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The Relationship Blueprint: Unlock Your Power of Connection
Colleen is a student of Dr. Harville Hendrix and Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt who created the Imago Theory and have brought this work to over 50 countries around the world. She is profoundly influenced by this belief shared by Dr. Harville Hendrix. He said, "We are born in relationship, wounded in relationship and healed in relationship."
What are you struggling with today? Colleen believes that almost any problem we have began with a broken or unhealed relationship. The anxiety or deep sadness we feel often began with unresolved issues in our relationships with our parents, partner, family or friends. When we have unmet needs we are programed to get those needs met. When we don't get what we need we protest by protecting ourselves. this often looks like defensive, critical, demanding behaviors. these behaviors are most often ineffective. As a result we may develop unhealthy relationship with food, sex, gambling our or a substance.
Colleen invites world renown relationship specialists from all over the world to help her guests explore their own relationships and see their problems through a relational lens. She will help us explore how to create intimacy to deepen our connections. Her listeners will gain insights to create a more joyful life.
Colleen is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the state of South Carolina, a certified, Advanced Imago Clinical therapist, a clinical instructor for the Imago International Trading Institute while maintaining her clinical practice in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
Thank you for joining Colleen today. Remember, don't let life happen to you. You can be the architect of your relationships. Join her next time on the Relationship Blueprint; Unlock Your Power of Connection.
Contact Colleen at colleen@hiltonheadislandcounseling.com for questions or to be a guest on the show!
The Relationship Blueprint: Unlock Your Power of Connection
Sharing the Silent Struggle of Miscarriage and Loss, with Allison Dragony
This episode delves into the profound complexities of grief within relationships and how couples can support each other through challenging times. Through Allison Dragony’s insights, listeners learn about the importance of open communication, understanding neurodivergence in emotional responses, and creating safe spaces for dialogue when navigating loss.
• Exploring the impact of business loss on personal relationships
• The importance of connection during grief
• Demonstrating Imago dialogue techniques for deeper communication
• Discussing the significance of pregnancy loss and its emotional toll
• Navigating grief in neurodivergent families
• Encouraging listeners to seek help and utilize available resources
• Acknowledging that everyone processes grief differently
• Sharing personal experiences to validate listeners’ feelings
Let's remember that grief doesn't have to be faced alone; support and understanding are crucial in these moments.
Thank you for joining me today on the Relationship Blueprint. Remember, don't let life happen to you. You can be the architect of your relationships. So join me next time on the Relationship Blueprint; Unlock Your Power of Connection.
Contact Colleen at colleen@hiltonheadislandcounseling.com for questions or to be a guest on the show!
Welcome back everybody. This is the Relationship Blueprint and we're here to unlock your power of connection, and I'm so excited today to have Allison Dragony with me. We've known each other a long time now. She was one of the first people I met when I became part of the Imago community, which I don't know what year it is and we don't care. Let me tell you a little bit more about Allison.
Speaker 1:Allison is a certified Imago professional facilitator and coach with over 13 years of experience in the Imago community. She has worked as a workshop and training coordinator at Imago Georgia, alongside Wendy and Bob Patterson and Jessica Ames, and I want to tell you Jessica is my next guest, which is going to be awesome. She's going to talk to us about menopause and I'm very excited to hear about that, and that Wendy's episode Relational Contracting has been by far the most successful episode of all. So Allison comes from good stock. In her role as Director of Trainings, workshops and Practice Development at Omago Georgia. She sets up all the professional trainings. She develops newsletters, social media, blogs, posts, and everybody, including me, wishes that they could have an Allison.
Speaker 1:Allison resides in Tucson, arizona, with her husband, chris McLean, and her two children. You have a background in theater, writing and clay art, you're also the co-owner I didn't know this of the Hidden Grill restaurant with your husband. In addition to your work with Imago Georgia, allison offers something pretty amazing. Allison offers workshops called Sharing the Silent Struggle, which provides space for individuals navigating the grief pregnancy loss, individuals navigating the grief pregnancy long. So is there anything that I've left out?
Speaker 2:about you, allison that you feel is important to share. No, you, you got just about everything. I think I just have one correction, is that? Uh, I should adjust it that we're the former owners of the hidden girl. We did close the restaurant, so you did you did, you did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what year was that now?
Speaker 2:We closed it at the end of 2022. We were unfortunately one of the casualties of COVID in the food industry, so we just couldn't keep it going through all the challenges that came after the pandemic. I guess it was still kind of during the pandemic at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 2022. So you had this restaurant and then you had to close, and I don't. I am absolutely sure you're not alone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh yeah. There were so many of our peers and you know former co-workers and stuff who had their own food businesses that had to close during that time. So you know it was, we loved it, we had such a good time doing that restaurant and the food was really successful in our community. It was just, you know, kind of bad timing for us, I think.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, in timing when you're saying that it's so important, because in my practice, I've met a number of clients who, like they came for couples work, but they had a story. Their story often revolved around, like the 2008 crisis, financial crisis and the shame attached to the loss of real estate everything right, and then also the pandemic and restaurants and businesses that had to close. So really, what we're talking about is grief again, aren't we?
Speaker 2:had to work through in our relationship and still are. You know of that kind of having this big dream and putting so much energy into something that um didn't work out and not because of hard work. No, it's like you could work a lot, and sometimes these things are just not meant to be.
Speaker 1:It's it wasn't the right time so, yeah, so as a couple now you're still working through some of those things, because you really did have a dream and not because of anything in your control. That dream really changed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it did yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think that's sort of the story of marriage, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, yeah, Absolutely yeah. People living and dreaming together and working through. When things don't go as we lined out, planned very specifically, you have to kind of roll with it together.
Speaker 1:It reminds me of the cartoon show Up.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love that movie so much.
Speaker 1:That clip in the very beginning, when you know how they have the dream right. And then they have one dream and they have to let go of that dream. I think the car breaks down and they break into their piggy bank again to put their dream aside for now to get the car fixed. And then that happened over and over again in their marriage and there's a really critical part of that story, isn't there? Do you use that at all in your work with couples suffering the loss of pregnancy?
Speaker 2:I have it, but now I would like to reuse it, revisit it. I remember that clip being just such a perfect example of of this longevity of marriage and the things that, um, that we go through and their experience of that that same thing and their resilience, and then how he ends with this child in his care. You know, it's just, it's kind of an interesting, beautiful, sad journey that they show in 10 minutes.
Speaker 1:It's amazing in 10 minutes and there's not a time when kevin and I do the couples workshop. There isn't a time that both of us usually don't wait. We have tears because, even though we've seen it a million times, you we've had all those losses and joys. Yeah, but many of the losses. And you know, I always say to my couples you can get through anything connected, but boy, when you're a couple and you don't feel connected through those hard things, it's so lonely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's the drive that I have with Imago and using the dialogue especially through an experience like pregnancy loss, but also the loss of a business or anytime you're grieving is that it's so easy to kind of turn in into yourself in your grief and get overwhelmed and isolated and kind of stay in this place where we don't often have the words, I think, in our culture to talk about grief, but putting couples and putting even individual you know other people who have experienced pregnancy loss who are not in a couple together in a dialogue to be able to have this kind of structure and comfort and, um, I'm thinking about um, like a nest situation. You know, it's this little cozy kind of space for people to have where they can open up and share in an environment that is safe and connected. And, um, because of the structure, I think you are protected from going to these places that can feel really scary with grief.
Speaker 1:You make such a great point though, allison, about the safety of the instruction. So I think what people you know our listeners I have planned to have a couple do a dialogue in the next couple of weeks. In fact I was supposed to film tonight and the couple, I think he's taking a class so they can't do it. But I don't think our listeners really understand the dialogue unless they're my client or there's someone else's client. But really we've done a little bit of it on the show, where we really try to model the mirroring and the validation and empathy. Maybe it would help if you and I did one right now.
Speaker 2:That sounds great.
Speaker 1:Would that be okay?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'd be great.
Speaker 1:Okay, so do you want to share something, maybe about the restaurant or anything else, and then I'll be the receiver and you'd be the sender.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that sounds great.
Speaker 1:So, before we start, you know if you're going to try this at home, typically what you would do is you would do what I just did, which is ask for an appointment. Hey, I'd really like to talk with you about your restaurant. Is this a good time? And then you know allison has already agreed. And then the first thing we do after that is to make sure that we're breathing, we're calming our nervous system, we're reminding ourselves that we're safe with this person because they've agreed to have this. And I'm saying dialogue because it's not a conversation, it is a safe way to converse, it is called a dialogue and, uh, and we kind of manage our own reactivity. If, if allison didn't want to do it right now because she didn't sign up for this, she gets to to say no, I don't think so. And then after that we would give each other appreciation, and I'd like to do that with you, allison. What I've appreciated about you is that you manage Imago Georgia with so much professionalism and joy.
Speaker 2:Would you say that what you appreciate about me is that I've managed Lago Georgia with such professionalism and joy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, whenever I've had a question or anything at all, you respond quickly and really so. So, genuinely and whenever you had a question, um, you find that I respond quickly and genuinely to what you're asked yeah, and so when I imagine, when a client calls and they want to see Wendy or Bob or Jessica and they're like in despair and they schedule that with you, that they feel safe already.
Speaker 2:I can imagine that when a client calls and they're scheduling and they might be in despair and they reach me, that they are feeling some of that warmth and connection already.
Speaker 1:You make it safe, you make it safe, yeah, and so yeah, that's it. Thanks, coco, you're welcome.
Speaker 2:And I would like to give you an appreciation, coco. Knowing you for all these years, I remember the first time I met you at a training at Bob and Wendy's, just feeling such warmth and care and passion for your work from you so what you remember about me from all those years ago is my warmth and care and my passion for the work that I do. Yes, and also your passion and warmth for your family, that you're such a dedicated mother and grandmother and partner, and I just admire your and Kevin's relationship as well.
Speaker 1:You also want to acknowledge that I also have that care and that warmth for my family and my children, my grandchildren, my husband, my family and you really, my husband, my family, and you really admire my relationship with Kevin, thank you. So now we would, I might say, is there more? And we could go deeper. But is there more? Is the magical question which you'll hear in a few minutes. But we always start with that appreciation so that we remind, especially if we're going to talk about something hard, we just remind our hearts and our minds that this person is somebody we care about and our goal is to just come to some sort of understanding at the end of it. Notice, I didn't say agreement, but understanding. So the reason I asked about the restaurant as an example was because I really do care about Allison and I'm curious about how she's managing her. So if you want to just get started and then I'll mirror, is that okay with you? Okay?
Speaker 2:Well, I think one of the struggles that we've had with the restaurant is that we put so much energy into it. We collect it, we put money into it and, more than that, we put our just souls and energy into this business and trying to make it successful.
Speaker 1:So one of the things you're still struggling with is how much time and money and energy you put into it, and you know you did so much to make it successful. Did I miss anything?
Speaker 2:There is more. Yeah, I think, especially with my husband. He's so talented. You know, he was really doing everything himself. It was his concept. He was cooking all the food from scratch. You know, just putting in so much work, working 80 hours a week on this business and did a wonderful job. Business and did a wonderful job, you know, I mean executed it at such a level that the food was delicious, the meals were coming out on time, people were satisfied with what was happening. But we just couldn't ever get it over that level to, you know, make it sustainable.
Speaker 1:And I should say great stuff as well. You know well. So your husband, you're really kind of really pointing to him that what you, what you know, that it's a specifically for him, that this was his concept and that he put in 80 hours a week and had such great food and you had great feedback about the food and you know you, you did well, people were really satisfied, but you just couldn't like kind of get over that um, for that thing during that time got it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, and our staff I think you know it was really have. We had a young staff of uh people that were, you know, wonderful and um, it's always hard when something doesn't work out and you have to let people go. That also. They're all wonderful. They, of course, were very, you know, talented, uh brilliant people, so they've gone on to great jobs after that.
Speaker 1:But that transition, too, was really hard for the rest of us so, yeah, so the acknowledgement of this amazing staff that you had and that difficulty like having to let them go, and that, although they're really great and talented and they've gone on to other things, that was also part of the gum Absolutely Is there more, I guess, just for any I, you know, I know a lot of people went through this and one of the things that was really helpful for us after losing the restaurant was to just kind of hibernate for a little bit.
Speaker 2:You know, we had this like six month period of transition and kind of reconnecting with each other, because there had been a lot of strain when you're in a business together. I've done that with a partner.
Speaker 1:You nearly done that one yeah.
Speaker 2:So it can be a lot of energy that was poured into this other thing and so finding each other again without that thing, without that business, is an important journey for us. That kind of it's still going, but that six months after I remember being very intense on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you really took six months to hibernate and you called it a transition and that you had to decide to really kind of go in together to kind of reconnect and really process what you both had gone through. But also this reconnection, because you were both so in it and that owning a business together is stressful, it adds a whole other layer to your relationship. And so then, who are we without the restaurant? Did I get that?
Speaker 2:You got it. You got it exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, you got it. You got it exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:No. So it makes total sense to me that you would really need that time, after this dream dies, that you and your husband had to hibernate and figure it out Like together, how do we transition and who are we without the restaurant? How do we begin again. It makes total sense. You would want to just hibernate and I imagine now you might be feeling less sad, but still sad. Are there any other feelings?
Speaker 2:um also proud.
Speaker 1:I feel very proud and I'm so proud of my husband, like I just told, so much um care and pride for what he was able to accomplish so, yeah, a little bit sad, but really a lot of pride, proud of both of you, what you've overcome, but also really proud of your husband and what he was able to accomplish. So thank you, allison, for letting our listeners just see you know how a dialogue can be so safe and that structure, if you notice notice, listeners, that uh, I didn't start talking about my business. I didn't start I although I wanted to, because we have been my husband and I have owned a business and I wanted to connect with allison and say I get it, I get it, you know, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but in in the dialogue, I'm the receiver and I am the container for Allison. I'm not making it about me and it forced me to really receive her. And although I had ways I wanted to connect, I wasn't thinking about the next thing that I wanted to say, which stopped me from truly listening. So there's more about that in other episodes, but I thank you for doing that.
Speaker 1:So that, right, I think that when you're talking about your lovely powerful group, you run. When you were talking about the structure, I wanted them to see and hear why the structure talking about something so intimate and with people that you're not really intimate with is so important. So your journey to Imago I find it fascinating and I was learning more about your history and I was like, wow, so Allison, I got Allison scheduled and did blogs and I had no idea really how deeply you'd become. You know, an Imago facilitator. You're just part of us and can you tell us about how you found Imago and how it's impacted your life?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so.
Speaker 2:I actually I was nannying at the time and a dog sitting and I had one of my nannying clients introduced me saw a job posting with Bob and Wendy and so I applied and got the job and immediately just felt like, you know, oh, wow, okay, this place is cool, this is really interesting and you know, I'd always really been interested in therapy and psychology and so being a part of their practice was just really cool.
Speaker 2:I quickly became the training and workshop coordinator and so I kind of shifted away from the office management into the trainings and workshops after a few years. But getting to be in the workshops with couples and I mean so I've done, I've been in assisting workshops for 13 years now, you know, and we do six workshops a year, four to six a year, you know. So the number of couples and individuals that I've seen come in through the workshops is just incredible. The diversity, the you know the age range that we get in a workshop, the where people are in their relationship, all together doing the same thing and having their own unique experience each time, you know, it's just incredible.
Speaker 1:Well, I think what you're saying. So let me like just for, I'm actually doing a workshop in Florida. It's mostly I developed this workshop. We planned it for my therapists that are getting trained, because it's their requirement that they attend a workshop, right? And so Kevin and I were talking about it and we decided to make this a spiritual workshop, looking at Imago through the lens of spirituality and God and the space between, and so we've never done that before, but we're going to bring that to Claremont Florida March 28th through 30th and I'm very excited about it because it is part of our relationship and because we already had 10 couples that were very interested in sort of exploring not only Imago but through the spiritual land, it felt like a natural thing for us to do.
Speaker 1:And so what I want the listeners to understand in these couples workshops, as Allison described, we know people come like sometimes they're not even married yet. They're just those eager couples that are trying to prevent a divorce and they're lovely. And then there are people that are in a lot of trouble, and then there are people that just want to keep deepening their relationship and are really not satisfied with good enough. They want more. And then you talked about the ages and I wondered from your lens because you've actually done more workshops than I have what is the most exciting thing for you? As you see couples on day one and then the last day, I think the most exciting thing is on day one.
Speaker 2:I think the most exciting thing is on day one. You see a lot of nervousness or kind of skepticism, I would say A lot of them. We called the couples a draggy and a dragger, you know, and so the dragger is real excited to go, the person who signed them up is real excited, and maybe the partner is not bought into what we're doing just yet. Um, and so that first night is really interesting to just see the energy of both of the partners and where they are. And then by sunday, by the end of the weekend, to see them just relax and melt and just be together. And so often, um, if there was tension at the beginning of the weekend, that's released and they're gentle together and they've kind of found this way to reconnect, to look in each other's eyes again.
Speaker 2:You know, I think that's one of the most powerful exercises that I remember, even from my own workshop experience. But how often we don't look at our partners because we're so busy doing life or we're so, you know, have to deal with our children or our jobs or whatever is happening, that we don't take that time to even just face our partner. And so to see this connection, to see people taking in each other's faces again or touching at the end of the workshop, is just that's my favorite. I love it.
Speaker 1:Me too. It's almost addictive, I've got to say there's just this hope that you hold for these couples on Friday, and you know that they are nervous. There is definitely a dragging. I've never seen two people who are like, let's go. Usually there's one writer who's like, all right, or instead, if you don't go, we're getting divorced or whatever.
Speaker 1:But being able to watch people through the exercises that they get to do on their own, they don't have to share in a big group, because it's not therapy, it's psychoeducation, and watching them go off on their own and having these meaningful dialogues that help them go. Oh God, we've had this conversation a thousand times but I never heard you like them and that Kevin and I still, you know, have dialogues like that, you know, and we're not any spring chickens, you know, and I am always so grateful and kind of surprised still and like wow, so that's really came up inside of me and I had no idea it was there. And then the resentment sort of just melts too. You used the word melting. I think that's an excellent adjective. So you also you and your husband did a workshop. When did that happen in your journey?
Speaker 2:We did the Getting the Love you Want workshop before we got married. So we had been together for about four years and I had done the Keeping workshop by myself, which is the Imago Individuals workshop, before that. So I kind of knew what to expect and Chris had no idea other than what I had shared at home, you know, other than what I had shared at home, you know. But it was.
Speaker 2:It was so wonderful for him, I think, because he is a man of few words, you know, he doesn't assert himself with words a lot, and so to have this structure where I and it was good for me too because I had to be quiet, you know and it was good for me too because I had to be quiet, you know, I had to not talk and to listen and I think it was just I mean, it was transformative for our relationship and our communication To be able to have this space where it taught both of us that me to quiet down and him to offer up more. It was just wonderful and I'm so glad we did it before we got married. That was a really good decision.
Speaker 1:What a great way to start out. You know, I don't think I've ever met anybody. In fact, I had this really lovely couple they're in their 70s and he said at one point I wonder if in my first marriage, if I had had this, if I could have kept my family together and it wasn't disrespectful to his second wife. It was just sort of a real awareness. And he's a pretty famous surgeon. You know it has nothing to do with how bright you are, but really like the skills we didn't learn. You know, how, how do we, how do we talk about hard things without hurting our partner? How do we do that? So, yeah, there's a, there's a great gift in communication and and then, once you know it, you can't unknow it.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, knowing, yes, yes, and I'm thinking then so you and Chris did this and then, of course, you've really launched into something really big where you live. Do you want to tell us about that journey with the beautiful group that you run? Can you share a little bit about how you got there?
Speaker 2:Yes, I will. So I became an Imago facilitator. I was the admin on the training training when we all went to COVID, so I was helping transfer that all to Zoom. We're doing an international training suddenly on Zoom for the first time, as everyone knows. That was a very exciting time to launch things and so I got certified as a facilitator in 2020 during the pandemic and it was.
Speaker 2:I'm so proud of that accomplishment and it's something that I've wanted to, you know, bring into the world as a coach. But I've been kind of scared. I was scared to really put myself out there in that way, because I'm more comfortable behind the scenes. I think you know this is a passion project that was born out of actually having our own journey with pregnancy loss. So I've had four miscarriages in our, you know, fertility journey and so after we lost the business, we actually also had a pregnancy loss. During that kind of hibernation period that I was talking about um and coming out, um, you know I was trying to really um reset again with career and wanting to try to help people. With this feeling that I was having, I needed something to put my energy into, and so I decided that I wanted my focus as a facilitator, to be pregnancy loss and supporting people that are going through what we've been through. So that's kind of how it started.
Speaker 1:Like a lot of things in life. Right, it was born out of me. You know you also had. You said you're so proud you've become a facilitator. I wanted to ask if you could differentiate for our listeners. I'm an Imago therapist, allison is an Imago facilitator. I wanted to ask if you could differentiate for our listeners. I'm an Imago therapist, allison is an Imago facilitator. They may think well, what is the difference? So would you like to talk about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. The facilitator program is a coaching program, essentially, or consulting program. So we're not therapists, we don't do any sort of progressive work with clients. It's coaching and facilitating the dialogue or communication between people. So a lot of facilitators work in the corporate world. They're small business owners, teachers, lawyers, moderators it's really any career doctors we have a lot of physicians in the program, so it's really anyone who wants to bring a connected communication to their community or their workspace. And it's such an in-depth, wonderful coaching program. I'm constantly amazed at the brilliant people that come in and help us make it better and more rich and more diverse. It's really an exciting program. I'm very proud to be a part of it.
Speaker 1:So really it is because my husband's a facilitator Allison knows that but I am a little envious sometimes because it's like the people that are in your classes they're learning how to do this and then they take it into their world and touch so many lives, right. I mean, you know, as a facilitator you're not limited to what happens in a therapy room, and I think that's really exciting. I think it's really exciting and I also think that it's world-changing. Like we start, obviously, the couplehood you and Chris have done your work and then I want to hear how it works as an among of family with your boys. But you know that that's your core.
Speaker 1:But then now you're helping people that have heard this, this loss, this big loss, when, when you lose a baby and, having had my own miscarriage, I, I, I felt back then like it didn't really count. That's helped, the impression, I mean even direct messages from people that I received like, oh, at least you were past three months, or at least this, or you better be grateful that it really felt so invalidating, and so at that time, you know, I just took those feelings away and so I'm really touched by the work you're doing with key couples that are that are suffering from this, and there's so many couples yeah, the theater can't even conceive and they go through the IVF. So tell us more about that journey.
Speaker 2:Thank you for your experience with it as well.
Speaker 2:I know it's so hard and I just wanted to touch on that invalidation that you said I think there's. So I think that it contributes so much to people not speaking about it because we don't really have this space to honor early pregnancy loss, where there's kind of a competition field between when you lost a pregnancy or you know. It's such a strange dynamic for people and it becomes very isolating because you don't know who you can talk to or who is safe to tell about this. I also had people say that well, you know you have two kids, so why are you sad? Well, because I'm sad, it was a really hard experience, and so that's something that I wanted to make space for too. Is that to just normalize that? I mean, wherever you are in this journey, if you haven't been able to conceive, that in itself is a loss, you know, and to have this if you've had a pregnancy loss at any stage. Of course it's very difficult at any stage. There are different circumstances that happen. When it's later it's, you know, certainly different for everyone, but it's hard at any time, and so I started the concepting for this kind of out of what was happening in my life when I had the loss and I had started doing pottery when I had this loss.
Speaker 2:And I've always been an artist I have a BFA in acting, a bachelor of art in acting. I've always been a writer, you you know. So I've had this theater, acting, writing thing going all the time, but I hadn't found kind of a physical medium that I really liked and I started doing play and I started a project right after it was like the week that I had the pregnancy loss in 2023, the beginning of 2023, I started a project and it took me about seven weeks to finish it and that time I spent very focused on making this little gargoyle and it had wings or angel wings, and it had wings or angel wings and it was so therapeutic for me to be able to channel that energy into something physical, into just this like physical movement of touching the clay and shaping it and thinking about it and still feeling this very physical pain and emotional. But to have something external to focus was just for me. So that's kind of where it started.
Speaker 2:Um, and how I worked in or progressed with the workshop is having um, I had started it as three hour workshop, all in one day. And then I realized, after taking some workshops myself, that that's a really kind of too long to talk and sit in this space, so I've decided to make it shorter. So the next one that we're going to do is a four week program, and so we meet for an hour and a half each week and then we start with kind of connection exercises talking, sharing if you want. But the way that I have structured it is that if you don't want to talk about the pregnancy loss, you don't have to, you don't have to share anything you don't want to. You'll be able to learn the skills that we're teaching without having to share more than you want.
Speaker 2:And then the end of the class. I'm doing art, so that's the really excited. So we'll have some writing exercises, some movement and some sculpture. If you don't have clay, we're going to use, you know you can use paper or whatever you have, but to just get that experience of that physical expression of what's happening inside.
Speaker 1:So can I ask you a question? Would that be okay? So when is your next class starting? When can people from? Is it on Zoom? How can people sign up?
Speaker 2:So it'll be on Zoom. It's going to be in April I don't have the specific date yet but it'll be on the Imago Georgia website. I'll list it on there, and then I also have a website that's nestingdragoncom.
Speaker 1:Okay, so nestingdragoncom or Imago Georgia, if you want to, you can send it to me again and I can add it to the notes in this episode so that people who they might listen to it in a month from now. I mean, it's interesting. As I watch my stats, you know it's just funny how Wendy might have been episode three but people are listening to her every week. Oh gosh, yeah, that's Wendy, right, that's Wendy. But yeah, so I can go in and edit that so that the people that are listening right now and then, even if that class is over, I'm sure you'll be offering it again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd like to offer it several times throughout the year. I'm excited to see how this structure works with the four weeks rather than kind of all at once. You know, I think it'll be easier for us to integrate the exercises and I want people to have the space between each session to be able to kind of start to you release and feel what's coming up as it as it as we go through.
Speaker 1:Do you sign up as a couple or as an individual?
Speaker 2:I haven't set up as an individual for this one, so I think I would probably do some with couples in the future, but right now it is signing up as an individual yeah, I would encourage you to do that.
Speaker 1:I think that would be really powerful. I know that. So I think you know that our daughter lost a child. She was 88 days old and she went to a support group locally and you know I wasn't part of the support group. Of course I wanted to go. It was the only support group so we were not going to take up space when she needed it so much. But I mean, as far as it goes, we could have used support as well.
Speaker 1:And I'm thinking about how big these losses are and how there's so many people all over the world that are grieving and don't know what to do with their grief. They just don't know where. To where do I put it? Who do I talk to about it? And then that competition that you just highlighted for us is a big deal. Like I remember people saying to Katie well, you know she lost her child at six years old, so at least you know you didn't really have him that long.
Speaker 1:You know just people trying, honestly, I think, to make people feel better. I think the things that people say are generally never meant to be. But it's that whole intention impact story. My intention might be to relieve my own nerves. You know somebody's had a loss and then I say, well, at least he's with God now. Well, they don't really want to hear that. They don't want him to be with God. They want him to be right there in the room holding him. So my intentions can be good, but it's very typically people say it's extremely invalidating and very painful to have those comments made. What? What helped you the most? What is something for those of us listening that that really don't know what to say when someone has suffered such a loss? What? What have you found comforting that people did or said for you?
Speaker 2:Well, that's such a good question, coco. Thank you. I think one thing is just offering to listen. Just offering, yeah, just offering a space to listen and not saying anything they didn't have to say anything but or offering space for me to just cry, you know, and just release. Several friends do that for me. Or check in on me. You know, I had some people send me, you know, gift baskets that were adverse, I think it's.
Speaker 2:It's really hard to have any physical thing that's kind of associated with it when you're first grieving, and so I remember receiving this. It's a really it's a special little pillow. It's a little heart pillow. I did, I held it, I held it so tight and pride, all I was going through this, and then, um, um, I ended up having just so sorry I. This is taking me to different places here, but at this pillow I had a loss in early 2023, and then I had another one in late 2023. And so the second loss took a really long time, which is another thing that I think I want this group for.
Speaker 2:What I think is great about this group is there's so much around miscarriage that we don't know around pregnancy loss and about how many different things can happen, the different nuances of it and what to do when you notice that it's starting to happen to you like that was something that I really didn't know what to do, looking for those answers. There was a lot I didn't know before I went through it. And so my second loss, I remember just holding that pillow, but between losses I couldn't really look at the pillow, you know so, because it's, it's just really interesting what is comforting to you and what isn't, at different times of the journey. So now I see the pillow, I love it, I still hug it, I associate it with people caring about me and a memory of the little spirit babies, you know. And so it's now something that is very comforting for me to look at.
Speaker 2:But there were times during this journey that I couldn't look at it. So I think what is comforting to people is very individual. I mean, it's really specific to your experience of what's happening, specific to your experience of what's happening, and I think the biggest thing that people can do for someone that's going through it is just say I'm here for you, do you need? Or just say if you, if you want to share, when you want to share, out here and offer that space.
Speaker 1:Offering the space, offering time, offering to your, your presence really in this situation is enough. You can't fix it for the person. As much as you may want to, you cannot fix it for the person. And you know, I think for couples, I know that when Kevin and I experienced this loss, we were never more disconnected in our entire 25 years of marriage. I was angry, oh, angry, angry, angry, and he was feeling just so protective of Katie, and so we were really in two different worlds and it was a lonely time in our marriage. It was very lonely and you know I look back on all the five people living in our house grieving very differently and how that energy was so tangible, like you could feel it in the house. And you know I am grateful that we have all.
Speaker 1:Katie has a baby. Did you know that that Katie has a baby? Yeah, he's nine months, he's six months old and his name is Callan and he's wonderful and he's healthy and that's been also a really healing part of our story. But it doesn't replace void. So there's so many complexities of this. As you're saying, there's not one answer for a couple or for an individual. So having the structure and the safe place to explore. It is so powerful really.
Speaker 2:I think, it's just necessary really, I think it's just necessary. I think it's there's such a void here for people to be able to find support for their grief and this loss, and so I'm hoping that I'm just I hope it helps. You know, I hope it just provides a little bit of that comfort space.
Speaker 1:I'm absolutely sure it does. What were you going to say?
Speaker 2:Oh, I was just going to say thank you for sharing your story to Coco and what you said about just the difference and the tangible grief and that distance that can happen between you. I think we definitely experienced that as well, and that's something that I've kind of worked through. Doing this work tried to like really intellectualize and figure out what you can. It's just this journey that you're going through. It's everybody's personal timing with grief. Some people, you know, are able to move on faster than others are, and whatever your time frame is is your time frame. There's really no rushing.
Speaker 2:There are things that you can do to seek comfort. There are things that you can do to seek comfort, there are things that you can do to share, there is information that you can get and there's support. But your timeline with grief is very individual, which I've, um, I've had even with each pregnancy loss, I've had different experiences with the time that it took to recover. You know and so that's something I just want everyone to know that however long it's taking you, whatever your experience of that grief is, it's okay, it's you, and if it's starting to get in the way of your life and you're not able to work or you know it really is impacting your relationship. That is the time to get help and to find a therapist and a support group and friends. Whoever you can talk to and connect with about it.
Speaker 1:And I think it is important to get professional help only because all of the people you may normally talk to about a lot of things that you wouldn't necessarily need a therapist are part of the death story, wouldn't necessarily need a therapist, are part of the death story and so they're so in it, either trying to help you or make things better or deal with their own grief that they're really. They're not able to be there for you because you're not experiencing the same. You're experiencing the same loss, but not in the same way, and I think I think that you're also bringing up something that's somewhat, let's just say, a hot spot in our political situation right now. What happens now with miscarriages feels very personal, very tender and maybe legal.
Speaker 1:So we have friends whose son, daughter-in-law, was having a miscarriage in South Carolina and because she wasn't dying, they weren't able to do anything about her loss. And until she developed, what is that thing when your body is poisoning itself? I can't remember what is it Sepsis. Until she was in sepsis were they able to, but they were about to transport her across state lines because if she waited too long she wouldn't have made it. And you know there's so much confusion around this issue, especially all these couples that really want a baby. So they're already grieving and now they have to figure out how to save the woman's life. Yes, yeah, so that's another whole area that I feel like we need to really address and provide space for.
Speaker 2:And to know what the signs are of when you're starting to get an infection. That was actually my second support loss, but I had the tissue was retained, and so that's why it took so long. So the pregnancy ended around nine weeks, but the tissue was retained, and so I didn't actually have the full miscarriage for several weeks after that, which is something that you know. I think a lot of people don't understand that it doesn't always happen quickly, and so there are health complications that can happen very quickly once you get an infection because of the nature of vessels and things in your uterus.
Speaker 2:And so for people to understand what the symptoms are of going into sepsis and when you really really need to get into the hospital, and for us to have access for health care for women that they're not having to be grieving a loss and, at the same time, fighting for their life. Like this is basic health care and just absolutely health care.
Speaker 1:Such an such an important distinction to make that this is really about health care and, uh, and I think until, like some people that may have different opinions, until it really happens maybe your own wife or your own child or your sister you know this particular story. You know she's okay, she lived and she didn't have to get transported, but it was the touch and go, and so we all need to think beyond what our own opinions are about things and move beyond what our judgments are and think about this is a basic right, the basic right to health care and a woman's life, and I'm so sorry that you went through all that. So I'm imagining all that you've been through during COVID since 2020, with the loss of your restaurant, loss of you've had four miscarriages.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they've been spread out. So it was between my after my first son I had one, and then after my second son I had one. So I'm there four years apart, you know, because of how long it took us to conceive again. And then, you know, we had another loss after him.
Speaker 2:And something that I didn't know also about getting tested for recurrent miscarriages is that one of my miscarriages was very early, so we had been trying and it was, you know, I got a chemical pregnancy. So I'd gotten a pregnancy test and it was positive and then very light, and then the next one was negative. So I didn't say anything about that because I was like, you know, oh well, that probably doesn't count. I didn't know, I didn't know what they needed to know doesn't count, or I didn't know, I didn't know what they needed to know. And then when I had the next miscarriage, I went to my doctor afterwards and she asked and I said well, I had this one, you know, chemical pregnancy. And she said, oh well, if you have two in a row, that counts as a recurrent miscarriage, and then they do different testing for you.
Speaker 2:So so I had malignancy before, but then I had had a pregnancy that went to term. So having that next one didn't count as recurrent. But having that chemical pregnancy and then having another miscarriage counted as recurrent miscarriage and I was able to get a full panel of, you know, my hormones. They did an ultrasound of you know my hormones. They did an ultrasound. We did a special ultrasound to see that my uterine tissue was healthy and, you know, looking for anything that could be contributing to the miscarriages.
Speaker 1:I have a question though. So what is a chemical pregnancy? I've never heard that term that term.
Speaker 2:Oh, so it's just when the pregnancy um ends very early. So it get. You have enough hcg to progress far enough that your hcg levels will produce a positive pregnancy test on your urine with a urine sample. Um. Blood tests are a lot more sensitive so they can test lower levels of hcg. But if you're using a standard pregnancy test it's a urine test um. So the that just means that you had a pregnancy that um registered. It might have inflated and you got the hcg going and then it ended before um. It was able to get a second positive pregnancy.
Speaker 1:So so allison are. Are you saying, though this feels like if you hadn't known that this was a recurrent miscarriage, then are you saying that because they knew that you were able to get further testing through your insurance that you wouldn't have normally been able to get because they wouldn't have seen it as the pattern or whatever criteria the insurance companies need to warrant further testing?
Speaker 2:I'm not sure, if it had to do with insurance, probably I would assume it does, but they just hadn't offered me any further testing before.
Speaker 2:So when I mentioned it to my doctor she said, oh said, oh, well, that's different and you know, we should go ahead and do this panel if you're wanting to try again for a baby. And so that's just something I I didn't know and I don't think a lot of people know. To mention is that if you do that early test where you're getting a very slight positive, that that does do that is pregnancy loss and that is something that if you're wanting to try again and you're wanting to conceive, that can be really important information for them to be able to help you, because of course there's medications that you can take that can help you ovulate. You know it doesn't have to be IVF. There's a lot of different assistance that can happen if they know what's happening in your body ahead of time. Of course, sometimes there's nothing you can do and it's just something that's happening and you know I never want anyone to think that it's their fault or their fault?
Speaker 1:Oh for sure. Oh my gosh, that's something we haven't even talked about, is it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's just something that's happening in your body. There are certain things that are happening in your body that can be medically assisted.
Speaker 1:I will say Well, that is such an important thing to share with us that not telling that would be a mistake and important for your doctor to know, and I at that time was sure that that's what had happened. Looking for reasons, I think we look for understanding. When we lose things, we want to blame someone or something, and women often blame themselves.
Speaker 2:You want a reason, you want to know why it happened. And I remember looking at licorice I thought it was because I ate licorice, black licorice or something you know, and there were so many things. I was just searching and looking and, oh, I shouldn't have painted or I shouldn't have done this or I shouldn't have. And, um, yeah, you go immediately to this kind of uh, self-blame and guilt like, um, you know, being able to know that that's also normal, I think, yes, yeah about it, and I felt scared to even say the thoughts I was having about what could have possibly been my fault I was holding all of that, and even from christ, from her partner, and it's like letting that go, telling someone about that or even if you're not comfortable saying it out loud, just writing that down, writing that down in the journal so it's not in your head yelling at you anymore.
Speaker 1:It helped me so much to release that um, shame and and guilt around you know it's such a big thing, this shame it's uh, here, this, this terrible thing has happened in your life, one of the biggest losses that you'll have.
Speaker 1:Excuse me, and then suffer shame yeah, yeah it's, but to know it's normal to do it does help. You're so right, because if we can normalize, yes, our relationships are going to struggle. Of course they're going to struggle because nobody grieves the same way even though you're grieving. Grieving the same thing, yeah. Is there anything else that we haven't talked about, um, about your experience or what you want to share with our listeners that we haven't talked about? Allison?
Speaker 2:I I guess what's you know? It's just that um actually a couple of things um, so in my research around this too. So we are a neurodivergent family um, which is newly discovered in our, in our family um, and has been a really interesting journey um of learning about how our brains work. But one thing that I was learning is that for um adhd or uh, sometimes autistic as well, um, or people with uteruses who can get pregnant, have been a really large can have a really large emotional response to miscarriage, like it can. It can really really disrupt your emotion I mean, everyone does but sometimes it may feel like we're having a bigger response or it's really overtaking your world, and that's something that has been researched with um neurodivergent people. So I certainly found that comforting to read and say, okay, well, this is something that's happening in my brain and the way that I'm processing this might also be tied to this other thing about me, and then also that when you're first.
Speaker 1:Oh sorry, get you in. No, I just I think that a lot of our listeners really wouldn't be familiar with the term neurodivergent. Can you help?
Speaker 2:explain that a little. Yes, yes, so ADHD or autism, so kind of being on this spectrum of your brain being a little sleepy. But if you're adhd that's what they say it's not really attention deficit. It's like too too many things happening and your brain is a little sleepier, a little dopamine light, and so you just need a little help to. I don't know if this is a good explanation of neurodivergence, but, um, as far as my knowledge goes, would you also add um gifted to that category?
Speaker 2:yeah, I, I do. Yeah, gifted people are also in that route.
Speaker 1:Yes, so I just I think it's important to highlight that and I'm really glad you brought it up. Because I think it's important to highlight that and I'm really glad you brought it up, because I think it's a relatively in our laypeople world it's a newer term and so really just understanding wow, so I just think and process differently. That's how I kind of define it, and then add the research that you've done to say wow, so when you experience a loss like this, that your emotions may be bigger and that you may have more difficulty processing them, and so to also normalize that, if that's your situation and some people may not even know they're neurodiverse.
Speaker 2:So I had no idea until we got my son tested and then I started to suspect with him and then as soon as you start doing the research it's like oh, that's me. Oh, oh, okay, I see. So it was. One of the things with ADHD and in particular ADD is that you have emotional dysregulation. You can have a lot of bigger emotions around things that maybe neurotypical people would not have To know. That, while I'm also having very real grief emotions, that the level of my brain to kind of compartmentalize or deal with all the different things that were happening at the same time is already harder for me to kind of separate work, family, kids, you know, husband, all of those things kind of overwhelm me sometimes. Then to add this other thing on top was really a huge disruption in my life and I found it really difficult to keep work.
Speaker 1:You know, of course you need time off, but to get back into work and to get this kind of rhythm going again, and I'm thinking, with the amount of losses that you've had in a very short period of time, that that would be hard on anyone. But you add that layer that you're describing and that is. That's a lot to process, that's a lot, it's difficult, definitely.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I wanted to say is just to really be kind to yourself. Remember that when you're right after a loss, you have the same drop. You have a drop of hormone. Everything has suddenly dropped out of your system. That causes an extreme emotional reaction as well. You may feel uncontrollable, sobbing your you know your whole body is going through this experience and I was, um, remember, feeling just that it would never end during that time boom, boom intensity of the grief and the sorrow that it would never end.
Speaker 2:And I just want to reassure you, as if you're going through it right now, if that is very recent, that it does like it does still stay with you. You're always going to have that experience, but that intensity, that just deep, deep intensity of the grief and sorrow, it lightens because you're able to then, first of all, your hormones start to stabilize, which helps a lot, and second of all, you just kind of start to process the grief, you process the loss and your brain and your heart start to kind of catch up with each other. And it's not always that low, low, low place that you're in.
Speaker 1:So, allison, I feel like what you're telling people is so important, because when people don't understand depression very well, I think it's a very misunderstood disorder. And when people say you know suicide is a selfish act, I mean they've never been in the dark hole, you know. That is just clear. When people talk about suicide in that way, or people that can't get out of bed after a loss, all this is misunderstood. And I know what you're sharing is so powerful because you've been there and you thought you'd never get to the other side and, although you're still grieving, you are, you've healed quite a bit. But you also got help and had access to people that could help you and a partner that you had done a lot of work with. And I guess that is even a more alarming thought to me is if you hadn't had those resources, which so many people don't.
Speaker 2:They don't, and that's one thing that I reached out to the nurse line. I mean, if you don't have anyone that you can call, if you have insurance and they have a nurse line, you can call that. There are even, I think I would say, if you're feeling so low and you're feeling suicidal during that time, to call the suicide support lines. But yeah, absolutely reach out for professional help. I made an appointment with my midwife when I was actually going through postpartum depression so another cycle of this kind of hormonal thing that can happen in your body through your fertility journey but I went to my OB and my midwife and they were able to get me in with a therapist that day. They got me in with somebody right away. They got me help with medication. So I think that's another resource that people need to know that if you want to get in with you know that your OB or your midwife can actually help you with this kind of grief and relief as well, and hopefully they'll know some support groups in your area as well.
Speaker 1:So, allison, what I hear him saying is you can't try your way out of this. This isn't a. Your hormones are part of your biological functioning and when all of this is going on, in addition to your sadness, it is just like trying to fly upstream, upstream, you know, in the rapids. You know there's, there's no one who can do it, so it's not a you thing. This is just a biological issue that anyone would need help with. So, feeling the shame, going back to that like why should I need help? Like people might even say, well, I have a home, I have two children, I have a good husband, like I shouldn't feel this way. That is not the message you want to send to yourself that comparative suffering is a losing game and what you did was so smart to get your OBGYN and get your midwife in to help you.
Speaker 2:It was something I didn't know I had actually gone to. That's why I want to share it is because I didn't know that was an option. I had gone to my, like a primary care doctor, who told me he said, well, you had a baby. That was his response to me, saying I was uncontrollably crying and things like that, and so I reached out to a cousin of mine who's a nurse and she said call your OB, call your midwife, and they will help you. And that was my lifeline, like I had no idea. That's the thing.
Speaker 2:When you're in this, when you're in that depression, you're in that hormonal depression, especially that you don't know what steps to take. You're barely taking care of yourself and your child, or your body that's recovering, and so one thing that was helpful, too, is I was able to lean on my husband and ask him for help with things that I was not able to do. But if you don't have that support system to to know that, though, that there are resources with that particular medical branch at your doctor's office, they will help you, they know what to do.
Speaker 1:It's really critical and not everyone you know. Either maybe you don't even have a partner and you're going through this, or you have a partner that doesn't understand, or a partner that loves you to death but is trying to fix it, and and it's a mystery to men, I think you know it's not something that they know about. We don't know about enough about it, right? So expecting men to sort of get this whole thing feel pretty unfair it's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a very different um. That's one thing I talk about, too is, like um, the the difference in in the experience of carrying the pregnancy that's lost and being the partner, the support person of a person that is has lost the pregnancy. And that support person can be your, your romantic partner or parents or, you know, the grandparents whoever it is that's in your life. But the experience of carrying the pregnancy and that loss and the physical toll and the hormones is um a different experience from someone who is watching the person they love go through this experience, you know, and so, um, the workshop space is actually open for everyone. It's open to anyone who's had this experience. It doesn't have to be the person who carried the pregnancy.
Speaker 2:Um, because there's so much grief and you know this applies to surrogates and um and people who are having surrogate pregnancies as well that may have been lost. Like, all of this encompasses loss, and so I do just want people to know that, however, you have experienced this loss, that your feelings are valid, your grief is valid, and that everyone is going to be processing this differently. So that's where we're trying to help have this structure and this kind of skill building around having these really, really difficult conversations and mostly just holding space. Just holding space for people to share and feel connected around a really awful experience they had to try to overcome.
Speaker 1:Holding space is such an underestimated gift. Yes, I'm thinking of when we went through our loss and I had another colleague who referred a man to me who had lost his pregnant wife and, of course, the baby in a car accident. And I said to my friend I can't help anybody right now. Look at me, I can't take that on. And she said that's why I'm asking you to do it. I think you're the right person.
Speaker 1:So I did what I normally do. I started reading all these books. And so I did what I normally do. I started reading all these books. I'd get over a cheaper head in my headspace and nothing really stuck with me.
Speaker 1:But I read this one book and I didn't love the title, but it was called Getting Grief Right and it was written by this psychologist who was a grief specialist, as I remember it. I might remember some of this incorrectly, this is how I remember it and he was talking about how he was in his 30s and his wife died. She had got a disease and died in her 30s and he threw away everything. He, kubler Ross, none of it. He said none of it applied Everything that I had told my clients to do. All this bullshit. Basically, I knew was bullshit, and so I started to really think about grief differently.
Speaker 1:And at the very end, you know, he said I think that we think we have to get rid of our grief. I think that we think we have a year or we have this, whatever timeline has been made up in our culture, but at the end of the day, for him it was, the grief is commensurate with the depth of love that you have for that being. And it hit me like oh my gosh, that it and it's not about removing it, like it's something surgically that we can take away. It's about feeling it and processing it, as you're saying, and then learning how to integrate it and that it becomes a part of us because we've loved right, it's the love, even though we haven't maybe met the being, but we've loved. And I think that was so powerful for me to really conceptualize grief in a new way.
Speaker 2:That's made a ton of sense and I wanted to share that with you that that concept of grief, I think, is so beautiful and so helpful because it it encompasses all of those losses you know. I mean, uh and I think it does apply very much to if you've had a pregnancy loss or loss of a child. It's this deep, deep, deep love that you can't get rid of. You've had it and it is a part of you.
Speaker 2:And you think of it that way. You don't want to get rid of it, you want to actually get it away, that you can carry it and make yourself, I want to say more whole. But that's what it feels like, is that you've expanded yourself with this love and it just kind of all you know makes you more whole to have these experiences, as awful as they are when you're in them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that word expansion is a good word to describe it that your heart is big enough to hold them even though they're gone, and that you don't have this job to get rid of it or get over it or get through it. It sounds like a lot of verbs. A lot of verbs. Something you've got to do, you know, which is not really doesn't tell the grief story. Alison, I've loved being with you today and having this conversation. It's so rich.
Speaker 2:This is wonderful.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me Thank you and I really am grateful you were here and what you're sharing with others is so powerful and so important. Your work, Thank you very much Coco.
Speaker 2:You too, oh my gosh, I'm so grateful to have you in this community and all that you're sharing with all of us. It's wonderful.
Speaker 1:Well, I hope that our listeners will download, like share, whatever those technology terms are Because we really we're trying to get our listeners to for people that need this particular episode. Let's share it with others so that we can get information out and more people can suffer less. And I want to thank you for being here and I want to thank our listeners and we'll welcome you back the next time. On the Relationship Blueprint Unlock your Purler of Connection. You, thank you.
