I would love to hear from you. Send me questions or comments.
Grief doesn’t just break hearts, it also exposes the parts of us that are strongest, rawest, and most alive. Lisa sits down with best-selling author, speaker, and grief coach Marie Alesi to talk about what happens when the worst phone call becomes real: Marie’s husband Rob leaves for a business trip and never comes home, passing from a brain aneurysm and leaving her to parent two young boys through shock, sorrow, and sudden change.
Marie shares the moment she finally falls apart after holding it together for the funeral and a major family milestone, and how that collapse leads her to an unexpected word for grief: empowerment. We talk about choosing love over fear, letting emotions move through the body, and why “doing it right” in grief is often just noise from the outside world. Marie also explains her “happiness filter” for decision-making and how creating new memories, including travel, gave their family space to breathe when home felt heavy with absence.
The conversation expands into what a true Celebration of Life can look like when it’s built on stories, laughter, music, and language that fits the person, not a template. Marie breaks down the services she offers through mariealesi.com, including ceremonies, one-on-one grief coaching, family bereavement sessions, and a grief literacy workshop designed for schools and teachers. If you’ve ever felt alone in grief, supported a grieving child, or wondered how to honor someone without being swallowed by sadness, you’ll find practical guidance and real-world hope here.
Subscribe, share this with someone who needs a softer landing, and leave a review with one takeaway you’re trying this week.
Welcome And Guest Introduction
SPEAKER_02
0:08
Welcome to Patty's Place, a place where we will talk about grief, dementia, and caregiving. I'm your host, Lisa. I dedicate this podcast to my mom. It's in honor of her. She passed away about two years ago from dementia for that. So hopefully you will grab your cup of tea, your cup of coffee if you're having a really bad day, glass of wine, and we will get started. So today I'm very excited. Our guest is Marie Alesi. She's a best-selling author, TED Talk, and uh keynote speaker. And you're also the mother of two boys, which is very important as well, too, for that. And you like to have shiny examples of choosing love over fear and sadness. Am I good with that?
SPEAKER_00
0:49
Absolutely. Thank you.
Sudden Loss And A Shocking Week
SPEAKER_02
0:51
So um you could tell why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Uh uh your husband passed away suddenly. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_00
0:58
Yeah, absolutely. Uh that was in 2018. Rob went on a business trip and never made it home. He passed away from a brain aneurysm when the boys were 10 and 8. So that was quite a shock to our systems.
SPEAKER_02
1:12
Yes, that that's always it's always hard with that. So, how how did you find empowerment in grief?
Meltdown To Empowerment In Grief
SPEAKER_00
1:21
Oh. Wow, it's such a loaded question, and it was quite a loaded moment for me as well, because that was the least I expected to find in grief, to be honest. And I want to share a little story that preceded that so the audience understands how that came about, because obviously that answer is quite surprising. And I remember the week where we had Rob's funeral, and it was a midweek funeral on a Wednesday, and it was unexpectedly an unbelievably beautiful day, and as you can imagine, also a very intense day. But my entire focus was on giving Rob the most beautiful celebration of his life that he could have expected, you know. So there were about 500 people in a room, 300 of us went um on and and you know, celebrated together. And it really was my utmost emphasis to celebrate his life, make that about his beautiful personality, his, you know, he he was so bright. Like people just when he entered the room, people just loved him. And I wanted to reflect that in his celebration. So, in the same week, on the Sunday, I had to walk down the aisle with my younger son for his first Holy Communion. And I would have never expected that that was harder than the actual funeral because Rob was supposed to be there, and we live in a small country town, so all eyes were an us, and I really struggled to keep my tears back. I was so trying to stay brave, and I think they wanted to protect us by putting us on the very last row in church, so not everybody would stare at us, but what nobody understood was they gave us the longest walk through the entire church, and it it was torture for me. Every step of the way was really hard because I wanted to be happy for Jid. I wanted to celebrate his stay, I wanted to celebrate him, and yet there was so much heaviness in our hearts that day because you know Rob's absence was so present, it was so apparent. So, fast forward later that day when finally everything was done and dusted. And I'm talking, you know, it was the biggest week of our lives with the funeral and the holy communion and all these different layers of emotions. And that night I had a complete meltdown. Um, I started, you know, calling up to the boys, they were bickering, or brushing their teeth, and then all of a sudden, this sentence left my uh body, I want to say, and it was boys, I just need peace and quiet. I remember how I sort of yelled it up to them because I was so on edge. And I realized that was the moment because I've been holding everything together, that was the moment when I just collapsed. And by me saying that sentence out loud, it was like a valve had opened that couldn't be closed anymore. And I started yelling that sentence over and over, and I could see how my body, I just needed peace and quiet, and it got louder and louder until I literally it turned into primal screaming, and I found myself on the kitchen floor, whacking the kitchen cupboards and screaming and screaming and screaming. And I remember that being an out-of-body experience. It was like I could see myself on the kitchen floor. I had no idea how I even got to the floor, and I watched myself screaming and whacking the cupboard doors, and and all of a sudden I remember the boys upstairs, and it just snapped me back into my body. And I'm like, I need to get my together because I need to be present for the boys. They've just lost their dad, they can't lose me as well because I'm I'm losing it, you know. And that led me to seeking the help of a positive psychologist. I sat and on the bed with the boys that night. We had a really raw and deep conversation about emotions and how to process them and how unhealthy that felt for me, and how scared it made me and them, and what to do about it. So I went to the positive psychologist. I went to a couple of sessions with her, and we got to the point where she said, Um, you know, what was going on in my life. And I told her how heavy those expectations are from other people, from onlookers that are expecting me to fall apart. They were waiting for that moment. They were like, you know, she's too happy, she's too positive, she's to this, she's, you know, celebrating her husband's life, and she's so happy where she should be crying. And there are so many opinions of people who have got no idea what we actually went through. And I said, that weighs really heavy on me. And she said to me that moment, she said, So, what does grief mean to you, Marie? And that's where that word came up. I said, empowerment, and that really surprised me, but it also brought me back, and this is why I took you through this whole moment, to that falling apart moment. There was such primal power in that moment that I felt. And I got to the point where I realized I can let that power destroy me, or I can use it and tap into it to build myself up and to stand strong and hold that space for the boys and be the parent that they need me to be. And yeah, that's that's where I found empowerment in grief.
SPEAKER_02
6:34
And I I love that story because I think it's really true. People are always like, oh, well, it's grief, you should be crying. No, you you can feel anything in grief with it.
SPEAKER_00
6:44
And everything.
Celebration Of Life Over Cookie Cutter
SPEAKER_02
6:45
Yeah, and um it made me think when you were talking about your husband's celebration of life. My mom was always so funny, you know. For years before she was ever sick, she used to tell me, you know, that when she died, she I was supposed to uh she was gonna leave a list of invit invitation only to her wake. And I was like, Well, mom, what am I supposed to do if somebody shows up that isn't on the list? And she's like, Well, I'll be dead. That's your problem. I was like, Thanks, mom, you know. I love it. And then she was always like, and then and before she decided she was gonna be cremated, she would be like, and don't you dare have that casket open. I don't want anyone looking at me either. Don't you dare do that to me, you know. So later on, she decided she wanted to be cremated because she was like, Don't be spending all that money. And she's like, do whatever you want with the ashes, you know, or that. So when it came down to it, um my mom actually passed 10 days before her birthday. And so we ended up having her her service on her birthday. And so we ended up making it a celebration. It's beautiful, though. Yeah, a celebration of her life because she used to say to me, you know, you don't have to have it anywhere, you know, maybe have it nice, invite whoever you want, tell stories about me. I don't care. Except she left her list of music she wanted played. And I really, yeah, that was important. Um, but we had a cake for her and everything, and and we I we brought things that were her because that's what I wanted it to be. And and people said to me it was it was her, you know, and and I think that's what's so important because you know you go to a lot of different wakes or funerals, and sometimes you feel like they're almost cookie cutter. You know, you say these prayers and that, and I think it's important that you celebrate their life, you know, who they were, tell the story.
SPEAKER_00
8:36
The cookie cutter, if you don't mind me saying this quickly, because I feel to me, you just found the perfect way to describe the difference between a funeral and a celebration of life. And the funerals are very cookie-cutter, usually, you know, that's why I don't like to call them funerals. Yes. It sometimes helps because we have that, you know, common vocabulary that people know instantly. But when I say celebration of life, that's really what we did. And it seems like that's exactly what you did for your mom. I love it.
SPEAKER_02
9:03
Yeah, and so I told, you know, family and friends, I'm like, come on up and say whatever stories. And um it was her great nieces and nephews that came up because she used to she would babysit them as they were, you know, they were now they're in their early 20s and stuff, and they were telling they were telling stories, and and the one he was like, Can I tell this story? I go, You can tell any story you want about her. And so they did, you know, and they laughed and and everything, and people were laughing because I was like, Yep, that was her, you know.
Helping Families Create Lightness
SPEAKER_00
9:30
Um that's exactly where it should be. I love it.
SPEAKER_02
9:33
And I I wanted to talk about the celebration of life because on your website, you actually help families with that. How do you do that?
SPEAKER_00
9:40
Yeah. Oh my God, how do I do it? It is because I love focusing on their happy stories, on the joy, on the love that they brought into a family. So when I come and meet with families, most of them, if they don't know much about me or what I do, uh, they sort of expect that, you know, what prayer and what this and what that. And I always come in and say, tell me the beautiful things about your person, you know. I want to get to know them. I want to know about what made you laugh, what what was the joy, what was the love about? Have you got happy moments, happy memories? And what are those memories that you would like to share? And they always look at me and say, Oh, okay. Uh, and and then you see that shift happening in them, and it's so beautiful because all of a sudden there's this lightness that comes in. And my whole tagline of my business is bringing lightness into grief. That's what I'm about in a nutshell. It's everything I do in my business is all about bringing more lightness in and educating people on the language. I think that's a big thing as well. So there is an expectation, as you said, funeral, cookie cutter, which prayer, what song, what when speeches. And I always say, what can we do with the speeches? What can I bring with our speech, with my speech that I hold for the family? That brings something unique and something beautiful into this celebration because I'm here to celebrate your person. If they want cookie cutter approach, I'm not the right person for that. I don't do the standard and heavy and sad, I do celebration and joy and love and happiness, and that's a huge difference. It makes such a difference, and people talk about that for years to come.
The Happiness Filter After Loss
SPEAKER_02
11:22
Yeah, I do. I I I've always felt I was glad that we did that with my mom that way. And and it was basically what she had said, you know, and she kind of left it up there, but that's you know, who she was and stuff. But you got to hear those different stories because I think when you do the celebration of life, especially if they've been sick, or even if it's sudden, you're not talking about that illness, you're talking about the person and what they meant to you for all of that. And I think that that's what's really, really important. So, how did you find some happiness amongst all your grief? That I mean, that's hard to find, you know.
SPEAKER_00
11:58
No, I don't think it is. No? Okay. I honestly don't think it is. So I want to step back again to paint that picture. I'm gonna make this story super quick. Less than three years prior to Rob's passing, Rob and I had the what-if conversation, and it was such an intense moment because Rob called me on the way back from work and he said, Hey babe, I'm gonna be two hours late. There was an accident on Heathcote Road. Heathcote Road is like a one, like 25-kilometer road or something through the national park. And when there's an accident, it's a huge detour. There's nowhere where you can go. You have to literally go back and doing that in peak hour traffic, it adds about two hours plus to your journey. So instead of his usual half an hour I'm home, he came home like two and a half hours late or something. And we learned that at this accident it was a front-on collision with a firefighter off duty, he was coming home and a truck, and he died on the scene. It was really tragic for us to learn about that because his daughter was only 16 months old, you know. So for a lot of people, it was such an inconvenience. Oh, my husband's coming late for work, and the boys are waiting to see dad and you know, dinner and bathtime and all that stuff. But for one family, it meant that the dad never came home again, you know, and it hit us so deeply. I remember that conversation because our boys were so little, and I remember sitting on our bed that night, and Rob and I were crying and and talking and laughing, and we had all sorts of emotions that night. And we talk about the what would you do if you were to receive that phone call, you know? And the outcome of that one and a half, two hour conversation was I would want you to create the happiest life possible for you and the boys, because that's what love is. You know, when you love someone, you want them to be happy and not suck in grief. I don't expect anyone to not grieve. It was not my aim to not grieve Rob. I certainly did. But when I received that unexpected phone call that I always thought would never happen to us, that was the first thing that popped in my mind. And I heard it in Rob's voice create the happiest life possible for you and the boys. I could hear it in my mind as I'm sharing those unimaginable truths with my boys. You know, it was such an intense moment, and that came up and it became my lighthouse in my darkest hour. That was my, I have no idea how, but this is what I'm going to do. I'm taking you to happiness. I want to create happy memories, happy moments. And every decision I had to make, tiny or huge, was based on is that going to bring us happiness? It became my absolute and only filter in life. And once you decide, it actually becomes easier and easier and easier because I never thought of anything in my entire agreement and never thought about anything of this is hard. I just thought about what I wanted to do. Because if I got sidetracked, then this is hard. It would have taken me down. I never allowed that. People always say that to me, that would have been hard, or so parenting would have been hard. And I was like, it puzzles me because I'm like, oh, I never thought about that. Because I didn't have time to think about whether it's hard or not. I just did it, you know. That's what I had to do. I was so focused on creating a beautiful life for them that I didn't think of anything else.
SPEAKER_02
15:24
I can relate to that in the sense that people say to me, Well, they had to be hard with your mom. She didn't know who she, you know, didn't she didn't know who I was. And and and dementia is and stuff, but to your point, it wasn't something I thought about. It was just she's my mom and and she would have taken care of me. So I'm gonna yeah, it's like uh yeah, it was, but I I didn't have time to dwell on it because I needed to make you know, make sure she was safe and it's almost like they're missing the point, you know?
SPEAKER_00
15:55
Yeah, because there's so much love there, and that's that's your focus. You're not like, oh, this is hard or not.
Coping Tools For A Family Of Three
SPEAKER_02
16:01
Yeah, it's love. Yeah, and and I'm always always like, Well, if the roles were reversed, my mom, my mom did do that for many people, so it was like I you know, I had to do that. But how did you, as a family of three, how did you cope in the early days? Because it had to be hard. Your boys were young. As I just said, it had to be hard.
SPEAKER_00
16:21
No, no, no, it's fine. Um, how do we cope? It I think I'm gonna start with what helped me the most in that whole situation was uh the positive psychologist was really, really important. So I saw her for about four and a half months, maybe after Mob died. And in that conversation about empowerment and grief, I also said to her, I think I need to write a book about this. And she said, Yeah, I think you should. And I went home and did that. So I think the writing really helped me because it was very cathartic. I wanted to write down the story for when the boys are older that they could read it. I wanted to write it down while it was fresh. I wanted to write it down because I thought people might get a different idea how to handle grief rather than the cookie cutter that brings a lot of heaviness and sadness. Um, and what I didn't expect was that the book ranked in the top 100 bestseller list of Amazon Australia. So I knew there and then I had something the world needed. I had happiness and healing where you needed the most but expected the least. As for my boys, all I learned in that because I had no idea how to do this. I've never been a sole parent before, I've never lost a husband before. It was all completely new to me. All I had was love. And all I had was that focus on I want a happy life for them. And Flynn and Jed were both so, so different in their grief. It was never the same. Sometimes they swapped over, but one wanted to talk about it all the time, the other one never wanted to talk about it. One cried about it every night, the other one never wanted to cry, and really tried his best to keep it all together. So I think that was the hardest part for me, speaking about Heart, that they were so different in their approach. And I never knew should I mention Rob, should I not? But I just didn't want to think that through. I just trusted my gut instinct. I just talked about him when it felt right, and I never forced it. I have to, you know, mention dad every single day. I never try to hold back as in don't trigger them because I think there's no worse trigger than making anybody who's close to us or especially his kids feel that that is forgotten or it's not talked about anymore. And yes, it might trigger, and yes, there might be tears, but it can also trigger joy and happy memories. And I I wanted all of that. I thought there is no hiding emotions, you know, they all need to come out. I I just wanted to create a space for our emotions to come out. And then the biggest part for us on the journey, I think that was the most important part for all three of us on our healing journey, and we still talk about it today. I took them traveling around the world. Oh I just took off. I needed to get away from older onlookers, from older expectations. Um, I took them out of school early. The big summer break was coming, and I'm like, we're going, we're just going. And I sat with the boys and I said, Tell me anywhere in the world, is there anything you want to do, anything you want to see, anywhere in the world, it doesn't matter. And my older son, I should laugh about this. It's such a funny memory, actually. Uh, he said, I want to eat snails in in Paris. And I'm like, hmm, okay. So okay. It became one of the grossest and most bonding moments we ever had. Sharing a third of one escal between the three of us, and it was such a mind of a matter thing. Oh my god, I'll never forget this. Uh very French waiter in this little cafe near the Eiffel Tower, and we ordered uh six escal and sent five and two-thirds of them back. But yeah, it was it was incredible. I think traveling really gave us freedom and likeness and space and lots of new happy memories, and it was so needed for all of us to give our soul a break and not be in that circle of you know, where we could feel Rob's presence. Um I should say, sorry, his absence, obviously, you know, where he should have been present. We felt his absence so intensely when we were in the house. So that it was really quite important for us to get out, open, open our hearts, our minds to the entire world and allow some healing to happen. That was beautiful.
Hidden Gifts In Adversity
SPEAKER_02
20:39
Uh I would agree with that. I I had the opportunity to go to Ireland that my mom passed in January, and um actually my dad came with me. It was a group uh at at work. We it was a tour, and we were there for 10 days. Well, that was always my dream trip was to go to Ireland and and that, and it really did. Like those 10 days were just I I would go back in a heartbeat. Like it really did. I mean, I still felt my mom there and stuff, but it was just you're in that different environment, you know, you're she traveled first class with you, yeah. You know, like and you you see different things. Yeah, I felt it, yeah. My soul felt like so refreshed, and it was such a wonderful experience with that because you know, I I think sometimes people with with children they don't know what to do. And and I just me personally, I think that just to talk with them and say, if you want to talk about that person, talk about them. If you're not up, you know, like they're having the same feelings as adults, only they may not know how to process it or what to say. Yeah, you know, and to be able to have that safe space for them, I think helps uh so much when it comes to their processing their grief with it for that. So you talk about that there's hidden gifts in adversity. What are those hidden gifts?
SPEAKER_00
21:56
Yes. Oh I think it's one of the most underrated and overlooked things in the grief journey that there are always like every adversity comes with hidden gifts. It just depends on whether we open ourselves up to seeing them and even further receiving them, you know. And I I need to take you back to my dad's passing to answer that question because my dad died when I was 20. And back then I had no tools, no idea how to handle it, how to process the grief. I felt I was completely alone in this world with grief. And of course, my brain knew I wasn't the only one who lost a parent, but my heart felt so alone in this journey because none of it happened to none of my friends. So nobody knew how to deal with it, how to handle it. And it took me a good year to get out of my funk. I was in such a hole in with all of that, not knowing where to go. It was really like one of those pull the rug under my feet and who am I now? You know, it was I was 20, so you're officially an adult, but you still really need your parents around. And I was so close to my dad. And when I met Rob, my husband, I thought one of the most amazing hidden gifts in the adversity of losing my dad was that it taught me to be fully and wholeheartedly present as often and as much as I can. We're all humans. I don't do this 24-7 all the time, but certainly a lot more than I ever did before. It gave me such a focus on being present with the people I love, with the people around me, which resulted in me always telling my friends and strangers when I when I loved something about them. I I still to the day, I tell strangers on the street, it's like, oh, I really love your shoes. Or, you know, I'm I'm walking the Seacliffe Bridge, which is such an iconic bridge, like uh 50 minutes south from here, and I love going for walks there. And I remember seeing a couple and they were so in tune, they were so in love. And and I just walk past like that, you know, it's just like giving them a bit of a love heart, and it's just those little moments, those tiny connections, those um being with Rob, like every single day I would tell him how much I loved him, and it wasn't based on fear that one day I might lose him because I never thought that that would happen. Despite having lost my dad, I never thought that would happen. But it gave me this being present and telling people how much I love them all the time. And again, not from a space of fear, but from a space of love and wanting to be present and wanting that connection. And that was a gift I learned from my dad's passing. Don't miss a moment, be present because life is so freaking precious. And what other and really brutal way is there to learn it than when you lose somebody so close to you? So that's just one of them. But there is just multiple, you know. Even sometimes when I when I thought of the journey, you know, like I would have not been in a financial position to travel around the world with the boys, yet I had a really unbelievable friend that came out of nowhere that I hadn't had close contact for many years, and who just transferred the all the money plus more and said, I want you to have this experience. Uh, that friend always wanted to stay anonymous, and I absolutely honored that, but it was unbelievable. And to receive the how much I had changed in that person's life that I was never aware of, she said, You've got no idea what you did for me. I want to, this is all I can do right now. I know it's not going to bring him back, but I want you to have this experience, and it was such a gift, it was such a huge gift to be able to travel. I would have not been able to do that without Rob's passing, which is really tragic, you know. I it doesn't bring it into perspective, but do you know what I mean? There's all these things that come out. People come out of the woodworks that you never thought that would be like really close friends and other close friends that you thought would be there for you all all of a sudden disappear. So it really changes the dynamic, it changes your network, it changes your inner circle. And in that you can also discover a lot of hidden gifts, you know.
Services And Grief Literacy For Schools
SPEAKER_02
26:17
That's very true. Like, yeah, yeah. I sometimes I am surprised by who was really there, who wasn't, or you know, who just said things that were like, wow, that really helped me, or yeah, it's just kind of amazing what what it brings out with that uh with that. But I want to make sure we talk about your website. It's Marie Alessie.com, correct? Yes. Yes, correct. So what um you have a lot of different services and things like that. So what can people, if they go to your website, what can they what services in that do they have?
SPEAKER_00
26:53
So I think the bigger categories is I do ceremonies. I love doing celebrations of life. That's something that is really, really close to my heart and it's just so beautiful. We talked about that before. Uh, then of course I offer one-on-one coaching. I used to run group classes, I don't do them at the moment, but um, sneak peek, they might be coming back in a different format, but it's too early to share publicly yet. Just a sneak peek. But yeah, so I offer grief coaching, I offer family bereavement sessions, which I think is just so beautiful, especially when kids are younger and don't know how to really truly express that yet. There is actually um in the family uh bereavement sessions, um, we draw images of four different stages where I take the family through, and it sort of brings them on a similar level rather than the parents talk and the kids don't have words for it. So it brings them together, it brings them into a shared experience, how you can process this. And I I did one myself after um Rob passed away, and it was one of the most emotional and really beautiful things that the boys and I did together, and they said the same thing, it was hugely emotional, but they were so glad we did it. And then I offer uh family consolation, which is really beautiful in terms of looking at the structure and the family dynamic, what changes when that person passes, and it's just incredible because you are actually led into the outside perspective about your own situation, about your own family, seeing yourself in the picture as well, which is incredible. Um, and then I offer speaking and workshops as well. I've just brought out a grief literacy workshop for the schools, which I find so important because most schools are not equipped to handle grief in a classroom, which is shocking to me because in Australia, our statistics are that one in 20 children loses um a uh a parent before the age of 18.
SPEAKER_01
28:49
Oh.
SPEAKER_00
28:50
And that is only losing a parent to death when you bring in divorce or uh other situations, or losing a grandparent or a sibling, that's not even included in the statistics. Oh, yeah. And that statistic alone is 5% of our children who lose a parent to death before the age of 18. And then when you add all the other deaths or losses or grief into that mix, the statistics just go up and up. And it is not taught when you become a teacher, it is not taught in the curriculum of teaching teachers to teach our children. And I'm like, how can this not be part of their training? They need to have so I put the brief literacy workshop together for uh teachers and school staff to give them wording, to give them language, to give them tools, how to hold space and how to integrate that in a classroom, because the biggest thing is that this child feels completely excluded from the rest. There's this, you know, loneliness that they feel, and most people are not aware of it. They call it resilient, but truly they feel lonely, not resilient, you know.
SPEAKER_02
29:56
It definitely, yeah, there is that loneliness. Even when you are trying, you know, going through everything and and and feeling your feelings and and processing it, there is always that that loneliness because that person's just not there and they're never going to be there physically again. So there is to be able and sometimes just to acknowledge that, yeah, I do feel lonely. I really miss that person today, you know.
SPEAKER_00
30:20
Yeah, especially in and also because you're the only one in the classroom, you know. All the others go home to mom and dad, and you go home to mom. You know, that there's that loneliness as well. That you feel you're the only one, you're not included in a group anymore now. You're now different. That is the loneliness that is so hard for a child to deal with. Oh plus you know what you just said.
SPEAKER_02
30:42
Oh, definitely. Like even, you know, something as simple as Mother's Day or Father's Day, you know, those are the different holidays. Uh and it and depending on how old the child is, they may not be able to process. They don't understand what they're feeling. So to have somebody like talk it through them and let them know that it's okay can help them immensely with that. And you do this in person or do you do virtual as well?
SPEAKER_00
31:09
Uh obviously the celebrations of life I do in person, but uh everything I offer can be done virtually or in person. I do a lot of Zoom on on Zoom these days. So uh all of my one-on-one clients I see on uh Zoom and uh the the workshops, the grief literacy workshop can also be done on Zoom. I much prefer teaching it in the classroom, like with the teachers, because it's just so different the connection that you have when you're in a room with those people. But it never stops me from saying yes if people want it further away, then I can travel in that moment. So yeah, it can be delivered either way.
SPEAKER_02
31:46
And you also uh your books are available too on your website as well, because you have several books. Yes, for that.
SPEAKER_00
31:53
I have. I authored four books and I co-authored another four. So my books are the the first one that I already shared about, Loving Love After Loss. It was our story, you know, how I met Rob, our love story, how he died, and how I dealt with it. Then the second book was a bit of a sequence to that. It uh shared what happened after that when the book ranked in the top 100 best sellers of Amazon Australia, and how I created a movement out of that, in which I took about 5,000 people on their healing journey, which was incredible. And it also has my seven steps from grief to relief in it, which are the steps that I took after Rob died. Then I've got a prompted journal, which is Sparks of Joy. It's got like a one-liner, just two, three lines basically every single day to spark joy, and then it's got enough space to journal. And excuse me, the latest book that came out uh last year in October is a book that I surprisingly co-authored with my sons. So I was almost uh in the final stages of my book, and it was supposed to have four parts one to the griever, one to the support person, uh, one with references and one with helplines. And as I was in the finishing stages, I got this download. The boys need to be in this book. And I'm like, oh, interesting. Okay. So I addressed the boys and I said, Hey, how would you feel to co-author a chapter in this book? And both of them I asked them separately because I didn't want to, you know. Um, and both of them gave me a resounding yes. So I created a sort of QA style, how they felt uh what happened after dad passed away, and how they felt supported, you know, by their teachers, by their peers, by uh school staff, in the community, in their immediate family, an extended family with with friends outside of school. Uh so I went through all of that, and both of them gave me rather different answers, you know, and that was so much that came out, and I just I just um integrated that into the book between the griever and the support person, and it was unfiltered. I did it, it sparked a lot of conversations because there was so much coming up that I was absolutely not prepared for. That I was wow, it was really emotional, and we had a lot of discussions about it. And I said, I'm happy to publish it as is. I just want you to understand once the book is out, this person could potentially read it, that person could potentially read it. You know, I wanted to them to be aware of the impact that could have uh on extended family or the teacher that, you know, was not as supportive as he could have been, you know, so like things like that. And my younger son that was the one I had this discussion with, was like, Yep, I'm fine with that. Okay, publish.
Breathwork Connection And Closing
SPEAKER_02
34:47
Oh yeah. Well, that yeah, that that's good that he was okay with that. So what what do you think? What do you think your husband would say about all the work that you've done after this?
SPEAKER_00
34:58
Oh, he'd be so freaking proud of me. I know that I can feel him around so often, and I hear that a lot from him. You know, I I have a way of um tapping into my husband at any given stage that I want now. I've done a lot of breath work in my healing journey, and in those breath work moments, I had a lot of moments where I really like just got into this next level of consciousness basically. It's it's been credible. And I spent a lot of time sitting with Rob, connecting with him, and I feel I can just tap into him at any stage now. And I so often hear, I'm so freaking proud of you, babe. You know, I can see his big smile. And um, yeah, I had a lot of uh psychics that I never seek out. I don't go to psychics for readings or anything, but sometimes they just come into my podcast, and sometimes I know before, sometimes I'm not aware of it, and I constantly get that, you know. And I'm always like, Yeah, it's very generic. Of course he's proud of me, but yeah, I don't want to question any of them, but but I get I get it all the time. That's the one thing that keeps recurring. Your husband must be so proud of you, or I can see he's so proud of you. And I'm I'm actually sure he would be because that's what he wanted me to do, right? I completely honored that wish.
SPEAKER_02
36:11
This has been so enlightening. Thank you so much for joining us today. And I will make sure your your website is on there. So I hope people come to your website and look at your books and everything. And I love your accent. Someday I'm gonna get to Australia. That's on my list.
SPEAKER_00
36:28
I love it. Thank you so much for having me, Lisa. I really, really appreciate you holding space for my story. Thank you.
Subscribe And Final Takeaway
SPEAKER_02
36:33
Well, I it was very interesting. So I hope our readers, our readers, our listeners will enjoy it. So uh just to tell everybody, make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel. It's at Patty's Place-116. They can subscribe to that. And hopefully you don't feel so alone anymore and you find some light through the grief, as we were talking about today. So hopefully you had it enjoyed your cup of tea, your cup of coffee, or if you had a really bad day, your glass of wine, and join us for another edition of Patty's Place.