When Grief Takes Everything: Vanessa May on Surviving Compounded Loss | EP 474

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Close your eyes and imagine.
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What if the things in life that cause us the greatest pain, the things that bring us grief, are challenges.
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Challenges designed to help us grow to ultimately become what we were always meant to be.
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We feel like we've been buried, but what if, like a seed, we've been planted?
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And having been planted, we grow to become a mighty tree.
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Now, open your eyes.
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Open your eyes to this way of viewing life.
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Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature.
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This is Grief to Growth, and I am your host, Brian Smith.
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Hi everyone, I'm Brian Smith, your host, so I want to welcome you to Grief to Growth.
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And whether this is your first time joining us or you've been walking this path with me for a while, I am truly grateful you're here.
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This podcast exists to help you navigate life's toughest challenges and explore the big questions, like who we are, why are we here, where do we come from, and where are we going.
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Today, I'm honored to welcome back to Vanessa May to the show.
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You may remember Vanessa from episode 255 a couple of years ago, recording this in late 2025.
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And in that first episode, she shared the heartbreaking story of losing her beloved son, Harry.
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Well, since then, she's continued on her journey as a holistic grief coach, a certified grief educator, a nutritional therapist, a well-being coach, and a spiritual life coach, helping others move through unimaginable loss with honesty, depth, and compassion.
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She's also the author of three impactful books, including her most recent release, When Grief Takes Everything, A Survival Guide to Devastating Loss.
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This powerful book begins where her last book, Love and Tether, left off, navigating life not only after the loss of her son, but also the shocking success of deaths of her husband and her father during the COVID pandemic.
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So when we recorded the first episode, we didn't talk about the loss of her father and her husband.
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It was really still, frankly, very fresh to her, and we were focusing on her first book.
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So we'll talk about that some today as well.
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In this episode, Vanessa opens up about how profound and layered grief affects us emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
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We'll explore the impact of trauma on the body, including her own cancer diagnosis, which came 18 months after losing Harry, and how grief can manifest an illness.
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She also shares how she's done healing through writing, her spiritual beliefs, and the continuing bonds she maintains with Harry and Anthony, who she feels around her daily.
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We'll discuss how grief and soul growth are intertwined, why she believes we're an earth school for powerful lessons, and how the intersection of grief and spirituality can offer hope, even in her darkest hours.
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She also introduces us to six other women featured in her new book, each of whom had survived devastating loss and emerged with insight and strength.
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Vanessa's lived experience and her refusal to offer toxic positivity or surface-level comfort makes her voice one that so many people deeply resonate with.
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So if you've ever wanted to understand how someone survives the worst and continues to grow through it, this conversation is for you.
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And as always, I invite you to join the conversation over at grief2growth.substack.com, where I've written an article to accompany this episode where you can share your thoughts, leave comments, and connect with me and other listeners who are walking the same road.
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So with that, let's get into this conversation with Vanessa May.
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Hi, Vanessa.
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Welcome back.
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Hi, Brian.
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It's lovely to see you again.
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Yeah, it's great to see you, too.
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Thanks for being here.
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As I mentioned, we spoke a couple years ago.
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It was after we talked about the passing of your son.
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So for people who haven't heard that episode yet, start off, tell us about Harry.
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So Harry was 24 when he died.
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He was an amazing young man, as they all are, who die early.
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They just seem to be somebody who is quite special, each and every one of them.
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That seems to be my experience, because working as a holistic grief coach now, I work with a lot of bereaved parents, and all their children have something special about them.
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And Harry was definitely one of those, and he left an impact on everyone.
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He left behind.
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And, yeah, I mean, I always say he was my first child, and he changed my life when he came into my world, and he changed again when he left.
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And I was, like all bereaved parents, completely devastated by his loss.
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And just to bring in my husband, he was also devastated, but was amazing in supporting me.
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He sort of, we were married for 30 years, and he really, you know, because a long marriage, you have your ups and downs.
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And in those last two years of his life, after Harry passed away, he really grew, I would say, and he was an incredible partner to me in a way that Harry's loss changed him, and he stepped up for me, and that's something I really, really treasure.
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But just going back, yes, to Harry.
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So after we lost him, I really struggled with making sense of why, though I very quickly knew that he was still around me, and I just had to find him.
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And so I did, like lots of us, start exploring the spiritual aspect of the afterlife.
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I found Helping Parents Heal, your podcast.
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And one of the things that helped me process my grief was writing, and that took the form of my first book, Love Untethered, How to Live When Your Child Dies, and it was the best therapy for me.
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And we spoke last time in our last chat about therapists and how the spiritual aspect is often missing with grief counselling, and I definitely found that.
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So writing for me really helped enormously.
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Then we went into the pandemic, and that was very weird for people who had recently lost someone, or particularly a child, because already you feel quite isolated, and then the world arounds you panicking, and you're kind of going, yeah, we've been through the worst.
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This doesn't really make much difference to us.
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Of course, it did in many ways.
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And I was much more concerned about my elderly mum and her not getting ill.
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Also in that time, I got a cancer diagnosis, which maybe we'll come back to if we talk about the physical aspects of grief, which I'm quite hot on.
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But yeah, so my husband was amazing, and he was incredibly supportive, and he was my rock, and we lent on each other and we helped each other through.
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And then he and I and my daughter all went down with COVID, and we all had different versions of it, it felt like.
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My daughter being younger wasn't so affected.
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I had it pretty badly, but my husband really, really took it badly to the point where he had to go to hospital.
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And then he was released, he came home, and he got ill again, and he had to go back in.
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And of course, it was a time when I was ill anyway, so they wouldn't let anyone who had COVID into a hospital.
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But anyway, you just couldn't go on a COVID ward.
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So he was sort of, it was the most horrible feeling.
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I felt so ill.
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At one point, I thought I might be going, and I thought I might die from this.
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Little did I know, because I thought my husband was in there and he'd get well.
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So we had to communicate over WhatsApp.
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That was the only way we could communicate.
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And he was in there for two and a half weeks.
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I never, ever thought that he wouldn't get better.
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And then, and I was constantly trying to talk to the doctors, trying to, it was like walking through treacle, trying to just get myself well, to communicate with a hospital, not being able to see him.
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And then we got the call that he wasn't going to make it.
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And they said, you can come in and say goodbye.
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Because at that stage of the pandemic, they were letting relatives say goodbye.
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Meanwhile, whilst it was literally, as we got ill, the day before we got ill, my dad had died.
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Oh, wow.
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I couldn't go to his funeral because I had COVID.
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I write about all this in When Grief Takes Everything, but it is quite, it felt so unreal.
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I'm sure.
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And, you know, we think, particularly if we've had a terrible, terrible loss of a child, we think, well, nothing, but, you know, lightning, people would say lightning doesn't strike twice.
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And I'm here to say, sadly for some of us, it does.
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And, but I was very much in survival mode because I was, I was ill myself.
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So I was physically on the back foot.
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I was still grieving Harry.
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I still had a diagnosis of PTSD.
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So I had all that to contend with.
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My dad's just died.
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And then I called and we had to wear all this PPE equipment, you know, and we had to wear gowns, masks, hairnet, gloves.
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All that was going, I don't know what it was like in the States, but that's what we were doing over here.
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And I had to go in and say goodbye with my daughter.
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And it was absolutely unbearable and unbelievable.
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But what I will say is that I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to Harry.
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So I was very conscious that I could now say goodbye.
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And I could say, I could thank him for being there for me and how amazing he was in looking after me.
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And so it did feel like a privilege to hand him over to Harry.
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And that's what I knew was going to happen.
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And I felt very jealous because he was going to be reunited with Harry.
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And I was going to be left behind.
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So we got to say everything we wanted to say.
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I got to say, you know, yeah, I mean, it's a long time to be married.
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And I didn't have much adult life before I met him.
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So it felt like it was enormous.
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And again, it was, I was blindsided really in a different way this time.
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So yeah, that's.
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Yeah.
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You know, and your book is titled appropriately when Grief takes everything because I imagine that's how you felt.
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Yeah.
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And as you said, you know, people say, well, lightning can't strike twice.
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And I, you know, my daughter's passed away.
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So I know that.
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But then, you know, you think like, well, I've had my bad thing, right?
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I should be, I should be good for a while.
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She didn't have to go through anything else right now.
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Exactly.
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And I think when I got cancer, I was just like, well, that's not fair.
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Right.
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Right.
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But that felt like nothing compared to losing Harry.
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And it also paled compared to losing my husband.
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And we were so unprepared.
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And the difference between losing a child and losing your husband is that when your partner dies, and if they're not really prepared, you don't, you know, we had, I mean, he just left everything to me.
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So, but aside from that, the practicalities of what you have to do.
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And because of those two years where he'd sort of taken over everything while I fell apart, he, so I didn't even know who we paid, you know, our bills to, who the car insurance was with, when this was due, when that was due, the practicalities were enormous.
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And I was recovering from Covid.
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It was absolutely huge.
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There's the whole, if any, you know, widows and widows are listening and it's not, you're not prepared and you don't think it's coming.
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There's an awful lot of what they call sad men, where it's just admin.
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You know, you've got to do their tax returns.
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You've got to, it was more complex in that aspect than it was for Harry.
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But whatever, you know, was had to be sorted for Harry.
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Anthony had done for both of us.
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So now it was just down to me.
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So it was, it was a lot.
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But I do feel, you know, he probably died of a broken heart.
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That's what I think.
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Not all bereaved parents obviously do.
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We're still here.
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But I think a lot of bereaved parents, the body keeps the score.
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And I think, yeah, and they say the lungs are, in Chinese medicine, are the organ of grief.
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And of course, Covid affects the lungs.
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So, you know, because of my, the way I look at health holistically, that's how I sort of, I thought, well, my cancer was the trauma that I had at a cellular level, done some damage in my body and with my husband.
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Yeah.
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That makes absolute sense.
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And I, there is a thing, the broken heart syndrome, and it doesn't necessarily just affect a heart.
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I love what you said about the trauma goes into the body.
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I was telling you, I think before we started recording, I have a good friend who just passed away suddenly in April.
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And of a heart attack and, you know, was with his wife at the hospital, I was driving her home and she said, my chest hurts.
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And I was like, well, yeah, you know, of course, because you're going through this traumatic thing.
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Turns out she had a heart attack the same day that her husband did.
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She survived it and she's fine and recovered now.
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But, you know, that trauma can affect us in different ways.
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And I've talked to other parents who have lost children.
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And then one or the other parent will die, you know, not too long afterwards from, you know, something like, you know, like you said, the grief can affect our lungs even.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, you're absolutely right.
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And in the book, I mean, I've got, okay, I don't know if I can quickly find it, but I write an awful lot about, because I did lots of, I'm not going to be able to find it, but lots of research into, you know, the statistics of how, and particularly widows actually, it's something, I'm not remembering it correctly probably, but it's something like 55% increase in having a heart attack after you've lost your partner, obviously bereaved parents as well, and broken heart syndrome being, you know, a real thing.
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So it is extraordinary.
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And I think it's extraordinary because most people don't really realise how grief affects us and how trauma, because it's also the trauma and the shock as well.
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But because you and I have this spiritual belief, we also probably believe that you don't go until it's your time anyway.
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So we sort of have to factor that in.
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Yes, grief does things to your body, but I'm still standing and my husband isn't.
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So there is some kind of sole path that we're perhaps not fully, you know, knowing at this stage as to, I've still got things to do and that's why I've stayed.
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I don't know.
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But even though on a practical level and a scientific level, can look at what trauma and grief does to the body and there's science and statistics about it, I also look at it from the spiritual perspective, which is like, well, you know, you don't go unless it's your time.
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I don't think.
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I truly believe that also.
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And I also believe all these emotions, these feelings that enter the body that, I love this word I heard the other day, I can't remember, I can't remember to give credit to, but they said we have to metabolise our emotions.
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And I really like that image of those emotions, the pain, the anger, the fear, the guilt, all those things that come.
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So we have to face them and we can metabolise them.
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We can dissolve them, we can transform them.
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So we can let them stay in the body and they can take us down or we can do what you have done and take that and transform it.
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And now you're out, you know, helping others.
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And as you said, you're still standing.
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And I'm also a true believer that we go when it's our time.
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And I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I know I've talked to a lot of parents when a child passes, I wanted to go with my daughter.
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I was like, I'm ready to go.
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So I've heard so many parents say that.
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Definitely.
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And honestly, I really felt jealous that my husband was going to be with my son.
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Sure.
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I have a daughter, so I had a reason to stay.
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But sometimes the logic of that doesn't come into it.
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You just have a sort of need to go with them.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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But we're not meant to for whatever reason.
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But I did feel very real jealousy that he was going and I wasn't.
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And he was out of pain.
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Yeah.
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Out of suffering because I thought you've only grieved for two years.
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Yeah.
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I'm now grieving for both of you.
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Yeah.
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And my dad, you know, my dad was elderly, which is why it's not quite the same.
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You know, it's still a loss upon a loss upon a loss and very close together.
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Yeah.
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So in terms of that loss upon a loss upon a loss, because the thing about grief is, you know, it is, it is exhausting.
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We have to really, we have to work to process through it.
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I can only imagine that you're, you're still grieving your son at this point.
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I mean, you're still, that's, that's still early grief.
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I call it.
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Yeah.
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Two years.
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That's still early.
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How did you handle, you know, now Anthony is going and now you're, you're dealing with both of these things at the same time.
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I don't know.
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You can read the book and you'll find out.
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I mean, I literally, because I, I sometimes I, I, as I was editing it, I looked, I was thinking, I can't believe I, I can't believe I've survived this.
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As I say, there was a lot of practical things that all fell on me to do.
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So you get caught up when you lose a partner in the practicalities of what you have to do.
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So that slightly delays your grief.
00:22:46.269 --> 00:22:52.209
But of course it's, and financially, you know, that I had to go back to work.
00:22:52.269 --> 00:22:53.229
I was now a widow.
00:22:54.250 --> 00:22:59.469
So after Harry died, you know, I, I stopped working for not for 10 months, I think.
00:22:59.829 --> 00:23:01.229
Whereas I was like, I have no choice.
00:23:01.309 --> 00:23:02.449
I have to go back to work.
00:23:02.789 --> 00:23:05.250
So that was enormous as well.
00:23:05.250 --> 00:23:12.429
And I literally would drag myself out of bed and have to just pretend and focus on something else.
00:23:12.549 --> 00:23:14.490
And in one way it was, it's very good for me.
00:23:15.709 --> 00:23:17.549
But it was exhausting.
00:23:18.250 --> 00:23:19.629
I don't know how I survived.
00:23:19.929 --> 00:23:32.069
I think what happens when you have multiple losses is that your grieving gets extended and you, you don't, at first I didn't know who I was grieving.
00:23:32.069 --> 00:23:37.949
It all got muddled up and I was used to feeling Harry.
00:23:38.829 --> 00:23:43.409
And then I got really worried about, I don't know, I can't feel Anthony around me.
00:23:43.649 --> 00:23:47.609
And I went to a medium and she said, don't worry.
00:23:48.029 --> 00:23:55.529
When you feel Harry, you're feeling Anthony because they're together and they're so close to you.
00:23:56.149 --> 00:24:06.309
And that was an enormous comfort because I was also trying to navigate that side of things and make sense of it and why I'd lost them both.
00:24:09.049 --> 00:24:18.469
Yeah, but it was, it still is, you know, it's still incredibly difficult to navigate this, I find.
00:24:21.089 --> 00:24:26.689
And the ways I do it, one, because I have a purpose and that's to help others.
00:24:27.750 --> 00:24:33.689
And just actually I wanted to say, going back to what we were saying about the physical manifestations of grief.
00:24:34.849 --> 00:24:38.509
Currently I've got a bereaved father and a bereaved mother with cancer.
00:24:40.569 --> 00:24:51.869
So, you know, it's quite, and lots of them have all kinds of physical ailments that just have a, you know, only happened since they've lost someone.
00:24:53.109 --> 00:25:10.809
But, but yes, so I've got this mind body spirit approach that I use with clients and I like to think that I'm helping them and giving them what, you know, we didn't get from grief counselors early on who couldn't possibly understand what we were going through.
00:25:11.409 --> 00:25:23.449
So yeah, that's giving me a purpose and also just my spiritual belief and believing they're around me and that I'll be with them again.
00:25:24.049 --> 00:25:27.289
And that it's not my time yet, unfortunately.
00:25:29.789 --> 00:25:31.429
I understand what you're saying.
00:25:32.389 --> 00:25:37.829
So, um, you know, we've talked about like planning, soul planning, soul purpose.
00:25:38.029 --> 00:25:50.309
We talked about Harry and we talked about it before in our earlier conversation that there's something about kids that go early that they just seem to be, they live life differently and they're perceived in the world differently.
00:25:51.229 --> 00:25:56.069
So you're, you're, when Harry went, I guess you, you started saying, okay, well, this is, this is his time.
00:25:56.069 --> 00:26:06.909
And this, he was early when Anthony then transitioned, I imagine you saying to your spirit guides, your higher self, whatever, like what's the deal with this plan?
00:26:07.929 --> 00:26:08.449
Yeah.
00:26:11.389 --> 00:26:20.729
So I think the sort of conclusion I've come to is that, and again, I write about it in the book.
00:26:21.929 --> 00:26:31.169
I think this is, this part of my journey is just for me to do it on my own.
00:26:33.349 --> 00:26:36.009
So my daughter now doesn't live at home.
00:26:36.250 --> 00:26:44.389
So I have gone from quite quickly at the family home being really busy and, you know, lots of life and activity.
00:26:44.389 --> 00:26:47.490
I'm still in the family home and it's just me.
00:26:48.789 --> 00:26:57.869
I'm, you know, I might move eventually, but, and so it feels that what, what's, so I try and look at it as what's the lesson in this.
00:26:58.490 --> 00:27:14.949
This is about me just figuring this out, this part of the, you know, cause when you're a parent, you know what it's like, you're looking after others, you're, you're feeding them, you're multitasking, you're fixing, you're doing what parents do.
00:27:16.589 --> 00:27:18.829
And I'd been with my husband for 30 years.
00:27:18.990 --> 00:27:21.629
So that was kind of like suddenly I'm on my own.
00:27:22.789 --> 00:27:24.889
It's, it's very difficult.
00:27:25.129 --> 00:27:27.289
It was, yeah, it's, it's a lot.
00:27:27.549 --> 00:27:28.509
It's still a lot.
00:27:28.809 --> 00:27:30.049
I'm used to it now.
00:27:31.849 --> 00:27:53.990
Cause it's just coming up to four years since Anthony died and six since Harry died, but I may be used to it, but I don't like it, but I'm trying to accept it because as we know, acceptance is an important part of, because we can't, if we can't change something, you know, we sort of have to surrender to it.
00:27:54.069 --> 00:28:06.199
So I talk about surrendering the book as well, just surrendering to the fact that this has happened, you know, I've just got to navigate my way through.
00:28:06.279 --> 00:28:08.799
And of course I try and think, why has this happened to me?
00:28:09.039 --> 00:28:10.919
Was I a mass murderer in a past life?
00:28:11.259 --> 00:28:17.740
And, you know, and of course joking aside, I, I've taken on a lot in this lifetime.
00:28:18.019 --> 00:28:24.699
And, and, you know, as, and I think we said this last time, you kind of think, well, your soul's over on the other side.
00:28:24.719 --> 00:28:28.879
You're having a conversation with your soul family and you're going, okay, let's go in and do this.
00:28:28.979 --> 00:28:33.979
And you get, this will speed up our soul growth and you, you're not in your human mind.
00:28:33.979 --> 00:28:36.519
You're in your soul essence.
00:28:36.859 --> 00:28:38.579
And so you think you can do it all.
00:28:38.699 --> 00:28:44.639
And I, and I seriously bit off more than I could chew, you know, I don't know what I was thinking.
00:28:44.799 --> 00:28:48.959
I mean, I really don't know what I was thinking, except you're not thinking as a human.
00:28:50.439 --> 00:28:51.079
And who knows?
00:28:51.199 --> 00:28:59.379
I mean, we know that it'll make sense eventually we'll go, we'll go to the other side and, and we'll understand and we'll go, okay, now I guess it.
00:29:00.099 --> 00:29:01.819
But, you know, it's a lot.
00:29:02.159 --> 00:29:13.099
And, and as you said, I, I don't, and I, I do think it's important to, you know, meet people where they are and particularly in early grief, they don't want to be taught.
00:29:13.279 --> 00:29:15.139
They want you to say, this is terrible.
00:29:15.359 --> 00:29:16.519
It really is terrible.
00:29:17.919 --> 00:29:23.679
And then give them ways and help them find a purpose and help them find a spiritual connection.
00:29:23.859 --> 00:29:26.259
If that's what's, you know, for them.
00:29:27.599 --> 00:29:32.479
But I, I do think what's happened to me is terrible.
00:29:32.479 --> 00:29:40.919
And I am still very traumatized and I have had loads of EMDR and I still can very quickly go into fight or flight.
00:29:41.439 --> 00:29:42.619
It's not straightforward.
00:29:43.139 --> 00:29:50.879
So I don't want to sort of sit here and give everyone the impression that, you know, because yeah, it's, it's tough.
00:29:51.099 --> 00:29:52.079
It's really tough.
00:29:52.359 --> 00:29:53.419
Yes, absolutely.
00:29:53.779 --> 00:29:55.000
And I appreciate you sharing that.
00:29:55.399 --> 00:30:06.240
You know, you used the word there surrender, which for a lot of people is a dirty word, especially here in America, because we're like, we're taught to be tough and to fight and to push through everything.
00:30:07.799 --> 00:30:13.199
But surrendering and it's accepting what I tell people, it doesn't mean giving up.
00:30:13.319 --> 00:30:16.379
It's accepting what reality, what reality is.
00:30:16.619 --> 00:30:25.019
And that's, that's can be very difficult thing when you, when you lose someone so close to you, it's still, it can be like you said, it can be surreal sometimes.
00:30:25.419 --> 00:30:27.419
It's been 10 years since my daughter passed away.
00:30:27.899 --> 00:30:30.119
And every once in a while still think that this really happened.
00:30:30.119 --> 00:30:32.819
You know, this is something that really happened in our lives.
00:30:34.159 --> 00:30:36.419
So it isn't a straightforward path.
00:30:36.539 --> 00:30:37.679
It is that back and forth.
00:30:39.439 --> 00:30:40.379
Yeah, definitely.
00:30:43.279 --> 00:30:53.240
And when you're like you are as well, when we're working with people in early grief, we hear all the fighting against what happened.
00:30:53.459 --> 00:30:56.779
This wasn't meant to happen to people say, this wasn't meant to happen to me.
00:30:56.899 --> 00:30:58.419
This wasn't meant to happen to my family.
00:30:58.419 --> 00:31:01.500
And you know, when you're further down the line, yeah, yeah, we all thought that.
00:31:02.359 --> 00:31:07.179
And it's helping them to get to a point where they can go, well, it has.
00:31:08.479 --> 00:31:08.839
Yes.
00:31:09.319 --> 00:31:10.799
And that's, that's a really good point.
00:31:10.919 --> 00:31:19.939
I really want to kind of hone in on because the idea of soul planning or, and we only, we know we, we, we go when it's our time.
00:31:20.500 --> 00:31:26.899
Some people might say, well, I don't, I don't believe in that stuff, you know, and prove it to me and I can't prove it to you.
00:31:26.899 --> 00:31:32.079
But what we can do, what we will do is we, we have to find meaning or make meaning.
00:31:32.240 --> 00:31:33.039
And that's what you've done.
00:31:33.599 --> 00:31:35.339
You said, okay, this has happened.
00:31:35.919 --> 00:31:36.899
This is where I am.
00:31:37.259 --> 00:31:38.359
This is what I'm going to do.
00:31:38.519 --> 00:31:41.699
You're making meaning out of this, whether you believe in soul plan or not.
00:31:41.839 --> 00:31:46.019
And I do, but for people that don't, you still have to find a way to move forward.
00:31:46.479 --> 00:31:47.839
Yeah, you do.
00:31:48.319 --> 00:31:51.740
But that's where I think the continuing bonds theory is good, isn't it?
00:31:51.899 --> 00:31:58.659
And when I working with clients who don't have a spiritual belief, I'll say, you can still continue your, your bond.
00:31:58.799 --> 00:32:00.519
You're still their mother.
00:32:01.019 --> 00:32:02.639
That's still your daughter.
00:32:02.939 --> 00:32:07.779
That so that you can find other ways to help them find, keep the connection.
00:32:08.039 --> 00:32:08.319
Sure.
00:32:08.519 --> 00:32:10.759
You know, the death ends a life, not a relationship.
00:32:10.939 --> 00:32:24.639
It doesn't have to be spiritual, but I think the people who, who do develop a spiritual connection or find it or explore it tend to do slightly better, maybe.
00:32:25.199 --> 00:32:36.240
But, you know, I, what I have learned since writing Love Untethered is that I now realize there are so many things that come along to complicate your grief.
00:32:36.859 --> 00:32:53.059
The layers, I mean, we could call them secondary losses, but in my case, additional actual losses, but all kinds of things come into play like illness, like mental health, all kinds of things, family dynamics change.
00:32:53.059 --> 00:32:56.459
You know, family don't, the family changes.
00:32:58.359 --> 00:33:02.359
In my, in my case, you know, my daughter and I lost half our family.
00:33:02.879 --> 00:33:03.000
Right.
00:33:03.559 --> 00:33:07.939
And it's, so it's, there's huge things that come along.
00:33:08.099 --> 00:33:10.819
It's not just, oh, I lost my son.
00:33:11.259 --> 00:33:11.579
Right.
00:33:12.179 --> 00:33:12.419
Yeah.
00:33:12.619 --> 00:33:16.559
And you talked about it earlier, and it's really important for people to understand.
00:33:16.779 --> 00:33:20.019
Every loss, every loss is different, literally, literally every loss.
00:33:20.019 --> 00:33:23.659
And, but losing, I remember one time I was talking to a woman.
00:33:23.799 --> 00:33:25.219
This was several years ago.
00:33:25.240 --> 00:33:30.359
I was being interviewed for a podcast and I slipped up and I said, losing a child is the worst thing that could ever happen.
00:33:30.359 --> 00:33:33.899
Cause you know, we really shouldn't compare losses, but I said that.
00:33:34.339 --> 00:33:37.559
And she had lost a son and she just lost her spouse.
00:33:38.019 --> 00:33:40.240
And she goes, which you just said, isn't true.
00:33:40.240 --> 00:33:46.959
Cause there, when you lose a spouse, there's all these other complications that we don't have any idea about.
00:33:46.959 --> 00:33:50.099
So we go through it, you know, all the little things like where are the bills?
00:33:50.839 --> 00:33:56.419
You know, here it's like, you know, does the house automatically go to the other spouse, your accounts?
00:33:57.000 --> 00:33:58.359
Where did, where did they go?
00:33:59.659 --> 00:34:01.459
It can get really complicated.
00:34:01.599 --> 00:34:05.219
So you're trying to deal with this shocking loss anyway.
00:34:06.099 --> 00:34:11.300
And then people are asking you putting papers in front of you, asking you to make decisions and sign this and do that.
00:34:11.800 --> 00:34:12.219
Yeah.
00:34:12.699 --> 00:34:14.320
It's it's yeah.
00:34:14.360 --> 00:34:19.780
I think that's what I was trying to say earlier is that it's a, a different experience losing your child.
00:34:20.260 --> 00:34:25.579
And I, I kind of, you know, having had, but I, and again, you know, everyone is going to feel very differently.
00:34:25.820 --> 00:34:35.679
I feel they're both terrible, but there's nothing like having your child, you know, that that's a primal bond.
00:34:36.159 --> 00:34:36.300
Yeah.
00:34:38.240 --> 00:34:42.420
That's, but it, it doesn't really matter which they're both terrible.
00:34:42.679 --> 00:34:46.599
And I'll tell you the biggest issue is they're terrible together.
00:34:46.599 --> 00:34:49.219
You know, I haven't got one or the other.
00:34:49.519 --> 00:34:49.639
Right.
00:34:50.119 --> 00:34:51.820
Both this woman had both.
00:34:52.099 --> 00:34:53.800
That's the complicating issue.
00:34:54.059 --> 00:34:56.280
It's like, it's so compounded.
00:34:56.679 --> 00:34:59.079
It's double the loss, double the trauma.
00:34:59.400 --> 00:34:59.719
Right.
00:34:59.880 --> 00:35:00.880
You know, it just is.
00:35:00.980 --> 00:35:02.619
Well, that's my experience anyway.
00:35:03.800 --> 00:35:13.099
But I find what's quite interesting as well is that people assume that because I've lost a child, being a widow is probably just a little bit more painful.
00:35:14.579 --> 00:35:20.639
It's, and I'm going, yeah, but because I've lost my son, it's so much worse.
00:35:20.960 --> 00:35:22.340
It feels so much harder.
00:35:22.760 --> 00:35:22.860
Right.
00:35:23.420 --> 00:35:33.559
But other people always have a sort of opinion, whether it's voiced or not, you sort of sense that they think, uh, the loss of a child just must be so much worse.
00:35:34.300 --> 00:35:39.500
You know, and I think, yeah, but it's natural we compare losses and.
00:35:39.940 --> 00:35:40.519
It is.
00:35:40.780 --> 00:35:42.240
I don't know why we do it, but it is.
00:35:42.240 --> 00:35:49.619
And I try to avoid it because, you know, as I said, everyone's different and then, and they also, they're compounding.
00:35:50.519 --> 00:35:55.980
So it's not like when you have one, the other one goes away when you've lost your son, you know, and you've lost your husband.
00:35:56.179 --> 00:35:57.740
Now you're dealing with both of those things.
00:35:58.280 --> 00:36:01.300
And it changes everything about your life.
00:36:01.599 --> 00:36:04.559
You know, you said now you're living in the house by yourself.
00:36:04.559 --> 00:36:06.539
It changes the holidays.
00:36:06.760 --> 00:36:07.139
It changes.
00:36:08.219 --> 00:36:08.659
Absolutely.
00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:12.059
I mean, that's such a good point.
00:36:12.059 --> 00:36:19.320
One of the things that we did a lot after Harry passed away was we went away a lot because it gave us some respite.
00:36:19.860 --> 00:36:21.360
Well, I've tried to do that.
00:36:21.500 --> 00:36:22.340
It's not the same.
00:36:22.519 --> 00:36:24.840
So I've lost that respite.
00:36:26.619 --> 00:36:28.679
It's very lonely being a widow.
00:36:29.440 --> 00:36:50.420
And I, and I have a theory again, coming personally and also from my work is that, um, although it's terrible to be a young widow and they don't see it this way, but they do tend to be more likely to meet someone else and start again, although they'll never, I've got one of the women I write about in my book.
00:36:50.880 --> 00:36:55.499
She loses her partner and I'm not taking away the devastation of that at all.
00:36:56.340 --> 00:37:02.140
And then if you're elderly, which of course is the most common thing you lose a spouse, well, you haven't really got long to go.
00:37:02.780 --> 00:37:08.780
Um, and sometimes elderly people are just living in the now trying to kind of cope with day to day stuff.
00:37:09.700 --> 00:37:25.640
Um, but I think being a widow in the middle years is really tough because I personally walk cause I've got a lot of baggage, but I really don't want to start again, but I have, I may have, I may have some years on my own.
00:37:25.840 --> 00:37:34.000
So I think that's a really tough time to be widowed in, you know, in your fifties, sixties, you know, I think it's a really tough time.
00:37:34.220 --> 00:37:37.240
So again, being a widow isn't the same at every age.
00:37:37.599 --> 00:37:47.960
It's yeah, everything is all grief as we know is unique to us and our particular situation, circumstances, et cetera.
00:37:48.340 --> 00:37:48.440
Yeah.
00:37:48.640 --> 00:37:58.280
And that's, that's, that's an excellent point, you know, because again, you know, whether we choose to partner or not, if we, if we're widowed or widower, then that means we have chosen to partner.
00:37:58.960 --> 00:38:04.019
And, um, if I remember my grandmother was pretty elderly, what seemed like to me anyway.
00:38:04.680 --> 00:38:15.300
Now I think not anymore cause I'm almost her age, but when my, my grandfather passed, you know, at that age, you're just kind of like, well, I'm not interested in another romantic relationship cause I've only got a couple more, you know, a few more years.
00:38:15.700 --> 00:38:21.300
But if you're in those middle years, now you're like your thought, I've never, you've never thought about being with anyone else, right?
00:38:21.360 --> 00:38:23.079
And now you've got to make that, that decision.
00:38:23.559 --> 00:38:26.800
And then people outside are saying, well, oh, you could find somebody else.
00:38:26.800 --> 00:38:31.280
And you're, and I know like a lot of people are like, I can't even think about that right now.
00:38:31.280 --> 00:38:32.340
No, no.
00:38:32.579 --> 00:38:39.400
And I think that's even more so for me because I've also lost my child and, and it's, it's just too, no.
00:38:40.220 --> 00:38:50.820
Um, um, and that's why I go back to, I think my path is about finding my, but it's, you know, being on my own and find, making my peace with that.
00:38:51.039 --> 00:38:53.760
But it is difficult and it is lonely.
00:38:54.440 --> 00:38:58.059
Um, and loneliness again, is something that perhaps is one of my lessons.
00:38:58.460 --> 00:39:02.039
I have, you know, I don't remember being on my own in my whole life.
00:39:02.320 --> 00:39:09.440
You know, you know what it's like, you're in a family, then you're with, you know, sharing a flat apartment with someone.
00:39:09.740 --> 00:39:13.700
Then you meet your partner and you go, you're just not on your own.
00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:16.320
I have not really been on my own in my life.
00:39:16.780 --> 00:39:18.900
So this is all very new and very sudden.
00:39:18.900 --> 00:39:20.500
And I was thrown into it.
00:39:21.680 --> 00:39:23.460
Having, you know, as a bereaved mother.
00:39:24.460 --> 00:39:27.579
And then as a widow, it's like, whoa, this is a lot.
00:39:27.579 --> 00:39:36.720
So this is, that's what I always tell my clients, you know, these, a lot of stuff takes time to work through.
00:39:37.019 --> 00:39:50.980
And, you know, I don't, I, I've really gone off the word resilience because I feel it can be a bit of a stick to beat someone with if you don't feel resilient.
00:39:51.480 --> 00:39:59.260
I certainly, and again, I write about this in One Grief Takes Everything because I, I don't feel very resilient.
00:39:59.840 --> 00:40:01.800
I'm just doing my best.
00:40:02.079 --> 00:40:07.640
Whereas I think after Harry died, I was quite believing in the word resilience and thinking it was important.
00:40:07.860 --> 00:40:08.940
Now I'm like, you know what?
00:40:11.400 --> 00:40:17.840
Yeah, I, I thank you for saying that because, you know, people will say that to you and they think it's a compliment.
00:40:18.099 --> 00:40:19.880
You know, you're doing great.
00:40:20.180 --> 00:40:21.140
You're so resilient.
00:40:21.320 --> 00:40:22.440
You're so strong.
00:40:23.160 --> 00:40:31.640
And I know when I would hear that, it just, it would like made me feel almost deflated or because it's like, I don't feel strong.
00:40:31.960 --> 00:40:34.880
You know, it's like, I'm just doing what I have to do.
00:40:34.940 --> 00:40:37.440
And I frankly don't even want to do this.
00:40:37.480 --> 00:40:37.740
Okay.
00:40:38.200 --> 00:40:40.240
But I, I'm just doing what I have to do.
00:40:40.780 --> 00:40:51.840
And so I want people to understand that, that when, when you see someone out and, and they're, and they're functioning, they're in society, they're at a party or whatever.
00:40:52.140 --> 00:40:53.900
And you're like, oh, you seem to be doing so great.
00:40:54.539 --> 00:40:59.340
You know, you're not seeing what it's like when they go home at night and lay their head on the pillow by themselves again.
00:41:00.460 --> 00:41:00.559
Yeah.
00:41:00.559 --> 00:41:15.660
I often think that, you know, when you see interviews on television and their interview, a bereaved parent who's found some purpose or set up a foundation or something, and the interview goes, well, you are, you know, a beacon of, of hope.
00:41:16.300 --> 00:41:22.360
You're demonstrating that you can get over this or they'll say something and it's so jarring.
00:41:22.519 --> 00:41:29.800
And you think, yeah, she's just come on television and she's put on her makeup and her hair and she's just sitting there and she's speaking about her foundation.
00:41:30.400 --> 00:41:35.120
You know, as bereaved parents, we know that behind that, she's going home and she's sad.
00:41:36.599 --> 00:41:52.220
So society, sometimes we, I sometimes think we don't always do ourselves a lot of favors by pretending and, and allowing people to think that we're doing better as a group than perhaps we are.
00:41:52.579 --> 00:42:01.920
I, I'm all for honesty and showing how we are trying to make our way through this, but also acknowledging that, yeah, I'm not always great.
00:42:02.360 --> 00:42:05.120
I'm smiling, but I might not be later.
00:42:05.200 --> 00:42:06.260
And I wasn't yesterday.
00:42:06.820 --> 00:42:08.760
I just want to be realistic about grief.
00:42:09.180 --> 00:42:09.280
Yes.
00:42:09.420 --> 00:42:10.340
I have a spiritual belief.
00:42:10.599 --> 00:42:12.340
I know my husband has done around me.
00:42:12.340 --> 00:42:13.039
It's great.
00:42:13.680 --> 00:42:19.099
However, I'm, I'm on earth in earth school doing this for a reason.
00:42:19.099 --> 00:42:22.120
So it's not all love and light unit for me.
00:42:22.720 --> 00:42:22.820
Yeah.
00:42:23.640 --> 00:42:26.200
Well, let's talk about the concept of earth school.
00:42:26.260 --> 00:42:30.120
Cause I know that's an important concept to you and it is to me as well.
00:42:30.240 --> 00:42:34.460
So how do you, how do you view our time here, our roles here?
00:42:36.200 --> 00:42:46.240
Well, as we sort of touched on, I guess I've sort of brought into the idea that we have, we come and we choose certain lessons to help our soul growth.
00:42:46.860 --> 00:42:53.460
And that's in our relationships, we sort of play certain roles for each other to accelerate that learning.
00:42:54.260 --> 00:42:57.680
And we've been around the block with them many times before.
00:42:58.000 --> 00:43:01.720
And what's that book called a journey of souls.
00:43:01.980 --> 00:43:03.140
I really love that book.
00:43:03.140 --> 00:43:08.380
And yeah, that's, that's kind of what I believe.
00:43:08.940 --> 00:43:09.620
There's an interest.
00:43:09.900 --> 00:43:12.420
There's Anna in one of the six women.
00:43:12.900 --> 00:43:18.700
She writes really well about how to survive the suicide of her son.
00:43:18.920 --> 00:43:21.980
She sort of very much went to the spiritual life.
00:43:23.380 --> 00:43:28.099
And then, and that sort of uplifted her and saved her.
00:43:28.180 --> 00:43:32.840
And then she realized, I can't be there because I'm, I'm on earth.
00:43:33.320 --> 00:43:35.260
I'm, I'm, I've got to do earth.
00:43:35.480 --> 00:43:36.360
I've got to do life.
00:43:36.820 --> 00:43:51.099
And I think that's a very good point because we can almost escape into the spiritual, but we've still got to go to work, pay the bills, interact with people, you know, navigate life.
00:43:51.200 --> 00:43:52.780
And that's what we're here to learn.
00:43:53.200 --> 00:44:00.820
And I think that's, that's something in the spiritual sort of side of grief that slightly gets overlooked.
00:44:01.120 --> 00:44:05.200
Yeah, but we are here to be on earth and do earthly things.
00:44:06.059 --> 00:44:08.019
Yeah, I think that's, that's a really, really good point.
00:44:08.360 --> 00:44:13.780
I look, you know, I remember when I was young, I was, you know, at church and stuff and they were talking about like, you know, your purpose in life.
00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:17.000
And, you know, I thought, well, maybe I should just become a, you know, go become a missionary.
00:44:17.640 --> 00:44:23.800
Or, you know, you have some people that go so far as to become they go live in cloisters, they become monks or the, you know, stuff like that.
00:44:24.559 --> 00:44:31.880
And I don't think, and then not to, not to belittle that path, but it's not certainly the path for most of us, because we are here to get our hands dirty.
00:44:32.420 --> 00:44:34.820
We are here to feel the emotions.
00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:48.539
And so I, and I see people sometimes they'll say, and I, I don't want to call him by in particular, but as a person I was doing an interview with on a podcast and she said, I just don't understand grief.
00:44:48.740 --> 00:44:50.539
I don't understand why people grieve at all.
00:44:50.539 --> 00:44:51.800
Why are people sad?
00:44:52.380 --> 00:44:56.940
If everybody knew what I know, then we would never, we would never grieve somebody.
00:44:57.240 --> 00:44:59.800
And I wanted to say, I don't think you've lost a child.
00:44:59.900 --> 00:45:01.800
And I know your husband's still here.
00:45:02.460 --> 00:45:05.920
Come back and talk to me when, when that has happened to you.
00:45:05.920 --> 00:45:06.340
Yeah.
00:45:07.599 --> 00:45:14.019
Because we are meant to feel these emotions, the emotions that you and I still feel, even though we have these spiritual beliefs.
00:45:14.500 --> 00:45:14.980
Yeah.
00:45:15.680 --> 00:45:16.059
Yeah.
00:45:16.079 --> 00:45:16.840
You're so right.
00:45:17.180 --> 00:45:18.579
That must've been infuriating.
00:45:18.579 --> 00:45:20.539
Well, you're really calm and zen about it.
00:45:20.660 --> 00:45:22.680
Cause I think that would have annoyed me.
00:45:23.019 --> 00:45:25.920
Cause people do think they, yeah.
00:45:27.440 --> 00:45:36.640
Grief is very different if say all you've lost is an elderly parent, which I have also done in the mix.
00:45:37.460 --> 00:45:40.800
It's so different and, and yeah.
00:45:41.820 --> 00:45:45.380
And it doesn't, it does help us.
00:45:47.000 --> 00:45:54.380
But it's, yeah, the grief is the biggest learning curve.
00:45:54.380 --> 00:45:58.780
I think grief for a, a significant person in your life.
00:45:58.780 --> 00:45:59.760
Let's put it that way.
00:45:59.840 --> 00:46:01.019
Not the parents aren't significant.
00:46:01.340 --> 00:46:01.599
They are.
00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:08.079
But at the moment, I mean, they say the grief is harder when it, it, the difference is the people you live with.
00:46:08.079 --> 00:46:10.519
Cause that's where you notice it.
00:46:13.620 --> 00:46:15.840
So yeah, husband, children, whatever.
00:46:17.220 --> 00:46:17.660
Yeah.
00:46:18.380 --> 00:46:24.579
And I think you were hitting on this grief is, is the one, it's like our biggest teacher.
00:46:24.820 --> 00:46:28.240
And I was talking to someone the other day and they said, I don't think we could learn without grief.
00:46:29.120 --> 00:46:37.700
And cause if you, if you extend grief to not just losing a person, but health, losing a job, you know, all the disappointments of life.
00:46:38.579 --> 00:46:40.039
That's what we learned from.
00:46:40.800 --> 00:46:50.579
And if we, if we set ourselves up with this, the spiritual bypass, as I call it, where it's like, I am just a being of light and it's all going to be okay in the end.
00:46:51.240 --> 00:46:58.079
Then we're, I don't think we're doing what we're here, but we're sent here to do because we, then we're not learning from the grief because we're not actually experiencing it.
00:46:58.579 --> 00:47:01.000
I agree with you a hundred percent.
00:47:01.340 --> 00:47:01.740
Yeah.
00:47:02.320 --> 00:47:06.820
But you see, this is what we're learning as we go along and we're further along our grief journey.
00:47:06.820 --> 00:47:14.220
These things, you know, maybe we wouldn't have said that if we were to use it, you know, we're exactly right.
00:47:14.559 --> 00:47:15.000
Yeah, exactly.
00:47:15.079 --> 00:47:15.240
Right.
00:47:15.320 --> 00:47:18.599
And another thing, and you touched on this earlier, I just want to reemphasize it.
00:47:19.039 --> 00:47:22.660
The step stuff we're talking about, you don't say this to someone who's just lost their husband.
00:47:23.300 --> 00:47:28.539
You don't walk up to them and say, it's going to be okay because you planned all this and you know, and he's waiting for you.
00:47:29.160 --> 00:47:31.019
You know, that is not helpful.
00:47:31.860 --> 00:47:32.300
Yeah.
00:47:33.099 --> 00:47:33.200
Yeah.
00:47:33.200 --> 00:47:42.480
But soon after Harry died, I went and had a Reiki session and this Reiki practitioner said, well, we've all lost children in past lives.
00:47:45.019 --> 00:47:47.500
And I was like, okay.
00:47:48.140 --> 00:47:48.300
Yeah.
00:47:48.500 --> 00:47:55.700
There's some things you can't say to people in, in early grief, spiritually or otherwise, you know, that, that, yeah.
00:47:56.539 --> 00:48:02.300
But yes, people do say the most extraordinary things, don't they?
00:48:02.760 --> 00:48:04.039
But yeah.
00:48:04.800 --> 00:48:10.200
So you mentioned, I know in your book, you, it's your own experience, of course, but you also have six women.
00:48:10.360 --> 00:48:11.340
You mentioned one of the women.
00:48:11.700 --> 00:48:14.099
Tell us about some more about some of the other women in the book.
00:48:15.039 --> 00:48:15.160
Yeah.
00:48:15.300 --> 00:48:17.320
So the first, the book is structured.
00:48:18.079 --> 00:48:20.579
The first section is my story.
00:48:20.680 --> 00:48:34.539
So it picks up from literally as Anthony's death, really, and, and, and navigating all the things we've just talked about, you know, the practicalities, how I felt falling apart, et cetera.
00:48:35.099 --> 00:48:38.820
And then the third section is divided into mind, body and spirit.
00:48:39.039 --> 00:48:40.840
So it's the emotional impact of grief.
00:48:40.960 --> 00:48:42.420
And it says practical advice.
00:48:42.579 --> 00:48:47.660
So because, because of, you know, what you and I do helping others, we don't just have our own experience.
00:48:48.059 --> 00:48:55.340
We learn from others, which is an amazing honor that we learn more about grief from other people as well as our own experience.
00:48:55.760 --> 00:49:03.800
So I write about the emotional impact, the physical impacts we've just touched on and the spiritual and how that's the bit that can really propel you forward.
00:49:03.980 --> 00:49:12.579
And then in the middle, I've got the stories of six women because I thought I don't want it just to be about me and my story.
00:49:12.880 --> 00:49:15.579
So I've got, I have got four bereaved mothers.
00:49:15.800 --> 00:49:17.440
I've got a bereaved mother and a widow.
00:49:17.900 --> 00:49:21.599
I've got somebody and a widow who hasn't lost a child.
00:49:21.680 --> 00:49:24.420
And then I've got somebody who's had lots of multiple losses.
00:49:25.380 --> 00:49:47.320
And it was really interesting because when I chose them, I didn't know there'd be this commonality throughout, which is exactly what I, I'm trying to, I was trying to say, and really is the theme of the book that two things can carry you through the most devastating losses.
00:49:47.320 --> 00:49:53.620
And that's finding a purpose, helping others and a spiritual belief.
00:49:53.620 --> 00:50:02.180
So every single one of them has a spiritual belief in the afterlife, the soul lives on to one, some degree or other, some more than others.
00:50:02.840 --> 00:50:08.160
And everyone has found a way to help others.
00:50:09.300 --> 00:50:11.400
And that's been part of their healing journey.
00:50:12.480 --> 00:50:21.599
So, you know, it's that post-traumatic growth thing, you know, and how helping others can get you through this.
00:50:21.599 --> 00:50:28.200
So there is a thread through all of us, which is quite nice.
00:50:28.440 --> 00:50:31.380
But, but as I say, I want to, I didn't just want it to be my story.
00:50:31.660 --> 00:50:33.539
I want it to be other.
00:50:34.300 --> 00:50:52.800
They are all women as it turns out, but they're all sharing their story honestly, without spiritual bias, bypassing, without toxic positivity and offering some hope, but being, you know, raw and gritty with it and not sugarcoating.
00:50:53.880 --> 00:50:53.980
Yeah.
00:50:54.079 --> 00:50:54.680
Yeah.
00:50:55.099 --> 00:50:55.280
Yeah.
00:50:55.400 --> 00:51:08.280
Well, again, I think finding that balance is really important between the spiritual bypassing, the toxic positivity, and then just the, this life sucks and there's no purpose to it.
00:51:08.579 --> 00:51:15.019
You know, it's finding, it's finding that balance and being able to, to live in that, in that tension, you know.
00:51:17.539 --> 00:51:18.019
Yeah.
00:51:18.740 --> 00:51:24.920
So where you are today, Vanessa, which I understand that Harry is one of your guides.
00:51:25.019 --> 00:51:25.480
Is that true?
00:51:26.360 --> 00:51:26.460
Yeah.
00:51:27.019 --> 00:51:28.599
I think I've been told he is.
00:51:28.840 --> 00:51:28.980
Yeah.
00:51:29.180 --> 00:51:30.280
And I feel he is.
00:51:30.820 --> 00:51:38.559
And I, I, you know, sometimes in sessions, I'll be working with another bereaved mother and I just feel he's with their child.
00:51:38.960 --> 00:51:47.400
And if I feel that, you know, the client is open to it, I might say, well, you know, maybe our boys are here and they're having a bit of a chat as we are.
00:51:47.780 --> 00:52:04.740
And I just, yeah, I just feel he is, he's with me and Anthony as well, but a different, I mean, I don't know if you feel this about your daughter, but how I perceive Harry now is the essence of who he was as a human being in this lifetime.
00:52:05.420 --> 00:52:11.480
But also he feels quite different and quite elevated now, if that makes sense to you.
00:52:11.599 --> 00:52:13.039
I imagine it probably does.
00:52:13.039 --> 00:52:13.480
Yeah.
00:52:14.240 --> 00:52:21.019
And my husband too, but particularly Harry, I feel he's, you know, well, obviously they do, they do understand everything.
00:52:21.220 --> 00:52:26.980
They do see the bigger picture, but yeah, I do feel him guiding me.
00:52:27.620 --> 00:52:27.900
Definitely.
00:52:28.200 --> 00:52:30.140
I don't know if you feel that with your daughter as well.
00:52:30.400 --> 00:52:31.019
I do.
00:52:31.340 --> 00:52:37.280
And you know, it's interesting because I always try to resolve these different paradoxes or different things we hear.
00:52:37.740 --> 00:52:41.660
One is that when we cross back over, we're still the same person that we were when we're here.
00:52:42.140 --> 00:52:45.320
The other is that, you know, we are much more enlightened.
00:52:46.340 --> 00:52:49.680
And I think it's, I think what it is is our perspective shifts.
00:52:50.039 --> 00:52:54.480
I mean, it's like you're, it's like your eyes are open and you see all the things you forget when you come here.
00:52:55.099 --> 00:52:59.400
So the way I look at is when we're here, we're at a very limited version of our, of our bigger self.
00:52:59.500 --> 00:53:11.680
So our children have been released from these physical confines, our children, you and I, so they are, you know, I guess in a way wiser than we are and have access to in a different body of information.
00:53:12.440 --> 00:53:16.380
I'll never forget my cousin, who's a couple of years older than I am after my daughter passed away.
00:53:16.420 --> 00:53:18.700
I said, well, Shane is one of your ancestors now.
00:53:18.840 --> 00:53:20.059
And I was like, what do you mean?
00:53:20.180 --> 00:53:24.039
She goes, well, yeah, you know, because I'm like, yeah, I guess so.
00:53:24.240 --> 00:53:27.059
So in a way, yeah, I do believe that Shane is one of my guides.
00:53:27.380 --> 00:53:29.500
I blame Shana for this, this soul plan.
00:53:30.180 --> 00:53:32.300
I can see this was, this was her idea.
00:53:33.740 --> 00:53:37.700
So yeah, I think, and I know that, you know, I will see her again.
00:53:37.780 --> 00:53:38.840
That's stuff we talked about.
00:53:38.840 --> 00:53:39.800
Yeah.
00:53:40.460 --> 00:53:45.860
And I, yes, when you say you blame her, I also think it's okay to be angry with them.
00:53:46.780 --> 00:53:51.099
Sometimes I shout at Harry and Anthony and I swear at them.
00:53:51.579 --> 00:53:56.039
And how, you know, tell them off for leaving me.
00:53:57.440 --> 00:54:08.039
And, and, and for just leaving me in the, in this, while they're swanning around wherever they are in bliss, you know, I'm like, how dare you leave me here?
00:54:08.360 --> 00:54:09.579
I don't think that's unhealthy.
00:54:09.700 --> 00:54:12.120
And obviously you need to have a bit of a rant and vent.
00:54:12.640 --> 00:54:15.280
And then you kind of calm down and go, okay, well, you know.
00:54:16.200 --> 00:54:17.420
And I, yeah, it's okay.
00:54:17.500 --> 00:54:28.360
And I tell people, because you, the thing is, and I, and I was jokingly saying that, but people do sometimes have anger in the case, especially of like suicides or drug deaths and stuff like that.
00:54:28.480 --> 00:54:33.220
Sometimes people will be angry at there, but they feel like I can't express that because I don't want to hurt their feelings.
00:54:33.420 --> 00:54:34.980
It's like, yeah, it's okay.
00:54:35.079 --> 00:54:35.980
It's okay to be angry.
00:54:36.039 --> 00:54:38.220
It's okay to say, you know, it sucks to be here.
00:54:39.039 --> 00:54:46.360
And, you know, this is a story, but when Shana, the week before she, she passed away, she and her mother were at a volleyball tournament.
00:54:46.559 --> 00:54:48.720
Shana played volleyball and she was at, she was in Florida.
00:54:49.019 --> 00:54:53.000
It was, you know, at this resort and Shana's drive around the kid.
00:54:53.120 --> 00:54:59.220
She wasn't even old enough to drive their drive around in golf carts on the resort and she's ordering smoothies every day.
00:54:59.420 --> 00:55:01.579
And because her mother likes to do all this stuff.
00:55:02.280 --> 00:55:06.800
And I remember her mother saying, cause I would talk to her mother, but Shana never got on the phone.
00:55:07.599 --> 00:55:11.579
And Shana, my mother says to her, Shana, don't you feel guilty?
00:55:11.579 --> 00:55:16.160
Like doing all this stuff while Brian and Kayla are back at home and you're having a good time.
00:55:16.300 --> 00:55:18.120
And Shana said, no, I don't feel guilty at all.
00:55:18.180 --> 00:55:19.140
I'll see them when I get home.
00:55:20.059 --> 00:55:28.539
And that's how I picture Shana right now going, yeah, I'm having a good time, but you know, I'll see him when he gets here.
00:55:29.940 --> 00:55:30.300
Yes.
00:55:30.300 --> 00:55:30.660
Yes.
00:55:31.200 --> 00:55:32.260
That's a great story.
00:55:32.579 --> 00:55:32.680
Yeah.
00:55:33.200 --> 00:55:33.300
Yeah.
00:55:33.680 --> 00:55:35.180
We'll see them when we get there.
00:55:35.680 --> 00:55:35.800
Yeah.
00:55:36.320 --> 00:55:37.539
And that's the way they see it.
00:55:37.880 --> 00:55:37.980
Yeah.
00:55:38.620 --> 00:55:38.880
Yeah.
00:55:39.760 --> 00:55:39.900
Yeah.
00:55:39.900 --> 00:55:40.019
Yeah.
00:55:40.340 --> 00:55:44.000
So, you know, it's, it's, um, there is a little bit of, of jealousy.
00:55:44.360 --> 00:55:51.780
I can see you saying, you know, when, when, you know, when Anthony got to get to see him first, cause I'm like, I always, I'm older than my wife and I'm a male.
00:55:51.780 --> 00:55:57.780
So I'm like, I'm not going to live as long as you saw, you know, I'll be there with Shana first, but we never know how things are going to work out.
00:55:57.780 --> 00:55:58.980
Well, we don't know that.
00:55:59.200 --> 00:55:59.340
Yeah.
00:55:59.579 --> 00:56:00.599
We just don't know.
00:56:00.780 --> 00:56:07.820
And that is what I've been shown is you simply don't know what's going to happen, how it's going to happen.
00:56:07.960 --> 00:56:09.019
You just don't know.
00:56:09.400 --> 00:56:21.099
And that is the other thing I suppose I've learned is just accepting that you can't control anything.
00:56:21.099 --> 00:56:28.440
You can't be sure of anything in terms of safe security.
00:56:28.840 --> 00:56:35.099
I mean, I think one thing I suppose I've really struggled with is a lack of safe feeling unsafe in the world.
00:56:35.480 --> 00:56:36.559
That's the draw aspect.
00:56:37.320 --> 00:56:47.380
But you know, we do have, that's what I work towards is going, okay, I have to just get comfortable with not knowing how life is going to go.
00:56:47.380 --> 00:56:53.760
I have to accept that I've had shock upon shock and I didn't see it coming.
00:56:54.260 --> 00:57:01.260
And it's the ground beneath me, you know, and that's another thing I describe what happened to me.
00:57:01.340 --> 00:57:03.300
It's like, you know, Harry dies.
00:57:03.480 --> 00:57:05.160
I'm knocked down like a hurricane.
00:57:05.400 --> 00:57:11.860
I'm knocked down and Anthony holds his hand out and we walk together and then I'm knocked down again.
00:57:11.860 --> 00:57:15.099
And then there's no one to hold their hand out to me.
00:57:15.099 --> 00:57:19.420
And that's my thing of going on by myself.
00:57:19.720 --> 00:57:24.000
But it is that feeling of just accepting the life.
00:57:24.500 --> 00:57:29.440
Even if we take it away from grief, we just look at the state of the world, which we won't go into.
00:57:29.800 --> 00:57:33.099
But, you know, God knows how things are going to pan out.
00:57:33.400 --> 00:57:39.880
It's a very, I suppose I'm talking about, yeah, security in an insecure, the world is insecure.
00:57:40.900 --> 00:57:43.620
Grief makes us feel insecure and it's just accepting.
00:57:43.920 --> 00:57:44.059
Yeah.
00:57:45.140 --> 00:57:46.760
That's how it is.
00:57:47.680 --> 00:57:50.680
That's a really, really good point.
00:57:51.140 --> 00:57:56.420
From the time I was a little kid, I was like, I want to know what the right answer is, how things are going to turn out.
00:57:56.519 --> 00:57:57.780
That's why I became an engineer.
00:57:58.320 --> 00:58:01.019
Because I like engineering because it's definite.
00:58:02.559 --> 00:58:05.820
But the older I get, the more I realize we have to live with uncertainty.
00:58:06.579 --> 00:58:10.260
We can have this illusion of what we think is going to happen.
00:58:11.180 --> 00:58:14.280
And I was realizing this morning, I've known this for a long time.
00:58:14.360 --> 00:58:15.280
I'm a catastrophizer.
00:58:15.559 --> 00:58:17.800
I always think that everything is going to be the worst.
00:58:18.380 --> 00:58:21.539
So whatever happens, it's like, I take it to the nth degree.
00:58:22.360 --> 00:58:30.820
But the one thing about having my daughter pass away is it's really made me realize that I didn't really have control over anything and I need to get comfortable with that.
00:58:30.880 --> 00:58:33.280
And I'm getting more comfortable with that.
00:58:34.360 --> 00:58:38.160
Because she was on vacation, so she was away the week before she passed.
00:58:38.820 --> 00:58:40.780
And I'm like, okay, she's away and they're flying.
00:58:40.780 --> 00:58:44.720
And then when their flight landed, she and her mother got home.
00:58:45.400 --> 00:58:46.880
I was like, okay, great, now they're here.
00:58:47.039 --> 00:58:48.660
But my other daughter was going away on vacation.
00:58:49.820 --> 00:58:51.360
Like, Shana came in and Kayla went out.
00:58:51.700 --> 00:58:53.000
So now I'm worried about Kayla.
00:58:53.539 --> 00:58:57.260
And then Shana passed away in her bed, like right down the hall for me in the house.
00:58:58.039 --> 00:59:01.280
And that's when I realized we don't have control over anything.
00:59:02.860 --> 00:59:11.880
Yeah, you becoming an engineer is, yeah, doing something that's very logical, very left brain, is it left brain, right?
00:59:12.300 --> 00:59:13.700
Yeah, yeah, very, yes.
00:59:14.440 --> 00:59:25.579
And then for you, with that sort of approach to life, having everything ripped away is, yeah, but very much part of the lesson that you probably have set up for yourself.
00:59:26.539 --> 00:59:26.960
Exactly.
00:59:27.420 --> 00:59:34.880
So the thing is, and the ironic thing is, I realize now, because the other side of that, because we keep talking about these different tensions, right?
00:59:35.000 --> 00:59:41.800
So there's the fact I can't control anything, literally anything, but there's also this trust that everything is going to be okay.
00:59:43.460 --> 00:59:50.300
And that's what's hard for like, again, this my left brain to get around, it's like, but whatever happens, it's okay.
00:59:50.900 --> 00:59:52.420
Yeah, yes.
00:59:52.820 --> 01:00:15.780
And if we just, if we get our heads around the fact that we've had many, many, many, many lifetimes, and this is one of many, and they're looking down and going, oh, don't sweat this because, you know, it's nothing, you've just chosen to learn this, and then there's the whole thing of all lifetimes are happening simultaneously, which is very difficult to get your head around.
01:00:16.400 --> 01:00:28.980
But in the grand scheme of things, it's, yeah, and they say that 70% of our soul remains in the spirit world.
01:00:29.320 --> 01:00:48.519
So that 30% is here, and yet we're acting like it's the biggest deal because it feels, and we're meant to think it is, but if 70%, if that's right, who knows, 70% of our soul is in the spirit world, well, A, we're with our loved ones, you know.
01:00:49.180 --> 01:00:49.760
Yeah, yeah.
01:00:51.240 --> 01:01:05.400
And this is just a small, but it's human nature to struggle with that concept, you know, it is natural that we really find that very difficult to get our heads around.
01:01:07.300 --> 01:01:12.480
Yeah, but it is, as you say, in the end, we go home.
01:01:14.769 --> 01:01:25.570
Yeah, well, that's my, it's probably my, I have lots of favorite quotes, and one of my favorite quotes is John Lennon, and he says, everything will be okay in the end, and if everything is not okay, it's not the end.
01:01:26.570 --> 01:01:43.210
And so I just repeat, that's on repeat throughout my life, and I think of all the things that I've gone through and all the things I thought were, you know, this is the end, this is, you know, when I lost a job or when I got divorced or, you know, all those things I thought was the worst thing ever, and I realize it does work out.
01:01:43.630 --> 01:01:56.230
And so our souls present us with these opportunities, like, you know, the passing of your son and your husband and stuff, and again, this is not to say we're not at the end, right, but you have to go through this, but you will get there.
01:01:56.370 --> 01:02:00.329
You will cross that finish line and you will see them again, and that's what keeps me going.
01:02:00.750 --> 01:02:19.530
Yeah, yeah, we will be together again, we will find out what it's all about, and your engineer brain and my brain just, you know, that seeking brain of wanting to know why, what's this all about, why has this happened, I want to make sense of it, I want to see the bigger picture and we get glimpses of it now because of what we've gone through.
01:02:19.950 --> 01:02:52.670
It has accelerated our learning paths, or else, you know, there is the possibility that when you're dead, you're dead, and that will be the end of it, but because we don't think that's the possibility, one day it will all be clear and we'll go, oh, okay, I didn't need to get in such a state about that, you know, particularly the relatively more minor things that we fret about in life, but that is part of the human experience, and we're here for all of it.
01:02:53.269 --> 01:02:55.289
It's not always easy.
01:02:56.190 --> 01:03:27.030
You said about your John Lennon quote, the quote that I have been using as my mantra in recent months is a Buddhist quote, I think, and it's, hold it loosely, hold it lightly, hold it with love, because sometimes I feel like I am, you know, what we're talking about, I'm holding it quite tightly, and it's just like, loosen your grip, hold it with love, in the end, it will all be revealed.
01:03:28.789 --> 01:03:29.870
Yeah, that's perfect.
01:03:30.329 --> 01:03:35.970
I love that, and I think that's a great way to wrap up, because it's just what we've been talking about this whole time, right?
01:03:36.269 --> 01:03:41.710
It's not, it's not, you know, people talk about the idea of unattachment.
01:03:41.990 --> 01:03:48.450
You know, Buddhism is like, you're not supposed to be attached to anything, which means you wouldn't love, because love is attachment.
01:03:49.010 --> 01:03:50.170
That doesn't work for me.
01:03:50.170 --> 01:03:54.710
Yeah, and I think that's a misunderstanding of the Buddhist concept, actually.
01:03:55.570 --> 01:04:06.809
But yeah, we are meant to love, so we are meant to hold, but we're also, we have to hold loosely, and we have to be willing to let go of things as they slip away, you know, at least for a while.
01:04:07.329 --> 01:04:09.269
Yeah, yeah, I agree.
01:04:10.070 --> 01:04:10.210
Yeah.
01:04:10.769 --> 01:04:12.930
Vanessa, thanks so much for being here again today.
01:04:13.050 --> 01:04:18.410
Remind people of the name of your three books, and your latest book, and how people can find you.
01:04:19.610 --> 01:04:35.329
So my first book is Love Untethered, How to Live When Your Child Dies, but the sequel to that, but you can read them both separately, is this one, which is When Grief Takes Everything, A Survival Guide to Devastating Loss.
01:04:36.250 --> 01:04:42.570
So that's my new book, which I feel I've sort of obviously grown since the first book.
01:04:42.750 --> 01:04:43.849
I understand a lot more.
01:04:44.490 --> 01:04:46.730
My middle book is for wellness practitioners.
01:04:48.190 --> 01:04:50.710
It's called Supporting Your Griefing Client.
01:04:52.890 --> 01:05:08.289
But yeah, and I have two websites, but my author website is VanessaMay.co.uk, and you can follow me on Instagram, which is may.wellbeing.griefsupport. So yeah, and I love to hear from people, particularly if you've read my books.
01:05:08.450 --> 01:05:11.690
I love to hear from you and connect with people.
01:05:12.510 --> 01:05:14.230
Yeah, well, again, thanks for being here today.
01:05:14.650 --> 01:05:16.610
Enjoy the rest of your day, and I'll see you soon.
01:05:16.730 --> 01:05:17.730
Thank you.
01:05:18.190 --> 01:05:18.390
Bye.
01:05:18.950 --> 01:05:19.250
Bye.
01:05:20.190 --> 01:05:23.289
Grief doesn't follow stages, timelines, or rules.
01:05:24.210 --> 01:05:26.230
And if you've ever wondered, am I doing this right?
01:05:26.630 --> 01:05:27.390
You're not alone.
01:05:28.070 --> 01:05:29.849
That's why I created the Grief Check-In.
01:05:30.349 --> 01:05:31.230
It's not a test.
01:05:31.570 --> 01:05:32.910
There are no right or wrong answers.
01:05:33.530 --> 01:05:37.630
It's simply a gentle way to understand how grief may be showing up for you right now.
01:05:38.190 --> 01:05:45.090
In just a few minutes, you'll gain clarity and language for what you're experiencing without judgment, labels, or pressure to move on.
01:05:45.730 --> 01:05:49.349
If you're wondering where you are in grief, this is a safe place to look.
01:05:50.150 --> 01:05:52.789
Go to grief2growth.com slash check-in.
01:05:53.230 --> 01:05:57.370
That's griefnumeral2growth.com slash check-in.