Awakening Through Grief: Journey from Loss to Healing With Angela Clement

Angela Clement shares her deeply personal journey through the loss of her husband and how grief became a pathway to healing, self-discovery, and spiritual transformation. Together we will explore the power of hope, energy healing, community support, and finding purpose after profound loss. This heartfelt conversation offers comfort, inspiration, and a reminder that healing is possible, even after life’s most devastating challenges. 

https://www.healingenergy.world/

https://www.instagram.com/guidingpathways2025/?hl=en

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:53

And today's guest is Angela Clement, who is a certified grief coach, speaker, writer, and healer, creator of the online series Awaken Your Soul's Journey, and an author of Awakening Through Grief, a spiritual journey of healing and transformation after loss. Everyone, please welcome Angela. Hi, Angela. How are you today? Great. Thank you. So nice to be here. I'm glad that you could be here today, and I'm so excited for our conversation. Happy to see where it goes. Would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became a grief coach? Yes, well, I started out in life wanting to be a teacher. And from the time I was little, I dreamed about that, and I became one. And so for 35 years, I was in the education career, and I taught at a really small school in Valmarie, Saskatchewan. And I became principal there for the last 11 years or 12 years. And I met the love of my life just out of graduation. His name was Blaine Clement, and got married in my first year of university. And so we were together 35 years, and we were planning our retirement. He had sold our ranch, we had a cattle ranch, and he was ready to do some traveling. We have two children, so we were gonna follow them, and um and then in the in January of 2021, he was diagnosed with colon cancer. And in the next 10 months, everything in my life unraveled. And it was because you know he had this very serious diagnosis, and he was so sick, we decided we'd move, and we decided to go to a little place where I live now called Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, to be closer to the hospital and also closer to my son. And so when his passing came at the end of October of 2021, I found myself retired because I left my position to help look after him. Not that I wasn't gonna do that soon, anyways, but that's just the way it worked out. And then I ended up in a new community where I didn't really know many people, and I had all of this time that I didn't know what to do with. And the doctors had done surgery and different things, but they couldn't uh relieve his symptoms. And and so I went to an energy healer basically out of desperation, and she healed him. And so ever since then I have been so interested in what what was it that helped to heal my son? And I started diving deep into different books and information and and I did some workshops just learning how energy works. And so when my husband passed away, I felt like I would I needed to pick that up again, and so I did. I took a course, it was a six-month course actually, that taught me all different types of energy healing modalities so I could get to know more about it. And then at the end of the course, we had a little marketing piece where we created an online summit and we could create it around any theme we wanted to, and of course, I chose grief, and so I interviewed 25 experts in grief, therapists, coaches, and it was so good for me to listen to those people who had experienced grief, who had had knowledge and expertise in that area, and it also gave me an opportunity to help others because I was sharing their stories and their wisdom, and people were happy to receive that. And so through all of that, I also had enlisted with a grief coach, and she helped me a lot through all of the emotional part of this loss, and and so between the two, I decided that I needed to help others, and so I took my grief certification from my grief coach, and I continued with the summits, and I found out that actually I loved working with people, and I loved being able to give people what I needed when I lost my husband because I felt like I was a little bit like a fish out of water, I had no idea where to turn or what to do. So I wanted to offer for people the information and education around grief and also the support, and so that's how I ended up doing it. Wow, that must have been so devastating, losing the love of your life like that and being in a new community. With you, with your story about your losing him and what you went through, what is your one thing that you're hoping that the audience will take with them? I think the biggest thing that really bothered me when Blaine first passed away was, well, first of all, not really knowing where to turn or what to do. And I was sort of thinking that things would just get better in time. You know, a lot of people say time heals all wounds. Well, I found out very early on that things weren't getting better. In fact, in some ways, they were getting much worse. And so I was searching for someone who could tell me that I would feel better at some point and that I wasn't going to feel like this forever because once your person is gone, they're gone, and it feels like nothing can help you because you can never bring them back, and that realization is really hard. So I was looking for someone who could give me hope that I wouldn't feel like this forever. And so I found a quote online, it was from my grave coach, her name is Julie Clough, and it said, some may say you will grieve for a lifetime. I choose otherwise. I choose the path from hurt to hope to healing every day. And when I seen that quote, I thought, oh my goodness, here's someone who actually says, I don't have to grieve for a lifetime over this. And so I immediately signed up with her for a half-hour discovery session, and I remember being so nervous about going to her and talking to her just because I would have to talk about what happened to me, and I would probably cry, and I didn't want to do that, and it was just, but at the same time, I knew that I had to have some support, and so when I met with her, it was so liberating because she explained so many things about emotions, and she has been through some horrific losses, and I thought, you know what, if you can come through this and come out on the other side saying, you know, you don't have to be in that depth of grief for the rest of your life, then I want to figure out how you did this, and so yeah, I worked with her for about four months, and it was it was amazing. So, what I want to tell people is there is hope, you don't have to feel like that forever. Everybody has a different timeline, of course. It takes a little longer, or maybe it not quite so long, it just depends, and everybody goes through it differently. So, but in the end, we can all heal and we can all live a fulfilling and happy life again. Absolutely, we we absolutely can. It does take time, uh as you said, but it's not impossible. And at first, it might feel a little weird to be living a happy life again, but eventually you stop feeling guilty for being happy without your person, and life returns back to quote unquote normal or as normal as it can be. Yeah. Um, earlier you mentioned that you explored energy healing as a way to work through grief. What role did energy healing play in your journey, and how did you see it benefiting others who are dealing with loss? Well, I think the biggest thing with energy healing I found was it helped me to release some of the really heavy emotion. Like it was a way to just gently release some of that sadness, the guilt, the jealousy. You know, it's interesting. Jealousy was a big one for me. I would look around to other people and just be so jealous that they could have their person and I couldn't. And then I would feel bad because I was feeling jealous. Like there was all of these emotions, one on top the other. And I found energy healers when I would sit with them and work with them, I felt lighter and I didn't feel so heavy afterwards. And so I think that was a big part of you know, I had to learn how to manage the emotions myself, and I really needed to be able to sit in my own energy and in my own emotion, but that really lightened the load for me, and so I think that's you know why I still continue to do energy healing now and and to really help people understand how their energy works. Yeah, um when I am doing my spiritual work for myself and for my work as well, I've noticed that energy really does matter. Because if you surround yourself with a bunch of negative or low vibrational things, your energy is gonna be low. But if it's like high vibrational things or positive things, like music or what ha what have you, um, then your energy is higher. And it's it's just amazing, mind-blowing how that works. But when when someone is in the depths of grief, it can be hard to imagine excuse me, life without that per constant pain. What advice do you give that, or what advice do you give to people who feel like they'll never find joy again after their loss? Well, I tell people that there are many of us out there who have experienced devastating loss, sometimes multiple losses. And through my work, I have interviewed over 200 people now that have gone through significant loss and trauma, and all of them have found a way to not only you know live again, but to actually thrive. And so I'm finding that if you're if I interview over 200 people, and there's and there's many more out there that have gone through grief and loss, we're all gonna go through grief and loss, and they could make it through, then I absolutely believe anyone can make it through that. It's sometimes um I really believe that grief is a process and that it's a God-given process for us to move through changes because life is all about that. It never stays the same. Everything changes as we grow up and change in age, as we move from one school to the next, as we go from one teacher to the next. I mean, each time you need something and start something new, it's a loss, and there's grief involved. And so I feel like this whole grieving process was given to us to help us through this, and and it wouldn't be there if it wasn't something that we could use and and make it through some of these really big traumatic losses. So yeah, I really think that letting people know that it is possible and giving them hope really opens the door for them to see how they can take their journey through rather than just you know submitting to the fact that you're gonna be in this sadness for the rest of your life. Can you share how you came to see grief as a powerful transform transforming transformative force in your life? Yeah, because I don't think I know for a fact, if I went back to 2021 and myself in that place uh where I lost my husband, there's no way that I would think that this is what I would be doing. I was very much an introvert, still am. Um even though I was a school principal, I would, you know, practice my speeches, you know, I would write them all out, I would have a script, you know, I wasn't one of those people that could just get on a podcast and start talking about myself. But over time there's been this transformation, and as I moved through this, I realize how much I love listening to other people's stories and how resilient humans are. And I remember my husband um always striking up conversations with strangers in a restaurant or you know, just on the street. He would ask somebody, you know, how they're doing, where they're from, all those kinds of things. And I always looked at him and wondered, you know, why would you want to do that? Like I was so much an introvert. I would rather keep to myself than to explore these things. But now that I'm doing it, I realize what he was all about. You know, I realized that he loved listening to people's stories because they're everybody has a beautiful story of transformation and hope. You maybe don't realize it, but we are all very resilient. We go through a lot in this earth life. All of us do, and we all have our own challenges, and so listening to other people and their stories and how they move through gives us hope and inspiration and motivates us as well. And so I just think it's so important to realize that you can be transformed even through something so devastating as a loss. Yeah, you can. Sometimes great things can come from loss because actually my coaching business came from loss.

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I would have never been thinking that I would be a relationship or self-identity coach. I'm actually going to be transitioning more towards like spiritual coach, but I have some studying to do with that. But I notice that when we do the inner work, the outside world reflects how we how it is for us on the inside. And if we want a good, fulfilled, peaceful life on the outside, it has to start on the inside. And and so then when you lose something, it just kind of doesn't sound cold or anything, but it makes room for the things that are meant for to be in your life. The the beautiful blessings, and I transformed my pain into wanting to help people never experience whatever I went through ever again, and so that's why I became a coach because I knew that people have come to me all my life, even before you know, when I was a kid, and I was actually at one point a conflict manager, and I would help people resolve issues, so it was kind of like building me, preparing me for my calling, and then that that pain just kind of cracked it open and said, This is where you're going. So yeah, very, very um, I I spaced it off. Um validating stuff like you know what I mean? Um grief often takes a toll on both the mind and the body. What role did self-care play in your healing process, and what simple steps can others take when they feel too overwhelmed to care for themselves? Yeah, I think that a lot of the pain that I experienced when I lost wing had to do with my thoughts in my head around it. And at the very beginning, I mean, all you can do is it seems like just get out of bed. And um, you know, it feels like the whole world is going on without you, and yours has just stood still. And that whole piece of self-care, some people say, you know, self-care, well, you know, have a bath, eat right, do things for yourself, get a, you know, uh a pedicure, you know, those kinds of self-care things. But I more talking about loving yourself and looking inside and seeing what you truly want. There's a whole lot that happens when you lose a loved one. There's a lot of questions that can't come up about existence and why am I here and why did my loved one leave? And there's this huge discovery that starts to take place where you're trying to find yourself again because your whole identity has been crushed. I mean, I was Blaine's wife for 35 years, and suddenly I wasn't. And so who am I now? I'm not a teacher anymore. So who am I? And so we get this kind of identity crisis that happens. And through all of that, we realize that the one thing that really matters the most is ourselves and who we are. And so that self-care comes from that. It comes from realizing what we love, what we enjoy, what we what makes us light up. And sometimes it takes a long time to find it again because sometimes we haven't experienced what we really love since we were a kid. Because we get busy doing our job, making money. You know, we are told to get a good education, to get a nice house, you know, all of that stuff. And we're seeking all of those things and thinking those things are the things that are going to bring us happiness. But after a loss, there's something that opens up and you start to realize that your true happiness comes from doing things that you enjoy. And I tell people if you can't figure that out, then go back to when you were a kid and think about what you did then and what you love to do, and that will give you a clue about what will bring you joy now. And then it's just being brave enough to step into that. And sometimes that's you know the hardest part. Yeah, it can be, but it's the most rewarding part. A good example is I was trying to figure that out for myself. I said, what really brings Sarah joy? I and I said, I really don't know. I've never asked myself that. And I've and and I heard about like if you don't know to go back to your childhood and what what did you do to make yourself happy? I don't know. I did a lot of a lot of silly stuff. Well, just pick one. So I meditated, and finally I decided, you know what? I sing. As a little girl, I would just listen to my favorite music, I would have my headphones on, and I would have like a little microphone carrying, and I would pretend like I was a rock star. And my mom always used to tease me, Sarah, stop. Oh, you can't sing your single, whatever. Um, that would actually hurt my feelings, and then I would just do it in my room where nobody could hear me, and I became really shy about it. So eventually I stopped doing it. But then I wanted to bring it back because I wanted to create that joy for myself again. So one day I said, you know what? I don't give a shit what if this is gonna what this is gonna look like. I'm gonna do this. And I made my excuse me, I made myself go outside for a walk, I put my headphones on, and I I didn't look around. I had sunglasses because it was a warm sunny day, and I had sunglasses. I did not look around, I just pretended like it was me, and I just danced, and I sang like nobody was watching, and then when I became brave enough, then I started like looking out of the corner of my eyes, and then I was watching people like bouncing in their chair, joining in, and I was like, yes, and so then like it's become now like an energy exchange, but it truly is like going back and finding that little girl or boy, who whoever, and what did you do that was making you feel so happy inside and just do it now as an adult? And and oddly enough, adults are so afraid to do that because it makes us feel vulnerable and it makes us feel silly and makes us feel I don't know, unaccepted by other adults around us. But honestly, like if all the adults that feels like they can't do that were to do it, this world would be a better place to live in, I feel really so it would be a bunch of little kids running around being friends rather than enemies, but exactly. Um so in your book, Awakening Through Grief, you discuss grief as a way to release emotions and create space for a new fulfilling life. We've talked a little bit about this already, but would you like to expand on how it created room in your life? Yeah, I think, you know, piggybacking a little bit on what we were just talking about, I think it opened me up to explore some new things and discover some things about myself that I just never really realized. And and to give myself the grace to be okay with it. And I know one thing, like the writing was never on my agenda. I always thought if I wrote a book, it would be about education and teaching kids, and but I never really had that strong desire to do that, and yet through all the stories and realizing how much that helps other people, I realized that my story could possibly help others, and just the fact that I wrote the story was healing for me in itself, just doing the book for myself and no one ever reading it would have been worth it, just for it was so cathartic to write that book, and then doing the audio portion was even more so because it seemed like speaking it out loud took it to a whole new level. So I think that you know we realize at some point again what we really truly want to do in this life, and what we start to realize what will really make a difference and what matters to us, and so yeah, it in that way it transforms. And if you can find a way to be of service to others, I think that that takes your healing to a whole new level as well. You know, I think I think so, yes, because being able to do that and watch others transform and use basically your journey as a blueprint, beautiful, and then you're and then it it it's it's that energy exchange, like what me dancing is the same. The energy exchange, it's all it's all anything really is, anyway, between two people. And you know, we were talking about energy earlier, about how energy energy affects everything that we do. Energy exchange. Yep. Energy is everything, and and and and how these difficulties today. Energy is everything and it's everywhere and and it's everything is and just all we are is a bunch of vibrational beings, and if we weren't vibrating, we wouldn't be here. Yeah, exactly. In the in the awakening through grief, you discuss the difference between grief and mourning, and that and explain the mourning is key to healing. Can you share more about how outward expression of grief, like rituals, writing, or creating help, move us toward healing? Yeah, I think that when we talk about energy, we we tend to hold it. And it's it's like you know, when something happens and you hold your breath and you just can't breathe. It's that feeling of being stuck in time, you know, and I think that expressing ourselves through mourning, through crying, through writing, through drawing, painting, singing like you do, really helps the energy to flow again. And I found with you know, even walking in nature and just taking a deep breath and looking at the trees and just feeling the connection with the beauty out there, it kind of opens your heart and it it lets you just be and not just kind of let go of the worries and just be in yourself. The same way that meditation works. I really think that walking is a type of meditation. I think that painting is a type of meditation, singing is a type of meditation. You know, I think that that all helps release energy and it helps to get it flowing again in the natural way that we're meant to be. It's not natural for us to be uptight and nervous, and I mean it happens, it definitely happens to us, you know, but it's not our natural state. And so if we can get back to where we are feeling comfortable again, where we can breathe again, I think that's the key. And that is what this process of grief does. It brings on these emotions, and then we need to address that, and we need to allow that to flow through us rather than hold on to it and hold our breath and clench all our muscles, you know, to just let those emotions come in and out. It feels like you know, they're gonna kill us because they're so strong, but they won't. And so it's allowing that and letting that happen. Yes, absolutely. Um, I remember through my grieving process, there was a time where I just I couldn't take it. That the feelings were so overwhelming. Just no, I was what happened, what was happening was this particular moment, I was reclaimed a happy moment um that we share we had shared together. And to know that that had quote unquote been ripped away, um, it it just shattered me. And there's more behind it, but I was shattered. And so then I went into my bedroom and I just covered my face so the sound was muffled with my pillow, but I just outwardly just pelted, just yeah, and just let it all out, and it was coming down from my guts. I could feel it at my eventually I could feel it at my toes because the more that I was letting it out, the more it was coming up and just getting it out, being able to just allow being showing myself compassion and giving myself permission to feel that pain and that sorrow and to grieve that loss really was empowering me to then heal because then I was no longer holding those emotions in me, but it was so just awful in the moment that turned into beautiful beauty in the end. Yeah. Through your book, Awakening Through Grief, your summit and support group, you create a space for people to come together and heal. Why is community so important in the grieving process and how does it help you personally? Well, I always thought that I could just go in my room and cry or do whatever, and I would be okay. And I always thought that was the way that I would deal with anything in my life, and I very quickly realized that that wasn't working, that you know, isolating myself, not talking about it, was just making it worse. But I didn't know how to connect with people, I really didn't know what to do or what to say, and I think that's you know, our society because we don't talk about grief, we don't talk about what it's like, we just avoid it until something major happens, and then we have to face it. So through the whole experience of interviewing people and getting the grief coach and doing the energy healing, I felt like I could connect with people, and I had been writing blog posts as I went along, and I had been sharing those, and people were responding to those in a positive way, and so I decided to take a chance and just start a group, and so I put an email out and just asked people to come and join me, and I had no agenda, it was just let's get together, and I called it that. I called it the grief get together, and so it happened on Zoom, and now I've been doing this for well uh since 2022, so all it'd be three and a half years now, before in the fall, and I have this beautiful group of core founders really that join me regularly. We meet about every 10 days on Zoom, and we talk about everything from grief to the afterlife to the awakening process to spirituality to energy healing to whatever. And it is I am finding the real epitome of being in our natural state because we need to belong to others, we need to connect with others. We actually are connected to everything, and so when we isolate ourselves and pull ourselves away, we're really making more pain. Not to say that that alone time isn't important, but we also need to be connected and we need to have others around us, and it is interesting to see how starting a community like that, wanting to support others, has supported me. I would say I've gotten as much or more out of that group than I ever expected to give. So it has been amazing, and I know that the people in the group would attest to it, um, that it has been one of the best things that have happened to any and all of us. So community is important. I would agree, yeah. It's a it's having support does really matter, especially when you're doing a grieving process, because if you try to do it alone, then there might be times where you might be spiraling or and you don't know if you're gonna be okay or not. So you need at least one or two, or you know, at least a few people in your corner, your support system, that you can reach out and say, Hey, I'm having a bad day, or I need support because and have them generally be there for you. It's very crucial to your healing process, I think. Absolutely, and when it's someone who understands where you've been, it's huge because they all had suffered losses as well. And so when we talk about our loss, we don't have to explain to them how you know everybody has an understanding of what it's like to lose someone. The unspoken uh words or yeah, understanding, unspoken understanding, so that way you're not over-explaining, and you just can tell your story like, hey, Jennifer, I'm having a bad day because blank, and then she's like, you know what, Angela, I totally get it. I'm here for you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, um, Angela, is there anything that you want the audience to know about you or your business, how they might be able to work with you one-on-one if they show one or two? Yeah, for sure. So if people can go to healingenergy.world, so www.healingenergy.world, that is my website. And everything I do is on there. And so as I indicated, I run a podcast just like you. I have I do angel readings, I have a grief coaching program that people can sign up for. I have my book on there. Um I also have um little meditations that you can do, a few of those, uh, and everything else, blog posts, newspaper articles, things that I've written. So I would encourage people to just go there because everything's there, and to just check out and see what resonates with you. Perfect. Well, Angela, thank you so much for your time today, ma'am. I hope that you continue to do wonderful things and enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you so much. Okay, talk to you later. Bye. Bye. There you have it, folks. If you want to work with Angela one-on-one and learn more about what she does, or check out her book or any of the meditations, feel free to check out her website at healingenergy.world. Once again, that's healingenergy.world. Or for more coaching tips and tricks and to work with me one on one, feel free to check me out on Guiding Pathways on Facebook or Instagram. Until next week, everybody, this has been your morning tea.