Building a Bridge Between Grief and Love with Alanna Knobben

In this episode of Over This Should, I speak with Alanna Knobben, founder of Carry You With Me, about navigating grief, finding healing, and building community. Alanna shares her deeply personal journey of losing her son and the transformative path it set her on to create a supportive space for others experiencing loss. We explore the complexities of grief, particularly during the holiday season, and discuss practical strategies for coping, such as creating rituals, fostering connections, and embracing the duality of joy and pain. 

Key Takeaways:

• Grief is universal but deeply personal; there's no "one-size-fits-all" approach.
• Community and connection play vital roles in the healing process.
• Rituals can honor and remember loved ones, especially during the holidays.
• It’s possible to hold both joy and pain simultaneously.
• Self-awareness helps identify and process complex emotions.
• Communication, both with oneself and others, is essential to navigating loss.
• Sharing stories can foster connection and healing.
• Creating safe spaces for emotions is essential during gatherings.
• Technology has created new ways to find support and shared experiences.
• Creating stillness allows for deeper self-reflection and understanding.

This heartfelt conversation is a reminder that grief is universal, yet deeply personal, and that creating safe spaces for connection can foster profound healing. If this episode touched you, share it with someone who might benefit from its message.

How can we create more spaces for open conversations about grief and healing in our communities? What steps can we take to support each other in navigating loss and finding strength together? I’d love to hear your thoughts—feel free to reach out to me and share how this episode resonated with you.
 

Connect with Me:
https://www.pamelameadows.com/
https://www.instagram.com/thepamelameadows/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thepamelameadows/

Connect with Alanna:
https://carryyouwithme.com/
https://www.instagram.com/carryyou.withme/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanna-knobben-69b90780/

 
 
Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction to Grief and Healing
01:30 - Alanna's Journey Through Loss
05:24 - The Power of Community in Grief
12:27 - Navigating Grief During the Holidays
24:14 - Communicating Grief and Understanding Emotions
28:03 - Understanding Grief and Communication
34:50 - Building Community Through Shared Experiences
40:59 - Recognizing Grief Beyond Loss
48:14 - Building the Bridge from Grief to Love

Transcript

Pamela Meadows (00:07.34)
Welcome to another episode of Over This Should podcast, where we work to ditch the shoulds and expectations that we've placed on our lives so we can embrace a life that we love. Today, we welcome the compassionate founder of Carry You With Me, Alana Knauben. Make sure I said that right. Alana is a speaker, a grief educator, mentor, and author who has dedicated her life to supporting those navigating the complexities of loss.

Her work is a guiding light for many, offering support, connection, and inspiration to those learning to live with both joy and the pain of grief. In this episode, we're going to dive into Alana's journey of creating Carry You With Me, her unique approach to grief education, and the transformative power of community and connection. Whether you're experiencing loss, supporting someone who is, or simply seeking inspiration, this conversation promises to be deeply moving and enlightening.

So find a quiet place, maybe grab your favorite drink and join us as we explore the themes of love, loss and healing with the incredible Ms. Alana. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Is there anything else you want to add to your introduction or your bio? No, that was so beautiful. I absolutely love how you put that all together. Thank you. Cool.

Well, can you tell us how you got started with your organization and what led you to supporting people who are walking through grief? Like many working in this space, it happened through a personal experience of loss and it was in starting to build my family. So my first pregnancy ended at 12 weeks and was kind of my first glimpse of grief in that capacity in my life.

I'd been through many times of change and uncertainty as we all are. And this was a time that really started to question the way I looked at the world and the feelings that I was experiencing and kind of incorporating this whole new identity in a way that then is taken away from you. forward a few years, our second son was born, Marshall James, and it was a...

Pamela Meadows (02:26.712)
Freezing cold November in this blizzard where we just hunkered down and snuggled up and a few days into his life when we were just about ready to leave the hospital and come home, we found out that he had a terminal illness that we did not see coming and no one knew. And so at two weeks old, we said goodbye to him and he passed away in our arms, which changed my world and the world forever.

Coming out of that, like most people going through something like that, losing someone you love so dearly was a new version of myself and was trying to navigate the fog of loss and grief and the pain while starting to plant my feet back on the ground and understand what

the world meant to me now and who I was again. And in doing that, I think for many people, when you go through something really traumatic or when you go through something really life changing, whether it be an illness or a loss or a layoff or a move across the country, whatever that looks like, it becomes something that connection is so important with and community. And so it started off organically where

I would end up supporting people in my current role, in my current job, working in the energy sector and have people just kind of sporadically show up at my office and ask if we could go for a coffee or talk about it over the years. Because it was something that I was open about. This wasn't going to be something that was shameful and not spoken of. This was my son. This wasn't something to be tucked away under a bed, if you will. And so...

being open about it, I think, and having that ability to create connection opened the door to me helping people. And it kind of grew over time in me, in my own processing and understanding of it, to know that it was more than that. And it was this deep calling within me that I didn't even see coming that kind of took over my whole life and became my whole life in that.

Pamela Meadows (04:49.422)
Over six years ago, I founded Carry You With Me and it started with a storybook that started as letters to my son and evolved into this beautiful book that is really a poetic capture of love and loss and has been shared by many people that it feels like their own story. It feels like their experience of what they're going through. And so that was really beautiful. And then just kind of progressed into an online community.

and speaking and workshops and programming and all of the things that continue to evolve over time.

into your story, that's okay with you. Yeah. Okay. It sounds like you were able to turn the grief you experienced into impact through community, through the book, through your opportunities to walk with people and how to get in front of people and speak. I've experienced loss myself and I could not get to that stage of sharing right away.

It took time to get to a place where I felt healthy enough to tell my story. What did the stages look like for you after you lost your son that you did not see coming, which I can't imagine what that's like. Did it jump right into you knew you can turn this around into something that impacts others or where there was there stages for you? Well, first of all, my heart goes out to you.

something that people talk about being not that common, but really I always say you or somebody you love will experience this. It is different for everyone. So I will premise that in everything that I do in the way that we integrate it into our lives in the way that we express it. So for me, I'm a very expressive person and I

Pamela Meadows (06:46.778)
use my emotions, I use my, my language, all of these things to work through things. And I had my partner and friends and family, some who prefer to work through things in their mind and they get, they get building something or they want to spend time out in nature.

And so there's all of these different paths to supporting us and healing through these things and processing it all. And so the speaking part of it for me was very gentle and very intimate in the beginning. Absolutely. That it was the people that I felt safe with that became that first audience of the things that I was sharing. it is...

It is brave and scary to put out some of those thoughts into the world. sometimes they come back with, well, you didn't mean that, or you didn't really think that, or all of these things that it can be really hard for somebody who is not in your situation or in your shoes to hear and understand. I think for me, it kind of grew in this organic way that I shared.

because I was experiencing, and at first, I will say that this was not as obvious to me as it is in hindsight, but I was experiencing tremendous support through sharing my story. And then as I became kind of more aware of that and was starting to feel some of the support and some of the strength it was bringing me, I also was getting strength and healing.

from witnessing the impact it was having on others and being able to hold that space for others and take those details in without feeling like I had to fix someone, knowing that that is not possible. We don't fix other people. We work on ourselves. That's really powerful. So when I had my first child and he was healthy and I always knew from

Pamela Meadows (09:05.134)
when I can remember that I wanted to be a mom and my son came and I wanted my kids to be two years apart. So I got pregnant again and it was a little bit sooner than what would have been two years. And of course I told everybody because I was so excited to add to the family and you know, there's a heartbeat. I already feel like I'm connecting. I had the best pregnancies. Like I had an easy breezy wonderful time and

I can't remember anymore exactly what week it was that I started to miscarry and ended up having a miscarriage. And I remember being so gutted, devastated. I didn't understand if God put on my heart that my dream is to be a mom and I had a healthy son and I wanted to add to my family and I had this timeline in my own head and then why would this happen? And so since I had been so darn.

open about being pregnant and everybody knew, then everybody had to then know that I didn't have, I had miscarried. And what happened was really interesting. Firstly, my husband didn't connect with the loss the way I did. It was just something the size of a grape inside my stomach. They had no connection to, for me, it had a heartbeat. I knew what was happening. It was growing. I was taking very good care of my body, making sure to do all the right things and take the vitamins. the women around me,

showed up at my door one at a time with food and meals because I could not get my act together. I was so devastated. And my son, Caleb, was really young. I think he might've been around one at the time, so he didn't know what was happening. And just one after one after one, these women came into my life and said they had miscarriages too. One of them had multiple, multiple miscarriages and just shared their stories with me. They told me to...

what they recommended was to get a tree and plant a tree and you know like take care of the tree and that will be in memory and there's all these stories that were shared and it proved to me the power of community and connection because women don't always say I've had a miscarriage or I've lost a child that's not how we introduce ourselves that's not what we do in settings of everybody's laughing and connecting about their husbands who leave the laundry on the floor and their kids who stick

Pamela Meadows (11:27.118)
up their nose, right? Like those aren't things we connect on. So to be able to say to somebody you've had a loss and then to have the community surround you with love and comfort and take care of you is profoundly transformative. And I think it helped move me from a place of what felt like I was sliding into a depression. was devastated. I, couldn't drive down the road without me crying over something to feeling like this happens more times than I ever even knew possible.

And I have a supportive group around me that I didn't even know could support me in this way. Absolutely. And that's so beautiful. I felt the same love and I know that's not the case for everyone. Some people are very isolated or don't have those certain networks around them or different demographics. It can be a huge boost when you are in that darkness to know that you are not alone and to find that community, even if it is not available at your doorstep.

there, I've noticed a shift over time. mean, when we lost Marshall and when I had that first miscarriage, technology was not where it was, you know, 16 and 14 years ago. And so I don't even know if I was texting at that point. But I think there's so many incredible online communities now and resources all over the world. And just finding one that

aligns with kind of who you are and the language you use and the experience you're looking for because there's a lot of different ones out there, right? That some online communities are very focused on the death, some communities are very focused on the hope, some communities are very focused on saying your child's name or calling out the experiences that you've had. And so just kind of dabbling in as you feel comfortable and safe to do so, to find that community or

to reach out to those trusted people in your life, to start opening up those stories, because in those stories, you get that nugget of hope that shows that this person has been through that and they are surviving. They are doing this. They are living after loss. So we're coming up into the holiday season and statistically at the time where people

Pamela Meadows (13:48.216)
They're remembering loved ones that they've lost. Sometimes there's grief or depression during this time period because you don't have your parents with you anymore. Somebody you're close to has moved away or passed on. Specifically with this time of year in mind, how do you recommend people connect or plug into or go inward or connect outward in order to make it through the holidays with some remnant of joy and not just sadness?

I'm going to come backwards at this one to just start the conversation with the idea of I love what you just said at the end was sharing the secret. If some of you out there don't know that as humans, have this incredible ability to hold both joy and pain at the same time. And sometimes we need to hear that. And sometimes we need to remind ourselves of that. Even me, that we have the ability to hold both. So you're not doing something wrong.

If in one moment you feel extreme sadness or longing or overwhelm, and at the same time, you still feel that flicker of excitement or curiosity or joy or love, whatever it is, and they can be at different levels and different volumes and different ways of getting your attention, but that you actually have the ability to hold both. And then with that realization or awareness, stepping back into the holidays, absolutely, this is a time

where schedules start to overflow off the plate and emotions can ramp up high. And we've got changes in lighting and temperature and all of these different things, events coming up. And there's a couple things that I rely on. One is I like the idea of ritual and in the sense of ritual being something so simple and innate.

not necessarily faith-based or anything like that. It can, if that's what feels supportive for you, but little ways that we can do an action that we have intention and meaning behind that help us connect with our person. And so I like to light a candle. This is something very simple. I have a number of candles around the house, but I also have some candles with Marshall's name on them. This is something that feels loving for me.

Pamela Meadows (16:13.992)
And whether I share it with anyone else or not is completely my call in that moment. So for example, I might start off my morning with just a coffee or a tea and I light a candle when the whole house is quiet and no one's up yet. I have two living teen children and light his candle and just think about him being in the space with me. We celebrate Christmas in our home and so we have a Christmas tree and decorations and all of these things.

we have little ornaments for Marshall and grandparents and people that have passed away that I want to be a part of our tradition still. And so having those little ways to include them in our life by hanging their ornament, looking at that, doing these little things that feel comfortable and exciting for you. It can look different to everyone, right? Maybe it's having a photo out somewhere that

helps you bring their memory into the space. It can also be without an actual item. So don't have to have a candle or a photo or an ornament because we carry them in our heart and minds. And so sometimes it just looks like taking a quiet moment to imagine them being there, to have a quiet conversation in your mind with them, explaining kind of what's going on at this time, maybe making their favorite food.

or doing something, reading a book that reminds you of them. There's a whole bunch of little ways that we can start to bring them into this relationship of the holiday season in a very different way than we had planned for, right? The other thing I think is really supportive is to have a quiet space. So especially if you are new to grief or you're, you know, a handful of years into your grieving

To have a, you know, quote safe room to go to if you're at a party, if you decide to go to somebody else's home or you are hosting something at your own space or whatever that looks like to have a little out place where if things are starting to feel overwhelming or you need a moment to just reset or breathe or do whatever it is that you need to have this kind of like very loose plan identified to know that

Pamela Meadows (18:40.866)
you're supported. To just know that sometimes creates that extra comfort level, but then to also actually have that space. If you know the music's playing Christmas music is something holiday have all these little memories that can really trigger those emotions in deep, deep ways. And so I know I can go at my parents' house or my siblings' house or wherever we're at. And I can find this quiet room or an office or a washroom where I can just

take a few minutes to have a few deep breaths or shed a few tears and kind of regroup? Yeah. I love the idea of rituals. My grandpa, who is one of the most important people in my life, he ended up getting custody of me and took very good care of me and is the reason I have good memories as a child. I lost him a couple of years ago and I have a shelf in my house. They gave me his burial flag. So it's got his flag on it.

one of the awards he had, was like 50 years of, of being a football coach. And so it's got his picture on it and it's an award. then thankfully he, he was healthy for so long. He lived until he was 82. So he had a very lovely life. so there was a picture of me and him when I was an infant and he's like holding me and I've got his football cap on. Well, when my son was born around the same age, he held Caleb and put the baseball cap on Caleb's head. And so those two pictures are next to each other. And this is a whole shelf for him.

And last year I decided I really miss him during the holidays. And so, no, I don't want to cry. And so like I did, was Italian. So I decided I was going to find his meatball recipe and we made meatballs from scratch. And we just did this big Italian feast for Christmas. And it was, my mom was like, my gosh, if grandpa, if my dad was here, if grandpa was here, he wouldn't believe that you could cook like this.

I don't think it was anything good by any means. I'm not a good cook, but it was just the thought of us doing all this in his honor and feeling like we were still recognizing his role in our family and like carrying on stories about him that my children get to hear and learn. And that gives him a little bit more life with us by doing that. So I think those things are really important as well. And then I obviously cry all the time. All my emotions come out as tears.

Pamela Meadows (21:02.38)
So yes, having a place that you can be in solitude to process those emotions is really important. And I will tell you, I have been known to duck into a closet if I need to, to process on my own so that not everybody's a participant in my waterworks, but having a game plan of where to go and also telling yourself that that's okay. And that feeling of grief or sadness can creep up on you at any time.

even when you think you're all healed or even when you're in the middle of joy, you cannot experience the beauty of joy without having also experienced sadness because they are two sides of the same coin. So you have to let yourself feel all of the emotions and have a safe space to do it. Yeah. I know that you're not doing it wrong. It doesn't have to negate any of the beauty that you're experiencing either. Cause sometimes I know I can

tiptoe into that space of being frustrated then. And it's, you know, I think it's David Kessler that refers to it as grief stacking, where we have that initial emotion. And maybe we're feeling sad about something or longing or whatever it is, angry that our person isn't there. And then immediately in these split seconds, our brain is going to, well, now I'm annoyed that I feel this.

Well, then I feel shame because I'm feeling this and I shouldn't be doing this and I should be doing that. And all of sudden we've stacked a dozen emotions on top of that first one we felt instead of just honoring the first one we felt as moving forward into the next one that comes. So it's really interesting. I love that you shared that about your grandfather and that's so moving to me too. I feel the tears welling up. I had a very close relationship with my grandparents.

all four of them have passed. And the holidays is a time where I miss them intensely because my holidays were always revolved around them growing up. And they really made it special, the holidays, and did all their traditions and the foods and the decorations and the love. And so this is also a time of season where I really agreed them. And I try to find ways to incorporate that. And I love how you said that meal idea because

Pamela Meadows (23:19.742)
I was actually just at a little Italian market yesterday that is in the city. I live out in the country now and every time I go to the deli counter at this market, I imagine my grandfather with me and just the joy it would bring him. whenever I go to this shop and I go and have a latte and I get these beautiful foods,

I always feel like I'm going with him still. Like I imagine him being there with me and the joy, he would have to buy all this stuff and bring it home for the family and create this meal time together. So I love that you shared that. Thank you. no, thank you for sharing your story too. You said something I think is important for us to dig into. Like you have this feeling of sadness or grief, and then somebody around you says, why are you still feeling this way? Like you should be over it by now or you should have passed. How do you recommend people

Hope with that when there's somebody in their life that they love or respect in some way who is telling them you should be over this. Like I understand you're sad, but like silver lining, this good thing happened. You should be able to move on by now. How do people deal with that? Communication is one of the biggest tools in life that we will always be developing. I believe this is where it really comes in hand and maybe not in the way you're thinking immediately, not.

in necessarily speaking your truth and telling people what you need, because that's great if you can do that and if you can get there. Part of the challenge is actually knowing what you're feeling and what you need before you can even have the ability to communicate that. And so I think communication, but starting with yourself and giving yourself the time and space to continually check in.

And when I say that, it doesn't mean that we have to spend our entire day soul searching and trying to unpack every emotion that we have and every experience that we have. I mean, you on some level, I think that'd be exciting, but that's not realistic. Right. And probably not healthy either. But it's that finding that balance where you allow yourself some space to check in with yourself. What are you feeling?

Pamela Meadows (25:42.766)
What do you need in this time? It's probably different than six months ago. It's probably different than two years ago. And just having a little reflection on what that's been looking like or what that's been feeling like. Some of the obvious ways to dig into that are friction points. It's like, where do I feel like I've been bumping up against something that's making me feel stuck? Kind of having a little time to think with that.

Or where do things feel sharp? Is it in the music? Is it in being alone in the car and driving? Is it in certain relationships? When I get with certain people, I'm feeling very sharp pokes of things that are getting my attention in maybe not the most supportive way. And so then you can start to identify, where are these things and why are they causing friction for me?

I even joke about it sometimes in a light note when you listen to podcasts and you find yourself making a rebuttal or putting your defense case together, your evidence. I was like, well, that's not the way I see it. That's not how I would have said it. And then I catch myself and go, okay. I'm feeling this response to like come up with a rebuttal to this. So why do I believe the thing I believe or what experiences have I had?

that make me feel strongly about this another way. And so applying that same kind of lens or investigation in your own life can be really supportive to start unpacking that. The communication piece then is being honest with yourself and it blends into understanding our own personal biases. So we are all modeled in society of behavior,

of things that we do in our cultures, in our families, in our friend groups, in our sports groups, right? All of these things help model and shape how we interpret and behave and act in the world. It's the same with grief and love and loss. And so some people never had that time to think about, was it movies that I've seen? Is it books that I've read? Is it the way my...

Pamela Meadows (28:03.49)
parents or grandparents or siblings or friends modeled with a grieving process, a colleague, because in those biases, we start to develop what we think is a healthy timeline. Whether it's accurate or right or wrong, we start to develop ways that we feel are allowable to express. We start to do things like, I should be here at this point in time, or I should

wouldn't be missing my person or doing it in this way. And so I think kind of that twofold of the communication piece is where we get clear about it. So then we can find language, we practice it. We can practice saying, those aren't details I talk about regularly, but thank you for asking. you know, getting more clarity in our language. And I won't go through a ton of, you know, examples, but the one that

language, you know, can really get to me, there's a couple phrases that one, when people say you need to let go. That phrase is just not supportive at all. That's great in yoga class or a meditation or breathwork. Not super supportive when somebody is going through a major, major life disruption. And so when I unpack what that phrase means,

I think what people are trying to say and don't have the language for in our lives that I don't know how you're doing this. I don't know how you are surviving this painful experience. And I'm so proud of you. It must be very difficult. Keep going. People don't say that usually. once in a you find somebody who's incredible and knows to put those words together in some kind of sequence. But I think when people

tell us in our lives that we need to let go. I was literally at my son's funeral receiving people on the line and having people hug me and tell me they love me and whisper in my ear, need to let go.

Pamela Meadows (30:14.422)
I was having people, friends and family over time saying, you need to just let go of him and move forward. And I'm thinking in my head, I guarantee you, I can assure you, I let him go. Like they took him out of my arms. And I can never explain what that experience felt like. But I founded Carry You With Me with the belief that absolutely not. I will carry him with me for the rest of my life.

And there is nothing wrong with that. It's beautiful to find ways to carry your love or your experience with you in a healthy way. It does not mean I have given up my life here. And I can have good days and I can have bad days and I can have all the mix in between, but that there is no need for me to let go or I can't understand a reason why I would ever let the love of my son go, the memories of my son go.

or the experience that I went through. You just said so many profound things. One of the places I want to start is the communication piece. You said it in a way I haven't ever thought of. When I think back to having the miscarriage and my husband not understanding at all why I couldn't let it go, there was no baby. That was how he felt. Like there was no baby. You didn't have a baby and then lose it, in which case he could have recognized that.

you know, that would have equally devastating to him. And I hadn't let myself stop to check in. So for the communication piece, I couldn't communicate with him in a way that was other than I'm just, I'm sad. I feel sad about this. Like I feel like I've lost a child. I didn't know how to communicate to him, but I also had never stopped to get clarity with myself on how I felt about it and what words I needed to use to express myself.

I didn't let myself have that chance. And I wonder if so many of us who've had loss of a child or the miscarriage or a loss of a parent, when it's the first time, and hopefully the only time you have something like that happen, you might not have words yet. When the time comes where my parents pass, it will be the first time I've lost a mom and I might not know how to communicate that. So you have to give yourself the chance to say,

Pamela Meadows (32:38.232)
this is a first or this is another time in my life where I've lost somebody, every time is going to be different. I have my own timeline, but the point of checking in with yourself and creating self-awareness around how you feel and what you need to express and what your triggers are and what feels sharp, I think is really important. I'm really appreciative that you said that. And then I think about going back to my grandpa, what a wonderful world was a song that they played in correlation with him.

He was a high school teacher forever. So he was on stage and he performed that song. I guess it's silly, silly stuff. And it was the song that always reminds me of him. So every time that song comes on, I get triggered. And my first thought is, that sharp? But if I were to ask myself more questions around, why is it triggering? It isn't a sharp jagged edge that hurts. It is a beautiful memory. So again, that's an opportunity to let yourself feel the feelings, especially if

the experience of that that trigger was something beautiful, then there is joy in that. Does that make sense? Absolutely. And it's also giving yourself permission to feel it or not feel it, right? So say you're in a department store and it's packed and you're trying to like get through and get out and the song comes on.

maybe that's the time where you set a set a boundary for yourself and you're like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just keep walking and not go to the full level of this, right? Maybe when you hear it the next time or you play intentionally, that's when you really allow that experience to happen and be with it and have those memories come up. the goal isn't to always

feel joy and happy, right? We know that inherently, although we still try to often land in those places. I know I do. But sometimes it is that longing or that sadness or that missing someone and that's okay too.

Pamela Meadows (34:50.03)
helped build community because it seems to me being able to talk to people who can listen and respond from a place of empathy and be the person who says, I know this is really hard. You're doing hard things. I'm proud of you. I love you. How do you create the community so somebody feels safe sharing and opening up?

I think one way is just being honest and open about sharing my own story. And the details that I choose to write that I'll never be able to express everything that I've experienced or that I feel and nor should I but I do have the desire to share openly and not make things something that they aren't or weren't or

make it appear as if this is the only way. I think in sharing openly and honestly, that's where trust starts to build. And that's where you can find safety often is when you build that trust and knowing that there is room for all stories and all experiences. I think curiosity is a big part of it as well. I'm a very curious person about everything in life. So

You know, it's not for our conversation today, but as soon as you said your grandpa was a football coach, I was like, you know, my son plays football and like, I want to know all about what he did. And so I'm just, you know, innately curious about everything that people do and, and what their interests are and how they came to it and all of these things. and it applies in community building as well.

that you're curious about your own experience in life. So you're kind of bouncing it off those edges of other people's stories and experiences. But you're also curious because you want to learn more about what somebody else's journey has been or how they came to be who they are today or what's on the horizon, what they're dreaming about, what inspires them, what scares them. All of those pieces and community is kind of in an interesting shift for me at the moment.

Pamela Meadows (37:03.16)
going from more of this online and direct community with grieving hearts to expanding into a lot of speaking and education, which is also community building, which is really interesting that in speaking to larger audiences or small intimate ones at workshops and retreats and different things, there's this really beautiful sense of community built.

even in an hour presentation in the room where at the end and I'm walking out and knowing the ripple effect that that can have in these audiences of having these conversations, just like your podcast does that also when you walk to the end of the room and I have people lined up to come up for a hug or to, I spoke at an event last week and one of the gentlemen in the room after came up and said to me,

he had lost his first wife when he was 25 years old and he had never heard anyone in his entire life now in his early seventies speak about it and describe what he went through yet until that moment. And so we both shed a few tears together, but there's really this incredible power in

one-on-one in group community, whether that be online or in social media or live in person, but also in these opportunities to have these big conversations where we can share these stories and plant those seeds for others in the room. What resources would you point people to who are listening to this podcast if they feel like they want to get in community or have some kind of support system? Yeah, I find

social media is helpful to some extent. So again, it's kind of playing around with what pieces are feeling like you want to go to and you gravitate towards because they live in the world and what pieces are just having you roll your eyes or feel frustrated. You might want to minimize those ones and uplift the other ones. I have a phone folder where I save inspirational things.

Pamela Meadows (39:23.662)
quotes, it could be a picture that I took, it could be something that I see online. Little tools like that to feel supportive, that you have a quick go to when you're feeling low or you're feeling ready to be re-energized or reignited to look at this material. I find some people, Megan Devine is a psychotherapist and psychologist, speaker, author.

All of the things she's got some incredible work out there and resources, books, very short sound bites of information that you can find that I think are very progressive and open and holistic to kind of touch on all different areas of grief and loss and how we can support ourselves. Looking into your area to find out are there places if you need something more tangible.

So you want to participate in a retreat or a gathering, a memorial celebration, starting to use the internet and conversation in your community to find out is there something locally or accessible to you that you can participate in a local candle lighting or a retreat. Have some time to dig into these topics with professional facilitators and people who can help guide you through creative ways to kind of explore it more.

Thank you. That's really helpful.

Pamela Meadows (40:59.062)
I want to look at grief through a different lens too. We're coming up into a time in the corporate world where January, was a lot of hiring there at the end of the year. There's a lot of terminations movements that happen. And January tends to be a time of year where a lot of people are applying for jobs. When you talk about grief outside of just the loss of somebody, which to me is the ultimate grief, but grief also shows up.

in the loss of a relationship, in the loss of a job, in the movement of a job. What do you recommend for people who don't recognize that there's grief involved in that because that's not an emotion that correlate with job loss or relationship loss? How do you recommend they get in tune and connect inwardly? And then what steps would somebody like that take in order to move or process that grief? The first thing that comes to mind is always

which is not easy and completely available. And that's why I start with that because whether we honor it or not, that is where you get to have conversations with yourself. Because if we are always busy and we are always moving and doing, and I am a lifelong

student of that school trying to create more stillness, trying to create more pause. But that inner voice is pretty quiet. It can be a whisper sometimes. And so if we can't create a little bit of stillness and it doesn't need to be, you know, we're not going to a silent retreat for five days where we can't talk to anyone and we live in the dark. If you can do that, that's incredible. And I'm curious about it. But in any type of grief,

whether we are going through a major transition with work or the end of a relationship, whatever that looks like, it's when you can get still is where you can start to feel and start to have some conversations with yourself. Now, a couple of reasons I think people don't do that. One is because the busy factor. We tend to be a producing society and worth is often tied to our productivity and

Pamela Meadows (43:26.43)
the we can get done in a day. And even if you don't unpack it to the deepest level of worth, it's also just practical sometimes because we have a pile of things that need to get done for the next day that if we don't address today, then maybe we will be further behind tomorrow. I don't know. These are the logic that run through my mind. But the truth is when we get a little bit of rest, so stillness could look like rest for some people, maybe it's just having a nap.

and you don't ever nap or just taking a moment to put your feet up, taking 30 minutes to put your feet up on the couch and just breathe. It doesn't have to look like anything specifically. It can be resting in nature. You could go sit out in a bench in a park or in your yard or go for a walk and have that time of quiet and silence, not putting in your earbuds, not moaning a friend, not listening to a podcast, but to just be silent. And

The other part from busyness is I think sometimes fear that we don't know if we get quiet, how deep it's gonna go. And I know because I've been there and I've had that fear. And what I can share is that when you start to build trust with yourself and you start to...

think about that way that we talked about in the beginning of holding both those dualities of grief and love, of joy and pain. We all have that ability to do that. And so the more you practice it and you allow yourself that really scary time to just maybe to just sit and have a warm drink and be silent for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour, or go for that walk and not engage in those other things that we talked about.

When you allow yourself to do that and you start to see what it feels like, now you're building a new neural pathway. Now you're building a new belief and now you're building a new experience that shows you and you can build trust that, Hey, I can do this. I can, I can converse with myself and give myself space and come back out of it. Even if I felt some really heavy emotions, maybe, maybe one time you sit down and you cry for an hour.

Pamela Meadows (45:47.084)
and you just feel like laying down in the fetal position on your bed and just holding yourself. And then after that hour you get up and you wash your face and you go do the next thing. And an hour later you're smiling again and your whole day goes on and unfolds. And you realize, I can have space for both of those things. So I think that's one thing what I would share is, you know, as maybe condescending as it sounds when you're...

when you're in the thick of it, it's like, great, yeah, thanks for the tip. But creating a little bit of stillness because when we just stay busy and we just stay moving, it's really hard to get that clarity and it's really hard to have that conversation with that quiet voice inside of us that might be the best compass on our next step. Right, because the inner voice

We all have it. The inner knowing is there, but she speaks very quietly and busy-ness is noise so that we don't have to listen to it because we might not be ready. I have personally dealt with that. And after years of therapy and training and multiple coaching certifications, I still use productivity and busy-ness and, Amazon online shopping and,

pint of ice cream at night as a way to deal with feelings when I'm not ready to feel them. But I think it is important that you know that you can trust yourself. If anybody has your back, it's you. So being able to be quiet and be still and then ask yourself, what is the next right turtle step? Like it doesn't have to be big, monumental, impactful. It is the next right slow and perfect step.

to move you to where you're trying to go towards.

Pamela Meadows (47:47.714)
And it's empowering, right? That, sorry, when you build that trust for yourself and you take that next little step, even if it doesn't feel like the right in quotation, next step, you are empowering yourself. And so even if it just gives that little spark of strength or resilience, when you take that next step, because you've listened to yourself, you build momentum.

Pamela Meadows (48:14.008)
Tell me how do you build the bridge from grief to love?

That's a long one. And I love the analogy. do have an online grief support called The Bridge.

Pamela Meadows (48:34.068)
The bridge to me, I love the analogy of it. And I have had people ask me, are you literally building a bridge? Are you, you know, getting a group together and constructing with wood and things? know it's a metaphorical bridge because I think metaphors are really helpful to help us understand our life. When I think of the bridge, it is building a strong foundation between grief and love, between those dualities that we talked about.

so that you know you do not have to be one or the other, that you can walk freely back and forth between both, that you build that muscle memory and that skill set to know that you can always walk between both so that you're not afraid to feel either one or to hold either one or to explore either one. And so when I think of building the bridge to create that solid ground to take steps from, because when we take steps,

from really rocky ground or ground that isn't stable. One, they're really fearful steps to take. And two, they don't always land the way we want. And so building back your foundation after the world has been shattered when you go through something life-changing as loss or a major disruption in your life and building that strong foundation incorporates a number of different elements.

many, many, many more than we have time to talk about today. But some of the ones that we did touch on today that are key, key pieces in building that bridge were communication and starting with the communication with yourself, like we talked about, and then practicing ways to communicate with others. So it gets easier and you can find the words you want to use in the language you're comfortable with. Legacy is another piece, figuring out how do you incorporate

your person's legacy into your life and how do you build the legacy for yourself? What do you want to be known for? What do you want to leave this world with? And getting excited about that helps us build that foundation. We talked about that duality idea of getting clear that you can hold both and exploring where the edges of that show up for you. And another one is ritual.

Pamela Meadows (50:57.312)
incorporating ways to carry those experiences with you and to incorporate them into your life and let them be part of your fuel source that makes you unique.

Really powerful. I didn't even realize we were coming up on time. This conversation has been so wonderful. If you don't mind, where can people connect with you and how can they work with you? The best place to find me probably is at carry you with me.com. And I'm also quite active on Instagram. My handle is at mention or at carry you dot with me.

And there's a number of ways, everything from working one-on-one in a, I call it a mentorship experience because I'm always learning as well as I'm working with clients and talking about your person, your story, your experience of grief or anything that you're navigating in there and taking it the direction that you would like to, to explore more and support you on this path.

Also working with people in the storybook is a beautiful way to connect for those who have been through the loss of a child or pregnancy to have that tangible memento and have a tool. It becomes a communication tool for a lot of families to talk about what they've been through or with young children to remember and incorporate their brother or sister or child into their life. And then the speaking and offering opportunities to create workshops.

both in person and online and education sessions where we can continue conversations like this and building skillsets, not only for grieving hearts, but for also all of the people in the world, incredible professionals out there supporting people like me and you, and also the people in our community that are loving on us and wanting to understand how to navigate change and love and loss at a different level. Thank you.

Pamela Meadows (52:59.854)
The last question I ask every guest is what's your favorite quote these days? I have so many. write different ones down on my board every day and in my book, but the simplicity of courage precedes confidence. That is when I hold close the last couple of years of my life and remind my children of all the time because we live in a world that often

rewards confidence or plants the expectation that we need to have the confidence to take that next step first. I actually disagree with that and agree with this quote that courage precedes confidence because we have to have the courage to take that first step. How do you build confidence? It's through having the courage to do something. And so I'll leave you with that today and reminding

folks out there to play around with their courage and know that that might be the best place to start. Thank you so much for being here. This is a really lovely conversation. Agreed. It was so wonderful. Thank you for having me.