The Courage to Heal A Story of Grief, Recovery, and Hope

The journey through grief is a road I've walked for ten long years since my brother's passing, tracing the contours of absence that shape our daily lives. In a conversation that weaves together the raw threads of loss and the physical echoes of pain, I unravel the lessons learned from nurturing the internal scars that parallel a recent back injury. It's a tapestry of healing knitted with the hands of professional help and the courage found in asking for assistance—a reminder that investing in ourselves is the bravest step towards recovery. I share intimate reflections on navigating life's most challenging voyages and the importance of embracing support systems when the waters get rough.

Reaching through the airwaves, I extend a heartfelt note of gratitude to you, our listeners, who've been the lighthouse in this journey towards joy. Each review you leave is like a beacon that guides fellow travelers to our community's safe harbor, where stories of healing and happiness are shared. I invite you to engrave your mark on this narrative by leaving your thoughts, helping others anchor in our message. And for those who've yet to join, I welcome you to sign up for my email updates and engage with us across social media platforms, as we collectively chart our course towards creating lives filled not just with fleeting joy, but with a 'happily even after' we craft each day.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

Hi friends, welcome to Happily. Even After I'm Life Coach Jen, a certified life coach that specializes in relationships. I'm a mom of four awesome kids and one amazing senora, a home decorator, a remodeler, a shopper, a scrabler and a snuggler. I want to help you with your relationships, mainly the relationship you have with yourself and your family and God. Thanks for listening and letting me share the tools I have learned that can help you live happily even after some of life's greatest challenges. Hey friends, welcome to today's episode.

Speaker 1: 0:43

Before I get started, I just have been thinking a lot about my brother. So 10 years ago this week, my brother passed away and I really wish every day that he was here, because I could have really used his help. I just want him if he's listening, I'm thinking he is to know that I love him and we miss him terribly, and I just wanted to honor him. But 10 years is a long time and a lot has happened. So, anyways, I've talked a lot about him on my podcast, but I just wanted to acknowledge that it's 10 year anniversary. I think that feels like a lot and so, anyways, but now I'm going to go into what I'm talking about today, and it is physical pain and emotional pain and, honestly, like a lot of emotional pain with my brother's death and with just my life in general. But the past like. I don't know, maybe early December this is the second time that this has happened and I've been trying to get my garage so that I can park two cars in it. Right now, I can only park one car in my garage. It's a three car garage and I'm using the one car part of the garage for storage, although I'm hoping to not even have to do that soon, probably not till next year.

Speaker 1: 2:09

But I just went down, lifted a tote that must have been a little too heavy for me and I tweaked my back. The first time I did it was probably like in October, and it took a few weeks and I was in pain and then it got better. Well, this time being it was over Christmas and New Year's. My back has been hurting and I think I thought, oh, it's going to get better. The last time I did this, it got better. I had lots of different emotions and feelings. It was frustrating because it's like okay, I have Christmas, I have things to do. It hurt to just bend over and put my shoes and socks on. I was like this is really irritating. I don't want to be getting like, yeah, I'm older, but I'm like is this what age getting older means? And I've never had something in my life where I've had physical pain, really unless it was intentional. I gave birth to four kids. That was painful, but it went away quickly Anyways. So this has been going on.

Speaker 1: 3:16

So the other day I just decided I'm going to go to the chiropractor. I'm like they probably can do an adjustment. He did an adjustment and he's like hey, do you want this shot? It's going to help your back feel better. So I'm like yes, I do. And I scheduled a massage and I just thought why did I do this? Why did I wait so long, like three weeks, why did I do that? And I just started thinking about when we have physical pain versus emotional pain, because they're very similar and I just want to tie them together.

Speaker 1: 3:57

And sometimes our physical pain is noticeable, right, like if someone was in a car accident or broke their leg they're going to have a cast, or like a neck brace or so sometimes physical pain can be more noticeable. Or, and I've noticed with myself, like no one can see that my back hurts, but I kind of maybe walk slower and my kids can tell, and so they're like mom, be careful, or whatever. But with emotional pain it isn't as obvious. My thought was first of all, the cost, the cost for me to go get an adjustment and the shot and the massage. It really wasn't that expensive, but I would have paid a lot more to have relief, right.

Speaker 1: 4:45

And I think sometimes when we're in emotional pain, what are we willing to pay to get out of it? Because we usually especially if it's infidelity, that we're trying to get over, a death, divorce, some of these harder, more emotional things in our life we're gonna have to pay money to have someone help us, because we want an expert to help us, not our mom who's doing it, and she's not even gonna be giving us good advice, right, she's gonna be right along emotional with us, or our sister or our friend. And do we wanna go to an expert or just a general person? So I think finding an expert in whatever emotional pain you're dealing with is so key and so important, just like you would with a doctor. For me, my back was hurting, I did the chiropractor route, but I'm not gonna go see my OBGYN to say, hey, my back hurts, that's probably not the right person to go to, even though they're an expert. They're just not an expert in the back. The other thing is, I noticed, so I had no choice but to ask my children for help a lot I needed them to pick up totes and to help me bring the presents downstairs for Christmas and I had to ask for help.

Speaker 1: 6:10

And I find when we are in emotional pain we need help just as much, if not more, and I know it's hard to ask. But if you can find a few of your people to just realize like you need help, you need someone to maybe help you with your kids, help you watch your kids, help you babysit so you can go to therapy, you just are gonna need to ask for help. And for those of you that have friends or family that are going through divorce, that are going through infidelity, betrayal, going through a death, just know they need help. So don't ask them what they need, just go help them. Find a way, write them a note, volunteer, drop them off dinner. Whatever you do, it's gonna be helpful, because when you're in emotional pain it is hard to function, just like when your back hurts or you're in some sort of physical pain. You aren't running on all your cylinders, you're not at your full capacity, you are in pain. So just pay attention. I just think it's important.

Speaker 1: 7:22

So, if you're either the person that is in the emotional pain, if you can get up the courage, and when you're in physical pain, maybe it's easier, I don't know. But just find ways to get help, know that you need help, resting. So I basically I had to lay down every day for like a few hours. I would get in bed at night, have a heating blanket on my back because my back hurts so bad. And this past, like year and a half that I've been healing from my divorce, I realized I've needed a lot more like resting instead of doing, and I think sometimes we like think what's wrong with us? Why do we need that? But when we are in emotional pain, we also need to take breaks, we need to rest, we need to have downtime. And that is harder, I think for sure, if you have little kids, but when they're taking naps you go rest. Find ways to get rest in your life. Go to bed early. I promise you can just leave all the dishes, all the laundry for later.

Speaker 1: 8:33

We need to heal our souls, our hearts, and so just take rest, just like you would if you were in physical pain, and that is gonna help us heal and get better. So, a lot of times our emotions, they're invisible, but we need to acknowledge them and make sure that we are taking care of ourself just as much as we would if we were in physical pain, and finding things going on walks, finding connection, doing things that are gonna help you get out of this emotional pain, because we don't wanna get stuck right. We need to move through those emotions and I promise, as you do, you're gonna get healthier. And it's like the light at the end of the tunnel, just like with my back. My back is healing. Our bodies are like miracles. They are healing and you know I'm not a doctor or a scientist, but there's things that are working all the time with our bodies to heal them, just as much as our emotions with our nervous system, and we have to feel all of our emotions to heal them, and so just give yourself a lot of compassion and grace, okay, so don't think if it isn't a physical wound.

Speaker 1: 9:56

Emotional wounds are just as important to heal, and if you know someone that has emotional wounds, which is really everyone in the world have compassion. If someone snaps at you, I always like to think like, oh, I wonder what's going on with them today. Or, you know, if you can keep that mindset going, especially like with your kids, there's a lot of stuff. It's a hard world out there, and so just giving yourself a lot of compassion, compassion for other people, and finding ways to serve and then ask for help. Know that sometimes money is going to help you heal, just like going to the doctor. We wouldn't expect a doctor to give us free help, right, we want to pay them. We want to pay them because they went to school for a long time so that they can help us fix our back or whatever is wrong with us. So we want to go to an expert for when we need emotional healing and we want them to help us so we can help ourselves Anyway. So just a thought I had with my experience with my back, but I just really I've never had physical pain as much as I have the past few months, but I've had a lot of emotional pain and I really think the two tie in and maybe if we can think of it that way, it might be easier for us to get help.

Speaker 1: 11:23

Anyways, thanks so much for listening. I'd love for you to leave me a review on my podcast so other people can find me. That's the way the world works. We like reviews, and so send me a message and have an amazing day. If you want to learn how to live happily even after sign up for my email at hello at lifecoachgen with one ncom, follow me on Instagram and Facebook at happily even after coach. Let's work together to create your happily even after.