How to Heal After Losing a Child, Guest Adrienne Mejias, LMFT

So that particular ministry came later, but we were helping our local diocese. I'm Catholic, our local church. We were helping them with couples who are preparing for marriage. You know, they have to attend like an engagement retreat and different couples give talks about marriage and so we were invited to share our story with them.

And later on, there was there was a ministry that is dedicated to helping couples who have lost a child. Okay, gotcha. So yes, they are both through the church. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, gotcha. And so, so you were, you were working with grievers in that capacity and, and through the course of of these life events and these losses that you had, you, you wanted to get into the mental health profession to be able to help other people as well. That's kind of what led you in that direction as well, right? Yes, yes.

I definitely wanted to help people. Yes. Okay, great. So if you, if you would, just if please let us know, kind of just, you know, the journey in terms of you becoming a licensed mental health professional and MFT is that, you know, LMFT.

Okay, great. So you're an LMFT. You get into the work. I think in the, in the timeline, if I'm, if I'm right, we haven't discovered grief recovery yet, but you're helping clients and stuff like that, right?

And then you get to the grief recovery method. So can we kind of pick up there, kind of where your professional and then the grief recovery kind of merged. Absolutely. Yes.

So I was seeing prior to the start, the training, I was seeing a lot of people with, you know, anxiety, depression, couples, I was seeing children. And there were a few clients in particular that came to me who had very recently lost someone they loved, someone died very recently. And sitting with those individuals, I found myself just kind of at a loss of what to say, what to do, how to help them without, you know, kind of falling into this, well, what a, maybe you need to try this or you can try this, you know, trying to, to throw all of these solutions at them. Because I knew I'm very empathetic, I'm very compassionate, but I still did not know what more to do to help them.

And so I started to like question and real quick start to interrupt, but how long, so long, how long have you been an LMFT at this point, roughly when you're kind of putting this together, like around the topic of grief, when my clients bring up grief, I feel a little bit like I could be doing more, but I'm not quite sure what that was. So how long into your career as an LMFT are you at this point? It was about four years. Okay, gotcha.

Okay, thanks. Yes, yes. And so then when I, when I figured when I learned how much I really wanted to work more with grieving population, I started to look around for like training specific training and grief. You know, it wasn't even anything that I learned about truly in my master's program.

It's more about relationships and interacting with, with, you know, who's in the room with you. You know, so a lot of counseling skills, but there was nothing specific for grief. So I started to look for, for any kind of training classes and grief. And that was when I learned about the grief recovery method.

And so got online to find out more about it and, you know, jump to the trainings to see where they were, when they were, and there was a training in Baton Rouge, you know, just about an hour from where I was living within like two months. Which was incredible because you know, all the other trainings were around the country. That works so feasible. So it was like, okay, wow, I need to do this right away.

So I signed up for it. And then when I went to the training, there was this, gosh, I call, I guess it's kind of an awakening. Not only was I able to face and work through the pain of the losses that I had faced so many years before, because by this point, it was 15 years. No, since I had lost my children.

So not only was I able to work through that face that head on like I had never done before, but I left. And I remember the drive home. And I'm, I'm thinking to myself like, oh, my gosh, this is so incredible. How am I going to start?

How do I? Where, where, what is the starting point? How do I spread the word about this? You know, I knew I wanted to tell everyone I knew about it.

Colleagues and family and friends. So real quick, let me ask, let me ask you a question, Adrian, real curious, because I just finished leading a four day certification yesterday. So I just got back home yesterday off of a plane. And we had 20 people there and it was just an incredible group as they always are.

But every group without fail, you know, when it comes time to deciding what kind of loss we want to focus on for the remainder of that four day training. You know, some people, I feel like in every training, there's some people that feel like, you know what, this is kind of the major loss in my life. No doubt about it. That's kind of why I'm interested in this topic.

This is why I want to get certified. But a lot of the time people will say, but I've done the work on that. Right. I've done the work on that relationship.

And I, and I, you know, my follow up question. And if you're ever in a training, now you know, my follow up question will always be, that is so great that you've done the work. I have quote marks here for those that are listening, not looking on video that you've done the work. But have you done grief recovery work.

Right. And if the answer is no, you know, then kind of my next, my next question or my next statement would be the other work that that you have done around, you know, this loss or this trauma or this emotional pain. Like none of the grief recovery will ever undo that work. Right.

It won't negate that work. And so we're not taking away from that. But we also know that grief recovery looks at it from a very, very unique perspective in the lens. And so what happens usually is when people will trust us and go and revisit that relationship or that loss and go through the entire grief recovery method.

A lot of the time the feedback is, whoa, there was way more work to be done. There was more stuff I did need to look at. I'm so glad I looked at it through the lens of grief recovery. I felt like I had done the work, but there was other work to be done.

So, you know, Adrian, you're coming in this training 15 years after the loss of your girls. Right. And I can't imagine what that was like for you at the time. And so my question to you is, did you, was that a part of your story when you're in the training?

Was there any part of you that was like, you know what, I've done the work on them. I want to kind of put that I want to leave that where that is or were you like, no, I want to do this work on, on, on one of my girls. I want to do the, the loss of my daughter. Was it that or was it more like, no, I'm going to focus on something else because I've done a lot of work in other, you know, regards in the last 15 years.

I truly was so hesitant. Okay. Okay. Gotcha.

I knew the work in quotes that I had done was truly sharing my story, which is great. And it, you know, it's, it's nice to be able to share your story. It's nice to be able to talk about your losses with people who are listening with people who have also lost, you know, so it does feel good to be able to share that. But that truly was about the extent of the work I had done.

Wow. And I want to stay here because it's so important for our listeners, right, is like you said, one of the biggest battles we face as grievers is we have isolation because we, you know, we, we kind of tell the truth about how we feel a little bit. And then people who are well intentioned say, hurtful things to us, right. They, or they don't know what to say or they avoid us and, and again, we're, we're expected to go back to work five days after the loss and be perfect in place.

So society is not a very loving open place for griever. So we tend to go underground with our grief. So then when you do find a kind of a traditional support group where people are openly talking about loss. That's a beautiful thing, right.

That's a, that's an important thing for a lot of people. And I think you touched on, I just love what you said, which is like, that was the extent of it. How is the extent of it, right. And that's, that's the pitfall often with a lot of grief support is we find support in terms of we can talk openly about our story.

And that's great. And that is the extent of it. And the problem with that is we're kind of just stirring stuff up. We're just affirming the pain.

We're affirming the hurt. We're stirring the pain up, right. And we're identifying with the pain, which is a part of the process, no doubt about it. But if that is the extent of the program or the group, you know, we don't have time to go down all of those rabbit holes, but that can, that can really lead to grief becoming our identity that and grief and the pain and more specifically and more detrimental, the pain becoming our identity, right.

So anyway, thank you for saying that. So please continue. So I also the training for me because that was the extent of the work I had done. I was avoiding the pain that I knew I was going to have to face.

Truly, I had buried because there were, you know, when you do share your story, it's kind of the, the clips notes version of your story, all of the details. And the painful ones weren't part of what was shared before. So when I learned what the training entailed and that I would have to do work on myself in my own grief, I really wanted to leave. I was going to work with the time and work through all of that in that weekend.

And it was one specific law, the, the, my first child that was born that lived for 20 months. There were, there was a lot that happened in that 20 months. And those were the things that I was truly able to face head on and work through. And it was, you know, the way, the way I describe it to people is that I felt as though that weekend, it broke me.

It broke me, but I was put back in a way that I couldn't, that I never imagined. It was, it was true peace and healing that came in a very quick, you know, weekend training. So, so therefore when I left and I have this hour long drive and I'm sitting in the quiet and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, where do I start with this? How do I, how do I help people where it like, you know, what, what is the first step?

And of course, that's, you know, I was able to learn all of the things to, to start really doing once I got home. And I even said, oh my gosh, I want to have like a grief recovery center, you know, in life yet. So my husband immediately saw that the change in me and the piece that I had, and he started to think about how, wow, this is incredible because I know where she was. I know, you know, how she's been feeling.

So I want to be able to experience that as well. So he and I had conversations about it and he actually was able to go through training a few months later. Wow, very disheartened that we weren't able to do it in person because COVID happened. Yeah, he was able to do go through the training on his own.

So it's something that we share and it, it has helped us so much like communicating and we're speaking the same language when it comes to grief. No, we were aware of how other, how others see grief and their experiences with grief. And so sometimes, you know, we'll look at each other when we hear certain words that people are using or certain things that they're saying, we look at each other like, okay, you know, yeah, yeah, these cliche things. No, just give it time.

Time will help you, you know, yeah, yeah, I, you know, I am so grateful that in my marriage, both Ashley and I have both been through grief recovery. And we actually attended the same certification and went through it together and, you know, our, and it's, it's wild. I had actually three couples in this training I just did yesterday or two a couple days ago. We had three couples in this training, which is unusual.

I don't think I've ever had three couples in it before. But it was, it was phenomenal because, you know, again, it's like a lot of the time when we do grief recovery, we learn a lot of tools and how to apply that to our, our living relationships and, and how to get complete with unfinished stuff in a marriage or in our, you know, in our relationship with our living parents or our children or, you know, that's, that's a beauty of grief recovery. I said this this past weekend. It's impossible to convey the scope of what you get with these tools, right.

So many people assume it's just about grief, meaning it's just about a death of a loved one. And then you, but you walk away and you realize grief is a about way more than that, right. And, and B, you can apply these, these tools daily in the way you interact with people. And it's really important, you know, to interact with your significant others like this.

And it's even better if they are also read in and have these tools too. So I'm always begging people, if you're certified, doesn't mean your spouse needs to get certified if they want to. But just if you want to go through a local programmer, if you want to work through the book with someone else, but, but to be able to have these tools in a partnership is such a gift, right. And so anyway, I'm, I'm really glad you brought that up, right.

And so, so now you're certified your husband certified. And, and now you guys are on a whole different pace. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, something I share with parents too.

It's so it, it is, it has helped me so much as a mom, you know, the things that, that I am able to help my children through, you know, because I think a lot of us, you're 40 on up, we've grown up hearing a lot of the same things about how to handle stuff or this kind. Kind, and this isn't against any of our parents, but it was, there was a lot of like messages about like suck it up, be strong, you know, don't worry about it, don't think about it, don't cry. You know, and so I'm able to tell my children, no, it's okay. Feel it.

It hurts feel it. Don't try to run away from this because it's going to catch up with you. It will. Yep.

No, please don't let it be 15 years later. Right. For me. Yeah.

So it, it really helped us as a family. Oh, I can imagine. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. And, and I think I do want to come back to this at some point, but what I'd love to do if you're okay with it because something you said earlier in the conversation, just for all of our mental health professionals out there who are listening, who are maybe considering this work. I love that you came to this work four years into the profession. And the reason I say that is because a lot of the time, you know, frankly, the people that struggle sometimes in our four day certification, you can kind of see them really struggling.

Are people that are right out of school as a mental health professional. And I love that they're in there. I mean, for them to already be expanding their skill set and their tools that early in their career, my hats off to them. But sometimes what I see is they have a really hard time.

Because they don't quite yet have enough practical real world experience. And so they, they are more resistant to some of this stuff because it's not exactly what they learned in school. Well, in school, we did, we do it this way or in this, you know, process, we do it this way. And sometimes, and sometimes we can really have hiccups with just people putting, putting down what they've learned in school and picking, you know, this up.

And so for you to have four years of experience working with clients and saying, hey, a lot, you know, some of my tools are work great. Some of them maybe don't work great. And then I have this new experience. And then I realize, oh, wow.

I've had enough clients with grief to understand that when that topic comes up, I don't feel prepared, right? Because most mental health professionals, as you know, will admit once they trust you that they have, they spend very little time like half a semester, a couple of, you know, passing maybe classes around Elizabeth Cougar Ross and the five stages of death and dying, you know, or the five stages of grief. That's a whole another story. And then, you know, I think that's really like every, the reality is every, every LMFT in the world for the, for the rest of time, every single client they will ever see has unresolved grief from their past.

Right. And once you understand that and once you understand how few tools that we get, you know, that you guys get as mental health professionals around grief specifically, you know, then you're more open and willing to take a new tools right now. And then you're looking for new tools. So I think like four years is a great place to be where it's like, oh, yeah, I can see that there is room for new tools I need around grief.

Is that would that be accurate? Absolutely. Yes. And in fact, you know, I think back about you, there are clients who have, they've participated in counseling for years.

The biggest difference is there's a lot of retelling. There's a lot of, there's a lot of sharing, pain that they've gone through. But some things do not come out in counseling as quickly as they do with the method to, you know, so I've, I've had, could you give us an example, Adrian of that, like just again, just, um, in a general term, not obviously a great. Not obviously.

For example, if I have even a couple or a person who comes in with marital concerns and they're struggling in their marriage and communication expectations, all of these things in their marriage, um, we could spend several sessions about that we could bring the spouse and we could have couples counseling. But through say the grief recovery method when I do, okay, I kind of encouraged this person, there, there are things from your childhood that maybe we need to talk about or there are things from, you know, with your family of origin within a few sessions of the grief recovery method. I might learn that, you know, one of the partners was abused or sexually abused. And I don't want to, I don't want to say exactly how we get to that.

Yeah, I don't want to ruin with, you know, with the process that comes, right, yeah, comes through the method. But within a few sessions, things will, will, will come up that was never spoken about that their partner might not know that they went through because well, that was a long time ago. Yeah, well, that doesn't affect us now. Right, right.

And no, I, you know, I never thought of it that way because, you know, I think most folks know, but I'm not a mental health professional. I'm not licensed in my state. And I don't do mental, you know, mental health professional stuff. I do, I do grief recovery, right.

And I'll, but a lot of our certified grief recovery specialists are mental health professionals. I'm just not coming at it from that lens. So I'm learning something new right now, which makes sense, which is as, as the facilitator as a professional, you're actually getting a lot more information that's pertinent to you as the caregiver more quickly in this versus versus kind of session at, you know, various sessions where you're learning bits and pieces. But because of some of the actions, again, you don't want to get into, but because of some of the actions that you do, you have a much bigger, broader picture of this person's life.

And of course, if they have unresolved grief from their past, whether it's their a key romantic relationship from their past, or it's the way that their dad treated their mom or their mom treated their dad, but all of those belief systems and all of that heartbreak absolutely of course has intensity in the fights that their house. In the fights that they're having with their husband and their or their wife in the real time, and you're getting access to all most of the pieces of the puzzle much more quickly using this process quicker with a client. Absolutely. Yes.

And, you know, and most of the time people come because there is something very significant that is happening in their life, you know, at that moment. And so we're peeling back all of these layers very quickly. And we learn that, you know, there are so many things that are that are connected so many dots that are connected very quickly on, you know, that they may have never shared with a therapist. Because it hasn't, you know, like I said, well, that was so long ago, that doesn't bother.

I don't even think about it. You know, so if they're not actively thinking about it, they don't recognize that it's it continues to spill over into your relationships, you know, into your mental health. Wow. Yeah.

Wow. So, and I know kind of in the in the kind of pre interview podcast, pre interview thing stuff we did. You talked about there was some stuff you had to unlearn as a professional. There were stuff that you had to do differently.

Like when you left the training, you were like, oh, I have to do this and that differently. Are there any examples that you can kind of give because this is just helpful for me to kind of understand. Well, I know, I had to do with the language I was using. You know, the things that we were taught when we were younger, kind of like what I mentioned earlier, it's telling clients who are really struggling to, you know, give themselves time.

You know, let time do its thing, which for all of us, let time heal your wounds. And the problem with that one right just because it's you just had mentioned it. The problem with that one is is what happens is people end up really not doing much within time. And then 15 years pass, right.

And then they think, well, time healed it. There's I barely ever think about it. Right. But we know from the work we do.

No, no, it's in your heart. It's affecting the body. It's affecting your health. It's affecting your relationships right now.

And we just need to help you see that in some really kind of gentle, beautiful loving ways that will help you see that. But, but if you, but again, if you, if someone says to you, no, no, you just got to take, take time again, not much direction in time. Right. Then, then at some point it as time passes, then we think that is resolved.

Then we think, oh, we're complete with that because time has passed, right. And, and that can be very detrimental. I, I just work, I just was, I got an Instagram message like three days ago. My husband died 20 years ago.

And do you think your program can help me? You know, and I replied back, let's set up a call. I definitely think our program can help you. But this woman lost her husband 20 years ago.

And society told her, be gentle with yourself. You know, just you're not ready yet. And then at another point they came back and told her time will heal it. Right.

And, and unfortunately again, I don't know her whole story. I've been doing it in 20 years, but I know she's still looking for resolution completion 20 years later. Right. And so, and feeling very likely feeling something is wrong with her.

Because after 20 years, why am I still struggling with this? Right. Thank you. Yes.

And on the other hand, what, what people are told is, are you still thinking about that? Are you still not necessarily for her for a loss of like a death? But are you still struggling with that? That's, it's been like a year.

What's what? So then people learn very quickly that, well, maybe I shouldn't talk about this. Maybe I shouldn't, maybe I shouldn't say that I'm struggling with it because it kind of looks silly that a year later, I'm still having a tough time with it. Yep.

So people didn't bottle it up and they don't want to share that they're struggling because something's wrong with me if I still am. Yep. Now let me, let me ask you this as a, as an LMFT. I was all comfortable with LMFT and then you guys, at some point switched it up on me.

Because now I'm hearing MFT, right? And so I'm like, but anyway, LMFT MFT, you're helping couples. Is it safe to say that after the training that you now look at basically every client you ever see from here on out as having unresolved grief? Every single one of them.

And is it safe to say before the training you probably didn't look at it that way, right? You probably not. Yeah, yeah. But because prior to the training, I kind of did what most people do, you hear the word grief.

You might think of divorce, you know, but typically your mind goes to death. Yep. Yeah. So if someone hasn't died, grief is not the appropriate word for it.

Right. Right. Yeah. And so, but now, so now, now you're aware, right?

And so again, and I don't want to put words in your mouth. So we, you can totally say no, not it's not really like that. But, but my sense is right, my, my bet would be now when you have a couple come in and they have quote unquote, I'm using quote marks here for those that aren't watching on video. We have, you know, we're having a relationship problems.

We're struggling in our marriage. We don't know how to kind of, you know, we just don't know how it's gotten to the place it is, right? I'm imagining that the first thing you're thinking is how is unresolved grief affecting this relationship. And how can we help these clients, you know, your clients, how can we help this couple identifying get complete with unresolved grief from the past.

That is why this marriage is where it's at right now. Would that be accurate for a majority of your clients? And, and you know that it's that's absolutely the way it works for me. And even a young couple, you know, as far as like not necessarily their age, but a young couple within you family.

And they're struggling and we, you know, we have a family with things are, it's just normal life, right? It quotes normal life. We don't know what, what the problem is. We're not on the same page.

And to even bring to their attention, you're grieving over the couple that you once were. Now you have children. Well, you have, wait, can you say that one more time, Adrian, what are they grieving? They are grieving the couple that they want.

Wow. And real quick, let's just stay on that because it's so important for people listening. So a huge part of grief, again, which society does not understand, but a huge part of grief is unmet hopes, dreams and expectations. So when we go into a marriage, we have hopes, dreams and expectations of what the future look like.

And we go into it with the best of intentions and let's say we get married and then our hopes, dreams and expectations are we get to travel a lot and we have a lot of time for each other and we get to hyper focus on each other. And I'm talking from experience, right? And then at some point, right, as a husband, and I have four, we have four children, you know, I may get off of a plane after not seeing my, you know, family for six days. And I have an expectation that when I walk through the door, everyone's going to turn around, including my wife and kids and say, Dad, we missed you so much, right?

And the reality is often the only ones that notice when I walk through that door right now are my, my Labrador retriever. And I have to, and this is a silly example, but again, a lot of the time, right, the mom has a hope to him in expectation, the husband, the wife, when things change, right? That just creates, like you said, just normal life. And no one understands it's still a grieving event, right?

Grief, there's unresolved grief just from having four children, right? There's unresolved grief in the marriage, in the relationship that we have to deal with. So anyway, I just wanted to stay on that really briefly because you said it so well. It's like a lot of the time we're grieving because the relationship has simply evolved.

And right and everyone in society is going to say congrats, like you wanted kids, you have kids, that's amazing. And I'm not trying to take anything away from the beauty of having children in a marriage. But we also, if we miss identify or just pretend that there's no expectations that are now unmet or hopes or dreams that have shifted or changed or are completely lost, right? That we have to honor that there is unresolved emotional pain about that unmet hopes, dreams and expectations.

Therefore, there is grief in the relationship. But virtually no one ever looks at it that way. And most mental health professionals without looking at it through the lens of grief recovery are going to identify that part of it. Right?

Right. And you know to even say, I think a lot of people will struggle with saying, well, you know, I really do miss having time with my wife. And now she's, she's with the baby a lot or you know, she's sending to the baby and I miss my wife because you know they real or they believe, what is that going to sound like? Of course.

People if I say, well, oh, you're jealous of your baby. Oh, you're, you know, and like, shame and there's embarrassment. So incorrect. It's like, it's okay.

You miss your wife. There's a baby now. Those little suckers like some. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I get your attention. So you do.

Yeah. No, I'm so glad you brought that up because again, like my wife has her side of the story when I walk through that door, guess what she's doing? She's homeschooling those four children. She's helping run the books of the company.

She's a superhero. So she has her side of the story, which is completely valid and true and intellectually accurate. But as a man that was with her for eight years, where I got her undivided attention. I have different hopes, dreams and expectations.

Right. And if I don't know how to get complete with the old expectations, because let me tell you, I, you know, before we had kids, I would get back from a five day trip. Okay. And that was a whole different reunion.

Right. I'll just say that. And, and that was really fun and exciting as just a couple with less work, you know, less obligations. And so if I can't get complete with the expectations of how me coming home used to be, because it's simply different, you're right.

The average husband will eat all of those feelings, minimize them within himself and never communicate them to anyone. Right. And of course, I'm just using an example out of a guy's side of it. Right.

The wife has the same thing. Right. How many mass like for you as a mom, right, you know, how many hopes, dreams and expectations changed massively when you became mom of bear. Right.

It. And. The whole thing, right. And again, society will focus on the positive of this beautiful thing.

They will really never even look at the grief caused by a very, very significant change in your life. Right. And you're not probably even allowed to talk about it, right? New moms.

Like I love with, with kind of postpartum, we're making it okay for moms to talk about the realities of the sadness and, and, and really essentially the grief, right. I think postpartum a lot of the time focuses on the, the hormones and the chemical biological kind of happenings when you have a baby. But again, there's a massive, massive component that is emotional grief. Because right, we're coming to terms with our life is forever changed.

Yes. And when women are in here, you know, without their spouse or because I do, I see lots of more individuals, honestly, than couples. But you're there. They're as women and as mothers and as wives or partners.

They're grieving over the changes that have happened in their bodies. And I was, this is how I was before. And now my body is not my own. And it's for my child that, you know, my husband doesn't understand.

So there are. We can go on and on about the things that just a couple can grieve over. Yes. In your first few years of marriage and their first.

There are so many things. And once again, this isn't something that that anyone would understand is grief. Right. Now we might, they might call it growing pains.

They might call it, you know, all of these different things. But okay, it's grief. Well, and what's so sad. Yeah.

And what's so sad is when people reflect back on their divorce, right. And how many of these couples after a divorce say, you know what, we just couldn't come back. We didn't know how to deal with the unresolved grief that we both brought into the relationship. Or the unresolved grief that accumulated when the relationship evolved because of life circumstances.

Right. Virtually no one. No, no couple, no individuals are going to say that. Yet we know that the divorce rate would be completely diminished.

And so that's why people in these relationships had grief recovery skills. Because what you get with grief recovery skills is not only a tool that helps you go say goodbye to obsolete belief systems that mom or dad gave you in a relationship. Or you could say goodbye to the lousy way that your first relationship, you know, person treated you. Or you could say goodbye to, you know, the loss of trust produced and in, you know, some pattern you had with other romantic relationship.

But the list goes on of what you can do and unpack from your past. But it also gives you a whole new skill set on how to communicate stuff to your spouse. Right. So like, great.

You know what grief recovery gave me. Is it gave me a way to without pointing a finger at Ashley or or make her feel attacked or lay blame it gave me an opportunity to tell the truth about myself and my heart. And I didn't have to minimize it. So you know what I do now because and we, you know, this right out of my story.

Hey, Ashley, I love you so much. And when I'm on the road, I mean, I mean, I'm either working with people with grief all day. And then I go back to a lonely hotel room. And then I just daydream about being back with you guys in the family.

Right. And then I do that every day, basically, right. I'll hit the gym. I'll try and take care of myself.

But a lot of that time on the road is me feeling apart from you guys. And in my mind, thinking what it's going to be like when I get back to you guys. And sometimes it's really hurtful. If I come home and I feel like nobody even notices that I got home.

Right. Again, a normal guy would minimize all that never communicate any of that. Right. And then if I say it lovingly and I focus on the truth about my side of it, which is just my heart.

She doesn't feel attacked. She goes, oh, honey, I'm sorry. I'm so busy. And you know why it was doing this and Bo was doing this and the dogs doing this.

And you know, and we have a homestead. There's animals like she is a busy, busy woman. Right. And she goes, oh, I'm sorry.

And then guess what? The next time I come home. She usually will make a point to, you know, turn back, hey, welcome back. And, you know, and we, and we give her a kiss and she gives me a kiss.

And it's like, that's, you know what I mean. And so now we get to do that. Right. And let me tell you what I would see in my office.

Take the exact same scenario. Yeah, perfect. I think one for six days, I walk in, you know, no one looks at me. No one, I've been, you know, I've been away.

I've been sleeping in a hotel room. And then I come home in the house is a mess. And so, yep, yep, husband's frustrated wife can't look at me. She doesn't look at me.

She doesn't come to hug me. She doesn't come to kiss me. I'm not greeted. And let's come in and help.

Right. And how, how attacked, right? Because again, like, let's, let's take the wife side of the story. She has had not had a partner for this many days.

The house is almost on fire at all times. There's complete chaos with all these wild, feral children running around. And she has been working her butt off just to keep some semblance of normalcy and, you know, feeding and making sure everyone's cloth and, you know, and all those, you know, what? And so how attacked does she feel when the husband, which is really, who is really just communicate trying to communicate, I love you, I miss you, and I had a different expectation how that would play out because I love you and because I want some time from you too.

But because we don't know how to, you know, communicate that all of a sudden, like you said, how attacked does that woman feel that is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let me tell you my side of the story. Yes. And then it becomes another attack. It's like, well, I'd rather be gone.

Maybe you should, you know, when do you stay home with the four kids and when do I, you know, yep, yep. It totally gets out of control, you know, right? Yeah. Yeah.

And like I'll be the first to tell you honestly, if I didn't have grief recovery tools and Ashley didn't have grief recovery tools, I, I don't know that we would be together like we've been together now, you know, gosh, almost probably 20 years, right? And I don't think we probably would be together if we didn't both have these tools because life gets hard, life gets difficult. There was stuff she had to unpack, honestly, around the relationship with her mom and dad, right? Her mom and dad got divorced.

And so she had to get complete with a bunch of stuff with dad and some stuff with mom. I had to get complete with stuff, agree from the past around mom and dad or past relationships because the other thing I see, I'd love to get your thoughts. But the other thing I see is, I see a lot of people in this world, frankly, in complete emotionally with a significant relationship, romantic relationship from their past and their current person that they're in the marriage with or in the relationship with is being judged and the bar is this other person that this that they're in complete with. All of the hearts, all of the pain that they experienced from the last relationship.

And it could be the last one, it could be a found. Yeah, yeah, and it could be a foundational relationship. It could be the past one. It could be a series of them.

But that unresolved pain and hurt from past relationships will catch up to you too. And of course, how are you going to convey that to your spouse? How are you going to say, you know what, I'm sorry, I compare you to so and so all the time. And that's an unfair comparison, right?

So instead of that. And again, a lot of this time, this is subconscious too, you know, sometimes it's conscious a lot of the time this is subconscious stuff. But, but the bar has been set by someone else in some other past relationship. And if we don't know how to get complete and say goodbye to that person and the and the stuff there, we're really setting our partner up to fail in a lot of ways, right?

And it's not fair to them because they're a different human being. They come to the table with different qualities and different things. And so anyway, I just want to get your thoughts on that. Do you see that?

Do you see that in terms of the work you do in relationship? Yes, I do. Yes, yes, absolutely. And and like I said, too, that is why it's so easy now, especially.

Especially to recognize it from the get go, you know, they'll come out. She doesn't trust me. And just a little bit of, you know, peeling back those layers, you recognize, okay, well foundational stuff, perhaps with parents, but also her last relationship. There is a lot of incomplete stuff there.

Maybe he was cheating. Maybe there are so many things that are just quickly tied to grief to unresolved grief. That is carried over into the relationship. Yep, yep.

And I and I find to a lot of people in society nowadays feel like having awareness equals having resolution, having completion. And I'm here to tell you that having awareness is just awareness. It's just affirming that that thing happened. It's not moving on from it.

It's not getting complete with it. So, you know, a lot of people may say, yeah, Cole, like that's not a real big epiphany. Like people are unfinished with past relationships. And that's a part of it.

Like, okay, well, a lot of other people will kind of just assume like, oh, I'm aware that this other person cheated on me. But that's not the person I'm currently with. And so I, it's not fair for me to be judging them by the loss of trust ahead in this other person. Everything I just said is just awareness.

Oh, what grief recovery will do. What Adrian will help you do what I will help you do is go and help you get emotionally complete with that person and those past events. So that stimulus, that trigger either has very lessened energy to it or no energy at all. And then now this new person, you know, or the person you're in a relationship, but now gets gets to be treated fairly, which is they shouldn't be judged by your past, your past her, right.

And that's just another gift of this work. Right. And so that's what I mean by saying we both did work on foundational kind of parent stuff through grief recovery. But, you know, we also did, you know, saying goodbye to past relationships or aspects of past relationships or energy around that, right.

Because I think we can all say who, you know, all of us agree who are listening to this podcast. If you've been in a relationship, romantic relationship for any amount of time. You've been in an argument with your partner where you swear there are three other people in the room other than you. And you don't know why the energy is coming at you.

You're like, are you arguing with me plus three other people that are like invisible people in this room. Right. And that's unresolved grief. You know, that that's a clue that your partner is struggling with some past stuff.

Yes. You know, and I know that's been calls you your mom's name. Oh, there. Are you calling him his mom's name that.

There you go. There you go. That's exactly right. I know like another thing me and Ashley struggle with.

In our in our marriage is like how we both kind of approach money. Right. How we handle money. How we deal with money.

And I know for a lot of you know, I'm saying this just because it's like this isn't a big secret. A lot of people in relationships, you know, argue about money. It's one of the one of the big things we argue about right. Well, guess what.

Who taught us about money. Our parents. Right. And so if Ashley's mom and dad had different views about money.

And she has different views about money because of that. And my mom and dad had different views of money. Right. Or there was different amounts of money in the different households.

Or you know, whatever the case is. You know, again, a lot of the time the resolution isn't just between me and Ashley. It's Ashley's job to go get complete with whatever mom and dad taught her about money. It's my job to get complete about what mom and dad taught me about money.

So we can develop how we want to believe. You know, or feel about money. And we can. And so the beauty of it is is like, actually in our right now, even really like coming together and learning together.

How we want to approach money as a couple. Right. And kind of what the right fit is. And again, being able to communicate with the motion truthfully about us, not pointing the blame at the other person.

Yes. Right. Because that's what happens is if we don't know how to communicate emotionally. Then even when we're trying to defend ourselves, we there's there's a lot of hurt.

There's a lot of pain. There's a lot of energy there. And the other party always is going to feel attacked. Yes.

Right. And then we're not getting really money finances intimacy all of it. There are because we all had hopes and dreams and expectations about the way it would look. Reminds me of those, you know, the fun, the Pinterest.

It's like it's the fails. It's they'll have like a beautiful cake and you would. And then it shows the it's the expectation versus the reality. And it shows the fails and it's really funny, but it it's exactly what happens for us.

Where we do think things are going to be a certain way. And when they're not, we are left with broken hearts. Yes. Yes.

You're thank you. I love that you use the word expectations. You know, in our work, we have a kind of a little chart we put up. And it says expectations equal planned disappointments.

So if you're a person that has massive expectations that you place on other people in your life, I'm willing to bet that you have a lot of hurt because right who usually doesn't get the memo on expectations. The other person. And so they don't play out how you want, right. And so I know for me, even in my personal story, me getting better at not having expectations is is also a lot better.

Right. Because I can communicate to Ashley. Hey, you know, when I walk through the door, do you mind just like acknowledging my existence, right. And she may do that six out of seven times because she loves me and she's trying, right.

And then I may get home one time where she flat out can't because bows, you know, on the fridge about to do a flip off the fridge, right. Like there may just be some real danger happening where she's not turning and looking at me. Right. So it's also my job in the relationship as I'm driving home from the airport to manage my expectations.

This may happen. It may not happen. It's cool either way. I know my wife loves me.

Like we're already past that. So I'm already getting busy managing my expectations. Yes. So that when I do walk through that door one day, you know, and no one notices, which happened yesterday, by the way, I was gone seven days, right.

And I get home and Ashley's doing one of those things. So it was one of those times I come home from a trip and really like literally the dogs the only one that gets me. And that's fine. And I pet the dog and I just double down on loving my dog, right.

Because I know, you know, 10, 15 minutes later, she's going to come in the room and then we're going to connect and I get to have it be what I need it to be for there. Right. But again, so part of that is like, yeah, your partner needs to kind of meet you halfway or come when you can vey emotional stuff. Let's like, yeah, of course you want your partner.

Changing or not, you know, trying to adjust for what you need. But then it's also my job to also set expectations, right. And read and honestly that that means more. Reducing my expectations, right.

A lot of the time. Right. So anyway, just want to touch on that a little bit too. But you mentioned another thing Adrian, I'd love to get your thoughts because I do think too I see this quite a bit.

Under resolve grief around abuse in one's life sexual abuse. That can be a really crippling thing in a marriage too because I just feel like that really does affect intimacy in ways, right as well. And so I'm always grateful when people have the opportunity to go unpack some of that past loss of trust, loss of safety of your body, like all the things that you know, our greed. In terms of the griefs that occur from sexual abuse, can you talk on that a little bit just in terms of, you know, intimacy, like you said, unresolved grief and how that prevents intimacy in our current relationships.

Oh gosh, yes. And I've, and I've actually had a few of a few couples where that was the case. And the other partner didn't even know that, you know, that this. Because of shame embarrassment, you know, not just never shared it with them.

And it wasn't until I was alone with the abused partner that this did come out, but they were, they're able to work through that. And whether or not they, they do decide to share it with their, their partner is up to them, but they're able to work through that with the method, which is such a beautiful thing to. Because for many, in my experience, we're talking childhood. 30, 40, 50 years of unresolved grief. That until it was until it was actually worked through.

It wasn't even those dots weren't connected. Right. As to how. Wow.

I'm not using this. I don't think that's the problem. But working through it and understanding all of the emotions around that event. And how it has played a role in life.

You know, until the present time. It is, it is such a beautiful thing to see a person work through all of that and find that piece. Yeah. Wow.

And you mentioned something. And I just want to stop on it for a second, which is the three couples that were in my training or if Adrian is going to do grief recovery. I immediately went when it comes time to do their personal work. We're splitting up those couples into smaller groups separate from each other.

So in other words, like Adrian said, if you if you do a loss history graph or some of the other actions of our work. And you discover some significant loss from your past. You know, it's up to you when you want to disclose that to your to your spouse to your partner. If you do, if you don't like that, that's up to you.

So I, I also want to just say that we don't do when we work with couples, we're not having them share all of their stuff. And then the later time as a couple, they can come together and decide what they want to disclose to each other. So that's just a little technical aspect that I don't want people to get the wrong impression, right? It's like we want to help the individual discover all the hurt and the pain privately first.

And so that they can, so number one, they don't have to censor. They don't have to feel like, oh, I can't talk about that or I can't talk about this because I don't want my partner to hear this part or that part. And so that's just because if you don't, if you're not willing to actually put it on paper, then you know, you can't get complete with stuff that you're hiding that you're censoring, right? So we don't ever do this work directly with the couples together.

We have them go off and do work separately so that they can come back together as a couple. And then, you know, the three couples in the in my training, then at dinner, they can decide what they want to discuss, what they want to talk about, you know, and that's a beautiful thing as well. To mention a lot of times we make our own partners, lost history graph. We are on our point.

So, you know, they might want to not discuss like how we hurt. Right. Like when I first came to grief recovery and someone would say, well, what are your grief? You know, what are you grieving?

I would have thought you were crazy if you proposed to me that you're grieving your current relationship with your wife. I'd be like, you're crazy. But when we actually go look at the unresolved grief that is accumulated over any marriage for any length of time. Right.

We should all be doing grief recovery work on our spouse. That's and that doesn't that doesn't just assume, oh, your relationship is in trouble or you have a rough relationship. That's just reality. When you live with another human being, there are emotional conflict.

There's emotional hurts and pains. There's hope streams and expectations that are constantly evolving and shifting. IE, you're accumulating unresolved grief in that relationship. And that's all we're saying.

Again, it's not a statement on the quality of your marriage or where your marriage is at. But we have seen no matter where your marriage is at, doing grief recovery work is beneficial to you. Sometimes I've seen grief recovery work end up being, oh, wow, this is really heartbreaking. But the clarity of what grief recovery did for me is realized I do need to move on.

I do need to get a divorce. Other time I've seen the grief recovery work be like, I want to fight for this. This person's amazing. And you know, I was actually blocking a lot of this stuff for there was a lot of stuff that I was bringing to this, which was not helpful.

Right. I've seen people in it absolutely enhanced the quality of their marriage. So whatever is your truth, we'll end up being your truth, right. But I just wish we can get these tools to more people in relationships.

I think that's the takeaway. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Well, so let me, we got a wrap just because we're at the hour. Again, I want to thank you. I love spending time with you. And I just thank you for all the people that you help with this method that I never get to meet.

You know, and that my dad never got to get to meet. That's what I that's why I love checking in with specialists. So, um, where can people find you if they want to connect with you if they want to work with you. Um, you know, where can they find you Adrian.

So we actually created there are a few specialists that they were trained after I got trained on started recruiting a few people. You're creating an army there. Nice. Yes.

Good. So we have a website is grm a KDiana. Okay. Yes.

Um, G. And we'll link to that in the show notes and description. We'll link to that so that people can get in touch with you and your team for sure. Yes.

And so we each have our own little story on the website and and we talk more about what the grief recovery method is. You know, okay, perfect. Any any closing thoughts. Just anything that you want to say to people out there.

You know, something that I really did want to share is that I've been blessed to have clients who came when they were really struggling with. It was a loss that that happened, you know, recently. And they do I take them through the method. But one of the most beautiful things is that over the next year or two, when they are able to use the same, the tools, because they are facing something else that is very difficult.

And it's such an incredible thing to see. Like I have a few people that are coming to mind where, you know, they're, she miscarried a child. And wanted to work through that pain because it was such an incredibly painful thing for her. But later, about a year or two later, she was facing, she was facing the death of someone who was really close to her.

And so she was able to prepare for that. She was able to become complete with that person before they died. And that's not something that we, we always get, you know, that opportunity to be complete before the tragedy occurs. Yes.

And so there were no regrets. There was nothing unfinished with that relationship because of what she learned through the method the first time. So it is, there are skills that you will carry through the rest of your life. And be able to handle the toughest things that you're, you're, you're ever going to face.

And because we're always going to have a loss. We're always going to be faced with some sort of loss. Well, well said. Adrian, again, I want to thank you.

I'm giving you hug over, over the internet. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your wisdom. And just keep doing what you're doing.

And I hope to, I hope to, to, you know, again, just to see you soon at some point in person right. I hope to see you in a way. But again, look forward to meeting your, your beautiful family. And you have a wonderful rest of your day.

Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. You too.

Thank you.