is such a beautiful way to let any emotion flow through. So, maybe some of us might want to tap. Scribbling can be tremendously powerful if we want to just scribble and let it all out. Um, there's so many ways to let an emotion flow through. If you if we could all just get in the habit of never making ourselves wrong for how we feel. Truly, no matter how we feel, we just decide. Emotions are not problems to solve. They're just experiences to allow. They are not problems. They are not signs that we aren't thinking correctly. They are not signs that we should be thinking differently. Emotions are not signs that something has gone wrong in our grief.

[00:20:00]They're just human experiences that are meant to be allowed. They are information, data, and that's it. And we don't make ourselves wrong. Then because we aren't making ourselves wrong, we're not resisting them as much. And then they can flow through easier, right?

[00:20:15]We're not trying to shove the beach ball under the water. We're we're letting it be what it is. And then it's going to shift and move. Okay. Amazing.

[00:20:26]Um, what was the other thing I wanted to tell you? I see something in the chat.

[00:20:33]When I started getting rid of my husband's things, I saved some in most rooms.

[00:20:38]Oh, it moved.

[00:20:40]Have something of his in it. His cap is still on the hook. His coat is still in the closet. Sunglasses are in the car.

[00:20:47]Yeah. And you find that calming and comforting, right? See, it's not it's not about there's a right way and that we should be getting rid of their stuff or the if we haven't gotten rid of their stuff, our grief is delayed or prolonged or no.

[00:21:02]Does it feel good to you? Do you want to keep it? Are you ready to let it go? You know, we get to do this in our own way.

[00:21:10]Um, what is tapping and how does it help? So, tapping, you can took my team two seconds to give you widowed mom podcast episodes on tapping.

[00:21:21]You can go and listen to those episodes and I explain tapping um, and actually walk you through the points. If you want to do the one on YouTube, I actually show you the points. But some people call tapping emotional acupressure. I kind of like that idea um because a lot of people know what you know acupressure is or acupuncture, but it's essentially tapping on different energy meridians in the body.

[00:21:45]And while we're tapping, we can do it in a number of of ways, but essentially what we're doing is sending a physical message to our body that we're safe. And it helps our the amygdala, the part of our brain that is going when we're in fight and flight, relax. It helps us realize that right here and right now, I actually am safe.

[00:22:08]And that's so valuable because a lot of us are spending time not really realizing how unsafe we actually feel.

[00:22:15]And when we don't feel safe, it can be really difficult to think clearly and can be really difficult to let emotions flow through, right? And so it's just a way of create safety in the body so that emotions can shift. Studies show that it lowers cortisol to stress hormone just by tapping. It lowers cortisol. It's now being used as a treatment for PTSD. It's an approved PTSD treatment by the Veterans Administration. There's a lot of research on tapping um that points toward it being very helpful. It's one of those things that if you've never done it before, it just feels weird.

[00:22:51]It's weird to watch somebody do it. It's weird to try it yourself, but try it and see if you like it. There's an app out called the Tapping Solution app, which a lot of people like because it's good for beginners. I don't have any connections with it, but um I have used it in the past and a lot of people find it to be very valuable. You can download it on your phone and just push play and tap along. That can help. There's lots of YouTube videos out in Mom Goes On. I we teach it and then also I bring in a tapping coach who who facilitates group tapping calls that are specific to what we've got going on with grief. Okay, another question from Debbie. My husband died in March of 2024.

[00:23:32]My grown daughter asked me when and if I was going to stop wearing my wedding ring. I asked her if it bothered her that I'm still wearing my wedding ring.

[00:23:39]She said, "No, but you're not still married to dad. However, I still feel married to Mark. What are your thoughts?" Yeah, this is just such an individual decision. Uh give give them five seconds, they'll have an episode on the of the podcast in the chat. I guarantee you. Um how you want to think about whether or not you're married is completely up to you. Some people love and very much want to think that they are still married. Some people don't.

[00:24:06]It's not about right or wrong. It's about you get to decide. So your daughter may have the thought that you're not still married to dad and you might decide to believe that you are still married to him. Neither one of you is wrong. It's just you get to choose what you believe is right for yourself.

[00:24:24]Um you can wear the wedding ring for the whole rest of your life and decide that you're still married and that feels good to you. You don't have to. You you might find that it changes over time, but there is when it comes to the wedding ring or whether we think about ourselves as married or widowed or single or however we want to identify. There's no right way to do it. There's no wrong way to do it. We just want to do it consciously. We want to do it in a for reasons that we like. Does it make you feel good? Okay. Right. You you do what makes you feel good. Yeah. Terry's put in the chat, "Does it give you comfort?"

[00:24:57]Yeah.

[00:24:58]I feel like I'm married to a dead man.

[00:25:00]Well, I mean, he's dead. And if you feel like you're married, that makes sense.

[00:25:04]You know, I remember um for me it was just a slow evolution for quite a while.

[00:25:10]It's like, no, I still feel married and I'm still wearing this ring. And it felt it felt tremendously comforting to have that ring on. And then over time, it started feeling less good in my body. And then at a certain point, it didn't feel aligned anymore.

[00:25:28]And that's when I let myself take it off. By the way, you can take it off and put it back on, right? You can see what it feels like, but you can also just wear it forever. Whatever you want to do.

[00:25:42]Yeah.

[00:25:44]And remember that relationships exist in the mind, right? People don't need to be alive for us to have relationships with them. Think about all the relationships you have with people that you don't ever even talk to, right? You still have relationships with people that you never talk to. um because because you think about them and so relationships with our late person are the exact same way. We still continue a relationship because we have thoughts about them and nobody can take those from us and we get to choose what they are, right? Continuing bonds theory would tell you having a relationship with someone who died, a continuing bond is can be very healthy.

[00:26:23]So don't let anybody convince you.

[00:26:25]There's a lot of misinformation floating around on the interwebs. Don't let anybody convince you that their opinion trumps yours. It doesn't. Your opinion, you are the authority on your own life and that's what matters.

[00:26:36]Oh, thank you Jamie for saying that.

[00:26:38]Jamie said, "I'm remarried and I still wear my late husband's wedding ring on important days just to bring him with me." Yes.

[00:26:45]Okay. I don't see any more questions.

[00:26:47]Also wanted to tell you, so I turned 50 yesterday. Thank you to those of you who sent me birthday messages because I was I was feeling the love yesterday. I turned 50 and as I have been coming up on 50, I have been thinking about what does 50 mean to me? What do I want people to hear? What do I want people to know? And especially as I consider the wild roller coaster that happened between 40 and 50 because my husband died when I had just turned 40. It's been a wild roller coaster. The message that Thank you all for your nice birthday wishes. The message that I really wanted people to hear is to not wait. To not wait.

[00:27:26]It's so easy to put ourselves low on the list. It's so easy to say, "Well, when I feel better or, you know, when something is more settled in this part of my life or after the summer is over or when I get through the holidays or or whatever, right?" It's so easy to just keep kicking the can down the road and later ourselves. And it's so common that we look back and months and years have gone by and we haven't done the thing for ourselves that we wanted to do. We haven't created what we wanted to create next and we find ourselves kind of on the same emotional merrygoround and I really don't want any of us to be doing that. So, so please hear that message. Please don't wait. And to that end, what I decided to do for because why not? I can because it's I can if I want to is I decided to do something I'm calling 50 widows forward, right? I want us to not wait to move forward in whatever way that means to you. Like that move forward means something different to every person, but in whatever way that means to you in terms of creating what you want to create next. I don't want any of us to wait. And so I decided it would be fun to do a little birthday celebration where I give and I've never done this before. 10% off. I've never done any sort of sale. 10% off from now until June 20th because my birthday is May 20th. So from now until June 20th to the next 50 women who decide to do either grief essentials or mom goes on or until June 20th, whichever happens first because there are a bunch of you I know that are out there and you've been thinking about it and you just need a little reason to put yourself first. You just need a little reason to do it. So for the right people, I'm hoping this might be the little reason that has you putting what you want first and not putting yourself last anymore, not waiting. So I just wanted to let you know that. So you can find out about that if you go to coachingwithchrista.com. There's a little banner that pops up and explains it. Um but that's for mom goes on and grief essentials.

[00:29:24]Um okay, one more question and we'll make this the last one then. Is there anything I can do to prepare for years two and three after death? Okay, there's a great debate amongst widows about which year is the worst and whether year one is the worst or year two is the worst. So, let's just let's just pull the people just out of curiosity.

[00:29:48]Put in the chat, do you have an opinion on this? Which year is the worst?

[00:29:55]Let's just see what happens.

[00:30:01]Everybody type in the year that you think is the worst.

[00:30:05]Okay.

[00:30:08]Year 1, year two. Year 1.

[00:30:12]Year one.

[00:30:14]I'm at eight months, but I think this is bad. They both have their challenges, but the first year was harder. I just finished year one. Year two. Okay.

[00:30:24]Yes. All right. So if you will notice this is for everyone not just the person who submitted this question.

[00:30:31]Everyone has a different thought about this because there isn't a year that is objectively better or worse. There there we all are having this unique grief experience. And here's what I want to caution us about.

[00:30:45]We have a way of proving our own thoughts true.

[00:30:49]So if we decide that year two is going to be years worse than year 1, our [clears throat] brain is going to look for and find evidence of how that is true. If we have already survived year 1 and we decide to believe that year 1 was the worst of it and the worst of it is behind us, guess what our brain is going to look for evidence of? It's going to look for evidence of how the worst is behind us and how year two is easier.

[00:31:14]And I'm not saying that you should think in one way or another. I'm saying that you have the ability to choose how you think about year 1, year two, year three, and any of the years after that.

[00:31:25]You have the ability to choose your the way that you think about it. What often makes year 2 harder than year 1 is that we think because it's what we're told that time will heal. We're told this. I don't know how many of you were told it.

[00:31:41]I was told it explicitly. People told me, just stay busy. you know, the first year is the worst. So, if we go into it thinking that all we have to do is wait and that time will heal.

[00:31:54]Then we grip our way through the first year.

[00:31:58]Sometimes we don't develop any healthy coping mechanisms. We don't learn any tools. We just expect time will do all of the work. And then we're in for a rude awakening because the first year ends and we realize, oh, actually, I didn't learn ways to support myself.

[00:32:18]I thought time would do all the work and time didn't do all the work and here I am. And now I still have to figure this out for myself. I still have to figure out how to support myself. So give yourself the gift of not believing that time will do all of the work. Not because I want to say that you got to go do all this grief work. That's not it.

[00:32:39]But to say that no, there are tools and there are ways of supporting myself so that I can create more ease in my grief.

[00:32:47]And I'm going to go figure out what those are. This is why I coach. This is why I have the podcast, right? Because that's that's what I want for all of us.

[00:32:55]So, how can I prepare for years two and three? Well, I'm going to decide how I want to think about them. I'm going to decide how I'm going to take care of myself. I'm going to notice like, do I have trouble feeling my feelings? What has made what has made my current experience hard? What could I do differently that would make my next experience easier? So, I'll give you an example. If the way that I currently deal with my feelings is I go eat them, right? I go to the kitchen and I eat a bunch of food. If I don't figure out a better way to allow myself to experience emotions besides trying to cover them up or escape them with food, that's going to cause more challenges for me in the next couple of years. So, I'm going to figure that out, right? I'm going to there are tools for that. I'm going to figure that out. Yeah, Nancy, I'm not waiting till year five. I'm working hard now. You sure are cuz I know you and I've seen all the work that you're doing.

[00:33:53]Ooh. I believe the year of growth is whichever year you choose it to be. Mine was year one for personal and spiritual growth. I'm with you, Deb. It you we get to choose what we think about it. And it's not it's not to say that it should be now, right? It's it's to say I'm the one that gets to choose. I'm the one that gets to choose and I'm the authority on my life.

[00:34:15]Yeah. And I'm not going to tell myself I'm doing it wrong. Okay. Amazing. So, new workshop available for you.

[00:34:23]The phase of grief no one warns us about. You can check that out if that resonates with you. Um, 50 widows forward is there for you if you choose to join one of my programs within the next month or until we get to 50. Uh, oh, I got to answer that last question.

[00:34:37]I see it in the chat. So, Dana, does grief ever end?

[00:34:41]No, it does not end. And the reason it doesn't end is that grief is the natural human response to a perceived loss.

[00:34:48]Okay? Meaning it is an internal experience we have about something that has happened to us. Grief does not end because we will always have a response to the loss. We can't undo the loss.

[00:35:03]None of us can bring them back. So because we can't bring them back, we can't time travel. the loss will always be there, which means we will always have a response to the loss. So to try to get to the end of grief is not a helpful lens. What we want to do instead is we want to try to get to a place where we're choosing our response to the loss in a way that feels good and aligned to us. Because what happens is that when we lose them, when they die, we don't choose our response, right? we we we're just kind of thrust into this emotional roller coaster of an experience.

[00:35:41]But over time, we actually do get to decide what do I want to think about this? What do I want to think about my relationship with them? What do I want to think about their role in my life?

[00:35:53]What do I want to think about who I am now? What do I want to believe about what's possible for me given what I've been through? Right? we're we're looking through and instead of just accepting who knows what was offered to us when they died over time, we're intentionally choosing what we want to think about ourselves and about our lives and what is possible for us and them and how much we cared about them. And so in that way, we're integrating the experience of grief in our lives. We're going from a place of just reacting to it to a place of choosing our response to it. And that's what I think the goal is. And even then, emotions would that we would label as undesirable will still be part of our experience, right? We're never going to get away from secondary losses. There's so many secondary losses in front of all of us that we haven't even experienced yet. Things that we can't anticipate that are going to remind us of their loss that we're going to have emotions around. And that doesn't mean anything other than we're we're humans experiencing grief. So even when we have chosen the way that we want to think about them and and we're thinking about our lives on purpose and creating what it is that we want, we will still have secondary losses. And that's a matter of just supporting ourselves through them, normalizing them when they happen, supporting ourselves through them. Okay?

[00:37:15]So no, it doesn't end. It is not 18 holes of golf and we're done. But that's what the books told us. five stages get to acceptance and somehow we're done and that's what we heard and so that's how we showed up in grief and then now we're realizing oh nope that's not how it goes. So okay thank you all for being here with me today. I love I love these I love spending time with you. You are so welcome. Oh yeah and thank Jamie just put another episode of the podcast called friends with grief. Making friends with grief. You're welcome. All right everybody take care. I love you.

[00:37:48]You got this. I'll see you soon. All right. Bye bye.