63: When the Unthinkable Happens - Grief, Motherhood & the Search for Hope With Eryn Elder

This is the grief we don’t talk about - the kind that breaks your body, shatters your identity, and forces you to rebuild from nothing. In this opening episode of our new series, The Cost of Carrying It All, we explore what it means to grieve deeply, fully, and in a world that often turns away.

Grief coach and author Eryn Elder shares the story of losing her firstborn daughter to sudden unexplained infant death and how that loss unraveled everything she thought she knew. We talk about:

• What most people get wrong about supporting a grieving friend
• How grief cracks open past trauma you thought was already “handled”
• The invisible weight of secondary losses—identity, purpose, self
• Her BloomPath™ framework: a practical, multidimensional tool for healing
• Why grief doesn’t follow a timeline—and why that’s not a problem

Whether you’ve lost someone or something, this episode will help you name the invisible pain you’ve been carrying and begin to make space for healing—on your terms.

Connect with Eryn Elder:

Website: https://www.rootsandwingsgriefcoaching.com/

Book: https://www.rootsandwingsgriefcoaching.com/griefandlossbook

Email: eryn@rootsandwingsgriefcoaching.com

Phone: 720-745-0976

Connect with Darla Ridilla:

Book a free call: https://www.highvaluewoman.info/call

Website: https://www.highvaluewoman.info

Send me an email: highvaluewoman7@gmail.com

Sign up for newsletter: https://www.highvaluewoman.info/newsletter

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darla-ridilla-3179b110/

Transcript

Eryn (00:00)
Even understanding that my daughter, Madeline, my relationship with her looks different today than it did yesterday.

And so, on one hand, in grief and loss, that makes it so challenging because that is the end of a relationship completely.

On the other hand, it's not the end of the grief for that person or that pet. And that relationship to that person or that pet that was lost will exist continuously too. And that'll look different today from how it looked yesterday. So I think if we can hold that space of allowing ourselves to ride the wave of change, it's hard, change is hard in general. And then when you layer in grief and loss, it can be really...

challenging, but when we can ride that wave together, whether that's through community or through additional support, through therapy, through coaching, as well as through our own, you know, self understanding and lived experiences, I think that's what makes life worthwhile.

Darla Ridilla (00:55)
Welcome to You Have the Power, the road to truth, freedom and real connection. I'm Darla Ridilla a certified somatic trauma-informed coach for high achieving women who are ready to stop shrinking in their relationships and start living fully expressed. If you've already done the work, you've healed, you've grown, you've set boundaries, but your connections still don't feel like home, you're not broken. You're just stuck in a pattern that no longer fits the woman you've become.

This podcast is where we break into what's next, the deeper connection, vibrant alignment, and magnetic relationships that start with you. Each episode offers somatic tools, bold truths, and real life strategies to help you embody your power, hold your standards, and lead your relationships without losing yourself. Because you're not here to be chosen, you are here to choose.

Let's get in to today's topic.

Darla Ridilla (01:54)
We are talking about grief and loss and our guest is really going to shed a lot of light on that and I'm super excited. I was actually on Erin's podcast as well. So I'm excited that we get to swap here and she's gonna be in the guest seat today. But let me introduce you to her. So Erin Elder is a certified grief and loss support specialist and an ICF trained life coach.

and coach trainer who helps adults navigate the difficult journey of loss. Erin is also the creator of the Bloom Path a practical tool designed to help grievers find hope and start to heal authentically. She is the author of Blooming Through Loss, Tending to Grief with the Bloom Path A Good Listener, Effective Collaborator, and Caring Guide. These are all the phrases clients have used to describe Erin's grief coaching practice.

She effectively listens while finding meaningful ways to collaborate with you to bring the hope and change in your life that you want to manifest. Through her one-on-one coaching, group sessions, workshops, and trainings, Erin helps people rebuild their sense of self and purpose after loss. She co-hosts the podcast, Coaching as Benevolence, where she shares thoughts on personal growth and living with compassion. Erin resides in Longmont, Colorado.

with her husband and two children while honoring the memory of her first born daughter. Erin, thank you so much for being on the show today. excited to have you.

Eryn (03:25)
Yeah, thank you so much for

having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Darla Ridilla (03:29)
We're going to dive right in. just love for you to share your personal story and how that led you to become a grief loss support specialist.

Eryn (03:37)
Yes, so over 10 years ago, I had wrapped up grad school and was working in downtown Denver in the field that I thought that I would be in for my career, which was an education policy. I was helping school leaders across the state of Colorado develop behavioral health policies for their schools and school districts. And I was driving home one day.

on I-25 in a crowded traffic and got a call from my daycare provider.

that my first born daughter, Evelyn, passed away, had stopped breathing and had been taken to the local hospital and passed away there. She was three months and 22 days old and died from sudden unexplained infant death syndrome, which has happened throughout time. This is a death situation that has been written about in historical context throughout time and still we don't have

answers. ⁓ So that's been a little bit of the the ancillary part of my grief journey is helping that to move forward and for us to find better answers about what's going on when somebody, a baby or child, because this happens in young childhood too, stop breathing with no other symptoms and they can't detect or find anything else that went wrong.

So that's led me on a very different path. I switched careers and ⁓ work with adults now who are grieving any type of loss. And it's been a long 10 plus years journey. So when I skipped ahead to my career, there's a lot that happened in between there. A lot of depression, a lot of struggle, a lot of... ⁓

challenge is a lot of good things too. A lot of like finding myself and relearning things about myself and growing in my own capacity to heal. So these past 10 years have been very full, very, very full with ⁓ my own personal journey of healing as well as supporting others who are. And I ⁓ knew that I had an extensive background in coaching. actually ⁓ launched and created a coaching program at ⁓ CU Boulder.

And so when I left that world of work there, I didn't know where I was headed in my career and my personal journey. I was on a walk one day and grief and loss coaching really came to the forefront of my being because when I was grieving early on, I tried everything, mental health therapy, acupuncture, different physical modalities, medications. I mean, you name it, I have tried it. ⁓

Coaching really wasn't a modality that was available to me in the grief and loss space because they typically aren't combined. ⁓ And so that's why I started my business to provide a coaching lens to how we can help people grow through their own grief and loss experiences while honoring what's there, ⁓ not to just get over something, but to carry it forward in a new way.

Darla Ridilla (06:49)
Yeah, as a mother myself, I cannot even imagine what that would be like. I have a, know someone that lost her daughter in a car accident. She was a young adult. And to be honest, I don't, I don't know how to support her. I tried my best, but you know, it's, a, it's a, it's a topic that many of us are really uncomfortable with. But I think that

it's very valuable for us to learn how to get a little bit more comfortable because I'm sure that there's moments where people don't feel supported because we don't know what to say. Sorry for your loss, I'm sure that doesn't even touch the surface of what it's like.

Eryn (07:36)
Yeah, and that's always a tricky one because I have a grief support specialist from the University of Wisconsin. I've been trained in other grief practices and modalities ⁓ throughout, and that comes up a lot. Like, what do you say to somebody who's grieving? And different people say this, don't say this. There's a psychotherapist that I have followed and have been really grounded in some of her work and her grief practices. And even what she says about that, I sometimes have a little bit of dissonance with because it's so challenging, just not black and white. ⁓ So I think

instead of wondering about what you say, I think it's more about companionship and showing up. ⁓ And also being okay with being your authentic self with the individual. think that makes a big difference. Now, we're all, I still stumble with people I support, with, you know, other grieving mothers, because everybody's different on their grief journey. And it's hard to really just sit in that space.

and sit there quietly. And sometimes that's what we need to do is come up beside some people.

And other times we do need to say things and things that are phrases like, I'm sorry for your loss. I think that can be helpful. Some people say, well, you should say my deepest condolences instead of I'm sorry for your loss. And I go back and forth. ⁓ I know I'm sorry for your loss kind of centers the person instead of the griever when they say that. But I still think that because it's such a part of our culture, I think it can be helpful depending on the situation.

But I also think it can be helpful to ask and provide options. ⁓ I ran a women's group a few years ago and facilitated a grief and loss group with them. And it was so fascinating because one woman's like, I really needed someone to say, hey, can I do your laundry? And the other person's like, absolutely not. I really needed someone to say, hey, can I do your dishes? Like, we want different things. So when you can come to the griever and say, man, this is really hard for you. How are you doing?

and then hold that space and say, okay, it sounds like you could maybe use some help with this or this. I can provide this on Tuesday. I'll be by then. That's a much more effective approach because it doesn't leave it all so open-ended, but still leaves the space for the griever to have their unique experience in their journey. And I do wanna speak to beyond this concept of grief, there is often, ⁓

co-occurring mental health challenges, right? So like, ⁓ when is it depression that really needs to be treated or that can kind of flow through the grief experience and that can be very challenging to know. So being an ally to your friend or family member and seeing them through that can be incredibly powerful and help them notice like, hey, this event would cause people to be depressed. I get that. And I think there are some ⁓ opportunities for help here.

I think there's a way to finesse that because when people say, you you need to get help, that's not helpful at all, right? Like, it's like, no, I think everybody needs help. We all are broken. I use that word in terms of like, we all are human. And so nobody's gonna get this right all the time and nobody's gonna always be right. But the more important thing is not focusing on that. It's focusing on companioning the griever, being there with them, giving them options.

Darla Ridilla (10:42)
No.

Eryn (11:06)
and not turning away when things get really hard. ⁓ I had a neighbor and I write about this in my book, just one instance, and for some people this would feel very intrusive and they wouldn't probably like it, but she and I had a good relationship and I knew she was ⁓ open to kind of different practices and she stopped by one day and she knew I was in a pretty terrible space and she's just like, I think we just need to scream together.

And at first I was like, this, no, I really don't want to do this. But she started and then I started and it just was like, this feels really good and healing. And I'm so grateful that she did that, you know, but for somebody else that might not have felt so good. Right. So it is, it's a challenging thing to companion and agree with her.

Darla Ridilla (11:37)
HAHAHAHA

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you know, absolutely, because I want to walk the line of being supportive, but not honoring that she may have a different way of grieving than maybe I would. So it has been difficult. And this is helpful to kind of like know what to do when I go back to her. I mean, because we just had Mother's Day a couple of days ago. And I heard from her and you know, I said, you know, I hope you find some peace. She has another another daughter.

So I hope she got some time with her, but I didn't know what else to say. I knew it was a difficult day. So, yeah.

Eryn (12:33)
Yeah, and honoring yourself in that situation, you you see and then taking care of your own being and your own boundaries too are important as you companion a griever. But it is, in my opinion, to say, better to engage and mess up.

or not land well than to go silent, which tends to be a cultural thing in the US, in America, right? Like this is what happens after funerals. Everybody shows up for the funeral and then they all leave, right? And then you're in shock, you're in different spaces where at that time it doesn't even, I could have cared less who came to my daughter's funeral at that time, to be honest. It's what I needed three months, six months, a year out, two years out even, and more.

Darla Ridilla (12:52)
Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Eryn (13:20)
And it's just a, it's a cultural thing we need to understand in our society, both at the relational level of a friend ⁓ or a family member, but also in the workplace. You know, when I work with companies or organizations,

I need to know what their Grief Aware culture is. It's not that they need to take FMLA leave for the first week, right? They need much more. And that can look different, right, depending on the type of work or the situation. But I think as being...

open to the nuance of things is going to help us create a society that does a much better job supporting its people. And at the bottom line, a healthy society supports its people at the darkest times. So that's kind of another advocacy bent that I tend to take on top of my own practice when I work with people.

Darla Ridilla (14:17)
I had a really good friend many years ago who lost her husband to ALS and she talked about how the grieving starts even before the death because he was a police officer, very active and he lost all control of his body. So watching him die before he died basically was a process. And then she was saying like the first year was raw because everything was this is the first Christmas, this is the first holiday, you know, on so forth.

But she said the second year was almost worse because you're not numb anymore now. Now you're feeling it. So you've also found that with your clients.

Eryn (14:48)
Yes.

Yes, so there are, and I think I, if I remember correctly, there was a little bit of research around this too, but ⁓ I think it also depends on the person for sure and what they're doing throughout their healing process and the timing of things. But I do think that second year is so overlooked, right? Because like you said, in your friend's situation, in my own personal experience, the second year ⁓ was rough. And I would say the first year, ⁓

Darla Ridilla (15:04)
Mm-hmm.

Eryn (15:23)
for me and the type of loss was probably a little bit ⁓ equal to her grieving what was to come with her partner because she could have had that anticipatory loss. There's actually a term for that that she was experiencing. ⁓ So it's all different, but it's longer than people think. I think that's the point.

Darla Ridilla (15:32)
Mm-hmm.

Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely. I think I've referred to the bio about the bloom path. Could you talk a little bit about what that is?

Eryn (15:50)
Yeah, so this model I created over the course of a couple years and it's grounded in a few things. It's grounded in ⁓

I was as an administrator in the College of Arts and Sciences at CU Boulder. So I saw from a higher level the importance of interdisciplinary solutions to challenges in our lives. And so that's

That also has informed this model. So what this model is, it looks at six internal touch points your grief will have with you and then seven external touch points and how they interplay as well as how they impact you and you are impacted by them. How it is applied is highly individualized and can be used in many, many, many different ways. ⁓ So for instance, one of the internal... ⁓

factors in this model is spiritual and another one is creative and I will have clients who really want to start to ground into spiritual practices while others really want to ground into creative practices. But the importance of this model is the guide rails and the framing it gives to a griever because we know that our brain is creating a map

when we grieve and it's a new one and it's the hardest map our brain has ever had to create because of how much dissonance is there and that is based on ⁓ research out of the University of Arizona ⁓ from the author of The Grieving Brain. She was able to really discern this. And so when...

I thought about that and how this model really could apply to that. I saw the importance of us having multidisciplinary lenses to apply that not only to our brain, but to our entire selves, our spiritual selves, our ⁓ emotional selves, our physical selves, such as sleep and our sexual health and all of those things. ⁓ And so in the book, I take the reader on a journey where one client has applied it throughout their grief and loss experience.

example of how it can be applied. There are other ways ⁓ to use it.

Darla Ridilla (18:13)
I'm thinking about like, in my own life in these past six months, I've had two major things that I'm still grieving, you know, one is a breakup from six months ago. And it's crazy, because I'm still that grief actually came back when I moved back to Colorado, because we had talked about coming here together. And then now I'm here by myself. And I didn't expect that to happen. But you know, and then the more recent as I lost my dog in March.

And that has been, I think it's been worse than a person to be honest. And what's interesting now is about three and a half weeks ago, I adopted another dog, because I live alone, I'm in a new community, I don't have that support system. And I just, even though I was still really raw, I felt like it was important to have something in my life that gave me joy and maybe, you know, to grieve together.

But then there's this weird thing going on with me, like, where I'm trying to grieve one dog, but also build a relationship with a new one. And it's interesting how I've never had trouble before, like connecting with a dog where I just started to let my guard down this weekend. And I'm sure that that happens with humans too, that there is this nuance where particularly maybe if it's a child and you have another I'm guessing is there something similar that happens?

Eryn (19:37)
Yeah, it was very different. I'll just speak from my personal experience with that because I, know, Evelyn was born in 2014 and then my next daughter, Madeline, who is living, she is born in 2015. So there was not a long, there was about a year long gap of grief before she was born. But I think that my fear before...

Darla Ridilla (19:40)
Mm-hmm.

Eryn (20:01)
she was born as like, how could I ever love another being in the same way that I was able to love Evelyn? How could I even do that? how can, and life kind of surprises us sometimes. And I felt like Madeline coming into the world was everything I needed in terms of, you know, she was a horrible sleeper, which is a good thing, right? My first part, it was like, I don't know, there was a different type of love, right? She's, she's a whole unique.

Darla Ridilla (20:23)
Right.

Eryn (20:31)
human being and very, you we're all different. And so loving her ⁓ was just this same amount of intense love that I felt for my daughter, Evelyn, or still feel for Evelyn. It's just different. And I think that happens.

⁓ in different ways and I think it happens in pet laws. I've worked with quite a few people who have gone through pet laws and that can be a really a big challenge, especially when they are so much a part of one's identity and so much a part of one's lifestyle and the love again that you have for them. ⁓ trying on a new life kind of in a way.

with your new dog, it's like it's not a replacement, but it also that fear can sometimes feel like it, you know, we can start to question ourselves in some way. But I think that you'll find and I'll be curious as we continue our relationship, I'll check in and see like, how's it going with your dog and like, what are you noticing?

Darla Ridilla (21:19)
Mm-hmm.

Eryn (21:31)
over the course of the year and how that relationship is shifting. And that's the thing too that is a beautiful, I don't want to say lesson in grief and loss, but just the promise of the ever changing nature of things. Even understanding that my daughter, Madeline, my relationship with her looks different today than it did yesterday.

Darla Ridilla (21:35)
Mm-hmm.

Eryn (21:56)
And so, on one hand, in grief and loss, that makes it so challenging because that is the end of a relationship completely.

On the other hand, it's not the end of the grief for that person or that pet. And that relationship to that person or that pet that was lost will exist continuously too. And that'll look different today from how it looked yesterday. So I think if we can hold that space of allowing ourselves to ride the wave of change, it's hard, change is hard in general. And then when you layer in grief and loss, it can be really...

challenging, but when we can ride that wave together, whether that's through community or through additional support, through therapy, through coaching, as well as through our own, you know, self understanding and lived experiences, I think that's what makes life worthwhile.

Darla Ridilla (22:51)
Mm hmm. Yeah, it's one of the hardest lessons to go through. ⁓ But I think with anything, there's something in it that a light some form of a light I'm guessing at the end of that tunnel. And while I have physically lost people in my immediate family, I have never lost a person that was close to me and my heart. So I

don't know what that's like. The closest thing I have is my Goliath, you know, going in March. But I, I don't know what that's like. Maybe that's the struggle with my friend too, because I've never had a human die that really, really felt bad to me.

Eryn (23:40)
Yeah, and it's okay to not know what it's like. I think that that is okay. And I think that sometimes that can keep us from supporting a griever too, but know that your own wisdom and your own experiences, even if you haven't gone through the same thing. ⁓

Darla Ridilla (23:46)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Eryn (24:03)
Inform your compassion, right? Inform your ability to sit with people, inform your ability to help people, and especially you Darla, right? In your work. Yeah, it's there.

Darla Ridilla (24:09)
Yeah. Yeah.

Darla Ridilla (24:14)
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Darla Ridilla (25:04)
So let's talk about your book, Blooming Through Loss. You we were talking off camera that you just had a book launch and you've been getting out and about. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Eryn (25:15)
Yeah, so it's here in the background and it's a white cover and then there's actually companion journal, which you can see is the green pale green cover there too. ⁓ But my book is part personal narrative part best practices and grief care I have gone through the gamma of all of the peer reviewed research and other research on grief and have chosen what I want to include in terms of what makes sense to the book. So that's in there and then includes ⁓

introduction to the Bloom path and how that can be applied to one's life. It takes you on a client's story throughout the Bloom path from the start to the finish. And then what else is in the book that I have actually gotten a few people reaching out about that they're really loving, which makes me feel like an accomplished writer in some sort of way. I have a few poems. And so the poems match kind of the cadence of the book. So I think I have

Darla Ridilla (26:04)
Right?

Eryn (26:13)
for throughout and it takes you on the journey as well. And the funny thing about the poem, so I started my career ⁓ at undergrad as a high school language arts teacher. Writing has always been the fabric and the backbone of who I am in a lot of ways. And so I always thought I was gonna write a coming of age, little women tale, kind of similar to a little women about...

my sisters and I and our life because our lives have because they have been taken in very different directions both internationally and nationally and kind of weave in this coming-of-age tale of us and I would sit down to write that I I you know sat down to write that throughout the Longmont Writers Club and could not get anything except some dialogue here and there and so I was like okay this I don't think this is what I'm supposed to write somebody else somebody else is supposed to write this story

⁓ So I sat down to write this book and it flew from me, but it flew from me from the poetry that I had written in my grief experience. And that poetry was very depressive poetry. And I was like, yes, I'm gonna be like Dylan Thomas, this famous depressed poet kind of thing. ⁓ And so I sent that poetry to my friend who was an editor on my book, who's an editor out in Pennsylvania. And I said,

could you take a look at this? And I think I want to publish all this poetry. And she was just like, well, I don't know about that. And so she's like, keep writing. And so then I came back to her with the concept of this, this book, and I said, it's already started writing it. And I'm like, I think we can resurrect some of the poems. She's like, yes, we can definitely resurrect some of those poems that you had written.

Darla Ridilla (28:02)
Hahaha!

Eryn (28:03)
I had to tell that story because that's in there. It's kind of fun to see that like, I didn't know what people would think. And I've had a couple people reach out actually about the poems and how much they felt they were helpful and meaningful. So it has a lot it packs a punch in 146 pages, I tried not to make it too long as the you know, in the self help genre when I kind of keep it a little shorter. And ⁓ I think it's it's, it's a book for anybody who's

Darla Ridilla (28:11)
Mm-hmm.

Eryn (28:32)
grieved any loss, ⁓ death, divorce, heartache, pets, jobs, homes, you know, we've all have something to grieve. And it's also for people who are supporting grievers, whether that's grief counselors or coaches or ⁓ spiritual leaders, pastors, priests, you you name it, I think that it's a benefit to so many people.

Darla Ridilla (28:59)
Yeah, absolutely. ⁓

You know, as you honored your firstborn daughter through your own grief, what would you recommend others do when they're doing the same thing?

Eryn (29:18)
Yeah, in relationship specifically to child loss or just any death loss or...

Darla Ridilla (29:22)
any death loss

at all or or you know, whatever speak whatever, whatever comes up for you.

Eryn (29:27)
I think honoring the paradox because you need to listen to yourself, but it's really hard to listen to yourself when that brain is creating a new map because you are changing. You are, you are not the same person that you were. Now there obviously are roots of who you always are, but grief will change you and you have the capacity to heal with it.

and the capacity to grow in the ways that you want to grow, even in those first stages or even when there are fallbacks into depression or despair, right? That's part of it. But that darkness opens us up to a new type of light that we can live within. And so as far as honoring ⁓ the experience of loss, I think, again, listening to yourself and not feeling like you have to do something just because that's always been a cultural practice.

⁓ but also being able to be open to the newness that comes into your life and realize that as you honor your loss, your wants and needs around it will continue to shift. So the way that you honor that loss will continue to shift. And it doesn't have to be a huge memorial or something like that. The honoring is how you integrate the experience into your life.

It's how you become who you're always meant to be, even despite the laws. And so I think investing in the personal development work, that is kind of the lens that I like to lean into, just as much as in, you know, how will I honor the person that was lost through a memorial or through this? I think it's honoring how they shaped you, how they changed your life, and how you can then live that out.

Darla Ridilla (31:19)
You know, and I've observed in my own personal experiences, people in my life who've lost someone and then it tears the family apart. You know, whether it's a mother, daughter, husband and wife, you know, what kind of they're all in their own grief. So what would you do to help the individual but also the family relationships too?

Eryn (31:42)
Yeah, I think this has to happen at the individual level and the societal level. So the societal level, we need to normalize grieving. The reason why these family dynamics are so challenged is because we have not said, you hey, you the father, you can grieve how you need to, right? Hey, you the mom, you can grieve how you need to. And yeah, that might start to tear some things apart or might look different. But when we start to have those conversations at a larger scale level, I think that trickles into

at the familial level where people can feel comfortable grieving how they need to grieve and recognizing and honoring their partner and their children's grief as well. I mean, my husband and I learned a lot the hard way, right, too, which I was really struggling three months out. And I talk about this in my book with a severe depression that actually turned into a psychotic break.

and I landed in a mental health hospital to ⁓ change my sleeping because I had been breastfeeding that entire time and everything was all out of whack. And he was grieving his own way and I was dealing with it in this way. And we had to talk through...

⁓ maybe some personal and relational guilt that we are feeling within our relationship and some anger that he had about the situation. And just, it took a lot of time and talking. And I don't want it to have to get to that point for people where...

that they have to completely hit the bottom to come back up. And I think there is some actually hope in that and there is some help in that. But I think for families that are grieving, now that was over 10 years ago, now really honoring and listening to one another. Because when you listen to your partner in the relationship or your child and what they need and their grief experiences, even if you are grieving yourself,

That is healing too, right? Like when you can let, it doesn't mean that you have to be their counselor or their support person, but sometimes by listening to other's perspectives, especially within our own families, we can learn about how we can engage each other and move forward in a helpful way and recognize that it's not gonna be linear. One day we might be really angry with each other and another day,

You know, it might be really rough. And if we don't have the communication skills and we don't have the support to go through that, that's when you have all those breakdowns too. And that's really hard at the family level. So for the people who are in those situations where the family system is really breaking down through all of this, I would say definitely get professional help, get outside resources.

as much as possible and see what's available if funding isn't available, like what's available in community resources at low cost or no cost. And come up with a game plan to at least start not mystifying the grief experience in the family, but bringing it to the forefront and really trying to understand what's going on for everybody. And like I said, you're changing in grief and loss. And so as you change, your relationships are going to change and they may not work out.

So that can be a whole other story too. ⁓

Darla Ridilla (35:07)
It is and then

there's a whole other level of grief with that I'm sure that comes with that and but I'm glad that you're you're talking about it because I remember when I took a lifetime psychology class and it was from you know birth to death and of course the last chapter was that then we talked about Elizabeth Kubler Ross and I know there's some new controversy about her concepts that have been ⁓ come to light.

But there was this discomfort of I don't want to talk about this. I don't want to write an essay about this. And the professor was wonderful because she said, we need to talk about this. We need to be OK with it. Yeah, we don't want to talk about it because it highlights our own mortality, which is very scary. But we're doing a disservice to our society and to those who have lost when we don't talk about it.

Eryn (35:59)
Absolutely. I think that that's actually I'm gonna go back and talk really briefly because you mentioned Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and I want to say kind of two things about her. So she was a key researcher who looked at people at the end of life who were dying themselves and their own grief experiences, not the grief of other people, it was specifically those who were on their way out.

Darla Ridilla (36:00)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Eryn (36:28)
and saw that there were these stages. America and other cultures really like linear things. So people started to grasp onto that and really be like, okay, we have a linear model. We have these five stages. Everything's cured. You know, like that situation. And she has since come out and said that is not the intention. And so I value her work in a way because it brought grief conversations to the forefront.

Darla Ridilla (36:35)
Mm-hmm.

Right?

Eryn (36:57)
really more than any other grief researcher or anybody, especially in kind of more of the modern history, how it's been extrapolated and talked about, that's been the challenge, that's been incorrect. And I think that we can say, you know, thank you for really bringing this up and helping us move our conversations forward. Now let's start having more conversations as a culture about how this is much more nuanced, how this is, you know.

⁓ a very mystified experience.

Darla Ridilla (37:31)
Yeah, and it's different for everyone because I have another friend who lost both her husband and her daughter, I think within a one to two year period. And she's this like, super strong, amazing woman. Like I look at her like, how did you survive one of those things, let alone two within a short period of time? And you know, the contrast with the other friend who's struggling, who, who, and neither is right or wrong.

but both of them have approached it from a very different perspective and being able to support and honor both of them and not put them in a box or no, this isn't the grief step. You're supposed to be here, right?

Eryn (38:09)
Exactly.

Yeah. Well, just think about it too. Each person has only their own unique experiences. Nobody else in this world, in this lifetime, in the history of humanity has ever had your experience. So why would that individual with all those unique experiences and obviously the unique biology grieve exactly the same way as someone else? Like it just doesn't even make sense.

Darla Ridilla (38:33)
Right.

you take a creative approach and you involved high school students in your book launch. I'd like to hear more about that. You know what inspired that collaboration and how has that impacted your mission? Yeah.

Eryn (38:47)
What a good question.

Yeah. So I mentioned earlier, I started as a high school language arts teacher and here in Longmont, we have an amazing school district and we have what is called the Innovation Center, which does phenomenal work for students, the community, teachers. It's just really a nice space. And one of the tracks that they offer to high school students is an entrepreneurial track that they can...

Darla Ridilla (38:54)
Mm-hmm.

Eryn (39:15)
take and get paid for and they help local businesses with things related to entrepreneurship around marketing and event planning. And so when I saw that

those are the two things that they really work on. And those were two of my unmet needs that I needed to really think about when I thought about the book. was like, oh, this is such a, the stars align, right? And it brought back my high school teaching experience and engaged students in this really important project. And like you said, it brought grief to other people who maybe aren't talking about it so that who knows, maybe 50 years from now, 20 years from now.

Darla Ridilla (39:39)
Yeah.

Eryn (39:57)
one of those students may feel a little bit more supported. We just don't know. But anyway, it was awesome. They planned my event for the book launch at the Longmont Museum. And that included everything from food to design to activities. It was quite impressive. And then there was a student who took the lead on my content calendar for my social media marketing on my book.

Darla Ridilla (40:01)
Mm-hmm.

Eryn (40:25)
and he knocked it out of the park. I will say his level of detail, just attention to detail, everything, I was highly impressed and so grateful because that is not an area that I excel in. ⁓ And so they really filled a gap and a community need. And I think that's so cool. Like that's how the system is set up to fill a gap in the community's needs. And the students are great and they really worked hard. So

Yeah, that's how that came to be.

Darla Ridilla (40:57)
Very cool, very different. And that's what I loved about it. Like, this is kind of cool. High school students. I don't know if you have any experience like with narcissistic abuse, a lot of my listeners have experienced that. So if you do, or you have any perspective on that, how you know, how is that kind of different when you have, you know, versus basic trauma versus narcissistic abuse? Do you have any opinion on that?

Eryn (41:21)
Yeah, so my lens would be around grief. I don't have ⁓ clinical training expertise in narcissistic abuse. However, I do see this a lot specifically with moms and daughter situations. And I think that's at the forefront with Mother's Day ⁓ having passed and the mother wound that people can have and then carry and then need to heal. so I think that grief, whether it's narcissistic abuse,

past traumas or other really awful things that have happened to people in their lifetimes, I think grief opens up those wounds that we already have and really either create a space to explore those with support, like if that's the key to having key support, or they can really start to kind of also feel like too much.

And I can speak personally in my grief experience. That's how I felt at one point with all those unhealed or even unacknowledged, not even noticed wounds around the narcissistic abuse and the traumas of the past that I had just kind of stored away. Grief wouldn't let me store those away anymore. It really opened up everything. ⁓ And again, I think this is different for different people. But what I will say is just,

Darla Ridilla (42:35)
Yeah.

Eryn (42:44)
if you know it can feel so overwhelming right when all of those things come up ⁓ be as gentle with yourself as possible and so that means talking kindly to yourself and noticing the negative thoughts that you are saying to yourself ⁓ regardless if you're saying negative thoughts about the person who harmed you or whatever i think it's important to really root into i'm going to just really be gentle about the thoughts about myself first and i think that is a good route

in a good way to kind of then explore what you really need. Maybe it's a counselor that specifically specializes in narcissistic abuse. ⁓ Maybe it's something specifically with your grief. There's so many different things. And that's a hard part too when I tie this back to grief and loss, it does open up so much. It can be really hard to pinpoint where should I start or what should I start with? And I think that's where the Bloom path can anchor people.

can really help them see, I really need to start in the emotional space and I probably need to go speak with someone in narcissistic abuse or that sort of thing. And then the timing is also a challenge because maybe it's not the right time to have that conversation about a certain trauma or about a narcissistic abuse situation, but maybe it will be in a month or two.

Darla Ridilla (43:51)
Mm-hmm.

Right. Yeah, you know, I was thinking about ⁓ at the end of the year, so I went through a breakup in November and it was only a two and a half month relationship and here I am six months out still grieving it. Like, and at first I was like, what the heck is wrong with me? But I think that it was just there's just more going on than than ⁓ the usual relationship. I was pretty invested in it. But I remember at the end of the year, I just could not in December seem to move on. Like I was a mess.

crying and I thought, you what? I'm just going to give myself permission. I'm going to grieve as hard as I want for the remainder of the month. You know, starting the new year, you know, this is different than death for sure, but starting the new year, then I'm going to have to really think about moving on. But I decided it's OK to give myself permission. And in a way, I'm still doing that. Not as intense, but like when I first got here, I'm like, what the heck is this? And I'm like, you know what? It's OK.

you know, there's a specific bar that I go to that I know that he would love and they're all in their cowboy hats and their cowboy boots and that was kind of his MO for dressing up and the music he would have loved. And every time I go there, I get another pang of grief. And I thought, okay, this is just the process. It doesn't make sense to me at all. This doesn't make sense, but maybe it's not supposed to.

Eryn (45:24)
I love what you said there, because we don't always have to do the mini making and it doesn't always have to make sense. And I love that you're honoring what you're feeling instead of just shoving it aside. I think that is healing and really important to the whole process itself too. Yeah.

Darla Ridilla (45:41)
let's talk about your podcast really quick. I don't wanna forget about that because it's a great podcast and can you share how you got into that and what you do with it?

Eryn (45:49)
Yeah.

Yes. So for the past over a year and a half, we release an episode every Wednesday and it's with my friend LaShawn Howard, who lives here in Longmont with me. She's a nonprofit director and also a coaching guru in terms of positive intelligence coaching. And so we got into this because we had very similar interests and very similar philosophies around what coaches should do and what they should not do. And also how coaching had not only

impacted clients lives, but had impacted our own lives. So we started to say, hey, this needs to be shared just with the general population, just basic coaching understanding, because there's so many myths about it in terms of what it is, because you see sports coaching or you see, you think coaching and it's just a little bit different, I think, than what people typically tend to first think. So that was where we started from. And in coaching as benevolence was the title that we came up with just because

Coaching has grown our self-compassion and our benevolence for ourselves and others. And so our topics always tie back into the theme of coaching concepts and benevolence. And they can range from anything from we had a guest on who talked about his advocacy work for Parkinson's, all the way to Darla talking about her expertise in narcissistic abuse as well. So ⁓ very many different types of guests and topics that we cover.

But our style is very conversational and we will, LaShawn and I have a conversation with our guests or we'll have a conversation just with each other and a topic that is typically more recent or something that we had said, oh, we really need to get to this and finally have a chance to talk about it along the way. We do only audio. So we have a lot of ways to go. We very much bootstrap just like.

pick this up and went and we record on Zoom even, which I know is not the greatest. And so, yeah, it's been a really good experience overall. We've also gotten some really nice feedback and have some listeners kind of in different parts of the world even we're finding. But we keep doing it because we love doing it. Like one day we might wake up and say, okay, we don't have anything else to talk about, but.

Darla Ridilla (47:53)
Yeah.

Eryn (48:15)
It's just been a really good experience for both of us.

Darla Ridilla (48:19)
Yeah, I have to say as a fellow podcasters fell into my lap, but it's something that I've like totally enjoyed. I love it. Yeah, for sure. So is there anything that I haven't asked you that you would like to share?

Eryn (48:27)
Yeah, it's great.

Hmm. I don't think so. I just want to highlight that ⁓ my services for my one-on-one coaching and then depending on the season for group coaching ⁓ can be virtual so they can I can work with anybody in the US and If people are interested in learning more about the one-on-one approach I do offer a first free meeting to really understand if it's a good fit And what they're looking for and what I can offer

And then I just also want to say again about my book. I have that out in the world now. It's on Amazon, Barnes and Noble online, starting to get into some local bookshops here too. And I appreciate the support of the book because it helps us move conversations around grief and loss forward. And it kind of ties back into my advocacy side in that way. ⁓

that I try to kind of keep a little bit separate from obviously the work that I do with my individual clients and things like that.

Darla Ridilla (49:35)
awesome. And so if people want to work with you, where can they find you?

Eryn (49:39)
Yeah, so they can email me. My first name is Erin, spelled E-R-Y-N at rootsandwingsgriefcoaching.com. That last part's a mouthful. ⁓ And then my website is rootsandwingsgriefcoaching.com. So those are typically the two best ways to find me. I also have my phone number out there, so I'll just throw that out there too. It is 720-745-0976.

Darla Ridilla (50:09)
We'll put those in the show notes as well so people can access that easily. But yes, I want to thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. Hopefully it's enlightened some people and gotten them a little bit more comfortable. Maybe if they're going through grief themselves or have a friend or family member, it'll help them also to navigate that.

Eryn (50:14)
Great.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me Darla.

Darla Ridilla (50:32)
Yeah, it was a pleasure. And to my listeners, you have the power.

Darla Ridilla (50:39)
Thank you for listening to You Have the Power, the road to truth, freedom and real connection. If you've already done the work, if you've healed, grown and set boundaries, but your relationships still don't reflect your evolution, then this is your next level. This podcast isn't about staying stuck in the story of what went wrong. It's about stepping into what's possible when you stop shrinking, stop performing and start leading in your relationships from radical self-trust.

If this episode called something forward in you, share it, subscribe, and send it to the woman in your life who's ready to rise. if you're not just ready to listen, but you're ready to live this, check the show notes. You'll find the link to connect with me and take the next step toward magnetic connection, embodied empowerment,

and relationships that actually meet you where you are. you need a new pattern, and you're the one who gets to decide. Do I stay in the old story, or am I ready to write the new one? You already have the power. Now, let's use it.