Where Do We Go From Here?

 This episode offers a compassionate exploration of life post-trauma, focusing on vulnerability, healing, and the journey toward self-renewal. Lori Kendall shares honest reflections and practical guidance for those feeling lost in transition, emphasizing that moving forward is a gradual, gentle process.

Main Topics:

• The silence and inner voice that follow trauma and grief

• How to recognize and honor feelings of disconnection and transformation

• Small, intentional steps toward healing and self-awareness

• Holding onto meaningful values and gifts from loss

• The importance of patience and self-compassion in recovery

• Navigating societal pressures to rebuild quickly

• Creating space for reflection and future growth

Timestamps: 

00:00 - Embracing silence after trauma and why it feels loud 

00:33 - The question: Where do we go from here? 

01:06 - Giving yourself permission to be unready and uncertain 

01:52 - The space between who you were and who you're becoming 

02:52 - The unspoken aftermath of trauma and feelings of unraveling 

04:40 - Writing down what feels unfamiliar or disconnected 

05:00 - How loss can shift your identity, even if you’re functioning 

06:23 - Reflecting on who you were before trauma and what feels lost 

07:14 - The societal pressure to “move on” and the patience healing needs 

08:04 - Allowing emotions and truths to surface without judgment 

08:56 - Transitional space as an opportunity, not failure 

09:25 - Embracing the “in-between” space of not being who you were or who you will become 

10:09 - Reflecting on future aspirations—like returning to education or career 

10:57 - Healing begins with small, quiet choices 

11:30 - The power of small steps and showing up for oneself 

12:23 - The fear that moving forward means leaving behind loved ones 

13:24 - Finding gifts in loss—how grief can deepen connection to what remains 

14:41 - Carrying values, love, and lessons into the future 

15:22 - Living fully again amidst fear and uncertainty 

16:08 - Moving slowly and honestly through the transition 

17:17 - Asking yourself how to begin living for yourself now 

17:42 - Embracing the present moment without needing all answers 

18:27 - The importance of patience and self-compassion 

19:07 - Embracing the possibility of growth beyond professional identities 

20:14 - Re-centering relationships and redefining what matters most 

21:04 - Recognizing gifts and lessons in loss

Resources & Links:

• Missing Pieces The Final Salute: A Mother's Journey Through Service, Sorrow & Survival

• The Kole T. Kendall Anchored Navigation Project

Connect with Lori Kendall:

• Facebook

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Real and Rooted Podcast, where real stories mean grounded healing. I'm Lori Kendall, founder of Reflective Roots, where I work as a grief navigator, a companion for the tough times in life, author of Missing Pieces, the Final Salute, and your host. Each week we'll explore the experiences, the losses, the breakthroughs, and the raw, honest conversations that transform who we are becoming. This is a space to reconnect with yourself, reclaim the pieces that you've lost along the way, and grow in ways you never thought were possible or expected. Let's get rooted and begin. Hello and welcome to the real and rooted. I'm your host, Lori, and I'm so glad you made it here. If this is your first time, welcome. And if you're returning, thank you. Today's something I want to talk about because it is something that I still struggle with. I'm two years post-traumatic experience, and they're questions that I still have for myself. Today's episode, where do we go from here? is I think a question we all ask. So today I want you to come in gently. Give yourself space. Be gracious with yourself. You don't have to arrive here put together. You don't have to have all the answers. And you don't even have to fully know why you pressed play. But just be here. There's a kind of silence that follows trauma. It feels louder than anything you've ever heard. It's not heard in the silence of peace. It's not the silence of rest. But it is the kind that echoes. It echoes in empty rooms. In the conversations that used to exist, in the space beside you where something or someone should still be. And somewhere in that silence a question starts to form. Where do I go from here? Before we go uh further and dive deeper into this conversation, I want you to be able to grab something to write with a notebook, your phone, anything. There will be moments in this episode where I'll gently invite you to pause, not to fix anything, but to let something honest come through you. So let's take a deep breath and begin. So there's a moment after trauma that no one talks about. It's it's about what comes after. When the world continues and you don't. But yet I was left feeling and hearing nothing. It was as though silence had entered my body and I didn't know where to go. If you're left standing there and you feel as though you are not who you are or who you were, you're right. But everything around you after that trauma eventually resumes, and quietly you feel as though you begin to unravel. I want you to write this down. Don't edit it. I just want you to write it. What feels most unfamiliar in your life right now? Maybe it's your drive, your determination. I know with me it's my professional career. It's what defined me prior to my traumatic event, and yet I find that it's not what defines me now. What feels like it no longer fits, even if you can't explain why. Where do you feel the most disconnected from your life, from others, from yourself? Now it doesn't need to be complete sentences or a paragraph form where this is an English class, but I do want you to write the truth, the honest truth, because that's where healing begins. You see, there's a quiet devastation in not recognizing yourself. You may still be functioning, I'm still going to work, I'm still doing the job, but internally something has shifted so deeply that you feel like you're a stranger in your own life. Who were you before your trauma? What parts of that version feel lost right now? What do I or you no longer believe, value, or connect with in the same way? What feels uncertain about who you are right now? If it feels overwhelming, slow down. You're not trying to solve this, you're just trying to notice what is going on around you, inside of you. There's pressure internally and externally to move forward, to rebuild quickly. That's how our society works, that's how our world revolves. And you just want to be okay again. But healing doesn't follow urgency. So where does that pressure come from? The pressure to be okay, to move forward faster than you're ready for? What emotions or truce have been something that you put off? What have you been avoiding because they feel too heavy? What would it look like to give yourself permission to not have answers yet? Let whatever comes up come up. This space, this podcast, is a moment in time where you no longer need to be the person that rushes rushes past. This space where you are no longer is who you were. But yet you're not who you're becoming quite yet. This is where many people feel lost or disconnected. This space is not failure, but it is transition. What feels most comfortable in this in-between space for you? What are you afraid might happen if you stay here too long? Is there anything, no matter how small, that feels like it's beginning to shift? I, for the first time, had the conversation about obtaining my doctorate degree. I haven't had that conversation in three years. I'm trying to navigate whether that's still who I am. But I believe in order to find who I want to become, I first have to reflect on where I was, who I was. And in time, maybe I realize that's no longer who I am. That's okay. Because as long as I give myself space to reflect on who I was, where I want to go, who I want to be, what I value most now in comparison to what I valued most then, only then can I grow. So you see, even the smallest awareness matters. Healing doesn't begin with clarity. I've learned that the hard way. It begins with small, quiet choices. It's the missing pieces, the value that you put in the small moments of life now. And you start to rebuild one small moment at a time. So what's one small thing that you've done recently that took effort, even if no one noticed it? Where have you shown up for yourself? Even in the smallest way. What's one gentle step that you can take today or tomorrow that may get you closer to where you are destined to be? There's no right or wrong answer. It's just allowing the answers to be simple. You see, there's a deep fear in grief that moving forward means leaving what your past was behind you. Maybe it's the divorce that you didn't expect. The children of now a split home that you never wanted. And yet in times they're better for it. Healthy relationships are the predictor of their own healthy relationship. Maybe it's your loved one that you left behind. I know I have that fear. I know I and my husband and my family will never forget my son Cole. But what happens when the rest of the world does? Carrying them forward is not about holding on to the pain. It's about allowing what mattered to still live through you. What did they or what you lost give you as a result that still exists? I talk about it often as the gifts that we find. My gifts, my son, when I have a hard decision or a hard conversation, gives me a sign. During the entire experience, my sense of smell heightened. And so I smell him when I have that tough conversation or that tough experience that I need to walk through. He gave me the gift of being able to write a book, of have this podcast, developing a nonprofit foundation in his memory that works to help other military families through crisis and through mental health supports. What values, love, or lessons remain part of who you are today? The question is, is how do you carry that forward in a way that mean that is meaningful, not forced? And what would happen? Maybe what are you afraid of if you allow yourself to live fully again? Do you associate healing with forgetting or losing that connection? What would it look like to stay connected while still moving forward? If you're able, close your eyes. Bring to mind the person or the version of your life or the part of yourself that you feel you've lost. Gently ask yourself what remains. Place your hand over your heart. Open your eyes and write just one sentence. What remains in me is don't overthink it, just let it come. So where do we go from here? If you've realized anything, it's not something that's going to come all at once. It's not something that will be certain immediately. We have to move through the emotion, the realization that we too lost ourselves that day. Because after a traumatic grief event, you are no longer who you used to be. And that's okay. Cause sometimes it's for the better. What we need to do is to move slowly. Go with an honesty. And go with what we carry forward. So maybe you're asking yourself right now, how do I begin to live for myself? What does not leaving myself here look like? But what's one truth that you want to hold on to as you move forward? You don't have to have answers right now. You don't need to know who you are becoming. Just don't leave yourself here. Just remember one day at a time to stay, to breathe. Right when you need to. Ask questions that you can come back to. But at the end of the day, where we go from here doesn't have to have a defining direction. Sometimes it's just living in the moment that means the most. So let the answer be enough. We go one step at a time. I hope that you've found something meaningful in our conversation. It's definitely a question that I still wrestle with today, even two years out, because I don't know where I'm going or who I'm becoming, but I do know one thing. I'm going to be the best version of myself moving forward. I may not be as professionally driven as I once was. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe that is the best gift that maybe Cole gave me. Maybe I was too far one way. Maybe they should be. Maybe it's time that we get to a place in our lives where we start to say those people, those individuals that matter most, they live within the four walls that I call home. And maybe if it's that you lost a relationship that you thought would be your forever, maybe it wasn't. Maybe there are things in that relationship that weren't serving you. Maybe they weren't serving your children. If it was a relationship of abuse, that's definitely not what you want to teach them. You see, there's a gift in everything that we lose. We just need to take the time to search for it. I want to thank you for joining me this morning. I hope this podcast brought you something to think about. Maybe an arrival at some answers. I will see you here on Sunday for the Sunday evening shoreline, where we get to reset, reboot before the week ahead, and in the meantime, be kind to yourself. Have a great morning. In Missing Pieces, the final salute, a mother's journey through service, sorrow, and survival. You'll walk through my story of preparing for the service of grief, of resilience, and rediscovery. And along the way, I hope you find space for your own story. This book isn't about being perfect. It's about becoming whole again, even when some pieces feel forever changed. Order your copy of Missing Pieces today on Amazon or at missingpiecesbook.com. Join other readers who are finding their own story, encapsulate it within the pages. Gain insights and learn more at Real and Rooted Podcast, where real stories take root in healing groups. Missing Pieces, the final story, a mother's journey to the service and the story of love.