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Grieving With More Freedom
Welcome to the Grieving With More Freedom Podcast, where we talk about navigating loss in the Real World. Grief can be unpredictable and exhausting, and let’s be honest, it doesn’t conveniently wait until you're sitting in therapy or in your support group. Grief can drop in anytime, anywhere.
This is where I share powerful insights that meet you in your everyday life with grief, so you can ultimately connect to more peace, purpose and resilience.
I, too, am walking my own journey with grief. I understand the complexity and challenges of loss on a personal level. My unique perspective is a blend of my own healing and almost 3 decades of work as a therapist specializing in grief.
This podcast is designed to be your grief companion on walks, errands and commutes. Let's dive in together.
Here's to your beautiful resilience.
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.
Podcast music intro, midroll and outro "Fresh Start," Chris Collins, https://indiemusicbox.com/
Grieving With More Freedom
Recognizing When You're Ready to Move Forward After Loss
Grief can trap us in survival mode—that state where we're just going through the motions, staying desperately busy, or putting on a brave face while feeling broken inside. But what happens when survival mode becomes its own kind of prison?
When I attended a Christmas party four months after losing my mom, I found myself watching everyone from a distance, as if viewing a movie rather than participating. This detachment wasn't a failure—it was my body's protective mechanism kicking in when the pain felt too overwhelming. Maybe you've experienced something similar: the mental fog, the disconnection, or perhaps the opposite—filling every moment with activity to avoid quiet spaces where grief might catch up with you.
The truth is, survival mode serves a crucial purpose. It's your body's way of pacing you through grief, protecting you from experiencing too much pain at once. But it was never meant to be permanent. The frustration, exhaustion, and longing you might feel now are actually powerful signals—they're telling you you're ready for something more than just surviving.
Moving beyond survival requires three essential pillars: sparking hope and restoring balance to your nervous system, finding emotional freedom from what's keeping you stuck, and strengthening your resilience muscle through intentional practices. These pillars helped Esperanza transform her grief journey after losing her daughter, allowing her to honor her child while reclaiming joy and purpose in her own life.
Your healing journey won't look exactly like anyone else's because your grief is uniquely yours. But the path from survival to resilience is available to you too. By recognizing the cues that you're ready for change and engaging with these three transformative pillars, you can begin moving from merely surviving your loss to finding renewed meaning and connection. Ready to make that shift? Let's talk about how the Resilient Life Academy might support your next steps.
Ready to make the shift? Apply to The Resilient Life Academy
Three Reflection Questions: (Are you ready to shift)
1. What signs do you recognize in yourself that indicate you are in survival mode?
2. What cues have you noticed recently that show you are ready for something other than surviving?
3. Ask yourself this: "If I didn’t feel _______ (sad, lonely, guilty or anxious, etc...) what would I want right now?"
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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.
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.
Speaker 1:Hello everyone, in today's episode I talk about grief, survival mode and recognizing when you're ready to shift from survival mode to a life with more meaning. So here's what you're going to walk away with after you listen to today's episode. You're going to be able to recognize the different ways surviving shows up in grief and you'll have a deeper insight into your own readiness to move forward. You'll also understand the three ingredients needed to make that shift and move forward with more ease and clarity. So what is survival mode when it comes to grief, well, our bodies have a way of taking care of us and helping us pace ourselves through our grief, so survival mode really is a coping mechanism when we would otherwise be overwhelmed with pain. It's really the way our bodies keep us safe from experiencing too much pain, and it's a normal part of grief. What does survival mode look like? Again, your grief is unique, so it's going to look different from person to person, but there are some general characteristics that we see in survival mode, so let me talk about three of those.
Speaker 1:First, survival mode can look like someone going through the motions without really having much feeling as they're doing it. It's kind of like being on autopilot. It's like being detached from the world around you, or even being in a mental fog. I can give you a personal example of that. About four months after my mom passed away, it was Christmas time, the holidays, and I decided to attend a Christmas party. I definitely had good intentions with doing that. I wanted to surround myself by people that cared about me and that I cared about, and just experience some joy. However, the experience was just not what I expected. When I got there, it was as if I was watching everyone from afar, it felt like I was watching a movie. That's really what I mean by detachment. We don't feel that connection to the world around us, but the world keeps spinning.
Speaker 1:The second common way that survival mode can show up is when someone stays super busy and they leave very little room for quiet time so that they can actually tend to their grief. So, for example, this is when your calendar is packed, your weekends continue to be overscheduled and you just kind of say yes to a lot of things and you never really give yourself time to feel any of your grief. So this might look like throwing yourself into work projects, working longer hours, throwing yourself just into lots of social events or traveling to basically be a constant distraction so that you don't have to tend to your feelings. And then another common way that survival mode can show up is looking like you're a completely different person than how you actually feel. It's kind of like faking it till you make it. It's forcing yourself to look strong, to look happy for other people, when on the inside you're feeling completely different than that. Your grief is sort of hidden from the world. And all of these forms of survival mode do have a function. They are often protective in nature and this is really just your body's way of protecting you from the pain. And really survival mode is coping, but it's coping until it isn't. It can be an exhausting existence to be in survival mode. It takes a lot of energy not to feel or think about your grief or your loss. It can also be a very lonely experience when we remain in survival mode for an extended period of time because we aren't in a place that allows us to get the support we need or to heal. So really survival mode, if you think about it, is like putting grief on pause and putting it on pause until you can start healing. Survival mode is not meant to be permanent. There is something next, and the fact that you're listening to this episode, I think, is a hopeful thing and a powerful thing in that you're looking for that next step.
Speaker 1:Here are some signs to be looking for as an indication that you very well may be ready to exit survival mode and take your healing off pause. The first sign feeling frustrated. Frustration is the sign. It's a sign of you wanting more. You can feel frustrated with being stuck in the same place, for example. Number two feeling exhausted. You're tired of pretending you're fine when you know you're not. This kind of exhaustion is a sign that your grief needs space, it needs validation and compassion, and ignoring it or dismissing it or even minimizing it really no longer works anymore. So, again, exhaustion is your sign. Number three longing for something different. Longing is the sign there you miss that feeling of purpose and normalcy in your life. Nothing feels normal and you miss that feeling of balance and routine. It's kind of like longing for your old self. That's the sign. So those are three cues that you may be ready to shift. These cues can be brief or they can be more constant, but however they present themselves, they're signs that you're waking up from surviving. So when you start to make the shift from survival, you begin to see these glimmers, these glimmers of meaning in your life. You get these brief moments of peace and then want more of that.
Speaker 1:So I want you to take a minute to pause the episode, if you're in a position to do so, or go to the show notes at the end to respond to some of these journal prompts that will help you identify some important things. So there's three questions. The first question is what signs do you recognize in yourself that indicate you're in survival mode. So I went over those examples. Did you recognize yourself in any of those? And when you answer this question, think about specific times. You noticed these cues. Where were you, what were you doing? Who were you with? Number two, what cues have you noticed recently that show you're ready for change, you're ready to move on from survival mode? Think about the cues of frustration, exhaustion and longing to help you out on that question. And number three, ask yourself this whatever the predominant feeling is you have right now with grief I want you to plug that in to this sentence. If I didn't feel blank, what would I want right now? So, for instance, if I didn't feel guilty, what would I want right now?
Speaker 1:If you listened to my previous podcast episode about Esperanza, a recent graduate of my grief program, the Resilient Life Academy, also known as RLA, you heard her tell her story that showed she had shifted from survival mode to more joy, peace and purpose in her life. And her story ends quite beautifully. And this was a beautiful labor of love for Esperanza. She worked through the three pillars of healing in the Resilient Life Academy and she was able to honor her daughter herself and move past survival mode with a strengthened resilience. So what are these three pillars of healing that help you make that shift out of survival mode?
Speaker 1:Well, let me go over them quickly and then I can explain them. Pillar one is sparking hope and restoring balance. Pillar two is emotional freedom and pillar three is strengthening resilience. So let's talk about them in a little bit more detail. Pillar one, which is sparking hope and restoring balance, is the critical step where you are helping your nervous system learn to become more regulated, and this is so you can navigate waves of grief that come over you, no matter how big. In RLA, we achieve this with the Tailored Hope Healing Plan, which basically explores seven points of grief wellness to help restore balance to the nervous system. Pillar two, which is emotional freedom this is where you identify what is no longer serving you in your grief journey and you gain clarity about what is keeping you stuck. So we're talking about loose ends, unfinished business, about loose ends, unfinished business, things left unsaid, regrets or any type of overthinking about something, something that you keep revisiting over and over again. These are all different ways that blocks are created in your healing and they need to be released in order for you to move forward. So in RLA we have the sweet and soulful release method, which gently opens the door to letting go, and it is a powerful way to release all those things we talked about. And then pillar three is strengthening resilience. This pillar is the final phase that helps you reconnect with who you're becoming in this changed world. You explore ways to live a life that honors your loved one while you move forward with resilience.
Speaker 1:Resilience is not something you're born with. Think of it like a muscle that needs to be worked out. In RLA, we use hypnosis, meditation and subconscious reprogramming, which is basically rewiring the brain to strengthen your capacity for resilience. So, though your healing journey will look different than Esperanza's, because you're unique and your grief is unique the shift from survival mode can still be yours once you begin to acknowledge the cues that you're ready to make that shift. This is really the first step, and then you can go through the process of making that transformation with the three pillars.
Speaker 1:If you're interested in applying to the RLA grief program because you know you're ready to make that shift, then fill out an online application using the link in the show notes. If you're a good fit, you'll be invited to an informational call with me. You've survived the hardest days. You don't have to wait anymore. Here's to your beautiful resilience. Here's to your beautiful resilience.
Speaker 1: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. You'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.