E58. Healing When You Don't Know How Much You're Hurting with Health Coach Heather Sayers Lehman

We all know how hard change and loss can be. 😞

The emotions are overwhelming, and things feel out of control, so we do many things to feel in control.

Plot twist: controlling things is usually not helpful because we don’t just need to “feel” in control.

We need to acknowledge what we’ve lost and mourn.

In this episode, we’ll peel back the onion of grief and discover that we grieve many things throughout our lives. 

We often look at grief as something that we will experience after someone dies, and while yes this is true, grief also shows up in our lives in many other ways. 

Grief can come in the form of any loss or change in your life, such as the loss of a person, a child, a relationship, your health, and so much more. 

I talk through the grief that I am currently experiencing regarding my dad, the cognitive decline that he is experiencing, and how I am now grieving the dad that I have always known while growing up. 

I will walk you through my four-step approach to working through the grieving process: acknowledging what you are going through, becoming curious about your feelings, showing yourself compassion, and then focusing on your own self-care.

I hope this episode helps if you are currently experiencing grief, and I hope that the next time you grieve something, you can remember to take care of yourself during those moments. ♥️

Resources:

On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross 

…..

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Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating Grief and Change
• 11:48 Understanding Grief and Loss
• 21:27 Navigating Self-Compassion and Healing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

We lose different things all of the time, and what I know causes us pain can be that white knuckle. And what can I control? And I absolutely know that grief and processing all of these feelings are on the other side of control. We are not going to be able to control this and control that and process all of these feelings. Hi, and welcome to the air we breathe. Finding wellbeing that works for you a podcast to help you cultivate healthy habits. No rules, no obsession, no exhaustion. I'm your host, heather Sayers-Layman. I'm a National Ford Certified Health and Wellness Coach, certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and Certified Personal Trainer. Having navigated my own challenges with food and health, I'm passionate about sharing insights and strategies to help you build better health and free up mental space so you can live a full and peaceful life. I'm happy you're here. Hi, everyone, and welcome to this episode.

Speaker 1: 1:11

Today we are going to talk about grief. Oh my gosh, what a fun hot topic. I see this come up so much in my coaching. I personally experience it and I wanted to have a bigger discussion about grief, because a lot of our conversations around grief seem to think that grief is just this thing that we do when somebody dies, somebody dies and actually I find that we are grieving all the time for things that we have lost, things that are changing, things that are out of our control, and I wanted to make sure that we are having a bigger conversation about that, because the biggest thing, I think it just makes people so unhappy to feel like everything is out of their control and because then we wrestle for control. So I want to dive in. I'm going to talk about some different types of grief, various things that, when they change, we have a hard time with. And obviously, like, what can we do? Because I feel like sometimes we can feel lost or untethered Because, again, like, the loss can be amorphic. We didn't lose, like, a thing that we had, we lost an idea, we lost a dream, we lost expectations. So let's kind of get into grief.

Speaker 1: 2:52

And you know the classic model. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote a book a long long time ago called On Death and Dying, and she was the one that came up with the five stages of grief and, as with any model, it's good and it's bad. So the five stages that she came up with were denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. What we know is that people don't tick the box on every stage oh my gosh, looks like I'm in anger now Upcoming. It's bargaining that it is a back and a forth two steps forward, one steps back. One step forward, two steps back that it's not a linear process at all.

Speaker 1: 3:42

And I think of grief as an onion that peels, and peels when we really least expect it. So we might feel pretty good or like okay, so I'm feeling better now, and then, you know, here comes the tears, or here comes the day on the couch, the loneliness, and a lot of people get very upset. They're like no, no, no, no, I thought I was done with that. Well, like your onion is peeling, and which can be really good because it means that your mind is like, okay, we can handle another thing now, whereas your heart is like, no, thank you, I don't want any more things, I've had enough. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 4:28

If we look at the piece of change, it is so challenging for a lot of us. I know myself one thing that I have always done is to be in control of multiple things, to make me feel like I have control over my life. You know, I think this stems from growing up and a lot of chaos, a lot of unpredictability, a lot of loneliness. I've talked about it before. My mom was an addict and alcoholic and overall really struggled with her mental health, so it did not provide like a safe, stable home for me. It was all over the place, never knew what to expect. So then, being in control of things helped me to feel like I wasn't just adrift on the ocean of chaos, that I could actually make myself feel better, which this is a great coping mechanism. Until it isn't, as with all coping mechanisms gosh darn it this is working really well. Until now it's not really working very well because I'm making myself pretty nuts trying to control everything so that I can feel better.

Speaker 1: 5:51

So this challenge with change and I put grief and change very close together, because when things change and it can be in a way we want it to change and I will say certainly like the end of a relationship, and maybe this relationship has not been good and you have decided I want to change, I want out of this relationship. On the other hand, we've all been where we are in a relationship. Maybe the relationship is good or it's not good and the other person has decided that they want to end this relationship. Those two scenarios feel a whole lot different. One is because we were in choice and we decided, and the other one we feel completely out of control because we aren't able to have things change in the way that we want them to, and again that can leave people flailing for trying to get control in other areas of their lives.

Speaker 1: 6:54

So it's really that change that can be so disorienting, especially even if you're in a relationship and you don't want to break up. I mean, you don't enter a relationship thinking like, oh yeah, at some point probably going to axe this. So it's still really hard and it can be sad and it can be scary and lonely and feel guilty. So there are a lot of feelings that go along with changing something, even if we think it's for the best. And I factor grief in because we had an idea of what things were going to be like and things are not turning out that way. So there has to be some type of mourning for what we wanted or what we expected or what we actually thought was going to happen. And this piece, I think, is incredibly challenging because many times we don't stop to think like, oh, this is me letting go of this, this is me having a hard time with not getting what I thought I was going to get. Our brains don't really think of it that way. They just feel like they're in rebellion about what is happening. So I think that trying to incorporate this model can be extremely helpful when we're going through something, and the whole reason that this even came up.

Speaker 1: 8:29

I was talking to my sister yesterday because my dad, over the past several years, has been in a cognitive decline and I went to a doctor's appointment with him my gosh, maybe three or so years ago because he went to get some testing and, I want to say, saw a neuropsychologist to see what was going on. And my dad was in a helicopter accident in 2011. So now that's been 13 years and he had a serious head injury. In this. It was really, as most helicopter accidents are, very devastating. My dad was in the front. The pilot actually passed away immediately after the accident. There were two men in the back and they survived and my dad was pretty lucky because he lost consciousness, so he didn't have any of the PTSD that the other survivors did, because, you know, my dad's friend was watching him, thinking that he's dying. He knew the pilot was dead and so it was just very traumatic all around. It was very traumatic for the family because somebody calls you and says, hey, your dad's been in this helicopter accident and you know that nothing good is happening. When that news comes across, I will say that you really. Even. So, that's a change and that was a process and that required grieving in and of itself.

Speaker 1: 10:08

And now, as the years pass and my dad is starting to have more cognitive decline I also know that could have happened anyway, certainly everything that people dealing with dementia and Alzheimer's or cognitive decline I mean, they all have different reasons and they're just not really controllable for the most part. So I know from his testing they just said it's not Alzheimer's, it's just probably from the accident, probably from age, a little bit of everything, a little bit of everything. So my sister called yesterday kind of with an update about what he's having a harder time with and we can't write checks anymore because that's challenging to get the numbers to be the same and he wrote a check for the wrong amount and it was too much and that became a problem. And also I was just there a couple of months ago with him and, as with any cognitive changes, it's very interesting because he can navigate. This is an area he's lived in for 40 years the mountains, and talk about when this fire was here and this mountain range, and you know the changes with different things, how some things are the same. He's so like enmeshed in those memories, and those are long-term memories. Short-term is the real problem. So, anyway, we had our conversation and, you know, talk about next steps, because it's not going to get any better and you know what that's going to look like.

Speaker 1: 11:48

So then last night, when I was going to bed, just like eyes wide-eyed, like an owl, like oh my gosh, and really thinking to myself okay, tomorrow you going to have to start trying to peel this onion to make some sort of peace with what is happening, and I have this really good ability to be business Heather. So if you've got an emergency and you need someone that's cool as a cucumber, that's me. But then at some point you know I really need to fall apart and I need to process what's happening and feel all these emotions. So seemingly, when I go to bed, like that's a fantastic time to do that. But this really made me start thinking, because I was going to do a different episode today and I really wanted to talk about this because I have seen it and I was actually looking at finding an expert to come on the show to talk about it. Well then I thought you know what, like I also work with this because when we look at all of the areas, we experience loss.

Speaker 1: 13:04

Because when we look at all of the areas we experience loss. Certainly in my life there have been. You know, I had multiple miscarriages before I had kids and that was a sort of an odd experience because I was a little bit more of a miscarriage. I lost a child that I had hoped and prayed for, but then the rest of the world and it was worse then. I think it's a little better now. People are a little more sensitive. You know, there isn't any sort of acknowledgement, it's more of like, well, you can try again. Or actually, the first miscarriage I would have had a child.

Speaker 1: 13:46

At the time I was supposed to get married to my first husband and we lost that baby and my mother-in-law I know she didn't mean anything by it, but she was like, well, this is really good because we can stick with the same date and then we'll have the same venue, like all these things. I was like, yes, this is great. Thank you so much. Um, you know she was just dealing with it in her own way, but you know, miscarriage certainly can be so hard for me because it it really kicked up fear because this happened before I had kids that I was never going to have kids and it just wasn't going to happen for me.

Speaker 1: 14:30

Also, there's so much loss with jobs and finances. Certainly I went through it during the recession and I lost my gym, I lost my house and I lost my financial stability, my ability to provide for my sons who are a lot younger than and I think those types of losses losses of relationship, certainly health I see that a lot and I've experienced that I was extremely healthy until I had my thyroid out and then just pulling that thread caused so many other health issues and then now I'm like the sick person. I just went to a conference and was gone like Monday through Thursday. So Friday, thursday, so Friday, saturday and part of Sunday are on the couch because I have to recover from being up and around all day talking to people. You know I did a talk and I just can't travel, get a good night's sleep because I got about 10 hours of sleep every night. It's just it's too hard and my body just needs a lot of rest and coming to grips with that and grieving who I used to be the person that just like pushes through bebop. If I can do it Moving on, you know I'm not that person. So I think that there is grief and loss in being around somebody like that as well, because I'm sure that my husband wishes that you know I could just do what I want and that has to be hard for him to watch as well.

Speaker 1: 16:20

Also, in terms of loss, obviously we lose people and sometimes we lose those people before we lost them. My best friend lost her father earlier this year and for the last couple of years he had been in, you know, different types of decline. So the guy that certainly I remember that I met when I was a teenager and in my 20s and 30s, 40s, wasn't there anymore and so it's grieving the loss of who he was before he's even gone. And I think that piece is also really prevalent in cognitive decline or people that are struggling with chronic illness and it just changes the way that they show up. That can be grief for us as well.

Speaker 1: 17:21

I know certainly mental health, because there are mental health changes, somebody else changes, like that's a huge adjustment. And again, sometimes we really reach for control. Oh, you know what I can do, I can do this. And that's where it becomes very vulnerable, because then people like, oh, you know what you need, you know what this cleanse is super helpful for this. Or, you know, we start reaching out for things that might not be helpful at all but they're providing hope, but they're not providing any sort of solution. And of course, all of my work with trying to help people stop dieting. There is grief in that. I really remember going through it, because dieting always felt like there's some hope that this particular body, this look, this weight, whatever we want to call it is within reach and I could get there and I could stay there and I would be so happy and things will be perfect. I'd have the right job, my friends would be great, I'd get better gas mileage all of these fantastic things would happen. And of course, we also know the reality that people in smaller bodies are treated much differently than people in larger bodies. So this has reality based in it as well, and when things like that change, we lose.

Speaker 1: 18:57

I guess I've heard someone talk about intersectional privilege. So when I was in a larger body, I couldn't just, you know, hop into the doctor's office and get my stuff taken care of. I'd have to have like a little kerfuffle outside about like I don't want to be weighed and it's much different to say that you don't want to be weighed in a larger body than in a smaller body and then hopefully my doctor would take my issue seriously and not just say like, well, obviously you just need to lose weight. So I lost the privilege of just being able to go into my doctor's office. So now again I'm in a straight sized body and I totally can just go in and be like, hey, this is going on and I know that they will tend to that. I don't have that type of anxiety. So there is a real loss with body changes.

Speaker 1: 19:51

I know that there are some professionals that call it body grief and I think that is absolutely spot on to really grieve this dream of life being great if I'm in this ideal body and also grieve the reality of what is easier for me to do when I'm in this particular body. So there are a lot of different types of loss that I think, looking at it as a way of grieving, can be extremely helpful, because we lose different things all of the time and what I know causes us pain can be that white knuckle. And what can I control? And I absolutely know that grief and processing all of these feelings are on the other side of control. We are not going to be able to control this and control that and process all of these feelings and when we want things to look a certain way whether it needs to look that way to us or to other people it is really a recipe for feeling really discontent, just really restless and using a lot of poor coping mechanisms, and that's what I see a lot of like.

Speaker 1: 21:27

I don't like this feeling. I don't want, I don't like this change. I don't like this loss. So I'm going to numb it out and that's either going to be food or booze or drugs or smoking or shopping being online. I'm going to do something to numb this out and that's why I really want people to see that this is a loss and I feel like it's such a respectful thing for yourself to acknowledge this is a loss, and I have several friends right now that are kind of in a divorce process all sorts of different places and acknowledging that this is not how I thought my life would look and again, even if it's for the best, of like, oh, maybe we weren't quite a pair or man. We used to be so good and it changed and we lost that. I don't know what happened, I can't get it back and I don't like it.

Speaker 1: 22:33

But making sure that we don't fall into a lot of poor coping mechanisms. So I want to walk through what I think can be really helpful, and one just knowing the phases denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance can be really helpful so that you can say to yourself and be honest with yourself, like, oh, this change feels like a loss, and I think that I'm going through this Because control, I think, is a piece of bargaining of like, okay, okay, okay, okay, like this thing is happening. But here's what I can do to make this other thing not happen. But acknowledging that we are losing something and we don't like it. And again, even if it's your choice, a lot of times the choices that we make are because we're sort of backed into a corner and we've had to make a choice. That can be really hard.

Speaker 1: 23:35

So really getting curious about what I'm feeling. So acknowledging that I'm losing something, something is changing and you know, not trying to gloss over that and then, second, getting curious about our feelings, like what do I feel? Because this is is the thing. But our feelings are on a spectrum, because I can be happy or relieved and I can also be devastatingly sad. I can be absolutely undone that this is happening in the first place. And allowing yourself to let those feelings live on a spectrum is so important. Not thinking this needs to be tidied up. I need to get this in a box, I'm going to get a beautiful bow, it's going to go on the top of my closet and I'm not going to look at it. But that our feelings are I wouldn't even say I mean messy, has such a negative connotation but they're multidimensional, they're multi-layered, it's multifactorial, there are so many things that go into it and that it is a complex tapestry. If you will, I, as always, think that journaling is super helpful. If you don't have my journaling guide, you can go to heathersayerslaymancom backslash journal and download it.

Speaker 1: 25:11

But really talking to myself, about myself, about what I'm feeling, is again such a kind thing to do for myself, because if I'm a friend of me and I hear that I'm having a hard time, I would be like hey, like what's going on? Like, do you want to talk about it? So this is me taking the time to talk to me about this what's going on. So I think this curiosity piece is really important. And not filtering yourself or not needing it to look a certain way, or, especially where ego is involved, that, like this isn't bothering me. Nobody has to know that this is bothering you. You don't have to feel like you're losing or there's something negative about this bothering you.

Speaker 1: 26:03

And the third piece, as always, is really having some self-compassion. So, again, if I'm my friend listening to me talk about this, I would assume I would show up with, like that sounds hard, that is really tricky, that sounds really disappointing. All of these different things to acknowledge. Yeah, this sounds like you're in it, you're in the bottom of the well, you are struggling and possibly it's not going to change or it's not going to get better. Certainly, think of you know, like with my dad, like it's not going to get better, he's not going to just suddenly have his brain regenerate, and like, oh, my gosh, that was so weird that I was so forgetful I couldn't even write a check. So I think that we like to wrap things up, put it in that box and have that bow, and there's some stuff it's not going to fit. It doesn't go there. That's not where that lives, because there isn't an upside to it. It's just hard and it's just sad and it's very disappointing and it is loss.

Speaker 1: 27:20

So, having compassion for myself as I work through these feelings, and lastly, the fourth piece is self-care. How am I going to take care of myself through this? I will say that you know, my husband is a really good example Because again, when I got back from this trip, I don't feel bad right away. It takes a little bit for that to sink in. So I think it was Saturday morning. I went to the gym and about halfway through my workout I was like oh no, nope, we're not bouncing back. We are, you know, destined for the couch for a couple of days, and he's really good about letting me know that looks like you need rest. He is helpful with my own self care and I trust him implicitly to tell me and he will tell me like you look a little bit pale, which I know it just means I need to rest, and so I don't want to put somebody else in charge of my self care. I think it is nice to have a network of people that remind you.

Speaker 1: 28:30

But what is good for my body and my spirit in this situation? And that can absolutely be making sure I'm sleeping, I'm resting, I'm processing my feelings, I'm having food that is working for my body, I'm moving my body, I'm managing my stress, all the different pieces that we put together. And obviously, if you've been listening to me, that doesn't mean like, oh my gosh, I gosh, I just make sure I'm just clean eating and you know, no chemicals, blah, blah, blah but that when I talk about food that works for me like this morning I had a muffin and it's one of those like a fibery muffin from a local bakery and I didn't eat it all because I knew if I ate at all, it would just be too much. So making sure I'm tending to my body Carbs are the start of my day. I feel much better and I also feel better if I don't eat a lot. So this extends to the rest of the day of having treats, but also making sure that I'm giving myself the fuel and nourishment that I need.

Speaker 1: 29:44

So, whatever it is that works for you and self care I know that I went to the gym yesterday and it was, I don't know, like a 50% effort, which is fine because I knew if I got up, set aside some time to move my body, I did more of like my physical therapy exercises, like low key stuff. Everybody else was doing different stuff, I don't care, but I knew I would feel better if I move my body and I didn't overexert myself. That was really important. So really dialing in to what it looks like to take care of you.

Speaker 1: 30:23

So those four pieces really acknowledging what's going on and being honest with yourself, getting really curious about what you're feeling, showing yourself that self-compassion and really rolling out what does self-care look for me right now? Today is different from tomorrow, tomorrow is different from the next day. What does it look for me right now? What things make me feel better in my body, what things make me feel better in spirit and making sure that I am nurturing myself. So I hope those pieces help and I sure would would like to say I hope that you're not grieving anything. But this is life and the more trips around the sun that we have, the more loss we will have, and I certainly have lost friends and family when they were younger and I know that they would give anything to be here to lose something else, to grieve something else. So I feel fortunate that I can have these experiences. I don't have to love them and I don't have to, you know, be jazzed that they're happening, but I really do have to walk through them, not ignore them. Make sure I'm really taking good care of myself, because that's also how I show up for other people when I am taking care of myself, right. Well, hopefully those steps help you and I am certainly wishing the best for you and hope that you are getting through whatever it is you need to get through by giving yourself as much grace and love as possible. All right, take care.

Speaker 1: 32:13

Thanks so much for listening today. Do you know what would be really fun? If you popped over to my Instagram at Heather Sayers Lehman and dropped me a DM and let me know what topics you want me to cover? Something bugging you, something holding you up? Please just let me know and I will tweak some content and get an episode out just for you. As always, please follow the show or you can leave a five-star review on Apple or Spotify. That would be fun, too, to see in the next episode.