Collateral Beauty. We don't heal by explaining pain away; you heal by working through it.

The calendar flips, the resolutions fly, and then real life hits: loss rarely stays in its lane. We open the door to a raw conversation about what happens after death and divorce, where the heartbreak is obvious but the hidden fallout is not. Inspired by Collateral Beauty, we explore how grief ripples into identity, friendships, parenting, finances, faith, and that quiet ache of no longer belonging to someone. It’s not a sprint, not a tidy arc—just honest steps toward naming what broke and finding the courage to rebuild.

We talk through invisible losses that rarely get airtime: kids stepping into roles they shouldn’t carry, friends choosing sides, church responses that help or harm, and the difference between casseroles and opinions. Each of us names three non-obvious losses—safety, trust, confidence, direction, joy—and how acknowledging them changed the way we heal. Counseling becomes a practical anchor: take one intrusive thought, test it for truth, decide what to change, and let go of lies that keep you stuck. That work isn’t glamorous, but it shortens the emotional swings and returns agency over your mind.

Safe listeners matter. We draw a clear line between people who rush to fix and those who sit with you, speak hard truths, and still love you. We refuse comparison and timelines; your pain counts even if it doesn’t look like anyone else’s. And while we don’t promise quick answers, we do promise the next step: slow down, name your collateral damage, and start with one action you can take today. Stay with us for part two as we look for collateral beauty—the unexpected good seeded in the wreckage that grows into courage, clarity, and a deeper kind of joy.

If this conversation moved you, tap follow, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What invisible loss did you have to name? We’d love to hear your story.

Transcript

New Year Banter And Resolutions

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Hey guys, what's up? I'm Greg. I hope you guys are ready to unpack and get into some good conversations today.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

And I'm Jess, and this is our podcast on Baggage Claim. Thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_04 0:16

What's up, Baggage Claim? How is everybody doing out there today? It is January and we are getting kicked off. Uh welcome to Baggage Claim, by the way. If you're new here, this is a place where we try to create some community and conversations around life, relationships, kids, not having kids, blended family, not blended family, just friendships.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Great questions.

SPEAKER_04 0:42

So yeah, did you just name it? Being a person. And if you have been with us since February of last year, thank you. Thank you. Um Singapore, thank you, Singapore. I just want to say I love looking at the cities of that we like importance of how many downloads of per se. We live in Gainesville, Georgia, which is about 40 minutes, uh 45 minutes north of Atlanta. Um so it goes Gainesville, Atlanta, download cities, Flowery Branch, which is another small city around here. And then Singapore. So literally far. On the other side of the globe. So but love you guys over there. Keep listening. Thank you so much. Um, so take a deep breath. It's January. January's or just January, it's all I can tell you. Uh so is that good January or bad January? Well, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

How many times are we gonna say the word January?

SPEAKER_04 1:44

Well, that's probably five or six right there. Well, it is January, so thank you. That's seven. Uh grab your favorite drink, whatever that may be, and at the rate we're going, it probably needs to be a pretty strong one. And um just your favorite coffee or your favorite tea. Um, and proverbially just pull up to the table with us. Sit around the table and let's unpack. Uh, we're gonna uh I will say this before I get into our conversation. This is a heavy, yeah, this is deep, it's a heavy conversation we're gonna have. So in order to kind of I uh I don't know, kick us off in the right, we're just gonna we're gonna do it. We're gonna do question tongue.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Oh boy, we're gonna do question time. Oh my.

SPEAKER_04 2:28

All right, there we go. I was about the series, we could have said that.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

You're welcome, world. Thanks, guys. So um jumping right in, what's um I I I had some questions, but what's your what's your question, Michael? You guys question?

SPEAKER_03 2:43

I'm the one that was oh what what it's uh like the funniest or like stupidest New Year's resolution you've either had yourself or have seen like other people have. Okay. Because sometimes like they're they're great, sometimes they're awesome, and then sometimes they're just like out there.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

I've never done a New Year's resolution.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

See what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 3:05

What?

SPEAKER_03 3:05

It's just out of it. You've literally never, like, even like subconsciously been like, oh, it's January, I'm gonna kick it. You have never in all your 57 years.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

I'm not 57, perhaps.

SPEAKER_04 3:16

I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Um do you know how old I am? Yeah, you're in your 40s.

Silly Goals And Habit Mindsets

SPEAKER_03 3:21

Um I was gonna say, I kind of feel like he needs to answer that question if you actually know. No, you're in the 40s. Shut your mouth pretty soon, cool. Uh sorry, Greg.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

So in all of my 47 years of life, no.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

You've never said like, I want to make a change, I'm gonna do this differently. And you just do no makeup. That's my life. Thank you. No, because uh producer Michael assistant or Michael's producer assistant. Producer Michael Jr. Yeah. Have you ever what's what's I don't know. You don't know if you had a New Year's resolution?

SPEAKER_00 4:00

No, I have, but I can't remember any of them.

SPEAKER_04 4:02

I had this really okay, go ahead. I make a lot of stupid ones all the time. Is that fair to say that it didn't happen? You would say that didn't really work out.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

No, like I've had goals of like, I'm gonna read the Bible every day or like small things.

SPEAKER_04 4:18

How far did you make it?

SPEAKER_00 4:20

I don't even know.

SPEAKER_04 4:22

Wow, it must have been pretty far.

SPEAKER_02 4:25

It's still going.

SPEAKER_04 4:27

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

It's one that's a resolution you can renew every year if you just keep it. But like I don't know. I just feel like making a New Year's resolution is almost sort of like setting myself up for failure.

SPEAKER_04 4:42

Yeah, it is if you don't do it.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Right. I literally just messaged in my 75 hard group. It was like, how do I change my headspace before starting so I don't go in expecting to fail?

SPEAKER_04 4:54

You don't. You just expect to just do it.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

You just don't fail, according to Greg.

SPEAKER_04 4:59

No, it's like before you don't. No, it's like before I um when I was gonna run that half marathon, and I never run a 10K, the most I'd ever run was a 5K. My goal was uh I had a simple goal. I was like, I'm just not gonna walk and I'm gonna finish. That's it, period. I did I didn't have I didn't allow my mind to think I wasn't not gonna do it. I just I didn't allow that headspace. I was like, I'm just gonna do this no matter what. And either I pass out. I can see that, like the mental fortitude or whatever you want to call it.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

But I want to hear what silly ones, what's a funny one?

SPEAKER_04 5:33

I had a stupid one one time where I was like, I'm gonna do one push-up a day, and then I'm gonna add so January 1st, I do one. January 2nd, I do two.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

Oh, yeah, I remember that.

SPEAKER_04 5:42

January, yeah, it's the dumbest idea. You could just like slam out 30 push. I mean, if you're like, it's not that big of a deal until you get to like June, July. You're pumping out a lot of push-ups. Right. I didn't think that through. You know, I just thought it was a great idea. It's Greg in December.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Yeah, you did have one, you're trying to find something new.

SPEAKER_04 6:04

I I I have this thing, I still do it, that I am going to learn how to do something new just uh uh throughout the year. Whatever there's one thing the year, like one year it was I was gonna learn how to lawnboard, so I bought a longboard and I started longboarding.

SPEAKER_03 6:21

Is that when we worked together? Yeah, it was in the parking lot.

SPEAKER_04 6:23

Yeah, that was it was so fun, man. I'm glad I've been talking about it.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

The cool guy on the staff, man. Like ride your longboard up and down the hallways in the office. I did. I'm glad I loved it because you also had that.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Yeah, that view at the scooter. Yeah. Well, you also did the whole brushing your teeth with the opposite hand trying to rewire your brain.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

I did. I made it hurt.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

He did some really silly things now that we're talking about it.

SPEAKER_03 6:49

One of my favorite quotes from The Office is Michael Scott when they're talking about New Year's resolutions, and he was like upset that other people hadn't followed through on theirs. And he was like, flossing, January 1st, bam, done. Blood everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

So true.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

Michael, have you had any silly ones? Oh, silly ones? I don't know. Um I mean, I'm kind of like Miranda. I'm I'm having a hard time thinking on the New Year's resolutions. So two of them that I have done, they're not they're not silly, they're actually serious. Um, that I did this last year. One was carnivore diet. I was gonna do 30 days of carnivore diet, and I was gonna do it like every other month because I'm just gonna be honest, like I like bread, and so I needed to still have some bread.

SPEAKER_06 7:31

Right.

SPEAKER_03 7:32

Um, so I did that. That actually went very well. Um, I'm actually about to do it again because I didn't do it over December or November for August.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

This is too hard, yeah.

Reading Plans, Faith, And Discipline

SPEAKER_03 7:42

Um Thanksgiving and Christmas. Yes, absolutely. Uh but no, last year I did do uh I wanted to read through the Bible. I wanted to finish the Bible from beginning to end. And I am only 60 days behind on my reading plan currently. So have you ever have you ever done that? Go together. No, not not. And and it was actually something that happened at church. I was like, because my pastor was like, you know, hey, if you've not read the Bible from cover to cover, absolutely, how can you say you believe everything in it? And I was like, no, like in my life, like I'm sure that I if I calculated up all the books that I've read like individually over time, like I'm sure I probably have read the entire Bible, right? But I was like, but do I know? Has anybody else had you? I have not, I have not, and so I'm like, I'm seeing it.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

And you've done it multiple times though, like five or six.

SPEAKER_03 8:35

That's awesome. I will say this, it has completely changed my life, like just with I'd seeing it in a completely different perspective.

SPEAKER_04 8:42

I will tell you something like this past year, which was crazy. It's because I've read the Bible through several times, just because when I first became a Christian, I didn't know any of it. So I was so intrigued. I was like, I gotta read this. Um, this past year I did the chronological read through the Bible. Ooh, that would have crazy cool. Like I'm in Genesis. Next thing I know is like Job, and I'm like, wait, whoa, whoa, he comes later.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

Yeah, I know it is so But he really doesn't.

SPEAKER_04 9:07

Yeah, because in my mind when I had read it, just the way the books of the Bible fall, you think it's in chronological order and it's not. And so when you read it that way, it's just kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_05 9:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:16

Uh it's really interesting, but I I mean, I I think that's a good discipline to have. Like, yeah, if you're gonna be a you oughta know it.

SPEAKER_05 9:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:23

Like get tires of it, know the goods, the ins, the outs, all of it.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

So but so New Year's resolutions, y'all.

SPEAKER_04 9:31

I haven't made any. I haven't thought about it, I haven't made any. I my New Year's resolution is really I am I think my I don't know if it's New Year's resolution or just a decision. I'm we're really pushing a lot of chips into the middle of the table when it comes to baggage claim. Like we're just gonna push them into the middle of the table and see what happens. Uh and I hope all of our listeners out there support us as we do that. Uh, because it's gonna be a lot of fun stuff coming up uh to see what happens. So that's me. Yeah. So man, I want to preface this as saying um this whole conversation Jess and I got into, it was during Christmas break. Um I'm a huge, don't judge me, I'm a huge Will Smith fan. Like I love Will Smith movies. Uh just I think he has like eight pounds is one of my favorite movies he does. Uh this other movie he does, this is probably my favorite one of like I Am Legends is a great one, too. Like, there's just some just some really, really, really good Will Smith movies out there. Um Men in Block. Excuse me, uh Men in Black. Okay. But this one uh probably at the top of my list.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

And it's the the like the least known. Nobody has ever seen it when we say the name of it.

SPEAKER_04 10:47

Yeah, when you say the movie, people are like, What? I didn't know it's it's worth a watch. It's the the title.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

It's called Collateral Beauty.

SPEAKER_04 10:53

Yeah. And so we'll start watching this movie. We've seen it probably five or six times.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Oh, yeah. Um and I ugly cry every single time.

SPEAKER_04 11:00

I just ugly cried in a way I haven't seen this past time. Because we would pause the the movie and we started talking about our life through this movie.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

And we've never done that. Like we've like, you know, had to be a little bit more.

SPEAKER_04 11:14

Usually because there's other kids, there are kids that were with other people. It's just me and you.

Introducing Collateral Beauty

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Yeah. And we did. We paused here and there and just kind of compared it to our own lives.

SPEAKER_04 11:22

Our lives and our stories, uh-huh. Um, what we had gone through. And it was just right, and we're sitting there and we go, we have to talk about this. Like we have to to do this episode. So this may be a little this is gonna be hard. It may be hard. If you're in a point where you're walking through grief or you um you're dealing with grief, uh, this may be very, very fresh for you. And I understand if you need to hit pause and come back to this. Um if you have, uh if you can relate to this, if you can catch this. The idea of collateral beauty, we will get into it. Um, but it has to do with loss. With loss. Yeah. And so um, whatever that looks like, and there's all different levels of loss and how that comes about. And so we're gonna dig into that um today. And this this will probably be a two-parter, so whatever we get into, yeah. We may share the collateral part in the beginning, and then we'll jump into the beauty part in part two. So this is a two-parter, so we'll try to be um as open and honest as we can, but respectful um as we move through this. Pretty tough topic.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

It is. Um loss is something that most of us are going to deal with or have already dealt with.

SPEAKER_04 12:33

Um, yeah, it's a it's a it's a given. Like it's a given that we will have that in our lives.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Um and when you experience it, other things come along with it that nobody really prepares you for.

SPEAKER_04 12:44

Aaron Powell Well, nobody really talks about them a whole lot. It's just kind of like that unexpected uh part of of that thing. That's just, oh, you should know that. And you're like, how would I How would I know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Yeah. So like losing a spouse through either divorce or death, that pain doesn't stay contained in one nice tidy little box.

SPEAKER_04 13:05

No.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

It spills out into lots of other areas.

SPEAKER_04 13:09

And I and and and too, with this being said, because we are, you you lost your husband in a tragic accident, uh, I went through divorce. I it doesn't matter which side of divorce you're on.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

No, it's still pain.

Defining Loss Beyond Death And Divorce

SPEAKER_04 13:21

Whether you feel like you caused a divorce or you are effective, uh like effective that, whatever that may be, there's hurt on both sides. So when we talk about divorce, it's not a I was cheated on or I was done wrong or I was done this or that or the other. It's like, no, we're talking about the hurt and the pain that comes with those things.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

Um and that pain spills into friendships, the way you parent, um, your identity, your faith, your finances, your self-view. It spills over into everything.

SPEAKER_04 13:50

Yeah, if I if I I had to be careful not to jump on my soapbox because there's one thing I've seen in families or or parents who've gone through divorce, they parent so much out of guilt. They give their kids whatever they want, whenever they want. And I've heard the phrase thousands of times because we've talked with lots and lots and lots of uh couples and blended families. They go, My kids come first, my kids are first. And I'm like, Okay, so why are you getting married? If that's your mentality, then don't get married.

SPEAKER_06 14:20

Yeah, don't get married.

SPEAKER_04 14:21

Um because it's and they're just like, Well, I don't that doesn't make sense. My kids should be first. I'm like, so who's this guy that you're marrying? Like, where does his role fall in the that? So I don't want to get into that, but it's just it does. It's parenting, the way you look at so many different things in life, friendships, everything has it's affected.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

When acknowledging that collateral damage to all those other areas is not weakness, that's part of your healing. But I think that's one of the hardest parts is to acknowledge, like, okay, yeah, I have this loss, I'm grieving, I'm heartbroken, but also it touches all these other places of my life.

SPEAKER_04 15:00

It d it really does. And it's it's a really hard it's it's yeah, it's just hard.

SPEAKER_05 15:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:07

And it doesn't matter where you're at in that. And it's the acknowledgement part usually takes a little bit though. And so well also too, I want to frame like if you're in this, if you're right in this right now, like this is probably something that's gonna take a little time to walk through. This is a long road. It is, it's not a short little path, it's not a sprint, it's not a walk around the block.

SPEAKER_06 15:29

No.

SPEAKER_04 15:30

Um, this is a long journey.

SPEAKER_06 15:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:32

And so but how did you uh how do you I I'm just curious though, acknowledging that, where did that acknowledgement come or how did it come for you?

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Oh, it's just through counseling.

SPEAKER_04 15:43

I mean someone bringing your attention to it?

SPEAKER_02 15:45

Yes. Gotcha. Um it's like you can expect to experience a loss of some sort. And when I personally experienced it, like of course I expected when he passed away, yes, I'm gonna grieve my husband. But then there's all these other other other things that came along with it. Like I didn't expect to lose other parts of my life, like I lost friends after it, I lost security, safety, like all these other losses that come along with, yes, I lost a spouse, but there's a long list of other things that I lost too that I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_04 16:20

Did you ever did you ever have an opportunity to ask your friends?

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Yeah, it didn't go well.

SPEAKER_04 16:26

Oh, do you do you can you share that?

SPEAKER_02 16:29

It was mostly answers like, um, well, we were friends with Jessica and TJ. It's gonna be hard for me to be friends with just Jessica and not expect to see TJ. I'm like, well, I'm still me. Like I'm still the same me and I still have the same kids. Like why that that wasn't fair. Right. So that was damage that went along with that that I did not expect at all.

SPEAKER_04 16:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

So you know.

Parenting Through Grief And Guilt

SPEAKER_04 16:58

And I don't know if I've ever shared this with you. I think you knew this though. Like um going through divorce, you know that when you're divorced from that person, you know those relationships with family are going to be severed or or you're gonna lose those. And um I've been married for quite a while. And my ex, I really, really liked her mom and her dad and had a great relationship with them, but that was just gone. And that was a weird thing for me to go to just almost grieve the loss of that relationship. And I know people would say, Well, you you can't do that. And I was like, But in all reality, it was hard for them to have the relation. It was just it's just too much for them to juggle. The the easiest thing for me was to just step out of that and not create more chaos.

SPEAKER_06 17:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:48

Um, but even her brothers, some of her brothers, I just loved. There was some of the guys that I would still text from time to time. Uh John, Uncle John, I would text him uh on occasion because he's a huge Bama fan.

SPEAKER_06 18:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:01

And so even though it's fun to give him a hard time. Yeah, I would just text him and give him a hard time even afterwards. But uh losing those relationships is one of those things that you're like it's just crazy you don't think about it.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

No, that initial loss doesn't just present itself alone. It's like it brings friends. It brings other pieces of loss that you were not expecting completely.

SPEAKER_04 18:22

Unwanted friends.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Oh yeah. So we've already used the phrase collateral damage a couple of times, but the actual definition of or condensed definition of collateral damage damage is it's the unintended fallout that happens after a an event. And we've talked about some of these already, about the unintended fallout of uh divorce or a death of you know, identity loss and relationships that have shifts in them. There's strain on how you parent on with death and divorce, like it changes everything. Um, financial pressure of the faith confusion, the how can God let this happen to me?

SPEAKER_04 19:02

And but just like when you and I met, um Thomas, um you know, uh your oldest, was kind of I mean, he was still young.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:13

He was still around. But in his mindset, he was kind of the man of the house.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

He very much felt that way.

SPEAKER_04 19:18

And so he took on that that mantle and was those things. And so when I came around, you parented in a different you parented completely different uh the way than I did. And then when we came when I came into the picture, um it was it was different for him, and it was a it was a big change for him even in the middle of that, somewhat of a relief to he could let go of that and be a kid.

SPEAKER_06 19:43

Completely.

SPEAKER_04 19:43

Uh but at the same time, you know, it's just one of those things you're like, who would have thought that the collateral damage from that would put weight on a kid?

SPEAKER_02 19:52

On a nine year old boy.

SPEAKER_04 19:53

Yeah, growing up in that home.

SPEAKER_02 19:55

Mm-hmm. And it did. Um Yeah. Like he even Just briefly like even like when we were grieving all together, like there was times where I knew he needed to let go and he needed to talk, but he wouldn't because he would literally tell me, I'm I need to stay strong for you, mama. And I'm just like, You're a little guy. Like that's collateral damage that I was not anticipating. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:21

Um well kids want to protect their parents in divorce. And that's the hard part of like even in divorce, parents um sometimes one parent maybe get mad or they may get frustrated and they may get hurt. And so therefore, in that situation, they want to blame the other parent. And the kids feel like they have to choose. Like, if I want to support my mom, I gotta support my mom, and I can't love my dad, or I gotta support my dad and not love my mom. And we put these kids in these weird situ and it's just a lot of collateral crap that just comes in all that. And not only that, but friendships. Like you lose a lot of friends just this. They feel like they have to pick a side and they can't. And so they do pick a side, and sometimes you never hear from them again. And it's tough.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

Yeah. And we're comparing death and divorce a lot, but like we keep saying, they're both a loss. Like when it's a death, it's a loss without choice.

SPEAKER_05 21:16

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

And divorce, it is a loss. Um, but there's a a perceived blame that ha that comes along with that. So that's an extra piece of collateral damage.

SPEAKER_04 21:26

Yeah. There's just a guilt chain that comes with that.

Invisible Losses And Identity Shifts

SPEAKER_02 21:28

Yeah. And then, you know, you you grieve differently, but you still grieve what what you had.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

You know, one way or another.

SPEAKER_04 21:38

Right. But of course you do. Because I mean it's a loss. Um and I think that's the the hard part in divorces. See, your your decision was final.

SPEAKER_06 21:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:47

Like it was done. In divorce, that person's still there. Right. Um, but that divorce is over, so you've split ways. And so there's a lot of stuff, a lot of baggage that comes with that.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Yeah. And with death, you know, there's a lot more grace given, obviously. But then there's also, you know, hidden expectations of timelines for how long it's that you should take to heal. You know, some folks think you might should hurry it up and you know, move on with your life. And other people think that maybe you should not ever move on with your life. Um But then on the other side.

SPEAKER_04 22:22

So that's a that's an interesting concept. Because I'm curious what made you I think we may have asked this in in your episode. I think I can't remember. But what made you kind of decide that you needed to move on? Like I gotta move forward. I gotta, I can't, I can't get stuck here. Well, do you remember what that one thing was?

SPEAKER_02 22:42

Um the widows group at church that I was in. I mean, I was only 31, 32. Um, and all these other the ladies and gentlemen, it was widows and widowers. They were older. Um, but some of them had been widowed for 30 years, which means that they were only in their 40s or so or whatever when their spouse died. But they were just like, well, this is just what God had for me. And I just couldn't fathom this as I was trying to premises God's whole plan with what happened. But it's like, I can't imagine that God wants me to just stay sad. Because that's not what kind of God He is. And so I just was like, nope, I'm not gonna get stuck here. This is not my label. And then my kids were so little that I just had to be a better example for them. I didn't want them to get stuck either.

SPEAKER_06 23:39

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

And so well, yeah. And at that point, it had nothing to do with whether or not I wanted to remarry. It just I knew that I need to keep moving forward.

SPEAKER_04 23:49

Gotcha. Yeah, you don't know what that forward looks like.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

I had no idea.

SPEAKER_04 23:52

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Yeah. Understandable. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:54

Yeah, there's definitely more grace given because if we share a story with someone, we've been out to dinner, yeah, and we share a story, and there's they would just be like, Oh, poor Jess. And then it's great. What did you think? What did you do? Like, how did you screw that up? Like I'm like, thank you. That's so sweet of you. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:13

Yeah, I think it's hard to remember that both of those different scenarios, it's both a your safety is broken. Like there's trust, your future plans, like on both sides of that equation, it's it's just everything is not what you thought it was gonna be.

SPEAKER_04 24:31

It's like you're 12 years into this plan that you had build building, it's on the whiteboard. It's kind of like that, you know, it's just this massive plan laid out, and you're 12 years and somebody comes in and wipes it all clean and goes, okay.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

Okay, never mind.

SPEAKER_04 24:44

It's time to start over.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:46

And you're like, what?

SPEAKER_02 24:46

I didn't want to.

SPEAKER_04 24:48

I didn't I didn't ask for that.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

I don't want that.

SPEAKER_04 24:50

So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:51

Yeah. And along with all those other things, we've kind of already briefly talked about, but there's all these things that people don't really talk about that are like invisible losses, like with friendships. And you you added to that with the extended family members that you had good relationships with.

SPEAKER_04 25:05

And um Well, you know, something that's interesting though, like we're talking about divorce versus losing a death. Like I think we used the phrase that we said, hey, there's um what is it, there's less casseroles and more opinions.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

Yeah.

Timelines, Grace, And Moving Forward

SPEAKER_04 25:19

Yeah. I had so many people. Yeah. No one showed up in my house with a casserole. I can tell you that.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

I had so many that the church had to give me a second refrigerator.

SPEAKER_04 25:27

I I had a lot of people with opinions. A second refrigerator.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:32

Yeah, I didn't have that. But you know, it's like I I had a lot of opinions about things that I had done wrong and should have done better and things that were wrong. But yeah, there's there's the there are those invisible losses though too that come that we don't see coming.

SPEAKER_02 25:47

Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_04 25:47

Uh, and then you just turn around and they're gone.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:49

And you're like, what happened to that?

SPEAKER_02 25:51

Mm-hmm. So I mean, I remember it's almost like I I forgot how to use words because I was at a point in my life where I was just like, I don't even know how to explain this. But there was, you know, it was just such a heavy loss of just everything, confidence and everything.

SPEAKER_04 26:11

Yeah. Yeah, it's a huge that's one thing in the I I lost that kind of surprised me in that in that process. And we may get to that.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

We're gonna get to that in just a minute, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:21

Okay, so I won't share that. But I I think it was all the things that that were the invisible losses that kind of piled up that you find yourself feeling. You may not have been, yeah, but you feel totally alone.

SPEAKER_06 26:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:35

And you're just like, What what do I do? Yeah, like where do we go? And I how do we move forward from here?

SPEAKER_02 26:41

And I even asked the question too, as I was processing, like there's things, maybe it's not a question, but I lost stuff that people never even acknowledged. And you did too.

SPEAKER_06 26:54

Like what?

SPEAKER_02 26:55

Well, um, the idea of belonging to somebody.

SPEAKER_05 27:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Like I I like to, like, I like being your girl. Like that was a big thing that people didn't like, oh, you lost your husband, you lost, you know, all these like official terms. But I'm like, I lost just feeling like I I belong to somebody.

SPEAKER_05 27:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Like he picked me.

unknown 27:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

And so there's just other, there's just little things that I think that people don't acknowledge. And I think it probably goes even more so with divorce. There's all these little invisible losses, like you said, that are they're not acknowledged, but they add up.

SPEAKER_04 27:31

Well, I think the biggest part with divorce is that you did pick each other in the beginning. And then there was a point where it says, I don't pick you anymore.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

Right.

SPEAKER_04 27:41

Like I I don't want that with you anymore. And that's the hardest part.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

Right.

SPEAKER_04 27:45

And I think that's where that invisible thing of confidence, that invisible loss comes in. You're like, you lose all confidence in like kind of who you are and what you're about and what you stand for. And that stuff is that's not a quick rebuild. That's not a oh, just go, you know, spend a weekend alone in the cabin and find yourself again and you'll be good to go. There's a lot of trust in people, trust in just relationships and confidence and self-worth that you just it's hard to find.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

Yeah. And I think it's important too, once if you find yourself in this kind of sad place, you know, that you don't rush through the meaning of what's happening. Because that was one thing my counselor really helped me do is kind of slow down to process like what am I feeling? I don't, you don't have to rush through because there's meaning in in the sufferer, whatever word you want to use. There's meaning in this loss.

SPEAKER_04 28:43

Well, there's meaning in there's things to learn in the journey.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

Right.

Thought Work, Counseling, And Truth

SPEAKER_04 28:46

Like I remember I um I did this, God, I can't tell you how many days. I would just be like, please just show me what to do. Just show me what's around the corner, like that parade. Like, I just want a bird's eye view of what's around the corner, what's next. And I always remember I never got that. But then I look back now and and I truly was like, if I would have seen the picture of you and I, yeah, our family together, I would have jacked that up so bad. I would have tried to make that happen. It came down for me, it was the simple idea of just take one step today. Like let's just do one step and see what happens. Let's do one step and and see how um if we can't regain some of those things.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:30

And don't worry about what's around the corner. Just worry about right now.

SPEAKER_02 29:33

That's true. So um this is I was doing some reading today and um something I saw that said you don't heal by explaining your pain away, but you heal when you acknowledge it and you work through it.

SPEAKER_04 29:48

Help me help me understand what you guys mean. Like produce Monkle, you got anything to add with that?

SPEAKER_03 29:55

No, I I think that is absolutely true. Um when I went excuse me, when I went through divorce, um it was very easy to be able to identify what was causing me grief.

SPEAKER_06 30:13

Right.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

What was causing me frustrations, guilt, shame, all these things, whether it be um something someone else said to me about what I went through or more so it was even what I thought about what I did. You know, like, oh my gosh, did I do enough to show that I cared, did I do enough, you know, to to fight for my marriage. And uh it wasn't until I I went to counseling, and this was months, months after my divorce um because I could talk about it all day long. I didn't want to talk about it, but I could. I mean, Greg, you can attest to that. We talked many times about what I was going through. But uh my counselor sat me down and he was like, Okay, you're wrestling with these thoughts, and these thoughts keep coming back. But what are you doing to process and finalize these thoughts? You know, because you can just still sit in your own guilt and shame for forever, whether it's true or not, because in your own mind they can you feel like they're true whether they are or not. Right. Um but when I hear you say that statement, can you say it one more time?

SPEAKER_02 31:22

I put my reading glasses back on. Um, you don't heal by explaining your pain away, you heal by acknowledging it and working through it.

SPEAKER_03 31:32

Yes. So yeah, you can acknowledge it and then and just talk about it all the time, but it wasn't for me until I was able to sit down and think through a thought, take one thought, which is hard to do because there's thousands sometime in your mind, and finalize that thought.

SPEAKER_02 31:50

Yeah. That's what helped me too. I remember um with my counselor, we would work on just different pieces of what I was feeling rather than trying to rush me through it. Because I went for two years. It was just each different piece and just all the layers. There's just so many layers.

SPEAKER_03 32:10

And to be clear, like when I'm when I say finalize that thought, it means you're gonna go one of two ways when you finish this thought. Either this thought has truth and validity to it, and that therefore that means I want to change something about myself. If it's something that I I didn't do enough of.

SPEAKER_05 32:28

Right.

SPEAKER_03 32:29

Okay, well then I'm now going to say, I'm not gonna let that thought change my emotion, but I'm gonna let it fuel what I want to change about myself. Or if I take that thought and say, that is a lie, that is not true, therefore it should not hold anything over me to affect my emotions. And saying this is a lot easier to say it than to do it. Oh, yeah. Because those thoughts are gonna come back the next day. Oh, 100%. Those thoughts are gonna come back the next week, the next month, the next months, and years even.

SPEAKER_04 33:04

And the thing is, you get to control your thoughts though. Like you can either let them run rapid or you can take control of them.

SPEAKER_03 33:12

Well, and and I would encourage this just from my beliefs and and where I stand, the Bible says take every thought captive to the obedience of God's word. You know, because you can go to friends, and friends can fill you so full of so many different words. Yeah. They can and and I'm I'm not saying that it's the worst thing in the world, but sometimes in their attempt to try to build you up, they feed you even more lies.

SPEAKER_04 33:36

Yeah. Yeah. They just want to support you so they just keep piling on to the bad thought that you already have.

SPEAKER_03 33:43

And so you may have someone guiding you and pushing you in one direction, but that might not be what is healthy for you.

SPEAKER_06 33:50

Right.

Naming Collateral Damage

SPEAKER_03 33:51

Because if what's healthy for you is to make a change in your life, and they're feeding into enabling something that is not healthy about your life, then that's not good. Yeah. But even in that, and I'm not saying not to seek counsel from friends and from mentors, because we all should. Yeah. However, that should not trump what is true and what we know is to be true in God's word. Yeah. And so for me, that made a significant difference, being able to identify truth in my life, what I fought for, what I didn't, where I needed to change, what I needed to change, and how to grow from there.

SPEAKER_04 34:25

But because when those thoughts came up, you're like, no, it's no truth to that. It's not true.

SPEAKER_03 34:29

Yeah, well, it makes it easier to fight them as time goes on. Yeah.

unknown 34:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:34

Because I'll say, like year, a year after my divorce, I still had those thoughts come back. But when you're able to finalize those thoughts, the moment it comes in, you have the victory-winning immunition from the start. Yeah. Which means you can shut them down, which means the emotion, emotional roller coaster waves are much smaller and they're much shorter rides at that time, too. The more you're able to combat it, the quicker and easier it is to overcome it.

SPEAKER_04 35:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:01

And it takes time. Yeah. It does.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

So with all of this that we've said, let's unpack a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 35:09

All right.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:11

All right, let's get to the real stuff. So whoever meets the road. I guess, as they say.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

Okay. So I think it's important that when you're going through this, any kind of these losses that we've talked about, that you name the damage, the collateral damage. Um, for ex for example, we were talking earlier, um, an exercise to try, if you've been through this, um, is to name three things that you lost that weren't that person. Like for me, TJ passed away. I lost him as a human, but I also lost um a feeling of safety. Um, I lost the feeling of trust, like trusting what the plan was for my life. Um, and I lost confidence, maybe that I didn't lose confidence in the same way you did. I lost confidence in what I thought my life was. But I guess that's just kind of the same thing too, honestly.

SPEAKER_04 36:11

Could be.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Um, so those are three things that I lost. What about you?

SPEAKER_03 36:15

How about you, Mike? I would say confidence was a big one for me. You know, especially being in marriage and coming to a point where someone who said I choose you, yeah, um said, Nope, never mind. And you can't help but wonder, well, what did I do that made them change their mind? You know, so confidence was a big one. Um trust.

SPEAKER_06 36:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:42

Yeah. And I'm gonna be honest, I'm still working through that. Still, and it's been two two years just over. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

It took you a while to work through that one, did you?

SPEAKER_03 36:50

Yeah, um and this one is uh a big one for me because it affected me probably the most as far as collateral jam damage goes. But joy. Joy. And if if you know much about me, you know I love music. Anything, anything from classical string quartets to like rap to stream mode to alternative rock to country. Like I I love music. If I'm working, there's music playing. If I'm riding in my car, it's windows down, music playing, you know, like that's my life. Um It was probably at least a year before I could even just listen to music in the car. I couldn't. Wow, I couldn't, I wouldn't do it. Um I used to take my dog, I live half a mile from the lake. I used to take my dog to the lake all the time. Just go out, sit down, and let him do his thing and get as wet as he possibly can in the mud in the Georgia Clay. And it was over a year before I could do that. I just I didn't want to. I had no desire to, yeah, and in the things that gave me joy and the things that brought joy in my life. And uh I remember because we talked about that multiple times, even this last year, we've talked about that. Um that was uh a big one for me.

SPEAKER_02 38:15

What about you, baby?

SPEAKER_04 38:19

Um I think confidence, but in a different way, like confidence in myself.

SPEAKER_06 38:25

Yeah.

Friends, Faith Communities, And Surprises

SPEAKER_04 38:25

Um just just in relationships, just kind of um I lost some lost self-worth. Um, and some of that had to do with the confidence, but then it was just direction for me. It's as crazy as it sounds, but I mean I I had I felt like I had direction. I knew where I was going, I knew what was happening, I knew uh what I wanted out of life, what what was going on, and then all of a sudden I don't have any of that. And so it was uh scratch it all and just start over again. And that that just raked me. It was one of those things I didn't it's like wow, yeah. I never saw coming.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

So it was something that surprised you in your experience.

SPEAKER_04 39:15

Mine's probably not the good answer, but uh the church. Uh the church surprised me the way they didn't respond. Um man, it messed with me with church for a while. And then I realized um not God, not my relationship with him, just church.

unknown 39:36

The people.

SPEAKER_04 39:37

The the and I get it. Churches are run by people, people churches, but there was a lot of guilt, a lot of shame, a lot of um I was just kind of pushed out a little bit too. And so it took me a while before I even wanted to consider that or be a part of that or any of those things. And so that changed. That was a I mean, up until then that was a huge part of my life.

SPEAKER_05 39:59

Um

SPEAKER_04 40:00

Um my walk, my relationship. And so it it to say it's suffered would be an understatement. I kind of just took a lot of time and walked away from it.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

Yeah. So I mentioned this earlier, but something that surprised me and my loss and part of the collateral damage was the loss of some friendships.

SPEAKER_06 40:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

Which still baffles me fifteen years later or however sixteen years later. It still baffles me.

SPEAKER_04 40:26

Yeah, it is interesting.

SPEAKER_02 40:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

About you. Kind of what surprised you?

SPEAKER_03 40:32

Uh it was surprising to see her moving out of our house on Sunday on my way home from church.

unknown 40:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:39

Well, yeah, that'll do it.

SPEAKER_02 40:41

That's a surprise. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:43

Didn't didn't know what's going on.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:46

Yeah. Welcome to that. Get home from work and moving truck.

SPEAKER_02 40:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:51

And the next part of the unpack though, you mentioned this a minute ago about finding somebody to listen to you.

SPEAKER_03 40:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:57

Yeah. Find somebody a safe listener that And that's important, especially what you just said.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

A safe listener. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:04

Somebody that's not going to judge you, that's not going to rush you, somebody that's not going to try to fix it. You just need somebody to listen to you.

SPEAKER_03 41:10

Yes. And and honestly, someone that you know loves you beyond anything else. Um because there's people who will try, like you said, just try to fix things. And there's people who will, in their attempt to love you, not give you hard truths either.

SPEAKER_06 41:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:29

Yeah. And I will say that is a very hard thing to navigate. Because at least in my circumstance, there's all sorts of people who want to come tell you their truths and what they think you should do or shouldn't have done, or all of this and that.

SPEAKER_07 41:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:42

But being able to identify that is someone who speaks a hard truth in your life, meaning it's either one something that you need to change about yourself, change about how you're living, change about what you're doing. Because I'll tell you this when I was going through what I went through, there were days I just didn't do life. I just didn't, I didn't want to. And there are people in my life who spoke to me and were like, hey, it's 1 p.m. You need to get out of bed.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:10

You need to get up and do something.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

Let's put one foot in front of the other.

Safe Listeners And Hard Truths

SPEAKER_03 42:13

Yes, literally. Literally. And my first initial thought is like, you know what? Screw you. Like, I'm gonna do what I want. Like, this is awful what I'm going through. I don't want to get out of bed. I don't want to do anything. Um, but being able to have healthy boundaries, uh, because there were also people who tried to just pour in and pour in and love and love and do all these things, but that also was very hurtful in a lot of ways. You know, and sometimes it kind of felt like a pity party. And I was like, I don't want anything to do with that.

SPEAKER_06 42:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:44

And so being able to work through those relationships, but finding, like you said, finding that safe person that you can share with, that there's not that judgment, there's not that condemnation. They're gonna hear what you have to say, they're gonna build you up in love and in truth, even if they have to say things that are hard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:02

Yeah. The last little piece of unpack is important to you don't need to compare your grief to somebody else's.

SPEAKER_04 43:09

No.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

No. I mean, whether it be all this Everybody loses in comparison game. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 43:14

Everybody. It doesn't matter what you're dealing with. If you're dealing with the relationships, whatever you're dealing with, you're you're losing.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:21

You're losing when you compare.

SPEAKER_02 43:23

You are.

SPEAKER_04 43:24

Regardless.

SPEAKER_02 43:24

And no matter what kind of loss it is, it counts. And that that's yours to work through.

SPEAKER_04 43:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:29

Um so like we said, this one's been a little bit heavy.

SPEAKER_04 43:33

But at the same time, it's you may not be walking through heaviness. You may not be walking through grief. You may not have had a death or divorce. But we walk through we walk through things all the time.

SPEAKER_05 43:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:46

Uh it may be financial trouble, it may have the loss of a job, a loss of a career. They create some grief, it creates stress in your home. There's so many different things. These are all ideas and things that you can think about and walk through and work. Like the person you're talking about, having somebody who calls you to the carpet and challenges you and pushes you, that's somebody you need in your life. Every day, whether you're working on your life, no matter what. Yeah, absolutely. That's very changing. Like that's somebody who's like, bro, what are you doing? Stop doing that. Like, get your crap together. Um, those are those are people that that we just need. And we should look to have those people in our lives.

SPEAKER_06 44:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:24

Um well, and also an encouragement.

SPEAKER_06 44:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:27

You may not be walking through this right now, but you may know someone who is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

Yeah. These are good tools for you to help someone else.

SPEAKER_03 44:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:36

It is.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

And so this whole time we've been talking about collateral damage. Um, so this was our part one. And so I hope that everybody can join us for part two because after we've talked about the the damage and things that can come along with loss, there's also beauty in that too.

SPEAKER_04 44:55

Yeah, there's a line in the movie that we we were watching this movie and Jess and I and it they say it more than once, but it's this one time um the the lady's in the hospital and she's about to lady looks at her and she goes, Are you about to lose someone? The lady sitting beside her, and she goes, Yes. And the lady goes, Don't forget to see the collateral beauty. I mean, we just hit pause and I was like, Whoa, wow.

SPEAKER_07 45:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:22

Like that's so that's such a strong statement and such a freaking hard thing to do. Yeah. Because when you are in the when you when you look around and there's damage everywhere, sometimes it's hard to see the beauty. It is. And so we're going to dig into the beauty uh that happens from collateral damage and collateral, and hopefully it's collateral beauty.

SPEAKER_06 45:45

Hope so.

SPEAKER_04 45:46

That that reaches lots of different places. And so we're going to dig into that in part two of our episode. So thank you guys for joining us again. Thank you for liking, sharing, being a part of Baggage Claim. Thank you for taking the time to listen to this.

SPEAKER_06 46:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:00

Uh, we hope you got something out of this. Uh, if you did, um, man, send us a text from that podcast, wherever you're listening. If it's on one of those, DM us, whatever, just let us know. But uh, thank you guys so much.

SPEAKER_02 46:13

Yeah, thank you. Tune in for the next one, please. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:15

Part two is coming up.

unknown 46:29

Um