Challenging Myths About Child Loss & Finding the Right Support

Like I don't, and I looked at my husband, I'm like, I don't even know who I am or what books I like. And he was like, I don't know what that means. So it's like, okay. So I was like, something's got to give.

And I just started researching just different ways to get some help for me personally with grief. And I stumbled across the grief recovery method online. And I was like, okay, I don't know what this is. I jumped on a call.

And eventually I ended up traveling to Denver to get a certified in it. So I didn't even really know what I was in for when I, when I went there. And there was a lot of healing that happened there too. But it was really interesting because there was a period of my time where like I have always kind of been successful in things that I've done.

And during this, you know, that 12 year like meltdown that I had, I was like, what, what do you want? And look at asking me about my daughter. And I was like, are you kidding me? So, um, I was like, who signed up for that?

Why? Yeah. So, so, so, and so, Kira, when you, when you say people kept mentioning your daughter, what was that in the 12 year span where you're just kind of trying to survive? Is that what you mean?

You just didn't want to go there? Well, I mean, I had shared my story a little bit there, but when I just kept hitting this wall and this frustration of like, who am I? What's going on? Like my life is just not going the way I had hoped it would go.

It was actually quite a few people in like a two week time, like person after person. You helped me. Can you share it? Can you meet with this person?

And I was like, what in the world is happening? Oh, okay. So it was kind of a sign like, okay, I need to be looking, you know, because earlier you had mentioned it's like, I'm searching because I need to do personal work, right? Like this, just give it time and time heals.

You know, we're figuring out and I did too. We're figuring out that's a lie. Like, there, there, there has to be actions within time. Otherwise, time just passes and a lot of the time it, it, it complicates stuff.

It, it, it, it turns into our identity. Um, and, you know, and again, the, the kind of notion or the, the, the indication is just like, there's nothing we need to do in the time, just wait for the time to pass. But, you know, it breaks my heart, right? To think of you for 12 years.

Uh, just not knowing what to do. And, and the reason I want to stay here is because this is so common. You know, I know it was common for me, uh, around the loss that brought me to grief for covering. And we hear it so much, right?

When we cover the myths about grief, one of the crit of just most heartbreaking ones is just give it time, right? Um, so, so you're kind of looking to do your work, your own work, but then, you know, again, because of God or the universe or what, you know, whatever is true for you, if there's a sign that's like, Hey, I can, I can actually, I can help other people too. Yeah. Yeah.

So it was self-serving going in, um, just because I knew I needed to do my work before I could show up for other people the way they needed me to show up for them. Yeah. Um, and then just the more I got into this, the more healing happened for me, but it was incredible to watch the transformations of the people who have come through the program too. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, let me ask you this. Just be, and this is a very sensitive, um, conversation that we're about to go in, right?

But, but again, I want to go there for the benefit of our listeners. Um, you know, you mentioned something, which is I, you know, you lost a child and you know, and I want to say I can't imagine what that was like, right? I've not had that loss. Uh, but in grief recovery, we, we talked to each other and we help each other in spite of us not sharing the same type of losses, right?

So, um, you know, my question is is, I think a lot of the time, I, I hear from the community of people who have lost a child, right? A lot of people are understandably very unfinished, very heartbroken over that loss, and it doesn't really matter the time. It could be 10 years, it could be 20 years, frankly. Um, and a lot of the time, um, the, the, the, the advice or, or kind of the experienced people share with other people with that type of losses, you know, this is just the worst loss ever.

And there's nothing you can really do about it. And it's like your life will, uh, for, for, forever be, you know, it will hurt, right? Forever. And, and again, I, I'm not saying that there is in a tremendous amount of sadness.

And I'm not saying that our lives aren't forever changed. But I loved what you said, which is like, my life didn't turn out the way that I wanted, uh, or, or, or I thought it would. Uh, and what we, and what we talk about is quality life, right? And, and a lot of the time there is, again, understandably, massive resistance to grief or recovery, to the idea that we can have a very fulfilling life in spite of this really heartbreak and tragic loss that we never want, right?

Uh, and I, and I've talked to a number of parents who are very angry, even at us mentioning that we can take some actions to have a really fulfilling, beautiful life with a ton of laughter and joy. Um, and I always have to start with this method was founded after the loss of a child, right? And that, that loss happened to be with my dad, John James, and he lost a child who would have been my older brother. And so, you know, we have worked with thousands and thousands of people who have lost a child, right?

The guy right now behind the scenes producing this show right now, uh, lost a child and came to do this work. You came to do this work up with the loss of a child. My dad, again, created this method following that loss. And so we want to, I, you know, very specifically in this episode, I want to make sure that people who have had that loss know that, that we work with people with that type of a loss, right?

And, and we never promise anything. We never promise what the results will be, but I just wanted to touch on that because it's really important. Absolutely. Yeah.

Um, and you know, you hear a lot of different things when it comes to the loss of a child, like, uh, the second year's the worst. You're never, you know, gonna be happy again. Or maybe that was a lie to old myself is like, I'll never be happy again. Um, I heard other things like, at least you can have more children.

And I was like, oh, like it just broke my heart because it was like, yeah, like there was only one of her. Yes. The only one just like her, right? And so I bought into a lot of those things because it was very young when she passed away.

Um, and I, like I said, I didn't have any skills or tools. So I bought into those things, believing them. And it kept me stuck in this place of, um, I mean, just tremendous grief. And so I was under the assumption that you have grief or you have joy, but you couldn't have both.

And this is where I choose to live now is with both. Like I love to have a good time in here. Like I know it seems weird. I work with grief, but we have a great time in here.

And I'm smiling. But you know, when I go and visit my daughter's grave, yeah, I still cry. That's my baby. She's always gonna be my baby, you know, but you can have a big beautiful life too, right?

Yeah. We still talk about our daughter. I mean, her stockings still gets hung at Christmas time with all the other girls. Um, like my other daughters never get to meet her because she was our first born.

And they're very aware of Aspen. And she is a part of our life. She's just not here. So, yeah, we embrace both.

Yeah. No, I love that. And, and, and a lot of the time that's, I think what, what this method can help people do is, uh, I've said this a lot. So sorry if you've listened to not multiple episodes, but the way that we look at it is unresolved grief is like a record player where the needle fell off, right?

And it's pain and it's reoccurring pain. And we don't know kind of how to get the needle back on the track to play music. That's what we would equate with unresolved grief. And then we do this work and we find what's unfinished and we complete a lot of the things emotionally.

And I know probably if you're dealing with a loss of a child, that all seems impossible. And you could even be getting angry that I'm even saying this. And I'm okay with that, right? Because I, I only know how to speak from experience and I've seen hundreds of people who have lost a child, very courageously do this work.

And, and again, like you said, fine joy. Understand that there is grief and joy and we can, we can, and we can be in all, all those spectrums, right? It's like, what, what Kira said, it's like, when we go to visit her grave, right? It's like, we can have tremendous sadness there, right?

There could, that could produce plenty of unfinished business or we can discover other hopes, dreams and expectations that make us sad that those won't be met, right? But, but ultimately we have a set of tools that we can look at to, to work through that stuff, to process that stuff, to share that stuff versus before we come to this work. Usually that's just pain, right? And there's a difference between sadness and pain.

And that's really hard to kind of understand until you feel the difference. And it's just like, it breaks our heart that seemingly, so many people don't resolve grief, it's pain, pain, pain. And there is a difference than you thinking of Aspen on the, the her birthday or the anniversary of her death and just feeling sad and having a tough time versus I can't really ever go there because it's going to be pain and I don't, I'm scared to open that door. Yeah.

And, you know, I think you like, there's certain times where I choose to open that door. And those are those moments where I'm like, I'm choosing, because I want to, you know, just express those feelings because even though she, she died so long ago, there are still life events that happen where, you know, because we're still living, something still happened. Yeah. And, you know, like her graduation, you know, exposed some more feelings or seeing her cousin who's about the same age almost in that marriage phase.

And it's like, ooh, would she be there too? So, yep. Keep happening. And it's, it's a process of, of constantly working through those, those feelings.

Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. Thank you.

That's really articulate and wonderfully said. And again, to, to shift it away from your story a little bit, just because I, what I see, when I was, I was, I had a lot of unresolved grief around the suicide of my cousin. And there was a lot of anger there at how he did it and stuff like that. And, and so, anytime he came into my heart or, you know, I, I saw a photo of him on Facebook, I would, I would shut it down.

I did not want to open that door. You know, and I've, I've worked with people where for years following the death of their child, they, they could not say their name, literally say their name, right? And, and, and then, and again, a lot of these people, right, especially, you know, in your case or the, you know, someone who's lost a child, we want access to that, to them, right? We want to be able to open the door.

We, we, and what I have found is grief recovery and getting complete with what is painful, what is gut wrenching, allows us to go there more, to access them, to have that emotional communication with them, excuse me, that emotional relationship with them, the spiritual relationship with them. It allows a lot of us, generally speaking, to open the door and to have more of a relationship, right? So, to give you an example, you know, I lost my dad a couple of years ago and, and me and him are, our main kind of bond was baseball. We love baseball together.

Well, after he died, it's really painful, but my, my sons are intravable. So, it's like practice or baseball and games every day. Well, you know, if I have a bunch of unfinished business with my dad and the loss of him, I don't want to let him in to travel ball, you know, because he enters my heart and I got to push him away. I got to push him away.

But after I do this work and I say goodbye to the icky painful stuff, then I get to actually like, you know, talk to him when, you know, why it hits a home run or Bridger strikes out at kid and I go, isn't that cool, dad? Like, I know you're somewhere watching this, right? And I want to thank you for passing along, you know, these baseball genetics, right? I'm, I'm, I can open my heart to him because I'm complete with the pain where I know the way I deal with grief usually is shut it down at all cost, don't open that door because I don't know what's going to come out if I open that door, right?

And so, this is really important because I see a lot of people who work, you know, through a loss like you've had, again, unimaginable, right? And, and they, they get to have more access with, with their little girl or their little boy, right? And, and that I think is a gift. Yeah, absolutely.

And just to piggyback off of something you said, I, I like to point out to that grief will show up, right? So we can try and push it down as much as we, we want. But it will show up somewhere. Right?

And so, like, I've had widows in here who show up before the funeral has even happened. And I have had people who had a loss and showed up 60 years later. Right? Like the grief was still there.

It was still incomplete and still painful. And so I love to point out that that we can try to shove it down, but we're just carrying it along with. And it's going to keep trying to come out because it needs to be heard and validated. Yeah.

Yeah. I love that. Thank you. The other thing too that that I, I kind of wanted, this is a question we got a lot.

So I just want to kind of tackle it head on because you talked about time. A lot of us are led to believe times just going to heal it, right? And then unfortunately, like you said, 60 years later, we go, grief or cover, I think I need to go do that, you know, because the loss has been hurting for 60 years. Right.

And what I will say is there's just never a right or wrong time. It's never too soon or too late to do grief recovery. We want to keep it that vague and that large because of a reason, right? Is because we have seen, I've seen 12 days after the loss of seeing a mom do grief recovery work around her 12 year old son who died, right?

And then I've seen people that came 30 years later who who who want to do this work. And it's going to be different at different points of your grief, of course, right? So like 12 days after the loss, that's a very extreme example I'm going to give. But guess what?

That grieving mom can either be around a bunch of people who, again, probably are well intentioned, but are going to put the knife in her heart by saying things like you're young, you could have other kids, right? They're going to put the knife in their heart about, hey, make sure all these condolence cards, you get back to these people in a prompt manner, right? Yeah, this is a true story. These are true comments that a lady 12 days into the loss of her 12 year old baby boy, we're receiving.

And so when she told me, and I explained there's actions involved and you know, I don't know if you're if you're ready for that. She said, I read the website all last night, I want to be there on Friday. How am I going to turn turn her around? Because what ended up happening is she was with 12 people that knew the right things to say, knew how to be a heart with the ears, knew how to not say the wrong things, which is very important, right?

And she did some really important work. Now, was she in the moment all the time? Of course not. Right.

Right. Is there more work to be done down the road when she is more in the moment and can kind of like, you know, kind of gather her thoughts more? Yes, absolutely. But I guarantee you for four days, she was in the safest place on earth that she could have been with this unimaginable loss.

Right. Does that make sense? So yeah, you know, if you're considering this work, it's never too soon and it's never too late. Some people, right?

Of course, after like when my mom lost my dad, she had seemingly endless amounts of nonsense to do. Like the death certificate and changing the name on the bank account. And you know, this, you know, all these kind of things where she's just trying to survive and has all these new obstacles that she's never had to deal with because my dad did it or whatever, right? And I'm helping her.

My sister's helping. Now again, she may not be ready, willing or want to do grief recovery. But if someone comes to me and says, yep, I want to do this work, I know bare minimum, they're going to be in a safe place to get started and get introduced to these tools. Right.

So I just wanted to touch on that a little bit around the time issue. Absolutely. Yeah. It's in everybody's own time for sure.

I know like I've done some discovery sessions with people. And you know, a lot of times they're ready to go. And then, you know, I just had one of this, this week, which is fun. I did a discovery session two years ago.

And this week she was ready. And it was like, I'm here for it. Like, let's go. It's so cool to watch.

And it is in their time, I get that question a lot. Like, well, what do you think? I'm like, well, it's not about me. This is you.

So whatever you do is best for you. I'm going to support that. Yeah. I love that.

And that's such, right. That's such a usual occurrence, frankly, with us, right? Is people, you know, people can wait two years. They can, they can go back and forth.

Like, you know, because again, a lot of the time we get attached to the pain, right? We grief becomes our identity, right? It's like, we all know people like that. And if you're listening and you're like this, and this, I'm sorry, again, if this hurts to hear this, but again, I'm saying it, hopefully you know, out of goodwill, because I don't want this to be 40 years.

But we all know those people were within 10 minutes or 15 minutes of the conversation. They are going to let you know what loss they've had. Right? And that could be that could loss could have happened five years ago, it could happen 10 years ago.

But you will know that a lot of their identity is the loss that they've had. Again, I only say that because I care. And sometimes we have to kind of put this out there. So people know that, oh, maybe, maybe grief has really become my identity.

Maybe there are other tools that we that we're using that other people are using to find joy, to find laughter. You know, you touched on that other point, which is people, it's so funny, right? I'm constantly in hotels where there's a big old sign that says the grief recovery method, you know, training. And it's like in front of the elevators or it's right in the lobby.

And sometimes just because I'm weird, I'll just watch people who aren't, you know, going to the training, kind of like wrap their brain around, you know, what's happening or they don't know or they'll walk by the room. And they're always so astounded and surprised with how much deep, deep laughter is coming out of that room. Right? Because you're right.

The grief recovery is about learning how to find the balance in all of the different emotions that we came onto this planet to be equipped with. And, and, you know, and, and we need to learn how to go to all those places. Hey, I'm having a really rough day. This is really sad.

This memory is really sad. Oh, it's heartbroken, breaking to see her cousin and where would she be? You know, that is all normal and natural, right? But what we don't want, which we don't believe is normal and natural is to isolate with your grief, not tell anybody about it, not be able to open the door to that person or their, their, their, you know, your memories of that person or lose a lot of the access to the happy stuff because we're so stuck on the cause of the death or the events leading up to the death or, you know, whatever the case is depending on the loss, but we want to, we want to help people find that deep laughter, that deep joy again, right?

And, in spite of whatever loss that they're coming to us with. Yeah. And so that, that mean that's kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy or, you know, just sometimes developing your own myths when it comes to grief of just believing that this is what it will be like forever. And so a lot of times when people come in and meet me, like, I smile a lot, I laugh a lot, we make some jokes, you know, like, I was just too, I am at my core, but I'm able to also go there and I think it's kind of interesting to watch people like process just to me as a person because I've done a lot of work and they're like, but you seem happy and I'm like, I know, and I hope that you can see light at the end of the tunnel because of how I'm showing up here for you today.

Yeah, yeah, and I can see it, Kira, in your face. And, and if you're listening to this podcast, go watch YouTube because you can just see Kira, you can see her energy, right? You can see her joy. And, and it's obvious, right?

And what I tell specialists a lot is if you get certified and, and you figure out, hey, I still have a lot of personal work to do. Let me give you a hug and just say, welcome, and a lot of specialists get certified and then find out, hey, I got more work to do. But, but I tell them that because people are going to read your energy, right? And they're going to look at you and, and, and you're going to be kind of the calling card of, hey, let me look into this grief recovery method because this person looks like they are live in life.

And that's what I need to do. That's what I'm looking for, right? And so, um, I love that, right? It starts with the personal work and we really have to make a change in ourself for people to really look at us and, and say, okay, maybe I'll give this method a shot because, again, I would, I'd sign up to work with you, Kira.

It's very obvious, right? That, like, you have that joy that, like, we're looking for in life, all of us. And, and, and again, let me, I don't know why, because I haven't had coffee today, but I'm, I want to be bold a little bit longer around the loss of a child because again, this is one of those ones where there's a lot of misinformation. I want to challenge people who are leaders in, like, again, lead a support group or have that story.

Um, I want you to be very careful if you have had the loss of a child. I want you to be careful. If your truth is that you can't find joy and you can't find happiness and, and you've been struggling for a long time, and this feels like a life sentence of misery to you. I want you, I want to challenge you to not tell other parents that that must be their path to.

Because, Kira, Kira has mentioned a couple times. This may have been a self, self-fulfilling prophecy. She mentioned, you know, maybe I kind of set this on, on, on, on herself. So, and she's taking a lot of ownership, which I love, but I guarantee you, at some point along the way, whether she's searching online or she's, or she's listening to other leaders in the space of, I lost the child, that is being promoted a lot by leaders in the community.

And you are doing people a disservice, okay? And that is different than meeting them where they are and giving them a hug and making sure that you understand, you know, that you meet them where they're at, okay? But, but for you to propel the myth that they can never find happiness or fulfillment, again, I, I think is very, um, unkind. Let me just put it that way.

And the reason I'm saying this, uh, and I'm kind of stepping out here is because for, I've been doing this work for over 15, 16 years and my dad and Russell and all these people that came before me for 50 years, we know that there are large organizations out there around child laws that, that are putting this out there, or at least leaders in facilitators, people who, who, again, new grievers are coming to them, looking at what does this look like? What does this road map look like for me for the next 10 or 20 years? And, and a lot of it is out there, which is, again, they're, you can't recover, right? This is different than all the other losses, right?

This is just something you're just going to have to buckle up and learn how to manage the pain, right? I mean, I could give you direct quotes that are heartbreaking, that leaders in that, in that world are telling new grievers. And I know that because the people, the, the moms and dads that have lost a child, they go to two meetings and they say, we need to find something else, right? And then they tell me what they heard in that meeting, or unfortunately they wait five or 10 years, and they, and they hold that pain and then they come to us and then they tell us that, right?

And so, I'm not just making this stuff up, guys, I'm saying this because there are different approaches, there's different tools you can look at. And, and we're not at all, please don't misunderstand me, we're not, we're never trying to minimize the loss that you've had, we're never trying to downplay it, this is hard work, this is heavy lifting. But again, the, we have, we have, we have an absolutely, it's, it's up to us to figure out the quality of our life and to find what, what we want, where we want that to be. I guess is, is a good way to put it.

Now, Kira, can you help me and articulate that better than I just tried? Well, I think, I think it's a great, I can speak to my own personal experience, having walked into a meeting like that. And, you know, the way it was presented and it was overwhelming. Like, I already had the weight of the world on my shoulders and it was like, I was just in, you know, everybody else's weight too.

And like, this is how it's going to be in some of these people I witnessed had been there for quite a few years attending the same meeting. And so I went to, I don't even know if I did too. I don't know if I did too. And I was like, this is not going to serve me well.

I don't need help feeling bad. I already do that very well by myself. And so that kind of started some of the searching because I'm like, oh my goodness, right? Like, I'm choosing, I don't want this to be it.

I also know that people kept trying to medicate me. And it was like, I know, I, I don't think that that's what I need either. Like, I just, like, I'm hurting and I need help with the hurt. And for me, it was just choosing into not quitting on myself and being resolved that this is what the rest of my life would look like.

I just, I couldn't, I couldn't believe that. And so I kept trying different things until I was like, what is this? Right? And I didn't realize some of the, my own self-savitage that I had done just picking up and listening to little bits that didn't serve me well.

Yeah. So yeah, some, some online things too, like those can be very heavy places to be. They're easily accessible, but not always. I mean, they actually just had someone this week that was like, oh my gosh, I said one thing and like, I, oh, I got attacked.

Also a mama who'd lost a baby. And she got attacked by that community because it wasn't said, you know, specifically how they wanted it to be said. And she's like, why is there a child more important than my child? Like, she, she was wounded.

And so it is a place to, to definitely have some caution. I do think you like, keep going, like, keep finding the right fit for you. But be aware of that because it can cause, you know, more grief in her. I'm excited to announce our premium in-person certification training individuals who have a desire to help other people with grief and loss.

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You're going to get a ton of stories and education and training from me. We will have double the amount of trainers to answer questions you have. I want to help people. I'm missing information this and this and this.

I'm an advocate for the grieving process because I know that's like, why would you not tell somebody to heal? There's going to be some tears in there. There's going to be some tissues. But, well, I think what will surprise people that are considering this training is if you sat outside of the room when this training is happening, you wouldn't believe how much laughter is happening in this training.

You wouldn't believe how much joy and hope you can see on people's faces as we're breaking and people are coming out of the room. It's everything. The thing she was saying made me feel seen and normal and validated and not insane. I saw grief as this really bad dark thing instead of seeing it as the actual healing process.

As someone who's been in this field for 15 years now, I would have loved to have been trained under these circumstances. It's just such a premier training. You're going to probably walk away with some like lifelong friends. We did not want to say goodbye to each other at that end of that four days.

Be able to help walk them through that and give them that same light bulb that came on in my head. It was a trend that's transformative. It was such a rich time of learning and engaging, listening to people's stories, being present, being focused with who you're talking to, is such a big part of the grief recovery work. I had done a lot of things.

I had done coaching. I'd been in therapy. I had done a lot of other modalities and they were helpful. But when I did the grief recovery method and when I walked through the method and continued to use the tools, life began to have color.

I went from being very emotionally disconnected to being very connected. Do not wait. Seeds are filling up. Sign up.

You will not regret it. I cannot wait to see you. Have a great day. No, you have such a powerful story and I really want to thank you for giving us that story.

Just to see if you're listening. Kira and I did not talk about that part of our story. I did not know that she went to a group. I went where I went.

I said what I said because I know it's so common and then Kira is like, let me tell you a little story of that for me. Let's just break this down a little bit. I am so grateful that you had the wherewithal and you had the supporter, whatever you had at that point, to be on meeting two or meeting one. I don't think I'm going back or whatever that was but very quickly you realize that this isn't for me.

Here's the trap and here's what breaks my heart. A lot of grieving moms and dads aren't in that place. What happens is in a world that doesn't know how to support you in a world that you feel doesn't understand your hurt and has never had your loss, a lot of people don't make that call. They keep going back and they keep getting hugs and love and attention for talking about the pain.

Unfortunately what happens a year, a month, three months in, six months in, a year, two years in, we have got so firmed up and so attached to the pain because that's what get us a lot of the hugs. The aim is not recovery, the aim is not laughter. The aim is and then we have newer people dropping in and they're right there in that pain and so to connect with them we want to stay attached with our pain so that they can relate to us even if our loss happened a year or two earlier because again we want to connect and be helpful for them and again like you said that plays out both in the support groups space physically. It also plays out in the Facebook pages.

If you look at our page we have a pretty what's the word I'm looking for. Embarrassing amount of fans or followers considering we've been on Facebook for 20 years and if you go to a place like Life Sentence of Misery Child Loss Group, they'll have 300,000 fans and it's because we all feel that pain and we all identify with that pain but then we stay in that pain and we kind of again we firm up that pain for each other and then we kind of turn into a you know kind of like a tribe right because we're tribal people right and it's like okay you don't understand like you don't understand what we understand right you don't know the pain we we have and then and then again we our bond is the pain and and that's that's hard right and that's where you know I if I went on that side I'd get attacked or even again a mom who lost a child too right just not doing what the tribe is doing she's getting attacked I mean that breaks my heart and and so I want to put that out there again not because I want to be mean or I want to be controversial I just want you to know what is going on out there in the world with grief right and and we're talking very specifically about child loss but a lot of the time people who have lost someone to suicide they can kind of tend to you know kind of turn into a tribe over here and there's some things that can play out where I see with suicide we get hyper again I want to say this lovingly and and I'm just trying to educate people okay so please don't take offense but people who lose someone to suicide we can get hyper fixated on the cause of the death the events around the death right and and who could blame anyone right I again I came in a grief recovery because of the loss of suicide of a love of a cousin I loved and I was very fixated on the cause of death and the way he chose to take his life okay and that's all very very important emotions for me to work through no doubt about it but the other thing was at the time right I'm in my mid-twenties I lost the cousin I have a 20 plus year relationship with him I'm grieving a lot of the relationship right I wouldn't miss him I wouldn't be hurting any less if he died by a a car wreck right then then a suicide and that is again a very hard for people to hear who have been grieving you know and been very fixated on the type of loss now is there other is there different things I need to unpack is there a different unfinished business because of the suicide absolutely 100 percent but the fact is someone I love died that I had years and years of happy and sad events and a lot of unfinished business and you know the cause of the death is a very important important part of the story but if I focus only on the cause of death for years and years to come I'm missing the iceberg underneath the water which is really my grief over the whole relationship yeah yeah yeah yeah and there is that hyper fixation on I don't like to put the word just in front of it but just the death and we forget that the whole relation there's so many things yeah you know intertwined there that we need to you know address also it's really interesting that you bring up suicide as we're like the number one depressed city in the entire United States I don't know oh wow I did I was not aware of that yeah so we sit pretty high up there on on that and we do experience a lot of that I mean you think it's just older you know white males but it is a lot more child population too right now so there is you know a lot to unpack when it comes to death by suicide for sure yeah I you know I would have again no one wants this this this title but I would have given it to like Seattle right I'd always heard it was like Pacific Northwest rain you know I did not know billing so Billings nationally is has that title right now I'm our our way up it would seem oh yeah that is heartbreaking do you is there is there and if not it's no no big deal but do you have any have you heard any insight have have people kind of is there reasons why we think that is there in Billings um you know I'm not sure why we have taken that title all of a second um you know because again you could compare us to Seattle but again the same sad months um we were a bit more lethal here you know like we have the means and usually mean it when we're here yeah so there's that um but yeah and the increase in fentanyl and all of that jazz that's come through so yeah yeah well you know and I want to say this um we really really at the at at in our work we want to stay in our lane right and we have always designed our program it was honed it was created around hey I'm heartbroken over a loss that I've endured um and and that's what we that's what we offer and that's what we help people with right um but I what I can say is this um when you accumulate a lifetime of unresolved grief right and you keep packing it into your backpack and that weighs you down and that weighs you down and that weighs you down um I would just say this and we can move on but a we would say from our experience that the suicide rate in this country okay um grief unresolved grief plays a large part in that three thousand right yeah um and and and and that's what I'll say and I'll say that people who have done the grief recovery methods successfully have been exploring all options because they want the pain to go away and we have found you know often that this can be a helpful set of tools to help you process stuff so you don't have to explode in the form of a suicide or which we're going next Kira or a homicide or aggravated assault or violence because again a lot of our society uh who happened to be in prison are there because they had a whole backpack full of a unresolved emotional pain from their life and they didn't know what to do with it and the coping tools that they picked up along the way can be really harmful to themselves and also the rest of the population right so if you don't mind Kira can we pivot because you're doing amazing work uh there in Montana with a very specific population please and I'm just so proud of what you're doing can you tell us in the audience kind of what you're doing and and what your passion population is yeah so we are actually working a lot out of the Montana women's prison um I'd I mean when can't reach out to me she was like I don't know what this is but it sounds amazing and I was like I would love to get into where you work and so it it really was just like a perfect storm to make that happen but yeah so we're working out of the Montana women's prison and it's extraordinary to see the light bulbs go off in these ladies' eyes as they're like I have a lifetime of grief like it started so young oh my gosh my backpack is huge I mean you look at some lost history graphs in there I mean they're exceptionally long um coming out of there and um the cool part about this is a lot of these guys these ladies are lifers um they're they're there and so they um have taken every class possible because they have the time to do it and I get a lot of feedback when it comes to the grief recovery method uh this is the first class that actually made sense that gave me tools that helped thank you um and I have had you know the the ladies that brought us into the prison they're like oh she doesn't talk to anybody I can't believe you got her to open up and it was I I didn't do it like it's it's just the power of the the program and I think being honest on our side like I'm an open book I will talk about whatever um and so they saw that vulnerability on my side and so to get some vulnerability vulnerability out of you know women in prison that's a place you don't want to be vulnerable right like it's not safe if you're too vulnerable but they're doing the work and um they just great feedback from them I know the parole board looks for you know whether or not they've come through um and it's it's just a really powerful thing I mean I have I don't even know how many thank you notes that come out of there from the ladies themselves just yeah I heard up because they're like I I make sense to me now thank you wow wow bravo I I love that and you know shout out to Lois Hall she's a pioneer of this work a hero of mine and she helped get this into the Ohio State prison system right with other help including her in the men's prisons right so we and and we I know we're actually going to have another guest on shortly who's doing this in the correctional facilities in California for in men's prisons as well but it's like such such an amazing tool in in that kind of world right like you said talk about a place where you you know it's seemingly impossible to get people to open up yet we can with the method because you touched on it which is there is self disclosure on our part I'm going to show you some of my grief so you know that um that I that that you know you start you start empathizing with people when you start seeing their grief right and and you start opening up and and for me I don't know how else you would do it as a caregiver right I don't understand some of some of these modalities where it's like yep you're just going to sit here and I'm the professional and you're the broken person and you know lay it on me you know I don't know how you could do it that way um you know but but like you I've had that feedback a lot like I work with I've worked at you know Air Force bombing bases where literally bombers were taken off and everyone in the room is wearing fatigues I you know I've worked in some pretty extreme looking places and like you said I've worked with you know parole officers who are sitting in their squad car on zoom with bulletproof vests on and you know and they're and they're doing this work and they're sharing stuff they've never shared and you know one of the things I was naive about when I first started this work and I started hearing about you know people doing this in prisons I you know I was naive and I was like oh they're you know they're always going to graph and and work on you know the crime that got put put them there right and and the the facilitators like dude you're being way way too dramatic you know they're working on mom they're working on dad they're working on you know they're they're spouse that died when they when they were locked up you know they're working on stuff early from their life like these are the things like no matter if you're in prison you're you're on a B2 bomber base you're a you know parole officer you're a rakey master in Malibu it does not matter right we all share a bunch of grief that really hurt us from an early agent it just kind of kept coming right and and unfortunately write these folks in prisons they they just had a bunch of stuff on their lost history graph which luckily some of us didn't have early on you know um I really believe there's not a person I wouldn't love if I knew their whole story you know like yeah yeah once you hear it you're like oh yeah friend I hear I see you I see you and you know and it's funny right because you mentioned that and it's like that is my challenge on a daily basis because I can get I can get self-righteous I can get judgmental I can think I'm right when you're wrong and like you said right it's like and that's a hard thing right think about what Kira just said right that is not an easy thing that is black belt level grief recovery which is I could love anyone if I heard enough of their story right like think of think of what that that means right and and I wish I'm I was there I'm not I'm I'm not there but I aim to be there I try to be there right it's like in a world and I say this all the time to specialist in trainings is I hope you signed up for this work for the right reasons which is you want to help people with grief period okay if you if you signed up for this work but you're only willing to work with people that voted for the same person you did you know in the last election or if you got into this work only to help people that decided to get vaccinated or not vaccinated you know or if you got into this work again fill in the blank on the on the stuff we're divided about then you got into this work for the wrong reasons right and and you know and again I hope you can make a course correction because we're not as an institute right like when I'm working across the room from you I'm just scanning and you're telling me what is the most significant loss you've ever had and what do you want to work on and as as quick as we can just share some emotions from both of our stories again we're connected and none of that other stuff matters right we have that singleness of purpose of ow you have a broken heart let me tell you about a little bit about my broken heart that I've had and let me just share with you some tools so that you can empower yourself to you know to heal from a lot of that stuff right yeah I always chair I'm like man I get to learn a lot about you but you get to learn a lot about me and we just lock arms and we're all together and that I feel you can almost like watch the wait fall off of their shoulders yeah okay yeah this isn't as scary as I okay I can do this you know and so it's it's amazing to see yeah and that's you know and that's why at least I'm hooked on this work and you know you've been doing it since 2016 so you've been doing a long time too and it's like sometimes people I'll tell them what I do right and they'll they'll look at me like I'm crazy like you you you want to talk to people about their grief every day and it's like well technically like that's part of it but then when I hear their relationship graph and their letter and I see how they physically look later and I see them take stuff that they've been holding for 10 12 20 years and they get to let go of it like that's why I keep doing this work you know the the hearing about the grief is actually the you know that's a start point that's that's the painful part of this right but if we can get them coming back and getting to all the other tools that we want them to to take and run with that's when you're hooked on this work right yeah I know people laugh at me I'm like I use this stuff real time and when they first meet with you they're like what are you even talking about and I like oh man just like if I'm irritated with my husband I will just graph out like the last three months and I can I'm like oh now guess what I get to actually have a productive conversation and stuff acting out and using former tools that I knew very well right yes so it's a really healthy thing it's helped us quite a bit you know because I wasn't in articulating the things that were upsetting me and sometimes I didn't even know how to identify them and so it's it's a very helpful tool not just for you know someone who's died but also like real relationships that are ongoing and I call all of them people repeat offenders we're all gonna mess up somewhere right so we always have stuff that we get to work on and it's it's a really powerful tool that way also yeah no I love that I use this in my marriage too I don't know where we would be as a couple without these tools frankly and you know and and if you're kind of again if you're new to the podcast and you're like grief recovery what does that have to do with my marriage right here's here's what we'll say okay grief recovery is the title of the method and all of that yes but really the concept almost you can interchange grief recovery with emotional completeness or emotional incompleteness right so I'm either complete or incomplete with that last fight that I had with my wife right I'm only complete or incomplete with you know my son who's 12 and he lied to me right or whatever right I'm either a completer I'm incomplete with that moment that moment in time that memory and and that's what Kira is really talking about is when you get these tools you can really really keep your living relationships super clean and suit and and complete again is the word I would use because if you're incomplete guess what that's sticking to your heart it's weighing you down it's affecting your next conversation with that person right it's affecting how you react um and you know again I'm either complete or incomplete with that person or with that moment in time with that person and would you start thinking like that this work really expands and these tools really become more valuable because you can use them in your daily life yeah and you can feel the incompleteness come in really fast just because I don't live in a world with incompleteness but when it shows up I'm like ooh like I identify it really I want to cleaned up fast because I'm like living there I don't like your bitterness resentment like and that was a world I once lived in but I choose not to now so it's really freeing like it's harder to offend me it's harder you know to upset me because I work really hard to keep those relationships complete if you will yeah yeah no I love it and and to give the listeners an example of where I can accumulate incompleteness around uh you know we've just talked about living relationships but again going going back to my example of my dad let's say that something happens you know with Wyatt and I go to do something that doesn't feel right as a father and then and then I stop and I think well where did I get that idea right and it's like oh my dad gave me that idea and I want to you know parent a little bit differently in this in this case um that I've just discovered a little bit of incompleteness that I wasn't aware of previously around my dad and same thing I want to go and complete that so that I can keep my relationship with my father like I said who has died I want to keep that emotional relationship as positive and happy as I can so a lot of the time incompleteness can happen with someone who has already died and it can be really painful right or it can be make you angry or it can be wow I I didn't realize what a cool thing that so it can be positive and happy too either way right I want to identify it and if if it's happy I want to just kind of honor that and I can just affirm yeah that that's happy but if it is incomplete and painful I want to say goodbye to it right and again we don't have time in this podcast to do this but what Kieran and I are speaking of is once you make this stuff a habit it will not feel comfortable for you to be harboring incompleteness right you will become aware of it quicker and you will want to do something about it because you know that it is negatively affecting the quality of your life right and if if it's in there it's got to go right um so I love that you brought that up about your husband that's so cool now um has your husband done this method uh at all does he know these tools he knows yes doesn't always apply all of them all the time sure sure I mean none of us do but but has he been has he been through the program or just kind of you know knows the tools uh with me yeah so okay so we we worked together on a lot of stuff where this is funny I've been married since I was 18 so we're coming up on our 25th anniversary wow congrats so we've really grown together and we were hard to have these open conversations and do a lot of this this hard stuff together um oh that's cool I know when he started and he was like I don't like I'm hot mess ugly crying him from my training you know and he's like oh what are you doing it's horrible um I think that it has taught us how to be just more present in our marriage um with kids uh we just do better I feel like we've broken a lot of generational stuff which is extraordinary uh yeah and um I wouldn't have it any other way oh that's so cool that's so cool yeah yeah I met Ashley when we were in ninth grade and we weren't we weren't we weren't to we you know we uh we got together kind of in our mid 20s but there's something really cool about knowing someone that young you know I'm really grateful that that's uh gets to be our story too Ashley and I but um now that's so great well um Kira this has been such a cool conversation um you again you really just embody and exude what we're hoping for when people get this certification right you you took it you applied it to your own heart to your own kind of inner circle then you went out and you just are helping people all over the place so you know please keep doing what you're doing and I want to thank you on behalf of everyone at the at the office for just doing this amazing workout there in the world um and where where can people find you if they want to work with you um so if you go to aspens angels dot life that's us um I'm not a dot com because I'm I'm all about living your best life so that was intentional that way I love it I love that and I love that aspens in that in that in that that's beautiful yeah yeah you know I love to hear her name and so I was like you know how I'm gonna guarantee that watch me yeah yeah I love that name too a beautiful name yeah um so aspens aspens angels dot life yes yeah or you can find us on Facebook or on Facebook too um but really the quickest way to get a hold of us is is through the website so yeah and if if you've been inspired by Kira's story just know that you know this method works very beautifully in person but it also works very beautifully online as well so you don't need to be in Billings Montana if you want to work with Kira right I'm sure she'd be happy to have a conversation with you and she could explore details but just know that we work with people all the time uh long distance and this work is if you look at our ratings actually on our programs they're like usually neck and neck in terms of the in-person or the online which I was pleasantly surprised about right um is you can do really powerful work so if if you've really connected with Kira like feel free to look her up and I want to thank everyone for listening and if you think someone could you know listen to this episode and get something out of it please share this episode again if I've if I've been a little bit bold or been a little bit direct on this podcast please give me the grace grace to know that it's really about where my heart is which is I sometimes really want to say the stuff that needs to be said so we're not all waiting around for years or decades because in those years or decades really really bad things can happen for us right um uh and again we'll we don't need to get into that right now but but really it's from the best place and I and I hope you know that um so again Kira thank you so much for your time I'm gonna have you on for episode two at some point because you're doing too much cool stuff we got to talk about other things but um for everyone out there um have a great rest of your day or evening um and we will see you next time thank you Nicole I appreciate it