Overcoming Emotional Roadblocks from 18 Years of Unresolved Grief feat. Rhys Kiaaina

And so in 2019, our church went through a major split and the split happened between me and my best friend. Oh, wow. So not only was it public, you know, privately, it wrecked us, you know, and so after we went through a church split, fortunately, in because of the church, I'm a part of Los Angeles International Church of Christ is pretty large at 500, 5,500 members. We had a grief recovery method specialist in one of the other groups that we have.

And so we had her come in to be able to do some training for us and to see how do we navigate this loss that we just went through. And so it was in our group, which is about 500, about 55 members left with that person. And I was left holding, you know, holding space for all the rest of the members with all of us because we were so close to that brother. And so we were all devastated, especially me and everyone knew I was devastated in it.

And so that's how I came to the grief recovery method is is in that in that time of major heartache, a grief recovery method specialist came and started working with us. But I'm so grateful even that that was on your radar to identify that as a grief event, right, because like you said, correct, splits in churches happen all the time. The other thing that happens to is is pastors and leadership just move on to their next post or whatnot. And that's a massive grief event, right.

And if we don't know how to help people grieving complete their relationship to that pastor that's that who is left guess who's not going to get a fair chance. You know, the poor guy that's coming in that. Yeah. And so I think I love that you guys were even aware that hey, the grief isn't a component of this.

And let me ask you this just because I'm curious, did you guys identify that or did that specialist that you had a connection with kind of identify that for you guys how that come to be where you're like, hey, let's let this person in to talk talk to us about this grief. Oh, we were just we were like, hey, if there's anybody with the title grief something, you're bringing a man because we're lost right now. Gotcha. We were so lost.

We couldn't even tell which way was up, you know, yeah, and she came in and helped us to identify. Hey, what you're feeling is very normal and natural and a lot of us to just relax for a bit, you know, just to kind of hold space to relax and breathe again and and at least somewhat feel safe because in that in that church split, it's not safe at all. Everyone's mistrusting of each other heartbreak, right, heart is broken and kind of all retreat to our own corner while we're trying to navigate forward. And then the other thing that happens like unfortunately two days ago, I got the news that of a really dear family friend, her ex husband, who I haven't spoken to for years and years, but he took his life and you know, we saw it on Facebook and we reached out to her and I love her and honestly, he had a lot of good qualities and there was a time where we hung out all the time as well.

So that's a that was a loss for me and I was definitely feeling really often sad about it for the last couple of days and the other thing that that did was also kind of stir up some other unresolved stuff that I have, right, that I need to look at it. And so that's what happens a lot too, like imagine a church and again, depending on your relationship and your closeness with the person who left or the people that left, you may be just, you know, your heart may be broken into a thousand pieces about that relationship. And a lot of the time grief also, you know, again, stirs up other stuff and we start looking at other stuff. So it really does create a lot of of havoc and chaos in in a group in a community, right, wherever you're at.

So so anyway, so let's get back to this specialist came in to kind of help you and what was that experience like for the church? How, you know, how did that work out? Well, first of all, as she's one of our elders in our congregation, but in, in, so the LA church has made, think about it this way, like the LA church is so big, we're made up of 10 different groups. So she was in an adjacent group.

Yeah. And when we brought her in, she was like elders wife, you know, who was specifically trained by the grief recovery institute. And when she came in, she just talked, she did like a short workshop on grief and grief recovery. And would this be something that fits us?

And so once we all are like, absolutely, let's do this. Yeah, we had a, we had several groups actually meeting with her. And I think the biggest thing that she made us feel is, hey guys, relax in this, right. What you're feeling is normal and natural.

And you can actually recover in this. But in order to recover, we have to kind of revisit some of the things that that you felt in it. And, and then we can move forward like that. So that's been our experience with her.

But she, and for, for me personally, though, because I went through that experience, I actually ended up helping me deal with something that was much bigger in my life that I didn't know was unresolved grief of the death of my grandmother who raised me. So there's almost like a double whammy, right. Like, here's this presenting situation for me personally. And that's how I came into contact with grief recovery.

But then as working with her, she helped me uncover way more things in my life that I need to actually get resolved in. And so one was the death of my grandmother. So it was great. Okay.

Yeah. No, thank you for sharing that. And that's, and that's kind of what I was getting at before, right. A lot of the time the presenting loss.

Again, could just be the presenting loss. But a lot of the time the presenting loss is one loss. And we're not minimizing that. But as we start going through our grief and sorting it out and looking at it, you realize, wow, I was really unresolved with this other loss, this pivotal, you know, loss that that you had with your grandmother.

And offline a little bit, we talked about that concept of unresolved loss. Will you talk a little bit about that kind of language and kind of what what that was for you the first time you came came across it. Yes. And so in grief recovery, the term that is used is unresolved grief.

And I've never heard of unresolved grief before. I've heard of grief. I've heard of anticipated grief, complicated grief. You know, all those types of forms of grief, but I've never heard of unresolved grief.

And what what my specialist didn't realize about me is I'm, I'm a guy who going from childhood to adulthood. If you had to characterize my life, I would say my life is a life of unresolved issues that started back when my mom and dad and I love both of them dearly, right. I love them dearly, but they ended up getting a divorce when I was one year old. But and in our family, we didn't talk about anything.

We did nobody talked about it. Just kind of swept under rug. That's kind of how with their families, it was like that as well. And so from then on, that's how how how my life was is feeling.

I've always felt like, wow, there's some things that are just unresolved. I don't know how that I don't know how to identify it. I don't know how to feel about it, but I don't feel good about it. And I'm just kind of growing up with those unresolved issues.

Yeah, thank you. And and it's really fascinating, right. Over the last maybe 10 or 15 years, you know, you hear anticipatory grief more, you hear a complex grief more complicated grief. We really don't use any of those terms in the institute.

I, you know, I'm a firm believer if you have to make things so complicated, you probably, you know, don't have the right recipe. You know, I found that so many things that have been beneficial to me are not, are not complex. They're simple, right. Now they can be hard to go through.

I mean, grief recovery is hard to go through, but it is not complex, right. It is simple and effective. I may add. So anyway, I just wanted to put that out there.

We're not a big turn. We, you know, we don't just grab the next term to juror because someone wanted to write a book or, you know, look good in academia. We let we keep it very simple grief is grief. You know, my, my mom is 80 years old.

I love my mom to death. You know, she is living with us right now. I love having her around me. And I'm also grieving her being 80 years old.

You know, I remember just the other day I was, you know, telling my kids we have four kids and I was telling them, you know, just how, how vibrant and, and, you know, and how just joyous when I when she was, you know, 35, 40, when I was growing up, just the energy she had, you know, and again, this is nothing to say anything about my mom, other than she's 80, right. And so it's a different relationship they have for her. And I found myself wanting to describe who she was at a different stage in her life, you know, and that kind of thing. And again, I would not call that anticipatory grief.

I'm just calling that grief that our relationship has changed because she's 80 years old. Just like she was grieving at some point, I wasn't 10 years old anymore and I was 20 and being a total idiot, right. And she was having to grieve the change of that 10 year old that she was raising. And now I'm 20, right.

And that's just grief of a change of who coal is at this point. Right. And that's what we're trying to get out there is grief is grief. Right.

Whether the person is alive or who or has died. We have unfinished incomplete grief, unresolved grief with that person. Because grief is really about change, right. That's the that's kind of the secret.

So I'm glad that that term kind of spoke to you because the other connotation right complicated grief just sounds really like you're just stuck with that right. Like, you know, it's just complex. It's complicated. There's no solution.

Yeah, there's no solution. Thank you. But unresolved grief. It's like, oh, can we resolve it.

Yeah, let me show you how right there. It's just. So we're a big fan of that. So I'm glad that that spoke to you.

That's why I wanted to just touch on it a little bit if you're unfamiliar with that term. But that's our whole goal and grief recovery is we we want to give you the tools to walk through that grief to complete what is unfinished. Right. So that grief is not your identity.

Right. You know, now look, there's parts of that your life where grief, you know, did shape who you are. But again, we don't want that to be overshadowing everything else that you want to be. And you know, so anyway, sorry, I'm passing the talking back over to you again, Ray.

So anyway, what's the next step for you? You you kind of saw what it did for your church and then you started doing personal work with this specialist on not only the church break, but also, hey, I have unresolved. I have unresolved grief around my grandmother. Right.

Yes. Yes. And then and then what happened what happened from there? So she was able to because when we were when she was coming in and working with our group, right, as we get to the point where we identify a relationship that we feel very unresolved or unfinished with emotionally.

It was my best friend who was who we had that church break. But then as I was telling my story a little bit, she said, Hey, you know, Reese, I think I think you may want to revisit something with your grandmother. I heard you share something. So maybe you should consider that.

So she had me tell my story about my grandmother and my grandmother, because my mother and father were divorced when I was one at a certain seven or eight years old, my grandmother and grandfather in their twilight years and when they should have been retiring took us in and me and my brother and mom lived with my grandmother. So they kind of they came like my parents and also. So when she passed it was like my parents passed you know, yes, the lady who is I'm close most closest to in the world died and but but what felt so unresolved about that is my grandmother had stage for colon cancer at that time. And because I was a minister.

I don't even know how to this day it went like that, but I became the one who made all the decisions for her not even my mom or her husband, my grandfather. Yeah, so this day I still don't know how that went down, but it's probably because I was a minister and my mom looked at my grandmother looked at me like that. So I made all these decisions. Now in in that time where she had stage for colon cancer, I made the decision or recommended that we go with an aggressive form of chemotherapy and her her oncologist felt great about it, her care team, her PCP felt great about it, our family felt great about it.

And then when we when we actually she got the treatment within two weeks, she died. And then I was left feeling like how did this happen, you know, and I was left feeling like I killed her, right, because I'm the one who recommended all this and I couldn't get over that. And so when I went through grief recovery, that my specialist was talking to me, you can recover in this reason if you want to, okay, there is solutions to this. And I told her, there's no way you're going to be able to help me in this.

Yeah, there's no way you're going to be able to help me to get through this. I don't I don't really believe this. And so let me ask you this too. Okay, and started to interrupt, but I'm just very curious when you when you're seeing this grief recovery specialist, how much time had passed between the death of your grandmother and when you're looking at doing this work with this specialist.

Excellent question. So I was living in unresolved grief for 18 years. Wow. 2001 2001 and then the church split happened in 2019 and between that time, I was carrying all this grief for 18 years. That's also a reason why I became a grief recovery method specialist anyway.

Yep, got you. And I want to point that out for listeners, right, because so much of what society teaches is that time heals. Right. No, no action required between us and and the work we need to do just time heals and then, you know, we figured out.

And I'm willing to bet over those 18 years, you're of service to, you know, your wife and your kids and your community and your church and you're doing a bunch of stuff. So I am. I'm guessing that, you know, your grandmother is not entering your heart 24, 7 all the time over those 18 years. But when, when that specialist recommends, maybe you look at this loss, you know, you're like, wow, I've been carrying that around for 18 years.

It didn't go anywhere. Time didn't just heal it, right. Yes. And I'm so grateful that you had that opportunity to kind of see that and to look at that.

Now, you know, here's another thing society will do, right. Because again, a lot of the time our friends and family want to comfort us and they want to help us not as feel as bad as we feel. Right. And so it's not a, you know, it's a loving thing.

The problem is this is probably what a lot of people do is they go, Reese, you know, what the doctor and tell you is there's no good options. And statistically, this is when she was going to die. And you couldn't have made that choice, right. And what we're trying to do is we're trying to comfort Reese intellectually when his heart is broken because his grandmother died.

I'm sorry if you, I don't know if it was two weeks, two weeks after the choice, right. And it's like, oh, so what we're doing in grief recovery is again, plenty of people have had their shot at trying to help Reese feel better by just intellectually explaining away. Hey, there was no good options. There was no good choices.

It's not you. But if his heart believes that to be the case, we have to help him on that heart level, right. That's our job. And so I'm so glad that you had an opportunity to look at it through that lens because a lot of people just aren't trained in looking at it through that lens.

Yeah, game changer, right. Everyone's helping me intellectually hardly anybody's helping me emotionally. And so I needed somebody to kind of walk with me a bit, you know, that kind of helped me emotionally kind of talk through. I like to have this saying when it comes to healing, right, because I used to think, how am I supposed to heal in this.

And yes, I think the term or a phrase that I that I use with with my clients is if you can feel it, you can heal it. I love that. I love that. Absolutely.

But but it requires you feeling it and getting congruent with the emotions. It authentically what it actually is. Right. So if you if you share your feelings, but it's not congruent.

It's not exactly how you actually feel in real time. Then you're not able to let it go. But once you can once you can do it in real time. And it's exactly how you feel with the same emotion.

You can actually let that go. Yes. Yes. That's where the healing takes place.

And if you can recall, will you walk me through again, sometimes the minute we finished the kind of last action of grief recovery. There's a different feeling for some of us. It's weeks later. Can you recall kind of how you felt after doing that work around your grandmother's death?

Oh, I felt so relieved to be quite well. First of all, I was in shock, right, because I didn't think I could actually recover. Even even the specialist was reassuring me. I say, I even told her, I don't think it's going to happen.

But once I focus more on the work than the recovery, because it's easy to go, am I recovering? Am I transforming? And then you don't, because you're not really into the work. So the more you dive into the work, the recovery just takes care of itself.

Oh, that's beautiful. So what ended up happening is so right after I finished my completion letter and finished the program, I actually was going home, you know, to Hawaii to visit my family. And in those 18 years, I could not visit my grandmother's grave either, because I was too guilty, regretful, and would just weep. I couldn't even get near her grave, you know.

And so I was telling my specialist, hey, I'm going to be going. I'm a little nervous because I want to visit my grandmother's grave. And so when I went to go visit my grandmother's grave, my specialist just told me, just, just be yourself when you go and see how you feel when you get there. So I got there.

And I told her, I sent her a picture because I had such an amazing encounter when I was there. When I got there, she's in a niche, you know, in a wall with grandfather in a place of heroes, you know, there, it's called punchball, where people who are in the military are buried there. So as a spouse, she could be buried there as well. So she's in a niche inside of a wall.

But because there were 18 years I've gone by, I couldn't find where my grandmother was. There's so many more people who have passed. Yeah. Well, I went and, you know, set a prayer to God.

I don't need, I can't even find my grandmother right now. Help me to find my grandmother. And then right after that prayer, I walk to where all the niches are. And in the, it's all covered by trees.

And in the midst of those trees, there's one beam of light that went to one name on a wall. Wow. Okay. And I took pictures of this, you know, because I couldn't believe it.

Right. There's one beam of light sunlight that went through the trees that went to one plaque on the wall. And that plaque was my grandmother. And so I, you know, I don't even know what to say.

What wow. I cried. Yeah. It was one of those experiences where I was like, wow.

And I got to be with my grandmother. And I did it feel guilty because I felt like I did my best in it. You know, but, and I needed to forgive myself also. But the program helped me to get resolved about things in the relationship that I could tell her.

You know, yes. And so when that will explain, I, I was at the grave goal. Right. Yes.

I was at the grave, texting my specialist this picture of this light on my grandmother's and I said, you're not going to believe this. But thank you for believing in me and, and, and reassuring me that the grief recovery method can help me to get over something that was unresolved for 18 years. I'm excited to announce our premium in person certification training individuals who have a desire to help other people with grief and loss join us for a four day event that you will remember forever. This is based on the proven four day certification we've done before.

The curriculum is the same. But now you're going to get a ton of stories and education and training from Sandy. These are tangible tools that help people in any area of their life. 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 missingly. 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 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 transformative. It was such a rich time of learning and engaging, listening to people's stories, being present, being focused on 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. Wow. Well, I am giving you a hug brother.

I wish I was in person with you because I'd give you a big hug. I so thank you for being willing to share that with our listeners. What a beautiful story. Something I just thought of as you're talking, it hurts my heart to think how many people, and I'm going to say millions and millions of people have that really brutal, unresolved grief around some choice that they made.

Or something that that again, they they just have told themselves, I just have to bury that as deep as I can. It will never be resolved. Right. And they're not, they're not using that language.

But that that's the plan is buried as deep as I can. There's no sorting that out. There's no healing from that. I just got a drive on.

Right. Right. And for you, that's 18 years past, right, where it was like, this is just an unfixable feeling. This is an unhealable feeling for me.

And then 18 years later, you get these new tools. Right. And it's like, I love that you think you're specialist, but I'm sure you're specialist because I, you know, I'm a specialist too, obviously. I know she was probably replying back to you.

Thank you for being willing to do the work. That's absolutely. Thank you for being willing to stay in your heart long enough to actually feel the results of grief recovery because like you touched on earlier, some people are not willing to go from here down here and stay here long enough to feel the results of grief recovery. You know, I mean, I've had people where, you know, we're doing some actions in the, in the method and the minute they do the action, you know, they're like, do I feel better?

I'm not sure. Right. And it's like, and that's just sad because that that's not how grief recovery is done. Right.

The longer we stay up there, the harder it is to actually feel the results in the feel sense of rest resolution, you know, so, you know, anyway, wow, I got goosebumps when you're telling that story. Whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, okay, so if you're, if you're okay with it, let's pivot to you've had this experience, you know, you're like, okay, I'm assuming you're like, okay, I see the power of grief recovery. And, you know, and you're already a helper, you're already a caregiver, you're already a spiritual leader. So what, when and what led you to certification, how long after, you know, you're, you're work with, with that specialist with your grandmother's loss, how, you know, what's the next step for you and grief recovery?

Yeah, so 2019 is the one I went through the course, right. And then I didn't even consider becoming a specialist at that time because I was in the, you know, church space and I've been a minister and I've led fairly large churches and quite a bit of churches. Yeah, but in 2024, my wife and I were at that point where we're kind of transitioning out of the ministry wanted to transition out of the ministry and try different things. So my wife ended up going into becoming an assistant program director for adults with disabilities.

I, however, ended up becoming a consultant in ministry. So instead of leading a church, I'd be working with leaderships that leader church. Okay, so more of a consultant. But, but in doing that, I thought, hey, you know, I, what on I consider being a grief recovery method specialist?

So in 2024, right when I kind of stepped out of the ministry and I was kind of looking for a consulting job, I ended up getting a consultant job. But right before that, I, I did certification. Okay. You know, and I thought, because of my skill set that I have in ministry, it kind of flows just naturally into becoming a grief recovery specialist.

So and because of my back, my, that situation with my grandmother, I don't want people, I don't want anybody to have to wait that long. It robs you of your quality of life. That's right. Your quality of life goes out the door when you let unresolved grief just take over your life because you feel stuck in it.

So that's how I, that's how I became a grief recovery method specialist. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I am glad you did because we're again, we were talking offline on some of the work you're doing and you're clearly helping a lot of people with this method.

And you know, as a Christian and as a, as a, you know, someone who tends church regularly. Yes. This is on my mind a lot because again, there, there's another program out there that is in the vast majority of churches versus grief recovery. And, you know, and that's I think a good thing.

I think there's good. I'm glad that there's different options for people. But, you know, it is on my mind a lot more how to get grief recovery into more churches because I've seen it again, not only heal the individual, but when you have these new tools on how to communicate emotionally, how to apologize, how to forgive, you know, on the grief recovery kind of wavelength. I've seen it also just heal churches and have churches come together.

And, you know, if you, if you have 25 30 40% of your congregation go through grief recovery. You will not believe how that church operates in terms of how people treat each other, how they, how they can resolve conflict, how they can identify things that are unresolved and for, you know, forgive someone for that in the way we teach, which is indirectly. So we don't have bigger fights. But again, that where I don't want to get too much in the weeds here, but, you know, where I'm going with this is, you know, you know, Reese, you have this very powerful, powerful experience with your grandmother.

And then, but 2019 to 2024 that still a long time before getting certified. Right. Was it was it because you're so busy with all of your other obligations as a pastor, you're just like, there's no way I can take on another thing. Absolutely.

Right. Yeah. My responsibilities were big at that time. Yeah.

Plus, I was still kind of healing through the fracture, right. The rupture, relationally, not only with, with my friend, but with quite a few members in the church that we had because I was close to that. So there's all these fractured relationships, yeah, to work through it on top of all my other responsibilities. Yeah, it wasn't on my radar at that time.

Only when I got out of the ministry that I think, man, I would love to do this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's obviously I am impatient. And I want more and more people out there helping other people with the grief for every method. But a lot of the time we do find it is this pathway where I have this belief in the method because I've seen what it has done for myself. And at some point down the line, it is the right time for me to use these tools.

And I have time, you know, and the capability to help other people, right. And it's how that flows, right. But my mind goes to, you know, could you have sent a couple of other people, you know, to get certified to implement it in the church in those five years. Again, this is more of a just.

But, you know, but, but the, but again, the tricky part about that is they, they have to have buy in with the method. And now again, a lot of the time, you know, nine out of 10 times that does happen during the certification training because people are going through a loss and then they see the power of it for them and everyone else in that room. But, you know, but again, I think one of the best pathways to certification is going through a community program working with a specialist as you did having that belief there. And then showing up for the four days certification.

And you already have the fate of faith that this stuff works, right. So you're all in versus spending the first day or day and a half, you know, resistant or sorting out what this stuff is. And then you're just going to be able to do it because you're just then you're just soaking it in for four days. Right.

So that's a great path towards certification as a sidebar. Okay. Well, if you're cool with it, Reese, please tell us, you know, again, you're in this massive market of Los Angeles. How are you using the method to help people, you know, how are you getting the word out about your services?

Are you doing one on ones? Are you doing groups? What, what is your grief recovery practice look like right now? Yeah, that's awesome.

Thank you. So I do both right. I do one on one support. I do group support.

I currently worked with the two churches so far, one in the Metro LA areas like South, South LA, but I've also worked with one in Temecula, which is kind of high desert, but I were in a half away from downtown LA. And I've run a group out there. And so I do it all by word of mouth, right, because relationally, but I also am on on social media. I have a, you know, I had a social media person kind of put some things together for me for my business.

And then I've run some ads. And, you know, I've just gotten people like like that through different clients like that. And not only if I had clients all throughout the United States, which has been so awesome. You know, it's been pretty cool.

But I'm also been internationally. So I've had clients in London, Jamaica, Canada, Norway, you know, Norway. I mean, I don't even know where Norway is. But I completed one client over there.

And they love it. I've had talks with I'm actually I could get into Africa. I have a couple of people who are open to Africa, but we're kind of working out the details on that. It's actually kind of difficult with with the internet and different things there.

You know, so that's how I've gotten out either through social media or different church settings or even public speaking gigs, right, like public speaking engagements. Yeah, I get asked to do so. In fact, I'm doing one in February. I have a grief workshop that I'm doing with a organization for Asian Americans called Leap Connect.

And I'm running a grief recovery session workshop for them. Cool. I'm going to be talking about the method, you know, because to me, it has to be experiential in my experience. Like, yes, if they're in a workshop, and it's just all here, right.

And we don't have somehow make it interactive. Yeah, they're never going to experience what it feels like to actually have some kind of recovery. Yeah, no, I love that. And I think one thing that is underutilized with our specialist in terms of marketing is ads.

So, you know, so I love that you're getting, you know, you're getting clients and working with people through Facebook ads. It has a majority of those international clients. Has that been through your social media ads? Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. And if you don't mind telling us, you know, again, I think this will be interesting for specialists who are listening. What, like, what is, what has been successful around running ads?

You know, what are you talking about in the ads? And then after that is a call that you have with the person, but how does that process, you know, look like from ad to someone working with you? Yeah. So I actually work with a company, right.

I think it's called their called prospect ignite where I bought software from them. And basically they helped me to develop my own ad. Yeah. And, you know, like my daughters are so good with social media, right?

Like, yeah, like they can do it in five seconds. Yeah. So she made, she made like a small picture with grief recovery. A nice one for me.

And then I'll, I'll put the language to it, work with this company. And through this company, we basically put my ads on Facebook or Instagram. Yeah. And then there's a form that you can, once you click on my ad, there's a form that comes up in the, I offer a 30 minute free 30 minute consultation.

Yeah. So when they sign up, it goes, you know, they, it goes to my calendar and I just follow up with people on my calendar. Yeah. I love that.

So, so you're doing mostly copy and kind of photo driven ads versus video ads. Correct. Right now. Okay.

Okay. And in terms of, again, I think this is such a, this is, this is an avenue more specialist should explore, right? Clearly you found success doing this. And but it takes them, you know, you, you, you gotta have a buttoned up process, right?

You gotta have, you know, the people who fill out the form going to the right place. It has to go into the calendar, you know, and, and you have to have kind of a tech stack to do that. We are working at the institute to provide more of that to, to, to, to a specialist because that can be daunting. But, but anyway, I love that you're reaching people all over the world with, with this ad.

And then, and then being able to, again, have a call or a Zoom with them and really reassure them, oh, this is, this is the right fit for me. Where have you found, you know, resistance or, you know, when you, and what, if you have any tips on, you know, what has helped people sign up, right? Go, go kind of pass that threshold of, okay, I'm going to have a call with Reese and I'm going to sign up. Any wisdom that you can kind of impart with specialists on, you know, yeah, that stuff.

Excellent question, Cole. You know, my first, my first year, I would say my first six months when, when I was doing ads and I got like over 200 people to prospects to follow up with, you know, just real people that are going through loss, right? And I think the thing that's important as, and when I'm on a consultation is they have to feel like you can, you can talk all about the, how this is going to help you. All of that, right?

But again, if you're speaking to their intellect, it's going to miss. Because what they're really feeling is their heart broken in it. So you have to somehow connect with their heart through listening, through validating and, and showing how grief recovery, the value that it brings, right? This, this will help you to heal your heart.

Yep. And that's a big difference, you know, because we're talking to them emotionally rather than intellectually. And that's probably the biggest jump from me. And I think men can struggle with that.

I struggle with it. Absolutely. Oh, you literally talk about why this is going to be helpful for you. Right?

Yes. Yes. Instead of talking about how did this make you feel? Yeah.

We can talk about the who, what, when, where, and why something happened in your loss. But at the end of the day, if I could help them to understand how, how did this make you feel? What options are, do you have right now on moving forward? Yeah.

Yeah. And I'd like to make a suggestion on how the grief recovery method could be a viable option for you that could, that could help tremendously moving forward. Because we want you to move forward with your loss, with the loss of your loved one. We don't want you to leave them behind, right?

We want them to take all your great memories with you, minus the pain and suffering and regret and guilt that is there sometimes. Yeah. So I think that issue is helping connect with them emotionally on a call so that that's, that's where, you know, connection is at. Yes.

Yes. What, that's such great advice. What, one of the things that popped out to me is clearly, you know, you, you were trained in 2024. It's brand, it's barely 2026.

But, but you speak with the language. I mean, it's effortless, right? You understand the concepts. You understand the language.

Well, after training, can you talk us to us a little bit about how you gained that kind of familiarity and, and, and kind of, kind of the grasp of these concepts did, like, did you read the book? Did you, did you go to this specialist resource center and dig into the support stuff? Did you read blogs? Did you watch podcasts?

Like, how did you just kind of, you know, ingrain this work in you? Yeah. I mean, I think first and foremost, stick with the book, right? The, the, the, what, what we have in the book that I think sometimes people don't quite grasp is, this is world class education, right?

Yes. And so you have to internalize this first. If you don't internalize it, it's not going to connect with others, right? Like, you have to be fired up about it in order to kind of teach it, you know?

So I think the world class education, it's enough to just go with the book. Like, if you stick to the book, and I've had to read the read the book several times, you know, because there's so many things to miss in it. Like, you're, you might be in a certain stage in life where you're like, oh, wow, that resonates with me. But then there's a host of other things that, that you're overlooking.

So if you read it a couple times, you know, I'm reading it again right now. Yeah. But then also going to the specialist resource center, you know, on our site to be able to get more training on it. And, and, and as well as talking to other specialists, what, what is it that they do?

You don't know what, what, how are they building their business like that and reaching people? And then also reading other books, you know, reading other books that help you get better at connecting with other people. I think, I think that's the biggest thing that I've learned in it is, is look at our world class education, learn that. But then learn, you need skills to connect with people emotionally.

Yes. Right. So listening is important, validated is important. And I'm a terrible listener by my nature.

I'm a terrible listener. My wife said it before when we were younger in her marriage. Fortunately, she thinks I'm a better listener now, but she's, you know, most people think they're great listeners, but they're often times, I know in my case, I was for, for much of my adult life, I was listening to. I started to.

And I started to, to, to respond rather than listening to understand, so if I can help them, if I can understand them, it opens the whole door, it opens the door, where now it's so the grief recovery method becomes a bridge right to their to their. we can visually help a bridge form by listening, validating, and empathizing with people and sharing your own stories too. Like they need to hear how you were hurt in it. Like you're devastated in it. Yeah, yeah.

Then they can relate to that. And you have a better chance at connection in that rather than, you know, then it becomes about making us like trying to get a client or like, ah, that's, it's more of the connection. Yeah, no, that's that again, these are gems that you're that you're throwing out there. One of the, it reminds me I was, I was in a training a couple months back.

And, you know, amazing group, everyone there will be great specialists. But it was early on and one of the gentlemen was asking questions that he was curious about, right? But I had to kind of shut it down because it was leading the person, you know, in a completely wrong direction, right? It was just what he was curious about, right?

As the listener and, you know, and I had to remind everyone in the group, like we're going to, we want to be a heart with ears with like a minimal to no mouth. And really, if you can just keep this one question replaying in the back of your head as you're listening to someone, you, you cannot go wrong. And that is, what is this person trying to get me to hear? What did they want me to know?

What did they want me to understand? Not what I'm curious about in the relationship. And if you just keep putting that in the back of your ear head, like you will understand and gain insight onto where they are unresolved, right? It's like that specialist listening to you and understanding, oh, grandma, but grandma wasn't just grandma.

Grandma was almost mom in a lot of ways in a really, you know, pivotal time. And I also heard that he's like, you know, said, this is just something I can't recover from. And she's just scanning your story to feel where the real unfinished grief is. And right, and it's like, as specialists, there's no input needed by us, right?

The less is more in terms of that, right? I, it's really interesting that we're speaking. I have a dear friend of mine, we coach a team together here in Idaho for my kids and his kids. And he lost his grandmother, you know?

But what I remember hearing months and months before is that grandma raised him, right? So I, and again, I just put that in the back of my head and, you know, kind of in a text message, he mentioned, oh, I've been dealing with my grandmother's estate, right? Which tells me she passed, which I wasn't aware of. And I'm going to approach this as loving as I can because I understand he really just lost his mom there by all intents and purposes, right?

Because because I, again, I just was a heart with the ears listening, shocking stuff away by being in the moment, not worrying about my response. And now, you know, again, I don't know how many guys reached out to him. And I don't think probably many because so often, it's like, oh, this is a grown man, grandma dies, grandpa dies, it's just kind of is what it is. That's part of life, right?

And it's like we're moving on. But I knew kind of the, you know, the seriousness of the heartbreak around that, just because I listened, months earlier, around what that relationship probably meant and what this loss probably means to him, right? And again, all I did was just reply with, I can't imagine what you're going through. And I would, you know, if you ever want to talk, I'm here to just kind of, you can talk and all listen.

And, you know, and that'll be that. And so again, I don't know what will ever happen. But I just love trying to be that type of a friend to my buddies. And, you know, to anyone in my life, I like to be that person that is picking up on probably the grief and the heartbreak that other people aren't picking up as much, right?

You know, again, it's, and it's just, it's just parallel from your story. That's why I'm mentioning it just because it was like, oh, you know, a lot of the time when we lose grandma or grandpa, depending on our childhood, you know, that may be the loss of mom or dad, right? For that person, depending on their situation. And so, sorry, I don't know how we got a way off track.

That was great. In terms of, you know, what you're talking about, which is great, which is, hey, we have to connect with them emotionally. We have to hear them. We don't lead with the whizzing method.

We don't lead with the actions like, that's all irrelevant to them. We have to connect with them. I'll wear their hat, which is, hey, I'm bleeding to death emotionally. And can you, do you know how to speak that language?

You know, and do you know how to, how do you, do you know how to deliver first aid on people bleeding to death emotionally? You know, and that's where we can't hide a little bit of our story, right? Again, self-disclosure is another very key piece of this work. And not about self-disclosure to make it about me, but to show you, I also understand what it's like to have unfinished heartbreak and feel like my heart has been in a thousand pieces.

And again, so many people are not doing that in the caregiving world anymore, right? It's becoming more sterile, in my opinion. And less, hey, I'm gonna tell you a little bit about me so that we can connect on a heart level, you know? So I love that you're doing that, is what I'm saying.

Well, I love the, and I remember the guy who, I forgot his name, but he works with the institute. And he's one of the guys that I think help people get, when you sign up for a certification, he's the one that sends all the information out. Oh, Mike, Mike Strix? Yes, Mike's great.

Mike was awesome, you know? And basically what he told me as a specialist, he goes, hey, if there's one thing that I would impart on you as a specialist, Reese is, be a heart with the ears. Yep. Be a heart with the ears, you're gonna do well in this, which is important, right?

Like it's a huge thing. I translate that as, be present, be as present as I can and listen. Yes. And by the way, yeah, if you're listening to this, you know how, you know how you're gonna make it really easy for yourself to be present?

Don't worry about what your reply is. Sure. You know, if you, if you very much have zero care about having some witty remark at the end of their sentences, it's a lot easier to be in the moment, right? If you just say every now and again, what are they trying to get me to hear?

You'll actually just listen, you know? So I love that. That's such a key piece of this. The other thing I wanted to touch on a little bit, Reese, is the other thing you mentioned, and you use the word fired up.

And I totally agree, you have to be fired up about this work. You have to exude confidence, and you have to be the example that people are looking at. And I think sometimes that is a piece of this, is a lot of specialists, right? And no, this is not a judgment on them, but a lot of specialists, because of years and years of unresolved grief, right?

And because no one had tools, grief has kind of became their identity, right? And they courageously, regardless of that, come and do this work and learn the method, but they still have a coat of grief surrounding their energy and how they're showing up, you know? And it's like some specialists who are new, and I'm sorry that I don't make the rules, but some of specialists just need to do more personal work and keep lifting that cloud off of them and keep relentlessly doing their own personal work. So at some point, you know, again, when we're talking to someone else, they will just say, I want what that person has.

I want that energy. I want that excitement. I want that passion for life. Like that's a piece of it, right?

You know, and so I think that's something to be aware of. I mean, like again, if, you know, within two minutes of talking a Reese before we hit record button, I'm like, oh, I'd work with this dude. Right? Yeah, I'm like, maybe he can help me with my grief.

You know, that's very kind of you. No, it's the truth, you know? And like, and that is, that's what you want as a specialist. You want, hey, I trust this person.

They're wanting to go where I want to go. They're connecting with me emotionally. They clearly have done their own personal work, you know, they are excited about life as well. Those are the, that's, you know, again, people can read that within a minute or two, right?

I mean, we are still as much as we want to pretend we're very highly evolved human beings. We are at the very core level. We're still animals and we are still very good at reading nonverbal, right? Right.

And that's what I think people forget is like, there is so much nonverbal going on when you're talking to, you know, you're on a consultation call or you're talking to someone at the airport about this work or, hey, what do you do? You know, there's so much nonverbal going on that you have to, you got to believe in yourself and you got to believe in this work. And that, that doesn't happen overnight. And it doesn't happen after one four day certification, right?

Sometimes people, you know, their critique is, oh, well, you're going to train someone in four days to help people. And it's like, yeah, that's a start point. I'm not, we're not saying that after four days they're coming out and they're, you know, the highest level specialist in the world. It's a process.

But yeah, a start point, I can give people the tools to help very quickly, you know, so anyway, back to you. I'm ranting now. No, Reese, if you could, you know, somebody of, of day or two out of certification, what would you tell them, hey, this is what I would be doing if I could do it over again, right out of certification? Or maybe you say, well, exactly what you did, but what would the advice be to new specialist?

Well, first of all, I would tell them, do more work internally. I would not say just dive right in, right? I go, I think you have to have do several losses, you know, because there's different degrees of the loss, right? Like my grandmother's one was huge, you know, and then the best friend who I had a rupture with was right up there, but not quite.

Yeah. So there's different losses that you have that require certain healing to come from it. And so that, I think that's what builds your confidence. Yes.

Because the more losses you complete, the more confident you're going to get it doing this work, right? Because you're, because everyone is at different levels, right? Whatever loss that they have. So that's the first thing I would say.

The second thing I would say is, as you're, as you're a new specialist, get help. Go to the specialist resource center and watch videos, you know, because you're, because you're diving into some, like, like, you could, there's several things you have to get good at at this, right? One is the actual work itself and the grief recovery method program. But then there's the marketing side.

There's the business side of it. Like for me, right? This is, this is so funny. I'm not the business guy.

I'm 30 years in ministry. So go if you're, if you're, if you're, and I were on a consultation and you're like, I can't really afford this, I give it to you for free, right? And then my coach, my, my business coach will be like, bro, you're going to starve like that. No, you can't do that.

You've got to, you have to grow as a minister to become a business person now because there is a business side of it. Yeah. Yeah. So learn, you can go to the specialist resource center in it and learn that side as well.

You can get coaching there. You can get how to do ads, stuff like that, right? So I would say learn as much as you can in your first year as you try. OK.

And the third thing I would say is try just, you don't have to be perfect in order to do it, right? Just get it out there and because you're going to make mistakes, you're going to say some stuff that you shouldn't. Yeah. Yeah.

But if you're humble in it, you'll, you'll, you can recover and you can stay connected to the, you know, the person you're work with, but try even when you're not 100% ready to yet. Just try. That's what I would say. Those three things.

Oh, I love that. That is great advice. And so I appreciate that. And, you know, and I can't believe it.

We're at the 52 minute mark. We will definitely have you back, my friend. You know, again, I love interviewing people. I haven't met yet.

I leave so fired up after these podcasts where it's like, wow, there's another guy just changing lives and, and, and, you know, I'm carrying this message out there. So thank you on behalf of my dad and Russell Friedman and all these amazing people that came before us. Like thank you so much for continuing this work on. And I want to say this, if you're listening and I know we got pretty into the weeds about how to be a specialist and certification in this episode, you know, that'll happen time to time, but I want you to remember this.

Make no mistake. Reese came to this work as a person who had unresolved grief and his heart was broken. I came to this work as it as somebody that had unresolved grief and my heart was broken, right? So yes, we're talking about leading this work with others, but just know that everyone that starts down this path understands and starts from a place where we are sorting out our own loss, right?

And so if this work is interesting to you, you know, my take away from this conversation will be look at how dedicated our specialists are to being good at their craft, to making sure you have a good experience, to make sure you feel heard, to make sure that we help you equip you with the tools to, again, carry your grief forward, not leave the person behind, but our goal is to help you resolve and let go of the pain, right? So that you can have a better emotional and again, and a better spiritual relationship to that person. So again, if it felt a little bit like a promotion for certification, I'm sorry, but really it was more of a promotion of the grief recovery method and the people who will be leading you through this method, right? We get to work with the coolest people with the biggest hearts and reach your testament to that, sir.

Oh, thank you. Yeah. Can I share one last thing? Of course, but how I think.

So when I think of the grief recovery method, I think of the word, what it means to me is I think of the word Aloha. So I'm from Hawaii, right? And the word Aloha, most people know the word Aloha to mean hello or goodbye. But the actual meaning of the word Aloha means breath of life.

How I feel about the grief recovery method is that it's like the breath of life where two ancient Hawaiians, when they greet each other, right? They greet each other so closely where right before they meet their heads almost greet each other and they both take in breath and they take in each other's breath. And that signifies, I give you my best. I give you love.

I give you faith. I give you encouragement. I give you empowerment. Compassion.

I give you all that is there to give you life. To me, that's what the grief recovery method has done for me. It's given me life. And in turn, I'm here to give life to others as well.

So thank you so much, Cole, for the grief recovery method, to your father, to the institute. I'm so happy to be part of the team with grief recovery. Yeah. No, thank you, bud.

How beautifully said. Thank you for sharing that. And how can people, if they're inspired to work with you, how can they find your ways? How can they work with you?

Please, please, kind of let me know where we can find you. Peacewithreast.com. Oh, maybe the best one. I've never heard.

That's my wish. Peacewithreast.com. But how you spell it is important. So it's peacewithrhys.com.

So down at the bottom, you can see his first name there, and it's spelled that way. Man, what a cool URL. And I'm sure you didn't have to pay that much for it, because that's an interesting way to spell a reach, right? Yeah, I did it.

Awesome. Awesome. OK, well, again, if you're listening and you're inspired to do some work to heal from past pain, get in touch with Reese. I guarantee you you're going to be in good hands.

And if you want to learn more about what we do, the book is a great place to start. You can always reach out to the institute, or again, if you want to get right into the work, give Reese a call and get going. And until next time, again, thank you for listening. This is the Feel Free Again podcast.

And like, subscribe, share, leave a review, send this to people that you think would benefit from this message. And we will see you next time. Thanks, and have a great day or evening, or whenever you're listening to this. Thank you.