What An End Of Life Doula Really Does For Families-Interview with Victoria Volk

Welcome And Why This Show

SPEAKER_01

0:10

Welcome to Patty's Place, a place where we will talk about grief, dementia, and caregiving. I named this podcast Patty in honor of my mom who passed away from dementia about two years ago. I'm your host, Lisa. So I wanted to create a place where people know that they are not alone when they are going through all of these difficult times. So grab your cup of tea, your cup of coffee, or if you're having a really bad day, a glass of wine, and let's get going to talking about our guest today. Our guest today is Victoria Volk. She is a certified grief specialist. Uh, you're also an author, uh, your creator and podcast host of Grieving Voices, you're uh Reiki Heatmaster and a certified biofield tuning practitioner and a UMAP certification coach and end-of-life doula. So welcome.

SPEAKER_00

0:56

Thank you for having me.

What An End Of Life Doula Is

SPEAKER_01

0:58

Yes, I'm very excited. There are so many things to talk about with you. So let's start with what is an end-of-life doula?

SPEAKER_00

1:07

An end-of-life doula is the person that bridges the gap between the caregiver and the care team and the individual who is receiving hospice care or you know, the patient.

SPEAKER_01

1:23

So you come in um towards the end, or do you how does that work?

SPEAKER_00

1:29

Well, so in an instance like where someone is in hospice, I'll use that as the example. Um oftentimes people enter hospice at the very end. Um but what people don't understand or realize maybe is that you can actually be on hospice even a year before you get close to passing.

SPEAKER_01

1:50

Yeah, I didn't realize that either because when my mom had hospice and uh at the time my dad and I weren't sure if she would be ready for it, but they told us that they take they can be accepted into six months up to two years or longer for hospice.

SPEAKER_00

2:06

Yes. It's it I think the misinformation is that you have to be like close to actively dying before you are in hospice, and that's that's not the case.

SPEAKER_01

2:15

No, it's not. And they are just I can't I cannot talk highly more highly enough for hospice. They they are just wonderful for everything that they do for it. So then in end of life, Adula will kind of come in and help the actual patient with it.

SPEAKER_00

2:31

They're yeah, they are the advocate for the patient first and foremost. Okay. But then also can bridge the gap between, you know, the family and their questions and things like that when the care team is unavailable or or to explain things maybe in a different way. Um but more so than anything, it's to bring understanding to what is happening, to be an advocate for the patient as far as their wishes. Um really my training actually, so my my father actually passed away of cancer when I was a child, and he passed away in a nursing home.

SPEAKER_02

3:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

3:09

Uh, there wasn't, this was, you know, late 80s, there wasn't hospice wasn't what it is today, and resources, very rural community as well. Um, and so that what the training in in uh enlightened me in is that um it is possible to have like a dying wish, right? It's like your dying wishes. Like, do you do you want to be bathed when you die? Do you want your family to bathe you? Do you want um soft lighting? Do you want what kind of music do you want to be playing? Um who do you not want to see? Um, so an end-of-life doula can also be a gatekeeper to visitors. Um, you know, being because it would be difficult, right, for family to say, I'm sorry, but they do not wish to see you, right? It's a little bit easier for an end-of-life doula to be the advocate for the patient.

SPEAKER_01

4:11

And then you create even more drama hit with that. Right.

SPEAKER_00

4:15

So yeah, like I said, they're like the buffer and the the the bridge and kind of all of those things.

A Definition Of Grief That Fits

SPEAKER_01

4:22

Um, I like how you said about the music because um I I ended up being with my mom the well, I was with my mom all the time, but that last week uh I spent the night with her. She was in memory care. And pretty much almost every night I would play her favorite music. You know, just she had picked out the music she wanted for her service. I would play that, but then I also just played all the different music I knew she loved through the years because I thought, well, I know she could still hear me and I would talk to her, but I thought she loved her music. So I thought that would give her peace too with it for that. Um, I think that's really cool. Actually, uh, I when you when you were describing the end of life doula, I just remembered, I don't know if you ever watched the show The Pit on HBO. I have not. I haven't yet. They actually in the season two, a couple episodes ago, they had um uh they portrayed it end of life doula with a woman who had had cancer. Yeah, so it was uh with that. So I I think that is important to help, you know, with the patient and the family at the time. What would you say is the definition of grief that most people likely have never heard before?

SPEAKER_00

5:30

Grief is the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations. It is anything that you wish would be or could be different, better, or more. I like that definition because yeah, it's it's a lot of things. It is a lot more than just about death.

SPEAKER_01

5:46

Yeah, it's all those secondary losses and things like being able to pick up the phone and call that person or go shopping or or anything, watch TV with them, with that.

SPEAKER_00

5:56

Or a loss of health or a dream or finances. Yeah. Um moving.

SPEAKER_01

6:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

6:05

Different job, losing your job.

Grief Recovery And Emotional Completion

SPEAKER_01

6:08

Yeah, there's a lot to it with that. So what would you say is grief recovery?

SPEAKER_00

6:15

Grief recovery is a method, an evidence-based method to recover from the emotional pain of loss of any kind. Okay. And so I'm a advanced certified grief recovery specialist. And it's kind of a mouthful. But the advanced part means is that I can work with individuals online. Um, but with this method, we walk through a process that um takes people through their most difficult relationships. Um they don't have to be dead, right? Like that's grief, no one has to die for us to grieve. So it can and often my clients and even myself, I've worked through relationships with people living in my life. Because it's difficult to have the emotional honesty sometimes with people who I mean, have you ever tried to have a deep emotional be to be emotionally honest with someone who's unhealed in their own heart? Yes, yes, it's very difficult. It is very difficult, yes. Yeah, you probably get a lot of defensiveness or reaction reactivity instead of responding, and it's really difficult to listen to hear. And so this work is really about sweeping your own doorstep, it's clearing the energetic muck that you are carrying around from the past, from your relationships, and through apologies and forgiveness and all of these emotional things that we hold on to that add layer upon layer to our grief. Um, that's what we work through. And I had a client that went through the program with me, and she said, you know, people say you have to do the work. This is the work. I know what it means now. Uh so it's it's really deep, it's not easy. It's, you know, people are more apt to spend a couple grand on a vacation for a week than emotional freedom, and I get why. Oh, yeah. Truly, I get why. Yeah. Um, we resist the hard things. And my the question I would pose to people is you've already gone through the worst thing. What you know, it's the suffering can either take us down with it, or it can be a gateway to expanse expansion and growth in our lives. And I'm not saying that we have to have loss in order to grow, but my life experience has taught me and the countless people I've talked to on my podcast over five years, and just people I've worked with that um when you get to the other side of that through deep introspection and reflection and bringing those things to your awareness, um, you disarm the it's almost like you are able to you really essentially process the pain versus all the ways that we avoid it, distract ourselves and push it down. So that is the work. It's it's truly sitting with what's happened in the past so that it no longer dictates the present or your future.

SPEAKER_01

9:36

And that probably helps you too when you know that you'll probably never maybe get an apology from a person or that, but yeah, you're able to work through your own feelings with it. With those right.

SPEAKER_00

9:46

And have and have you tried to forgive somebody who thought that they didn't do anything wrong? Yeah. You know, if it's I forgive you. Well, uh, what did I do wrong? Right. You're stuck in emotional jail. So the beautiful thing about this work is you don't have to confront the other person. It it really is an internal responsibility. It is, it is, it is the individual's responsibility. No one else can heal you.

SPEAKER_01

10:17

It is that's very true. And I I tend to say that I think illness and death brings out the worst in people. Because it is such an emotional um experience. So all of those feelings come into play, you know, the sadness, the anger, like you don't think about all that, but it does, and now you're dealing with all these people and stuff, and it's it's just very difficult to navigate.

SPEAKER_00

10:45

But and I would challenge that and say, but it doesn't have to.

SPEAKER_01

10:48

No, it doesn't.

SPEAKER_00

10:50

You know, and that's the that's the piece I want to bring to this conversation is that um it doesn't have to bring out the worst in you. It can actually bring out the compassion in you. It can bring out the potential in you. Um, you know, I carried 30 plus years of grief and trauma in my body and in my in my life that impacted how I parented my kids um up until 2019 when I went early 2019 when I went through grief recovery myself. And I was not the same person after that. Um, that that experience transformed me. And um, you know, I had a lot of anger in my body and rage that came out in a flood of tears. I didn't think I could cry anymore. Um and you know, when you lose a parent as a child, um, when you're molested, when you have a an emotionally unavailable living parent, um, you know, it's going to change you. And it did, and not for a good way in my early 20s. And so I I had a lot of work to do. I and but it took me 30 years to get to a place where I was where I surrendered to the fact that I can't do this on my own because I'm quite stubborn and I'm quite the skeptic. And and uh I question a lot. And and but one of the things was was I started to question I asked myself bigger questions. How should I put this? When I started to question ask myself the bigger questions, instead of turning those questions onto other people, and I started to ask myself those questions, that's when the ball started rolling for me in the area of personal development. You know, because I thought I was pretty screwed up. I thought, oh my gosh, like I am my life as one meant to be just one of suffering. Like this, is this all there is to life is just to suffer? Like, is this why we're here? You know, and I that question, like, or that that feeling, I guess I should say, um, you know, along with all that anger and having another loss, um, it was actually my father's uncle, or excuse me, my father's brother, my uncle, um, who, you know, when my father died, I also lost that entire side of the family. They were no longer in our lives. And there was this family, this story that was passed down. And um, you know, I was the youngest of four. My brother was five years older, my six, my sister was nine years older than me. So I was essentially like an only child when all this happened and kind of had to raise myself through it. But um my uncle was diagnosed with a with a with brain cancer, and I went to see him, having not seen him 30 years since my father's funeral. Um, and that was in the process of um, I was in the editing phase of my book, and that really uh is what opened me up to the fact that grief is my issue here. And and it actually took me another almost two years before I went to Google to find something to help me, because you know, it like I said, I get the resistance, I get the the like I said, you know, we we've already gone through the hard stuff. Like what what do you have to lose? So um I'm I'm so glad I did that because everything I've accomplished or everything I've didn't gotten done because of that or after that has been because I went through and just became emotionally complete with a lot of relationships that were causing a lot of suffering in my life.

When Avoidance Shows Up As Symptoms

SPEAKER_01

15:00

I I don't think people realize that grief does affect your body. You know, a lot of people they just think, oh, grief, you're you're sad. They they just don't realize the levels of it and how it can be stored in your body and and how one loss can bring up other losses. So what do you say to those people who believe they don't have to dig up the past to heal?

SPEAKER_00

15:23

Well, how is that working for you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

15:26

There you go.

SPEAKER_00

15:27

Yeah, how does that work fast? Like how how are you? Yeah, how are you doing? Like, really, like, you know, because if you are projectile vomiting your emotional dis-ease over the people around you, okay, so it's manifesting in that way. If you are like a tea kettle, we are like tea kettles. We either implode or we explode. So either you're having physical manifestations or you are outwardly expressing it with gambling, shopping, relationships, um, anger, um, pornography. I mean, anything that makes you feel better for a short period of time. Even exercise can be a way that people cope. And yes, exercise is healthy, but is it are you doing it to negate or avoid what's really going on emotionally? So I think that um again, it comes back to asking ourselves those questions. We we we kind of live life on autopilot, I think sometimes we get, you know, in the motions of life, and um we we just do not ask ourselves the deeper questions. Because it's hard, you know. It is it is hard because once you once you know you know the answer, right? It's like acknowledging it. Well, now you gotta do something about it, and even not doing something about it is a choice.

SPEAKER_01

16:50

Yeah, I think it makes me think of my mom because uh my mom had a lot of traumas in her life. Uh she was sick as a child three times, and she lost um her cousin when she was 11, and they were more like sisters. And this was back in the 50s where you know, nobody talked about it. And so she always felt she really had that survivor's guilt because people would look at her and then start crying for her cousins. So she almost felt like, you know, and then she had other people through her life um pass away. Uh, you know, her both her parents, my grandparents died young. And, you know, just she tended it because she I think what she did is she took a lot of her grief and she wanted to care for people. So she tended to, whether it was friends or co-workers or whatever, they tended to come to her and she really tried to give people peace and healing. I think probably because she didn't feel that as a child when her cousin died. And that was just because that was the 50s. We just don't talk about it. We move forward, you know, with it. So she tried to always, especially with illness and in that, she really wanted people to to feel some peace and to heal. And like she was there for people to talk about it. She was very open about talking about illness and things like that with it.

SPEAKER_00

18:02

It sounds like she was a light worker in her own time.

SPEAKER_01

18:06

She probably was, although she probably didn't know it. Yeah. An empath. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, definitely. Yeah. She felt things very, very deeply uh with that. And I think that's why for me, she taught me a lot of that. You know, she used to always say with people with cancer, it used to drive her crazy when people would say, they're just not fighting hard enough. They're giving up. And my mom would always say, People, their body gives out, they don't give up. There is a difference. You know, they used to she would get so angry about that. She's like, Stop saying that.

Hospice Denial And Hard Conversations

SPEAKER_00

18:37

She would be like, uh well, and who's saying that, right? The families or the loved ones who don't who can who cannot comprehend their life without that person. Yes. We are taught how to acquire things and people, not what to do when we lose them. And so I think that's the biggest reason why people resist going into hospice earlier is because the family can is in denial. Yeah. The family, I don't think I know this is my this was my training. The family is in denial of what is happening. And when you can get past your own emotional stuff and and it and come to not it's not even acceptance, but embracing what is happening with your loved one, that's when you can have deep and rich conversations. And, you know, we and at end of life, so many people spend so much wasted time talking about the logistics, like the bills, and you know, you have all this the the the stuff, the financial stuff that you have to address. And all so look at all that wasted time. You know, if all of that could be settled, and this is I, you know, estate planning people like an end of life doulas, we, you know, we get this because it's kind of like you're we're partners in partners in um helping people understand that getting your affairs in order early is a gift to your family, to your loved ones, to your It really is.

SPEAKER_01

20:10

I was very grateful that my parents did have the powers of attorney and all that. And they did it because of a um because of something that happened with one of our family members and that made them go, oh, wait a minute. They didn't, and I because I'm an only child, this is they're like, we don't want you to be in this situation we wanna and they told me all about it. I knew where everything was and stuff. Uh so I was grateful for that. And I don't think too, getting circling back to hospice, I don't think people realize how much hospice does for the caregivers and how much they help and make it easier. Like I had no idea, you know, that they were able to, like they brought in the power recliner from my mom. They brought in the hospital bed. You know, some so many people think it's like boom, it's right there when right before you're dying. And it isn't. And they don't take away their medicine, they make them comfortable. And it made it very easy for me and my dad because we knew what my mom's wishes were, you know, like when they, you know, and it is hard. They're asking, you know, do you want a DNR? Do you want a feeding tube? And all this. And we were like, no, because we knew that's what she wanted with it. I mean, it's a hard conversation, but I am grateful that my my mom and my dad have had those conversations with me.

SPEAKER_00

21:25

And do you in in recognizing how important that is, because knowing that that was her wish, you had to accept that, right? Yes. You you were forced to accept that, that this was gonna happen and this was going to be the process that was going to be followed rather than I can't see you go. I don't want to lose you. So let's do everything possible to keep you alive, regardless of you know how you may feel about it, right? Right. And I think that's that's the and that's the that's the importance of having those conversations. Hard conversations, right?

SPEAKER_01

22:01

Yeah. And then it always comes back to that quantity of life versus quality of life. And I and it is hard to look at it when you're you're in that situation to be like, this is not a quality of life. This is not what this person would have wanted. You know, are they really living? You know, and even with my mom's dementia, I could see how she progressed more and more and more. We're like she just, you know, things that happened, I was like, oh, she would never want, like the fact that, you know, she was having accidents, you know, like she she would never have wanted that to happen. You know, so in some ways I was glad that she didn't realize it because that's just not what she would have done with it. And I think in in hospice too, like I said, they bring in so many, there's like social workers and there's chaplains, and in my mom, they brought in the music therapist for her and so many things. And then I had grief counseling available to me, even with the anticipatory grief. Uh, with that, it it just I wish people. I wish people would uh be able to do that more, but it there's so much resistance from people because it it is hard. I you know, I I didn't want my mom to die. I didn't want my mom to have dementia, but here we are uh with it. So what would you say is the one thing people need to know about grief?

SPEAKER_00

23:31

No one escapes it. That's very true. And we all grieve at a hundred percent. And no two people you know, I would I was gonna say no two people grieve the same, but that's not necessarily true because there are myths of grief that we all actually kind of succumb to, and because it's when when grief strikes, right, it we resort to what we know. And what we know is what we learned by watching our parents generally, the people in our environment, the you know, the caregivers and caretakers who shaped us, because we learn 75% of how to resp by the age of three, we've learned how to respond to life by 75% of how to respond to life by age three. The remaining comes by age 15. So by the age 15, we're pretty we've been shaped into how to respond to life. And for most people, I mean it's starting to change now with I think COVID helped to catapult a lot of these conversations, but um again, we resort to what we know and what we know and what we're taught is usually unhelpful and hurtful. So you know, when a child loses a pi a pet, often that's one of the first losses for a child is a pet. Um, well, don't worry. We can get another dog. We'll just replace the loss. Don't feel bad, we'll replace the loss. So one of the myths is don't feel bad. Another one is replace the loss. There's two. Or so then the child learns that, well, I can't talk about my dog or my, you know, because it my parent you you see the response in the parents, right? They don't know how to handle it, and so the child learns to grieve alone then. That's another myth, grieve alone. Yeah, and we all have heard the the phrase time heals all wounds, right? Yeah, that's another myth, right? And we also know that many people tend to keep busy.

SPEAKER_02

25:37

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

25:39

Right? To distract themselves. That's another myth. Keep busy. And another one, be strong. Oh, I hate that one. Gotta be strong.

SPEAKER_01

25:48

I because I I said this, I I asked my grief counselor so many times. I'm like, what does that even mean? Be strong. Like, I want to say, I I guess I had a choice, but it really didn't have a choice. I'm like, what does it even mean? That's people are like, oh, you're so strong. I'm like, okay, like you can be strong or you can be human.

SPEAKER_00

26:08

Oh, I like that. Yeah. Yeah. But these are the myths of grief. So when I wanted to say, like I was about to say, people grieve differently, but really we don't. We all succumb to these myths of grief that these are the things that we've learned. These are the patterns that repeat. This is the education we've received about grief. And so that's why I'm so passionate on the educational piece. And the grief recovery method is very much educational. Um, I I recommend anyone to pick up the book, The Grief Recovery Handbook. You will learn more about grief than you've ever learned. Okay. And that is the book that we use to facilitate the program, the grief recovery method. You can't do it alone. I tried. Um, I did. I, you know, I signed up for the training and I thought this is what's going to help me, and I can help other people. And it was going to be a five-hour drive, and then it was canceled. And I thought, oh my goodness, like, and then it was like the universe asking me, How bad do you want this? So I signed up for the training in Austin, Texas, and I invested way more than I would have needed to. But um, I just felt like this was going to be this was the answer for my heart and what I was looking for. And it truly ended up being that way. And um, you know, I you gotta follow the nudge. If something is nudging you and it keeps noodling at you, um follow those breadcrumbs, you know. And when that initial training was canceled, my husband said, you know, you've taught yourself so many things. Just just get the book, teach yourself. Like you don't need anyone to train you. And so I got the book and I read it. And I should I should have grabbed my copy because it's full of doggy ears and highlighting and um post-it notes. It's like we cannot heal on an island, and that's why on my podcast, Grieving Voices, it's me on an island with a megaphone. That's how you feel, right? Yeah, that's how you feel.

SPEAKER_02

28:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

28:08

And you know, just you just want to scream out to the ether and you feel like you're alone. Yeah. But it is the one thing that unites us all. We're no one's escaping it.

Finding Support Books And Programs

SPEAKER_01

28:19

No, no, we're not. And I typically am not like a support group type of person, but like I do go to uh the hospice that I my my mom was with, they started a parent support group, and I look forward to it every month that I go to it because I don't feel so alone. I so many things are so similar. All of our stories are different, but yet there's so many things and so many feelings, and I just feel for that hour and a half or that I do feel supported, and sometimes I don't even have to say anything, but sometimes I feel that comfort because it's like you're not alone with it, you know, and and you also hit know that you have other people that understand how you're feeling, and you can talk to them about it as well for that. I on your website, I love this, it says, Welcome, friend, from the fog of loss to clarity of peace. I love that saying uh with it. Thank you. Um and your website is theunleashedheart.com, correct? Um and I saw when I was on your website, I saw you have on here it's called Unleashed Letters. What is that?

SPEAKER_00

29:29

That's my newsletter.

SPEAKER_01

29:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

29:31

So bi-weekly newsletter.

SPEAKER_01

29:33

Okay, uh, with that. And then you also have something on there that's spank sessions? Spark. Spark, sorry. I can't read my own writing. Okay. Yeah, I can't read my own writing. Spark sessions. What is that?

SPEAKER_00

29:45

Spark session is really it's um people who are a little bit maybe further along in their journey. They're kind of on the other side of the grief, and it's like I've worked through all this stuff, and I there's something that there's something noodling at me that I really want to do, and I just I want to brainstorm with someone, I want um some encouragement or I need some insight. Um, yeah, it's it's like I'm a co-creator with someone that is just looking for their spark. And um, yeah, I consider myself if someone wants to be pushed off the metaphorical cliff to get something accomplished or to set out to do something, I can be the pusher. I tend to push people off cliffs. So that's not always you're not on your way down. It's okay. It's you don't need you're not gonna have certainty and and embrace the uncertainty of life.

SPEAKER_01

30:38

Well, that's not always a bad thing. You have a lot of meditations on your website too, I saw that people can create meditations, yeah. Uh with that. And then your book is The Guided Heart Moving Through Grief and Finding Spiritual Solace.

SPEAKER_00

30:52

Yes. So um that was before grief recovery.

SPEAKER_01

30:56

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00

30:57

I would write a very different book now. Okay. I actually mentioned um the stages of grief. And yeah, there are no stages. It's um I actually had Ken Ross, the son of Elizabeth Kubler Ross, whose work is yes, so Ken Ross was on my podcast and we talked about that actually. And um, her work was about with people on hospice and terminal illness, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

31:23

Yeah, I didn't realize that either till I went to hospice and they explained it that that was actually she wrote it as the stages of people who are dying, but somehow it just all became, oh, this is your stage of grief. And it's like, no.

SPEAKER_00

31:39

Everywhere. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

31:40

Even the Simpsons.

unknown

31:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

31:43

Uh so why do you think boundaries are important while you're grieving?

SPEAKER_00

31:50

Well, what I would say about boundaries, me personally, is I didn't know a boundary if it slapped me in the face. Okay. Most people wouldn't know a boundary if it slapped them in the face. And most people, when they're confronted with a boundary by someone else, they tend to get defensive and not like it, right? Yes. And people who get defensive and not like the boundaries of other people probably don't have their own.

SPEAKER_02

32:14

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00

32:15

You know, when we are like for me personally, um, my boundaries were were basically non-existent because, you know, I was violated as a child, and there was, you know, no privacy, my privacy was violated in many different ways. And I didn't understand, I didn't know what boundaries were. Like I wasn't taught what were boundaries. And um, and that I think that's how a lot of people are raised. We don't, we really don't understand how they can provide boundaries, they can provide safety, they can provide a sense of security within yourself and your body. Um, they can be, but they can also be walls, right? Like true. There can be, they can be emotional walls that we build in order to keep ourselves on an island because of fear or uncertainty, right? Like boundaries can be unhealthy. They they very much can be. But I highly recommend the book Boundaries. Okay. Um, Dr. Townsend, and there's another doctor. Um, that's generally the book that I recommend to for people to read after they've gone through grief recovery. Um, it's excellent, excellent book on boundaries of all types, of all kinds of different boundaries. Uh did I answer your question? I feel like I didn't, but I kind of went on a tangent.

SPEAKER_01

33:38

Oh no, I think it is because uh I think bound boundaries are hard. I I know I have a hard time like being able to sometimes it's just like to say no and not feel guilty. You know, it I the people pleasing. Yeah, I think it is. I think it's important. I think it's it is hard while you're grieving, or even when you're taking care of your loved one, sometimes you you have to, and then it it's it can be very difficult, you know, to be able to say, no, I I I can't do this, or no, I'm I'm gonna do this today, or like they always uh one of the things when hospice a lot of times will talk about that to have your plan B, especially like it during holidays or special occasions, where those events can be really hard when your loved one's not there, and that it's okay if you tell someone, I'm gonna drive myself, and if you leave earlier than expect it, you know, to be able to do that because not everybody will understand that, but it it can be hard to to say, no, I'm gonna do this bound, you know, I'm trying to put boundaries up, you know.

SPEAKER_00

34:42

Well, and I think a a big part of it too is, and this is I'm I'm navigating this in the last few years too, as I I learned more about myself, the importance of informing people. Um, informing doesn't mean asking for permission. That's true. You know, if you would say to someone, you know, someone asks, invites you to something, and you're not, you know, you can say, if you're not sure how you're gonna feel, like it's not the events, not for like two weeks. Well, I'm unsure today, but ask me three days before, a few days before, and I'll see how I feel. That's honest. You're not saying yes, you're not saying no. It gets closer to the event, some they ask you again, and you can respond with however you're feeling. No, I'm I'm really not feeling comfortable with going at this time. Or, you know, you know what, that sounds really nice to be out with people and things like that. I'll come, but I'm just gonna make sure I drive myself or, you know, just know that I might leave early if I'm feeling like I need to rest. You know, it's just being emotionally honest with compassion and with informing without asking for permission.

SPEAKER_01

35:49

It is, and it is a it sounds so easy and yet it does. I know.

SPEAKER_00

35:55

And then you let's and then you have the dynamic too. Let's say it is your parent and you are the caregiver. That's where boundaries can be really difficult, right? Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01

36:05

Yeah, you know, yeah, with that and uh and with my dad still now too. So yeah, it's that fine line you walk uh with it.

SPEAKER_00

36:14

If you didn't have those things established growing up, it's it's like adulthood becomes the training ground. Crisis becomes the training ground often for people. And and that's like and that's like the worst time when everybody's emotionally amped up, right?

SPEAKER_01

36:30

Right. Yeah, it is. It can be very, very difficult. And then also, too, you learn how people handle crisis. Um, I I I I joke about myself, like I'm one of those people that in the crisis, I'm fine. You know, I'm I am thinking three steps ahead. We need to do this, this, or this. But then like it could be weeks, months, whatever later on, and something really simple, like my TV or the internet's not working, and I just completely fall apart. I I'm just like, don't mess with that little stuff. The big stuff I handle, but um, you know, but then other people are different where they completely fall apart in the middle when it's happening, you know, and that can be hard.

SPEAKER_00

37:09

It's like dying by a machete versus a thousand paper cuts.

SPEAKER_01

37:12

Right, yeah, you know, and that's hard to navigate to, you know, when you're with all this what going through.

SPEAKER_00

37:18

That was probably a very bad analogy, but it's you know, right? It's just it's that like eventually the same result is gonna happen, right?

Pet Loss And Replacing The Loss

SPEAKER_01

37:26

It's exactly collapse. Yeah, yeah, that's what I said. I go I I can handle that, but don't mess with my TV. I literally fall apart. I'm like, I get, you know, I'm like, oh my god, this is insane. But that's you know, but everybody's different, you know, with that as well. And uh the circle back when you were talking about pets and things like that too. I think it's important. Yeah, you can't replace the pet. Like you can get another dog or cat, but that particular one that passed will always be in your heart because they're all different, you know. And they're very, they they also can help with healing too, I think. They're very, they're very therapeutic, those puppy dogs.

SPEAKER_00

38:06

Oh, I I replaced the loss when my youngest started kindergarten. Um, you know, I I was actually closing my business I had at the time. I that's when I started to blog and write and things like that. And I was, you know, I had my identity wrapped up in being a parent and being a photographer at the time. And so like those things ending, I didn't know how to cope with that. And I thought, I need a dog. Like I said to my husband, I think I need a dog. And I did all this, you know, and and I know now it was just like this, it was a way for me to distract myself, give me something else to focus on and to feel better. Um, so yeah, I I replaced the loss. Well, and we still have him today. He's 12 years old and he's a fantastic dog because I'd, you know, poured hours and hours into research and how to choose a dog and all this stuff. And yeah, I mean, there is no replacing him. He is like the perfect exactly the perfect dog, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

39:07

Yeah, yes. I always say the whole world can turn against you, but your dog will always be there for you. That's true.

SPEAKER_00

39:14

That's my and that's and that's why it's it is a devastating loss. It is a loss of a family member, a companion. And I do have a program for that. It's on my website.

SPEAKER_01

39:24

Yes, so your website is the unleashedheart.com. And so you have many different programs that people can go to and and and work with you as well, correct? I can meet you where you're at. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

39:36

A variety of different things, lots of free stuff too.

SPEAKER_01

39:39

Oh, free stuff is always good. We like that.

SPEAKER_00

39:41

So ebooks. Yeah, there's a free um energy quiz, there's a grief quiz, there's um the grief quiz kind of matches you with where you're kind of at with the service I offer, kind of as a matchmaker in that way. Like where are you in your grief? Um, but yeah, there's something for everybody there. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

40:01

Well, thank you so much for joining us. This has been a very I I've I've learned a lot in this conversation. So I hope I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00

40:08

I'm glad. I hope I I I really just want to leave people with the fact that suffering is um sometimes of our own doing, and it doesn't have to be that way. And I just want people to understand that um the worst has already happened and to hold on to the hope that there can be the sun, the regardless if we can see it or not, the sun is shining.

SPEAKER_01

40:33

That's very true. Yes, that's very true. Well, thank you so much. Uh and we will have the website information um on our website as well, too, so people can check out all your all of your services that they can work with you for. So thank you so much for having me. So hopefully you've enjoyed your cup of tea, your cup of coffee, or your glass of wine if it was a really bad day. And hopefully you've learned a lot today, and you know, most importantly, you are not alone in all of this. And please join us for now another episode of Patty's Place.