When Grief Changes You

If your grief is new or if it’s been with you for years, this episode is for you.

For the first time publicly, we open up about the losses that changed everything: the death of Joy’s fiancé, the unraveling of a relationship Matt believed would last, and the silent years we both spent trying to escape pain, magical thinking, and spiritual bypassing.

This isn’t a step-by-step guide to healing.
It’s the raw, real truth of what grief looks like when you live it and what becomes possible when you finally stop running.

In this episode, we share:

🌱 The exact moment grief began and how we each responded

🌱 Why we believed we could “earn” a different outcome

🌱 What it looks like to grieve someone still alive

🌱 Why our spiritual tools stopped working

🌱 What finally helped us heal, reclaim ourselves, and return to love

If you’re in a season of loss or wondered if you’ll ever feel whole again… you’re not alone. 

Connect with Matt and Joy

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Have questions?  hello@mattandjoy.org

Transcript

Matt: If your grief is new or it's been with you for years, if you're trying to hold it together or just want to feel whole again, this episode is for you. 

Joy: Today we're talking about grief, the kind of grief that cracks you open and changes everything. The kind you try to outrun until it asks you to sit down and feel.

Matt: We share the grief that shaped us, death, heartbreak, letting go, and the things we tried before we actually began to heal. 

Joy: From bargaining, to escaping, from magical thinking to the ache of reality. We share what grief really looks like, raw, illogical, and more sacred than we ever expected. 

Matt: We know what it's like to feel lost in grief, to wonder if you're ever coming back to yourself, and we're here to remind you that grief doesn't follow rules and neither should your healing.

You're not alone. We're walking this with you. 

Joy: Let's begin.

Matt: So this episode is an honor of a very touching. Message we received recently. 

Joy: Yeah. We've received a lot of really beautiful messages, but we received one specifically asking about, um, grief. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Joy: And it was in response to an episode where I had shared about my fiance dying. Mm-hmm. And feeling just the intense grief of that experience.

And, um, of course it was in reflection to not realizing that I was going to have a completely different life and meet you. Sure. But that message really touched us both. We could feel the depth of the, just longing to feel better. Right. And so thank you, you inspired us to record this podcast. 

Matt: Yeah. Thank you for the inspiration and our hearts are with you as you process loss and move through this incredibly sacred and healing portal.

Joy: For all of you who are feeling touched by grief in some way, we love you very much. Hmm. So let's talk about grief. 

Matt: Let's talk about grief. 

Joy: You know, the question that she posed was how did we, how did we get through it? 

Matt: Right. 

Joy: Um, sometimes grief feels so unimaginable, it feels like there's no way we can possibly get to the other side.

And I certainly felt that way. Yes. Um, I woke up really early one morning and it was 5:00 AM when I got the message. Hmm. And it woke me up out of, actually, I woke up before the phone rang. Really? I dunno if you've ever had an experience like that. Yes. Where it's, you know, something's coming like that.

Mm-hmm. So I woke up and then the phone rang, and on the other end of the phone was the mother of my fiance. 

Matt: Oh my goodness. 

Joy: And I knew. I knew, as I heard her voice, what had happened. I don't remember what she said. I just know that within a few moments I was in my car and I was driving out to their house.

Matt: How far away did you live? 

Joy: About a half an hour away. Different city. I was staying in the house that we had shared together before he got sick, and as he got sicker and sicker, it became clear that we needed help. So he moved back in with his family and I would go back and forth. I would go back and forth just about every day and would most of the time stay there.

But this particular night I came home just to make sure everything in the house was okay and kind of just check in with our life and the life I thought that we were all both going back to, and of course that was the night that he decided to go. Hmm. Or he left. So driving out, I don't remember. It was a blur.

And that was the moment grief began. For me. It was that, it was the shock of, this is happening, this has occurred. I need to get there and I need to make sense of this. And I think for so many of us, that's it. It's a, we get news, we don't expect, we get information that feels unbelievable. We can't possibly stand it, we can't stomach it.

At least that's how I felt. I feel like this can't be real. I need to go see him and make sure it's true. And I'm so grateful because, you know, my connection to the divine to source began to really amplify in that moment. 

Matt: Hmm. 

Joy: So in that moment, I don't remember driving, but I remember in the seat next to me, it was a very clear image of Terry.

That was my fiance's name. And he was sitting in the car next to me, or his apparition or ghost spirit, I don't know. But he was sitting next to me in the car and he got me there. He got me to his mom's house and to where his body was.

Uh, 

Matt: what does it bring up? 

Joy: Just remembering the pain that I felt and the confusion. 

Matt: What was most confusing for you in that moment? 

Joy: That before that moment, I was living in this illusion, this fantasy that if I prayed hard enough, if I was a good enough girl, if. He ate the right things, if he believed certain things that he would survive.

I really thought we were just such good people that God would spare his life, that he would make it. So that's what it brings up for me. He's just remembering how painful it was to feel that kind of shattering reality loss. Yeah. So not only was this relationship ending, but all of it, all of the hope I'd been holding onto it was like I had been bracing and holding it all together, and in that moment there was nothing left to hold onto.

Matt: Right. 

Joy: Your 

Matt: displacement, 

Joy: you just let it go. It's just gone. You don't even, it's just gone. 

Matt: Right? 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: When you say let it go, it's I smile because I think people want to let it go. But when loss occurs, it's, it's gone. Right. 

Joy: It's, it's, it's gone. It's why a chuckle? It's, um, it's gone. Yeah. Hmm. So that, that began the grief process of, of making sense of it.

Mm-hmm. And that continued for quite some time. There were weeks of that, week of weeks of the shock. Right. And so when we're first in something, when we're first in a moment of grief, there's, there's nothing to do to get through it. You're simply being moved through it. The shock is, I think, protecting us, helping us process at the speed that serves us.

I remember it helping me get through the funeral and greeting all of our friends, telling people, um, hosting the Wake, we, I hosted this wake with all of our friends and this celebration of life. And I remember being the perfect hostess. Like here I was in grief, devastated, but somehow I was together and I was hosting and talking to our friends and welcoming them and making sure they were okay.

Matt: Sometimes having a dose of purpose 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: Can be very healing for the one trying to put the pieces together. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: So I can see that. 

Joy: Yeah, absolutely. So reflecting now, this has been 20 years ago, and so I feel incredibly, I. I'm grateful. I feel well, I feel healed, you know? And yet talking about it brings up emotion.

I remember that part of me that moved through that and, but I went through that grief, you know, moving to the question that was posed before this episode, how did you move through grief? And I would say it took me about 10 years to feel like I had healed. It doesn't need to take that long, but I went through stages, right?

There were different evolutions of me that would've thought I was healed, and then I would go through another iteration of processing and becoming another version of me, and then layers would continue to heal. So. This is gonna be an interesting conversation today. 

Matt: Quite interesting. I'm just taking it all in.

As usual, when you speak, I have visions of what you're saying, like I'm watching a movie. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: So I'm just really tracking what you're saying and really honoring that journey and really honoring the life of Terry. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: You and I have talked about Terry many times, and I've always been very grateful to the role he played in your life as a partner and always felt as if I can feel Terry with us.

Joy: I remember when we met. It was one of the first experiences that we had a few weeks in. I remember him coming to me in the kitchen and just saying, yeah, like, it was like this giant energetic thumbs up and just, you did a good job. I'm glad you finally met. You know, he's the one, there was just this beautiful celebration and, uh, and it was epic.

It was like this epic download from him because that's how he was. And, uh, that was such a powerful moment. It was, you know, way on the other side of feeling so good that now my relationship with Terry is really powerful and I love that he comes through. I 

Matt: do too. Of all the people in your life I could have been approved by, 

Joy: right.

Whew. 

Matt: That, that was a, a particularly meaningful one. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: So I'm really grateful. Hmm. 

Joy: Thank you. 

Matt: You're welcome. 

Joy: We really talked about that. Not in that way. I appreciate that. Yeah. 

Matt: Yeah. I always, always, like when you share stories about your memories with Terry. You know, a lot of people or some people might think, oh, why are you bringing them up again?

I, I appreciate it. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: Because I think that when you love someone, you appreciate the ones that they have loved and have loved them. 

Joy: Yes. 

Matt: Because like, for example, loving you, I'm grateful that Terry was able to love you during a time where I wasn't, where the life wasn't ready for us to meet. 

Joy: Mm-hmm. 

Matt: So I'm super grateful.

Joy: Yeah, me too. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Joy: It's the same way I feel about the relationships in your life, and Thank you. I've gotten the opportunity to meet, you know, some of the people who have touched you so deeply in the past. Yeah. And I remember you sharing about your last relationship, your most serious relationship. 

Matt: This deep one 

Joy: touched me deeply hearing about your experience because it felt so familiar Hmm.

To the, to the grief that I felt. 

Matt: And when I think back to that experience, it's funny because when you reflect on these kind of experiences, you're always at a different consciousness or age. And so you always recall it differently. Yeah. But I remember when she and I met and there was just this connection and we started talking and I quickly realized that she was actually in a relationship with someone.

Joy: Mm-hmm. 

Matt: And I remember just being, you know, very mildly competitive man on the inside and thinking, oh, this person should be with me instead of that person. And we got to know each other. And it led to that experience. Of her ending that relationship and us beginning one and it quickly became a serious relationship.

And then it led to us moving in together. And very shortly after we moved in together, it was like a gust of wind came into the room. We were both in like a scene in a movie. And the gust of wind blew through that scene and changed the resonance between us or, or made it feel like the connection between us suddenly vanished.

Hmm.

And it was one of the most shocking and confusing experiences of my life. One where. There's no reason to blame another person for what was, so obviously the winds of fate blowing the storyline of life in a particularly surprising direction, or maybe two people were so certain things were supposed to be one way, and life had other plans, obviously.

And so there I was in this moment living with the person. I thought that was meant to be my beloved. And all of a sudden the resonance between us romantically vanished. I instantly went into, because that's, that's, that's a loss. Yeah. You know, Terry left this planet. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: And I felt like from that moment forward, my beloved at that time had died.

But still living together felt, I felt like I was being haunted by her ghost

and in the devastation of loss. Right. There are, there are stages of grief. 

Joy: Mm-hmm. 

Matt: One of them is the bargaining 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: Stage. And so I went into a lot of my, what I thought was coping, but it turned out to be magical thinking. Thinking about what I did karmically to, to bring this about. Were there thoughts that I had had a few days before that somehow sabotaged this experience?

You know, I had naturally had some fears of, oh, what if this doesn't work? How did that manifest? Um, and then, and then something really deep hit me. I started remembering all the times that she would talk about the person she was in relationship with before. And all the times I thought about she should be with me, not him.

Hmm. And I legitimately thought that this was my karmic retribution for thinking that way, that I did not respect him as a brother. I did not respect their relationship. I wanted what I wanted for myself, and this was the payback for what I thought was a, uh, an indiscretion, a fall from grace. And I, and I took it very hard.

And so while I am living in a home with someone who now feels like a roommate, instead of my beloved, I'm trying to repent and purify myself to get God. To, to forgive me and, and I don't know how to process the grief, so I turn it on myself and I'm in the most painful stage of bargaining. Mm-hmm. Which I realized later.

And then eventually it led to her moving out. We remained friends. Of course it was all meant to be because you and I met. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: And she even attended our wedding. Yes. And that's, that's a lovely, that's a lovely way for that, for a story to end. Yeah. When the story starts so confusing, when all of a sudden you wonder if there's cruelty in the universe.

If I brought this on myself by the thoughts I innocently thought, and so I went through a grief, I. Process with someone who is still alive. And what really I was grieving was the death of a fantasy. 

Joy: Mm. 

Matt: That I thought when I met this person, this was the one. And they fit all the characteristics of the one.

And I think we both had fantasies of each other. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: And I think we really came together to wake each other up out of fantasy. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: And I also think that the purpose was to wake me up out of the fantasy of magical spiritual thinking. 'cause up to that point, I hadn't realized how I had learned a lot of spiritual things from my own direct experiences, but I hadn't realized that I had been reconditioned to interpret everything through a spiritual lens.

So, of course you naturally wonder what chakras outta service. What past life did I abuse my power? And then of course, oh, I wish she would've, uh, broken up with her ex to be with me. I must have created this. And, and what, what it was, was the most painful way to wake up out of magical thinking, to wake up out of the spiritually themed versions of cause and effect that belief pattern.

And as a result, the trauma was so intense for me. It actually jarred my intuitive connection to the universe, like someone's satellite dish interrupting their cable during bad weather. And in the moment the grief happened, I suddenly forgot how to do what I do. I would still do events and I'd sit on stage in front of my audience and I would relearn how to do what I did in front of an audience.

And it even got to the point where I thought, God, if this doesn't come back, I have to have an alternate plan for my life. I didn't know what to do. And I even came up with the idea of writing a book called Dumped by God because it, it, it felt as if I had my intuitive connection. I had this entire incredible life.

I thought I met the love of my life. It all came crashing down because I thought I did this by messing up and now everything's gone and I felt dumped by God. And it turned out to be a deeper awakening. It turned out to be an awakening out of the fantasy of Beloved, which was preparing me for the reality of Beloved with you, which I'm so grateful for.

And it bursted the bubble of. Magical thinking and brought me fully out of my spiritual ego that I didn't know I was operating from, because it wasn't like I was this larger than life ego-centric maniac. It was just that the spiritual ego was, I had a very ingrained way of interpreting everything through a spiritual lens.

So this was life's way to bring me beyond all that and, and bring me back into my body and bring me to a place of embodiment where my intuition did eventually come back. But, but the grief was like this feeling of loss, this sense of depression, this feeling of loneliness, this feeling of a longing for love that will never, ever be.

And every time I got to a place of feeling like I had healed and put the pieces back together, a a, a random wave would crash on the shoreline of my heart, and then I would feel like I was brought back to. Step one again. And this happened like five times over five and a half years. And I knew I had to ride it out, but the last time I was brought back to step one was when I stopped looking for when it will get better.

I stopped waiting for it to get better and I just said, you know what? I think this is it and the way my life is going to be, and it breaks every spiritual rule. Oh, you don't wanna manifest that, think positively, all that stuff. And it actually was the opposite with the moment I accepted the, you know what, this might be it.

I keep being brought back to this place of complete despair. Maybe this is where I'm supposed to build my new home. And I did. And I moved fully into myself and I became the man who didn't know he was being prepared to love you. 

Joy: Oh.

There's so many. I remember the first time we were sharing about this. There are just so many similarities in how we moved through it and just the characteristics of this type of ending that whether we lose someone while they're still alive or we lose someone in their transition, 

Matt: right? 

Joy: Our, our wounds get activated and the way that we process life gets thrown upside down on its head and it awakens us.

That's, that's its goal. 

Matt: And we had the opposite experiences, but the same experience. You could feel Terry, 

Joy: right? 

Matt: But you couldn't see him in the same material way. I could see my ex, but we couldn't feel each other 

Joy: right. 

Matt: We had opposite but equal experiences of loss. 

Joy: Yeah. As you were sharing that. I mean, I just feel it so deep me, it just Me too brings it all back me.

Me too. And I'm so grateful that we can share these stories with each other, likewise. And with others. I, I am, you know, feeling that and just remembering that we all negotiate with life in some way. I mean, this was certainly an awakening for me in the, just the nature of reality and was exposed throughout all as I was having this experience.

But it also woke me up out of that illusion 

Matt: Sure. 

Joy: Of what I thought I could get or do, or say or believe. And what I thought was happening, what I thought I could control. And when that was shattered, I remember having a response that once the shock started to leave. 

Matt: Hmm. 

Joy: I began feeling this feeling of anger that I couldn't quite understand, and it caused, it triggered something inside of me that triggered an old wound of abandonment.

So in that abandonment, I actually abandoned other people that were there to help me. So I remember when, when he first died, he had, um, you know, he shared with me, it was the night before he died, or, you know, a few hours before I left that night, shared with me. He said, I'm so grateful that we've had this love and that we've had this relationship, and because I've experienced love, I can go now.

And I simultaneously felt like that was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard. And the worst. Because he had felt the fulfillment of love and felt this peace, and I felt nothing but turmoil. I felt like I got gypped. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Joy: And then his mom had written me this letter. To this day, I feel really terrible because we never had another conversation after this.

But she wrote me this beautiful letter and she said, I just want you to know you're going to love again. So she wrote all these beautiful words, but it was too soon for me. I couldn't hear it. And it felt like she was pushing me away, or not acknowledging the love that we had. She was just writing about how life was gonna bring me someone else.

It was gonna be amazing, and I wasn't ready. 

Matt: It felt more like a send off. 

Joy: Yeah. And so I. I walked away from his entire family and didn't keep in touch. 

Matt: Wow. 

Joy: Which years later was hard for me in part of the grief. Sure. And, but I did the same with people around me. Friends. I were, I was working at a company at the time, had a beautiful job, and I left.

I didn't want anybody to see me. I didn't wanna see anyone who knew I wanted to disassociate it. I wanted to separate myself from the experience. I wanted to move past the pain and shortcut it. I wanted to bypass the grief, which is my negotiation. Sure. Right. I'm gonna bypass the grief by not knowing anyone who knew me when I knew him.

And so I, it, it feels like another one of the inverses of God didn't leave me, but I left God. Mm-hmm. And I left the people in my life. I isolated myself and I went into a very deep depression. 

Matt: Wow. 

Joy: So just reflecting on that and just thinking about the, the tools we have at the time and we're doing the best we can to understand that until I understood years later why I had done that and that I was just in so much pain.

I was just in incredible pain that I wasn't ready to face and was when I began to understand that I needed to heal and my body was looking for the fastest route to that healing. Right. And perhaps that's what was happening for you. There was healing that needed to happen. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Joy: And it didn't include the work in that same way.

Matt: Well, it was interesting 'cause I went through this grief process. I was very public about my relationship. Right. This is the one I. And then it all went away. And it wasn't, it wasn't like, oh, I'm embarrassed a failure, what will people think of me? I, I didn't really have those thoughts, but, but I, I did I throw myself into work because it was the only thing in my life that felt good.

And I always have a tendency to not always talk about what I'm experiencing in the moment. 'cause I wanna wait till I'm on the other side and turn into a teaching. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: And so it was the first time in my life I went from, you know, being able to handle my recognition to feeling like I live in a fishbowl.

And I didn't want to tell anyone about my experience because of the few times I did. I had people trying to throw modalities at me 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: And project spiritual ideologies onto me. And I, and, and it, and it, and it became the thing I didn't want to hear about at all. And I just want, and, and it was interesting 'cause I wasn't trying to get out of my pain.

I just wanted to feel it because I, I had, I, at that time, I believed, oh, I caused this. I wasn't fair to that ex of hers. And I wanted them to break up. And that was a misuse of power. I mean, I was really hard on myself. Mm-hmm. And so I thought, I mean, I literally felt every Adam and every cell of my body was on fire.

And I thought, you know what? I'll take my medicine. Mm-hmm. I'll burn, I'll, I'll burn this part out. I did it, I'll, I'll did the crime, I'll do the time. Mm-hmm. And I, and that was my badge of honor of how I cope, one of the ways I coped with it. And so I still served, I still was able to teach. Some events, I would talk about it, but then I felt like when I talked about it, I felt I didn't want to be indulgent.

I certainly didn't want, I was, I was certainly very, uh, conscious of trying to protect the identity of, of her. Mm-hmm. And not wanting people to project anything under her because it was no one's fault. And so I was, I was trying to be with my pain, trying to protect someone, trying to control a narrative, trying not to let people know what I'm going through.

But then people are aware, God, there's something different about Matt, and Matt has been demolished. Matt, Matt is a shell of himself. Oh, I don't, you know, on YouTube. I don't know if I feel the same energy for Matt. Yeah. No shit. Neither does Matt. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: Where, where, where did Matt go? Matt would like to know that too.

Joy: It must have been so hard. It 

Matt: was so hard and. Also during the time of COVID. So then it became, now I had a reason to isolate. And what's interesting is I, I didn't, I never have had the instinct to try to avoid my feelings. I grew up in a family where you faced what happened. There was no negotiation. So I've talked about this before.

I've learned to live in fire, but the downside of that is I'm very comfortable in volatility. But then you don't realize that there are options, right? You don't have to do that. Or you think, because I don't feel the pain, I must not be hurting, but yet the, the personal self is still being damaged. Mm-hmm.

So, so I, I would just thought, I'm gonna feel like I'm on fire and I'm gonna just burn, apologize to source and beg for my gifts to come back. 

Joy: Mm-hmm. 

Matt: And it was during COVID, and I found myself slowly but surely

playing out patterns that became more and more self-destructive in the privacy of my own home, in my family. You didn't alter your state because you had something, or at least a lot of the time people did. My family didn't alter their state because they had something to suppress. It was because that was how we celebrated.

Joy: Mm-hmm. 

Matt: And so as a way of trying to help myself cope with the devastation of this loss. I also have a very, I had a very successful career. I may still do, but you know, at the time, very successful career. So I had things to celebrate. So I'd throw myself during COVI was also, when I threw myself into cooking and learned how to cook incredibly well.

Mm-hmm. I would, I would throw myself Mac con appreciation at parties Yeah. To cheer myself up. And I bake myself five, five to seven course meals. And I would, um, I would drink and no one knew it because I'm a public figure. You don't do that publicly. You might run into someone who loves your work. And I want to give someone the, the, the time of honoring how my work has impacted them.

And so it was my little secret. Mm-hmm. And the privacy of my own home. I made myself the most exquisite meals and parties, like it was the Great Gatsby and I drank. And I cried. Yeah. And it was also during the time, uh, during the five year period where I lost both my parents and so I would grieve the loss of the beloved.

I never, I, I thought I was gonna have, I, I missed my parents and my dad. My dad drank, although we had very different patterns. Mine was very controlled. I had a certain amount and I thought that was being mindful and it was just very controlled. And I came to terms with the fact that although my dad and I are very different people, I was living a life where I was actually living out his pattern in my own way.

I didn't want anyone to know about it. I felt like a shell of myself. I was afraid of losing the audience and the opportunity to serve the world that had become the greatest love I'd ever known. And every day, or every, you know, three times a week becomes four times a week or whatever, and it escalates and it's during CI, so it just, it just became a regular thing.

Mm. And you know, you know, you have the justifications of co Matt for how hard you work, for how you serve the universe. Can't you cut yourself a little slack? You're human too. And I went through every justification in the book and every day became a new excuse until one day I, I, I couldn't excuse it any longer.

And, and the hard part of it was, it was hard to.

Confront myself about what only I knew I was doing because I was too busy apologizing for what I thought I did in my relationship and causing that. But I remember there was, there have been moments where I've looked myself in the mirror and I said, you know, you have everything to celebrate, but the way you choose to celebrate is harming you.

You're unhealthy. I remember I had blood work done and I thought I was just coasting on my vibration and I had blood work done and I, and I realized that I didn't feel the damage, but my body did. And so I had to look myself in the mirror and say, I, I can't allow you to harm yourself anymore. And I've had to do that a few times and.

I came to terms with, and I had said to myself when I'd have these parties, oh, and when I meet my real, my true beloved, all this pattern will be thrown out the window. This is just until she and I meet, and then we met. Mm-hmm. And it all stopped. It had to Yeah. Because I knew who I spent my entire life becoming in preparation of meeting you.

And, and I didn't want

that version of me anywhere near you. And, and something we've talked about before, we talked about the divine feminine and, and masculine. And, and I've said, and, and I say this with pride because I, I I live it is that the unconscious masculine vows to protect the feminine by looking outside of them for the threat, but the conscious masculine.

Protects their feminine from the threats within themselves. And so I'm, I'm proud of what I've overcome. I'm proud of the patterns that this relationship brought more to light, amplified so I could overcome them and, and, and have allowed me to live out the beautiful advice of, as you are beloved, I am here to protect you against any threat.

And the, the space in which the threat could lurk is only inside of me. Obviously, if there was an outside threat, but some men are so busy looking to the outside threat, they don't even consider the threat of themselves. Right. And so I'm, I'm very proud that of that. And when we met and, and we talked about this and you talked about living a sober life already.

Mm-hmm. Right? You told me that and I thought, you know what? Here's, here's my chance. 

Joy: I remember that moment. Yeah. And it was so important for me. Yeah. And I love that. And I just, I just thank you. 

Matt: You're welcome 

Joy: Again and again. I'll thank you every day. 

Matt: I've never talked about that publicly. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: I've never said those words.

I was Ed to hear 

Joy: it on the podcast, and I'm excited. Yeah. 

Matt: Well, you,

I'm, I'm, this is the only way to be real is to be real. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: And so that's real. 

Joy: I remember when I remember that conversation because it's one of the first questions I asked you is whether or not you drank. 

Matt: Right. 

Joy: I mean, you didn't know at the time where that was coming from. 

Matt: Right. 

Joy: But it was so important to me.

It was one of my deal breakers that because of the experiences I'd had. Yeah. That of course, we're so parallel in different ways. Right, right. Um, but just having that be a priority for you Yeah. Was so important for my sense of safety

Matt: and, and it be, it's, it's such a, it's such a, a feeling of pride to, to know that I'm the man that allows you to feel safe. And, and when I say that, I don't mean it like you're a woman, you're capable. 

Joy: Right. 

Matt: You don't need my protection, but it's my honor to protect you against any threat that could lurk inside of me.

And that's my level of accountability. 

Joy: Yeah. And I, I love how you said that because this journey of grief Yeah. Brought us both to becoming these people. That's right. And I was safe, which is why I asked the question. I. I know that I'm safe. I choose to be safe in my relationships. Right. And my beloved is a safe person and a safe place for me.

Right? And so while we were discovering that, we knew, 

Matt: right? 

Joy: But those conversations were so powerful and really knowing this is, this is safe, this is safe. This is a, this is the place to be. But I came, I mean, the reason it was so important to me is because I dealt with my grief in a similar way. I went out and celebrated.

No one knew. I went out with people who knew very little about what had happened. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Joy: And I drank until I forgot to. And I did this every weekend. Which started turning into, so it happened for me too, right? Like it started turning into like three days a week. Well, we'll start on Thursday. And then it was like, well, same, it's Wednesday, it's Hump Day, hump Day, taco 

Matt: Tuesday, 

Joy: and then it was Taco Tuesday.

I even called then Monday. 

Matt: Yeah. I called Monday, Sunday part two. So I actually put, it wasn't as clever. I, I was a very clever bullshit artist, and I said respect to myself. Yeah. And, and I, I did this thing where, you know, I had, I had like a whiskey collection and that was something I just absolutely loved.

Yeah. And I could tell you all the nuances and the tasting notes, like with wine, I mean, I could just smell it and taste it. Right. And I loved it. And I make myself little flights and five course meals. I mean, it was very elaborate and it was wonderful, but at the same time, you know, it, it became this like, like you did, um, like you were talking about just, just this, um, this ritual 

Joy: mm-hmm.

Matt: Became a personal culture. 

Joy: Mm-hmm. Because it was a personal culture. 

Matt: Right. 

Joy: And I don't know how often I was sober, honestly. Interesting. Yeah. Like it was, I drank so much in the evenings that, you know, a lot of that is a blur. Yeah. This is why it took me so long to grieve, because I separated myself from my emotions, my experience, my body as much as I could.

Matt: Likewise. 

Joy: And I had made a decision, you know, similar to you making, you know, thinking that you were the reason. 

Matt: Right. Right. Which, which obviously I wasn't, we were 

Joy: not the reason. 

Matt: No. 

Joy: I made a decision that I was being punished and the love of my life was gone. I was never gonna be with my beloved. Yeah.

That was over. And so in my drinking, I found myself being put in situations where I was with people who were not good for me. 

Matt: Sure. 

Joy: Who celebrated in the same wave or whatever grief they were hiding from. Mm-hmm. So I found myself in a relationship with someone that, you know, I didn't love. Hmm. And who didn't help me feel safe, who drank a lot.

Sure. We met drinking and so I felt, I felt afraid for 17 years of that relationship, I sobered up in the relationship. I started to awaken and I decided to heal. The moment I decided, the moment I, the moment it clicked and I remember the moment, it was actually while I was drinking, and I like stepped out of myself and I could witness myself in it.

I saw how my oldest son looked at me, was drinking at home, thinking I was so clever. I'm just having a little afternoon beverage. 

Matt: Oh, 

Joy: right. I thought I was fine. 

Matt: Afternoon beverage. Yes. That broke one of my rules. Right. I had a, see, it's funny when you drink, I had, I had rules. One of my rules was absolutely no day drinking.

Joy: Ah. '

Matt: cause it had, I couldn't, it had to be night. Yeah. For whatever reason. 'cause that's that, so that God wouldn't see what I was doing. Right. 

Joy: Well, I think anytime you get into day drinking, I mean, there's a whole thank goodness. Thank goodness. Thank goodness I saw myself. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Joy: I was, I had a, a best friend who lived across the street and Oh wow.

So every once in a while we just had this little day drinking moment. 

Matt: An accomplice. We had 

Joy: a blast. 

Matt: Yeah. That sounds fun. 

Joy: Right. Um, but I remember this one moment stepping outside of myself and watching mm-hmm. And thinking, this is not who you are. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Joy: I don't know what this show is. I don't know who you're performing for.

Matt: Yeah. 

Joy: I don't know what's going on. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Joy: But this has gotta stop. It was that moment of awareness. It changed everything. 

Matt: I love that. 

Joy: It's like, it just, it just dropped in so clearly. And I remember thinking, this, this isn't okay. Something's not right. And so I, I started my healing journey. That's when I began saying, I'm willing to see what it is that's in me that's causing this.

'cause at that point, I didn't even know that it was still connected to Terry's death. You know, this years had gone by and I thought I had coped with that just fine. And so opening that up, you know, took, took me on this massive journey. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Joy: Do you remember what the moment was like for you? That moment of just seeing it?

Matt: Yeah. There's a moment where it's just not cute anymore. 

Joy: Right? 

Matt: There's a moment where it's just not like, like you try to make it like it's a new experience to hide from yourself, which is hard to do. That this is just standard operating procedure, it seems like. Mm-hmm. Um, and, and also a little backstory for, for what?

When before she and I met, I had spent nine years completely celibate. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: And I was celibate on every level. And I thought I had purified myself in the eyes of God. God was very happy with my celibacy. And I, I had been, become the most purified, ego, spiritual ego version of myself. And then she and I met and I thought, oh, this is the reward for all the purifying work.

And then when it all kind of disappeared and my life felt like on some level it was crashing and burning. I felt like even reaching out to meet her and engage with someone who was already, even though we were friends, but she was in a relationship and the things I think I caused, I thought it was the biggest fall of grace like I had fallen for.

I was like the boot under the Bodhi tree and I'd fallen for an illusion and I went from being celibate and so holier than thou to um, oh, screw this whole thing. I'm gonna serve and I love serving and I'm still of the purest heart of service. But I'm so frustrated because I went from an extreme of being such a pure, purified, spiritual ego to, uh oh, that doesn't matter.

Life's life's, whatever rules you make it to be and didn't respect the ecosystem of my body's health and wellbeing. I went to the other extreme. And no one knew about it. 'cause I, I was someone who celebrated alone. Mm-hmm. Because I'm well known. Right. And every time I meet someone, they're meeting whoever they think is on their YouTube channel.

Joy: Mm-hmm. 

Matt: And that was also a painful part because I felt like I was just, whatever character thought I was, that it was never about me, the person it seemed. 

Joy: Mm-hmm. 

Matt: Um, and I, and so I felt like I was living in this fishbowl. So I'm at home a lot, working virtually, having my celebrations. And, um, I remember one night in the, in the height of one of my celebration parties, um, where you feel like you're just, I, I just had something wash over me and I, and I just realized I don't think I'm well.

Joy: Mm-hmm. 

Matt: I think I'm spiritually fragmented. I think I'm disassociated from my body and I, and I suddenly just had this awareness. I don't think I'm, well, I don't think I'm treating myself well. I don't think I'm doing well, and I don't think this is the way for me. And that wasn't the moment I stopped, but it was the beginning.

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: And I would make these bold declarations to myself, to the universes. I would do my own repeat after me. 

Joy: Of course you did. 

Matt: Of course I did. Declaring my own sobriety. Another thing I had to apologize to God for, and I will no longer disparage your holy form. So sorry. And I would declare my sobriety and then I would experience sobriety, and then I would celebrate my sobriety by celebrating.

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: And then I went through that insanity and, and, and in the end, it wasn't something that was actually difficult. What made it difficult is that I, I just had to get to a place of realizing you, Matt Conn needs structure, and you, Matt Conn, are not the creator of life's rules. You think you're the creator of your reality.

You are merely a part of it all. 

Joy: Right? 

Matt: And that humbling realization is what brought me into, I'm going to take care of my body instead of what I, but, but what got me take care of my body was realizing what I was actually trying to do was destroy my body and leave and go home to whatever planet felt like the place I belonged.

Yeah. And I actually didn't know I was trying to do that. And once I realized I was trying to drink myself, slowly but surely out of this world was when I. Realized how much I wanted to be a part of it and to live my life differently, which led us meeting 

Joy: Right. 

Matt: You were already living a sober life.

Joy: Mm-hmm. And 

Matt: I, and I thought, well, this is, uh, this is, this is, this is my opportunity to actually do what I've been declaring. 

Joy: Mm-hmm. 

Matt: And we, we live a sober life. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: And it's easy. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: And I love it. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: And I actually, I love it more than any party I've ever had in my entire life, which wasn't like consistently in my whole life, but it began when I was like 13.

Right. It was the first time I had a experience of being intoxicated. Yeah, me too. I come from a Me too. I come from a family of, of hippies where like being intoxicated was, was, was kind of normal and free-spirited and liberal and mm-hmm. Um. And I come from a family where structure was, was confining, and I've actually found structure saved my life.

Joy: Hmm. You know, it's interesting you say that. I, I remember I started drinking pretty young. Yeah. I was 12 or 13. Yeah. Maybe I was 13 and it was, it's just how I discovered coping. Yeah. I would cope with drinking. I watched everybody else cope with drinking around me. Yeah. So I'd watch my parents have a, you know, these beautiful weekend, they'd be hanging out with their friends or they'd be celebrating same thing or something was going on and they would cope with a glass of wine or whatever.

Matt: Yeah. 

Joy: And so I started sneaking alcohol really young. Oh wow. And it was later when I decided to face my grief that I realized I started doing that because I had, you know, had this trauma as a child I had not faced, I had completely disassociated from it. So I had never learned that grief was safe. 

Matt: Mm. 

Joy: I never learned there was process for it.

Yeah. I always felt like you were supposed to just move on with your life. Mm. Right. That we're here to survive. I, I don't, I don't know what life was about until I really woke up, until I started being guided by the divine. I don't, it felt so empty. I think that I just didn't have an opportunity to be me because of the drinking.

Hmm. I didn't have an opportunity to know me. There were all these different sides of me, depending on what I drink and when and how often. Right. But just thinking about that age and, and having that as the coping mechanism and thinking about grief and when we don't know that it's safe for us to grieve and that grieving is gonna happen in its own time, but it's gonna happen in a structure, honestly, as you said, structure.

And I was like, oh, there's actually a, a structure to healing. And later when I discovered that it accelerated things and it accelerated for people we work with. You know, we, we have this in our brain game. We, we teach it, we teach the structure because it's so profoundly impactful in our ability to move through change that we like and change we don't like.

And grief is a restructuring of our mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing. In the absence of something that was once there. 

Matt: Right. 

Joy: Right. So that structure, I didn't have it. I, I sought help with counselors. For me, I just couldn't find a counselor that worked and the universe started guiding me, here's the process, here's what we need to do.

You need to face what happened. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Joy: You need to really look it in the eye. You need to face that this thing occurred. And it didn't happen to you, it happened to Terry. 

Matt: Hmm. Interesting. 

Joy: This was his, his experience of leaving and you were there and experienced what was happening with him in relationship with him.

But you're still here and you are still alive. 

Matt: Wow. 

Joy: And I had to face that because I was chasing death in the same way I was. I was trying to find my way out the door and. I won't go into as much detail here in this podcast, but I did leave my body after pass being passed out drunk, left my body and thought I was dying.

And I was excited only to find out I was coming back. But it was in coming back and facing my life and facing what happened and facing that I was here, that began this chain reaction of, can you accept that you're still here for a reason? You might not know what it is, but you're here for a reason and in order for you to have a better life and a better experience, and you're, you're going to have to make some changes.

Matt: Mm-hmm. 

Joy: And then that led me to making the decision to love myself and love my life. I, at the time, it felt like such a no big deal. Like, how is this really gonna change my life? But now I look back and go, thank you. Like, I wanna hug her. 

Matt: Yeah. Yeah. 

Joy: Thank you. Like you have no idea how hard that first step was gonna be.

Yeah. When you made that decision, and you, and you were so tenacious, you were so devoted, you loved yourself, like nobody loved themselves, and that began the process of grieving what I had just put on pause to grieve. Mm. We don't bypass the grief. We don't escape the grief. Right. There's no coping mechanism.

There's no mental trick that gets you outta the grief. Yeah. You walk through grief. 

Matt: I, I love what you're saying, and I, it helped me. Just, what I just realized was, or came to me was there's no trick. Hmm. To escape grief, because grief is the opportunity while you're processing loss, to actually see through all your tricks.

Joy: Right. 

Matt: And so my grief was a chance for me to see through all of my tricks mm-hmm. All of my spiritual interpretations, my spiritual ego, how I spiritualized everything. Mm-hmm. Thought that I was bigger than structure. I was bigger than the rules of how the human anatomy responds to toxins and inflammation.

Oh no. My, my, my vibration is bigger than the laws of physics. Mm-hmm. No, I'm that, which is prior, I'm the one, I'm, I am, I'm source. Mm-hmm. And, and, and humbly the higher realization is I am a part of source. And it's, it's not, it's not entirely helpful when you have a world of people surrounding you thinking you're God.

But what's helpful for me is every person that I've ever met that loved my work, that thought that I was the embodiment of God, I could never take Seriously. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: Because it just didn't feel like the exact truth. But I secretly lived like that because I wanted to be above structure, beyond rules. And I wasn't.

Joy: Right. 

Matt: I wasn't. And that wasn't even like a crash because the crash had already happened. That was just, 

Joy: yeah. 

Matt: Right. Bottoming out, dusting yourself off and going. Okay. And here's the funny thing I realized. I used to always celebrate my. Daily accomplishments. And what I realized, which makes me laugh when I say this, the things I was celebrating didn't require a celebration.

The things I was celebrating were the celebration, 

Joy: right? 

Matt: And I stopped playing this weird game with myself, which started when I was very, very young before all my awakenings, which was, I don't know what this world is. I don't know how it works. I don't like how it feels. I don't want to be here. And I didn't realize that before I'd gone through all my spiritual awakenings.

The little boy who didn't want to be here feeling awkward in his body, was trying to get out of here Through that pattern of drinking and thinking, I could celebrate my way through grief and just. Spiritualized my way through it. 

Joy: Right. 

Matt: And thank God I couldn't, and you and I have come together, have the most remarkable connection.

And we live a very beautiful life of sobriety. 

Joy: Mm. Yeah, we do. Yeah. And you know, I just, 

Matt: don't we? Yes, we do. Yes. 

Joy: I know. Yes. I'm kidding. Yes, we do. Yeah, we do. We doing sparkling water. That is my favorite. Bubbly every day. 

Matt: Bubbly. Every day we'd bring sparkling water. So it's like, you know, people have like those wine cellars, we'd have like the different brands of like sparkling water.

'cause we, like we did in 

Joy: the, in our last house, we, we had, we did, we had different sparkling waters in the wine rack. 

Matt: We did. It was very cool. And 

Joy: we've now become very, I mean, we're kind of snobs 

Matt: the about sparkling water. About sparkling water. Oh. And what's the most snobby thing about how we order sparkling water at the restaurant?

No lime, no lemon. 

Joy: I do not wanna taint my sparkling water experience. 

Matt: Don't even, I love citrus. Don't even bring citrus anywhere near sparkling water. So help me, God. Do you want lime? No. Do you want lemon? 

Joy: No. 

Matt: And they look at us. We don't want that. We want sparkly water. Yes. And you want a straw and I don't, correct.

Yes. 

Joy: Yeah.

I love our life. 

Matt: I love our life and I love that. We love going to Vegas where we don't drink. Right. We don't gamble whatsoever. But we go to fun shows. And amazing restaurants. Yeah. 

Joy: I love the magic of, you know, just being on the path and surrendering to grief. Yeah. You know, and I'm just thinking about the, um, the person who e emailed into the, into the team and just sharing about this experience she's having.

And, you know, I, I know, I know the depth of that and how hard it can be to just not wanna face it or to feel like you need to face it so quickly. I just need to get in there and just do it all as fast as possible. And if I could go back and talk to, you know, that version of me, if I could have held my hand, which I guess we get to do now, right?

I get to hold her hand. Hmm. Who say her and say, I would say Take your time. It's all going to be made clear. Uh, my frustration of why it happened, I. Had me want to disassociate, I, I couldn't grieve because I didn't think I could, if I didn't understand why he died mm-hmm. How could I, was trying to make sense of how I could have somehow done something to stop it.

Hmm. And that's really the spiral that happened for me is I, it, it made no sense. I was confused. Therefore, I couldn't let myself grieve because I couldn't accept it. Right. So when I was really willing to be with myself and I would just say, slow down and let yourself just take it in that this happened.

Let yourself feel it cry. Don't worry about what other people are thinking or saying. Don't worry about needing to be okay for everyone else. That was my other issue. I wanted to be okay. I can't imagine trying to be okay or move through this process publicly. 

Matt: Right. 

Joy: I was trying to figure out how to do this with friends and family without them being annoyed.

I was still grieving. 

Matt: Right. 

Joy: But I would say, take your time. Be so this is how I would speak to my be so annoyingly slow. You know who your real friends are. Just take your time. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Joy: Take your time and be with it, because all is revealed. I remember making the decision that I was gonna love myself before I knew what was going on.

What Before I understood the pattern. 

Matt: Sure. 

Joy: That I was hiding from, but why it, it devastated me so much that Terry said, well, I loved Right. So I'm good. I can go now. You know, he was, it was a painful experience. I'm grateful he found peace. 

Matt: Right. 

Joy: But the reason I was so upset is because I believed at that time that I could only experience love if someone else loved me.

And when he left, I thought, well, there's nobody that's going to love me like that. So how can I move on? How can I create a life? So that's, that's what I discovered after I said, I'm gonna love me. I'm just gonna see if this love you thing works. And as I went through that, I started to get feedback from the world and I started to understand, I would get information and guidance.

It'd be pointed to information. It was like, oh, you have been looking for love from everyone else. And as I fell more in love with myself and I was able to feel that inside of me, I. It revealed that pattern. If I was willing to be with someone who showed any inkling or interest in loving me, I had no discernment.

I just wanted to be loved. And because I couldn't do it, I allowed myself to be in relationships with friends, partners, acquaintances, people I worked with. If they showed any interest, like any, any clue that they loved me in return, then I was all theirs. I, I, I would do, I would, people please, I would, whatever they wanted.

I didn't want them to leave. I wanted to hold onto those, so afraid of losing them. And so the discovery of that just naturally unfolded as I let myself take my time and feel every feeling and guide myself through it with love. Wow. And revealed the truth naturally, which is the process. It will, you will discover why, but it won't be the first thing.

Matt: It's beautiful. Yeah. If I could go back and talk to that me? 

Joy: Mm-hmm. 

Matt: I would say two things. I would say blaming yourself is how you avoid processing the pain of loss. And I, I would've said, loving yourself doesn't mean giving yourself the right to do whatever you want to yourself. Mm-hmm. I thought I was above structure and rules, and I'm co-creating my reality as long as I have a good spiritual reason.

And all of that did its job of guiding me out of all of that. And you know, it's funny when you go through a journey like that after you've been teaching for years about loving yourself, but what I didn't realize was that loving myself for me was about committing to structure and that I lived in a family that.

When I was very young, they skated by with very little money, but N wanted to make sure I never knew it. So I never went without. They never wanted me to go without. So as I came to this point in my life, I never let myself go without whenever I wanted. And then it became so regularly indulgent that it all started to lose its luster and I couldn't hide from the truth anymore, which is blaming yourself is how you hide from the pain of loss.

And loving yourself doesn't mean doing whatever you want. And as I looked at myself and my life and the choices I made to run down my health, I thought lovingly, who the hell do you think you are? And it was the most beautifully sobering question I ever asked myself. And again, it, it led me to being this even better version of myself to live the greatest life, greatest chapters of my life with you, and having the honor of introducing you and building a life with you, with the versions of me that I spent my life creating in preparation for our meeting.

So it's an, it's an honor to be your husband. Oh, 

Joy: it's an honor to be your wife. 

Matt: Hmm. 

Joy: It's an honor to teach with you. 

Matt: It is. 

Joy: It's an honor to share these stories. Yeah. These really deep, heartfelt stories. 

Matt: Sure. 

Joy: Um. 

Matt: It is. Yeah. It's an honor to hear about Terry. It's a honor to tell you about Allie. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: And it's, it's, it's an honor to be able to find strength and how good it feels to, to share this openly.

Joy: Yeah. And if you're listening in and this story has touched you, please consider, um, reviewing our podcast subscribing. Rate it, let us know. Send us a message. 

Matt: Pretty, pretty please. 

Joy: It means the world. 

Matt: It does. 

Joy: Receiving your messages, knowing how it touches you. It fuels us. We have so many ideas for episodes, but we're fueled by the desire to connect, to share.

And for us all to grow together. 

Matt: Every episode is a love letter of transparency from our hearts and souls to yours. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Matt: And it's an honor to serve the world with you, and it's an honor to serve the world as these versions of us. 

Joy: Yeah. Should we go get a drink? 

Matt: Sparkling water? 

Joy: Yeah. Yeah. 

Matt: As long as there's no lime 

Joy: or lemon, 

Matt: you have a straw and I don't.

Joy: That's right.