WEBVTT
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Just a gentle note before we begin.
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Today's episode includes discussion of grief, loss, and caregiving.
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Please listen in a way that feels supportive for you.
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You're welcome to pause and come back at any time.
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There's a kind of grief that doesn't come with a funeral.
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It comes in small moments when your loved one changes, when you realize they can't do what they used to.
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When a conversation feels different, when the future you thought you had quietly disappears.
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And many caregivers don't call this grief because no one died and you're still needed, and the day still has to run.
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So they minimize it, they push it down, they keep going.
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But the body keeps the score, the tight chest, the short fuse, the numbness, the tears that show up in the car, and the feeling that everyone else has moved on while you're still in the in-between.
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Today's guest is here to name that experience with so much care.
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Victoria Volk is the creator of the Unleashed Heart, and she supports people moving through loss with a grief-sensitive body aware approach.
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No fixing, no urgency, and no bypassing.
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She's an advanced certified grief recovery specialist and an end-of-life dueler and the host of the Grieving Voices podcast.
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She brings a unique perspective shaped by being a child griever and by the life experience that followed.
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This episode is for the caregiver living the long goodbye and for anyone carrying invisible loss while still showing up for everyone else.
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Victoria, welcome to Radiant Moments.
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Thank you for that wonderful intro.
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My pleasure.
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So my story began in childhood, as you mentioned in the introduction.
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My grandmother had been diagnosed with stage four melanoma.
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So my mother was caring for her.
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At the same time, my father had been diagnosed with stage four colon cancer.
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So between the age of six and seven, when my grandmother passed away, a year later, when I was eight, my father passed.
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So as you can imagine, my mother, as a caregiver for both her mother and her husband, she didn't have the tools or the emotional capacity really to parent myself anyway.
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I'm the youngest of four.
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There was a there's a five-year age gap between my brother and I, and then a nine-year age gap between myself and my oldest sister, and an even more of a gap between myself and my half-brother, who had already was an adult at that time.
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My experience growing up was being shuffled around, lack of stability, a lack of caregiving, really, and how I was feeling, what I was experiencing.
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But also in hindsight, I can with empathy put myself in my mother's shoes now, knowing what I know about grief and have compassion for her, where I had a lot of anger, honestly, and a lot of resentment into my teen years and growing up.
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Because not only did I lose my close loved ones, right?
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But when my father passed away, I also lost that entire side of the family.
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They were no longer in our lives.
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So grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles.
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So it was a lot to take as a child and try to process on my own.
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And as children, we make up stories and we come to our own conclusions if no one tells us differently, right?
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And what followed, though, after those losses was I was molested.
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And so when I shared that with my mother, there was she was kind of indifferent to it.
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Nothing really changed or nothing happened.
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So growing up, I just felt really dismissed.
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But again, knowing what I know now, I mean, I see where the rage and the anger came from, but I can also look at her life experience and what she experienced even before those experiences, those losses she had, and how that impacted her caregiving and parenting of me.
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I can look at that with empathy.
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I looked at when my children were eight, I couldn't help but look at them and know, like they would know if something happened to me.
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If I died, they would understand it.
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And there is just so much misunderstanding about the capacity of children and what they understand and what they know that we always hear too that children are resilient.
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Well, children don't have a choice.
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They learn to adapt.
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They're probably the best at adaptability because they don't have a choice, don't have a sense of self-agency like you do as an adult.
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So, yeah, how would that shape my work today is I have been both on the receiving end of lack of caregiving.
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I've seen how difficult it can be for caregivers.
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And to be that, it's like a sandwich, right?
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That sandwich of I should be here and I need to be there, and I can't be everything to everyone.
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And how do I even care for myself at the same time?
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I am a I am a mom, I am a parent, I have three kids, but I think that grief and that seeing the contrast has greatly shaped my work with people.
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And I hear very truly that each person's experience at that time, because that everyone was at a different point in their life and their age and what they'd experienced up until that point was substantially different.
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And that impacted how information was interpreted, what information was shared, what information wasn't shared, which then has that knock-on effect when processing, when processing grief, when trying to make sense of the world around you, when those significant life events happen.
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And for so many caregivers, they don't identify as grievers, even when they're carrying loss every day, because they have these responsibilities.
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They have to show up, they still have to be present, and there may not be the bandwidth to be able to stop and address how they're feeling or address the impact of that grief.
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In your work, what makes grief hard to name, especially for people who are still functioning and still needed day to day, really?
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I think what happens is people get really good at compartmentalizing.
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Like, how can your brain even like wrap around and comprehend and like take in everything that it needs to take in, much less just living as a human in 2026, right?
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But also then, like you said, showing up for your loved ones, your spouse, your significant other, your children, parent, all the people in your life, right?
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And all the different hats that we wear as mothers and caregivers and parents and all the things.
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And I think you get really good at compartmentalizing just as a means to survive.
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You become really good at highly functioning.
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But the body does, like you said, keep the score.
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And eventually, like we're like a tea kettle.
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We either implode or we explode.
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And I think that kind of speaks to the burnout you're talking about.
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It's is it burnout or is it just this having to perform and having to this level of self-sacrifice that you didn't ask for?
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Like no one asks for that.
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So it can either manifest as these physical symptoms, migraines, fibromyalgia, heart issues, high blood pressure, anxiety stress.
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I was listening to a podcast not that long ago.
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It was all about stress and anxiety.
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And the guest was speaking to, she's a physician.
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She was speaking to the ACES study.
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Are you familiar with that?
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I've heard it.
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I haven't read it though.
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So the ACES study, what it stands for is adverse childhood experiences.
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And there's been a revision of, I guess, I haven't done, I haven't read it myself, but she said there's been a revision to the ACES study where what they're finding now is that one in six adults has four or more ACEs.
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And an ace would be a child whose parent was incarcerated, child whose parent struggled with mental illness or substance abuse disorder or died or was molested or had sexual trauma or experience.
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Like there's a whole list of things, right?
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Trauma is what happens and grief is what's left.
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That's what I speak to.
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And so anyway, with these aces, however you've experienced life as a child, it's going to impact and influence your adulthood unless you've connected the dot and looked at those things and sat with that grief, the undelivered communications, the anger, the resentment that I held.
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I had to get rid of that.
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But it took me 30 years to do so.
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But also the joy, right?
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The things that you couldn't say or didn't have an opportunity to say, especially if it was a loving relationship.
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And that's difficult too, right?
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The unloving relationships, people who are still living in our lives, or even if they did pass away and it wasn't the best of relationships, there's grief in all of it.
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And so as a tea kettle, we either implode or explode.
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And explode, we either have these anger outbursts or resort to behaviors that make us feel better for a short period of time.
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We call them sturbs for short.
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And things like alcohol or substances, right?
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Shopping, gambling, relationships, like constantly scrolling using social media, anything that makes you feel better for a short period of time.
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Even exercise, it's healthy, it's good for you.
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But even that can be a means to not address and really feel what it is that you're afraid to feel.
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And I think that's such a genuine point to look at how grief manifests in a person's body when we don't take the time to be gentle with ourselves when we're going through that process.
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And you speak to grief from lived experience.
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And we're talking about how grief can show up in different ways and not just from the cause of death.
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It can be grief of watching your loved one fade away, lose their memory and not remember who you are.
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When a loved one has a severe disability, the grief of them not having the experiences that other children in your lives have, maybe not being able to drive, maybe not every own home, the things that we, our hopes and dreams that we had at the start that are no longer there.
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What are the most common ways that caregivers or people accidentally dismiss their own grief when we're looking at it from a holistic approach of not just death, but other areas of our lives where we can have this grief from even from the trauma of watching your loved one go through a medical procedure that's distressing?
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I just don't think we connect the dots.
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I mean, I I can speak from personal experience.
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30 years, right?
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It took me 30 years to learning new tools and new education to realize that grief was my problem.
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What happened was though, I had another loss.
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Actually, my father's brother had been diagnosed with brain cancer.
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And he was one of the people I last saw at my father's funeral and hadn't since.
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But I went to go see him.
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It's like I felt this draw to go see him.
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And we reconnected over the next six months that followed until he passed.
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But and it was a very beautiful healing experience for me, and I think for him as well.
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But I didn't know.
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Was he going to recognize me?
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Does he even want to see me?
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Like I had no clue.
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I just felt this pull to go see him.
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But what happened after that was like, this is grief.
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Like, that's my issue.
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Like this opened up, it it's the scab had been pulled off, right?
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And I was all of a sudden flooded with all these feelings again and realized this is this is grief.
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Like, grief is my issue here.
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And up to that point, all the physical manifestations I'd been experiencing, I didn't connect it to grief.
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I just thought losing my hair and I honestly thought I was struggling with a mental illness.
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I honestly believed that there was really something wrong with me.
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I was questioning, am I bipolar?
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Because I would have these really high highs and these really low lows.
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And my self-care was in the toilet.
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And I'd pulled myself together long enough that I had to when my kids were around and when they weren't, it's like I didn't care about myself.
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So yeah, it takes a level of self-awareness to connect those dots for yourself.
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And it's that unacknowledged grief when you don't realize or you're not seeing the dots that are coming that especially hit hard when you're switched on.
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If you're heightened, if your adrenaline and cortisol is going, hard rooms like hospitals, school offices, medical appointments, they become harder because you're already at a level nine.
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And so trying to regulate yourself, trying to find a balance in that space, if you're not able to recognize that the things that you've experienced have caused trauma, which result in grief for yourself and your loved one.
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And most of the time, caregivers are experiencing grief from both sides.
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They feel grief for the child or their loved one who's gone through the medical challenge, but then also having to witness what they won't remember because they're either asleep or they're so in so much pain that their brain has compartmentalized, like you talked about.
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So for caregivers, there's that extra layer of grief of being the witness to the processes and the trauma that our loved ones experience, especially when they're going through treatment, whether that be for mind deficiency, whether that be for skin conditions, ulcers, cancer, whatever that process may be.
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If there's nobody to verbalize that this is what grief looks like, this is how it can show up in your body, then that can lead to a compounded burnout.
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And it's not just that your body is like shattered, but it's also your mind, your spirit, and what you talked about before, where when your children aren't there, you're having these crashes where you've got nothing left.
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There's nothing in the tank to show up for yourself.
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And I want to go into what you named so beautifully was the long goodbye nobody prepares you for.
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How do you describe anticip grief in caregiving or in everyday life?
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What does it actually feel like from the inside when somebody is going to pass and you're anticipating that grief that's coming?
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Well, I think there's a level of my brain that completely shut that down as a child.
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Now, having sat with people just in high school, I used to work in a nursing home.
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I was a certified nursing assistant.
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I did home health care later as an adult, where I had patients that I went to go see who were on hospice.
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It's like the body knows what's coming.
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I can correlate it, I think, with my experience before addressing my grief.
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Took me 30 years.
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And when I got on the plane, and when I was actually there and I was going through this method that helped me with my grief, I got physically very sick, diarrhea, vomiting.
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And I'd met a person on the tour bus the day before who was there for a life coaching conference.
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And we ate the exact same meal at the exact same place, and she was absolutely fine.
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It was like my body knew what was coming.
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I think that's what happens.
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I again, I can't remember for me as a child, but I feel like naturally, like we feel anxious, right?
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We don't know what to expect.
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We don't want to be there for that person wrong.
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We don't want to do it wrong.
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We don't know exactly what to say.
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And so either we say nothing or we say all these things that we try to just get everything out then, right?
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Like you just want to say it all because no one prepares us for death.
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We're not prepared for it.
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We're taught how to acquire things and people, but not what to do when we lose them.
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And even if you've had years to prepare, quote, prepare, the moment it happens is still final.
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And you have no idea what that moment will actually feel like.
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So I honestly don't like the labels, anticipatory grief or all these other labels that are kind of tossed around because it's grief.
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It's just grief.
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I don't think we need more labels in our society.
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It's not helpful.
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It can help someone, I guess, feel understood, maybe.
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But again, if we understood grief, we would understand it's just grief.
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And that's why I'm so passionate about talking about grief all the live-long day, because I just grew up in such a misinformed household and decade and society.
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And I can recognize how different our children's lives can be if as adults we are less afraid of looking at our own wounds.
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And like a cat.
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I don't know why this came to me.
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When a cat is wounded, what does it do?
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It licks its own wounds.
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I don't know why that just came to me, why that analogy came to me.
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But I think we need to get back to caring for our own wounds because that that is the impact and that that is the ripples of the people in our lives.
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The worst has already happened, a diagnosis, a death, what have you, whatever it is, that's already happened.
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You can't change it, you can't erase it, you can't turn back the clock.
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But if you look at it with the perspective of the worst has already happened, how can I move forward?
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Even if it's hour by hour, day by day.
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And I think a part of that is to develop a resiliency as an adult that we were not taught as children, because we it was just expected of us.
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But we were actually never taught how to actually be resilient, like what that actually takes.
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And I think you really named it before when you said that nobody educates us around how to cope with death, how to cope with grief that enters our life.
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And it's not something that's openly discussed either.
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It's something that we have to come to in delicate conversations when we're talking about end-of-life care, when we're talking about somebody not ever being able to achieve something.
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Nobody actually talks about how to acknowledge it, how to recognize when when it comes up for you.
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What happens and who do you seek support from in that space?
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And I think that's really important for people to hear everywhere, including in caregiving, is that grief is not something that we're educated for.
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Grief isn't something that we are cushioned to understand.
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So there's no softness in that experience.
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And when grief is experienced, it's shattering at times, particularly if it's a loved one whose past it's unexpected or it's coming, but they were a significant part of your life and how to manage the distance that death or grief creates in that space.
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And I'm really intrigued by what you mean when you say grief-sensitive support.
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What helps without trying to rush someone into acceptance or positivity?
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Well, I think the toxic positivity we call it in society now, I think it's it's this rush.
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Again, I think it comes back to we'd rather feel better than feel our pain.
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So it's this rush to Pollyanna in a way, look at the silver lining.
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I became an expert at looking at the silver lining.
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I think that was how I coped.
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Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I knew every drink special every night of the week.
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So it's like I was great at finding the silver lining, but yet I was also abusing alcohol.
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It's like, how do you reconcile that?
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But we do.
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Our minds are really crafty that way.
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But like you said, and like I think the theme of this podcast is the body remembers, the body knows, and it's always speaking to us.
00:20:22.720 --> 00:20:36.640
We are an energetic being, and emotions are energy, and we have a lot of say in what those thoughts are and what those feelings either prompt us to do or not do.
00:20:36.799 --> 00:20:45.599
And so either we, like I said before, either stuff down, sweep under the rug, avoid, run away from, or we choose differently.
00:20:45.759 --> 00:20:56.960
We choose to do grief differently, and that's to look at the shadows of our experience, look at the difficult conversations that were never had or that we wish we could have had.
00:20:57.119 --> 00:21:00.559
Grief is the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations.
00:21:00.720 --> 00:21:04.640
It's anything that you wish would be or could have been different, better or more.
00:21:04.799 --> 00:21:06.559
So it's a lot more than just death.
00:21:06.720 --> 00:21:17.039
And by the time you become a caregiver to your aging parent or to a child or what have you, you've already had a lot of rocks you've probably put in your backpack.
00:21:17.200 --> 00:21:39.119
And we just are not taught again how to let that boulder go, releasing it and carrying forward the knowledge and the tools, but also I think it's empowering when you feel confident that regardless of what life is going to throw at you, that you can get through it.
00:21:39.279 --> 00:21:41.279
Not to say it's easy, right?
00:21:41.519 --> 00:21:43.759
But yeah, it's it's never easy.
00:21:44.079 --> 00:21:47.119
And I think it it's the hard things that shape us.
00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:49.039
And I think that's true of all helpers.
00:21:49.200 --> 00:21:51.200
All helpers, I think, have gone through something.
00:21:51.440 --> 00:21:53.039
Advocates, people like you.
00:21:53.279 --> 00:21:58.240
You are doing beautiful work in your life as a caregiver to so many different people.
00:21:58.400 --> 00:22:07.599
And one of the things that I like Learned personally is that it's when life is lifing that's when we need to double down on our self-care.
00:22:07.759 --> 00:22:15.680
And I've I'm a mom of three, and I haven't had to uh be the caregiver like you in the shoes that you are in.
00:22:15.839 --> 00:22:18.160
I did have a brief experience with my son.
00:22:18.319 --> 00:22:20.720
We didn't know what was going to happen.
00:22:20.960 --> 00:22:26.720
Long story short, had a bench pressing accident and ended up with 30% of his pancreas left.
00:22:26.799 --> 00:22:29.440
But he was in and out of the hospital for six weeks.
00:22:29.599 --> 00:22:31.839
It sounds like it was only six weeks, right?
00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:36.720
Some women, some mothers, they're in caregiver roles for years, for decades.
00:22:36.880 --> 00:22:40.480
And it's like, and I have, I know people in my life who have in those shoes.
00:22:40.559 --> 00:22:47.279
And I look back and it was only six weeks, but to my body, that experience at the time, it felt like six years.
00:22:47.440 --> 00:22:52.160
And I didn't realize the impact of that actually until this past year.
00:22:52.319 --> 00:22:56.559
There was still emotional residue left from that experience.
00:22:56.799 --> 00:23:04.240
I still, to this day, and it was over a three-hour drive to the hospital that he had to go to because no one close would take his case.
00:23:04.400 --> 00:23:09.680
And every time I see that hospital, it's like this PTSD, it brings me back to that experience.
00:23:09.839 --> 00:23:12.880
So I understand what you were saying in that regard.
00:23:13.039 --> 00:23:26.240
So I have deep respect and empathy for the caregivers who like you show up every single day because it is self-love, self-sacrifice, and a level of love that those on the receiving end, it's a gift.
00:23:26.559 --> 00:23:43.200
When you're talking about the emotional residue that's left over from any traumatic or emotionally charged experience, it's so resonated so truly with me when you said that driving past the hospital, having experiences that bring us back.
00:23:43.359 --> 00:23:49.839
And there was a American TV program called Amsterdam, and one of my children had an AVM rupture in his brain.
00:23:49.920 --> 00:23:51.680
And it was a couple of years later.
00:23:51.839 --> 00:24:11.759
And as a caregiver, you do, when you're aware that something has caused emotional distress, tears that you've had to hide, fear that someone's not going to pull through, you do try and address it so that it doesn't linger and create additional distress in new situations that are most likely going to occur.
00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:15.039
And they had children on there who had the same thing.
00:24:15.200 --> 00:24:24.319
And I was sitting on the couch bawling my eyes out because it brought me right back to the that room, the diagnosis, them telling you that this information.
00:24:24.480 --> 00:24:35.680
And I was talking with someone this morning and they talked to me about the bad news room in hospitals that they take you away from your loved one so they don't hear what the bad news is.
00:24:35.759 --> 00:24:42.640
And they take you into very clinical, no comfort, no, it's very harsh, harsh lighting, harsh everything.
00:24:42.799 --> 00:24:45.200
And it is really a bad room to be told information.
00:24:45.279 --> 00:24:52.640
And when you get taken in there, you're like okay, bracing, but there is not even support in that space.
00:24:52.799 --> 00:24:56.240
There's nobody saying, hey, we know this is going to be devastating.
00:24:56.400 --> 00:25:06.240
And we know as a parent you're gonna have to pull your Ps and Q's together and push through and pretend like everything's hunky-dory so that you're not terrifying your loved one.
00:25:06.400 --> 00:25:12.319
And that's one of the hardest parts is that is that caregivers lose things too.
00:25:12.480 --> 00:25:17.039
Not because they're selfish, but because caregiving changes as life progresses.
00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:20.319
And I wanted to talk about the invisible losses.
00:25:20.400 --> 00:25:24.160
What are some of the most common ones you see in caregiving?
00:25:24.319 --> 00:25:34.799
And if I could give you some examples around identity, friendship or social loss, marriage and partnership intimacy, career momentum, financial safety.
00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:41.440
One of the big ones is health, sleep, nervous system, steadiness, and what's the future going to look like?
00:25:41.680 --> 00:25:47.680
What would you say the most common ones that you see in the work that you do with people and grief?
00:25:47.920 --> 00:25:52.799
Well, since I'm dealing with individuals, I would say I always try to focus on the individual.
00:25:52.960 --> 00:25:54.559
It's always about the individual.
00:25:54.720 --> 00:26:00.160
So I think when we are not caring for ourselves, like that's everything.
00:26:00.400 --> 00:26:06.240
It's like the domino, because that's where we find our resiliency in all those other areas.
00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:09.680
I mean, that's what I learned for myself in that going through that period.
00:26:09.839 --> 00:26:23.359
But that's what I would say the dot that I would connect, I guess, is that if we took care of that thing, all the other things would feel less heavy, or we would have the stamina, right?
00:26:23.519 --> 00:26:28.000
We would have the mental agility or emotional capacity.
00:26:28.319 --> 00:26:30.319
I really think it starts with the individual.
00:26:30.400 --> 00:26:34.960
I think that is the most important, starting with the caregiver and they're where they're at.
00:26:35.119 --> 00:26:36.319
Everything flows from that.
00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:38.480
It's almost I was in the military too.
00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:40.640
Everything starts from the top down.
00:26:40.720 --> 00:26:45.920
And I think that's the same when it comes to caregiving and to what you described.
00:26:46.079 --> 00:27:08.799
Would you say that in our life, like from our experiences in children, where we might lose somebody or we have a traumatic experience that's negative in our life, that these experiences then compound when we don't address them, when we don't or we are unable to recognize in that path way that we're actually experiencing grief.
00:27:08.960 --> 00:27:24.000
And that that compounds to then create, as you said, a boiled kettle to explode or implode because we haven't been taught that you need to pause, address it, so that then it's not being carried with you.
00:27:24.160 --> 00:27:31.039
And I think one of the biggest things that causes like guilt and shame is actually being able to say, I'm struggling.
00:27:31.200 --> 00:27:36.720
I need support in a way that doesn't turn into more advice or being fixed.
00:27:36.880 --> 00:27:45.519
How can caregivers seek out the right type of support so that they don't have to feel those experiences and those emotions?
00:27:45.759 --> 00:27:49.279
Well, I'll say the first part of your statement with the compound.
00:27:49.359 --> 00:27:59.279
I actually talk about like healing and looking after yourself and emotional, physical, spiritual, all those areas of our self-care.
00:27:59.440 --> 00:28:00.640
That's compound interest.
00:28:00.720 --> 00:28:02.160
I like to compare it to money.
00:28:02.319 --> 00:28:04.400
We didn't get to where we are overnight.
00:28:04.640 --> 00:28:08.160
We can't expect to get where we want to be overnight either.
00:28:08.319 --> 00:28:19.279
And so it's the littlest things that are our compound interest when it comes to healing and feeling better and feeling resilient and feeling more stable and grounded.
00:28:19.440 --> 00:28:23.039
So that's the first thing I would say to that first part of what you were talking about.
00:28:23.279 --> 00:28:29.039
So, how can caregivers ask for support in a way that doesn't turn into more advice or being fixed?
00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:30.319
No shame, no guilt.
00:28:30.480 --> 00:28:51.039
So I think that sometimes the family members are maybe not the best people because what I have learned and what I have found is that the people in your life, anyone that has skin in your game, they're going to give you advice or support that may work in their favor, right?
00:28:51.200 --> 00:28:53.440
Like it's not going to impact them.
00:28:53.680 --> 00:28:55.839
People are afraid of other people changing.
00:28:56.160 --> 00:28:57.599
It's uncomfortable, right?
00:28:57.759 --> 00:29:04.559
It's uncomfortable when the people around us change, and even if it's for the better, because it kind of we act as a mirror for others.
00:29:04.640 --> 00:29:09.119
So it shows other people maybe where we've all experienced it, right?
00:29:09.200 --> 00:29:12.960
Like you, you're in a room with people and you're you compare yourself.
00:29:13.200 --> 00:29:13.759
We just do.
00:29:13.839 --> 00:29:15.119
We tend to compare ourselves.
00:29:15.279 --> 00:29:21.920
So we're it's so easy for us to pick out the flaws in someone else, but really that's something that we feel within ourselves.
00:29:22.079 --> 00:29:24.000
That's probably not even a flaw in the other person.
00:29:24.079 --> 00:29:28.240
It's just what we're seeing, what we're picking up on, but it's within ourselves.
00:29:28.400 --> 00:29:30.400
It's just being being mirrored to us.
00:29:30.559 --> 00:29:38.000
And so that's where I think uh people that have skin in your game of life are probably not the best people to support you necessarily.
00:29:38.160 --> 00:29:55.680
Now, do you have people in your life though who have done their own work, who have done their own deep personal work, who have developed their emotional IQ, so to speak, who have shown resiliency in their own life, not performative resiliency, but true resiliency.
00:29:55.839 --> 00:29:57.599
I think there's a big difference in that.
00:29:57.680 --> 00:29:59.039
And that's what I would look to.
00:29:59.200 --> 00:30:08.720
Look to the examples of people who not necessarily, I'll say it this, who don't have it all together and can admit when they are struggling themselves.
00:30:08.880 --> 00:30:11.519
That's the that's the co-pilot that you want.
00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:17.200
Someone who can sit in it with you and who isn't pretending that they have it all together.
00:30:17.440 --> 00:30:26.480
I think that is an important difference in approach to seeking support, especially when generally it's really raw.
00:30:26.640 --> 00:30:34.799
The wound within is raw and it's hard to talk about and to be frankly honest about what's going on inside.
00:30:35.279 --> 00:30:44.960
You need that neutral ground of no judgment, of being able to sit and witness it with you without making you feel like you're doing something wrong.
00:30:45.519 --> 00:30:52.160
You shouldn't be in the space that you are, you should be stronger, you should have everything held together all the time.
00:30:52.880 --> 00:31:05.519
And I think finding that gentle kindness in being able to be present but not be judged by it is really important in any space of caregiving or personal grief journey.
00:31:05.680 --> 00:31:18.400
And I'd really like us to take a moment to look at small, kind next steps and language that caregivers can borrow before we wrap up our conversation today.
00:31:18.559 --> 00:31:26.240
Can you tell me what are three tiny next steps caregivers can take this week to honor grief without being spoiled by it?
00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:31.839
I would say give yourself, take a post-it note, simple post-it note, not very big.
00:31:31.920 --> 00:31:41.279
I'm not talking a big sheet, just a post-it note, where you can write three things, three non-negotiables for your self-care in whatever feels good.
00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:48.160
It sounds so cliche, but if you think of yourself like a plant, and I'm sure you have plants in your house?
00:31:48.319 --> 00:31:48.799
I do, yes.
00:31:49.039 --> 00:31:53.680
What's interesting is I never had plants until I actually started to care for myself.
00:31:53.839 --> 00:31:55.039
I just realized that.
00:31:55.279 --> 00:31:56.480
Anyway, I love plants.
00:31:56.559 --> 00:31:59.119
Now I'm kind of an addict right now with the plants.
00:31:59.279 --> 00:32:00.960
I have a literally like a plant room.
00:32:01.119 --> 00:32:03.119
My kids are always telling me no more plants.
00:32:03.279 --> 00:32:05.200
Anyway, think of yourself as a plant.
00:32:05.359 --> 00:32:06.480
And what do you need?
00:32:06.640 --> 00:32:10.640
You need hydration, you need sunlight, and you need, what else do you need?
00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:11.839
Fertilizer, right?
00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:12.640
Nourishment.
00:32:12.880 --> 00:32:13.680
So basic.
00:32:13.839 --> 00:32:15.039
Let's get to basics.
00:32:15.200 --> 00:32:18.559
I mean, that's when, again, it comes back to when life is lifing.
00:32:18.720 --> 00:32:19.599
What are the basics?
00:32:19.759 --> 00:32:22.480
And when the sun goes down, what do flowers do?
00:32:22.640 --> 00:32:24.240
They close up, they rest.
00:32:24.400 --> 00:32:25.920
Think of yourself like a tulip.
00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:28.880
I think that's the best recommendation I could possibly give.
00:32:29.039 --> 00:32:30.000
It's so simple.
00:32:30.160 --> 00:32:31.680
Sometimes it's the simplest thing.
00:32:31.839 --> 00:32:32.720
Well, I don't have time.
00:32:32.799 --> 00:32:34.079
Where am I going to find the time?
00:32:34.240 --> 00:32:37.920
Even if you have your loved one with you that you're caring for, sit outside.
00:32:38.079 --> 00:32:39.119
They're a plant too, right?
00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:43.519
In this metaphor, like they need sunlight, they need hydration, they need nourishment.
00:32:43.680 --> 00:32:49.359
Like all the things that you give to your loved one, why is it so hard for us to give to ourselves?
00:32:49.599 --> 00:32:50.400
That's very true.
00:32:50.559 --> 00:32:54.000
Because at the end of the day, we generally are at the bottom of the list.
00:32:54.160 --> 00:33:01.440
So it's time to amend that and put us at the top of the list so that we can trickle down the love and support that we need to give.
00:33:01.599 --> 00:33:13.839
And I think that honoring yourself and recognizing that nourishment, sleep, rest, and self-appreciation is really important, making sure that you've got all of the essentials is a great place to start.
00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:20.240
Because when you're in the midst of the grief, it's hard to see the next best step.
00:33:20.400 --> 00:33:36.960
So if the next best step is having a sip of water, if the next best step is sitting down and closing your eyes because you need a rest, know that there is no judgment, no shame, no guilt attached with having the basic needs of life met and for you to be supported in that.
00:33:37.119 --> 00:33:45.200
And if someone wants to support a caregiver, what's one phrase that helps and one that usually harms when we're talking about grief?
00:33:45.519 --> 00:33:47.279
Today, you are doing the best that you can.
00:33:47.519 --> 00:33:57.359
What I would say what's hurtful or harmful is I think alluding to the idea that God doesn't give you more than you can handle.
00:33:57.519 --> 00:33:58.480
That's not helpful.
00:33:58.720 --> 00:34:03.519
Another idea, this just came to me too, and so I'm gonna share it because it popped in my mind.
00:34:03.759 --> 00:34:15.519
But if you as a caregiver know of other caregivers who are in a similar, it doesn't even have to be the same situation or experience, but an understanding of what you're going through and vice versa.
00:34:15.760 --> 00:34:26.159
I think just as like when when we're in the child rearing years, sometimes um I I think it's becoming more popular actually, where parents will swap.
00:34:26.320 --> 00:34:31.679
Like, I'll take your kids today, you take mine tomorrow, and I can have some me time.
00:34:31.920 --> 00:34:44.400
Why can't that apply to caregivers who are in uh like a situation like yours or having a life experience where it is something that this is there is like no expiration date on this.
00:34:44.559 --> 00:34:47.760
This is how it is, and this is this is my life.
00:34:47.920 --> 00:34:53.679
And how can I bring in the support to help me get those moments of the post-it note?
00:34:53.920 --> 00:35:02.639
And uh, and I feel like if you can create a network or community of caregivers in similar shoes where you can you can do that, right?
00:35:02.719 --> 00:35:09.440
Like I can take your responsibilities for an hour or two, vice versa, you can take mine and someone you trust, of course.
00:35:09.679 --> 00:35:17.119
It's a really like foundational thought to seek others who have the same skill set or the same experience.
00:35:17.360 --> 00:35:36.639
And even if that means that they can't do self-care, like they can't be on like like left alone, but they could do self-care together in the support where they come together and they're in the same space and they can just be supportive of each other and it's not just all on the one person to keep momentum going.
00:35:36.880 --> 00:35:51.679
We've had a found a really grounded conversation today about grief, how it shows up in different stages of your life and how caregivers can be supported through that when grief doesn't just mean somebody has passed away.
00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:59.199
Where can listeners find you and your work if grief is something that they're experiencing in this stage of their life?
00:35:59.440 --> 00:36:02.639
Everything's on my website, theunleashtheart.com.
00:36:02.960 --> 00:36:05.360
Uh, I got a lot of free resources there.
00:36:05.519 --> 00:36:08.000
Some meditations I've created are there.
00:36:08.320 --> 00:36:11.360
Uh, and yeah, all the links to all the things.
00:36:11.599 --> 00:36:24.239
I'll make sure that I add all of uh Victoria's links in the show notes of our conversation today, so that you can find her easily and you don't have to remember her website whilst you're listening.
00:36:24.400 --> 00:36:26.960
I wanted to say thank you so much, Victoria.
00:36:27.119 --> 00:36:35.360
This conversation was gentle and honest, and I know it will land with caregivers who feel like they have to stay strong even when they're quietly grieving.
00:36:35.519 --> 00:36:38.800
Today we named the grief that doesn't come with a funeral.
00:36:38.960 --> 00:36:43.440
We talked about the invisible loss and the long goodbye nobody prepares you for.
00:36:43.599 --> 00:36:51.280
And we talked about what it can look like to live alongside grief without rushing it, fixing it, or forcing meaning before you're ready.
00:36:51.440 --> 00:36:57.760
If you're listening and you feel tearful, numb, irritated, or exhausted, you're not doing it wrong.
00:36:57.920 --> 00:37:01.119
You might just be carrying something that deserves acknowledgement.
00:37:01.360 --> 00:37:03.840
One small kind next step is enough.
00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:06.880
To everyone listening, thank you for spending this time with us.
00:37:07.039 --> 00:37:08.880
You don't have to hold it all alone.
00:37:09.039 --> 00:37:12.400
I'm Michelle and this is Radiant Moments Caregiver Oasis.
00:37:12.559 --> 00:37:17.760
Until next time, take gentle care of your radiant moments and of yourself.
00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:09.759
Just a gentle note before we begin.
00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:13.919
Today's episode includes discussion of grief, loss, and caregiving.
00:00:14.160 --> 00:00:16.719
Please listen in a way that feels supportive for you.
00:00:16.879 --> 00:00:19.760
You're welcome to pause and come back at any time.
00:00:20.079 --> 00:00:22.879
There's a kind of grief that doesn't come with a funeral.
00:00:23.039 --> 00:00:29.760
It comes in small moments when your loved one changes, when you realize they can't do what they used to.
00:00:41.119 --> 00:00:47.039
When a conversation feels different, when the future you thought you had quietly disappears.
00:00:47.119 --> 00:00:54.000
And many caregivers don't call this grief because no one died and you're still needed, and the day still has to run.
00:00:54.159 --> 00:00:57.679
So they minimize it, they push it down, they keep going.
00:00:57.840 --> 00:01:09.439
But the body keeps the score, the tight chest, the short fuse, the numbness, the tears that show up in the car, and the feeling that everyone else has moved on while you're still in the in-between.
00:01:09.599 --> 00:01:13.680
Today's guest is here to name that experience with so much care.
00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:22.319
Victoria Volk is the creator of the Unleashed Heart, and she supports people moving through loss with a grief-sensitive body aware approach.
00:01:22.560 --> 00:01:25.599
No fixing, no urgency, and no bypassing.
00:01:25.680 --> 00:01:32.719
She's an advanced certified grief recovery specialist and an end-of-life dueler and the host of the Grieving Voices podcast.
00:01:32.879 --> 00:01:39.200
She brings a unique perspective shaped by being a child griever and by the life experience that followed.
00:01:39.439 --> 00:01:47.439
This episode is for the caregiver living the long goodbye and for anyone carrying invisible loss while still showing up for everyone else.
00:01:47.680 --> 00:01:50.319
Victoria, welcome to Radiant Moments.
00:01:50.560 --> 00:01:52.239
Thank you for that wonderful intro.
00:01:52.560 --> 00:01:53.359
My pleasure.
00:02:17.360 --> 00:02:21.599
So my story began in childhood, as you mentioned in the introduction.
00:02:21.919 --> 00:02:26.000
My grandmother had been diagnosed with stage four melanoma.
00:02:26.159 --> 00:02:28.240
So my mother was caring for her.
00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:32.879
At the same time, my father had been diagnosed with stage four colon cancer.
00:02:33.039 --> 00:02:40.879
So between the age of six and seven, when my grandmother passed away, a year later, when I was eight, my father passed.
00:02:41.039 --> 00:02:52.319
So as you can imagine, my mother, as a caregiver for both her mother and her husband, she didn't have the tools or the emotional capacity really to parent myself anyway.
00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:54.240
I'm the youngest of four.
00:02:54.479 --> 00:03:07.840
There was a there's a five-year age gap between my brother and I, and then a nine-year age gap between myself and my oldest sister, and an even more of a gap between myself and my half-brother, who had already was an adult at that time.
00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:16.960
My experience growing up was being shuffled around, lack of stability, a lack of caregiving, really, and how I was feeling, what I was experiencing.
00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:32.879
But also in hindsight, I can with empathy put myself in my mother's shoes now, knowing what I know about grief and have compassion for her, where I had a lot of anger, honestly, and a lot of resentment into my teen years and growing up.
00:03:33.039 --> 00:03:36.080
Because not only did I lose my close loved ones, right?
00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:40.560
But when my father passed away, I also lost that entire side of the family.
00:03:40.879 --> 00:03:42.479
They were no longer in our lives.
00:03:42.639 --> 00:03:45.199
So grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles.
00:03:45.360 --> 00:03:50.400
So it was a lot to take as a child and try to process on my own.
00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:57.759
And as children, we make up stories and we come to our own conclusions if no one tells us differently, right?
00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:02.800
And what followed, though, after those losses was I was molested.
00:04:02.960 --> 00:04:08.080
And so when I shared that with my mother, there was she was kind of indifferent to it.
00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:10.400
Nothing really changed or nothing happened.
00:04:10.560 --> 00:04:13.039
So growing up, I just felt really dismissed.
00:04:13.199 --> 00:04:31.519
But again, knowing what I know now, I mean, I see where the rage and the anger came from, but I can also look at her life experience and what she experienced even before those experiences, those losses she had, and how that impacted her caregiving and parenting of me.
00:04:31.600 --> 00:04:32.959
I can look at that with empathy.
00:04:33.120 --> 00:04:40.959
I looked at when my children were eight, I couldn't help but look at them and know, like they would know if something happened to me.
00:04:41.120 --> 00:04:42.879
If I died, they would understand it.
00:04:43.040 --> 00:04:52.800
And there is just so much misunderstanding about the capacity of children and what they understand and what they know that we always hear too that children are resilient.
00:04:52.959 --> 00:04:54.480
Well, children don't have a choice.
00:04:54.639 --> 00:04:55.920
They learn to adapt.
00:04:56.079 --> 00:05:03.519
They're probably the best at adaptability because they don't have a choice, don't have a sense of self-agency like you do as an adult.
00:05:03.680 --> 00:05:11.519
So, yeah, how would that shape my work today is I have been both on the receiving end of lack of caregiving.
00:05:11.680 --> 00:05:15.839
I've seen how difficult it can be for caregivers.
00:05:16.160 --> 00:05:18.879
And to be that, it's like a sandwich, right?
00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:25.199
That sandwich of I should be here and I need to be there, and I can't be everything to everyone.
00:05:25.279 --> 00:05:28.319
And how do I even care for myself at the same time?
00:05:28.560 --> 00:05:38.800
I am a I am a mom, I am a parent, I have three kids, but I think that grief and that seeing the contrast has greatly shaped my work with people.
00:05:39.040 --> 00:05:54.639
And I hear very truly that each person's experience at that time, because that everyone was at a different point in their life and their age and what they'd experienced up until that point was substantially different.
00:05:54.800 --> 00:06:12.720
And that impacted how information was interpreted, what information was shared, what information wasn't shared, which then has that knock-on effect when processing, when processing grief, when trying to make sense of the world around you, when those significant life events happen.
00:06:12.879 --> 00:06:22.319
And for so many caregivers, they don't identify as grievers, even when they're carrying loss every day, because they have these responsibilities.
00:06:22.480 --> 00:06:33.120
They have to show up, they still have to be present, and there may not be the bandwidth to be able to stop and address how they're feeling or address the impact of that grief.
00:06:33.279 --> 00:06:41.360
In your work, what makes grief hard to name, especially for people who are still functioning and still needed day to day, really?
00:06:41.600 --> 00:06:45.519
I think what happens is people get really good at compartmentalizing.
00:06:45.600 --> 00:06:56.399
Like, how can your brain even like wrap around and comprehend and like take in everything that it needs to take in, much less just living as a human in 2026, right?
00:06:56.560 --> 00:07:05.040
But also then, like you said, showing up for your loved ones, your spouse, your significant other, your children, parent, all the people in your life, right?
00:07:05.120 --> 00:07:10.480
And all the different hats that we wear as mothers and caregivers and parents and all the things.
00:07:10.639 --> 00:07:15.360
And I think you get really good at compartmentalizing just as a means to survive.
00:07:15.519 --> 00:07:17.199
You become really good at highly functioning.
00:07:17.360 --> 00:07:19.759
But the body does, like you said, keep the score.
00:07:19.920 --> 00:07:22.240
And eventually, like we're like a tea kettle.
00:07:22.399 --> 00:07:24.480
We either implode or we explode.
00:07:24.639 --> 00:07:27.600
And I think that kind of speaks to the burnout you're talking about.
00:07:27.680 --> 00:07:36.480
It's is it burnout or is it just this having to perform and having to this level of self-sacrifice that you didn't ask for?
00:07:36.639 --> 00:07:38.079
Like no one asks for that.
00:07:38.240 --> 00:07:46.879
So it can either manifest as these physical symptoms, migraines, fibromyalgia, heart issues, high blood pressure, anxiety stress.
00:07:46.959 --> 00:07:48.959
I was listening to a podcast not that long ago.
00:07:49.120 --> 00:07:50.720
It was all about stress and anxiety.
00:07:50.800 --> 00:07:53.759
And the guest was speaking to, she's a physician.
00:07:53.920 --> 00:07:55.920
She was speaking to the ACES study.
00:07:56.160 --> 00:07:57.199
Are you familiar with that?
00:07:57.439 --> 00:07:58.000
I've heard it.
00:07:58.079 --> 00:07:59.120
I haven't read it though.
00:07:59.360 --> 00:08:04.160
So the ACES study, what it stands for is adverse childhood experiences.
00:08:04.319 --> 00:08:16.879
And there's been a revision of, I guess, I haven't done, I haven't read it myself, but she said there's been a revision to the ACES study where what they're finding now is that one in six adults has four or more ACEs.
00:08:16.959 --> 00:08:29.759
And an ace would be a child whose parent was incarcerated, child whose parent struggled with mental illness or substance abuse disorder or died or was molested or had sexual trauma or experience.
00:08:29.839 --> 00:08:31.839
Like there's a whole list of things, right?
00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:34.320
Trauma is what happens and grief is what's left.
00:08:34.399 --> 00:08:35.600
That's what I speak to.
00:08:35.759 --> 00:08:54.159
And so anyway, with these aces, however you've experienced life as a child, it's going to impact and influence your adulthood unless you've connected the dot and looked at those things and sat with that grief, the undelivered communications, the anger, the resentment that I held.
00:08:54.240 --> 00:08:55.360
I had to get rid of that.
00:08:55.440 --> 00:08:57.279
But it took me 30 years to do so.
00:08:57.440 --> 00:08:58.559
But also the joy, right?
00:08:58.639 --> 00:09:04.159
The things that you couldn't say or didn't have an opportunity to say, especially if it was a loving relationship.
00:09:04.320 --> 00:09:05.919
And that's difficult too, right?
00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:16.000
The unloving relationships, people who are still living in our lives, or even if they did pass away and it wasn't the best of relationships, there's grief in all of it.
00:09:16.159 --> 00:09:19.600
And so as a tea kettle, we either implode or explode.
00:09:19.679 --> 00:09:27.279
And explode, we either have these anger outbursts or resort to behaviors that make us feel better for a short period of time.
00:09:27.440 --> 00:09:29.519
We call them sturbs for short.
00:09:29.679 --> 00:09:33.279
And things like alcohol or substances, right?
00:09:33.440 --> 00:09:41.919
Shopping, gambling, relationships, like constantly scrolling using social media, anything that makes you feel better for a short period of time.
00:09:42.080 --> 00:09:44.960
Even exercise, it's healthy, it's good for you.
00:09:45.120 --> 00:09:52.000
But even that can be a means to not address and really feel what it is that you're afraid to feel.
00:09:52.159 --> 00:10:06.240
And I think that's such a genuine point to look at how grief manifests in a person's body when we don't take the time to be gentle with ourselves when we're going through that process.
00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:08.960
And you speak to grief from lived experience.
00:10:09.120 --> 00:10:14.480
And we're talking about how grief can show up in different ways and not just from the cause of death.
00:10:14.639 --> 00:10:19.919
It can be grief of watching your loved one fade away, lose their memory and not remember who you are.
00:10:20.080 --> 00:10:35.919
When a loved one has a severe disability, the grief of them not having the experiences that other children in your lives have, maybe not being able to drive, maybe not every own home, the things that we, our hopes and dreams that we had at the start that are no longer there.
00:10:36.159 --> 00:10:56.399
What are the most common ways that caregivers or people accidentally dismiss their own grief when we're looking at it from a holistic approach of not just death, but other areas of our lives where we can have this grief from even from the trauma of watching your loved one go through a medical procedure that's distressing?
00:10:56.639 --> 00:10:58.399
I just don't think we connect the dots.
00:10:58.559 --> 00:11:00.720
I mean, I I can speak from personal experience.
00:11:00.960 --> 00:11:02.000
30 years, right?
00:11:02.159 --> 00:11:09.679
It took me 30 years to learning new tools and new education to realize that grief was my problem.
00:11:09.919 --> 00:11:12.320
What happened was though, I had another loss.
00:11:12.480 --> 00:11:16.000
Actually, my father's brother had been diagnosed with brain cancer.
00:11:16.159 --> 00:11:20.000
And he was one of the people I last saw at my father's funeral and hadn't since.
00:11:20.159 --> 00:11:21.679
But I went to go see him.
00:11:21.840 --> 00:11:24.399
It's like I felt this draw to go see him.
00:11:24.639 --> 00:11:29.360
And we reconnected over the next six months that followed until he passed.
00:11:29.519 --> 00:11:34.159
But and it was a very beautiful healing experience for me, and I think for him as well.
00:11:34.320 --> 00:11:34.879
But I didn't know.
00:11:35.039 --> 00:11:36.320
Was he going to recognize me?
00:11:37.279 --> 00:11:38.480
Does he even want to see me?
00:11:38.559 --> 00:11:39.519
Like I had no clue.
00:11:39.679 --> 00:11:41.679
I just felt this pull to go see him.
00:11:41.840 --> 00:11:44.799
But what happened after that was like, this is grief.
00:11:44.960 --> 00:11:46.159
Like, that's my issue.
00:11:46.320 --> 00:11:50.639
Like this opened up, it it's the scab had been pulled off, right?
00:11:50.799 --> 00:11:57.519
And I was all of a sudden flooded with all these feelings again and realized this is this is grief.
00:11:57.679 --> 00:11:59.600
Like, grief is my issue here.
00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:06.480
And up to that point, all the physical manifestations I'd been experiencing, I didn't connect it to grief.
00:12:06.639 --> 00:12:12.240
I just thought losing my hair and I honestly thought I was struggling with a mental illness.
00:12:12.399 --> 00:12:15.519
I honestly believed that there was really something wrong with me.
00:12:15.679 --> 00:12:17.360
I was questioning, am I bipolar?
00:12:17.440 --> 00:12:20.879
Because I would have these really high highs and these really low lows.
00:12:21.039 --> 00:12:23.440
And my self-care was in the toilet.
00:12:23.600 --> 00:12:31.840
And I'd pulled myself together long enough that I had to when my kids were around and when they weren't, it's like I didn't care about myself.
00:12:32.159 --> 00:12:38.159
So yeah, it takes a level of self-awareness to connect those dots for yourself.
00:12:38.320 --> 00:12:48.720
And it's that unacknowledged grief when you don't realize or you're not seeing the dots that are coming that especially hit hard when you're switched on.
00:12:48.879 --> 00:13:01.759
If you're heightened, if your adrenaline and cortisol is going, hard rooms like hospitals, school offices, medical appointments, they become harder because you're already at a level nine.
00:13:01.919 --> 00:13:16.240
And so trying to regulate yourself, trying to find a balance in that space, if you're not able to recognize that the things that you've experienced have caused trauma, which result in grief for yourself and your loved one.
00:13:16.399 --> 00:13:20.799
And most of the time, caregivers are experiencing grief from both sides.
00:13:20.960 --> 00:13:37.679
They feel grief for the child or their loved one who's gone through the medical challenge, but then also having to witness what they won't remember because they're either asleep or they're so in so much pain that their brain has compartmentalized, like you talked about.
00:13:37.919 --> 00:13:58.240
So for caregivers, there's that extra layer of grief of being the witness to the processes and the trauma that our loved ones experience, especially when they're going through treatment, whether that be for mind deficiency, whether that be for skin conditions, ulcers, cancer, whatever that process may be.
00:13:58.399 --> 00:14:09.279
If there's nobody to verbalize that this is what grief looks like, this is how it can show up in your body, then that can lead to a compounded burnout.
00:14:09.360 --> 00:14:23.360
And it's not just that your body is like shattered, but it's also your mind, your spirit, and what you talked about before, where when your children aren't there, you're having these crashes where you've got nothing left.
00:14:23.440 --> 00:14:26.480
There's nothing in the tank to show up for yourself.
00:14:26.720 --> 00:14:33.759
And I want to go into what you named so beautifully was the long goodbye nobody prepares you for.
00:14:34.720 --> 00:14:39.440
How do you describe anticip grief in caregiving or in everyday life?
00:14:39.600 --> 00:14:47.200
What does it actually feel like from the inside when somebody is going to pass and you're anticipating that grief that's coming?
00:14:47.440 --> 00:14:53.679
Well, I think there's a level of my brain that completely shut that down as a child.
00:14:53.840 --> 00:14:58.960
Now, having sat with people just in high school, I used to work in a nursing home.
00:14:59.039 --> 00:15:01.200
I was a certified nursing assistant.
00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:07.360
I did home health care later as an adult, where I had patients that I went to go see who were on hospice.
00:15:07.600 --> 00:15:10.480
It's like the body knows what's coming.
00:15:10.639 --> 00:15:16.399
I can correlate it, I think, with my experience before addressing my grief.
00:15:16.639 --> 00:15:17.360
Took me 30 years.
00:15:17.440 --> 00:15:27.519
And when I got on the plane, and when I was actually there and I was going through this method that helped me with my grief, I got physically very sick, diarrhea, vomiting.
00:15:27.679 --> 00:15:33.679
And I'd met a person on the tour bus the day before who was there for a life coaching conference.
00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:39.120
And we ate the exact same meal at the exact same place, and she was absolutely fine.
00:15:39.279 --> 00:15:41.440
It was like my body knew what was coming.
00:15:41.600 --> 00:15:42.960
I think that's what happens.
00:15:43.120 --> 00:15:49.360
I again, I can't remember for me as a child, but I feel like naturally, like we feel anxious, right?
00:15:49.519 --> 00:15:50.799
We don't know what to expect.
00:15:50.960 --> 00:15:53.840
We don't want to be there for that person wrong.
00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:55.360
We don't want to do it wrong.
00:15:55.519 --> 00:15:57.519
We don't know exactly what to say.
00:15:57.759 --> 00:16:04.000
And so either we say nothing or we say all these things that we try to just get everything out then, right?
00:16:04.080 --> 00:16:07.919
Like you just want to say it all because no one prepares us for death.
00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:09.360
We're not prepared for it.
00:16:09.440 --> 00:16:14.879
We're taught how to acquire things and people, but not what to do when we lose them.
00:16:15.120 --> 00:16:24.559
And even if you've had years to prepare, quote, prepare, the moment it happens is still final.
00:16:24.799 --> 00:16:28.639
And you have no idea what that moment will actually feel like.
00:16:28.960 --> 00:16:39.519
So I honestly don't like the labels, anticipatory grief or all these other labels that are kind of tossed around because it's grief.
00:16:39.679 --> 00:16:40.559
It's just grief.
00:16:40.720 --> 00:16:43.360
I don't think we need more labels in our society.
00:16:43.519 --> 00:16:44.399
It's not helpful.
00:16:44.559 --> 00:16:48.000
It can help someone, I guess, feel understood, maybe.
00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:52.399
But again, if we understood grief, we would understand it's just grief.
00:16:52.559 --> 00:17:03.440
And that's why I'm so passionate about talking about grief all the live-long day, because I just grew up in such a misinformed household and decade and society.
00:17:03.679 --> 00:17:13.920
And I can recognize how different our children's lives can be if as adults we are less afraid of looking at our own wounds.
00:17:14.079 --> 00:17:15.039
And like a cat.
00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:16.559
I don't know why this came to me.
00:17:16.720 --> 00:17:18.960
When a cat is wounded, what does it do?
00:17:19.119 --> 00:17:21.440
It licks its own wounds.
00:17:21.599 --> 00:17:25.119
I don't know why that just came to me, why that analogy came to me.
00:17:25.279 --> 00:17:34.799
But I think we need to get back to caring for our own wounds because that that is the impact and that that is the ripples of the people in our lives.
00:17:34.960 --> 00:17:41.680
The worst has already happened, a diagnosis, a death, what have you, whatever it is, that's already happened.
00:17:41.839 --> 00:17:46.559
You can't change it, you can't erase it, you can't turn back the clock.
00:17:46.799 --> 00:17:52.400
But if you look at it with the perspective of the worst has already happened, how can I move forward?
00:17:52.640 --> 00:17:55.920
Even if it's hour by hour, day by day.
00:17:56.160 --> 00:18:05.759
And I think a part of that is to develop a resiliency as an adult that we were not taught as children, because we it was just expected of us.
00:18:05.920 --> 00:18:11.119
But we were actually never taught how to actually be resilient, like what that actually takes.
00:18:11.279 --> 00:18:24.400
And I think you really named it before when you said that nobody educates us around how to cope with death, how to cope with grief that enters our life.
00:18:24.559 --> 00:18:27.519
And it's not something that's openly discussed either.
00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:38.480
It's something that we have to come to in delicate conversations when we're talking about end-of-life care, when we're talking about somebody not ever being able to achieve something.
00:18:38.720 --> 00:18:46.240
Nobody actually talks about how to acknowledge it, how to recognize when when it comes up for you.
00:18:46.640 --> 00:18:50.880
What happens and who do you seek support from in that space?
00:18:51.039 --> 00:19:00.880
And I think that's really important for people to hear everywhere, including in caregiving, is that grief is not something that we're educated for.
00:19:01.039 --> 00:19:05.039
Grief isn't something that we are cushioned to understand.
00:19:05.200 --> 00:19:08.480
So there's no softness in that experience.
00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:27.599
And when grief is experienced, it's shattering at times, particularly if it's a loved one whose past it's unexpected or it's coming, but they were a significant part of your life and how to manage the distance that death or grief creates in that space.
00:19:27.759 --> 00:19:32.880
And I'm really intrigued by what you mean when you say grief-sensitive support.
00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:38.319
What helps without trying to rush someone into acceptance or positivity?
00:19:38.559 --> 00:19:45.680
Well, I think the toxic positivity we call it in society now, I think it's it's this rush.
00:19:45.839 --> 00:19:50.319
Again, I think it comes back to we'd rather feel better than feel our pain.
00:19:50.480 --> 00:19:55.200
So it's this rush to Pollyanna in a way, look at the silver lining.
00:19:55.279 --> 00:19:58.160
I became an expert at looking at the silver lining.
00:19:58.319 --> 00:20:00.079
I think that was how I coped.
00:20:00.240 --> 00:20:04.160
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I knew every drink special every night of the week.
00:20:04.240 --> 00:20:08.799
So it's like I was great at finding the silver lining, but yet I was also abusing alcohol.
00:20:08.960 --> 00:20:10.640
It's like, how do you reconcile that?
00:20:10.799 --> 00:20:11.359
But we do.
00:20:11.519 --> 00:20:14.559
Our minds are really crafty that way.
00:20:14.720 --> 00:20:22.559
But like you said, and like I think the theme of this podcast is the body remembers, the body knows, and it's always speaking to us.
00:20:22.720 --> 00:20:36.640
We are an energetic being, and emotions are energy, and we have a lot of say in what those thoughts are and what those feelings either prompt us to do or not do.
00:20:36.799 --> 00:20:45.599
And so either we, like I said before, either stuff down, sweep under the rug, avoid, run away from, or we choose differently.
00:20:45.759 --> 00:20:56.960
We choose to do grief differently, and that's to look at the shadows of our experience, look at the difficult conversations that were never had or that we wish we could have had.
00:20:57.119 --> 00:21:00.559
Grief is the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations.
00:21:00.720 --> 00:21:04.640
It's anything that you wish would be or could have been different, better or more.
00:21:04.799 --> 00:21:06.559
So it's a lot more than just death.
00:21:06.720 --> 00:21:17.039
And by the time you become a caregiver to your aging parent or to a child or what have you, you've already had a lot of rocks you've probably put in your backpack.
00:21:17.200 --> 00:21:39.119
And we just are not taught again how to let that boulder go, releasing it and carrying forward the knowledge and the tools, but also I think it's empowering when you feel confident that regardless of what life is going to throw at you, that you can get through it.
00:21:39.279 --> 00:21:41.279
Not to say it's easy, right?
00:21:41.519 --> 00:21:43.759
But yeah, it's it's never easy.
00:21:44.079 --> 00:21:47.119
And I think it it's the hard things that shape us.
00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:49.039
And I think that's true of all helpers.
00:21:49.200 --> 00:21:51.200
All helpers, I think, have gone through something.
00:21:51.440 --> 00:21:53.039
Advocates, people like you.
00:21:53.279 --> 00:21:58.240
You are doing beautiful work in your life as a caregiver to so many different people.
00:21:58.400 --> 00:22:07.599
And one of the things that I like Learned personally is that it's when life is lifing that's when we need to double down on our self-care.
00:22:07.759 --> 00:22:15.680
And I've I'm a mom of three, and I haven't had to uh be the caregiver like you in the shoes that you are in.
00:22:15.839 --> 00:22:18.160
I did have a brief experience with my son.
00:22:18.319 --> 00:22:20.720
We didn't know what was going to happen.
00:22:20.960 --> 00:22:26.720
Long story short, had a bench pressing accident and ended up with 30% of his pancreas left.
00:22:26.799 --> 00:22:29.440
But he was in and out of the hospital for six weeks.
00:22:29.599 --> 00:22:31.839
It sounds like it was only six weeks, right?
00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:36.720
Some women, some mothers, they're in caregiver roles for years, for decades.
00:22:36.880 --> 00:22:40.480
And it's like, and I have, I know people in my life who have in those shoes.
00:22:40.559 --> 00:22:47.279
And I look back and it was only six weeks, but to my body, that experience at the time, it felt like six years.
00:22:47.440 --> 00:22:52.160
And I didn't realize the impact of that actually until this past year.
00:22:52.319 --> 00:22:56.559
There was still emotional residue left from that experience.
00:22:56.799 --> 00:23:04.240
I still, to this day, and it was over a three-hour drive to the hospital that he had to go to because no one close would take his case.
00:23:04.400 --> 00:23:09.680
And every time I see that hospital, it's like this PTSD, it brings me back to that experience.
00:23:09.839 --> 00:23:12.880
So I understand what you were saying in that regard.
00:23:13.039 --> 00:23:26.240
So I have deep respect and empathy for the caregivers who like you show up every single day because it is self-love, self-sacrifice, and a level of love that those on the receiving end, it's a gift.
00:23:26.559 --> 00:23:43.200
When you're talking about the emotional residue that's left over from any traumatic or emotionally charged experience, it's so resonated so truly with me when you said that driving past the hospital, having experiences that bring us back.
00:23:43.359 --> 00:23:49.839
And there was a American TV program called Amsterdam, and one of my children had an AVM rupture in his brain.
00:23:49.920 --> 00:23:51.680
And it was a couple of years later.
00:23:51.839 --> 00:24:11.759
And as a caregiver, you do, when you're aware that something has caused emotional distress, tears that you've had to hide, fear that someone's not going to pull through, you do try and address it so that it doesn't linger and create additional distress in new situations that are most likely going to occur.
00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:15.039
And they had children on there who had the same thing.
00:24:15.200 --> 00:24:24.319
And I was sitting on the couch bawling my eyes out because it brought me right back to the that room, the diagnosis, them telling you that this information.
00:24:24.480 --> 00:24:35.680
And I was talking with someone this morning and they talked to me about the bad news room in hospitals that they take you away from your loved one so they don't hear what the bad news is.
00:24:35.759 --> 00:24:42.640
And they take you into very clinical, no comfort, no, it's very harsh, harsh lighting, harsh everything.
00:24:42.799 --> 00:24:45.200
And it is really a bad room to be told information.
00:24:45.279 --> 00:24:52.640
And when you get taken in there, you're like okay, bracing, but there is not even support in that space.
00:24:52.799 --> 00:24:56.240
There's nobody saying, hey, we know this is going to be devastating.
00:24:56.400 --> 00:25:06.240
And we know as a parent you're gonna have to pull your Ps and Q's together and push through and pretend like everything's hunky-dory so that you're not terrifying your loved one.
00:25:06.400 --> 00:25:12.319
And that's one of the hardest parts is that is that caregivers lose things too.
00:25:12.480 --> 00:25:17.039
Not because they're selfish, but because caregiving changes as life progresses.
00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:20.319
And I wanted to talk about the invisible losses.
00:25:20.400 --> 00:25:24.160
What are some of the most common ones you see in caregiving?
00:25:24.319 --> 00:25:34.799
And if I could give you some examples around identity, friendship or social loss, marriage and partnership intimacy, career momentum, financial safety.
00:25:34.960 --> 00:25:41.440
One of the big ones is health, sleep, nervous system, steadiness, and what's the future going to look like?
00:25:41.680 --> 00:25:47.680
What would you say the most common ones that you see in the work that you do with people and grief?
00:25:47.920 --> 00:25:52.799
Well, since I'm dealing with individuals, I would say I always try to focus on the individual.
00:25:52.960 --> 00:25:54.559
It's always about the individual.
00:25:54.720 --> 00:26:00.160
So I think when we are not caring for ourselves, like that's everything.
00:26:00.400 --> 00:26:06.240
It's like the domino, because that's where we find our resiliency in all those other areas.
00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:09.680
I mean, that's what I learned for myself in that going through that period.
00:26:09.839 --> 00:26:23.359
But that's what I would say the dot that I would connect, I guess, is that if we took care of that thing, all the other things would feel less heavy, or we would have the stamina, right?
00:26:23.519 --> 00:26:28.000
We would have the mental agility or emotional capacity.
00:26:28.319 --> 00:26:30.319
I really think it starts with the individual.
00:26:30.400 --> 00:26:34.960
I think that is the most important, starting with the caregiver and they're where they're at.
00:26:35.119 --> 00:26:36.319
Everything flows from that.
00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:38.480
It's almost I was in the military too.
00:26:38.640 --> 00:26:40.640
Everything starts from the top down.
00:26:40.720 --> 00:26:45.920
And I think that's the same when it comes to caregiving and to what you described.
00:26:46.079 --> 00:27:08.799
Would you say that in our life, like from our experiences in children, where we might lose somebody or we have a traumatic experience that's negative in our life, that these experiences then compound when we don't address them, when we don't or we are unable to recognize in that path way that we're actually experiencing grief.
00:27:08.960 --> 00:27:24.000
And that that compounds to then create, as you said, a boiled kettle to explode or implode because we haven't been taught that you need to pause, address it, so that then it's not being carried with you.
00:27:24.160 --> 00:27:31.039
And I think one of the biggest things that causes like guilt and shame is actually being able to say, I'm struggling.
00:27:31.200 --> 00:27:36.720
I need support in a way that doesn't turn into more advice or being fixed.
00:27:36.880 --> 00:27:45.519
How can caregivers seek out the right type of support so that they don't have to feel those experiences and those emotions?
00:27:45.759 --> 00:27:49.279
Well, I'll say the first part of your statement with the compound.
00:27:49.359 --> 00:27:59.279
I actually talk about like healing and looking after yourself and emotional, physical, spiritual, all those areas of our self-care.
00:27:59.440 --> 00:28:00.640
That's compound interest.
00:28:00.720 --> 00:28:02.160
I like to compare it to money.
00:28:02.319 --> 00:28:04.400
We didn't get to where we are overnight.
00:28:04.640 --> 00:28:08.160
We can't expect to get where we want to be overnight either.
00:28:08.319 --> 00:28:19.279
And so it's the littlest things that are our compound interest when it comes to healing and feeling better and feeling resilient and feeling more stable and grounded.
00:28:19.440 --> 00:28:23.039
So that's the first thing I would say to that first part of what you were talking about.
00:28:23.279 --> 00:28:29.039
So, how can caregivers ask for support in a way that doesn't turn into more advice or being fixed?
00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:30.319
No shame, no guilt.
00:28:30.480 --> 00:28:51.039
So I think that sometimes the family members are maybe not the best people because what I have learned and what I have found is that the people in your life, anyone that has skin in your game, they're going to give you advice or support that may work in their favor, right?
00:28:51.200 --> 00:28:53.440
Like it's not going to impact them.
00:28:53.680 --> 00:28:55.839
People are afraid of other people changing.
00:28:56.160 --> 00:28:57.599
It's uncomfortable, right?
00:28:57.759 --> 00:29:04.559
It's uncomfortable when the people around us change, and even if it's for the better, because it kind of we act as a mirror for others.
00:29:04.640 --> 00:29:09.119
So it shows other people maybe where we've all experienced it, right?
00:29:09.200 --> 00:29:12.960
Like you, you're in a room with people and you're you compare yourself.
00:29:13.200 --> 00:29:13.759
We just do.
00:29:13.839 --> 00:29:15.119
We tend to compare ourselves.
00:29:15.279 --> 00:29:21.920
So we're it's so easy for us to pick out the flaws in someone else, but really that's something that we feel within ourselves.
00:29:22.079 --> 00:29:24.000
That's probably not even a flaw in the other person.
00:29:24.079 --> 00:29:28.240
It's just what we're seeing, what we're picking up on, but it's within ourselves.
00:29:28.400 --> 00:29:30.400
It's just being being mirrored to us.
00:29:30.559 --> 00:29:38.000
And so that's where I think uh people that have skin in your game of life are probably not the best people to support you necessarily.
00:29:38.160 --> 00:29:55.680
Now, do you have people in your life though who have done their own work, who have done their own deep personal work, who have developed their emotional IQ, so to speak, who have shown resiliency in their own life, not performative resiliency, but true resiliency.
00:29:55.839 --> 00:29:57.599
I think there's a big difference in that.
00:29:57.680 --> 00:29:59.039
And that's what I would look to.
00:29:59.200 --> 00:30:08.720
Look to the examples of people who not necessarily, I'll say it this, who don't have it all together and can admit when they are struggling themselves.
00:30:08.880 --> 00:30:11.519
That's the that's the co-pilot that you want.
00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:17.200
Someone who can sit in it with you and who isn't pretending that they have it all together.
00:30:17.440 --> 00:30:26.480
I think that is an important difference in approach to seeking support, especially when generally it's really raw.
00:30:26.640 --> 00:30:34.799
The wound within is raw and it's hard to talk about and to be frankly honest about what's going on inside.
00:30:35.279 --> 00:30:44.960
You need that neutral ground of no judgment, of being able to sit and witness it with you without making you feel like you're doing something wrong.
00:30:45.519 --> 00:30:52.160
You shouldn't be in the space that you are, you should be stronger, you should have everything held together all the time.
00:30:52.880 --> 00:31:05.519
And I think finding that gentle kindness in being able to be present but not be judged by it is really important in any space of caregiving or personal grief journey.
00:31:05.680 --> 00:31:18.400
And I'd really like us to take a moment to look at small, kind next steps and language that caregivers can borrow before we wrap up our conversation today.
00:31:18.559 --> 00:31:26.240
Can you tell me what are three tiny next steps caregivers can take this week to honor grief without being spoiled by it?
00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:31.839
I would say give yourself, take a post-it note, simple post-it note, not very big.
00:31:31.920 --> 00:31:41.279
I'm not talking a big sheet, just a post-it note, where you can write three things, three non-negotiables for your self-care in whatever feels good.
00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:48.160
It sounds so cliche, but if you think of yourself like a plant, and I'm sure you have plants in your house?
00:31:48.319 --> 00:31:48.799
I do, yes.
00:31:49.039 --> 00:31:53.680
What's interesting is I never had plants until I actually started to care for myself.
00:31:53.839 --> 00:31:55.039
I just realized that.
00:31:55.279 --> 00:31:56.480
Anyway, I love plants.
00:31:56.559 --> 00:31:59.119
Now I'm kind of an addict right now with the plants.
00:31:59.279 --> 00:32:00.960
I have a literally like a plant room.
00:32:01.119 --> 00:32:03.119
My kids are always telling me no more plants.
00:32:03.279 --> 00:32:05.200
Anyway, think of yourself as a plant.
00:32:05.359 --> 00:32:06.480
And what do you need?
00:32:06.640 --> 00:32:10.640
You need hydration, you need sunlight, and you need, what else do you need?
00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:11.839
Fertilizer, right?
00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:12.640
Nourishment.
00:32:12.880 --> 00:32:13.680
So basic.
00:32:13.839 --> 00:32:15.039
Let's get to basics.
00:32:15.200 --> 00:32:18.559
I mean, that's when, again, it comes back to when life is lifing.
00:32:18.720 --> 00:32:19.599
What are the basics?
00:32:19.759 --> 00:32:22.480
And when the sun goes down, what do flowers do?
00:32:22.640 --> 00:32:24.240
They close up, they rest.
00:32:24.400 --> 00:32:25.920
Think of yourself like a tulip.
00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:28.880
I think that's the best recommendation I could possibly give.
00:32:29.039 --> 00:32:30.000
It's so simple.
00:32:30.160 --> 00:32:31.680
Sometimes it's the simplest thing.
00:32:31.839 --> 00:32:32.720
Well, I don't have time.
00:32:32.799 --> 00:32:34.079
Where am I going to find the time?
00:32:34.240 --> 00:32:37.920
Even if you have your loved one with you that you're caring for, sit outside.
00:32:38.079 --> 00:32:39.119
They're a plant too, right?
00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:43.519
In this metaphor, like they need sunlight, they need hydration, they need nourishment.
00:32:43.680 --> 00:32:49.359
Like all the things that you give to your loved one, why is it so hard for us to give to ourselves?
00:32:49.599 --> 00:32:50.400
That's very true.
00:32:50.559 --> 00:32:54.000
Because at the end of the day, we generally are at the bottom of the list.
00:32:54.160 --> 00:33:01.440
So it's time to amend that and put us at the top of the list so that we can trickle down the love and support that we need to give.
00:33:01.599 --> 00:33:13.839
And I think that honoring yourself and recognizing that nourishment, sleep, rest, and self-appreciation is really important, making sure that you've got all of the essentials is a great place to start.
00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:20.240
Because when you're in the midst of the grief, it's hard to see the next best step.
00:33:20.400 --> 00:33:36.960
So if the next best step is having a sip of water, if the next best step is sitting down and closing your eyes because you need a rest, know that there is no judgment, no shame, no guilt attached with having the basic needs of life met and for you to be supported in that.
00:33:37.119 --> 00:33:45.200
And if someone wants to support a caregiver, what's one phrase that helps and one that usually harms when we're talking about grief?
00:33:45.519 --> 00:33:47.279
Today, you are doing the best that you can.
00:33:47.519 --> 00:33:57.359
What I would say what's hurtful or harmful is I think alluding to the idea that God doesn't give you more than you can handle.
00:33:57.519 --> 00:33:58.480
That's not helpful.
00:33:58.720 --> 00:34:03.519
Another idea, this just came to me too, and so I'm gonna share it because it popped in my mind.
00:34:03.759 --> 00:34:15.519
But if you as a caregiver know of other caregivers who are in a similar, it doesn't even have to be the same situation or experience, but an understanding of what you're going through and vice versa.
00:34:15.760 --> 00:34:26.159
I think just as like when when we're in the child rearing years, sometimes um I I think it's becoming more popular actually, where parents will swap.
00:34:26.320 --> 00:34:31.679
Like, I'll take your kids today, you take mine tomorrow, and I can have some me time.
00:34:31.920 --> 00:34:44.400
Why can't that apply to caregivers who are in uh like a situation like yours or having a life experience where it is something that this is there is like no expiration date on this.
00:34:44.559 --> 00:34:47.760
This is how it is, and this is this is my life.
00:34:47.920 --> 00:34:53.679
And how can I bring in the support to help me get those moments of the post-it note?
00:34:53.920 --> 00:35:02.639
And uh, and I feel like if you can create a network or community of caregivers in similar shoes where you can you can do that, right?
00:35:02.719 --> 00:35:09.440
Like I can take your responsibilities for an hour or two, vice versa, you can take mine and someone you trust, of course.
00:35:09.679 --> 00:35:17.119
It's a really like foundational thought to seek others who have the same skill set or the same experience.
00:35:17.360 --> 00:35:36.639
And even if that means that they can't do self-care, like they can't be on like like left alone, but they could do self-care together in the support where they come together and they're in the same space and they can just be supportive of each other and it's not just all on the one person to keep momentum going.
00:35:36.880 --> 00:35:51.679
We've had a found a really grounded conversation today about grief, how it shows up in different stages of your life and how caregivers can be supported through that when grief doesn't just mean somebody has passed away.
00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:59.199
Where can listeners find you and your work if grief is something that they're experiencing in this stage of their life?
00:35:59.440 --> 00:36:02.639
Everything's on my website, theunleashtheart.com.
00:36:02.960 --> 00:36:05.360
Uh, I got a lot of free resources there.
00:36:05.519 --> 00:36:08.000
Some meditations I've created are there.
00:36:08.320 --> 00:36:11.360
Uh, and yeah, all the links to all the things.
00:36:11.599 --> 00:36:24.239
I'll make sure that I add all of uh Victoria's links in the show notes of our conversation today, so that you can find her easily and you don't have to remember her website whilst you're listening.
00:36:24.400 --> 00:36:26.960
I wanted to say thank you so much, Victoria.
00:36:27.119 --> 00:36:35.360
This conversation was gentle and honest, and I know it will land with caregivers who feel like they have to stay strong even when they're quietly grieving.
00:36:35.519 --> 00:36:38.800
Today we named the grief that doesn't come with a funeral.
00:36:38.960 --> 00:36:43.440
We talked about the invisible loss and the long goodbye nobody prepares you for.
00:36:43.599 --> 00:36:51.280
And we talked about what it can look like to live alongside grief without rushing it, fixing it, or forcing meaning before you're ready.
00:36:51.440 --> 00:36:57.760
If you're listening and you feel tearful, numb, irritated, or exhausted, you're not doing it wrong.
00:36:57.920 --> 00:37:01.119
You might just be carrying something that deserves acknowledgement.
00:37:01.360 --> 00:37:03.840
One small kind next step is enough.
00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:06.880
To everyone listening, thank you for spending this time with us.
00:37:07.039 --> 00:37:08.880
You don't have to hold it all alone.
00:37:09.039 --> 00:37:12.400
I'm Michelle and this is Radiant Moments Caregiver Oasis.
00:37:12.559 --> 00:37:17.760
Until next time, take gentle care of your radiant moments and of yourself.
