29 Shelby Forsythia | Mother-loss as a Young Adult Artwork

How To Deal With Grief and Trauma

You can't go through life without experiencing loss and trauma the question is how do we deal and live with the grief and pain? Join Nathalie Himmelrich, grief expert and author, talking to people who have experienced grief and trauma first-hand. If you want to be inspired by others who traveled through their grief and trauma, found that healing is possible, and came out the other end knowing they can survive and thrive in life after loss. For more info: www.nathaliehimmelrich.com

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How To Deal With Grief and Trauma

29 Shelby Forsythia | Mother-loss as a Young Adult

February 27, 2023 • Nathalie Himmelrich • Season 3 • Episode 29

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Today on the podcast I am speaking with Shelby Forsythia who lost her mother due to breast cancer following years of treatment. Shelby was just twenty-one and this traumatic experience influenced her life as a young adult. Dealing with her loss, she delved into understanding and learning about grief.
Later, she experienced loss again after separating from her fiancée on the same day as she lost her job. Even though Shelby was practiced at dealing with grief, it did not make the pain of grief become any easier when, on top of everything else, she then also lost her best friend, but there was more awareness of how to support herself through it.

About this week’s guest

Shelby Forsythia (she/her) is a grief guide, author, and podcast host. In 2020, she founded Life After Loss Academy, an online course and community that has helped dozens of grievers grow and find their way after death, divorce, diagnosis, and other major life transitions. Following her mother’s death in 2013, Shelby began calling herself a “student of grief” and now devotes her days to reading, writing, and speaking about loss. Through a combination of mindfulness tools and intuitive, open-ended questions, she guides her clients to welcome grief as a teacher and create meaningful lives that honor and include the heartbreaks they’ve faced. Her work has been featured in Huffington Post, Bustle, and The Oprah Magazine.

Check out Shelby’s links here: Website | Instagram

Topics discussed in this episode

The death of her mother from breast cancer, following four years of treatment
Family health challenges and Dad’s personality changes due to two brain aneurysms
Loss of faith
Various ways of coping with grief: an eating disorder, delving into working, setting healthy boundaries around her grief, accepting help when offered, using her voice
Being guided by: Where does my grief want me to go?
The loss of her fiancée, her job, and her best friend