.png)
Survived to Thrive Podcast
A podcast designed for survivors of suicide loss. This podcast explores the unique grief experiences that accompany a loved ones death due to suicide, shares insights on how your brain processes this kind of loss, and offers worthwhile and valuable tips you can start today to gain a more joyful and fulfilling life even though your loved one died.
Survived to Thrive Podcast
Episode 96: How to have a "BETTER" New Year!
This episode emphasizes how to navigate the new year while dealing with grief, especially after losing a loved one to suicide. We discuss five meaningful goals to help survivors prioritize their emotional well-being, honor their loved ones, foster connections, care for their bodies, and rediscover joy amidst grief so that you can have a BETTER New Year. In this episode we will discuss:
• Fostering optimism while embracing a new year
• Setting meaningful goals amid grief and loss
• Prioritizing mental and emotional health through boundaries
• Creating rituals to honor loved ones and their memory
• Rebuilding connections with friends and support groups
• Taking care of the body to enhance emotional healing
• Rediscovering joy and embracing small, positive thoughts
• Navigating grief is not linear; celebrate small victories
• Call to action to join the conversation and explore healing resources
As always, thanks for listening!
We are a community dedicated to empower survivors of suicide loss along their grief journey. We invite you to check out our website to sign up for our weekly newsletter, along with other free materials."
Website: https://www.survived-to-thrive.com/
Email: amy@survived-to-thrive.com
You are listening to the Survived to Thrive Podcast with Amy Miller, a podcast for survivors of suicide loss. In this weekly podcast, you will learn more about your unique experiences and gain insights on your brain and how it processes grief and loss due to a loved one's suicide. While suicide grief comes in all shapes and sizes, Amy shows you that you still can have a life full of joy and fulfillment even though your loved one died. You don't have to just survive anymore. You can thrive.
Speaker 2:You are listening to the Survive to Thrive podcast with Amy Miller, episode number 96, how to have a better new year. Hey friends, welcome to the podcast. I hope you're all doing well. I am glad you are tuning in to this podcast episode. It is the first podcast episode of the Survive to Thrive podcast in 2025.
Speaker 2:And I am just so optimistic about this year. I hope you're feeling it. I hope you know that there are so many great things coming your way and I just have a feeling that this year is going to be your year, it's going to be my year, it's going to be all our year. I just feel it in my bones. I feel like the past five years have been difficult and tough. I feel like we have gone through so many things since the COVID pandemic came out and I just feel like it's time that we are going to have some great things happening. Things are going to turn around, things are looking up. So I hope you feel that same type of optimism, because I just want you to. It just feels better. Feel that same type of optimism because I just want you to. It just feels better to have that type of optimism. So today I really wanted to focus on the new year. I wanted to focus on 2025 and I wanted us to think a lot about different goals that we could potentially set for ourselves and some ideas on ways to make 2025 a better new year for us all.
Speaker 2:I think so many of us feel like, after losing someone we care about and love so much and dearly, we question and we wonder if having a good new year is even possible for us. I want to speak to those of you who feel like you are deep in the trenches of grief and you wonder if there's any way out, and you wonder if this is just your lot in life and you're wondering if you just you're going to have to be miserable because you can't even fathom or imagine your life without your loved one here. And what I want to say to you is it is absolutely possible to have joy again and to laugh again and to look forward to things again and to be excited for things, and I just want to share that with you all, because so many of us, I think, when we're in the trenches of grief, we wonder if it is even possible and so many of us lose hope that it is, and I don't want you to. I want you to have hope, even if you're not feeling it right now, that things can look up. Things can look better. Okay, that doesn't mean that you know the loss of your loved one is going to slip away, that you're going to start forgetting your loved one, because that's not what's going to happen. You're going to still remember your loved one, you're going to still remember that you lost them by suicide and you're still going to have sad moments. But I also want you to know that you also can feel joy again and that you can feel happier again and that you can get excited and look forward to things. And that is all available to you. So don't lose hope and know that that can happen for you and know that you can still miss and love your loved one and have all of those positive feelings as well. So just remember that as we are going through this podcast episode and just take that with you and digest that for a bit, because I think it'll be so helpful for you.
Speaker 2:All right, so I really want to talk about how to have a better new year. When I was thinking about topics, I thought first, maybe to name it to have the best new year, but really I think that's a far stretch, right, especially when we've had some great years when our loved one was alive, right, and it's really hard to imagine having something better now that that loved one that we cared so much about is now no longer with us. Okay, so it's kind of a far stretch. So I really wanted to title it having a better new year, because it's possible and, plus, all of us are in different journeys in our grief, right, I am working on seven years. Well, we're past seven years since my sister's passing. She died in November and so we are just above seven years since she has passed and each year seems to feel a little bit better and feel a little bit better.
Speaker 2:But I'm not going to lie. There's going to be times where I felt like there was times where I took steps back and not forward in my journey, in my grief process. So just know and be aware that those times may come up for you and that's okay. But when you are learning new tools and you're learning strategies in helping you get through your grief process and allow yourself to see glimpses of things, to look forward to, goals that you can make, things that you can achieve, careers that you could start businesses, you could begin relationships that you can have. You know, there's so many different things that you can include and add into your life that are just going to make your life better, even though you've lost a loved one due to suicide, and I want to talk about those today.
Speaker 2:Now, when we're talking about navigating grief, we're going to understand that these are really difficult and hard challenges, right, but I do want to say that when we're navigating the grief experience, okay, we are going to be also allowing ourselves to be receptive to things that actually can bring us a little bit of happiness and joy. That means being willing to have relationships. That means being willing to take care of ourselves. That's being willing to have difficult conversations and setting boundaries. That means you know that you are going to say no to things. That means you're going to say yes to things that maybe you would say no to. So it's going to be. You know that you are going to say no to things. That means you're going to say yes to things that maybe you would say no to. So it's going to be. You know a different way of looking at things than you ever have before, and so I want to offer these five suggestions that I think really helps.
Speaker 2:Okay, because in the new year, you know, we often think about New Year's resolutions right and big plans, but for many of us, especially when we have lost a loved one to suicide, it brings reminders of what's missing. So, instead of really focusing on these big resolutions, I want to share five meaningful goals that can help you find healing and strength as you navigate 2025. Meaningful goals that can help you find healing and strength as you navigate 2025. And these goals will really help you to honor your grief. It will help you to reconnect with yourself and it will also help you find ways to move forward with love and purpose.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So the first goal I want to bring up is to prioritize your mental and emotional well-being. You know, we live in a day and age where our emotional health and our mental health is not prioritized, right? It's really interesting. I've talked about this on my podcast before but you know our, you know our climate really is where we, you know, go to work and we only get a few days of bereavement time, right, and that's pretty standard. It's not like we get to have months and months and we all know that you can't go through grief and just be done in a few days. That's not possible, right? You don't just move on, you just don't get over it, right? And yet the way our systems are set up is is in a way in which we feel pressured to rush through the process. Right, that we can cry for a couple of days, but that's enough, right? And that is just not reality, my friends. Okay, you can't grieve like that. There's no way there's going to be ups and downs. It takes months, it takes years, it takes a long time. And I don't know, and I will admit fully that, even with all of the coaching that I've received and all the coaching that I do, there's going to be times where I'm going to feel grief full force. Okay, it comes and it goes, and it's just going to be something that you're going to feel grief full force. Okay, it comes and it goes and it's just going to be something that you're going to carry with you as a companion as you're navigating life. However, even when you're carrying all this grief with yourself, you can still have a great time. You can enjoy your life. You can do really fun things, you can get excited again and I feel like so many survivors don't feel like that. That is even possible. So when I'm talking about really prioritizing your mental and emotional health, it looks a lot like doing things like setting boundaries right. Just give yourself permission to say no to things that feel overwhelming or draining. Protecting your energy is really part of the healing process.
Speaker 2:Now I know firsthand how difficult that can be to set boundaries. I was always terrible at setting boundaries prior to my loss, and so learning to set boundaries has been a work in progress. I'm still working on it till this day, but it is something that I'm getting really better at and getting actually very good at, so it is something that you need to really practice and hone in skills on how to say no and to be able to feel confident enough that you can stand strong with your boundaries. I speak a lot about boundaries in my podcast and what those should truly look like, how you should set boundaries, how you should communicate those boundaries, and also giving you suggestions on how to follow through with the consequences if someone violates those boundaries. So I highly recommend going back and listening to that podcast episode. I'm not sure which episode it is, but it is back in one of my previous episodes and I can actually probably include the link in the show notes so that you can have that reference. But it's really great to be able to just set some boundaries and that is going to really help with your mental health.
Speaker 2:Another suggestion with that is you can do some mindfulness practices, like consider journaling. Now I published and wrote and put on Amazon a journal that you can utilize to help you process the grief that you've experienced. I'll also put that in the show notes. But there is something about taking your feelings and your thoughts out of your mind and putting it on paper. It is such a weight lifting experience right when you're just really taking off a burden off yourself and putting it out there somewhere. The one of the benefits of journaling that I think is so useful is that there's no one on that paper that will judge you right. There's no one that's going to be critical of what you write. So your transparency and your honesty can be put out on that paper and you can just put whatever comes to your mind, because no one's going to see it but you Right. And so I highly recommend journaling, getting your thoughts out on paper. There's something about it that really gets you clear. It helps you to unload whatever burdens you're carrying and just helps you to process the experiences that you're going through. So I highly recommend doing that.
Speaker 2:Another suggestion there is doing some sort of meditation, prayer. A lot of people like to pray and that is very useful and helpful. Anything that you can do to like really just and take the thoughts and express them to higher power, or just to even speak them and just allow them to be said. Sometimes the words that we're thinking in our minds, you know, we feel very what's the word? Apprehensive about sharing that with other people. But if you're speaking to a higher power or you're just saying your words out loud, I think that is also very, very helpful. Also, developing some sort of habits to really concentrate on breathing deeply and small, like developing some small habits just to help you center yourself amidst this chaos of grief. So maybe that means just, you know, taking a moment of silence for yourself. Maybe that means you, that means going for a walk or just going outside, even just for some fresh air. I think it's really, really helpful.
Speaker 2:And another way to really help prioritize your wellbeing is to seek out therapy, counseling or coaching. I think that seeking help from a mental health professional will help you to process your feelings in a very safe space. I would say that that is almost as good, if not even better, than journaling, just because you'll be able to really sound off with another person. Someone is there to witness what your experience. Because if there's anything that I learned from David Kessler's program is that grief needs to be witnessed.
Speaker 2:And some so many of us, when we've gone through this type of loss, we don't have anyone to talk to or anyone that we feel like could relate or understand. But a professional really understands what you've gone through and I think that's what a coach can really help you through is navigate you know, the feelings that you're feeling. It's a way to feel valid and to feel and to be understood right, and I think it's really important to have your feelings validated and to be understood and to have your grief witness, so seeking professional help is always a great idea. Okay, the second goal I want to talk about today is to create a ritual to honor your loved one.
Speaker 2:I love, love, love, love this goal, because grief often leaves us searching for ways to stay connected to those we've lost, and one healing goal for 2025, I feel like would be very beneficial is to create a meaningful ritual to honor your loved one's memory. So this could look like a lot of different things. This might mean lighting a candle on significant dates. It could be planting a plant, a flower, a tree or something in their honor, something that you could visually see grow in the soil, because I think there's something that's so healing about that seeing something continue to live on even though our loved one has passed but do it in their honor, something that you can think about. You could start a small tradition, like writing them a letter on the first of each month or visiting a favorite spot they loved. One thing I want to say is these rituals aren't about dwelling on the pain, but about celebrating the love and connection you shared, and it's a way to keep their memory alive while you're moving forward with your life right. One of the things that I love to do is I always look for sunflowers when I'm driving around, and I am just doing my thing in my life whenever I see a sunflower, especially if I see a sunflower that's out in the middle of nowhere, or maybe a sunflower that is sprouting through concrete or something. To me it's like an angel wink for my sister. It's just a way for me to remember her and to think of her and to always have her in my heart. So you know, just pick something, a small something that helps you to celebrate your love and your connection that you have with your loved one, whether that be looking for signs or looking for a sunflower, like me or you're, you know, watching a plant grow, or you just start a small tradition or something. Whatever it is, it's just a good way to help you to keep their memory alive. Okay, the third goal I want to talk about is rebuilding connections. Right, because I feel like grief can feel so isolating, but one of the most powerful things you can do is to reconnect with people in your life. I think making this a goal in 2025 to lean into relationships that bring you comfort and support is such a great idea. Ways you can do this is you can join a support group. I think support groups I've talked about this a lot in my podcast Support groups are a fantastic way to connect with others who have gone through a similar experience as you, and I find it very helpful when you're able to talk to them, share your story and to also hear other people's stories as well, because sometimes we get so lost into our own grief and what we've experienced.
Speaker 2:It's nice to be able to listen to somebody else who's also gone through something similar and their take on it, because sometimes their take on it can really be enlightening about our own grief and I really love this way of connecting. They offer so many of these types of support groups in different states in different ways. I know in Arizona there's a whole nonprofit that does this. They do it through our suicide prevention group with La Frontera Suicide Prevention. It's just they call it SOS, which stands for suicide of or suicide loss survivors or survivors of suicide loss, and they call it SOS to abbreviate that. But I think many suicide prevention groups are a great place to start and to find these type of groups.
Speaker 2:They also offer these on social media some groups that you can join where you can learn a little bit more about people's situations, and a lot of times those Facebook groups offer Zooms where you can Zoom in with other survivors, and usually these ones are not professionally facilitated with a professional. Usually they're just other survivors and sometimes it's just good to have just a sounding board to just listen, cause again it goes back to grief needs to be witnessed and when you have somebody who's actually gone through your experience, you know and are able to listen to your experience and share theirs, you have something to connect with them on right. I've also seen that they do these specifically to your type of loss. So maybe you've lost a spouse, maybe you've lost a sister like me, maybe you've lost a parent or a child, and a lot of these groups can be relationship-specific. So those are options and I think it's great. Another one is you could reach out to friends or family, right, I mean, you know, for me, because it was my sister, sometimes reaching out to my family actually was more difficult. So maybe family wasn't the right answer for me because they were going through their own grief process and it was the same person. So friends for me were better, but for some people, you know, family can be a huge support system. So it just depends on your own unique situation. But I highly recommend reaching out to friends or family and, you know, have them help you navigate the experience of grief by just reaching out for support. Experience of grief by just reaching out for support.
Speaker 2:Another way that you can help rebuild connections is by volunteering or giving back. I love this idea. I think I've shared with you before that I've also been able to do some charity work for Law Frontera and to Impact SOS to help raise money for their organizations, and it just feels great to give back to the community for a purpose that you know is very near and dear to my heart, and it just helps to alleviate some of that pain. Right, it helps to alleviate the sting of loss and grief and all of that, because you're really stepping outside of yourself for a moment in order to help others, and it just helps to remove some of that sting of losing a loved one to suicide. But the whole point really is here is that connection doesn't have to be big or overwhelming. It can just be a simple, a simple thing, right? Um, it could even just be as simple as sending a text or calling someone who's been on your mind. Um, these small moments of connection really do make a huge difference and I think they're really important. So, even if they're little, even if it's just talking to someone at the park. I have a three-year-old son. I go to the park a lot. Sometimes I'll just talk to another mom out there and you don't even have to talk about what you've gone through. Just to have that human connection is huge.
Speaker 2:Okay, goal number four is to take care of your body. I just think that grief takes such a toll on our bodies, right, it takes a toll on our physical health, takes a toll on, you know, our energy and our eating habits and you know the motivation to exercise and all of it, right. So I feel like a valuable goal for 2025 is to care for your body as an act of love for yourself. You know, I don't really look at it, which most people do, where they look at, you know, going to the gym and eating right as a way to lose weight, or, you know, to get their body into the bikini that they want to fit in, or whatever. I look at it more as um act of love for myself. It's something that I can do to really help me, because the truth is, our bodies are so connected to our mental health and it's really difficult to navigate grief when we're feeling tired all the time or when we're feeling like crap because we just ate too much, or we ate too much sugar or whatever. Right, so I think it's just so important to just really be mindful and to do things that can be really helpful for our bodies. You know some things that. So here's the thing.
Speaker 2:Okay, going back to this, I really want to say that it doesn't have to be a big exercise regime. Okay, some of my background is I used to be an aerobics instructor. I used to do this for years. I taught spin classes, I taught body pump classes, I taught bootcamping, type course classes, and I enjoyed it. I loved it, and my mentality back then was all or nothing and you got to go all in and you've got to have the perfect diet and you've got to you know, exercise two hours a day. You know diet and you've got to you know exercise two hours a day, you know. But you know now I really just look at this as small, simple things. Okay, it doesn't have to even be a big deal, because what I have learned over the years? That even the small changes make a huge difference.
Speaker 2:Some of this could mean, just like you know, a gentle walk, yoga or even stretching at home, anything you can do to move your body. Really moving your body releases endorphins and it helps to reduce stress. Okay, it's a way to help combat depression, a way to combat grief, a way to combat whatever is going on with us mentally, to combat whatever is going on with us mentally. Another piece to it is nourishment, as we know. Okay, I'm not talking about diets and being restricted and, you know, never eating sugar again and eating only protein and vegetables, right. Just talking about really being conscious about how you're fueling your body. You want to fuel your body with the foods that give you energy, right, feel your body with good, nutritious food. Okay, it's okay to indulge once in a while, but just include those nourishing meals, okay.
Speaker 2:And the third part of this with your body is the rest that you need. I know, I know what so many of you are saying. As I'm talking about this, you're probably thinking to yourself how in the world am I supposed to rest when I can hardly sleep? It keeps my grief, keeps me up at night. And listen, I understand, I totally relate to that, but even just laying down, closing your eyes, is so helpful I used to be, I still am is so helpful I used to be. I still am, but maybe not as much as I was. But I was a very avid marathon runner and one of the things that I would always get recommended by trainers was that, even if I couldn't sleep at all prior to a race, that as long as I was resting my mind by keeping my eyes closed and just resting, it makes a huge difference. So even if you could just start with that, if you're really struggling with sleeping at night, but also to be mindful that you just need to be more conscientious about rest right, really prioritizing creating a bedtime routine that helps you relax. This could include, like turning off screens, might include drinking some herbal tea or journaling before bed, just something to help you to turn off whatever is going on in your mind and help you to get the rest that your physical body really needs. And you know, as I mentioned before, your physical health is deeply connected to your emotional wellbeing, so taking care of your body is one way to remind yourself that you deserve to feel whole again.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, the last goal I want to talk about. Goal number five is rediscovering joy. Okay, I feel like when we've lost a loved one, we think that we have to be eternally punished and that we're never allowed to smile again. Okay, trust me, I know I felt that. I know so many survivors that I coach feel that way. They just think that they are destined to be miserable and unhappy for the rest of their days. And you know, I just feel like it's so important to be conscientious of this.
Speaker 2:Okay, now, one of the things I talk a lot about is the thoughts that we think and how it impacts our lives. Right? The things that we think about is going to create how we feel, and the way that we feel is going to cause us to take whatever action based on the feeling. So I think it's so, so important to be mindful with what we're thinking, right? If we're thinking all of the time that our lives are horrible, that they are sad and depressing and that, you know, our lives are miserable, if we're thinking those thoughts all day, every day, how are we supposed to expect ourselves to feel? Do you think that we'll be able to feel any sort of joy or peace or happiness? Probably not, because we're not allowing space in our minds to think anything positive, right?
Speaker 2:So you know, one of the ways that I suggest doing this is just by starting with a small positive thought, just a small one. It doesn't even have to be a big deal. It could just be something like I'm so grateful that I can enjoy this sunshine today, or it could be I just am really loving and feeling so connected to my child today. Okay, when you start allowing yourself to think about those things, then you're going to focus a little bit more on that and it's going to create better, more positive feelings, right? And I think it's so important to allow yourself to think about things that you're grateful for, to think about things that you enjoyed that day and maybe think less about how terrible life is that your loved one is gone. Okay, I know so many of us want to hold onto that. We want to, you know, hang on to the thinking about how much we miss our loved one. But when we're only thinking about how much we miss our loved one and how sad it is that they're gone and how horrible it is in the way that they died, then it's really difficult to make any room for joy. So I always recommend just giving yourself one per day, just one thought, one positive thought, and what you'll find is when you allow yourself to just think, one good, positive thought per day, it may spark another positive thought. Okay, now don't go into it having all these expectations, but what I have found is that when we start with one, it does grow to two, and it grows to three, and it grows to four and five, and so on and so on, until we start thinking more thoughts that bring positive emotions than we think thoughts that bring negative emotions. So I always think that making this part of our grief journey is so important. It will help us to rediscover joy.
Speaker 2:Another thing I want to talk about, too, is sometimes, when we're going through the grief experience and I think this happens probably a lot is we start to feel less excited about the things we once enjoyed, right. This is very common with depression, also very common with grief, where we start to lose the enjoyment of what we once loved, right. And so I think it's really important is to revisit some of those hobbies you used to love, or even to try something new, something that you haven't done before, right? Maybe something that you've always wanted to try and never did. So I always recommend that. Another way that I think is so invigorating and helpful to help us to rediscover our joy is to spend time in nature or spend time with animals, both of which can be so incredibly grounding.
Speaker 2:I love spending time at the beach. That's just my happy place. I love it. I would go all the time. Someday, I guarantee you, that is where I'm going to be. I'm going to be close to a beach, one that I can visit all the time. But, yes, just going somewhere out in nature, it doesn't have to be the beach. It can be, you know, in the mountains, it can be on a hike somewhere. I live in the desert. There's some beautiful desert mountain hikes that we can go on, where we can really see some good views and enjoy the desert plants and nature. But there is something to say about being out in nature that really, really helps.
Speaker 2:The last thing I want to talk about is just giving yourself permission to laugh and smile and feel good once in a while, without guilt. Okay, maybe your child does something that just makes you laugh. Feel free to laugh. Maybe you just need to watch a movie, a comedy, something that makes you laugh, or go see your favorite comic. One of my favorite comics is Nate Bargatze. I think he's hilarious, you know, it's just feels good. It's such a great way to kind of forget about the pain you're experiencing and to just give you a moment to you know, take care of yourself, and to reconnect with the world and not think about sadness and depressing things all day long.
Speaker 2:Okay, now remember, feeling joy doesn't mean you're forgetting your loved one, because I think so many of us think that it does. That. That's what it means. It just means you're honoring the life they've wanted you to live, a life full of love, hope and meaning. So I think that's really worth remembering. Okay, all right.
Speaker 2:So as you step into 2025, remember this healing isn't about moving on. It's about learning to carry your loved one's memory in a way that brings peace rather than pain. And these five goals aren't about perfection. They're about intention, okay, so whether you choose one or all of these goals, take it one day at a time. Be gentle with yourself, celebrate your progress and lean on the people who care about you. Thank you so much for joining me today. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need it, and if you're struggling, don't hesitate to reach out. Been revamping my grief program for 2025. If you're interested in that, hop onto my website, sign up for the weekly newsletter and you'll find out more information as I roll that out in 2025. And until next time, take care of yourself and remember you're stronger than you feel right now, wishing you a year of healing and hope. I'm so excited that you keep joining me each week. I love you Until next time. Bye-bye that you keep joining me each week, I love you.
Speaker 1:Until next time. Bye, bye. Thank you for listening to the Survived to Thrive podcast. If you like this podcast, please share with your friends and write a review on iTunes. Also check out survived-to-thrivecom for more information and to subscribe to get the podcast's latest episode, along with useful tips you can begin to use immediately to feel better, directly sent to your inbox.