A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Life® with Laura Muirhead
Welcome to A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Life®. This is THE place to be for stories to inspire and uplift when life doesn't go according to plan. I'm Laura Muirhead, your host and the reigning queen of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Life®. I can't wait to share my plot twist stories and the stories of my guests with you!
A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Life® with Laura Muirhead
EP 24 - Michell Ann Collins - A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Life®
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
TW: This episode discusses sensitive topics.
Michelle Ann Collins returns to A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Life® as this week's featured guest. Listen in as Michelle shares the obstacles she encountered in writing and publishing her latest book. Find out what unexpected project popped up along the way!
As the founder of Inhabit Joy, Michelle Ann Collins partners with individuals who have suffered grief, injury, or other types of loss as they recover, reclaim their wholeness, and build resilience for life’s inevitable challenges. After a series of losses, including the death of her mother, her husband’s suicide, and continued estrangements from primary family members, Michelle combined the tools she had collected as a yoga therapist and wellness coach and studies in positive psychology, neuroscience, meditation and mindfulness, and spirituality to turn post-traumatic stress disorder into post-traumatic growth and resilience. With the addition of a certification in grief education and several bestselling books in which she shares her story, Michelle is helping others transform from barely surviving to joyful thriving.
Deeply connected with the healing powers of nature, Michelle spends her leisure time hiking among the trees or paddling on the rivers near her home in Portland, Oregon.
Connect with Michelle Ann Collins here:
Website: www.inhabitjoy.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inhabitjoy
Instagram: michelleanncollins_
LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelleanncollins/
Find Michelle's books here: https://www.amazon.com/Michelle-Ann-Collins/e/B096D9TWWS/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_15
I'd love to hear from you. Send me Fan Mail!
Welcome to a funny thing happened on the way to my life. This is the place to be for stories to inspire and uplift when life doesn’t go according to plans. I’m Laura Muirhead your host and the reigning queen of a funny thing happened on the way to my life. I can’t wait to share my plot twist stories and the stories of my guests with you!
Find out more at lauramuirhead.com
For more information on Laura Muirhead visit...
Hi, and welcome to this episode of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Life. I'm your host, Laura Meerhead, and I am so happy to welcome actually back to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Life, a previous guest, Michelle Ann Collins. So Michelle was on in April, actually, was when your episode aired. And a lot has happened in that time, but um come first before we get into everything, come and um remind our listeners um who you are and what you do and where you are in the world.
SPEAKER_00Okay, great. Laura, thanks so much for having me back. I love your podcast. It's so relaxed and it's like just chatting with a friend over coffee or tea in my case today. Uh so I'm Michelle Ann Collins. I'm an author and a yoga therapist, wellness coach, and grief coach. And uh there's more, but you know, if you want, it's a long list of things that I do. But basically, I promote mindful healing. So I use um the studies in mindfulness and meditation and yoga to help people get through or recover from difficult times. That's sort of my goal. Um, and I have three books out and two coming out next month, although I think it'll be next month when this airs. So anyway, January of 2023. Uh, and I am a coach, so I help people one-to-one. My yoga therapy practice is also one-to-one. So if someone has an injury or an illness and they want to still have yoga in their life, I can manage to modify yoga to their needs. And um, I teach a couple of group classes as well.
SPEAKER_01You definitely have a full plate, but I love that because I am multi-passionate as well. So um I love that you do many things. So multi-passion.
SPEAKER_00I like that. Pardon multi-passionate. That's a great word. I like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because yeah, like you, you, you don't have just one thing that you love doing. And I also love that you um that you can um work with people with your yoga practice. So, you know, if they do have um other things happening that um you're able to to you know uh adjust things for them that way.
SPEAKER_00Um people people say, Oh, I can't do yoga because you know, fill in the blank, whatever it is, like I have a bad knee, I had a, you know, whatever. Um some of my students can't even stand up. They're they're in wheelchairs, you know. You as long as you can breathe, you can do yoga, and you can do yoga in a way that's beneficial to your health. So it's uh it's a really wide, broad practice, and people don't realize that. People think, oh, I'm not bendy, I'm not strong, I can't stand on one foot, I can't do yoga, and it that's just not the case. It's it's a healing modality. No matter where you are, you can feel better with yoga in your life. So I feel like I'm a promo from promo code there.
SPEAKER_01But I honestly, I know we're we've kind of gone off like this. I think that's an important point to make because I do think people limit themselves in with that idea that you know that people who are doing yoga are, you know, like you can't go because you're if you're already not, you know, you can't you have to start somewhere. You're not gonna just like a marathon runner or anything, you know. I think people think you they like you said, you can't go to yoga because you're not bendy or you're not stretchy or you're you know, whatever. And I love that you can make those adjustments for people. And I do know that there are a lot of people. Um, my mom, for example, who is you know older and they she there's somebody in her area that teaches a chair yoga class. So, you know, and I think it's so beneficial for for everyone. So yeah, it is and sounding like I do it and I don't, I need to get on your programs and do it.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'll contact you afterwards and get you into one of my classes. But it is it yoga is very misunderstood in a lot of ways. The uh, you know, saying yoga is like you know, people say I don't do yoga. It's like saying I don't exercise or, you know, there's yoga, just saying yoga is such a broad term. And I I know someone who I was talking to recently who said they they don't do the physical practice of yoga anymore, they just do the mindfulness, meditation, and spiritual part of the path. So, you know, but they don't do what you what you're thinking when I say yoga is you know, dower dog and all that. They have they don't do that, and they're still doing yoga.
SPEAKER_01So okay, that we need to do that on another podcast. We need to go down the yoga path on a total other. I mean, there's a lot to that, obviously. Um, I did old path. I did do hot yoga once with my daughter in LA. So um that was really interesting.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, a big part of yoga is finding the right, the right genre and the right teacher.
SPEAKER_01So last time you were here um on a on on the podcast, we were talking about um a lot of the loss that you've experienced in your life and how you um, you know, how you've navigated that, how you moved through that and and you know, helped your helped to heal from those experiences. Um and um one of the big ones, and and one of the big things you have coming up that relates to that, um, is that you have a book, um, two books coming out around um helping others, but also I believe one of your books, you tell me more, was about um is about how you navigated uh um healing from your husband committing suicide.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah, that's uh that was the main purpose of me starting to write. And just I'm gonna throw in the grief educator education piece here. Um the the suicide loss community and and you know, grief and trauma communities are shifting the way we talk about suicide to try to lessen the stigma, because a lot of the extra layers of grief that you and I talked about on the last podcast, the extra layers of difficulty of losing someone to suicide are the stigmas and the you know social taboos that are associated with suicide. And often suicide is just a really extreme mental illness. And all of mental illness is becoming less and less stigmatized, which I love. People are really talking openly about depression, anxiety, PTSD, and it's just making our world such a more compassionate place, which is why I'm even doing the work I do with grief and grief education. Um, so now what we're saying is died by suicide rather than committed suicide, because committed has that stigma, committed a crime, right? So we you want to try to change the way you talk about suicide if you can to died by, because you die from a heart attack or you die from cancer, you die from suicide. You know, it it takes the stigma out of the way we talk about it.
SPEAKER_01That actually that makes a lot of sense to me, can be when you say it that way, because yeah, we it is how you died by, like you wouldn't say somebody committed a heart attack, like you you weren't you hopefully weren't committed to having a heart attack. So um, yeah, I I like that. And like you said, we are becoming so much more aware of other mental illnesses as well and being more compassionate about it. So I believe when we talked, if I remember correctly, you thought you had planned at that time um for one of your books to be published in August.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01And I believe that didn't happen that way.
SPEAKER_00No, a funny thing happened on the way to my book publication, Laura. And it's it's funny in the same way that the other tragedies and traumas I've talked to you about on the first podcast. Um in just it was actually just after you and I recorded, and I was on target to get that book published. Uh, I wanted it to be published in August, uh, ahead of Suicide Awareness Month, which is September. And my publisher died. Oh my goodness. Suddenly, uh just completely unexpected, and there was no um, there was no like uh plan in place. There, there was no sort of like assistant publisher and you know, uh strategy in the company. What what do we do if she dies? And it was really her company, and she'd been doing this for decades. She had over 17,000 uh best-selling authors that she had best-selling books that she had published. I mean, she was really, really well established. And yeah, and she and and I didn't even know at first what was wrong. I just knew I wasn't hearing from her. And then I did some research. I spoke with a mutual friend because she she was the publisher on one of the books I'd contributed a chapter to uh the year before. And that's how I found out, and so it took a few weeks for me to even get in touch with anyone at the company, and they just said, We're we're in chaos, we don't know what's going on, they couldn't access her files, so they didn't even have my book, and I mean, I had it, of course, but uh it was it was a funny thing, you know. I I was definitely panicked. Uh, I it went through a grief process, I really did. You know, at first I was just in denial, and then I was angry, and then I was sad, and I was, I kind of got a little hopeless because it has been a very long journey with this book. You know, I first got the message from the universe, if you will, from in in April of 2017. And here it was, April of 2022. So it had been five years in the making, and all of a sudden that publication rug got pulled out from under me.
SPEAKER_01That had to be, I mean, that had to be huge. And especially like when you're sitting there going, hmm, I haven't heard from her for a while. It's not like somebody, like you said, when the company notified you, hey, um, we've got, you know, this happened. So, and oh my gosh, I can't even imagine. But interesting too, the like the process that you went through of you know, being you know, angry and disheartened and all the things. I can imagine that as well. Like, here you've put so much work into something and you found a publisher that you were happy to work with, and then what am I gonna do now? So, what did you? I mean, what did you do ultimately? Like, how did you find another publisher?
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, a funny thing happened, right? So, my friend that I actually um one of the books that I contributed a chapter to, I'm just I have it here so I can, it's called You Can't Make This Story Up. What if it's all happening for us? So she was the coordinator of that book. And um she just happens to have started a publishing company last year. And so this is someone I've worked with. We worked together creating my stories. Uh she was a huge help in my healing from my husband's suicide because she taught me the power of healing, of a story healing. It was incredible. I mean, I went through so much healing working with her in writing projects. So she was kind of like a book coach, I I don't know, therapist, book therapist. Anyway, she she also, like you and I, wears lots and lots of hats, but uh and started a publishing company. So I talked to her about it and I said, you know, can you can you take this that I have and you know, recreate the the book? And she said yes, but not by August. So I signed on with her, I started working with her and just slowed everything down. I gave up the timeline, like it'll come out when it comes out, you know. And then in August, I I started actually working on the content with her. So I handed her the manuscript, not really, I hit send on the computer, but sent the manuscript to her. And um, we started working on it together. Um, I guess in July. In August, I sent her the the my final manuscript. And here's the the second funny thing that happened. So on your previous podcast that I did with you, I was talking about a book. Remember that? Yeah. So the night I sent my manuscript off, okay, it's ready to go, you know, through the professional editing process, the design process, all that. I'm signing off. That night I got another message from the universe. And the message was you have to write a companion guide. You have to write a book for those people who are supporting people going through the loss that you went through because nobody knew what to do. And I realized that in writing the first book, so much of my suffering uh was due to things that happened after he died. You know, there wasn't just this cohesive, everybody get together and grieve and uh support each other, and then, you know, more support for me as as time goes on. People didn't know what to say, they didn't know what to do. A lot of people said and did the wrong thing that actually added to my suffering. So that's what this book is for. It's for the people that uh are my supporters or were back then to to know what to do.
SPEAKER_01So the first book is about is about your experience with dealing with uh your husband dying from suicide. Yes. And then this companion one comes along. And I think that that is my well, here's my question. So when normally when I don't even want to use the word normally, like it's coming out of my mouth, but um what when somebody dies in a in in an in a different way, uh people come together, like you said, people come together and they grieve and they support the person, you know, each other, but also if there is a spouse or someone that's a partner or someone who lived with them or is close, maybe I don't want to say closer, but um, they would be there for that person. Um, and in your experience, it's sort of like like you said, like it it's people that are we don't we don't know what to do, we don't know what to say, we don't know how to support these people who have have lost someone by suicide, it's a totally different experience. Um that I I'm actually that's actually a question, even though it doesn't sound like one.
SPEAKER_00Yes, no, I understand the question. We we talk about I talk about that a lot. And it's grief is grief. So no matter how your loss happened, and it's not just a matter of we we don't just grieve people who die. We grieve, you know, you know, when we move, we grieve our old communities. We, you know, with COVID, we had this community, you know, this worldwide collective grief that happened grieving the lives we had before COVID. So it's not just, and certainly, you know, when friendships break up, divorce, uh, pet death, I mean, all of that is grief. So all of that is filled with the the regular, let's say, I almost said normal too, but grief is a very normal human process. It's just that we're not educated about it uh in our culture. So when you add suicide on top of grief, what it does is it increases the shame and the guilt. Oftentimes in non-suicide related grief, there is shame and guilt, especially if it's the you know, the end of a relationship. Uh, if a relationship ended badly. No matter whose contribution was the biggest to the end of the relationship, there's always guilt and shame involved. So when you add suicide, then you really do say, How could I have stopped this? If it's cancer, you don't say, How could I have stopped this? Uh, unless you're an oncologist, I guess. If if it's a car accident, uh even a car accident, people are like, Oh, I, you know, if only they weren't on their way to, you know, especially if they were on their way to visit you. There's so much guilt involved in grief. So with suicide, it's just next level. You you really almost all suicide loss survivors feel like they should have done more. They could have stopped it. And the fact of it is, especially after going through this grief educator course, I realize you can't stop it. If someone's determined to die, if someone's determined to end their life, you can't stop it. So for all of you suicide loss survivors out there who are listening to this podcast, you could not have changed this outcome. And if you can let, if you can even let a tiny bit of that in and accept that, then you're gonna start to heal.
SPEAKER_01That is, yeah, thank you for that. Um that's an important message, um, for sure. Um, and I'm I imagine that's like you're saying, is a really hard, a hard part of it, a hard piece of the puzzle when you're when you've experienced that. Um I want to go back to your new publisher, your your that was, you know, like you said, it sounds like that just really worked out the way it was supposed to. Not that not that your first publisher should have passed away, but that you were able to find this person who already was super supportive of you and that you had worked with before. And I actually um a couple of your co-authors, um, that's how we came to meet, was through some of your other co-authors initially. Um, I had never experienced a co-authored book before. So when I read some of your chapters, I was like, that's super interesting. But I had seen people who were promoting um uh co-authored books. And so a funny thing that happened to me was that I actually turned down an opportunity to write in a co-authored book. I think it was last at the end of last year. I didn't have time, whatever, whatever. And in August, that same opportunity came back around. And for some reason, I was like, yes, I'm gonna do this. And then, of course, by then it was like, you've got to do it like right now, because it had been, you know, everybody had been working on things for months. And so I see I experienced firsthand this the struggle of putting a story out there, like even a chapter, even a so for you to not only have this one book out that's really personal and your experience, um, but then also the companion to it uh to help others, I can see where your Publisher, the the second publisher that you ended up with is just to play a really big role in that and to and supporting you and to releasing this out into both of them out into the world.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. She's I I call her a book doula because uh it really is like giving birth um in a lot of ways, not as physically painful, I hope, but um it's you know, there's just a lot of preparation, a lot of anticipation, and it's your creation. You have created this being. Uh, and and then it's there's a lot of fear in in letting it out into the world because people are gonna see it and they're gonna say something about it. People always say stuff about your baby, whether you want them to or not. So, but in this case, um, I'm just my my greatest wish for these books is just that they land in the hands of the people who they can help. Because I certainly didn't write it for my comfort or or my process, although writing is healing, and I I do talk about that in the book, uh, writing your story. But it's uh it's hard. Like you have now experience, it's really hard to write a book, especially about your own personal experience, and um it's not comfortable.
SPEAKER_01And I just yeah, uh, and I think that for you, um, and and for a lot of people, that that the idea that you're hopefully that your story is going to touch other people, that it's gonna inspire them, that it's gonna help support them, um, help them heal, you know, all of those things is is really, you know, helps helps the author, helps you as an author, help me as an author. Um, and but also I think like you're saying, um, I love that you said some people are gonna talk about your say things about your baby, whether you want them to or not, you know, and sometimes people put their put their foot in it when they're, you know, like, oh, look at that cute little baby, whatever. And you're like, no, it's a boy, or you know, she's a girl, or whatever it is, you know, or you know, somebody maybe, you know, being nice and saying something else about them, you know, but thinking they're being nice, oh, look at those chubby cheeks, and you're triggered by it, whatever it is. But certainly with your writing, you know, the the potential criticism and the potential um when it and it when it is your story, and there's probably other people. I mean, I mean, just you tell me if there's you know other people that might be involved that you have to kind of like just put your guard up against because they might come at you and say, well, that's not how that story went, or how dare you. I mean, it takes a lot of courage, I think, um, for you to put to put this story out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that that's a really important point. Um, I do I do have fear of how the people that knew Glenn uh will react, um, even to listening to podcasts that I'm interviewed on. And so I had to do a lot of work around that to prepare. Uh, my story is my story, and what I'm reporting in this book is, you know, it's not like some tell-all, you know, trying to get people all excited and in, you know, like some of some memoirs and things are. It's a book about how to survive difficult times. And it's how I survived the difficult times. And if my facts don't line up with people's facts, because we all have different experiences, even in the same room, listening to the same thing, people can come away with two very different experiences because you come to the um the experience with all of your past and all of your biases and all of your education. So I wouldn't be surprised if if anyone who was involved in my life at that time reads the books, if they are surprised by something I say in there because maybe they had a very different experience. And toward the very end of Glenn's life, we I think I mentioned in the last podcast we were separated. And he was hanging out with some people that were hearing a very different story about what was going on. So those people who I very much doubt will, you know, follow me or read anything I write, but if they do, they're gonna have a very different point of view than what I'm talking, than my experience that I'm reporting. So I just have to understand that we all have our own experiences. And I I'll give an example. Uh when we have heightened emotions, which everyone did around the end of my marriage, of course. Um when I was, when my mom was first diagnosed with leukemia, my dad and my mom and I all went to visit the specialist after having gone to the first doctor, second, the general oncologist, and then the leukemia specialist. So when we're visiting with the leukemia specialist, it's the three of us and him in the room. So all three of us are hearing everything that we're all saying, right? Right. And then the three of us get in the car after we leave the doctor's office for the drive back to my parents' house. And we had such incredibly different experiences, you would not believe that the three of us were even in the same room. You know, my mom was like, well, that wasn't so bad. My dad and I are, you know, crunching the numbers, right? Listening to the the prognosis and the and and trying to figure out when she's gonna die. And and my and my dad was just like, well, this isn't happening. And so it there was just it was like three. I even said I remember sitting in the backseat saying, Were you two even in the same room as I was? So my point by telling this story is that especially when emotions are heightened, our memory and our uh interactions can be very affected.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I have been this is something that I've kind of been that's been swirling around me um for the last month or so is the stories that we tell. And um just like that. And well, and it it also reminds me when you're talking about it, uh, you know, why if police interview multiple witnesses and depending on your vantage point or depending on whatever, you know, somebody might say, well, the guy had on a red shirt, and then somebody else might say you had a blue shirt or whatever. So yeah, there's clearly, you know, a lot to that. Um, and probably in the situation with your parents, you know, like you're saying, your mom's emotional state and her possible denial of what was going on, or you know, whatever it is. I don't want to say that your mom had that. I'm just saying that, you know, a lot of times when people are unwell, you know, that's why you want to bring the family members with, because they're not gonna hear, they're not gonna, but yeah, um, but I also think that this is the part of what's been coming up for me um is that the stories that we tell and the stories that we stick with, and the stories, you know, or like you're saying uh with with your um husband, that the you know, people don't know the you you don't know the full story, you only know pieces of it potentially, or you only know what that person is telling them. And when a lot of times when these things come out, and this is where I think it's a struggle, potential struggle, is that they're totally believable stories. I keep using this example of catch me, the guy in Catch Me If You Can, that movie. I mean, that was a real life person, and he was a lawyer, he was a doctor, he was a pilot. And when he's telling the story, that was fully believable. There was nothing to not believe. Like people are like, yeah, sure he is. Like, I know him as a doctor, right? Um, I mean, this isn't this is a these are extreme examples of somebody's story, but when somebody tells a certain story of whatever it is in their life, it's generally, I mean, sometimes you know somebody's story is not believable, but generally people are like, oh yeah, great story. Like, of course it's believable. But when you get the other pieces of that story or the other vantage points of those people's story, that's when people are like, Well, that's unbelievable because they've are so solidly fixed on the story that they told that they believe for because why wouldn't they? Right. So I think that's where this the trouble comes in and opens the door also for people to say, Well, that can't be right. There's no way that could have put happened, or who, and so I love that you're saying basically, this is your experience, this is your vantage point, this is the story that you experienced, and um and that's all you can do is tell it from your from your story and your vantage point. And I think that's important um also because you did, you, you know, all of your emotions are tied up in that, all of your grief and all of your experiences that you had from him dying from dying in general, but dying from suicide as well. So the fact that you again are brave enough to share that with people is incredible.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Yeah, I think there's a point I want to get just a little bit further that we were both touching on with this, and that is the vantage point. You know, you know, the the experience that you can have. And when I'm explaining this to clients, um, one of the examples I use is if you're looking, say you're with a group and you're all looking at the same thing, and someone's say you're looking at a tree or a forest, and someone's favorite color is green, what they're gonna see is the leaves. And you know, they they do studies on this. You can have 10 people look at the same thing and then turn around and tell you what they saw, and they saw 10 different things because it's what is already conditioned in their mind, what they brought up with, what their beliefs are. And um, an example I like to use is when you're looking out the window, you could see, say the window's open and there's a screen over it. You it's just like what your phone's gonna focus on. You can see the spider web on the screen. You could see the screen, you could see the tree right outside the window, or you could see the forest beyond the window or the traffic or whatever. And none of those experiences are wrong, they're just different. So the problem that we get into is when screen watcher number one says, there's a spider there and it's scary and it's gonna bite you. And screen watcher number two says, There's a beautiful flower, you know, and then they fight about who's right when actually they're both having their own experience. And I think that people, especially in our current climate, have lost so much compassion for other people's point of view. You know, we used to be able to sit in a room and talk about things we completely disagreed about, and just be in disagreement and recognize, even sometimes with compassion, that oh, that's just Uncle So, you know, Uncle Charlie's got his, you know, band, and so everything he sees is music, and he's always talking about the music, not the movie, you know, and and so-and-so's got their characters that they like to focus on, and so they're they only see the story, and none of that is wrong. What's wrong is when you step across and tell someone they're wrong, when it's possible they're not wrong, they're just having a different experience than you are.
SPEAKER_01I love that, I think that's really important. And I used to, I know a lot of people say, well, there's two sides to every story, but I generally say there's three sides to every story because there's your side, there's my side, and then there's what actually happened. And potentially maybe none of us saw what actually happened because of exactly what you're saying, because of the vantage point or because of whatever. And I love that your example as well about the phone. I I've tried to take photos through my window multiple times, and it's like, what you're focusing on the screen, and I want to see the squirrel that's in the tree behind it.
SPEAKER_00Like, please take the picture of the squirrel. So yeah, and you get a picture of the screen, but that doesn't make it any less real, right? There you could show someone the picture of the screen and tell them there's a squirrel in this picture, and they're like, Well, I don't see it, and you could get in a total argument about it, right? If you have people that are kind of you know bullheaded or whatever.
SPEAKER_01Well, and again, like you said, that especially in this environment, you know, everybody wants to be right, whether it's on social media or in person or whatever, and you know, it's it we all we all have our vantage point of what we experienced, and it it's we are all of our experiences are valid. Um I want to talk a little bit about your companion book because tell me if I remember this correctly from our other episode. Um, did somebody come to you and ask you to reach out and that that you at first were resistant to that, to so to reaching out to other people, or am I imagining this?
SPEAKER_00No, no, uh, you remember the story. Yeah, there's a story, and I did write about this in in both books. But the the two books are very similar because it's sort of this journey image of everyone traveling on the the grief and and healing journey together. So a lot of the content in the two books is the same. So my my biggest dream would be that the suicide lost survivor and their friends would and family companions would read that. So the both both parties would have these skills and ability to communicate. So that that's kind of my my greatest wish, but we'll see what happens. Um, anyway, yes, about nine months after Glenn died, I had a friend who uh we were friends with Glenn and I were friends with this couple, and the husband died by suicide. Uh then it was just nine months, like I said, after Glenn died. And uh the friend a friend of mine told me about it. And I was very resistant in calling her because I felt like there was nothing I could do. I didn't have my feet underneath me. I was still very deep in grief and PTSD from the trauma of of the suicide. And it it was, I just could I just I even said I like I can't, I can't call her. And then I got to thinking, well, who else but me? You know, I would be the right person that my friend was, you know, encouraging me. You are the only person who understands what she's going through. So eventually I did make that call. It took me a while, and I just called and I said, I'm sorry. I I had no tools, no idea what to say to help her. But that call was a connection. And what I learned in my grief educator course is the first thing grievers need is just to be witnessed. They just need people to see their pain. Don't try to fix it, don't try to bright side them. Uh oh, it'll be okay. He's in heaven now. That doesn't make a griever feel better. Just witness, just start by witnessing their pain. And that's hard because that means you're sitting there in pain with them. And that's what we're not trained or or you know, uh conditioned to do. We're conditioned to do something to fix it. And that's really, really hard. So that first opportunity for me to help someone, I was not ready to. And it helped me realize that just being there is one of the greatest things we can do for someone in grief.
SPEAKER_01I think that it sounds like what you have to offer goes beyond, you know, just helping. I mean, obviously it's it's it's meant for um in these in your books, in the case of your books, it's obviously meant for to help people who have experienced um suicide in their lives, but it really goes beyond that. It goes to anyone who, like you said earlier, is has experienced griefers going, you know, through these things, the the tools are sound like they're incredible.
SPEAKER_00I think so. I I think so. I think, you know, especially the mindfulness um part of it. I I really think mindfulness is the key to happiness. I really do. The the key to survive, you know, just not suffering so much. Uh and and it's not the the book isn't just all about that, you know, some of it's about how to get out of bed and how to eat and you know, just how to be in grief. But uh yeah, I everyone that's read it, all of my pre-readers and the editors and things like that, have said you need to write this same book, but for a more general audience. So the the books, um, I still haven't said the title. So the first book is surviving spouse or partner suicide loss, a mindful guide for your journey through grief. And then the second one, supporting a survivor of spouse or partner suicide loss, a mindful guide for co-journeying through grief. And so it's it is it's a very, very specific audience, but that is the audience that I was told to write the book for by the universe, God, spirit, my soul, the message I got from from beyond. And so that's what I did. Now we'll see what happens next. Uh, we'll see how the book's received. And if I keep getting messages that I should write a book that's a more general audience and that it would help more people, then I might do that. We'll see what happens. Writing a book is really hard. So I don't know. I don't want to talk about the next one quite yet.
SPEAKER_01Let's get let's get these two out into the out into the world. And um, now tell me, uh are will they be available on Amazon when they're published?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, they'll be on Amazon and in all the bookstores, all the all the everywhere books are sold. Everywhere books are sold. I love that. Yeah, but Amazon, of course, is you know, they have 60 or 70 percent of the book sale market now. So to not have a book on Amazon is kind of tough for sales. So yeah, yeah, and I'm hoping uh the the launch date, the release date is January 26, 2023. So hopefully if people are um in that population or know someone who is, they can buy the book on that day. Uh the reason you that I would love more people to buy it that day is it helps bring it up in the rankings and that way it's more visible and that way it will get again to more people who it will help. And that's the whole point of writing the book is the books is to hopefully uh hopefully help some people. And I know they already are because I've already gotten a call from someone who uh is was is supporting a survivor of partner suicide loss. And she called me and I basically just told her what was in the book, and she, you know, was very much helped by that. So good. I know I've already helped at least one person.
SPEAKER_01That's fabulous. So I okay, so I I want to go back to something, but yeah, uh for our listeners, mark your calendar for January 26, 2023, because it is important to um help get that. Is it going to be available on Kindle as well? Or I shouldn't say Kindle as an ebook as well.
SPEAKER_00I think so, yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's so that's important as well.
SPEAKER_00It should be out that day, the same day. And then the audiobook, I've started working on that. So there will be an audio book, but it probably won't be ready on lunch day.
SPEAKER_01That's amazing. So yeah, I know a lot of people um love their audiobooks. So I love that you're all the way across all the me too.
SPEAKER_00I love my audiobooks too. You know, I love listening to a book.
SPEAKER_01The um it is important for, you know, if you don't know as a listener to um support the book launch on the day. And um, you know, I know Michelle's gonna be posting on her, you know, her social media. I'm gonna be reminding people on my social media as well because I think this is a really important topic. And I love the idea of both of these books. I want to go back to one thing before we before we wrap up. Uh um I I have experienced a few people who um who have had a loss from suicide, and it seems like sometimes it's hard for those people to move past um not only the the guilt and shame, but then possibly the blame, like pointing fingers at somebody else. Like let's say that it was um somebody who lost their son or their daughter, and they're pointing at the partner um as like, well, they they did such and such, or they were acting this way. And if they would have, you know, did I mean, can you address that at all as well?
SPEAKER_00Sure, yeah. And I had that finger pointed at me. I mean, we were separated. I I had asked him to move out a few weeks before he died, and uh, because we were he was very irrational and um had started to his his behavior had started to frighten me. Uh and so yeah, a lot of people pointed that finger right at me. And at the time I was helpless. I I had nothing to say other than I feel so terrible. Um, and so I think to two things. One is suicide's nobody's fault. Suicide is the fault of mental illness within the person who ended their life. There's no stopping it, there's no changing it if someone is absolutely determined to end their life. It doesn't have anything to do with usually the rest of our reality because we're telling them, you know, uh, don't don't end it. We're here for you. And there were people telling him that. So and I'm sure anyone who's listening who's had a suicide loss, suicide prevention is uh sometimes uh sometimes works, but the person has to be willing to let go, right? They have to be willing to stay here. And sometimes they're just not. So it's not your fault. It's not anyone's fault except the person who took their life.
SPEAKER_01Well, and also on the on the other side of that, you know, some of the people, you know, public figures who've we've seen who of course we don't personally know, but come across as, you know, happy people, or you know, like for example, Robin Williams or more recently Twitch that you know came across as like super happy, like super, you know, joyful people, and that we look to even, you know, to to enjoy their what they put out in the world, and then you know, something happens. So there's also that side of it. And I think what you said kind of speaks to that as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I actually was uh I don't follow too many people on social media that I don't know. And I followed Twitch and Allison, and they gave me so much joy during uh COVID, is when I found them. Uh, I actually wrote a blog about it last week that's on my website. I was it was really, really hard for me. I was devastated when I found that out. And um, I'm sure a lot of people that didn't ever know Twitch personally are grieving. And you know, we don't know this the backstory. We don't know if anyone knew that he was having problems. You know, they're public figures, and the public side isn't always the side everyone sees. You know, even between me and Glenn, we certainly weren't public figures, but nobody really knew what was happening between the two of us. People knew my story and the story he was telling. So you you never, you never know. And I think that probably the most comforting or or the biggest offering I can make at this point is if you are a suicide loss survivor, you you may never be able to understand why. And I remember when I was able to let go of the why and to let go of the self-blame and shame and guilt, that was huge. I was able to start living my life. And the fact is they're gone and we're still here. And that might sound harsh, but the it is hours of agony trying to undo what happened, trying to understand what happened. It's not understandable. Unless you have a suicidal mind, you can't understand what was happening in their mind when they took their life. You can guess, but it doesn't make sense. You're not gonna be able to rationally make sense out of it, which people tried to do with Glenn's. Well, you you made him move out, he was despondent, so he killed himself. Put a little neat bow on that. And you can't know and you can't change it. So if you could possibly stop beating up on yourself and stop trying to change the past, that's a that's just suffering. If you try to change the past, it is just suffering. But what you can do is change your relationship with it.
SPEAKER_01I think that that is the best message um that we could, you know, potentially end with here. And the idea that um please live your life, you know, you like you said, you are still here and live your life. And I would imagine for most people, I mean that's a hard, you know, like you said, a hard thing to do, but also potentially something that anyone that you lost would want you to do. Um, I don't want to speak for anybody like that, but um yeah, like you you still have you still have a life. And um I it's my hope as well that people who um are having any struggles or suffering with this, that they will find your books um at as of January 26th. They'll reach out. Um, it sounds like they'll definitely be supported with that. Um, remind everyone what your website is. Um, I will it'll put it be in the show notes, but anywhere that is important for people to find you, whether it's social media or your website, um I'd love to read your blog post. So um I think that's very helpful helpful for people, even you know, in general, to potentially read that and your your insights on that.
SPEAKER_00Okay, great. Yeah. And and eventually it's not quite up yet. There'll be a page with meditations on it. So you'll be able to go there and take a little five-minute meditation break. Um, so my website's inhabitjoy.com. And there are lots of blogs on there and uh links to my other three books that are out, obviously not the new ones yet. Uh, when you first go to the site, there's a pop-up to get a free transition anxiety uh management kit, toolkit, I think it's called transition anxiety toolkit. So all of our transitions can be difficult, you know, going on a trip, coming back from a trip, uh, even celebrations can be very anxiety provoking. So it's just some grounding tips. Uh and when you sign up for that, you then you'll get on my email list. And I send out blogs about every two weeks. So not too much, but there'll be a lot in the next, you know, in the coming month, just ahead of the book, there'll be a lot. So uh, and then I'm on Instagram, Michelle Ann Collins with an underscore, because I had Michelle Ann Collins but lost the password. And then I'm also, I know, um, Facebook Inhabitjoy. Uh where else am I? I'm on alignable, I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me.
SPEAKER_01We'll find you everywhere. Um, thank you again. Well, congratulations, first of all, on the upcoming books. Um, I'm so happy for you and excited for you to have published, you know, more books published out into the world. Um, again, listeners, mark your calendars, January 26th. It's not that far away. And um so grateful for you uh being on uh with me again. And thank you also to our listeners for joining us today for the new episode with Michelle and her updated uh adventures.
SPEAKER_00My other thing that happened, the funny other funny thing. Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Laura. I love your the work you do and your podcast, and I really appreciate it. You're you're bringing some good stuff into the world. Oh, thank you so much.
