How to cope with grief and loss?

[Intro] Hello, and welcome to my podcast, Empowered to Thrive. I'm your host, Corinne Powell, and I'm the owner of Change Radically.

In this space, we'll talk all things inner wellness, and parenting will certainly come up too, because I'm a mom to four kids, so parenting is a huge part of my life.

This space is designed for safety. Your inner child is welcome. Your past self is invited to listen as well. And no matter what type of day you're having, I want you to know I'm glad to be with you.

I live out of vulnerability and transparency, so come and be. Be yourself. Be messy. Invite a friend, and please stay a while.

Keep coming back. I want you around. Now, let's jump into today's episode.

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Corinne Powell: Hello beautiful people. I am happy to have you here with me today. Glad to be connecting with you over this topic of grieving and not just grieving the larger losses of life, the loss of a loved one, but also grieving the losses less talked about, the ones we all experience throughout our lifetime, less recognized, but no less painful. The loss of a dream. The hope that something would happen in the finality that it won't and I need to face that.

Consider the familial relationship that you recognize never was what it should have been. And as much as you tried, it's not getting any better. It's not changing. And your heart longs for it to be different, but you've done everything in your power. And the other person is simply not changing. There's nothing you can do about it. But your heart grieves. You feel the ache. You know the disappointment and the depths of sadness, the hopes that you had, which are dashed. Consider the loss of a job, the transition from one state to another, from one home to another, from one school to another.

These are all losses that we must grieve. The only way out is through. And as painful and as challenging as it is to feel the grief, it is necessary to moving through it.

Within that grief is heartache and disappointment. It's anger and sadness. And that may be uncomfortable, but friend, I invite you to feel it. You don't have to feel it alone. I encourage you to sit with someone who is a safe person, someone who gets it, who understands, who is not gonna minimize your pain but they also won't need to fix you. They won't need to make it better because that's not the goal either. The goal is for you to be able to recognize, to acknowledge it, and to feel it.

Now that doesn't mean that you have to sit in your grief without an end in sight. But sometimes the way grief is, it doesn't just lift and lessen in a moment. It ebbs and flows. In fact, you might feel it at certain moments like, I'm past it, I'm through it, I'm over it. And then in another moment, it hits you in a wave and it crashes down.

And it feels debilitating and you think, oh my goodness, I thought I was past this. It's just the way it goes. You are moving through it. It's layered. It's nuanced. And us giving ourselves permission to feel is so important in this process. So I invite you to give yourself permission not to put a timetable on your grief, to simply allow yourself to be. And I want to give you some key components that you can take and utilize to support yourself as you're grieving.

What would be helpful? I think a few things that are very important are making sure we notice what our body needs and support it by giving it what it needs. Sleep is going to be super important during a season of grief. Sleep is always important. But when you're grieving, your body is depleted in a larger way because emotionally you're drained and you're doing the best you can, but it's hard to get up and go. It's hard to face the sunshine. It's hard to go to the triggering events or perhaps to interact with people.

It just can be hard to put one foot in front of the other times when we're grieving. That's why getting adequate sleep, taking naps when you can is going to be important. Now I know that some of you may feel like you just want to sleep. You don't want to do anything other than be in your bed. And that is a normal response to feeling depressed, to feeling the heartache of grief. And to that, I would say, I understand it, but we don't have to give way to that all the time. There's times we're going to need to call up a friend. We're going to need to text a friend and say, Hey, I don't feel like going outside and taking a walk, but I think it would be good for me to get out in the sunshine to get outdoors. Would you meet me in let's take a walk?. 

And you can start small. You can take a 10-minute walk. A very short walk. That is better than nothing. Or you might get outside and start walking with you and feel like you want to go more than 10 minutes. And that's okay too if you feel like going further, doing more. Sometimes the hardest part is getting ourselves to the point of starting and then once we've started, it's all easier.

Nourishing your body by the foods you eat is also super important while you're grieving. For some of you, you may want to binge eat all the comfort foods, but the ones that leave you feeling dissatisfied later. For others of you, you may not want to eat a thing, and it might be super hard to get a bite of food into your mouth and to chew it and to digest it. It might be the last thing you want to do. Wherever you find yourself. Take notice of what you need to support yourself, whether that's reaching out to a friend to say, hey, I don't feel like eating, but I know I should. Would you make me a good home cooked meal? Maybe pre-portion it, and then I can put some in the fridge and I can put some in the freezer. I know if it's hard for you to ask for help, it's going to be really hard to go out of your way, especially when you feel like doing nothing, to go out of your way to ask.

But the best thing you can do for yourself right now is love yourself well and support yourself. You're going through enough. It's heavy enough. You deserve that love. You deserve the care that you and others can offer to you. If you're the person who wants to binge on all the comfort foods that are going to leave you feeling dissatisfied, again, limiting yourself out of love, being mindful of what you're eating out of love for yourself, out of care for yourself. And perhaps again, reaching out to a friend to say, hey, I don't feel like eating the good home cooked meal, but would you make me one? Because I know it would be beneficial to me. 

You don't have to have 16 incredible friends. If you have even one or two or a few, reach out to them. Allow them to love on you in the ways that they probably are aching to love on you. Allow the safe support in, not the person who's going to minimize your pain, not the person who's going to try to talk you out of it, but the one who's just going to be there, who will empathize and who will support you.

At some point, yes, we need the person who's also going to say, come on, come on, let's get up, let's go. We're gonna go do something fun. And if that's truly your friend, then that's the type of person who can say that to you and who you can hear that from. But depending on where you're at in your season of grief, that may or may not be appropriate. That's for you to decide. That's for them to decide.

But what is always appropriate is practicing self-love and self-care. What is always appropriate is reaching out for support, reaching out to the people who care about you and asking for their help. Let them say if you've asked too many times. You don't have to protect them. It's their job to protect themselves. You need to help protect yourself and ask for what you need. So getting the rest you need, if you can't sleep, at least lying there with your eyes closed and letting yourself, letting your body rest. It will help. It will make a difference.

I know there have been times where I've been in seasons of grief and I've just had to have certain music on that felt like a comfort to my soul. And I would lay in bed with my eyes closed and listen to the music and let it wash over me. There are certain artists who play or sing in a way that is so soothing to the soul. There have been times where I've had to clear my schedule for a bit and take time to just let myself be because the exhaustion was palpable. Because I was already just doing the best I could. So to add on top of that all the responsibilities that I normally had, I just wasn't able to do it. I wasn't able to keep up. 

Sometimes that's what we have to do during a season of grief. And when it's ongoing, we do have to figure out ways to keep moving. Perhaps it means we minimize what we're doing in other ways. There's ways to outsource, there's ways to cut back. There are pivots and changes you can make even when the grieving season is ongoing. Bringing in those supportive people into your life is super important. Taking care of your body, getting yourself outdoors and into nature. I understand some of these things you are not going to want to do.

And I've been there and I know that sometimes, many times, we have to hold space for feeling what we're feeling and also motivating ourself in the ways that we need or allowing someone else to motivate us. So like I said, sometimes it's going to be getting outdoors, not because you feel like it, but because you know it's going to benefit you and not pushing yourself too far and too hard. It might mean sitting on the porch instead of being indoors. That is a step in the right direction. Or it might be taking a five minute walk. That is a step in the right direction. It might mean...eating two bites of something nourishing instead of nothing. It might mean allowing yourself some comfort food, but limiting the amount you allow yourself. Friend, you are capable of doing this. You are capable.

And if you feel incapable, I also understand that. And that's why I encourage you to reach out to myself or some other supportive person who is able to come alongside you with kindness and care, but also with encouragement, because you deserve that. Pity is not what you deserve. Pity is probably not what you're looking for. Compassion, compassion is empowering. Pity is a bit debilitating.

So as I wrap up, I just want your heart to know you are not alone. You are not forgotten. I don't know how long you've been in this season of grief, and if it's been a really long time, I feel with you. It's heavy enough, and it can feel crushing if it doesn't seem like it's letting up. I would love to come alongside you.

I do believe that it can make an incredible be in our grief with someone else. You are not alone. You are supported. You are cared for. You are loved.

I've also designed a workbook that focuses on this topic as a means to support you, as a means to bring a little education to this topic of grief that's less talked about, the ones that we all experience throughout life, but is less noticeable. It's not the loss of a loved one or a friend. It's the loss of a dream. It's the heartache of a relationship that never came to be what we hoped. If you want to look more deeply into that, if you want to sit with yourself and journal, this is a resource that I have made for you to support you. You can find it on my online shop. There will be a direct link in the notes or you can always go to changeradically.com/shop. I hope that you'll take a look into it.

For now, I am wishing you sunshine in the midst of your gloomy sadness. I don't mind sitting with you while the storm clouds overhead. But I do believe that by sitting with you, that together, we could see the storm cloud move and the sun start to peek through. And all we need to do initially, visualize this if you want with me, close your eyes, feel the storm cloud over you, the gloomy day. Notice I'm sitting next to you. We're out on the grass. We were in the house. We're now out on the grass. And the stormy clouds are separating and the sunshine starting to peek through. You don't need to open your eyes. Just allow yourself, move your face a little bit as if it's looking up towards the sun, towards the sky. 

Feel the sunshine on your face. Do you feel the warmth of that sun on your face? You don't have to do anything. Just sit there and allow yourself to feel the warmth of that sunshine on your face. Notice how it feels in your body to have the sun shining on your face. I see my shoulder. My arm is rubbing up against your arm. We're just sitting real close right there on the grass.

We're both feeling the sunshine on our face. I hear the waves crashing, the waves, the waters crashing around us, the waves are crashing and it's soothing. It's a back and forth, it's a back and forth sound. Allow yourself to be there. Lay down on the grass behind you if that'll help. Allow yourself to rest in that place and to feel the sunshine on your face. Know that you are not alone. You are not alone. You never have to be alone again if you don't want to be.

And when you're ready, lay there as long as you want. And when you're ready, you can open your eyes and just notice. Notice how your body feels. I hear these words. You are safe and you are loved. You are safe and you are loved. And if you'd like, you can take those words and speak them over yourself. You can say, I am safe and I am loved. In this moment, if you truly are safe. Your body might not feel it, but if no harm is coming to you and you are safe in this moment, you can say, I am safe and I am loved. As long as you need.

And I hope you start to feel a glimmer within yourself of hope for the future, that it doesn't always have to be as heavy and as dark and as hard as it has been. And if you'd like, feel welcome to connect with me and we can continue this conversation and personalize it to you.

And please, if this episode has spoke to you and you resonate with it, and there's somebody who's coming to mind who you who think would benefit from hearing it as well, please share it with them. And I hope you'll meet me back here again next week.

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[Ending] Well, we've come to the end of another episode. Sit back and reflect about what you heard.  What’s the one thing you can resonate with you that you can take away and do something with? 

Let’s not just listen, let’s listen and take action. Now, action may look very different for us but it’s doing something with what we hear. I hope that you will share today’s episode with a friend you think would also enjoy it and please come back next week. 

I hope that you have a fabulous week and that you remember when you pillow your head at night, when you are going through your days, that who you are is good and I am so glad that you're alive.