Are you part of shaping the 💛 Grief 💛 process?
There is a lack of current research and data around 💛 Grief 💛 and workplace wellbeing. Do you and your organization acknowledge and honor grieving colleagues, family, and friends?
Join me in conversation with Victoria Volk a creative and strategic intuitive guide connecting hurting hearts with their authentic, soulful selves to release suffering and thrive.
Knowledge Bomb
Learning about the many different types of 💛 Grief 💛, like disenfranchised grief. ‘Doka,’ a term that's basically defined as “a loss that cannot be socially sanctioned, openly acknowledged or publicly mourned.”
Our Guest
Victoria Volk of The Unleashed Heart is a creative and strategic intuitive guide who connects hurting hearts with their authentic, soulful selves to release suffering and thrive. She's a self-published author, Adv. Cert. Grief Recovery Specialist®, Creator & Podcast Host of Grieving Voices, Usui and Karuna Reiki Master, YouMap® Cert. Coach and End-of-Life Doula.
Her Aim: to use her strengths and skills through a variety of offerings to help those whose lives have been upended by grief and loss go from surviving to thriving.
Victoria is the podcast host of Grieving Voices.
About the Show
Podcast Host: Life & Leadership: A Conscious Journey with Dr. Michelle St Jane
A podcast for Global and Re-Emerging Leadership creating community/tribe, a circle of influence, transcendency of compassionate leadership in the world and wider universe. A unique destination for learning about Leadership + Conscious Stewardship + Legacy.
⬇️ Listen, Follow, Subscribe and Share ⬇️
Social Media Accounts
Are you part of shaping the 💛 Grief 💛 process?
There is a lack of current research and data around 💛 Grief 💛 and workplace wellbeing. Do you and your organization acknowledge and honor grieving colleagues, family, and friends?
Join me in conversation with Victoria Volk a creative and strategic intuitive guide connecting hurting hearts with their authentic, soulful selves to release suffering and thrive.
Knowledge Bomb
Learning about the many different types of 💛 Grief 💛, like disenfranchised grief. ‘Doka,’ a term that's basically defined as “a loss that cannot be socially sanctioned, openly acknowledged or publicly mourned.”
Our Guest
Victoria Volk of The Unleashed Heart is a creative and strategic intuitive guide who connects hurting hearts with their authentic, soulful selves to release suffering and thrive. She's a self-published author, Adv. Cert. Grief Recovery Specialist®, Creator & Podcast Host of Grieving Voices, Usui and Karuna Reiki Master, YouMap® Cert. Coach and End-of-Life Doula.
Her Aim: to use her strengths and skills through a variety of offerings to help those whose lives have been upended by grief and loss go from surviving to thriving.
Victoria is the podcast host of Grieving Voices.
About the Show
Podcast Host: Life & Leadership: A Conscious Journey with Dr. Michelle St Jane
A podcast for Global and Re-Emerging Leadership creating community/tribe, a circle of influence, transcendency of compassionate leadership in the world and wider universe. A unique destination for learning about Leadership + Conscious Stewardship + Legacy.
⬇️ Listen, Follow, Subscribe and Share ⬇️
Social Media Accounts
Intro: You're listening to Life and Leadership: A Conscious Journey. The podcast that shares wisdom and strength. Join your host, Dr. Michelle St Jane's weekly conversation on how to have a positive impact for people, the planet, and the wider world. If you want to live a life of intention, to be proactive with your time, and bring your vision for the future to live one today at a time, you’re in the right place at the right time. Let's get started.
Michelle St Jane: [00:00:00] 💛Grief💛 is widely recognized as one of the most painful, universal experiences and has profound impacts on us. Its uniqueness lies in the vast range and presentation of grief manifesting through emotional, cognitive, behavioral, spiritual, and physical symptomatology.
Grief can be manifested in many ways.
💥 Physically, it's regarded as a particular facet of the grieving process and it's so often overlooked.
💥 Emotionally this can also include positive emotions, cognitively, spiritually, individually.
Certain losses can be profound. The varieties of 💛Grief💛 are many. It could start at
💥 diagnosis,
💥 caregiving through palliative care and bereavement,
💥 sudden loss of a child, parent, loved one, and
💥 grief isn't just about death.
Transitions inevitably can lead to loss or secondary loss and anticipatory grief.
💔Think romance rejection, divorce, estrangement disasters, ❤️🩹pet loss, a definitely disenfranchised and undervalued grief, and with that one, there are also the implications of mental health.
🩹You can be isolated in your brief moment.
🩹Reactions are often complicated.
There is 🕊️hope.
🕊️Hope of better days ahead.
We're going to talk with Victoria Volk, certified grief recovery method, specialists, and end of life doula, Reiki master, writer, and podcaster of the Unleashed Heart.
Let's see how to change the conversation around grief.
Why it's exhausting?
Why it depletes ambition, selfcare priorities, and the emotional strength to live a fulfilling joy-filled life.
Victoria,
🙋Why is grief important?
🙋Why should people pay attention to this?
🙋What are your thoughts?
Victoria Volk: [00:01:44] Grief is everywhere, it gets stuck in our bodies, and it impacts every area of our life.
It ripples into every aspect of our lives. But we often don't connect the dots of what is happening in our lives to grief. That's why I am really passionate about the education around grief to help people connect the dots for themselves.
Michelle St Jane: [00:02:06] Excellent. Let's just move it into the corporate space.
Why should corporates pay attention here?
Victoria Volk: [00:02:12] Every individual will, or has experienced grief, and inevitably that is going to cost that business.
We are less productive.
We have a hard time focusing and concentrating.
When we feel emotional dis-ease within our bodies:
We bring it to our work.
We bring it to our families.
We bring it to our workplace.
Relationships might struggle, especially coworker relationships. When you don't know what to say, there are misunderstandings. Depending on the environment of the workplace, I'm not saying that all workplaces get this wrong.
I think with COVID, there's been much more progress being made, especially around grief. With many companies having their employees move remotely, and the impact that's had on mental health.
I think that it is very important for the reasons I just stated, it also as a whole cost our economy.
The Grief Recovery Institute Educational Foundation did a grief index study in 2002, which found that grief costs US companies more than $75 billion annually. The current update is more reflective where it's going to a $100 billion.
I would even say after COVID, that's probably even higher. We get increased errors and accidents due to reduced concentration and focus.
Think of workplace claims:
Have they spiked?
Here's the thing too, like with COVID, we've seen an increase in suicide rates. Many people who complete suicide have jobs, leaving employers having to train new people. They're losing quality workers due to the mental health crisis within their companies. You have to look at the whole person, not just the employee, they're not just a number.
Michelle St Jane: [00:04:35] That employee is on a team, leading a team or leading a project, had diverse relationships within the work world.
All of those people in the inner and outer circles will experience some form of grief knowingly or unknowingly.
Victoria Volk: [00:04:52] Americans mourn the death of 2.4 million loved ones each year. That's a 2002 statistic. There's a lot of grievers out there, a lot of employees and leaders out there who have experienced grief. It is a social and economic issue
Michelle St Jane: [00:05:07] Given that data is almost 20 years old. Do you have any thoughts around why this is not updated? I mean, just consider the human factor. Not to mention the complexity, their influence and impact in the world. You think this would is a really hot trend to research
Victoria Volk: [00:05:26] I did do a little researching before we recorded today, looking for something updated. The Grief Recovery Institute Educational Foundation, that's the last time they did this grief index study. I do believe they are in the works of doing this again. It's just, the study has not been published. Don't quote me on that. I believe that's the case. But I could not find anything when I put in “grief index”. I could not find anything concrete or more recent. If those were the numbers, then just imagine what they are now.
Michelle St Jane: [00:05:57] Absolutely. The latest I saw was 2018. Already three years out of date, and if the world's database is upgrading every two years or less, we're severely out of date on this topic. That's having an exponential impact on people, places, and organizations. It touches everything.
Let me inquire, what led you into this area?
Victoria Volk: [00:06:26] My own story. My deep desire to help others. That's really at the crux of it. I really wanted to help other people. I just didn't know in what capacity or how. Empathy is my number one strength.
I tried a bunch of different things over the years. I just did not know where I fit. Where could I utilize all my strengths and my skills?
It wasn't until I had another loss that opened up my old wounds. I realized I wasn't okay when I thought I was, because many people who are grievers think, “I got it.
I'm fine. I'm good.” We think we've dealt with it and that was me for many years.
I did a Google search, found the grief recovery method, and decided, this is it. I need this, and this is how I'm going to help others.
Michelle St Jane: [00:07:13] I'm grateful you're a way-shower in this space.
We actually synchronized somewhat on how grief and trauma have flipped our lives for over 30 years. There's no timeline on moving from surviving to thriving. Certainly, there is much room for much needed help.
You're in the helping profession. ⏱️Is there a timeline?
How do you make progress?
Victoria Volk: [00:07:35] It's when you choose. When you're willing and open and ready. The people who find me, choose to invest in themselves, to do the work. They're obviously ready and open.
I've had clients who I've worked on who have been many years out of their grief. The beautiful thing about grief recovery is that you can work on relationships with people who are living, which often causes us the most grief.
I've had clients work on those types of relationships. I've had clients that have experienced a loss as recent as three months ago. There is no timeline to when it's too soon or when it’s too late.
💔 My plea for hurting hearts is that it doesn't need to take 30 years. People might say, “well, I don't have to dig up the past, I'm maybe five years out.”
Whatever that timeline is, or however far out you might feel like you're okay, “I'm fine. I got this.” If you are:
💔 not able to talk about that person and not break down,
💔if you are not able to talk about that person and not be pulled back to the negative emotions, maybe the resentment or the anger or the bitterness that you're holding onto, that hits you when you least expect it.
That's a sign that you are emotionally incomplete with that relationship. That you might want to consider doing a program like grief recovery.
This is a timeline action-based program. When you start online with me, it's seven weeks, start to finish. There's a bookend to this, you know that at the end of seven weeks, you're going to have results of some sort. You might have been suffering for three months or you might've been suffering for 30 years like me. You're suffering anyway.
You might as well suffer and move forward. This is not easy work to do. It's not easy. It's not any harder than losing your loved one. There can be nothing harder than that. The hard things already happened.
Michelle St Jane: [00:09:31] Exactly. I’ve noticed you've mentioned there are 40 plus losses we can experience. We can all think of the typical current, socially accepted ones, but what would be two or three losses that people would not expect to be on that list?
Victoria Volk: [00:09:55] Loss of a dream? Those intangible losses. Things that it's maybe hard to even put into words. If you think of grief, it is actually the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations, and it's anything you wish that would have been different, better, or more. That encompasses a lot of life experiences.
Your house burns down, you lose everything. That's a grieving experience. You have to rebuild. You might have to move to a new neighborhood. You might lose those neighbors as friends. That's the ripples, right? That's the ripples of that experience.
You might have to move to a new job then you're out of the area now. The house you found is maybe an hour and a half away. So now you're starting a new job too. That's the ripples. Those are the intangible things that we often experience that we don't identify really as a grief experience.
Michelle St Jane: [00:10:32] Absolutely. I appreciate your words of wisdom. Grief isn't just about death. Grief encompasses, it needs powerful healing, energy, and opportunities to work through it, and also provide body support. The body remembers. I've heard you say that, and more importantly, sometimes the world around you doesn't.
Society doesn't. I'm going to quote my favorite grief author, which is Martha Whitmore, Hickman. “Somehow we feel there should stop spinning and acknowledge our grief” and it doesn't happen. Either people are like, get over it or people are like, that's not that important to them.
You're an author yourself. Victoria?
Victoria Volk: [00:11:19] My book is The Guided Heart. It's the Guided Heart moving through grief and finding spiritual solace. It's my story. It's my experience and I published that in 2017. What you mentioned is very important. People in grief feel like they don't have a choice and they feel very isolated. That's why the graphic art for my podcast is me sitting on an island with a megaphone because you feel like you're screaming to the world. You're sitting on an island and you're screaming to the world, no one because you feel so isolated and no one's listening.
That's one of the myths of grief is to grieve alone. That's one of the things that we are taught early on because of society, as a whole. It is really uncomfortable with the topic.
Michelle St Jane: [00:12:18] Absolutely. Also, you, yourself could be very uncomfortable with the topic. I certainly found out for myself when I was widowed at 27. I masked my grief. I delayed grieving. I had three small children.
I didn't have the capacity to grieve. I was busy working out how we would survive and move on and keep these children safe and navigate being a widow. None of my peers or people who had experienced it outside of my mother-in-law and my own mother, both of whom were fairly newly widowed themselves.
Even if people are experiencing grief:
They may not be the people to help you mend your broken heart, mend your broken bonds. They may not be the people that can help you in the process which can be a bit like a rollercoaster, evolving, sort of redefining yourself and making meaning.
Sometimes there is not a place to make meaning or the time to do all that.
What were your first steps out of your best self-recovery?
Victoria Volk: [00:12:35] Really that was just two years ago. I feel like that was my birthday. it really felt like I was renewed. I was made whole in a way that nothing else had ever worked. It's not that I walked away and everything's great and awesome now. I still have that sadness. There's still sadness there that doesn't go away. I'm doing this work not to condone or to forget, or any of that. It's really to heal that heartbrokenness that you have that is keeping you in the past. Ruminating in that story, stewing in that story.
For many people feel like a victim of their own grief, to the experience, and depending on what caused that grief, if it was abuse of any kind, that's really difficult to get beyond that, but it is possible.
Michelle St Jane: [00:14:06] Absolutely. Some grief does not have a resolution or definitive endpoint.
It could be an enduring grief that can become disenfranchised over time. The examples I'm thinking about here are like children from a dysfunctional family who grow into adults, until they find a program to support that they don't know why they feel so isolated and disconnected.
It could be migrants. We're a very mobile world where you leave your place of origin and you return, but you return differently and may not be accepted.
Another example can be families with family members with disabilities. There is a veritable plethora of things that can happen.
I know for me, it's worthy of noting this because there's this heightened depression, incidences and numbers of these people experiencing some type of disenfranchised grief. So, waking up to it, becoming conscious on your journey, knowing you can address it. I'm really grateful you're in the space.
I can name a couple of others you can add on. There can be these intensified reactions, lack of support. The usual societal support may not be there. Actually, I should define disenfranchised grief, which please feel free to correct me, it’s by ‘Doka,’ a term that's basically defined as “a loss that cannot be socially sanctioned, openly acknowledged or publicly mourned.”
Another example that comes to mind is pet loss. Pets can very much be my companion. Be it a fish or a cat or a different species.
Again, that's important. People closely bond with their companion pets. They bring them meaning, wellbeing and security. Sometimes they fulfill a family member's role. What would you add to that?
Victoria Volk: [00:15:41] Well, the other thing I'd like to add on to the pet grief is that they become part of our routine, our daily routine.
When there's an end of, or a change of that routine, of a familiar pattern of behavior, that's grief, that's grief too. In my opinion, whether it's just disenfranchised or whatever other labels are used, to me grief is grief. We don't need the labels, the labels, in fact, probably box people in. I think labels create this self-identity that people lean into and live into then. In a way I think that these labels can be more harmful than anything. It's just grief. Grief is grief
Michelle St Jane: [00:16:19] I totally agree with you. I'm going to drop one in a label, even though for me, labeling certainly can be disabling. Note: I'm not encouraging people to take these labels, but to consider these labels into opening their minds. The other label that I'm very aware of is, devalue deaths, like the very old. A good friend of mine died at the very beginning of covid. She was in her very late nineties and had gone into assisted care.
I didn't get the chance to see her when I returned home, and lots of people said to me, she had a good life, she was old. That didn't make me feel very good.
The other example would be people with disabilities. Again, there can be burdens surrounding caregiving for people who are sick or disabled or very old, but they are also important in our lives.
Although you may feel that way, it may not be appropriate to share your thoughts with someone and deepen their grief.
I'd like to move on to ways of grieving. I don't think they're exclusive or exhausted. They can be very individual. Can you just touch on that from your experience?
Victoria Volk: [00:17:22] Overall we all grieve in our own way. We grieve depending on our origins and what we've learned, the beliefs that we've taken on as children and these truths that have been projected onto us, we take that in as our own, and that impacts how we address or deal with grief or view grief altogether.
Generally, we either implode or we explode when it comes to grief. If we think of ourselves as a tea kettle because grief is cumulative and it's cumulatively negative and stacks up, just think of yourself wearing this backpack of rocks. Every rock is a loss in your life or a grieving experience.
There's only so much the human spirit can take. And every person is different as to when that will occur. and for me, I had one more loss that took me over the edge and that took me 30 years to get to, to make me realize. Then I did some introspection, did some reflection, and realized that I've had this pattern of behavior that was repeating itself. It was because of the grief I had not addressed.
It changed over time because I was a child. I became a teenager. I became a young adult. I became a parent, so that changed over time what that looked like.
How that manifested in my life. As a teen, I was very angry. I did not act out. I was more of a shy wallflower.
I was very angry. I internalized that anger. I went through periods of not eating and then trying to make myself throw up. I had a hard time connecting. I really took things personally in my relationships.
Trust was a huge issue for me early on since a child, and if you betrayed my trust or betrayed that trust, that value, I held so dearly. I internalized that. Moving into young adulthood, it was alcohol. We resort to behaviors and things to help us feel better and if we don't do that, then that energy, that grief energy is in us.
That's where later in life I started to experience physical symptoms. My hair was falling out. I had overall body aches that were unexplained. I almost went so far as to having a bone biopsy because there was just so much happening there. Just didn't know what was causing it. I dropped a bunch of weight in a short amount of time. it was the physical stress I was under, which was stemming from my emotional state. We just don't connect it to grief when these things happen. It does, it changes over time. Initially, you might be a person who needs to talk about it a lot.
It feels better when you talk about it, but then as people start to say things that are hurtful or harmful. You find yourself quieting yourself. Not talking about it. You'd rather not talk about it. You'd rather not go out in public because people don't know what to say, or they're asking you things that you'd rather not talk about. You don't know how to address that.
Overall, I think there are similarities. Yet there are differences. I hope that's making sense. But it just really depends on how you were raised to address it.
There are people I have met who grew up in a richly communicative home that talked about grief. They talked about death. They talked about issues in the world. There was nothing hidden. There was no topic that was off-topic, or not addressed. Very open communication within the family unit. That person is very much likely going to address their grief differently than somebody else.
They might internalize it though. They might keep themselves busy with work, or exercise. People shop, people gamble, people have addictions of certain things, Maybe have relationship after relationship after relationship that is unhealthy or ends in not a good way, or just choosing partners that are not healthy or good for you.
Michelle St Jane: [00:21:18] Absolutely. Grief can turn into chronic sorrow. In my thoughts, I wonder how much chronic sorrow is behind some of the deepest addictions and health concerns because the body does speak. Chronic sorrow can be this profound, continuing, recovering, reoccurring grief response.
I can speak to my experience being widowed in my twenties, a workaholic in my thirties and forties. Ever so busy.
I didn't really have time to process that my body would stop me once a year around the week my husband died. It took me decades to figure this out. Every year on the anniversary of his death, from the time he went into a coma, until the time we buried him, it was over a few days. My body would shut down. Literally, I would feel like I had the flu. I couldn't think.
When I was working in an executive role, I started booking vacations for that time. I did all sorts of things. I went to a spa, went to a retreat, sat on the beach, stayed in bed. I tried everything. What was wrong with me?
When I finally connected the dots and realized it was around the anniversary of his death.
A close friend said to me, get over it. It’s been 25 years, just get over it. Bless their heart, their response led me to try art therapy, and then I started to process more deeply. That was where I came across my favorite author Martha Whitmore Hickman and got her book of 💛Grief💛 readings as a touchpoint every day.
📚 HealingAfterLoss: DailyMeditationsforWorkingThroughGrief (1994)
What I was trying to do was move it off one week and the death anniversary, to every day doing a daily reading around grief, just touching on it, words of support, feeling feelings just every day for a few minutes, I would read a reading, so that I would check-in, as opposed to just crushing it all down until it all exploded out for those few days.
I was a parent, I was traveling. It got so that I couldn't dare book any business trips around that week, which is hard to do. You don't always have control of your travel schedule. It will certainly come up and, what I realized was I had to work through the process of relinquishing the bond that I was maintaining with my husband who'd passed. It was very complicated and there was this social blaming around whether I'd caused his death, which I hadn't. You'd never know what other issues are going to arrive in your lap at the time, at some of the darkest times of your life.
You got to go and grow through it.
Victoria Volk: [00:23:34] Absolutely. I agree with that.
Michelle St Jane: [00:23:38] I'd like to just touch on public mourning. This is sort of an area that always takes me by surprise how national or international events can just call everyone to the fore. Do you have anything to add to the public mourning?
Victoria Volk: [00:23:51] Oh, man, that's a loaded question, to be honest.
Michelle St Jane: [00:23:57] What are the next best steps? What would you do if you feel suddenly being engrossed in hurricanes or catastrophes? What do you do?
Victoria Volk: [00:24:06] That's actually kind of where I was going to, is that it's almost as if like the news perpetuates this addiction to suffering, because not only do we have our own personal experiences happening, but then we're also seeing all of this disaster and upheaval and terrible atrocities happening to people.
On top of ancestral generational trauma that is coming up for people individually and as a collective, it's so much, it's so heavy. How do you feel after watching stuff like that? You don't feel better about yourself unless you are so devoid of your grief that you can walk away and it's not affecting you.
I think too, we become almost desensitized to other people's experiences when we're exposed to it in such a grotesque way, to be honest. I do believe in journalism. I do believe in exposing the truth. It's very important that we understand what is happening. I just feel like all this bad news is just bad news for our psyche.
I think it perpetuates this idea that we are just here to suffer. I think it's disempowering of people. Some people might feel better when they see this stuff too. Well, I guess my life isn't so bad. People can see silver linings in seeing all of this stuff on TV and all of that, but I think in order for the world to move forward and move beyond the pain and the suffering of what's happening in the world all over it is just individually up to each and every one of us to sweep our own doorstep.
To take care of our own hearts. You have a broken arm, you go to the doctor, you have migraines, you go to the doctor, but we don't go to support or help when we have a broken heart. It's so difficult for people to ask for help for their broken hearts. I'm telling you; you address that. Other symptoms, physical things that are happening.
This chaos that's probably going on around you and your life gets less and less, and you start showing up for yourself and for others as your best self. The more that you work on that, the more your home, your community, your neighborhood. your state, your country, the world, it's the ripples, those ripples of grief, but there's also ripples of healing.
I think that's where we are missing the mark. We are disempowering people to believe that this life is just about suffering and that there is just nothing you can do about it.
Michelle St Jane: [00:26:40] Victoria, if you’re not the person grieving, but you're in the circle of a person grieving. What would be your top three suggestions for your best self?
Victoria Volk: [00:26:53] I think to educate yourself. First of all, listen to my podcast of other grievers who share their stories and who share their wisdom. Read books, the grief recovery handbook is a wonderful place to start to learn about grief, address your own doorstep, like I said, ask the person how you can support them.
Don't assume.
Really pause before your project, what you think a person needs, is thinking, wants, anything like that.
The best thing you can do is just ask them.
I want to support you.
I don't know-how.
Please share that with me how can I support you?
Michelle St Jane: [00:27:26] Great wisdom.
I know when I was widowed, there were so many people around me for the first week to 10 days, and then suddenly there was this deafening silence.
One suggestion I would add to that is to diary to turn up at two weeks. Diary to turn up at one month. Diary to check in around Christmas or any sort of anniversaries, birthdays, it goes deathly silent and it's a very sad place to be when you're surrounded by people, and no one checks in. Be mindful that you may not be one and done in the first month.
Victoria, go ahead.
Victoria Volk: [00:28:03] Yeah. I just want to say that this happened to me. I think about, I'm thinking about somebody. If you have a thought that just comes into your mind let’s, say someone when you were going through what your experience was, you know, and you were grieving and you were a mother, a young mother at that, and you said how the first two weeks, it kind of dropped off. If three months later, six months later of no contact with your friend or acquaintance, if you’re thinking about them, reach out, just reach out. So often I think we over-complicate it first of all, but secondly, it happens to me where I'm thinking about someone, and I don't act on it. I have become more mindful of that. if I'm thinking about you, there's probably a reason, it's that intuitive. I wonder how Michelle is doing today, I should ask her, but then you get busy. You know what I mean? Your Life is distracting, and we get wrapped up in our own lives and what's happening with us, but I think if we can just respond to those intuitive hits that we get when we're thinking about other people to just act on them.
Michelle St Jane: [00:28:59] Brilliant. So please share about your services. And if listeners need help in this area, how could you help?
Victoria Volk: [00:29:04] I actually specialize in helping people become emotionally whole who have experienced grief and loss in childhood because that's near and dear to my heart of course. I also have my podcast Grieving Voices and my website is the Unleashed Heart where I have services for Reiki. I offer Reiki, energy healing as well.
Umap, I’m a Umap certified coach where I'm actually just fleshing this out right now, but incorporating that into grief recovery into the point you actually mentioned earlier is, how do we grieve? I think, especially when we are co grieving with others in our household, there's this miscommunication of I'm grieving this way, you're grieving that way and your way is wrong and you should be doing this. With spouses, let's say the husband for example is out tending the yard and the garden and it's this repetitive, not because the grass needs it or the lawn needs it or whatever, that's just how they're coping.
I, as a spouse, might feel that you're not really dealing with this. You're just doing these other things, but in reality, that could just be how they're wired. I'm really interested in incorporating the UMap. Kristen Sherri, the founder of UMap has said the more you know yourself, the less you look to other people to tell you who you are.
That is so imperative when it comes to grief because if we can understand what we're doing, why we're doing it, we can also then look at other people with compassion that they are just different. They're not me. They're grieving differently than me.
Michelle St Jane: [00:30:35] We'll put links to everything in the show notes to make sure people can reach out to you. So yeah, wrapping up any last words, Victoria?
Victoria Volk: [00:30:42] Never lose hope. There's always hope. Just never lose hope.
Outro: Dr. Michelle St Jane is a conscious steward of meaningful leadership in the world and the wider cosmos. Tune in every Thursday for real talk around life, leadership, and your conscious journey. Be ready to create and cultivate your dreams and wholehearted desires. Your support is valued. Please follow, subscribe, leave a review and a rating. More importantly, share with your connections.
Reach out. I am interested to hear from you. Do you have a topic you'd like to explore? It would be great to have your feedback.
Dr. Michelle St Jane
Podcast Host: Life & Leadership: A Conscious Journey
Let’s Get Social