Honoring the Grief Process with Deb Luiken

My guest today is Deb Luiken, a Certified BodyTalk Practitioner and life coach. She's been interested in non-evasive and holistic methods of healing for many years. Our conversation about honoring the grief process is very insightful, as grief is a deep, emotional topic that has touched all our lives. Deb offers life coaching, meditation and BodyTalk therapy, you'll enjoy her authentic discussion and how vulnerable she has allowed herself to become in the following interview… 

Transcript

Speaker Dar

Deb, hello, hello, hello. I'm so excited to invite Deb with us today, and before we dive into this topic of honoring the grief process, could you just tell our audience a little bit about yourself and where you're at today.

Speaker Deb

Well, hi, Darla, it's good to hear your voice. I am from Jamestown, North Dakota. I am a

BodyTalk Practitioner. I had depression really, really bad for 40 years, and I went to a BodyTalk

Practitioner. I got off all my meds, off migraine meds, inhalers, antidepressants, and I became a BodyTalk Practitioner. I woke up happy every day. So that's what I do now. And I started my own practice in my early 50s. Been doing it for eight years now, and love it, Speaker Dar and that makes you our expert today on honoring the grief process. And I'm laughing, because who could ever be an expert in that, right?

Speaker Deb

Well, I have been through several deaths in the last year. My mother died in May of last year. She started. She had so many strokes in January, I moved her into assisted living, and then she got the backlash of covid to aced covid got backlash to that, and ended up in the hospital and then assisted to the nursing home and then back into assisted living. And then she said, can I die now? So I moved in with her, and we started the dying process, and it took about three weeks, and she passed, and she was my favorite person on the whole entire planet, and going through that group process with her, and then in October, um, really what it was a boyfriend that I had had. We stayed in very close personal touch, and we called each other all the time. We maybe not work together anymore, but I was really never over him, and he got killed in a car accident, and then right after that, my stepdad died, and going through that grief process and learning it really well and how to get through it, and how we get through it, is feeling it. You got to feel all those emotions. Just cannot avoid them.

Speaker Dar

This is such a difficult topic, and I'm so glad you're willing to talk about it, and one of the reasons you are is because of what you just said, you have to feel it. Could you take a little bit of time to tell about some of those ups and downs. My gosh, that's quite a timeline with your mother and then the boyfriend, and then the stepdad, and then a best friend also passed.

Speaker Deb

The Fourth of July. My best friend passed. She had disease, and it was long, slow through the years, watching her go downhill, and then she finally let go of her fight. The Fourth of July, during the fireworks went out with the Bang. And so yeah, I'm back into it again. I was just coming out of the grief, and I was giggling and laughing and enjoying life again, and I did not want to go back into grief mode. I wanted to avoid it. So yes, facing grief, honoring the grief process, how much we love somebody is how much we're going to hurt, and it is an absence of seeing them and hearing their voice and being around them every day, and at least a hole in your heart. And you know, you go through denial, and you go through anger and bargaining and depression, and then you finally get to acceptance. I don't know if we completely heal from it, but we start enjoying life again. And I know for this last week, I was handling things really well, and I was laughing and giggling all day yesterday, and I don't know what happened, I hit a wall, and I was listening to some music. I was at an outdoor music event, and the music was really bluesy, and it made me sad. And somebody asked how I was doing, and the tears started flowing again. Yes, I had to go home. So you just don't know when grief is going to hit you. You might be good one minute, not the next. And I guess we could, you know, we. We try to avoid what we're going through. And we could drink it, get into alcohol. We could eat it, binge it, overwork ourselves. That's probably one of my favorite things to do, is throw myself into work so I don't feel anything. Even though I do this for a living, I still find myself avoiding the emotions. But when I sit down, and even though I do this for a living, I have to reach out to other people and have them help me through my grief process and become honest with myself that I wasn't okay. I wasn't okay. I kept getting sick, a very healthy person. I very rarely get sick, and I just walk by me and cough, and I would catch whatever they had. And I had a lot of sickness and illness, but that was part of my grief process. It affected my body. It affected everything. It was too many, too close together, and they were all my close personal people, the ones that called and checked up on me all the time, and I lost them all. So it was, it was some hard blows.

Speaker Dar

Thank you for being so authentic with us. I know that with this size of audience. There is someone who is having a series similar to yours, and there's others that are having their own grief blanket weighing just heavily, heavily on their shoulders. It's interesting how we don't always realize that grief can lay that heavy and cause us to catch some of those diseases that are out in our atmosphere. Can you lead our audience through something that is an activity that you found helpful when you're all alone sitting there with your grief.

Speaker Deb

Number one, I practice breathing. May sound ridiculous, because our body just naturally breathes, but I become very aware of my breath, that breathing in and breathing out of how it feels in my body. I also feel pressure in my body. It might be in your legs. It might be in your chest, your heart. I even have a slight headache and being aware of your breath and feeling those pressure points in your body. And just be aware and feel it. Turn off the TV, turn off the music, get away from people, and sit quietly and just practice breathing in, breathing out, and feeling those pressure points in your body when we feel an emotion, it will go away if we eat it. Watch TV, play video games, overwork, it will not go away, and it could be five years later, and you still haven't dealt with the grief, and you still have to go back and deal with that grief and feel those emotions. And what happens when we don't feel those emotions and where those pressure points are, it can cause heart disease, or if we don't cry our grief out, it causes lung disease. Those tears, some people say, Oh, I'm too strong. I would never cry. We people cry and I'm like, Oh, really, those tears actually stay in the lungs and cause lung disease. Isn't that crazy. We need to cry them out, and it's salt water, and salt water is so healing, and we need to have those tears. I know that usually if I have a really good cry, I feel really good afterwards. I might be tired from taking a little nap, but it washes my soul clean, and I feel better and healthier. So you want you so actually, just take some nice deep breaths. Just sit there and take some nice deep breath and breathe in and breathe out, breathe in. Feel some pressure points in your body. Feel of grief that a loss that you've had, Bring it. Bring it to your body. Get it to all your senses. Feel the pain, feel the pressure point. Be aware of your breath.r

Lower the shoulders away from the ears. Where's the pressure points? You might have one or two.

Feel the pain. It's not just emotional pain. It's physical pain too. Is it on the neck? Sit in the heart. You. Be aware of your breath, breathing in, breathing out. Can you feel it move and change? Get bigger, get smaller, let it do whatever it wants and honoring your pain, it's your love, and let it move through your body. I'm just going to ask you, do you feel A little different? But just feeling the pain will make it disappear. Pain wants to be felt. It doesn't want to be ignored.

Speaker Dar

Wow. Thank you. Thank you so much. I actually did that activity along with you and I could feel the pain shift, and I could feel it move.

Speaker Deb

Where was your pressure point in your body? Dar.

Speaker Dar

What was my most questionable point? Yeah, pain point, oh, center back.

Speaker Deb:

Like it's different for everybody…

Speaker Dar

. I actually started with shoulders, because I was using the analogy of the heavy blanket of grief. And I guess that was a pain I was used to. But following through your activity, it was in the back, it was, you know, I lost a very supportive person, and the back, the support of the back, I suppose, could be, in the words of Louise Hays, the back would be connected with being supported. And I'm thinking that that is why I felt back pain.

Speaker Deb

You probably feel a little abandonment. I left you, Speaker Dar yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yes.

Speaker Deb

So sorry for your loss. Thanks. So sorry for your loss. And we have to honor that we have a loss, and life has changed, and it has shifted, and we just can't go back to the way we lived life before. We have to honor our bodies and love our bodies and give ourselves time and compassion to get through it. And another thing I tell my clients is we cannot lie to ourselves, and we tell people how you are doing. When people ask, how are you doing? And we say, Fine, we're lying to our bodies, and we're dishonoring our bodies and it does damage that simple thing. If we are truthful and honest, I'm a Christian girl, so you read the book of Job, and it's even hard to read because he's complaining and whining all the way through it, but he's being really honest, and he's saying, I'm really hurting over all this. I'm really in a lot of pain, but I'll get through this or but God will help me through it. So be honest. When somebody asks you, how are you? I'm not very good. I'm to be honest. I'm not very good, but I will be. I will get through this and throw some powerful statement behind it, and that you have the strength to get through it. And tell yourself that you have the strength to get through it, but be honest, like, I'm not okay right now, but I will be Speaker Dar yes. Could be better.

Speaker Deb

Yeah, appreciate. I mean, I lost, I really lost my four supporters, the people that had my back, people that called and checked up on me all the time to see how I was doing, and I don't have those phone calls anymore, and I have to take care of myself, and I have to know that I matter, and that even Without them, I still have support, sometimes I'm pulling for my own support.

Speaker Dar

What a tribute to them, that your love of them is so great.

Speaker Deb

I still hear my mom's words. My mom always said, I get myself in the worst pickles. And she would always say to me, you got this. Yes, I raised a smart girl. You got this, you'll figure it out. And I'm sure she was like, Oh my gosh, how she could have figured this out. But those words still stick with me. I'll figure it out. Yeah, I got this. So Speaker Dar

she's, yeah, so she's still with you. Definitely,

Speaker Deb

I still hear her.

Speaker Dar

So let's talk a little bit about avoidance. That is my favorite thing to do.

Speaker Deb

And yeah, everybody's favorite thing to do. We don't want to feel our pain. We just don't want to feel it. It's so painful to hear, feel the pain. Oh, so, yes, avoidance. Theres so many ways to avoid it. Like I said, overworking was mine, telling people I was fine eating. I got into donuts. Oh, after my mom died, I thought I have a right to eat donuts. I never ate donuts before. I'm a very healthy eater. I love fruit and dark chocolate, and those were what I used for my sweet tooth, and I got into donuts and cakes, and the sweeter the better, because it gave me that charge. It gave me just a little bit of joy. It is the adrenaline from the sugar. And, boy, I wasn't fitting in my pants. No, get off the donuts. No. And even through the winter, like I said, I was sick all winter. I just kept getting sick. I kept getting covid. Somebody walked by me, and I got covid like three times last winter, and influenza. I was sick all the time, and I was tired of being sick. I know my body just needs time. One of my friends had said “you need to take a month off”. And I didn't do it. And through the winter, I literally took probably six weeks off because I kept getting sick. I

didn't honor my body and take time off. So you do need to take some time and deal with your pain. Another way of avoiding it is drinking. A lot of people end up in the bar. Bars are full of people hurting… drugs, playing video games. That's a good one. You can get lost in a video game. You can lose hours sleeping, falling asleep all the time, and just laying on the couch and sleeping. There's just so many ways to avoid, but some of your ways to avoid Dar?

Speaker Dar

I'd say probably eating. After I became a widow, I gained like 30 pounds. My mother passed away right before he did, and then I gained about 30 pounds, so I'd say eating, and then Prime Video, I can just, you know, watch one movie after another and escape reality.

Speaker Deb

Yeah, Netflix does not have any commercials. They just go from one to the next. Yeah, Speaker Dar yes, for sure. And then as you were talking, I thought, oh, maybe sleeping. I mean, I I'm not a nap taker or lay down during the day and sleep because then I'm busy escaping with work, but I do really sleep well at night, and could probably stay in bed in the morning if I didn't schedule myself to do something, Speaker Deb working out. I really enjoy working out, and it gets the endorphins going, so I think that's a really good thing to help with grief. Go for a walk, get the blood back up again, and your cortisol levels change when we grieve. Some people, I think, at a certain age, we lose weight when we're in grief, and then we pass those 50s, and the cortisol level changes, and we seem to gain weight. So that might have been the weight gain too. I gained quite a few pounds after all these deaths, and was getting it back off again when Nancy passed. So I'm trying not to step on the scale, but I am eating correctly. I am eating a lot of fruits and vegetables and meat, and trying to do things a little bit differently, but crying when I need to get angry when I need to anger, that's another one to deal with. That's a stage that's the one that I'm most afraid of. I can go into crying and deal with my crying, but the anger scared me because I got so angry at the losses that they left me like the abandonment feeling. I don't have them to reach out to. I don't have I can't call them and ask them questions, and have to deal with that anger. I've told some of my clients that go to the second hand store and buy. Eight dishes, buy some old, ugly dishes and cheap buck or two or rummy sale, and then find a metal garbage can that can hide a scream and holler. If you're in an apartment, that's probably not a good thing to do, but get into your car and scream and holler or write it out, and then you can burn it afterwards, but you can write all that anger out, but the anger, you have to go through that anger stage. That's the part that I just really never liked. So did you go through that with your husband?

Speaker Dar

Yeah, I think that's, I think that's one of the things that can catch us by surprise when we lose that first you know, that first member of our family, or that first person that means so much to us when we're younger. I think the anger is so unexpected, because following that anger for me would be like guilt.

Speaker Deb

That's a good way to put it. Maybe I should have done more. Yeah, you go back through the years. I wish you would have done things differently. Or enjoying life after they pass, and how that can affect you. Like, do I have a right to be happy again?

Speaker Dar

And that is so common when you see these like a sole survivor in a group trauma. You know, they usually are suffering really heavy guilt as being the only one alive. And then, you know, what's my purpose? Well, it's got to be a big purpose if I'm the only one out of you to know a handful of people who survived this terrible event.

Speaker Deb

Yes, that would be tough or losing a child. It is a tough one to get over if you've lost a child going on. So yes, I have. I've worked with several people with grief counseling that have lost children. I have never had the opportunity to work with somebody that, you know, a plane crash, and they were the only survivor, you know, car crash or something. I have not worked with anybody on that level. But that would be interesting to see the processes going through, and helping them through that, and giving them a right to have those feelings, that you have a right to feel how you feel, and don't let anybody say you don't have a right to feel that way, because you have to go into those feelings, even if they feel Foreign. You don't know how you're going to feel, and nobody knows what you are going through, because you're going to deal with it.

Speaker Dar

I was just going to say along that same topic, there's no timeline. Some people say, Oh, it's been a year. I should be over this or or friends saying, Well, maybe they wouldn't be friends if they were saying it, but you need to get out. You need to get out and get on with your life. It's been so many months, or whatever that might be, when other people are trying to pressure you into their timeline or what they imagine to be a timeline. There is no timeline, Speaker Deb and the timeline that we have for ourselves too, like I should be past this by now, and you just don't know. I know, last winter, people were asking, can't you get through this? And I'm like, okay, can't you get over this? And I'm like, I'm not getting over it. I'm getting through it. I'm not getting around it. I'm going to go through it. I am going to feel all of this anger. I am going to feel all of these tears. I am going to feel it, because when I get to the other side, I'm going to have joy on the other side. And I was feeling joy before Nancy passed, I was back in that joy called giggling, back to myself most of the time, and I was regaining and now that Nancy has passed, I'm back into grief mode. I just am. I have some good days, but I miss her. 45 years of friendship, I mean, we met in high school, and all those years together,

Speaker Dar

As you mentioned, you have to go through the stages, and you don't know what order they're going to come in, and you don't know exactly what it's going to be like, because each one is different.

Speaker Deb

You can be at a music event and start crying. That's what happened to me. So you just don't know I was I had a really good day yesterday, and I was like, What the heck happened? I hit a wall. I was like, pack up and go. Just get out of here and honor myself and I took care of myself and found my nice, comforting home. I have a beautiful patio that I get to sit out on. I'm very blessed that I have this beautiful patio, and sat out there and took my deep breaths and got through it, got up this morning and got a hard workout in.

Speaker Dar

So that is an excellent example. I mean, it hurts that you have to hurt like this, but it's an excellent example for others that you honored yourself. You got out of the situation that was triggering, got home where you were comfortable, expressed that you took care of yourself, honored where in your body it was released. I got up in the morning and worked out. Because you know that that helps you. We all know it adds endorphins and helps your body recuperate, and then you are ready for the day and ready to be. I'm sure it was God's plan that you were ready to be authentic and share your grief with us today as part of your process.

Speaker Deb

I was just going to say that I love these people so much. I love them so much. So of course, I'm gonna have pain. Of course I'm gonna have pain. If I would be a narcissist if I didn’t, I love them so much to honor them. And as my best friend was passing, I'm like, and she was like, don't cry. And I'm like, I love you. That's my love showing it's just leaking out all over the place. So our love is leaking out.

Speaker Dar

Yes, our love is leaking out. And as you mentioned earlier, it's healthy for it to leak out. Do you have anything else? It is a very healthy feeling to talk to us regarding grief and the process.

Speaker Deb

Oh, anything else? Just be gentle with yourself. Be very, very gentle with yourself, and don't push yourself. And where you are is exactly where you are, and you can't be anywhere else and where you're at. So sit down and deal with where you're at. You can't move forward until you deal with where you're at. So if you're angry, you're angry, don't put on a mask and say you're fine and go put on a fake smile and tell everybody you're fine. Find a way to, even if you gotta call in sick, call in sick and get angry, write it out, scream it out. Break dishes. I don't love breaking dishes. Find good metal garbage cans like no picnic area that nobody's at. Just start firing them in. I mean, release that anger. Find a good, healthy way to release it. If not you're going to take it out on people that don't deserve it,

Speaker Dar

I'd like to just take a little bit of time for you to tell our audience if they would like to work with you through their grief process.

Speaker Deb

I do work over the phone. Yeah, I work over the phone. And you can, you can set up an appointment with me. You can text me at 701-391-2173, or all my information will be on here, or you can email me and we set up an appointment. I am an empath, so as you are telling me your story, I will be feeling if you have aches and pains in your body, I will feel it. I will feel all your emotions. I will feel all your aches and pains, and I will help guide you through it. And so you won't be able to lie to me. I'll call you out on it if you lie to me. And so I love what I do, but yeah, I work all over the world actually,

Speaker Dar

I'm sure that we have people that will be interested. And just, you know, so you don't have to keep hitting replay and writing down the phone number, the phone, her phone, her email and her phone number, her text messaging will be in the show notes, so you'll be able to get hold of her there. Let's end on a note. That you just talked about. You said, feel the pain, get through the grief, and then be ready to move on to something new. So would you talk to our audience a little bit about your something new when you're done with the grieving process and ready to move forward.

Speaker Deb

Okay, so everybody has an anointing in certain areas. Mine is being an empath and helping guide people through different things. My main passion is I was molested as a young child by a couple different older men, and I had depression so bad for 40 years, I had depression. I woke up every day, fighting, putting boxing gloves on. I took pills for it. I took everything. So my passion in this world is to fight against rapists, to fight against to work with the people that have been molested, been raped and been violated, and helping them through it. So I want to start doing group healing sessions. I look at Simone Biles and how she put herself out there like I was molested, I was taken advantage of, and I trusted this person, and they violated me, how she fell in the Olympics four years. But she didn't fall literally, but she fell apart. And how she stepped out of she's at the Olympics, and she honored her body, and she honored herself, and said, I can't do this. And she mentally, in the last four years, pulled herself back together. But part of her healing was putting herself out there and saying, I was hurt, and getting your power and taking it back. I want to help people do that, and I want to do it on a larger scale, through zoom links and through getting massive people. And you can come on as Donald Docker, Minnie Mouse. I don't care until you are ready and stand up and say, and everybody will have their own time and say, I was hurt, I was violated, I was molested. And taking that power back and getting stronger, like a broken leg. Your broken leg after it is broken, it is actually stronger after it heals. Same thing. I want to get these people to get their strength back. So I'm excited to do that technique. I am not good at technical. I have no technical skills, so I need somebody to help me with that. If anybody wants to reach out and help me with that, that would be great. But that is where I see my practice going.

Speaker Dar

Okay, awesome. I love that, saying that it's stronger than before. So honoring the grief process is becoming stronger than before. Honoring works out!

Speaker Deb

Oh, everything works out for good. Um, because I was molested, I have this great job. I have this, this, this awesome job, but I want to go back and be violated again now that I can't stop it from happening out in the world, but I can restore these people's souls after they've been broken.

Speaker Dar

Thank you. Deb, it was just a pleasure to have you with us today. I just want to remind our audience that they can reach out. Your information will be in the show notes page, and it was such a pleasure. Thank you for being with us. Speaker Deb

Thank you for having me on. It's such a pleasure. Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Transcribed by https://otter.ai