Are Therapists Getting is All WRONG? Psychologist Ashley Mielke, B.A., M.Sc. MFT

How are you doing? Thank you so much for having me, Cole. I'm so excited to be here and just really looking forward to this conversation with you. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. One thing I left out too, which I didn't mean to in her long resume, is she's also an incredible trainer and facilitator of the grief recovery method. So she has been certifying and training people in our method for years now. And she's just one of the very best trainers out there in the world.

So she does incredible work with us too. So I kind of wanted to let you know that as well. So Ashley, I think a place we like to go kind of in the beginning is just so we can get the audience to know you and me. Would you mind, I think it's always interesting to figure out how do you find the grief recovery method?

That's always an interesting part of people's journey with us. Absolutely. And it's a really organic story. So this was years ago now.

I would say 2010-ish, 2011. I started to organically work with grieving people in private practice. And this was like on my kind of clinical journey to becoming a psychologist and realized very quickly how ill-equipped I was to support my clients. So I could hold space for them and listen and empathize with their situation, but really didn't have any tools.

So that's when I started to do some research. So I went to Google and started to look up like grief training. So that's when I came across the grief recovery method certification training. So I had originally signed up, but the training was canceled.

So then I continued on with my journey. And then in 2013, I became certified. And this was after my dad had died by suicide. So what I didn't realize showing up to this training experience was that it was going to fundamentally change my life first.

And then I had this beautiful set of tools that I could now share with my clients. So I was so inspired going through that training call. And I was so privileged to have your dad, John James, facilitate the training. That the very next day I set out on this entrepreneurship journey and started my business, the grief and trauma healing center.

So that was almost 11 years ago. Wow. Since I was initially certified. So that's kind of like the the the calls notes a version of how I found the program.

Okay. Well, let me let me just tell this quick little story. I don't know if you've heard this, but at the time you got trained, the office was in Southern California. And I've been there now about two years.

And so what would happen a lot of the time when my dad got back from a training or Russell got back from a training. And I was I was traveling quite a bit with my dad. I don't know why I was not at your training. But anyway, I remember him specifically coming back from your training.

And it was me and him and Russell sitting down at the office. And he just raved about you. He every once once in a you know, once every blue moon, there is somebody in a training that just understands it as is ahead of the game. You know, kind of everything's clicking quicker than it should.

All the pieces are putting together. The questions are different. And for him, that was you. And he was like, there was this, you know, you know, my dad, right?

He was like, there was this girl. She's young. She just got this stuff like you wouldn't believe. I mean, I want her to be a trainer.

And that is very rare. Like usually the way that trainers come is, you know, there's years of recognition and work and and that. And and he saw all of that in you in like the first training ever. And again, that's that's rare.

That doesn't happen a lot. But you know, and for those that haven't that maybe don't know my dad passed away a couple of years ago, but I just want to say publicly, he was a big fan of yours. He had the utmost respect for you. And he saw the talent and the skill and the heart you had very, very early on with your journey with us.

So, you know, just wanted to put that out there. I don't know if I've ever, you know, told that story. You haven't. So thank you for sharing that call.

That really means a lot. I know your dad and I, we had an instant connection and we talked all weekend in that training and he said, you know, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go out and help as many people as you can. And then about six months, we're going to get you on track to become a trainer here in Canada.

And so I just took all of this advice and ran with it. And that's exactly what happened. And it's been an incredible journey over the last decade. Yeah.

Well, I am too. I'm so glad you two linked up. And again, you have you've helped thousands of people since that's right? So you've you've you've followed the mission that my dad set for you and for me and for thousands of other people across the world.

And so it's cool to cool to share that. And in terms of your timeline, because I I'm not clear. So you signed up. You were aware in looking for tools as a professional in 2011.

The training was canceled. So you went in 2013. Would you mind telling us when you lost your dad, like where in that timeline did you lose your dad? So he died November 2010.

Okay. Okay. Yes. So, you know, I I did what everybody told me to do.

Like you just have to keep busy and get back to work. And I was in my second year graduate school at that time. So there was a lot of pressure to just perform and get things done. And I had started my clinical training only a few months before he died.

And then of course, they had life and everything else going on. So that was one way that I sort of kept it together and just sort of buried the pain of his loss. And it was so complex and multilayer because he suffered from addiction and then his death by suicide. So as grieving people started to work with me, I I guess I became aware of how much work I needed to do in my own healing journey.

And you know, when I showed up at the training, that's when it became very apparent to me that, oh, it's really important that I work through this method myself before I can serve others and help other people. So I'm so grateful that it was my professional background that drew me to the training initially. And then it's been just so much more than that. Wow.

And I just want to say I am so glad that you were able to see that in the training because frankly, some like we train many, many mental health professionals and we love our mental health professionals. The grief recovery method is used daily with mental health professionals across the world. And they are some of the very best facilitators of this work for obvious reasons, right? They already come to us with a ton of skills.

And then we help them with some very specific skills around grief and trauma and loss and, you know, emotional specific stuff around loss. And so it's a really good fit. I do find, right? Like what you're saying is often the professional, the mental health professional that comes to us has had a recent loss where now grief and pain, emotional pain around loss is even more front and center in their heart.

And they come and in the training, right? Because we do that personal work first. They can find, oh, I do have some work to do. And that's a great order.

Let's do my own work. And then, and then I can lead kind of from the front where people believe in me because I've I've walked before them, you know, where I'm asking them to walk. Sometimes we have mental health professionals who who can't round that corner in the certification, right? And they they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, this personal work.

And, and so if you are a mental mental health professional and you are attending our training, again, I just want to implore you, beg you to just put the professional hat down for that for that four days and just know that we all have personal work that we can do. And really just get the benefits of this program personally. And trust me, you're going to be able to use all these tools professionally later. But if you if you battle or wrestle with you doing your own work in that four days, we can have rough outcomes, right?

And again, this is rare. But, but that's when I see the the the rough outcomes happen in our certification when when a professional can't put on hold, they're kind of like desire and dream and hope to help others and and and and not dig into their own personal work, right? So I I'm glad we had that conversation early because again, clearly you were that, right? You were already interested in the topic, but you had had your own loss that that drew you I think closer to this work.

And then you were you just went for it personally in that training. And I think that's that's courageous and great that that's how it went, right? So if you're okay with it, would you walk me through? Okay, you're certified, you're already a professional.

How did you integrate this into your practice? How did you integrate these tools into kind of the work you are already doing? And how do you ultimately build this incredible organization this group and the work you're doing, you know, right now? So I like this really wasn't missing peace for me, Cole, I think a lot of psychologists and therapists who go through training, that's the feedback I've received from them as well.

This is really the missing piece when it comes to loss. And so I really did and I know John and Russell use that analogy like putting on this new pair of glasses. So I just really seen the world very differently that loss underlies 99.9% of the issues that we deal with as human beings. So it was very easy for me from that that philosophy to create a business around the idea of loss and grief and wanting to be of service.

And the grief recovery method, I seen it as a modality, a method that we help people just like we are trained in different types of therapies and different approaches with that CBT or narrative therapy or EFT. So I really seen it that way that here's one way that we work with grieving people. So when a grieving person would book into work with us, that would be the thing that we would pitch to them as a way of supporting them. The grief recovery method.

Yes, exactly. So and then that just became 100% of the work that I did. Wow. That's a solo therapist.

It was like I just became this I was sort of this grief recovery specialist with the designation of a psychologist essentially and really leveraging that kind of platform and experience to be able to serve people. So it's just one of our specialty areas that we offer in our in our organization and yeah, that's sort of how we did it. And we couldn't imagine helping grieving people in any other way. So anyone that joined the team as we grew, one of those requirements was to become certified in the method and also have a really deep personal connection to loss so that if they were sitting with someone, they would really have that personal empathy and compassion for what their clients were going through.

That's that's that's that's amazing. What you've built there, right? We're we're really part of to have a small part in kind of what you've built there. And for you to you know for you, it's just a great honor for us to hear that you you know I don't know if you still do.

I know you have a lot of people working with you and but to you know at one point at least doing 100 percent working using this method with 100 percent of your clients is is is incredible. You know that that definitely warms our heart. Even now I've just taken on a small case load of clients. I didn't see clients for you know almost two years.

I'm really just focusing on the business but now I've stepped back into the work and all of my clients, which is like five, they're all going through the program. So it's been really nice to step back into the work and really do what you know what I've really been called to. I really really love witnessing the transformation of my clients through this program. Yeah awesome.

And just so you guys know for the audience I'm I'm very much a layperson. I'm not a mental health professional. I don't have those degrees or the that training or frankly that experience. So a lot of what I'd love to talk to you about today Ashley is just I'm interested in how our work does differ from other things you do.

Again not taking away from one or the other but just kind of showing the the differences. So you know in terms of integrating this method into your professional other the other tools in your toolbox. How does how does that work right? Like is it like you're doing grief recovery and then you you transfer to something else if you find that the client wants to do something else or like some people you stay with grief recovery longer.

How how does kind of that work? So we really see grief recovery is this really powerful emotional tool that helps us to as we all know if you're into grief recovery that helps us to emotionally complete what's unfinished in that relationship that's ended or changed or maybe a number of relationships. So we really emphasize that. We also see it as it's that it's it's so many things it provides that psycho education around the misinformation that larger narrative of that we've all been taught about grief that says that this is something that's wrong or bad or we you know we have to kind of avoid it and and deny that experience.

So there's the psycho education piece there's the that self-awareness around tools that aren't helpful short-term energy relieving behaviors that kind of thing and then taking those steps in the relationship. If we find that there's been a traumatic loss or there's been some trauma maybe some historical things that a client wants to work with then we do have other tools that we that we use after completion like EMDR therapy for example is one of our approaches that we use and we have found that the kind of marriage of those approaches is really helpful for clearing some of those events or experiences that have been really trapped in the body but the grief recovery provides just such a unique opportunity to heal that emotional part of the relationship. So it's nice that we do have lots of different tools we can use but as I've always emphasized in my trainings and even in my own work the program was created to be delivered exactly how it is designed in the grief recovery handbook and for each session and that's something we never steer away from.

Sure yeah absolutely that makes a lot of sense and you know I think in terms of the history and the evolution of of our organization right the certification that we we provided the first format we provided to grief recovery specialists right which is a credential that you got from us and others do that come to the certification. The first format we gave and really the only format for a while was the group format right and we were really trying to be another option in in kind of grief support groups this is decades ago you know this is 80s and early 90s and traditionally historically we trained a lot of funeral directors and a lot of people in funeral homes and unfortunately as kind of the big corporate combines took over the funeral homes you know we weren't like a priority for them but a lot of the mom and pop family run funeral homes like they were very passionate about helping their clients you know who were obviously grieving.

We then really I think in the 90s kind of the early 90s the mental health community really started finding our work and being like wow this is an effective tool right and we've and we've kind of grown ever since with with mental health professionals and that's when we developed the one-on-one format so like you know the reason I'm saying all of this is just to let mental health professionals who are listening to this is like we developed this one-on-one format to integrate into your practice with some guidelines to ensure it works and to ensure your other tools work but again I think like what Ashley is saying is you can easily integrate this into your practice and still use the other tools that you know are effective at helping clients depending on the person. Totally and you know there's other grief organizations out there and I've done some training and I've done some digging and reading just to look at hey what are the similarities what are the differences but really what is so different about grief recovery is these other kind of approaches they're wonderful in this sense of providing a safe space for someone to share their story and that's really the emphasis is we want to validate and normalize we want to listen and be curious about their their journey of loss but then what right I can provide psycho education and tools around grounding themselves in the moment and emotional regulation and all of that is really really important and something I do with my clients as well but what about the relationship what do we do with that what do we do with the stuff that they're stuck with when they think about the person who died right when they're stuck with regret or the things they wish were better different more what about those loss of hope streams and expectations for the future that's where I don't know what we would do without the grief recovery method.

Wow wow yeah that's it's interesting because and I love this conversation because again you you built this grief and trauma healing center and so I know right as a business owner a successful business owner for Qing you're looking for the cutting edge stuff you're looking for the tools to help your clients more and really like put put your organization on the map is something that can really benefit human beings and you're putting in research and looking at tools I'm not looking at right because I'm I'm over here like grief recovery method my dad created it it's the best things since sliced bread my whole job is just get grief recovery method out there but you're also looking at other tools too right so for you to say that I think holds way more weight even frankly than than me saying it but I think what you bring up and we covered this on a couple of episodes and it's almost hard to understand until you've been through the method but but like what I'm hearing you say is that the completion work is really what sets this method apart from anything you've seen and anything I've certainly seen because again you articulated it much better with with cooler terms but I will just say like there's a lot of places you can find a great deal of awareness about what's happened to you you can find awareness about what hurts and where it hurts and how it hurts and maybe you know why they did what they did you know all that stuff is valuable but if if that's when you are sent on your way all we've really done is kind of stirred that up in you and affirmed y'all that stuff happened right and maybe I'm even clearer that it happened or but but what then right like you said and that's where the completion work that we're that we're really shooting towards when you get about halfway through the seven session program or the eight week group program but around the halfway point we're really starting to help people identify the totality of the relationship all the stuff they feel unfinished and then we're working to complete everything everything that we are consciously aware of that is of sad painful hurtful nature right we want people to keep the happy the good the fond memories all of that we want people to keep so we're not looking to complete that stuff but we are looking to complete the stuff that you kind of touched on where it keeps you up at night you replay it for years in your mind you know every time this one song comes on you're going to this gut wrenching painful event or you know all those that those triggers right that's what we call them now we used to call them stimulus it doesn't matter but um those kind of things we're looking to say goodbye to right so I know for sure like Ashley and myself are not trying to keep you around as a client for five or ten years right that's not the goal the goal is to like give you these tools so that you can set yourself free and move on with your life right um and again I don't know a better way to explain it so I I should have you keep trying to explain it because you're more articulate than I am with the completion work right that's really I think the differentiator of what we do and what I've seen out there for people who are hurting over really painful events from their past yeah exactly and I think you did a great job cool explaining that well thank you um another thing I would love to kind of ask you again because you have a lot of experience you mentioned it before um you have grief you have trauma okay you have traumatic events where there is grief around it right would you mind just kind of helping uh me just kind of describe what you've seen and how the grief recovery method and your other modalities work on that like maybe like a practical example of just like a loss that has trauma in it but then grief in it and how you would unpack that for the client obviously generally speaking so I would say like a really common experience that our clients go through when there's been a traumatic loss so something that's really unexpected something that is really overwhelming to the nervous system um and uh really impact someone to the point where there may be they're having nightmares and flashbacks and are having really her time getting those final images of someone who's died out of their mind so for an example a client that I worked with a couple of years ago she felt her husband had died in the in the bathroom he was fixing their shower door and he just dropped dead and had a heart attack and died so very unexpected um you know very healthy and well so when she found him I mean you can imagine how overwhelming that sight would be and then to have to go through the process of calling 911 and doing CPR on her husband I mean it's just I can't imagine yeah so those images that last part of that of his life was really overwhelming for her and she had a really hard time sort of like digesting those images and experiences how she felt in her body so I knew that grief recovery was going to be very important emotionally for her relationship and then we did some EMDR afterwards just around the event of his death sure yeah so when we talk about I know grief recovery used the term like pulling out a thorn it was like you know the thorn or the the arrow in the heart was like three quarters of a way pulled out and so she felt so much relief yep after completing the grief recovery method yep in the last piece for her was how do I stop these images from overwhelming me yes so that when I can think about his death when I can imagine those last moments it doesn't overwhelm my nervous system right it's always going to be a part of her her life and their journey and so that would be an example of how I integrated those tools thank you know that's really helpful and in terms of practically speaking right um that would be on the grief recovery methods side roughly seven sessions yep always seven sessions okay and then after that like you said and and I want to dissect it here a little bit in a second but just again for those listening that are unfamiliar so it so you spent seven sessions doing the grief recovery method with this woman um and then how many sessions of EMDR on the actual kind of the event the the visceral traumatic kind of experience of seeing her husband they're dying in the bathroom how how many sessions for that so that was one session okay for actual processing and then the setup was two more so it's a three sessions altogether gotcha um yes okay yeah no this is this is great again because I'm learning right along everyone well many people listening so um and and again right let I want to break this down a little bit so of course like you said the the trauma the the cause we we cause we call it the cause of death in shorthand when we're training on this stuff but the cause of death what happens a lot of the time for grievers is the cause of death has so much intensity to it we really get stuck on the the cause of the death right and that is absolutely valid of course and that's why people are so stuck on it because it has massive energy and unresolved kind of pain in the event what a lot of the time professionals do or society does is they want to focus on helping them you know move beyond that that one day in their life right and that's where they feel very acutely like they're being affected is is the visions and the the memories and you know just replaying that day what we find with the grief recovery method though and again I don't know how how long this woman was married but let's say she was married for 20 years right when her husband dies of the at this very tragic circumstances that were unexpected um a lot of the time we're we're missing we're not helping guide them towards the totality the 20 years of the grief that this person has for this person right so although the cause of death is very traumatic we would still be heartbroken into a thousand pieces if it was if that if the death happened in any other way even if we kind of saw it coming really the fact of the matter is we're grieving someone who is very close to us for for 20 years so I love that you can do both but what happens is a lot of the time people try and go to the cause of death without the person at all being complete with the first 20 years of the the the relationship so like what Ashley is doing is she is going and helping this woman find completion emotionally around her whole marriage with this man right we're looking now we can approach the last day of his life from from a different lens from a different angle with different energy involved in it right if she is not finished with the first 20 years it may be very very hard for her to get complete with the last day right so it's just it's it's almost out of order the lot of the time when we're looking at trauma first because that's kind of what I'm hearing Ashley right is sometimes when we look at trauma first um it can be very hard for people to to kind of unlock or work through that trauma if there's still 20 years of grief before that that no one's really helping them look at right and you know what just like we say with grief every situation so unique and individual that if a therapist has the training and tools to support someone my hope would be that they would know with the client's collaboration what would be the best kind of first step right some clients you're so overwhelmed by those images and events that in order to ground them to do the emotional work they do have to clear some of that trauma and you know sometimes that is the case so they can go and say okay now I can see the relationship more clearly yeah but again it's like you know it's really the therapist's job yeah to um to kind of know what would be the right thing but as an emotional tool like I I don't know what there is out there available right honestly to provide that same sense of completion gotcha so so I guess my next question is so there are times when you would go to EMDR first before agree for recovery yes okay yeah so I'm not gonna get too much in detail because it's just again client confidentiality but in the case of a um you know someone that is being sexually assaulted or an attempted murder um you know that is can be incredibly overwhelming for them so to ask them or to say hey let's do emotional completion in this relationship and they're not even feeling safe in their bodies when they think about that person um both are still very important but it's looking at okay let's work on the trauma of these events that occurred first and then see if we're ready to do the emotional work so that would be an example where maybe EMDR some trauma processing would come first that makes sense yeah absolutely okay thank you and you're up in terms of your team right how many agree for recovery specialists do you have working with you oh gosh I think every single person is certified with the exception of maybe one so maybe 20 wow wow so you have you're working with 20 therapists there in in your organization that's incredible yes that's incredible yeah go ahead anything you want to say as we just we love agree for recovery I mean we are ordering books like you I mean I should just start getting a deal with Amazon because I think I'm the one ordering all of the books yeah yeah no you're you're taking over Canada there's no doubt about that absolutely but really I would so cool to see and I know we connected on this is either us you and I are Ed I think it was Ed and I that there's so many agree for recovery specialists and Edmonton now because of me really bringing that introducing it to the community so many years ago and so it's now just one of those trainings that psychologists go and get because they know that it's such an important tool to have in their toolbox for grief which is so cool like it's amazing yeah I know that that is again what what you've built there is is nothing short of incredible I think you're a great example for specialists especially mental health professionals who are become specialists on just like what's possible with this work right if you really embrace it and I really again I'm biased I'll be the first to admit it but I do I think that every mental health professionals should should go through the grief recovery method with their every client that they have at least one time and and you may find that the results are like completely life changing and that client may want to do other work other relationships other losses using the method I mean I know people who have worked through you know 15 different relationships 15 different losses that they've had with what mental health professional and you can just keep going with that or like what Ashley was saying earlier you can shift gears and use some other wonderful tools that you know work for other parts of the equation right yes yeah absolutely so much that opens up and even just also what I love is a therapist and I would say like trauma informed therapist is you also become so much more aware of these really unhealthy or unhelpful beliefs and core wounds so being able to go back and work on relationships with those you know those early caregivers and doing grief recovery there and there's so much other therapeutic work that a therapist can do that goes beyond grief recovery but it provides such a great foundation for for the starting process of the therapy journey yeah yeah that's a great point and you know and I see that you do marriage and family therapy and so my my next question is how much work do you do around do you utilize the grief recovery method in terms of helping people in a marriage romantic relationships do you utilize this tool for that as well in your practice we do okay so I've I historically worked with couples for a long time and one thing that we would do is depending on what the situation is if there has been a shared loss in the in the marriage or just the recognition of work that they need to do is to then separate them to do individual work through the program first and allow them to kind of have the space to explore those journeys yep and take accountability and responsibility for their parts before coming back together something that's been really wonderful that we've done call is couples who have come in that have had a loss like the death of a child for example one way that we've learned to work with that instead of working say the three of us say myself in the couple because we know it is such individual work we would separate them for those kind of initial exercises and then bring them back together for the completion part of the work so being able to I don't want to give it all away but that final completion exercise and kind of yeah working individually but together through the program is really remarkable yeah yeah absolutely I I'm grateful you're doing that and you know the other the other kind of angle that I feel like I don't I don't know how we can do it but I want to bring this work to just more marriages in general I think that of course if you have had a shared loss like the loss of a child or even a lot of the time what I see that goes a little bit unnoticed is like out of my own story my dad ended up being more of a father figure to my wife than than her father ever was right she she will freely admit that that's the that's how the their relationship evolved over us being together for you know 25 years now Ashley and I and when he died right everyone around me was crystal clear that Ashley was grieving at 100% right yes he's my biological father but she was also so a lot of the time my point is a lot of the time we're grieving over our mother-in-law or our father-in-law you know and and you kind of people don't give that as much reverence as it can often have right I mean the the joke is always oh my my in-laws are coming right and I know some of us have prickly relationships within laws but some for for often you know a lot of our spouses are grieving like they lost their own mother or father right and so but everyone focuses on who they deem is the sole griever or the main primary griever right and and that's not the case a lot of the time right and so we want we want to allow everyone to be able to do the work and to heal what what their heartbreak is over the relationship right no matter what it looks like on paper it matters what's in that person's heart right sorry I don't know where how I'm going on this tangent but the other part of it is again let's say a couple is coming to you for just hey we're having to struggle in our marriage right I have such a passion to help couples and I again I don't think we reach as many couples as we can but a lot of the time guys when we're in a marriage we're arguing with our husband or our wife and we're really we're we're arguing with our mom who's not in the room because we're unfinished with a bunch of stuff mom set up or we're arguing with our dad in the room because he's set the tone for what's acceptable in a marriage right and we don't know about boundaries because mom and dad set up in our belief system some stuff that was not appropriate but we took in as correct information on how to be treated or how to treat others um and and again in my opinion we really can't move forward in in our marriage in our romantic relationship if we are not emotionally complete with past events from other relationships so kind of like you know what you said so is there are you guys doing work like that with individuals when it's just kind of a struggling marriage or a struggling kind of relationship a hundred percent yeah one hundred percent I'm such a believer in that having also gone back and completed relationships with ex partners so not only my parents but ex partners because it's amazing how something that happens emotionally to you even when you're 15 years old me yep and how that can play a role in a marriage today you know at 37 years old and how yep so yes going back and doing those early romantic relationships as well is really really important for us to be able to show up presently in our marriages today such a believer in that and have done a ton of that work cool yeah it's it's so funny you mentioned that about 15 because and thank you for your honesty and the courage to share that that was true for me too I had I had a relationship when I was 15 I think my mom still cut my hair so that was not good I had kind of this weird ductile and my teeth were the same sizes they are now so anyway I was an awkward looking 15 year old let's say and very awkward around girls never had kissed a girl you know and this one girl took kind of pity on my soul and was like hey you know I'm gonna be the girl that like likes you and and anyway you know she's my first kiss and all that and again I can joke about it at 43 but there are times if I'm not emotionally complete with that experience there are times I'm gonna bring that into my marriage right there the bar is set or the fantasy of what that was and and love at 15 and how oh is also effortless and easy right and and now with with Ashley we have four kids in pressure and stress and if I'm not complete with that stuff that stuff will come in to my current marriage and that is not fair to Ashley that's not fair to my wife if she's being judged against you know 15 year old love right that is that is a recipe for disaster but what is happening guys please hear Ashley hear me that is happening to so many of us in our marriages like and that's all we're spending time elaborating on this because like your mom is coming into the marriage your dad is coming into the marriage your first like first love is coming into the marriage your ex from you know a marriage ago is coming into the marriage if you don't go and complete a bunch of that stuff right like Russell had the best stories about this right Russell Russell has also passed away Russell Friedman who is one of the founders and just amazing pioneer of this work to unfortunately we lost Russell years back as well so my dad and Russell are not no longer with us but Russell had the most incredible story of Alice who he you know died he died by her side right who they ended up having this beautiful relationship after two like divorces that Russell had right and but Russell when and did that work on those past divorces and equally important he went and did a bunch of work on his father that were creating an environment that was hard for him to stay married and he and Alice got to have this beautiful relationship for years and years and years because of grief recovery and he would be the first to admit that would not be possible without this work right and I know we all have different roads that we come from and different losses that we bring to the table but like just know that that this method can help you with so much more than you would think at face value right like you know I'm on your website which is beautiful by the way it looks great and the whole focus is like come here if you will have some grief or some trauma or some pain to work through right and and I love that you can serve your client that way and then you can shift to hey let's look at your relationship with your mom or your dad right and they would have never come to you for that relationship but you can absolutely help them change their life on some of these relationships where there's way more unfinished business than they maybe think and more importantly than that there's way more unfinished business that is affecting their daily decisions and how they're coming you know how they're presenting themselves with other people and all of that so I'm now ranting so I'm going to turn it back over to you because I want to hear from you to ask like do you have any thoughts on that oh my gosh yes I'm just eating up everything you're saying cool and I'm so on the same page as you it just it opens up this world of healing and insight and awareness that you probably didn't have even like myself like I feel like grief recovery when I went through that journey in 2013 and got certified it really was the start of this healing that of this path that I'm still on and being able to heal in my relationship with my dad was so huge in being able to move forward and work on other relationships and look at some of those core beliefs that I learned that I kind of internalized about myself because of that relationship with my dad and early romantic partnerships and being able to be in a place today which grief recovery is such a big piece of that that is the most peaceful place I've ever been right and I think that's what we all are seeking in life is we just want to feel peace yeah I want to feel peace inside I want to feel joy and I don't want that to be attached to external circumstances I want to feel like I'm important and loved and I can be present in my relationships and make choices that aren't based on fear or something from the past and just really be able to show up and serve so one of the greatest gifts is this call to purpose and the sense of meaning that I that I gained from this work obviously through and starting the grief and trauma healing center being a trainer now doing my doctorate and really wanting to focus on in my dissertation the relationship between suffering and meaning and really understanding because I feel like that's where I'm at in my journey is I'm not in that sort of like early grief or that active grief and really looking at you know how is it that we can take this healing and grief recovery being a part of that and really find deep meaning in purpose in life yeah and being of service to others and giving back and finding gratitude and deepening our compassion love for others and that's just where I'm at and you know that journey started however many you're almost 11 years ago since I went through the pro or no that's over let what when was 2013 uh don't make me do not make me do math right now Ashley okay it's still the morning time where I'm at yeah almost 11 years yes uh since that journey started so there's so much of so many gifts so many gifts yep uh no and that that was that was this work changed my life you know uh you guys have heard this story before so I'm not going to get into but this work changed my life and two of the things I'm taking away from what you just said is number one this work is tremendously empowering right it gives us personal accountability the understanding that we are responsible for where we are moving forward we're not necessarily responsible and most of the time we're not responsible for the events or the things that happen in our life that were heartbreaking that we would have never wished on anyone right but yet we had these events right and we feel like a victim and we are a victim of our circumstances are like what life throws at us and then at some point you stumble upon grief recovery and and then you find these tools and they remind us that like in present day today my whole job for me is to despite this tragic thing that happened to me I am still responsible for how I'm going to move forward right that's very hard to do with no tools it's a lot easier to do when you have another person that you can trust that will walk you through create safety and articulate these tools and but the work is on you right like the work is on you and you get to read the rewards of that work um and again I don't know I don't know if there's really any other way to change as a human being right other than that internal work that you are doing that you have earned through the scary courageous actions you're going to take right um so that was that was kind of the first takeaway that that I had from you the others benefit to me that I've had with this method which I certainly would not have had without it is getting new tools on how to emotionally communicate right that's another thing when people sign up for grief recovery like you don't think you're going to get these lifelong tools that you will use daily on how to actually communicate outwardly emotionally and also understand and receive messages that are of an emotional nature I can't tell you how many times like my kids are communicating with me emotionally and it went over my head if I didn't understand grief recovery right um that kind of stuff is is is incredible too right and so it's like your clients I know they walk away you've helped them get complete with why they came to see you which is great um and then they also can use these tools just emotionally communicating in a different way in their current relationships yes oh my gosh thank you for bringing that up I cannot imagine how I would communicate relate with my kids and my husband without without having this work and having it just that awareness of the importance of that emotional communication and recognizing that when they are expressing a feeling or having a feeling about something that how normal that experiences and how to respond appropriately and you're right that has just been such a tremendous tool as as a mother as well yeah I cannot actually I don't know how we've gotten through 45 minutes without talking about hockey all right um I know you're waiting for the hockey question so no I'm just kidding but I know let me ask you this though because I think this is kind of interesting you have young kids and I have young kids um right down here I'm very American it's baseball up there very Canadian it's it's hockey um and you know my nine-year-old team what am I dealing with right every time that someone strikes out there's tears in the in the dugout right um every time things don't go our way we lose a game we had a hope dream and expectation we're gonna win we didn't and there's tears right so I'm constantly navigating that right and again I'm sometimes I'm using my grief recovery skills and then sometimes I'm in the antithesis of a grief recovery honestly like you know like if my son gets hit with a baseball I don't want him like folding up into a into a pile of tears right at the right I want him to show almost no emotion and like jog down to first base so I've been struggling with the difference between like emotional pain and like physical pain and uh you know again I'm I'm opening I guess a real can of worms when we only have five minutes left I think in the conversation but have you like have you been at all struggling with again like watching your children and hockey very rough sport there's emotional stuff in there you want that to be there but you're also needing to produce pretty tough athletes in a sport like that right so again I know this is a curve ball question at the end but I just need your help because I need to know what to be doing with with my kids down here oh my gosh I so agree with that struggle I I feel like it is the same experience for for my husband and I and Kual like we we want to emotionally support Layton and in his hockey yeah we we really do try hard to be compassionate but then the super competitive nature Derrick and I are both hockey players we're both going to be athletes bring up so it's like it's very hard when that part of us comes out and we like we become people that we aren't necessarily proud of sometimes right so I still relate it's it's a balance but yeah the struggles real with sports yeah yeah it is because uh you know again it's like there are times don't get me wrong there are times I'm definitely not proud of myself as a parent right but I'm also like the thing that's just kept entering my my kind of awareness is like there are times in life when we want to be emotionally available and then there's times in life when we do have to compartmentalize that and we just got to get stuff done and not go there and just navigating that and those conversations and trying to role model that for my kids and understand like again when and where when and where to role model this stuff and when and where you know okay grief curvy is probably not the tool right now like we've discussed earlier today right there are time there there's times in life when we have a lot of other tools you need to draw from right and and so anyway I just think that's a fun one but um yeah I just I it makes me happy thinking about you and Derrick and and Layton and watching him play hockey I know how much joy it is like I'm right in the heart of baseball season right now and you know it's just so it's such a gift right to be able to share that with with your kids and and again help them navigate all those emotions right we're doing travel baseball so it's baseball every day we're in different towns all the time you know um so anyway sorry I know I'm digressing but here here's my point to bring it all back to grief um my dad died several years ago and my dad had me in cleats since I was two years old right I on on kind of the work I did with him after he died like one of the gifts is he never ever that that man was very busy and he never ever turned me down playing catch in the front yard no matter what I've now I cannot remember one time he ever said no call I'm too busy right he devoted hours to just playing catch with me in the front yard right on um and anyway if I'm not complete with that with that man and all the wonderful memories right emotionally complete with all the pain and the hurt and stuff like that too that came with it like guess who's standing next to me on the field every time my my kids doing baseball stuff right is my dad and and that doesn't feel good unless I've gone and done done the work right so like like you said at the start I think let's close here Ashley the grief recovery method changed the way that you see the world forever the grief recovery changed the way that I see the world forever right and if you're listening to this podcast and you've listened to more than one episode it's probably not a coincidence right you're probably being drawn to the stuff that our guests are talking about um and give it a shot you know give it give it a shot because again this will change your life on a day-to-day basis and it will certainly I don't like to make promises but I know that I have a strong hunch that it will help you with whatever your primary presenting kind of imaginary knife in your heart is but it will help you with so much more than that in your daily life if you let it right so it I want to be respectful of your time but in closing Ashley any final thoughts that you want to give the audience and then I also want you to tell people where they can find you because if you're listening to this guys and you're you know local to Ashley and her team um it's a gift like to have her geographically close by to you um and again I don't know you may work with clients all over the place I don't know but again please just let us know how we can get in touch with you and anything else you want to close with Ashley oh my gosh there's so much I could say Cole I think if you're listening to this podcast you've been following the Grief Recovery Institute and you know maybe you have the handbook and you're just sort of hesitant about next steps I just invite you the same way called it to bet on yourself take this opportunity for healing even if you've done a ton of other things there's always more opportunity for self-awareness and growth and learning and um you won't regret it um this has been such a fundamental part of my journey professionally and personally and I really couldn't imagine my life without this work even over a decade later so um it's just really really incredible and do it for you first yeah and then see how you can serve others with it so that will be my final message and if you are curious about what we're doing you can head to our website healmyheart.ca you can always find me online um we are on Instagram at Grief and Trauma Healing Center you can email me Ashley at healmyheart.ca and I'm sure Cole will be happy to pass on some contact info as well absolutely you're you're one of the very best in the world at this work I am so glad that you're your your path crossed with my fathers he knew immediately how talented you were and I'm so glad that you're on this journey with us Ashley um and again let get in touch with Ashley if you want to work with her and her team again highly highly recommend her and her hard and kind of what she cares about um and if you have time I would love to have you on for a part two uh I really want to talk about what you said we didn't get have time for it but I think one of the biggest benefits of this work is doing your own work and then turning around and serving others with it so I want to get into that because I think that's a huge piece of the puzzle for a lot of people um so anyway that's part two if we can find some time Ashley but again thank you for this this conversation and just keep doing what you're doing okay my friend thank you so much Cole all right you take care