Grieving With More Freedom

Bonus Episode! From Pain to Purpose: Esperanza's Journey Through Loss and Healing (A Client Testimonial)

• Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC • Season 1 • Episode 7

Share episode

Send us a text

Grief doesn't wait for convenient moments. It strikes in grocery store aisles, during familiar songs, or at the sight of a stranger who reminds us of someone we've lost. These everyday moments demand tools that traditional therapy often doesn't provide.

In this powerful testimonial episode, we meet Esperanza Flury, a recent graduate of the Resilient Life Academy who sought help after the sudden loss of her daughter Jacqueline. Her journey illuminates the profound difference between treating grief as an illness versus recognizing it as a normal life condition requiring practical navigation skills. "My pain is not an illness," Esperanza explains, "it's a condition."

Through twelve weeks of coaching, Esperanza discovered how to honor her daughter's memory by completing Jacqueline's fashion collection—transforming raw grief into purposeful celebration. She learned to embrace joy again while acknowledging that grief becomes "braided into the tapestry of life" rather than eliminated. Most importantly, she acquired tangible tools to navigate what she beautifully describes as "the labyrinth of emotions associated with grief."

This episode highlights why grief coaching can be transformative when therapy falls short. While support groups and traditional therapy serve important purposes, they often lack the practical techniques needed for real-world grief management. The Resilient Life Academy empowers you to become your own grief expert, equipped with strategies for those unpredictable moments when emotions overwhelm.

Ready to discover a different approach to navigating loss? Book a complimentary 20-minute chat to learn more about the Resilient Life Academy. Your journey toward healing  and grieving with more freedom starts here.

Will this be the summer that changes everything for you? You’ve done the grief support groups. You’ve thought about therapy. You’ve tried so hard to figure this out.  Yet, nothing seems to be bringing you inner peace, emotional stability, or a sense of purpose.

A lot of us get stuck here.

The good news: This summer I’ve opened my calendar to guide a small number of you 1:1. 

You’ll learn the most potent yet gentle coping strategies.  You’ll get j

Book a Call to learn more about working with me 1:1 this Summer https://link.crmdonebetter.com/widget/bookings/discovery-call-with-diane

Follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/diane.debobesbonilla

Follow me on Instagram @dianebonillacoaching

This podcast is not medical advice, psychotherapy or counseling. It is for educational and entertainment purposes only. If you or someone you know is in crisis dial or text 988 for the suicide crisis lifeline.

Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC:

Welcome to the Grieving with More Freedom podcast, where we talk about navigating loss in the real world, because grief can be unpredictable, demanding and immobilizing and, let's be honest, it doesn't wait until you're in your therapist's office. This is where I share real strategies that meet you in your everyday life with grief so you can ultimately connect to more peace, purpose and resilience. I'm your host, diane Bonilla, grief therapist turned coach, with nearly three decades of experience in the grief and loss specialty. I'm a master practitioner of hypnotherapy and neuro-linguistic programming, a certified grief-informed professional. But, most importantly, I too am walking my own path with grief. I understand all too well its complexities and challenges, so let's jump in. Here's to your beautiful resilience. Welcome back everyone.

Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC:

Today I have a special bonus episode for you. I am talking with my client, Esperanza Flury, who recently graduated from my grief program, the Resilient Life Academy. Esperanza came to me after a very painful and sudden loss. It has been my honor to guide her through this program since February and see her move through her grief with honesty, courage and determination. Her journey is one of resilience. This is her testimonial.

Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC:

Okay, Espy, thank you so much for being willing to talk about your experience in the Resilient Life Academy. You are a graduate now officially, and it was a total of 12 sessions that you had, with podcast support in between, lots of tools, and so I think it's great that you're willing to talk a little bit about your experience today.

Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC:

Thank you very much. Thank you for having me, Diane. For people watching, I'm sure they're wondering, you know, what was your biggest challenge before you started working with me. You know what was going on and why did you pick this program over therapy

Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC:

.

Esperanza Flury:

Yeah, I researched, I did some research and I was finding to mostly therapy type of help for grieving. And when I found this Resilience Academy, I said I kind of asked not in this way, but what was my biggest problem? Right right, my pain is not an illness, it's a condition. And I said, what do I need? What do I need to move forward? And I found out that the biggest challenge was accepting how final death is and forgetting about or trying to understand the why, because I was in that cycle, why did this happen? And the coaching sessions really helped me to achieve that.

Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC:

That's a very common place for people to get death right, To get stuck on the reality that life has changed so permanently, right.

Esperanza Flury:

Yeah, it's like a vicious cycle. You know Death is so final and it's so real, but it's like you want to run Espy away from it.

Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC:

Yeah, understood, and so it's a very courageous thing to decide to get help. And you said something that really struck me, espy, which is recognizing that your grief is not an illness, which is kind of why we tend to go to therapy right For a diagnosis for symptoms, whereas coaching for grief is all about meeting you where you are now in a very normal life experience that most of us will have to face at some point or another, and helping you move forward.

Esperanza Flury:

That is totally true.

Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC:

Yeah, and as a therapist myself, where I do coaching and therapy, I do find that, for grief, coaching is really the elixir. Now we're 12 sessions in, you've graduated, and what do you notice is different about your grief, and what are you really most proud of, now that you can look back at your experience with the Resilient Life Academy. t b s d t.

Esperanza Flury:

You know, the most proud is the fact I feel this truly is the love, the joy that beyond, I feel know, finishing my daughter's life. Jacqueline, as you know, was in fashion design and I endeavored to finish her collection and it was a beautiful groups- way to really honor her and it has brought so much groups- joy into my life. The pain is there, the pain has become like braided into the tapestry of my life but at the same time I am able to be joyful about life and just thinking and all this. You I think what happened is, if you would have talked to me prior to my 12 weeks coaching, I don't know that I wouldn't song, we so clear,. so clear. But I realized when I decided to go with this program is that I needed to acquire tools to help me maneuver, like the labyrinth of emotions associated with grief, if that makes any sense.

Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC:

Anywhere. It does. It makes a lot of sense and the tools really are there to help you long beyond you know. Finishing here. They're there for you to take into the real world. One of program is that with support groups and I think there's a real place for grief support groups but I think at some point, telling your story over and over again or hearing other stories, it becomes a place of more pain and what we really need are tools that we use. Just moving into everyday life, you know when grief strikes you or hits you at the most unpredictable moments in the grocery store, in the car, when you hear a song. We need tools Anywhere.

Esperanza Flury:

Yeah, that happens anywhere. You're walking on the street and you're going to church, you see a young girl or someone walking around, something that brings the memory of the person that you lost and the tears just come. And the tears just come, and if it's not the tears, you feel this very deep feeling of loss. I don't think tools, will ever go away, but what it is is. You learn with these coaching classes is to reframe.

Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC:

Yes, the reframing, one of the tools in the program I know, can be very helpful in not minimizing how you feel, because that's not really the point. The. point is being able to navigate . with It ease and February. to

Esperanza Flury:

And still have a sense of peace through the grief journey. As you navigate motions these feelings that come up and without the tools it can feel lonely, scary and it is bumpy. It is right, because my my daughter passed in September and Diane uh. .

Esperanza Flury:

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I think we started our uh coaching in January or February, I think it therapist, progress and when we're talking about the motions, it's like it's a roller coaster, it is a total roller coaster. Grief has so many phases, yeah, and I think we are not prepared for that. At least I wasn't until I found. they. have the community. I'm sorry, I don't mean it that way but I think it is.

Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC:

But a couple times now in my life, having been a therapist or continuing to be a therapist If, having been a therapist or continuing to be a therapist, the coaching just made so much sense to me as a space to bring my professional and personal experience to help people, Because I do feel like so many people are not equipped and they're not walking away from their support groups with those tools they have the community. But this program is more about helping you in everyday life so that really you're becoming your own grief expert. You can rely on you to navigate those waves of emotion that, like you say, can hit anytime.

Esperanza Flury:

You really kind of come back to reality in a softer way, you know, and you're able to let go.

Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC:

So well described. So we're not denying ourselves the experience . And put in place. it hits, but we're moving through it with some kind of a tool that then grounds us at the end. So I'm so glad that those meant so much to you and thank you for sharing that.

Esperanza Flury:

And it's something tangible that I can grab. Yeah, exactly Putting place?

Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC:

Yeah, exactly. So just to kind of wrap things up for again, for people that are maybe thinking about Diane working with me or working in the resilient life Academy, and maybe they're on the fence a little bit, what. would you say to someone who's thinking about it?

Esperanza Flury:

You know I'm going to do a little introduction before I answer the question. But what I think and, diane, you have heard me throughout the 12 weeks say this often all along during these weeks of the Resilient Coaching I feel very thankful to have found this program and I'm totally puzzled to find out it's not an approach that is being streamlined.

Esperanza Flury:

You know, to manage the pain of losing someone, like I said before, it doesn't require a

Esperanza Flury:

diagnosis, it requires discovering the tools to help you. So I will say to the person try it, you owe it to yourself and I'm sure you will not regret it. That's how I feel.

Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC:

That's lovely. Thank you so much for offering your experience, because I think that's important for people to hear from somebody who is also, you know, dealing with a big loss and who is learning and has made so much progress. You've made so much progress, really. Just, it was an honor to really work with you through the 12 weeks.

Esperanza Flury:

It has been a beautiful experience to me, diane. It's been a beautiful experience to me, Diane.

Esperanza Flury:

I really didn't know what I was specifically expecting from the coaching, but to me it has been so much benefit because the pain is so overwhelming that I don't know where would I be today if I wouldn't have taken this coaching program.

Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC:

Yeah, that's a good question to ask and you know these are, for lack of a better word. It sounds cliched, but these really are cutting edge tools. They aren't streamlined, like you said. They're not in when you walk in your therapist's office. You're not going to get these tools. You know you're not going to get them from your support group. You're going to get other things. There's value to all of those things, but this is just something very different and very powerful.

Esperanza Flury:

That's the word I will use. Powerful, yes, well, thank you,

Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC:

Thank you so much. I appreciate you. Again, thank you for sharing your experience with everybody else listening today.

Esperanza Flury:

Thank you. Thank you, Diane. Thank you for asking and having me.

Diane Bonilla, MA, LPC:

If you felt a connection to today's episode, I would be so grateful if you shared this podcast with someone you know. Sharing helps the podcast to grow and reach more listeners. Don't forget to join my Facebook community Grieving With More Freedom, and follow me on Instagram at Diane Bonilla Coaching. Ready for the next step in your grief journey? Book a 20-minute complimentary chat with me to learn more about a unique healing opportunity in my grief program, RLA, the Resilient Life Academy, a program that teaches you how to be your own grief expert, increase your confidence in navigating those unpredictable waves of emotion, and allows you the opportunity to let go of everything holding you back from grieving with more freedom. Y ou'll find my calendar link in the show notes, in my Instagram bio and inside my Facebook community. Thanks for listening. This podcast is not medical advice, psychotherapy or counseling. It is for educational and entertainment purposes only. If you or someone you know is in crisis, dial or text 988 for the Suicide Crisis Lifeline.