Pointing Toward Hope
Pointing toward hope is for anyone who struggles to find hope in their trials. In each episode, we will have conversations with myself and others, to help you overcome difficulties in your life through applying the atonement of Jesus Christ. We will laugh, cry and learn together how to push through the hard times in your life, and move toward a more abundant way of living. Consider yourself invited to join me on this journey toward a more hopeful joyous life.
If you or someone you know has a trial that you have been able to get through with the help of our Savior, please contact me so we can get you on the podcast.
Pointing Toward Hope
The Next Right Thing: Finding Peace After Unthinkable Loss with Aubrey Westwood
Aubrey shares her powerful journey of healing after losing six family members to an act of violence. She reveals how she was able to find peace through faith, therapy, and service to others.
Sharon Eubank: Christ, A Light that Shines in the Darkness
Link to our JOURNALS!
Pointing toward hope blog
Thank you, and how to overcome them through faith, hope and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, because with God, all things are possible. If you have an experience to share or a story, or somebody that you know that has a story, please contact us. We would love to have you on the show and if this is your first time joining us, welcome. We hope you stick around and find something that is for you. This is episode 79, and today I have here in the studio my very good friend, aubrey. Welcome, aubrey, thank you, it's a pleasure to be here. I'm so excited to have you here. Aubrey and I have known each other. It's been four years now. We met when they moved to Nashville, which she'll talk about that in a little while but I just love her so much and I'm so grateful that she's agreed to share a really difficult and challenging experience in her life. So, aubrey, why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself and maybe a fun fact that people would be surprised to know?
Speaker 2:about yourself and maybe a fun fact that people would be surprised to know. Um, so I um mother to four and stay busy with their schedules and keeping everyone where they need to go. I feel like a professional driver most days, as many people do, and one of my guiltiest pleasures is watching cabin building. This is so odd. Off-grid cabin building is such a fun thing for me to see.
Speaker 1:I love that, so like renovations.
Speaker 2:Yes, or even just I'm going off into the woods and I'm going to cut down some trees and build a shelter and let's see how long it stands, oh that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I don't know, it's kind of funny, maybe because I would probably never be bold enough to do it myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, well, that's so fun and interesting. I didn't know that about you. Just a little bit about us. We got to know each other when we were working in a youth group together, yeah, and then we started walking and chatting and it was very therapeutic for both of us, yes, and we grew to be really close friends. So, um, now Aubrey is in Texas it's true, so far away and we still try to do our walk-in chats over the phone, which has been really, really fun it's been awesome.
Speaker 1:So now we'll just get serious and I'm just going to let you jump in and tell your story and we'll go from there, okay.
Speaker 2:So in 2014, my husband finished up business school and we moved far across the country for a job opportunity following graduation. We were expecting our fourth child at the time and we tried really hard to settle in to life with our three little people and a new career. About two months after our move, I got a phone call from my husband at work asking to be picked up early, and I knew instantly just from his tone that something was wrong, and I got three toddlers into the car, imagining every imaginable worst-case scenario. But over the next several hours, I learned that a former family member had sent six other family members to heaven and he was not in custody yet, so he was very surrounded by law enforcement. I'll be honest, I was hoping at the time that SWAT might just take him out, get impatient or something, but he was taken into custody. He still breathes. Today. He's in a jail, so that sounded very disappointed.
Speaker 2:Well, I think justice has a purpose and it's going to be okay, but there's not. I mean, what do you do, right, when trauma comes along and the absolutely unthinkable happens? There's nothing you can do. You can't really bring people back, you can't undo other people's actions, you can't not attend the funeral, not speak at the funeral. You can't even just not give birth, Just pretend like your fourth baby girl isn't coming. So it's so helplessly paralyzing and you don't have time to stop and be paralyzed and you don't have time to stop and be paralyzed.
Speaker 2:So my twins at the time were two, my oldest was three. I could not take time to grieve or slow down or let myself mourn. I totally just threw it under the rug. I just said, nope, we're going to bury this, We'll deal with it later. I have a life to live. But of course I stayed up so many nights and I started out a little bit anxious and then you throw kind of very objective trauma onto that. I had a really hard time sleeping for a long time, maybe till about a year ago, Just worries what ifs and trying to save everyone from everything, every little hiccup. I was literally in survival mode, spent years in fight or flight or freeze. This is the other one. I don't want to shortchange that.
Speaker 2:I tried really hard not to be. I exercised too much at one point. I tried to socialize. I stayed busy, trying to craft, trying to do art, anything, but I was so broken I could not engage. I could not. And so this gaping hole in my chest, the searing grief that had really consumed, changed my lens on life, wasn't acknowledgment in my mind. I really could not give it any attention and I tried to go to therapy but talking about it every week really reinforced it and just, I felt like, made it more difficult, and so that that ended pretty quickly because it reinforced the fear, the trauma, the grief, the disappointment, everything. Um, I got sick a lot. It was a really tough time.
Speaker 2:So my husband finally called an audible and we moved to a different location, which spiraled me into PTSD, because everything happened so closely after that move that I didn't know moving would be a trigger for me, and it was. So I tried therapy again while I waited for the phone call that someone else had been sent to heaven or was targeted or hunted or however you want to say it. And of course the phone call never came. Everyone was safe, Everything was fine. But this time around I was able to identify and confront a few triggers from the PTSD. It's kind of difficult once you in that initial move to continue to address the trigger of relocating.
Speaker 2:So when we relocated after COVID, this time to Nashville, I spiraled again from that trigger that we couldn't really touch and I said, okay, I'm done. This has been over seven years. I'm still reliving this awful day. And I did. I started digging. I did a lot of research, which led me to resources just telling me what kind of therapy I needed to find this round, and so I got online, started researching clinics in my area and got onto a waiting list with a local counseling center where I was eventually paired with an EMDR specialist whom I absolutely love. Oh my gosh, this woman has saved my life. But it was over eight years after my family went to heaven that I started the groundwork for the EMDR therapy that would eventually rewire the trauma. So my brain didn't react and relive that physiological panic every time someone brought up a violent crime, losing loved ones or any difficulty. So about two years after that therapy started, we moved again, this time to Texas. But no struggle came, no trigger, no waiting for the awful news, no spiraling fear. It's just a move to a new house. And so I don't sweat.
Speaker 2:When others tell me about their trauma, I don't shake. When I consider what ifs? I kind of observe them and say that's an interesting thought. Maybe what if? That would actually be kind of observe them and say that's an interesting thought, Maybe. What if that would actually be kind of funny, if coyotes came in and started chewing on someone's leg like the most irrational things, right, and it wouldn't be funny, that would be really odd. So I no longer stay awake all night trying to save everybody from everything that I can't protect them from. Most often I take a deep breath and observe what's happening instead of experiencing everything around me, which is such a relief to finally be free from that invasive experience, because it was daily to just not be able to set boundaries or not be able to keep boundaries. Um. So I've had a lot of people say or ask me like how did you hold on? For it was about 10 years. Um, through all the darkness, grief, trauma, pain and fear, through all the darkness, grief, trauma, pain and fear. And the answer isn't anything big, it's just really small, simple things along the way.
Speaker 2:A lot of times someone would give a talk in sacrament at just a hard week, or someone would invite me to talk in sacrament about a topic that brought healing, A Relief Society lesson would come at just the right time. Or even a hymn the words of a hymn. I remember right after the trial Frozen 2 came out and, spoiler alert, when Elsa dies and Anna sings her song that I've known dark before, but not like this it was I was just sobbing. I was like, yes, this is my story. I know how she feels, Like I don't know what to do and there is no choice but to do the next right thing. There is no choice but to do the next right thing. So shortly after Frozen, I had the opportunity to speak in sacrament meeting and I remember I was assigned Sister Eubanks' talk Christ, the Light that Shines in Darkness, and one of her introductions is actually, can I read it?
Speaker 2:You can, and we'll share a link to this address too. She says when tragedies overtake us, when life hurts so much we can't breathe. When we've taken a beating like the man on the road to Jericho and been left for dead, jesus comes along. And she continues on. And that is not even I don't know that that fully grasps the completeness of her talk, but it absolutely paralyzed me. I could not move past the beating like taking a beating like the man on the road to Jericho.
Speaker 2:And so I dove into Good Samaritan and I got into this parable and I pulled out other resources and dissected it and looked at all of the references that I've found across the years that also linked to Good Samaritan, and so I related to the traveler very deeply. He had fallen among thieves, which was a new place, unfamiliar, maybe like if he had moved across the country after grad school and he'd been stripped of his raiment or exposed to the world. He was wounded, which in our day probably looks like abuse and grief, inadequacy, depression, anxiety, heartache, loneliness, medical battles, financial frustrations. We could go all day, right, right, and then they left him half dead. And so I just felt so. It was so relatable to me. I felt like I was half alive for so long. And so I dug into the Samaritan and how he brought this man back. And I love the analogy, the imagery of Christ coming to where we are, because the Samaritan came to where he was and saw him and had compassion. He didn't ask the man to come meet him on the road or to get out of a dangerous path. He came to where he was and then the Samaritan went to him, bound up his wounds and set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn. He brought him to a safe place and, as far as I know, this man was unconscious the whole time.
Speaker 2:I don't know if he was, we don't have details, but I love this thought that the Savior can bring us to a safe space and he can put us on a safe path and get us out of harm's way and take care of us. And, of course, in verse 35 of Luke 10, they say the Samaritan paid the price to allow the traveler to be cared for, to become whole. Not just that initial first aid, what I call Red Cross first aid you know, the first responder first aid but ongoing care that would actually restore him and get him back home to his family, and I love that. The Savior has paid this price for us. He's given everything so that we can become whole.
Speaker 2:And that's not just physical, that is so mental and emotional. And I did not realize how much it applied to mental and emotional health until I was struggling mentally and emotionally and how hard it was to rely on the Savior for something that nobody could see and nobody knew about, because I couldn't talk about it, because I'd break out in sweat and tears and shake uncontrollably. It was terrifying, yeah and so, and that moment, that talk, changed me as I let the Spirit teach me what the Atomic could be doing, and I wasn't ready for it before that. I didn't know it at the time, but until the trial was done I could not have been in a spot to let healing in.
Speaker 1:And that trial was at, was it five years? It was five years after the incident.
Speaker 2:That's a long time. It was a minute. Yeah, everything is a little bit slow. So, in in accordance with this, I think that the biggest turning point, or the another huge thing that I learned in preparing for this talk, I kept having the thought to just go to the handbook, and I love, love, music, and so in verse five of A Poor, wayfaring man of Grief, it kind of summarizes the Good Samaritan. It says stripped, wounded, beaten, nine to death. I found him by the highway side. I roused his pulse, brought back his breath, revived his spirit and supplied Wine, oil, refreshment. He was healed.
Speaker 2:I had myself a wound concealed but from that hour forgot, the smart and peace bound up my broken heart and it felt like my answer.
Speaker 2:I knew that there would be some kind of therapy to come or other healing, but in that moment I could conceal my wounds and bind up others and the atonement could work in my life wounds and bind up others and the atonement could work in my life to be someone else's healing.
Speaker 2:Until I was able to find mine and it was so life-changing, not because I suddenly changed everything, it just the realization. I don't feel like my day-to-day changed, I don't feel like I went out and signed up for three or four just serve projects every week. Well, I know that didn't happen, but I could see it differently, and so the service I gave on Sunday or midweek activities, or however my calling demanded at the time, it was different. It was a little bit more consecrated, because I needed healing and if I could conceal my wound and bind up someone else's, maybe peace would bind up my broken heart also, and so, almost as a plea, I changed the way I served in so many ways to really seek healing through the Lord by serving others and seeking wounds that I might be able to help with.
Speaker 1:I love that, aubrey. That's so beautiful and such a new perspective to look at service. Yeah, I think A new way to consider.
Speaker 2:It caught me off guard Because I've never considered that. But this man was also on the road to Jericho. Of course he would have been wounded. He probably got robbed before but either escaped or fought back. I don't know. We don't know his story. It was a Samaritan. He was not immune to the trials on the road to Jericho. Right, and I love that perspective. I'm so grateful for that song, for those gorgeous words, because they changed my trajectory.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we all have wounds that we conceal. You know we do.
Speaker 2:And I think that's the hardest thing to remember is everyone has concealed wounds and we don't know how big they are. We don't know how deep, or new, or fresh and old, I don't know. Are they old wounds? Are they new wounds? Are they resurfacing for seven or eight years? Repeat on repeat? I don't know. Yeah, but it's so critical to just see everyone in that eye of compassion and I love that he is willing, the Savior is willing, to see us through eyes of compassion and love and so much, so much love, yeah definitely so, aubrey.
Speaker 1:what coping skills do you use to get through the really hard days, because we know you still have?
Speaker 2:I do, excuse me, I, yes. So going through EMDR, um, I don't have that physiological response. But birthdays are still difficult. Even holidays are still difficult.
Speaker 2:My first um, just to get through the exact moment is so many breathing exercises I have books of breathing exercises and imagery and different things like that. After that initial calm down, recognize what's happening, observe, I write. I write a lot and journaling. You got me into journaling and it has been so therapeutic. Every now and again my husband will walk in the door from work and I'll just be like, hi, I love you, I need to write. I'll be gone for three hours and just like, lock myself in the office and I do. I write. Well, I'll journal for, you know, a minute and then I'll turn and write creatively for a lot more minutes. But it's, it's so releasing to have um an uncensored outlet that I I'm not accountable to anybody for my feelings, my emotions, my experiences. No one can say that's not really what happened, because it is. It's what really happened to me, right, and so it's kind of lovely it is.
Speaker 1:It's beautiful. Can I share something with you? I I came across um, something from Jay Shetty. Do you know who that is? He's um. He studied to um become a monk for a while, but I just really like some of his work. If you just look him up you'll find all kinds of things on Jay Shetty. But he said he compares grief to carrying a stone in his pocket. I think he heard it actually from somebody else that he was interviewing. But they said it will always be there. But as time goes on you get stronger. It's not that the stone goes away. You get stronger. It doesn't have to go away or you don't have to move on.
Speaker 1:It's always there, yeah, but you just become stronger and I just love that you can move forward. You don't have to move on, you move forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's what struck me the most about Anna's song in Frozen 2 is it doesn't take away the darkness or the pain, but doing the next right thing, taking one more step, yes, begins to strengthen you and helps you move past the blinding or crippling pain and grief. Yeah, because I don't. I don't have better words for it. It is just so debilitating, paralyzing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and so many people experience that Absolutely, which is why I love that you're sharing your story, because you know we can be just a step ahead of somebody else in their grief and in their struggle and they might pick up one little nugget that just helps them, you know, get through the next day, the next hour, the next minute, right, you know. So it's awesome.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:Thank you. We talked a little bit earlier about ways that you remember your loved ones and I loved what you shared. Would you mind sharing?
Speaker 2:that so a lot of times. Um, well, we so we all have photos that um were kindly gifted us at the funeral. But we also still mention birthdays and obviously they come up in conversation when we're together as a whole group, a larger family unit, but on their birthday, we, on their birthdays, don't ever lose six family members at once, it is. It gets confusing. Well, I'm very painful.
Speaker 2:That too, and I don't mean to be make light of anything, but we do have a dark sense of humor at my my well with my family, um, because we're like, yeah, you shouldn't know any murderers, it really stinks to have to testify at a at a trial. I was like, okay, you shouldn't know any murderers, it really stinks to have to testify at a trial. I was like, okay, I will not meet any more serial killers, so just don't lose six family members at once. But on their birthdays we would have their favorite food or watch a show that they liked, or just remember them with some small token, some small token.
Speaker 2:This particular sibling of mine made birthdays a really huge deal, almost to an annoying point. Some days I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't need to remember I'm turning 40. Please, let it go. But it was, birthdays were just such a celebration, right. And so on my birthday, I find a small service because I feel like that's what this sibling would have done or wanted and that's how they lived. They reached out so often to serve us as family members and their community, friends, all the things, friends, all the things. And so each day, or each year on my birthday, I just keep my eyes open and pray to see a small chance to serve listening to someone tell their story, helping somebody get out of a pickle or jump a car nothing fancy but just keep my eyes open for an opportunity to share the siblings' love with the world through a small little slice of service.
Speaker 1:I love that so beautiful. Your children were small when this event happened. They were, but still affected by the stories and you know the effect that it had on all of your family members.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Your outside your immediate family, Mm-hmm. How have you been able to you know? What kind of tools have you used to help them as they've grown up? And you know, heard these stories.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of time. Well, so, because they were so little, you know you don't really. This is hard to explain to toddlers that you know someone that used to be part of our family sent other people to heaven and isn't part of our family and he's a bad guy. In the end, it's just hard. You can't comprehend that. And so trying to level it down, to say no, he's a bad guy, he's not your family anymore, he's not your your family anymore is um, was like the first step.
Speaker 2:Of course, from there, just as they've grown, they've asked more questions to clarify, because it's not something the brain makes sense of, because it is kind of incomprehensible, and so, to understand, I really let them guide the conversations. So often, even talking about coming to speak with you today, they were like okay, so what are you going to tell her? What are you going to talk about? Well, are you going to give details? Do they need to know everyone's name? Like, are they going to know about what you said and what he said and she said and everything you know? And I'm like well, you guys, what's most important, this is, this is our experience and this is how we have found hope and healing.
Speaker 2:But to have me break down and really fall apart so emotionally when they were so close to that independence and needing that really strong connection, was difficult, and so it really did affect my oldest.
Speaker 2:She's had a lot. I've had much more blunt conversations with her because she's old enough to understand, like when I went through this. This is the effect it had on you developmentally and these are some things that have spiraled throughout the years and this is why we're doing something now, or this is why I ask you to do that every day, or this is why I'm asking or helping with certain things, why I'm asking or helping with certain things, and so some things that we do are different than other families because they need to be, and I try to remember to explain that to them as they are old enough to understand it. My youngest is still a little bit on the young side for understanding some things. She won't get the full story for maybe a few more years, but she can know some of the whys, some of the reasons behind daily habits, safety measures, things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's so good. Yeah, just a little bit, of little by little, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and we've talked about like do we just need to sit them down and tell them like everything by this age or that age? And I'm like it's going to keep coming up. It's part of their life, it's part of their family history. It affects people they love much more than it's affected them. So they'll continue to ask questions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and each child is different, yeah, so they require different measures.
Speaker 2:Right. So I try hard to just let them answer their curiosity, I guess. Let them decide what they need to know.
Speaker 1:Well, you're doing wonderful I appreciate that I know your kids. Thank you, aubrey. Is there anything that you would suggest to somebody who might be going through something really difficult? Maybe not the exact situation that you went through, but struggling through some grief and pain.
Speaker 2:So two things are on my mind. One is it took me a long time to find the right type of therapy. I think I might have had the right therapist a few times, because I never felt like it was a bad match and they just weren't hearing me or they just couldn't help me at all, but it just wasn't the right kind of therapy.
Speaker 2:I really needed a trauma-informed EMDR specialist that could rewire the wiring that took place during the trauma, and I say rewire, I'm using simplified terms and I don't even know if they're all correct, but when you go through a very objectively traumatic event like that, your brain does rewire itself. It tries to short-circuit around coping mechanisms that you might've used and otherwise healthy coping mechanisms, because in that moment it doesn't serve you to take a deep breath and go journal. You have to get out of the way immediately, you have to find a safe place and you're in survival. It changes the way your brain functions, and so it took me so long to understand that and so much research that I would love for people to just be informed that trauma changes the way your brain just functions. You can tell it to not think that way, you can tell it to do something else, but you're not in charge. Your brain is.
Speaker 2:So, so listen and do that Um, find the right kind of therapy, whether your therapist um is wonderful or not, cause I had some really great therapists they just weren't um, the right kind of therapy. The second thing that's on my mind is how much I battled with forgiveness. That felt like a huge, huge burden to me, because I have never hated someone the way I hated this man, hated someone the way I hated this man. Never, I've never felt that much anger and loathing and disgust, and you would think so differently of me if you heard some of the conversations my family and I had following this situation and the things, the type of revenge we dreamt up and all the things. But for years I just was like I at first I mean it came in stages. At first I was not going to forgive him, because this is not something you forgive someone about, forgive someone about. But this burden just became like. This hatred was consuming me and I was not willing to carry it. I said, okay, I have to forgive, but I do not know what that looks like. I cannot begin to imagine how nothing that happened that day is forgivable or acceptable and that to me growing up like, okay, forgive your sister, forgive your brother, forgive your friend for taking your candy. That's not the same, no, not even close.
Speaker 2:And so I was begging Heavenly Father for years. I just said, please, please, please. And finally I was praying, I was sacrament meeting is my revelation spot. And one day I just was reading through a hymn during the sacrament and I said, heavenly Father, I can't, I can't carry this anymore, and I don't know what it looks like, but I have to let this go. I don't even know like what does forgiveness look like? You can't accept this, help me. And I finally just gave it to God and said I don't know how, but I can't, please take this. And this sweet answer came back of oh sweet girl, this is not required of you right now. Let me have this. I'll carry it for you for a while.
Speaker 2:And, um, when I felt that peace that came from wanting revenge and wanting justice and wanting all of those feelings of hatred to just channel into him and make him explode, or however that would work Like I'm imagining Superman supervision, you know, um, I felt so much peace, it just brought so much. Um, I'm going to say closure yeah, because you don't have to say okay, this person's actions were acceptable. This is okay. All you have to do is make peace with the fact that God will handle the judgment, because he knows way more than I do. I know this peace and I was so affected by His actions on that day, so affected by his actions on that day. I now know a lot more of what happened leading up to that and I am at so much peace, knowing God has the complete story and he will take care of what's going on and I don't have to worry about it.
Speaker 2:I'm free from that burden. It is forgiveness is looks like different things. So those are my two takeaways find the right kind of therapy, and forgiveness does not have to mean acceptance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that, yeah. And yet forgiveness is so important for your own wellbeing.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was so consuming, yeah, that hatred. Just it was so consuming yeah.
Speaker 2:So how would you say, aubrey, that today, now, how are you feeling in the now? In the now, um, I still have a lot of peace. I, um, I can remember obviously with enough I can bring back, especially if you know the right senses engage. I can remember that deep hatred, that terror, the anxieties and fears, but post-therapy and post-research study as much gospel study as anything it really has turned into just this peace and healing, that I would say whole, because grief really can leave a gaping hole in your entire life. And I felt like I was just walking around with this hollow core of missing my family. And that's filled, not because they're back, not because it's okay, not because I don't miss them, but because Christ has made me whole again. I'm complete again.
Speaker 1:So it's been, it's been a long journey, but it is finally settled. I feel like complete. That's awesome. I love that, Aubrey. Thank you so much for sharing your story yeah.
Speaker 1:Aubrey, thank you so much for sharing your story. I can't really add much more to that. It's just beautiful and it just goes to show again. You know I do these. We're episode 79, and it's just amazing for me to hear, over and over, the different ways that the Atonement works for people Because, like you said, it is different for everybody. We have different challenges, different trials, different struggles that we go through, and the Savior covers it all and it's just a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful thing. I agree.
Speaker 2:So thanks for being here today. Aubrey me, I'm honored and we.
Speaker 1:That's it for today. We'll see you all again soon.