Episode #32-Monique Walker

 In this episode, J. Monique Walker shares her journey of navigating the loss of a relationship with her biological mother. Although her mother is still living, Monique was raised by her grandparents, a reality that shaped much of her life and personal growth. As the founder of Pure U Coaching (Personal Unraveling Radiant Essence), Monique discusses the power of personal choice and the importance of refusing to remain stuck in grief, rejection, and past wounds. She emphasizes that healing and growth require intentional effort, self-reflection, and a commitment to becoming the best version of yourself. Her story is a powerful reminder that while we cannot always choose our circumstances, we can choose how we respond to them. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to this episode of Turning Grief into Growth: The Journey of Transformation. This is a podcast that's hosted by Greg Jacobs and Don Lipsteam. Well, good morning, Don. I know that you probably are sitting there on the other side of the screen for all of our YouTube watchers thinking Greg did not notice that I have a different backdrop uh this morning. But I did notice. And I noticed uh is that a microwave that you have in the backdrop there?

SPEAKER_02 0:24

It is. Very nice, and uh television on the other side.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Nice, nice. Well, it's uh very pleasant.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

I'm surrounded by electronics. You are and uh you know normally I'm on this island with the lighthouse.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Oh, I'm sorry, are you on an island?

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Not anymore. No, I am in the midst of uh of Maryland. Uh I'm in Glen Burney, Maryland today. Nice. Yeah, and I took my walk and noticed that the birds up here don't sound as happy as the birds down. They don't have the lighthouse. They don't have a lighthouse and they don't have as many trees. Uh so that makes a difference. Yeah, I have a feeling they are happier down there.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

They are indeed. One of these days I'm gonna get down there and visit you on that island. Uh looking forward to it. Well, today, Don, we have a special guest, and I'm gonna go ahead and uh turn it over to you and let you introduce Monique to us.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

It is my pleasure. Uh Monique Walker, uh, somebody who I met uh uh 2019, if I'm not mistaken, right, Monique? Um and uh so uh seven years and uh it's been uh it's been a journey. Um I feel like I have uh spent a lot of quality time getting to know Monique. Um and when I think about how to introduce her, you know, I think it's gonna come out in the podcast, but uh she's uh her essence is love. Um and you know, she started and and I'm sure she will uh talk about this at some point in the podcast, but she started a uh an organization called Pure You. Um and uh it's uh it's truly you know she opens her heart up to um to people. And I think Greg, you're gonna you're gonna feel that, you're gonna see it. Um and so will our listeners. Um so I'm excited. Welcome.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I said, Don, if you want to introduce me, just say, oh, this is my friend Monique, and let's just start talking. That's just easier.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

So so why don't you start just by giving us a very brief um description of your relationship with grief, if you wouldn't mind.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

All right. Well, um I'm 62 years old, and just like everyone else, I have experienced uh what we the traditional uh what we know traditionally is grief, losing someone, someone's life transitioning away. Um and uh, you know, being 62, there's been quite a quite a bit of that in my life, but this conversation that I want to have today about grief is um something called ambiguous um loss. I was raised by my maternal grandparents, and I was not um um my my mother wasn't present in our home or even in our in our city. And I grew up from a young girl not knowing that I had another, I had other parents until I was uh, well, uh past my uh toddler years. I was probably headed into elementary school or something when I found out. And um even though they did a beautiful job of raising me, when I found out, I realized that, you know, wow, there's I came from somewhere else, you know what I mean? And I really didn't understand what that meant to me uh or what that would mean to me until I lost my grandmother, my grandfather, and by then I had found out about my father, and I had a very close relationship with them. And so the conversation of grief as a child never came up. I didn't know, you know, what was going on or what was happening. I didn't know. But I wanted to, I've I've been trying to create a space for this conversation because now as a coach, I recognize that a lot of the things that I'm working, helping people to work through is probably from their inability to understand that they probably were um you know dealing with some level of ambiguous um loss as in in their child, in a children age, child, you know, tender age of a child. And so um I first began to really think about what grief was as an adult. And as I began to navigate that, um, just you know, what is this thing? You know, losing a friend, losing someone close to me. And I thought about it. I'm like, you know, I wonder if as a child I was experiencing some of the same things because my mother wasn't present, but nobody ever brought that up. And, you know, you all know, up until just a few years ago, you didn't hear grief conversations, right? Public. You didn't hear uh there wasn't a space really for the conversation because it's so vulnerable. And so I grew up through that same process. I I was a good little Baptist girl, you know, um, but hurt lost even at a funeral where someone actually left, you know what I'm saying, where someone actually transitioned. There wasn't much conversation about grief. It was just have faith in God, keep it going, keep moving. You know, it got suppressed, it got pushed under. I don't remember sitting with my grandparents and being able to cry about something. Not that they did not prevent me from crying. If I wanted to cry, they did, but nobody put a name to it. And you know what I'm saying? No, it never got a name put to it. And I was a little bit of a crybaby as a child, you know, but when I did, around my cousins and family, uh just being a crybaby, you know, girl, come on. You know, you can do that. And even as an adult, when I realized, you know, I want a relationship with my mom because she's my mom, you know what I'm saying? And but then it was my grandparents were gone, my dad was gone, they have been my best friends all my life, and now I'm trying to push this need for something on her, probably to not not process the grief that was going on within me. You know what I'm saying? And so here it is now. I know that I have a mom, and it's like, but there was no funeral and there was no um, you know, dinners or memorials. Um, nobody went to, you know, to to um any, no, no closure was brought to that. And so that just ends up churning within a person. Uh, for me, I was uh much older when that started to happen for me, which caused me to want to really dig into it and see, you know, what was this? Could my grandparents have helped me to navigate this as a child? No, they didn't know. You know what I'm saying? They knew power through, have faith in God. Um, the thing that carried me, I think, was the way that they raised me. Um, the love that they, you know, uh were able to provide for me, this the safety, the um, the protection, the, you know, the provision, all of that stuff. That's what held me together uh as an adult. But then there was this other little piece where as I now have to navigate losing them, there was this whole that, you know, I remember getting bitter when they all passed, like one right after the other, because it was like, I'm in my 40s. I'm in my, I'm just having children. I'm 30 in my 30s and 40s. Why are my parents not here? Well, there's because there was a whole generation between us, right? And because that generation was there, it was time for them to go. And I was angry. I, I mean, I was really kind of a fanatic about it. Whenever the doctors would say they're gone, I would drive to Mississippi and say, nope, nope, pray, come on back. I need you. And I finally realized, Monique, you're being selfish. I didn't want to grieve them. I didn't want to lose them. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't fair. They should have been there to walk me down the aisle, or they should have been there for the birth of my first child, but they were too old. They couldn't do those kinds of things. And then they were gone. And so the natural thing for me is let's go push this into this woman. That was not fair for me, you know, because she had another life. She had children of her own. She started another family. And yeah, I was trying to figure out all of this.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

You know, I think the the past down effect, yeah, the past down effect of grief is just crazy in the fact that you have generation after generation after generation that suppresses it. I also was raised in a Christian household. I make no amends that I'm a born-again Christian um in Baptist church now myself, but um, it's interesting because we tend to throw scripture at people. We tend to say, hey, um, you know, God's faithful or this or that. And there's just all these little synonyms, little things, cliches that we'll throw out and um like it's supposed to be all better. I find that concept of ambiguous loss very intriguing in the fact that you really can't put your finger on it at first, and you don't know what it is. You don't know why you're having these feelings. So, really, what you're saying is your grandparents were your parents to you, and then whenever they died, you find out find out that you have biological parents, and you really put all of that grief and uh and anger and blame on onto them is what you're saying, as far as your mom, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Well, my friends, I found out that I had my I had a mom in my early elementary years, but there was no relationship.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Um and I think I think if I if I understood you correctly, Monique, and and please um correct me if I'm wrong, but the when your grandparents who you were very close to died, uh they raised you, you you love them, they died, you turned, you tried to turn to your mom and and she wasn't available to you. Is that is that part of the grief that you are feeling that um can you can you talk about that if that's true or not?

SPEAKER_00 11:24

So so so there's two things going on, right? Here I am, I'm suffering the loss of these people who had been my parents, right? My grandparents and my my birth father, because early on we developed a solid relationship and spent a lot of time, but they died one right after the other, boom, boom, boom, just like that. So here I am now trying to unpack what's going on with me and pointing that toward her. That was not fair because I could not pour all of my life experience into a woman who had not been a part of that. That was wrong, right? But she could meet me where she could. She had this whole other family established. There was no, I believe that what happened with her was at the point of me not being with her anymore, my little life, because the baby was tucked somewhere, treasured, you know, stored deep down in her heart. And this adult woman who's now saying, I need you, I need you, is like, but you're a baby. You know, you're this, you're still, you're right where this whole thing started, right? In a little blanket and the handoff. That had not matured to from what I can see. I stayed as that little precious child. I didn't grow up over there. So me trying to push this aspect of myself and my need into this person, you know, there needed to be a little bit more um uh understanding about what that needed to look like for me. She's grieving too, she just lost her parents, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

So it was just too much going on. It was too much. But here I was thinking, you're the replacement, it's just natural. The society says you're my mom, you gave birth to me, you should now have room for me, you should have this for me. I was wrong. It was wrong. It was wrong, right? And and and being raised in the community that I was, I I always heard, well, you should have just been grateful that you even had grandparents. Or, you know, even if there's no relationship, you should be grateful that she's over there. What? No, there needed to be conversation, there needed to be narrative, you know.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

So you know, you you use the word wrong, and I don't know if that's the the right word in this uh particular uh case because uh you you had needs, she had needs. Um and they just didn't interact well with each other. Yeah, they didn't mesh. So um it wasn't wrong of you to have those needs. Um and it wasn't wrong of her to not feel the you know the connection with you um at that point because of all the years that have gone gone past. So I I don't know. I feel like there's a a a different word out there than wrong, maybe just not um not.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

I think that comes into complex. It was very complex. Complex grief.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Yeah, and then there was not any compatibility. We were not at the same place in the dynamics of what she needed and what I needed. You understand? So you're right. And I rarely use uh a term like that, and I'm sorry, but oh no, I apologize. But I had that's how it came to me. Wait a minute, you need to back up. You you you need to back up and rethink this thing. What are you doing? Wait, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 14:56

And far be it from us, yeah, far be it from us to tell you how you felt uh at all. I think we're clarifying for our listeners, too, that it's okay to have those feelings, it's okay to go down that path. You know, Monique, it's interesting because um to bring this into uh my personal journey just a bit, my uncle was the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I always aspired to be a businessman, a CEO. And when he died, I think I was like 22, 23 years old, I remember crying my eyes out. But when my dad died, I I didn't shed a tear in 2017, still haven't shed a tear. Um, so it goes to um how the relationship that we have with that individual. Uh, because I wasn't raised with my dad, I wasn't raised with my uncle either, but I had these aspirations and I held them up in this such high esteem. So it's it's interesting how the psyche processes our relationship, and then this thing called grief kind of oozes out. Sometimes it just vomits out, and you know, we don't know how to handle it.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Yeah, that's so good. Yeah, you um you mentioned that you did not um cry for your father, but you did for your uncle.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Um I I I with with with that, I would say there were uh tears for me for my grandparents at another time, but it wasn't sorrow. It was they're gone and they're not supposed to, that kind of thing. But the thing that you're sharing there is that someone, something shifted, somebody was not there. Yeah, my mother was here, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, she lives seven minutes away from me now, and that's just still it's still complex. You understand? You know what I'm saying? So that's what I I when I'm coaching, I I I recognize that you know, as we are navigating big, uh, you know, complex conversations, some of this stems back to some form of this type of grief that doesn't get set out on the table. Somebody is still here, and you have little to no contact with with that person. So there's no closure, there's no um, you know, all those kinds of things. And then words keep, well, what well, that's been 20 years ago, that's been third, you know, and it just gets, and there's not not been a space for what about someone who's who didn't transition that and it's not just the word grief.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

That's what's interesting, is all these other emotions come up the rejection factor. Well, why wasn't I wanted? I I've got a buddy of mine who uh had never met his dad, and uh he's in his 40s now, and um he uh was at his grandma's funeral, he was raised by his grandparents like you, and he was at his grandma's funeral, and his uncle pulled him aside and he said, Hey, did you see that guy that uh just ducked out the side door? He said, Yeah, I did, he goes, That's your dad. And his dad didn't have the courage to come over and say hi to him or anything. So he's he's borne this his whole life on his shoulders, where it's like, Why? How come was I not good enough? Why did you not like me? So when you when you mix that in the mixing bowl with grief, it it becomes kind of messy and muddled, and you just kind of have to work through and address those feelings.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

And that's where I see a lot of uh when I'm coaching attachments, I see um people pleasing, I see all these things, and then I'm not a therapist and I don't try to be, but sometimes through uh intuition or you know, just listening and asking questions is discernment. It comes in discernment, it comes right back around to something, some experience that happened um as a child that didn't get grieved because the notion that grief is somebody left and they're no longer here, right? No, they're here, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 19:08

And so I continue to move through that, you know, and uh done that uh I I had lost my grandmother who I was very, very close to um when I was like six years old. Um and my parents didn't know how to uh they they probably didn't even think that I was grieving. Um and at six years old I didn't know what I was doing. Um, you know, I I felt terrible that I wasn't gonna see this woman who treated me really well and and um you know spent a lot of time with me, that I wasn't gonna see her again. Um, but I didn't understand grief. And honestly, until not until I started learning about grief after Josh died, that um that's when like a lot of grief came up from my grandmother, um, because I never really grieved her. And I think um I think you know there's some of that in your story, Monique, uh that uh, but but it's very different because here the person that you uh were grieving or you know, have grieved your she's still here, and um you you thought and and you might still have an opportunity to to reconnect, but it it didn't look the way you hoped it would. It it hasn't looked the way you hoped it would. Um can can you talk about that at all?

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Yeah, so um and you know, one of the things I want to do is keep this conversation safe and dignified for my mother, my birth mom. Absolutely. We have a relationship, we have a good relationship, but it's just I had to redefine what that relationship needed to be for me, and I did that basically by what she was able to give to the relationship. So my grandparents legally adopted me, and there were eight of them, and then they legally adopted two of us, so she's I've had to reframe in my mind what our relationship could be. So she's more like a sibling to me than an actual mother to me. Now, the difference with that is that's me, that's what I could get, right? That's that's the most I could get. But I have grandchildren, and I wanted them to know her as. Their grandmother. So as often as I can, I do have them visit her and to understand this is your grandmother for history's sake. Yeah, yeah, their great grandmother. Correct. And even my children, that's their grandmother. But you know, they, my children, will see she and her kids doing things on social media, which I hate. And, you know, then there's, oh wow, look at them. And then, but we're not a part of that. And they've had to kind of navigate that type of a thing. But for me, and and you know, we work through that. My my children nor my grandchildren have not been short of moms. There have been, I've been surrounded by everything that a mother could pour into someone all my life. Um, there were so many women in my community who just mothered me. And then even now, um uh as an adult, everywhere I've you know ventured, everywhere life has taken me, there's some older woman who has picked up the mantle. And so there's nothing that has been missed in my life, you know what I mean? So we laugh, we talk, um, we we call, we, if there's anything that she needs, I'm I I'm there, I you know, I do it because that's me. But I did my work, you understand? I did my work because you know, I have to remember that whatever happened for me not to be uh able to live with her or grow up with her, I don't know that story. So I can't pull my belief into what's going on in that movie over there. I got my own movie.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

You only know what you see.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

That's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

You know, there's there's a psychological experiment out there. I can't remember what it's called. I'm not that uh well-versed in psychology, but it's basically like um if you walk up to an elevator bank and the doors open, there's two people on the elevator and they're wearing headsets, and you're the third person, you get on the elevator and there's a set of uh headphones uh on the floor. Um, that third person will automatically go over, pick up those uh headphones and put them on uh because the other two have them on. There's no instructions, there's no rhyme or reason. So we're influenced by our surroundings. So I look back, my parents got divorced when I was 10 months old. And all I saw around me were these nuclear families of a husband and a wife and all these children. And immediately I thought, well, what is wrong with me? Because nobody ever set me down to say nothing is wrong with you, and you weren't the cause of the divorce. So there's all these things that were shaped by our society, by our you know, surroundings, our community, our tribe, whatever label you want to put on it. And um, and it's not always accurate. And that's what we have to work through. When you talk about putting the work in, Don and I really consistently talk about that on this podcast, turning grief into growth. The growth aspect comes from putting the work in.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

That's true. That is absolutely true. And Monique, you have done a lot of work on yourself. Um you, you know, when I think about the love that you the love and light that you spread out into the world, um it's you know, obviously you've got a lot in you to pour out. And I think your children and grandchildren benefit from from that. You so you've taken this um and and you made a choice to do something really positive with your maybe awkward uh beginning.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Yeah, I didn't want to live in that. I I didn't want to live in the in the not knowing. I didn't want to keep having false expectations. You know, you have these fantasies about what motherhood and daughter, mother-daughterhood is supposed to be. I didn't want to live in that. I needed to reframe that for what needed to what what what what ultimately my life was going to be. And the the the children, grandchildren dynamic is complex too. Um we uh our society today is shaped so differently from when my grandparents were alive. We wanted to be around them. This the gaming, the social media, the the way that generations today um spend time, it's online. It's not necessarily the tangible touch, you know, and so I'm constantly, you know, up against that today. You know what I'm saying? And that can put a strain on how often you see each other, how often what what what that ends up being. I mean, people scrolling their phones, you know what I'm saying? Me too, because sometimes that's the only way I can figure out where they are and what's going on with them, you know. So life is still changing. And I'm sure at some point they'll have their own stories about what the connection was, the mother-daughter, the the the mother-son, the the the family dynamic ends up being. I mean, look at us, we're zooming today. There was a time when we wouldn't have been able to do this, but they're still, I can't touch you, you know what I'm saying? There's yeah that that that part of it that that's just still necessary, you know what I mean? And I think when situations get complex in a family dynamic, the younger generations tend to not want to be a part of that. And I don't blame them because if they can go and and do something different, I'm all for it. You know what I'm saying? You don't have to be faced with this situation every single time you visit, or you know what I'm saying? Family dinner at the holidays and what have you has become so complex and so enormous. I remember when I first became a coach, I was like, what is this thing? Why everywhere I look, coach, coach, coach, coach, coach, what is going on? And what I realized was that the divorce rate had increased and families had started to move so far apart. People can't just pick up the phone and talk to Aunt Julie or uh Uncle Dan, or it's just not that simple anymore. I remember when I would have a issue in my life, and I would just jump in my car and run up to, I was living in New Orleans at the time, I would run up to Mississippi and two-hour drive. That gave me the time to process whatever was going on back at home. By the time I got to my grandparents, just sitting on the front porch, listening to them, watching them do what they do, going in the garden, whatever you know they had going on, sometimes it would help me to just pivot and not even have to tell them what was going on with me. We don't have a lot of that anymore. You know what I'm saying? Yeah sitting and washing pears with my grandmother or shucking peas or whatever. It would just take a lot of that away. Most of the people that I coach are in huge families, but they have very little opportunities.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

And are lonely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

And they are very lonely. And so the coach has now become this this what um this uh extension to to family for a person to have a place that they can talk. And and this is how Pure You happened for me. I ended up having someone that uh a pastor and his wife who just decided they were gonna grab me by the arms, pull me up, and we're gonna walk this thing out until you figure it out. Today I'm on a coaching session on Zoom, they're out in my front yard planting plants, they're digging up trees, weeds, and uh and I'm seeing them on the cameras and I'm like, what are they doing? You know what I'm saying? But they are not mom and dad. But if there was anybody that treated me just like my grandparents did, it's these two. And it's it's just all along my life there have been people to fill in what I needed. So I didn't have to sit around trying to keep hoping that at some point I'll push up against this thing and it'll give me something. No, just give God time and He'll send what you need, God will send what you need. And that has happened for me, and I know that happens for my children. My children, you know, are um they have deep relationships with with friends, they depend on each other, you know what I mean? Yeah, and whatever myself and my children's father can give, we give, but I've pretty much let them guide the process, not forcing it on them. You know what I'm saying? Because I here I was trying to make a relationship be something over here with my mom. I can't, I don't get the right to do that with them. I allow them to, you know, what is it, what is it that they feel like they need, what is it that I can give? You know what I'm saying? And to be the one to be the receptor of the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

You'd made a comment, you said, I didn't want to live in that. And I I I thought about that because it's it's all about choice, it's all about you can choose to wallow in your grief, your rejection, all the different feelings that you're going through, and you can be victimized. And you're all you just play the victim card your whole life, and we see it all the time out there. But you chose to rise above that, kind of like the mouse and the butter churn, you know, churn and milk. You know, you don't give up, you put the work in, and you rise to the top and you crawl out. Um, it is, it's about choice. I mean, Don, don't you don't you see that every single day?

SPEAKER_02 32:03

Absolutely. Uh and you know, when I think about Monique's story, um she started a an organization that you mentioned, uh Pure U.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Um, and I'm is it pure or pure?

SPEAKER_02 32:19

Pure, P-U-R-E.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

And then the letter U. Um, but it's Pure U coaching. And I feel like this is how she's turned her grief into growth. Yeah. Um, can can you tell us a little bit about that, Monique?

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Yes, I can. And you were saying that uh I didn't want to be play the victim card. Here's the thing that my unraveling taught me. I didn't know that I was playing a victim card.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

I didn't know what it was.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

We don't.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

I didn't know what it was. So I, you know, and I got told that too. Oh God, here you go again. Well, tell me what it is so I know what it is, so I can frame it, so I can put it in and be, you know, give it a name. I didn't know. You know what I'm saying? I didn't know. But here's the thing that that helped me was I had a um, you know, I went to school for mass communications. And then I went back the year that I met Don to finish that last semester of a degree. And when that psychology and all of that stuff started to come, then I was like, oh, okay, you know, this is how I can apply this to my life. This is how I can do this, this is how I can do that. But navigating that at the time, you know, when we say, oh, you're just playing the victim card, help the person understand what a victim card is, because most of the time it's just whatever's coming up. They're just like you said, they're vomiting. They don't know. And so that's why I want this conversation out here because it's been misinterpreted, it has been misrepresented. And the people like myself who who was clueless, you know what I'm saying? Yes, it kept coming up. And yes, it kept coming up because it was unresolved in my value system. Mentally, the United States says, you have a mother, you have a mother, she gave birth to you, she should be able to do this, she should be able to do that, she should be able to do that. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. So I had to do all that. So pure you is the personal unraveling of your radiant essence, and it's a four part process that starts with identity and just who are you? Who had I become as a result of me believing that this woman was supposed to have something for me that she didn't wait back up. And so when I started to look at answer those questions for myself, who am I? Who am I being? What do I know? What are my values? Well, the the truth and the reality was I I couldn't place myself there with her because there was no history, there was no experience, there was nothing. So I had to figure out who I was and had to say, okay, I need to reframe this. She doesn't have to be mom, but she can be something significant and valuable to me. And I love her. Okay, so this is what that love is going to be. And then the unravel part of uh of um the uh peer review process is what's clear and what's unclear. What what do you need to unbelieve or unknow? You know, I know that mother is supposed to be, no, mother can be redefined as something else. And it doesn't, they don't have to be related to you to be mom. You know what I'm saying? So what else is, and and just pulling through all of that. You know, we used to sing this song in the Baptist church called I'm Going Up the Rough Side of the Mountain, and I'm doing my best to make it in. It's just a little old gospel song. And you think about it, at some point in my life, I was like, Am I really going up the rough side of the mountain? No, I can fly up to the mountain now. You know what I'm saying? They're airplanes. So do I still want to be defined in my defining myself by this old spiritual, this guy? We have to go inside and see what are we still living from that's no longer true or no longer valuable to us. And that's the unraveling process. Once you go through all of that and say, I need this, I don't need this, I don't need her to be classified as uh uh what do you call a classified document as mom in my life, but she can have a beautiful place in my life. We laugh, we talk, we we don't see each other all the time, but she comes to visit. She's been to my home now once, and I've I go to hers because I'm just gonna do that. I'm just gonna be where I need to be. I'm gonna show up for what she can't show up, but that's a part of this is what I want for myself. Just pull it all apart, rip it up, and put it back together for what it needs to be. And then look at it. The radiant part is rising to what you now are defining yourself to be true, what are you what you're discovering about yourself. And then get comfortable with that because the essence part is to go back out into the world and live from this space. But if you don't sit with it long enough, you get back out there and you're gonna be right back at the beginning. Oh, well, I guess I wasn't that, or I guess I didn't discover that about myself. And and I call it the peer review process because you end up discovering stuff about yourself. The beautiful thing about that for me is my experience has brought me to the place to where I've been able to help other people do the same in their own lives. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 37:36

And thank you for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

And I want to do it. And this had not been a conversation in the in the calling it grief. I just know that a lot of times when I'm working with women mostly, but I do work with men also, there's some stuff that didn't get processed. And we talked about me being raised by my grandparents, but did you think about divorce? When a person has to not be in a relationship with someone that they have loved forever, there's a process of grief there too, that just gets tossed under the rug as, oh, you're just angry, or it'll be okay, or you're gonna get through this. You know what I'm saying? All those things. And not just Christianity that teaches in the home, we're doing the same thing. That's just where those Christian beliefs live. You know what I'm saying? But I'm sure that in alter other religions and in other cultures, that gets that that happens too. My goal is just to be able to help women and men that I work with sit through the process of whatever is going on with you and do the work, right? Until you find out what's there that doesn't need to be there. And you know, what's what's what are you ready to hold true in your own values, your own purpose, all these things. What's what's true for you? Who who who are you? I did a TED talk and that was the topic. I had to, I I discovered that about myself. And I stopped trying to make my mom be something that she didn't need to be. She's a wonderful person.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

That was a great TED talk too, which um I if you get an opportunity, Google my TED Talk, I guess, um, and you can find it. But you know, I I know we're getting close to uh having wrapped this up. Um and and uh Greg, I don't know, do you did you have any um thoughts? I because I I want Monique to leave um our listeners with some something.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

We always ask our listeners or our guests rather, just to give us a little nugget of wisdom. But before that, I just uh I just wrote down don't let others define or identify you. You didn't say that verbatim, but you know, that's really an interpretation I got because we are identified by so many people, and um, I do not want to be identified as oh, he's the dad who lost a child, you know, oh aren't you David's dad? And and oh gosh, I'm so sorry. And all of a sudden, no man, I'm so much more than that. You know, I help people, I I love people, and you know, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

That's a survivor as opposed to a thriver, right? Yes, like we're thriving.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

Um, yeah, so that's a battling process. That thing comes up of, well, what was wrong with me, or why didn't they this? No, stop. Yeah, it might have been their loss. Maybe you were supposed to be over here. Just pivot, pivot to what can this be for you now?

SPEAKER_02 40:42

You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 40:44

I think the main thing that I want um viewers to understand is a lot of times you're carrying some form of grief that you may not have been uh able to define. Uh um, and it's not because someone transitioned, it may be a living, someone that is still living. And I want people to know that they're not alone. I want people to know that, you know, society will tell you something's wrong with you if if you were raised in a family where divorce happened or where um you were raised in a in a non-traditional family or adoption or uh uh or foster something. You something's wrong with you. No, no, you're not broken. There's no such thing I don't believe in. I don't know what that means. I don't, you know, I don't know if somebody can pop me in half and then put me back together. Stop. And then get to find define those things. And you don't need the person who is still living to participate in your healing. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes they're holding this this person or this thing, you know, he hurt me, he this, he that, or whatever the this thing has morphed into. No, pull yourself away, let them be over there, figure things out for yourself with someone. And the biggest thing, and and this is where peer you happened, is the the biggest repair that needed to happen was with me. I had to do my mom didn't need repairing. She lives a beautiful life, you know what I'm saying? And and whatever that that that needs to be. And that's where Pure U began to happen for me. I I I started it. And what I discovered about myself was that there had been purpose within me. I was always gonna, I believe I was always gonna come to this place in my life. I believe the path that I was on with being raised by my grandparents was the perfect will of God for my life. You know what I'm saying? And then now that I am coaching and and doing the work, I realized that some of the dreams that I had, some of the daydreaming, some of the trances that I've been in, I'm I'm seeing those things in my life now. They are coming to pass. So I believe that those little nuggets were dropped to keep saying, keep going, Monique, you're almost there. Keep going, keep going, figure this thing out, wallow in it, cry, say something that that that could be, you know, whatever comes up, keep saying it until you figure out because that's all I did was, you know, oh, here she goes again. Well, I'm sorry, help me not here I go again. Yeah, and now I'm to sit with people and help them to have to not here you go again.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

Well, Monique, we can't thank you enough for that. Uh, because we need more coaches out there, we need more people to sit with others and to help them understand themselves and to uh love themselves. Uh so thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

Yeah, and um and turn their grief into growth. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

And it's okay for grief to be complex, yeah, just and and and enormous because you talk about people who've lost people, yeah. But there's the the the grief piece is just really complex.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

It's it is no, it's and it's okay to touch it.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

It's okay to touch it.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Yeah, you will be okay after. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for coming on this podcast today, and uh, we want to thank our listeners for listening. And uh until next time. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen. We hope turning grief into growth spoke to your heart and becomes a part of your own journey of healing and transformation. If you know someone who could use a little hope, please share this episode with them. And don't forget to follow, like, or subscribe on your favorite platform so you don't miss what's coming next. Don and I can't wait to share more conversations to help you keep turning your grief into growth. Until next time.