Families and Grief with Angela Clement

In this episode of ABC's Parenting Adult Children podcast, host James Moffitt speaks with Angela Clement, a certified grief coach, about the journey of healing after loss. They share personal stories of grief, explore the concept of energy healing, and discuss the importance of self-care and community support in navigating the grieving process. Angela emphasizes that grief is a natural process that can lead to transformation and finding joy again, while also addressing the differences between mourning and grief. The conversation highlights the significance of honoring one's emotions and the legacy of loved ones lost.

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Transcript

James Moffitt (00:03.566)
Hello and welcome to ABC's Parenting Adult Children podcast. My name is James Moffitt and I will be your host. Today is January the 20th, 2025. It's also Martin Luther King Day and it's the inauguration day for Trump 2.0. We won't say any more about that. Our guest speaker is joining us today on our podcast episode. Angela, thank you for joining us today and

I want to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself to the listening audience. Well, thank you for having me. I am, uh, as you say, Angela Clement, and I come into this work, um, because I lost my husband in 2021. And so since then I've been on a mission to help people in grief. And so that's what brings me here to you today. Awesome.

So in your bio, it says certified grief coach, speaker, writer, and healer. Creator of the online series, Awaken Your Soul's Journey, and author of Awakening Through Grief, a spiritual journey of healing and transformation after loss. So when I read that, as I was looking at your bio and invited you to be a guest on my podcast, I...

My wife and I lost a daughter to cancer in 2001. Her name was Jessica Ann, and she had two types of cancers, and it was a brain tumor that was wrapped around her brain stem. And they told us, we moved to Charles, the Charleston area because of MUSC's Children's Hospital, and they did an emergency surgery to remove as much of the mass as they could. I think they got like 95 % of it.

But when it comes to the brain stem, they can't really get anywhere near that because that's caused life-threatening consequences. And they told us when she came out of surgery that if she lasted 12 months, we'd be lucky. She lasted 14 months. So our family walked through that process. We spent 14 months going back and forth to MUSC's children's hospital.

James Moffitt (02:23.682)
dealing with all of the

treatments and side effects and symptoms and all the you know, I think Jessica was a real trooper and she probably handled her illness way better than we did and So anyway, yeah, that's why one of the reasons when I read your your bio I was like, wow, I wished I'd have known you back in 2001 because just as Just as when we have children you don't get a manual

When you have a child that has cancer or is a child that has some sort of de-habilitating illness, there's no manual for that. There are no instructions that come along with that. And I remember that our church family was very much aware of her situation. We'd take her to church in a wheelchair and they

They'd love on her while she was at church, but when she was not in church, everybody was just kind of hands off and nobody called, nobody came by, nobody said anything. And I know now, looking back, that people don't know what to say, you know, unless you've walked through that, unless you've had a spouse or a... And I'm sorry for your husband, your loss of your husband. I know how terrible that probably was.

or is, you you never get over grief, right? Grief is always with you. It's just, the only reason I'm able to talk as well about Jessica and her, her illness, is because it's been 20 plus years, right? I mean, the first five or 10 years, you know, I, I, I couldn't talk about it without tearing up. And, I still to this day, I can't really talk a whole lot about it because you know, it,

James Moffitt (04:23.992)
causes triggers and emotions and all of that. that's, I would like to, I would hope that the listening audience, that the parents in this listening audience, I would hope that and pray that none of them have ever experienced the loss of a child. You never expect to bury one of your children, right? And so, but we have a large audience. We have 1.3 thousand members in our

Facebook support group to private support group on Facebook and having 1.3 thousand members. I can only assume that there might be a couple of parents out there that have walked through that. So I'm going to quit talking now and let you talk a little bit. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry for your loss. I, I, I don't know. You know, I can't possibly understand.

that kind of loss. But we all know grief in some way, shape or form. And that's why I feel like, you know, we need each other when we're going through this sort of thing. No matter what kind of grief we're going through, there's similarities in the process. And over the past three years, I've had an opportunity to talk to over 100

and 40 people who have walked this path through grief and who have been able to really transform their lives through that whole experience. And so my interest is really in helping people understand the process of grief, first of all, and then what we can do to help ourselves move through that process and to come out.

stronger and with meaning and purpose and find the joy and fulfillment in life again, because that's really what we're, what we're seeking, right? Is to get back to that place again. So yeah, that's, that's my mission. Well, and that's a coming from the position I'm in. I appreciate that. And like I said, I wished you would have been around back in 2001.

James Moffitt (06:53.9)
because we didn't even know what resources were available for parents losing a child to cancer or having a child that had cancer. And it seemed like most of the resources were available for the moms, right? Yes. Because moms are more in tune or in touch with their feelings and their emotions. And a mother's love and a father's love is two different things, right?

We both love our children in unique ways, but we both play different roles in that child's life, right? Yes, for sure. So the need for acute care, emotional care, especially emotional, spiritual, psychological, mental, was more focused on, I think, the mothers and the fathers, not so much. And I tried to start up a ministry

something called Father's Refuge way back when I did what I knew how I wasn't in touch with social media as I am today. didn't have a podcast. know, yeah, I blogged a little bit but but and I was on Facebook but I didn't really know how to reach out to fathers. Right. And so it never got off the ground for whatever reason. Maybe what it maybe it wasn't meant to be. I don't know. So anyway,

Yeah, there, your, your mission and your, what you're doing. Talk a little bit about your book, awakening through, I'm trying to read the title over there. Awakening through grief. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Talk about your book. Yeah, for sure. So I ended up writing the book. it's, it's really about my journey and it's because I have an educator background. I was a teacher and a principal.

I have included along my journey, different things that I use to help me move through my grief. So there's exercises and a lot of things related to energy healing because that was something that I learned early on when my son was little. He had a disease called Hirschsprung's disease and the doctors had a lot of, well, they did surgery, but it didn't really help.

James Moffitt (09:20.078)
And so they were at a loss of what to do with us. And he was approaching school age and he still was having a lot of trouble, a lot of constipation. And so I was panicking because he has to go to school, right? And a friend mentioned to me, maybe try this energy healer. And so I went to her and she worked with him for a while.

I don't know how many sessions it would have been, but in the end he was healed. And so I always had a fascination with it. thought, hmm, if that can happen, you know, it seemed like a miracle to me. What else can happen, right? It was just like, what is this energy healing thing? And I found out through my journey is that, you know, we are all energy and

So when I was going through grief, I tried a lot of different things like sound healing. I tried shamanic journeying. I tried all kinds of stuff. Massage, course, Tai Chi. I tried all kinds of stuff. And I found Donna Eden's daily energy routine, which is a really practical form of energy healing, to be really helpful to me.

And so I just kind of branched off from there and started to use that more. So I talk about that more in my book, but I also talk about my journey and the journey through the emotions and how I handled the emotions and also some brain research from Mary Frances O'Connor and how our brain works as we're going through grief. So there's kind of all ends of the spectrum in that book. All the compass of things that I tried.

And, I include all the things that were helpful to me. So talk to us about energy healing. I don't think I've ever heard of that. Yeah. So we really, when an energy healer does is just hold space for people who, are struggling with some kind of illness or emotional dis ease, call it. and so.

James Moffitt (11:44.534)
If you think about when you break your leg, the doctor puts a cast on it. Right. And, the doctor doesn't heal your leg. Who heals your leg? You do. Right. So your, your body is, yeah. So your body naturally knows what to do. What an energy healer does is just holds that space and helps the energy flow so that your body can do what it needs to do to heal. So it's not actually the energy healer that's doing the healing. It's you.

But it's just helping that energy flow in the way it needs to, so that your body can do what it needs to do. And there's lots of different ways and modalities to do that. Yeah. got you. Yeah. So when you say the doctor, they, they provide you with a quiet space or an environment that allows you to focus on that energy or.

Yeah. that one interpretation or? For sure. Yeah. And anytime that we can put ourselves in a space where we can allow the body to relax and to do what it needs to do. Of course it needs nutrients. You know, there's all of that too, right? But it's like, everything is energy and everything needs to flow. And what happens when we have grief is we have these intense emotions and

often what happens is because they are so intense, we tend to push them down. And it's because of the way that we were brought up, often we were told not to cry. You we were told to be strong. We were told not to be angry. And so,

Can you edit this? I don't know what's happening right now. Can you see the website? I'm trying to share your website. Yes. Yes. You see it? Okay. Yes, I do. Yeah. So I just want to share it with the audience. It's called www.healingenergy.world. Thank you. Yeah. So yeah, that's a very nice looking website and I want the listening audience to be able to find it. Yeah, for sure.

James Moffitt (14:02.818)
Yeah, thanks for sharing that. Yeah. Yeah. And I talk about this whole thing in my book, you know, how I came upon all of this and how I moved through the grief.

James Moffitt (14:15.918)
Cool. All right. Well, I'm going to minimize that and, I'm trying to get back to my screen. Where, where did my screen go? I really thought something was happening. I was like, yeah, popping up. Yeah. It was just me playing around. That's so funny. Yeah. When I get it, when I get a chance and people have websites, I like to, I like to showcase those things so that the listening audience can listen to the episode. can go back to it.

Yeah. And, Yeah. And there's a lot more there than, know, I can really touch on in a short interview, but it's just basically sharing the things that helped me. And I always tell people, you know what, you might not resonate with everything in there, but sometimes it's just something very small that you hear a message that really can make a huge difference.

So, you know, for me, it was a quote on Facebook. was the quote, people will tell you that I grieve for a lifetime. I choose otherwise. I choose the path from hurt to hope to healing every day. And that was a quote by Julie Clough, who became my grief coach, actually. And I know what you're saying, you know, when you talk about you didn't know where to turn when your daughter passed, it's...

It was really scary for me too. I knew that there were therapists out there, but I had no idea that there was grief coaches. And I thought to myself, what can they say? My husband isn't going to come back. So what can they say that could possibly help me? Right. And I think a lot of people think that, but she made all the difference for me. And the only reason why I went to her.

was because I was feeling so awful and I knew I had to do something. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And it was scary. I mean, I didn't want to talk to her. It was scary to think that I would have to cry maybe, that I would have to my story. I knew it would be hard. Yeah. Yeah.

James Moffitt (16:29.388)
Yeah, it's never fun to talk about.

No, because we're told that, you know, crying is not a good thing. And so we're brought up with that belief. And so we tend to try to push that down. And I found myself every time I cried, it was a volcano because I because I had pushed those emotions down for so long. My coach always says that.

You know, your emotions are like a beach ball. If you keep holding them under the water, eventually you can't hold it anymore and it comes up and flies in your face. So it's like allowing ourselves to have those emotions and work through that in creative ways. Crying is one, writing was another for me, you know, there's, but there's all kinds of ways to move that emotion through. So.

allowing that to happen and not feeling bad about it or guilty about it really lightens the load and really helps free up space for that joy to come back in again. Right. So you've got a lot of material on your biography, which was wonderful. We'll just work through a couple of them, some of these questions.

When someone is in the depths of grief, can be hard to imagine life without that constant pain. What advice do you give to people who feel like they're never going to find joy again after loss?

James Moffitt (18:08.47)
Yeah, so I thought that too. I really had... It was devastating to think that I would feel like that for the rest of my life. And a lot of people told me that, actually. They told me, you know, you'll never get over it. You'll just learn to live with it. And I was on a mission to try to find somebody who didn't say that. Right.

because it was really depressing. And that's how I found that quote on Facebook, actually. And a fellow by the name of Sean Doyle, he wrote a book called The Sun Still Rises, and it's about losing his wife. And that one was really inspirational to me too. So after interviewing more than 140 people who have gone through this process and come out on the other side and found joy again and found fulfillment again,

I know it can be done. So the advice is not to give up hope to keep moving through. We all have different timelines. Some of us it takes longer than others and that's okay. But just don't give up hope.

James Moffitt (19:26.196)
In your book Awakening Through Grief, you discuss grief as a way to release emotions and create space for a new fulfilling life. How can people honor their grief while also moving towards something greater?

Well, for me, my husband was a very social man. He loved people and he loved hearing their stories. I was not naturally like that so much. I really just followed his lead. I enjoyed the conversations he had with people, but I wasn't the one that initiated those. He was. And so when I stepped into this work, I really felt

that it gave me a lot of meaning and purpose. It was almost like I'm carrying out his legacy in a way because I'm meeting with all these people. I'm listening to their stories. I'm sharing their stories with others. And so I think when you think about the person that you lost and what they stood for and what was important to them, sometimes you can hang on to some of that and use it.

really as fuel going forward to help you in your grief. Right.

Hang on to the good memories. Yeah. Yeah. know another fellow who passed away at home. He was the most kind man, humble and kind. And I know his family talked a lot about carrying forward with that humbleness and that kindness in their own lives. So it's, it's really about that. And how can you express yourself?

James Moffitt (21:14.441)
in a way that's creative to you, you we all have gifts and talents. Sometimes we forget in our life because we get caught up in the, have to get, you know, the house, the car, the job, the money, whatever, we kind of lose what we love. But grief sometimes, well, quite often takes you back to who you truly are. And sometimes you end up finding

rekindling those creative endeavors that you had lost. And so it does that too.

James Moffitt (21:55.841)
So in your experience, the idea that grief lasts a lifetime wasn't comforting, it was discouraging. How can reframing our beliefs about grief help us to navigate the process more gently? So what I discovered is grief is really a process and it's a God-given process to help us because we're always changing. And I talk to people about, you know,

loss really happened when you left the womb. You know, that was your first big change in life. And then, you know, we lose elementary teachers, we had to give up the bottle, we had to give up the blankie, you know, there was all those things. Over time, we've had experience with grief and loss. It's just what sometimes when we have a big, challenging loss like you had, that it really

forces us to look at the process more deeply and to really start to think about what's happening. And for me, my understanding is that it's a natural process that's given to us and it's uniquely designed for our own grief. And so no two person's grief journey is the same because no two person's relationships are the same.

And so I really see it as this process that can help us. We often think of grief as sadness and loss, sometimes it leads to depression and all kinds of really heavy emotions, anger, jealousy, guilt, right? And so it's a reframing of the process that's helping you to heal.

And yes, there are these emotions that are associated with it, but really those emotions are coming up to be healed. And so it's not to push them away or try to abandon those and force yourself to smile over top of them. It's actually embracing those emotions and feeling them and allowing them to move through you so that they can be released. Right. And so when you

James Moffitt (24:18.507)
When you initially, you when you lose a loved one, there's, like you said, there's a whole process that you go through and the emotions are really raw and present. And it takes time to work through those things. And I had a thought a second ago and what was I thinking about? yeah, one of the things that, because people don't know what to say, sometimes they say stupid stuff or silly stuff that, you know.

Yes, they do. Like one of the things that we heard was, you know, well, Jessica's been gone for, you know, whatever the time period is in their mind, six months, a year, two years, five years, whatever, just get over yourself, just get over it, you know. And from my vantage point, I don't think you really totally get over that grief. I think you kind of carry it with you. And I think the raw emotions, you know, time is an awesome healer, you know.

And over a period of time, it's been 20 plus years for us. And so it enables me to revisit those memories with a little more clarity and with a different perspective. And I can look back on the positive. We all leave a legacy behind and your husband left one, my daughter left one.

And so we think back on the legacy of what that person has left and we can cherish that, you know, and we can carry that with us, you know, through life. Neither one of us are going to forget our spouse or our child. You know, they're always going to be ever present in our mind. So one of the things that I saw, one of the questions was talk to us about the difference between mourning and grief. Mourning as in M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G.

Yeah. So as I described, grief is really that process that we go through that helps us heal from a loss. Mourning is the outward expression of that emotion. And mourning really is how we heal. And there's lots of ways to do that. mean, initially we often will have some kind of memorial service or funeral that is

James Moffitt (26:44.919)
part of the morning process. Celebration of life. Yes, but there's so many more ways to do that. Sure, sure. And so that was kind of what I was touching on a little bit with using writing maybe as a way or using art or using music or walking in nature, exercising, all of those ways that we move energy, we're moving emotion. Emotion really is

energy in motion. And so anytime we can move that, that helps to get us healing and get us into that space of flow again, rather than, you know, you it's almost like you can't breathe, right? Like, it's like you're holding yourself so tightly because

Well, and rightfully so. I mean, it's quite a blow to the system and we want to protect ourselves. And so we really almost cower physically. So this is this is really releasing that and allowing it to relax and flow again. And it's a practice, you know, it's not something, you know, they say time heals all wounds, but it is really an active practice.

to move that energy through. Yeah, because we can do all kinds of numbing, right? We can watch TV all day or we can, you know, some people turn to gambling or drinking or shopping or, you know, there's all kinds of ways to numb those emotions. And again, rightfully so, it's painful. So I get it. Yet the way to really move through that is to start to

look at those emotions and start to allow them. And I always encourage people not to do it alone because it can get really intense and dark and heavy. Yeah. One of the things that the, funeral director told me, I went with my pastor, to go up there and make arrangements now sitting across the desk from him. And he said,

James Moffitt (29:01.623)
He said, you realize that 95 or some ridiculous percentage, it was a high percentage rate, a high percentage rate of couples wind up in divorce when they lose a child. And I was thinking, is this really the time to say that? I probably thought some ugly things too, but I basically just told him, said, yeah, that's not going to happen in my family because we go to church, you know, we believe in God and we have a, we were Christ followers and

and we have faith in the fact that He is in control of every aspect of our life. Do we understand everything? No, of course not. But we know that He is the ultimate healer of our emotions, the ultimate healer of the pain that we endure. It's like you said earlier, we all experience grief in some fashion.

As we walk through life, you can lose a job, you can lose a girlfriend, a boyfriend, husband, wife, you know, you go through divorce, you you grieve when your children leave home. We're empty nesters. Our kids are grown and gone. And so we had to go through a process of coming to the realization that, hey, we don't have, you know, kids, you know, and so we have to revisit our marriage, our marriage relationship and who we are.

What's our identity now that our kids are gone and sometimes we get wrapped up. Our identity gets wrapped up in our children. And then when they walk out the door, then we're like, Hmm, what are we going to do now? You know, who are you? You're sitting across the breakfast table, looking at this person going, I think I remember us getting married, but now, now where are we at? You know, we're, what are we going to do now? And, so yeah, it's, one of the recurring themes in this podcast is, self care for parents.

And we hear, I read and we read all of the, you know, heart wrenching messages from moms that are struggling with teenagers and young adults who are walking through addictions and winding up in jail for bad mistakes and, you know, dealing with the struggle of boundaries and just all manner of issues, you know, but, but

James Moffitt (31:30.881)
So yeah, self-care is very, important when it comes to not only us as individuals, but as mom and dad and husband and wife. And, you know, this message can go to, you know, young adults need to be aware of these things and be because of what you're doing and because of your book and because of the multitude of grief counselors that are now available, probably in person or online.

There is, there are resources available for people to get, you know, the help that they need, which is awesome. You want to hold up your, you want to hold up your books so people can see it? Sure. Yeah. Hold up the front of it in the back of it. Yay. Awakening through grief, a spiritual journey of healing and transformation after loss. What does it say on the back? wow. Cool. And there you are in all your glory.

Yes, thank you. What's it like to be, how long did it take you to write that? Actually, I started about June, July of last year and I finished the manuscript at the end of October. It was a goal because my husband's birthday is on the 27th of October and so is my mom's birthday, both the same day. Right. And so I made a goal to finish it by that date. And so I did. And then

It's just been a lot of editing and how I was going to publish it. Oh, I bet. Yeah. Yeah. But how, how long has your husband been gone? He passed away in 2021. So October, 2021. Yeah. Lots happened since then. Yes. Yes. Yeah. That was four years ago. Yeah. Three. Yep. Just, just over three.

Yeah. So sure you're still working through some of those emotions. Yeah. And what I found is, you know, as I worked through them and found my way of releasing that emotion, and now when they come up, it's not such a heavy thing. Like they still feel intense, you know, but

James Moffitt (33:56.615)
I know that I can release them. I know that when they're coming up, they're coming up for a reason, that there's some type of message or healing that's in that emotion. And so I really embrace it with some kind of curiosity, like, what is this? How come I'm feeling this way? Right. And it helps with life in general. It's not even just so much about the grief anymore. It's like, you know, what other emotions are coming up and what

is the source of those, you know, when you're triggered, when somebody says something to you.

James Moffitt (01:09:32.705)
to life now. Good. That's awesome. Well, I'm glad that you were able to find a way to manage grief and all of that. That's wonderful. I'm hopeful that our listening audience gets something out of this conversation. They may not get anything out of it today, or maybe it may come back. Something may happen in the future that they're going to think.

wow. Yeah. I listened. Let me go back and re-listen, revisit that. So I appreciate you being on the podcast episode and congratulations on your book. And, do you still have children? do. I have two. And actually my daughter is in delivery right now. I may have a grandson soon. my grandson. Yeah.

I don't why I asked you if you still have children. should have said, do you have children? Yeah, I do. have two children and I have two grandchildren and one on the way. Yeah. So, how did your, older, how old were your children when your husband passed? They were, Oh boy. Good question. Um, well around their 30 Mark. So 28 and 30. Yeah. So they were young adults.

Yeah. Yeah. How did how how were they with processing processing

James Moffitt (01:48:35.657)
scary time. It really was. It was difficult for everybody. you know, fortunately, my son-in-law has, you know, come through and he's he's in remission. And so we're really happy about that. And I did a lot of blogging. I, you know, I did a lot of writing. And I think, you know, my kids read those.

And I think it became a form of communication. You know, I didn't realize it at the time, but you know, it was another way to express to them what I was going through and the way I was moving through it. And I think it helped connect us a little bit to have them read those posts and to kind of get an insight onto what was happening with me. And then it gave us an opportunity to talk, you know, about

what was happening with them. And we mentioned Blaine all the time. We talk about him all the time. And I think we find it quite comforting. And we found new traditions, know, Christmas and Easter, we've started to create our own new traditions now. Right. Yeah. That's good. That's good. Yeah. Well, I'm glad to hear that. And I appreciate you sharing your journey with us. All right. So from a listening audience, I'm going to say

Thank you for listening.

James Moffitt (02:29:37.783)
On the website you can see my contact information. can click on a link and write me an email. Tell me what topics or whatever you would like for us to cover on the podcast that you haven't heard, that you would like to hear. You'll see the upcoming show schedule and again you can leave a review for the podcast episode. I'd really appreciate that. Having said all that, I want to say thank you for listening and have a wonderful day. Bye bye.