How One Mother Lost Her Son, Sister, and Marriage, But Turned Tragedy Into Purpose

But, you know, in the early days, over the years of raising him, I had really had to search outside of the mainstream model to help him with his mental health challenges. And I had become a Reiki healer, I had become a hypnotherapist, I had, you know, learned different tools, skills in the energy medicine field, because all they were really offering him to move through his challenges was a severe OCD. I mean, there were many labels that they gave him, but, you know, was medicine and therapy and neither one of those were hitting the mark. And when we started to introduce a more holistic approach to his mental health challenges, we saw marked change.

And so for the first, I don't know, 10 years, it was actually during COVID. So flash forward 10 years later, you know, I had started this nonprofit and I learned when I became a grief recovery, when I delved into your work that the nonprofit actually was a stir. You know, it was a way for me to not to not feel the feelings and to get really busy and, and to avoid a lot of my, my grief. And even though I had a tremendous tool set, I mean, I'm a yoga practitioner, I was seeing healers, I, the nonprofit in one way, it saved my life, because I don't think I likely would have survived it in the way that I did, had I not started that nonprofit.

So I didn't come to you until 10 years after he died. And I had simultaneously lost my sister Candace within the year after Benjamin to cancer. And then my other sister who was my best friend in life, she was like a second mother to me. And she was also my sister.

And she died of a one in a million disease called CJD, the human variation of mad cow. It came out of the blue. And then my mom died on the fifth annual Ben speaks concert out of the blue. And my marriage dissolved.

So there were five major losses. And then COVID hit. And right before COVID, my only living sister's husband took his life. And I was actually on Tony Robbins.

And because he did this big thing, you know, on computers that people could join. And I've always been about empowerment, Ben speaks is all about empowerment. And he was on there. And he his words rang to me, he said, life isn't happening to you, it is happening happening for you.

And I was really conflicted because I had a healing studio, it had shut down as a result of COVID. What am I going to do with my life moving forward? And I remembered a psychic telling me one time that I was going to be in grief work. And I literally after hearing Tony and hearing and remembering that I went online, and you guys were the first ones to pop up.

And I signed up right away. And here I am, six, seven years later, however long it's been since COVID. And I've facilitated literally hundreds of mostly mothers who have lost children. Wow, wow.

Thank you for sharing all of that, Judy. And I'm giving you a hug over. I'm giving you a hug over over this this tool. You know, this is really when I wish we were in, in person.

But I again, I appreciate you telling telling us your story. And I, you know, so let me let me start here, just because again, I want to, for new listeners, we have a term called stirbs, right? And Judy mentioned it and and that stands for short term and energy relieving behaviors, okay. And, and that's anything we do to kind of release some of the steam in the tea kettle, when we when when feelings of grief come up, we can do these things consciously, we can do these things subconsciously.

And they can they can run the gamut of things, right? Some very obvious ones would be drinking or retail therapy, shopping, or gaming or pornography, or, and sometimes they can be viewed societally as positive things. So I'm an ultra marathoner, or I crossfit every day, or you know, whatever. So the point is, though, is when feelings are churning inside of us, we go to something to lead to release a pressure valve.

So they're they work right for a little short term amount of time, and then we got to go do them again. So you can really, we call it disturbing out kind of you can stir about on anything. Another another piece of this is we talk about myths about grief or things that we learned growing up about how to deal with grief as it arises, right. And one of those major ones that we teach each other is keep busy. got to keep busy, you know, and and times a component there too, and time will heal.

So you know, if you put two and two together, you say, Well, if I just keep busy long enough for time to heal, no one tell me how much time but if I just keep busy for long enough for time to heal, I'll be okay. And the problem is, right? A lot of us come to grief recovery five years after loss 10 years after loss 20 years after loss, right? So we do not agree with this concept of time alone magically healing us.

And like you said, Judy, I have found many, many tools in my life that have benefited my life and helped me with my quality of my life. And grief recovery is not the only game in town, right? I've done yoga with my wife. I've done, you know, many different things in my life that have benefited me.

I love I love, you know, hiking, I love going to the gym. But in terms of grief, specifically, right, I have never found a tool like the grief recovery. There's nothing better than this. I can tell you that personally.

There you go. You know, and so I was surprised. Yeah, I was shocked. Oh, go ahead.

No, please tell me. Because when I first looked at it, it seemed so basic and and so so mainstream kind of or, you know, because I'm very outside of the box, obviously, you know, and so everything that I've turned to has been from an energy medicine perspective and really, you know, looking at the body and being able to look through the energy centers of the body and and and connect the dots to where the pain points are in the body, etc. and move energy in that way. I call it, you know, emptying the clutter drawer of emotions. And so, you know, and obviously, grief is a big heart center destroyer.

You know, you're just broken open, you know, you're deeply injured and and hurt. And so, you know, I also am aware as a healer that so much of what we carry throughout life and even more so since doing grief recovery work and facilitating for others is that the subconscious plays such a huge role. And once I delved into your work, it's when I really realized that this was somehow really effective at helping to let go of the narrative, let go of the old story and simultaneously release the emotional backpack that we hold around grief, you know, all of the resentments, all of the anger and fear and hurt is somehow able to be released, which I found magical and surprising that it was seemingly that easy. hear you, I think a lot of people move past our work, because they, you know, they either read the grief recovery handbook, or they hear a little bit about it, and they go, that's too simple.

It can't work, right. And, you know, I think that's the secret. It's, it's profound, because it is simple, it's accessible to people. And I've had many kind of energy work type people in trainings.

And when we get to some of the final actions of the method, they've mentioned, you can see the energy, it is an energy transfer, it's an energy release, right? There is a lot of that stuff going on, which is really cool. And so anyway, so just I did want to touch on that short term energy relieving behaviors. And that is a good thing, right?

So you know, so what I have found over the years is I have seen many, many people who were grieving a loss go on to create amazing organizations that benefited the world that benefited other people that stopped tragic types of losses from happening again, again, I could name you dozens and dozens. And we are all for that, by the way, what what we would love, though, is for each and every one of those grievers who stood those organizations up to also experience the tools of grief recovery, to get complete with the pain around that relationship. You know, I was just I was just looking over some of our copy on our site. And, you know, some places we say, you know, complete our relationship.

And I've never liked that. It's never sat right with me, because, again, after someone we love dies, there is an emotional relationship that continues on. There's a spiritual relationship that continues on for many people. 100%. And we, you know, yeah, and Judy, yeah.

And, and so we want to make sure that we can maintain those with them with the most beauty and love that we can, which means really, our only aim with grief recovery is completing the pain in the relationship. That's right. And so that's what we want to do for again, for organization leaders do that in addition to building this great organization, it won't take away from the organization, but it may help you with the quality of your life and kind of how you move forward and how you interact with other family members and, you know, and all this kind of stuff, because, you know, and I don't know why it works this way. And I'd love to talk about this with you as well, Judy.

But it's like, for me, the 2020s have been just like loss after loss after loss. And it sounds like, you know, 2009 and 2010s were that for you. And it feels like that happens a lot as grief can be overwhelming and one loss and then it's another. And even from those losses, the way other loved ones handle it or something at the funeral or the decisions made.

Now we have loss of trust in other people. So, you know, again, the term out there is compounding grief, grief compounds. We would agree with that. We, you know, we have a little bit of a critique on stuff like that.

But anyway, I just wanted to touch on that real quick. And I want to turn the talking rock back to you, Judy. But I just wanted to mention that is if you have one of these organizations, Bravo, I love that. But don't let that be your distraction from your own work, because, you know, like you probably know, it's really easy to do that.

Yeah, no, I've completed the pain around 20 relationships. Wow. Beautiful. Since I started this process.

Yes. Yeah. I've completed it started with my daughter, Jenna. I mean, she's she's living on this planet.

But after losing her brother, she was only 16 years old. And she went into years of drug and alcohol abuse and suicide ideation herself. And thankfully, she's five years sober today. And it was quite a journey.

You know, I was always in a state of fear. And one of the big lines on my lost history graph toward the end of the graph when I first did this work was the fear of losing my other two children, because they both chose to use big stirbs to manage their way through the pain of their brother. She was 16. He my older son was 21.

It's just a really tough time in life for kids at that age. And to lose Ben in the way that they did. It was, you know, it was really, really challenging. Yeah.

And I can say that today because I have done this work that I don't live in fear of losing my kids. You know, and my relationship with my daughter, I say this to anyone that I'm working with. And as I'm sharing my own experience through this work, which I love about that, that we get to do that to use our own experience, to share our own experience as an example for people as they're moving through this process. And I find it very helpful for the clients that I have to be able to do that.

But, you know, she was I mean, I was in such a codependent state with her. I was in constant fear. I was completely reactive to her. She could push my buttons in a nanosecond.

And after the grief recovery work, I can tell you that today my daughter is sober, independent, respectful, loving. We have a great relationship. It's not perfect, but it's come huge distances. And I and I give the full credit to this.

Wow. Wow. I love to hear that they're doing good, by the way. And I'm sober as well.

And I crashed and burned with serves stirbs early on as well. So I love to hear that they're doing well. And, you know, one thing I so appreciate and what I'm what I'm really hearing from you, Judy, is the the amount of awareness that you have over the different dynamics in the relationship. The other thing I love is the personal accountability and the honesty that you that you can just you know, it just feels like it rolls right out of you.

And coming out of you know, I just finished a certification on Monday, so I worked with 11 amazing human beings. And one of the things that a lot of folks discovered in that training was how beneficial this work can be when when you are working on on living relationships. Right. When you're working on your spouse or when you're working on your children.

And it is not a judgment on the relationship. In other words, sometimes people think, oh, if I do grief recovery, I'm admitting I have a strained marriage or if I do grief recovery on an adult child, it means I'm grieving something or that child's not doing good. It's nothing like that. It's about completing whatever is unfinished from the past.

So I clear out room to be in the moment with that person. Right. Right. Exactly.

And those relationships are mirrors from what occurred in the past. Yeah. You know, any anything that we carry forward from our childhood is going to show up in our relationships with the people we're close. Yeah.

And they're there for us to see that. Yes. So, you know, to be able to clear that and release it and let it go through the very powerful process of forgiveness and taking accountability, it allows the relationship to have, you know, a fresh start. Yes.

And and and for the behaviors that that were occurring to change. Yeah. You know, I call it changing the dance. You know, you're changing the dance.

You're not leaving the relationship. Yeah. You're letting what didn't work go and you're stepping into a whole new opportunity for change. Yeah, I love that.

That's a great way to put it, leaving the dance. And, you know, and the forgiveness part is so key. And then the other part, again, that I think a lot of people benefit from is really identifying all the apologies they need to make, because a lot of the time through time and through memories, we can really focus on the other person's part. Right.

And through the power of the relationship graph, again, something that seems so simple in the grief recovery handbook. But when you have a grief recovery specialist next to you or you have a trainer like myself or, you know, it is we can help you go much, much deeper than just the book. And the exercise really comes alive and becomes very, very beneficial because of the awareness you'll get. Right.

And more than the awareness that you'll get. Right. Ultimately, we're about completing feelings. Right.

There are many things in this world where you will pay or devote time to get more awareness. And that can feel freeing for a second. But our critique of that would be awareness just equals awareness. Awareness does not equal completion of what feels unfinished.

Right. And that's where I think this work is hard to market for a better term. Right. It's like people don't really understand.

I see people all the time when I run ads or on social media, they're like completion, what is that? That's impossible. And it's kind of like, yeah, I know you have to kind of feel it before you can you can touch on it. And so anyway, yeah, that's that's all that's all valid stuff.

But again, the relationship graph is so powerful to allow people awareness, both of their part and the forgiveness they need to make. But not only the forgiveness, the apologies. Right. Yeah, absolutely.

And I remember with my daughter, you know, going and seeing her. And of course, you guys suggest that it's OK to go and make amends, just like you would if you were in any, you know, sober program, AA, whatever, very similar to that. But, you know, you're not letting them know what you're giving them for. You're just going and making amends.

And I went up to her and I told her, I said, you know, I did this work and and I became very aware of some things that I've heard you say to me for many years. And I'm really aware of how that that those things have impacted you. And I want you to know how sorry I am. And she turned to me and started bawling and she said, Mom, I've already forgiven you.

She goes, I hope you can forgive me for all the things that I've done to you. And I said, the baby I already have. Wow. Well, good.

And that was that. Oh, as someone as someone who has graphed and written letters and done all the actions of this method to pretty much everyone in my immediate family, what will you know, what a gift, what a gift for you guys to have those tools. Yeah. Like to be able to all three of my kids, my ex husband.

I'm in a great relationship with my ex husband. Yeah. We're like really good friends. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, we get along phenomenal. Yeah. Amazing.

And it was the grief recovery method is why. Yep. Yep. Well, and I noticed, too, Michael is is Michael's your son that that is running.

Ben speaks. Is that right? Yes. He's the president.

I mean, and how cool is that? Right. Because when we start, obviously, in my work, too, it's kind of a family business. And without these tools, honestly, without grief recovery tools, I don't know.

I don't know if my dad and I could have worked together. Right. Because and so I'm sure that that, you know, these tools are helping you guys as well. And what a what a what a blessing that that your son is helping, you know, lead that.

So, Judy, would you mind telling us more about Ben speaks? It's Ben speaks dot org. Correct. That's correct.

Can you like please just let us know all the good stuff you're doing there, please. Thank you. I appreciate that. So we have the mission of Ben speaks is to provide positive channels of expression and empowerment for a whole person approached wellness.

Yeah. Let's break that down. That's exciting. Kids and families away from the box, the box of medicine and therapy.

I mean, those are both effective tools, but there's a bajillion tools in the toolbox. Yeah. And everybody needs different tools. And what we discovered with Benjamin between 15 and 18 until he took his life was that when we started to integrate things like yoga and Reiki and meditation and the power of affirmations, the power of words and the power of the inner bully that was living in his head and started to give language to all that because I was already becoming an energy medicine healer.

You know, my kids got early language around that. And we saw Mark's change in Benjamin. He went from being, you know, on 80 milligrams of Prozac to five milligrams of Prozac and from being overweight from the medicine to growing tall and gorgeous. And he was working with a trainer at the time.

And he just got his life pulled together. Yeah. Unfortunately for us, he went to school on the day he took his life and he had been using marijuana as a way to self cope. And they smelled it on him and they, he had just been invited to a prom by a beautiful girl and they took away the prom.

And so, you know, Ben came home and in a fleeting moment of despair and did his own life. Yeah. A fleeting moment of despair and life was hard for Ben. So, you know, we got it.

So the nonprofit was born. And for the first many years I went into schools bringing a program called the power of choice. Again, I'm a healer. I know that thoughts, words, feelings, actions, reactions, and choices create reality.

And so that was really the message of Ben Speaks. And then when we, so things shifted over time. Again, COVID was the shift for us, you know, lo and behold, somehow we made it as a small nonprofit to COVID 10, 10 year mark and then COVID hit. And then it became even harder for a nonprofit, but we decided to delve into the other side, which is the grief recovery.

It's called Survive to Thrive with Ben Speaks. And we found a grantor that fully funds it for us. offering grief recovery for moms or dads. It definitely attracts mothers, of course, more than dads. In fact, I have yet to have a dad and I've been doing this for three years now.

Unfortunately, it doesn't surprise me, but yeah, go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. We also offer sound healings with Reiki hands on Reiki healers at various studios in the Metro West area.

So, you know, we, we, we try to bring as many tools as we can in language to families as we can to support them in the grief journey. We also have a safe in-house through the Samaritans at our resource office. So that's our grief recovery services. But on the youth side, we went from the power of choice.

So I know I mentioned that I had been with a trainer when he was alive and that trainer reached out to me three years ago now. And he called me on the phone and he said, I know I haven't talked to you since Ben died, but he came to me in a dream. And he, he is currently the wellness coordinator for the state of Massachusetts. And he gives wellness programming to all the first responders and municipal police in the state.

And he told me that Ben told him he wanted us to start Ben's challenge. Flash forward. Here we are three years later. Jason is my co-speaker.

We've piloted in a couple of schools. We just finished piloting Ben's challenge, which are these eight wellness challenges with the power of choice language in a major high school here in Massachusetts. And we're earmarked to go into four more next year. We're also marketing to colleges.

And we're very, very excited, very proud of our work. Wow. Yeah, that, that is very exciting and yeah, incredible. And you know, it's, it's one of those things where I have been really been thinking about expanding out again, I'm biased, but I'm like, you know, the first stop for anyone grieving in my opinion is a grief recovery method, but I do see so many other things that are helpful in conjunction with that, right.

Physical fitness. I'm also very, very as I sit being showered by blue light right now, I'm very cognizant of, and doing a lot of research on non-native EMFs and the amount of blue light and LEDs we're under and circadian rhythm and, you know, and again, what, what we're eating and the poison that they love to feed us and, you know, and the list kind of goes on and on. You just named three of the challenges. Three of the challenges.

Move your body. You are what you eat. You are what you eat. The power of water.

You got to stay hydrated. Unplug. Okay. Yeah, there you go.

Don't be showered with blue light. Stand tall, body language really matters. How you treat yourself and others really matters. You know, confidence.

Yep. Change your channel. That's the biggest one, especially for the kids who are struggling today. Got to learn to really shift your mindset.

Yeah. And the grief recovery, you know, I mean, I would love to get the grief recovery into schools. It's not an easy feat to get into schools at all. Um, but that's on my list.

Change your channel and then random acts of kindness and gratitude. Yep. 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 want to help people.

I'm this missing information, this missing link. I'm an advocate for the grieving process because I didn't know if that's like, why would you not tell somebody to heal? There's going to be some tears in there and 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. 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. Well, and remind me, too, offline, Judy, I want to get you in touch with some some school systems, some school districts that have that have done private trainings with us.

And we've trained many people in their school districts. And, you know, they're they're slowly but surely are being accepted in different parts of the country. There are school systems that get it, you know, and it is kind of reassuring to me. But I hear what you're saying on your side as well.

Yeah. Any way that I can help with that, I'd be happy to. Yeah. Cool.

Cool. And, you know, because, again, and just for people listening, we have the book When Children Grief and we have a format designed around that called Helping Children with Loss. And it is designed for parents and caregivers and people who have relationships with children to help give them helpful information. But really what it's also doing is educating the adults, because, you know, I could do all this amazing work with a child, but mom or dad will undo the work in the car ride home if they bring all the tools that society brings to the table around grief.

Right. And earlier in the episode, we talked about myths about grief. And so we really quickly discovered that kids are actually intuitively all about this work. They've signed up for it.

Right. It's kind of how they came out of the womb. They want to tell the truth about themselves. have access to all the gamut of emotions. They want to be able to process those things.

It's us big people that get in the way of that over and over and over that, frankly, need to be educated. And so, you know, that's just one of those those things I wanted to point out right there is like I love that you're doing that schoolwork or so. Excuse me. You're doing that work in the schools for children.

But guys, we desperately have to educate all those people who are taking care of those kids at school. And we have to educate the people who are taking care of those kids when they get home. Right. The moms and the dads and the grandpas and the grandmas and the aunts and the uncles like it's about education.

Totally do. I really believe at the root of mental illness is grief. I mean, you know, I really do. I believe that if that if we were able to bring this work to, you know, families, that we would see just incredible leaps forward around addressing our mental health crisis.

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. And I wouldn't I wouldn't argue with anything you just said. The amount of people I'll give you a really bad example, but I was just watching the show alone with my family. And it's a fun show for us to watch because basically 10 people are stranded in the wilderness and you have to wait it out and beat everyone else and you get 10 items.

Right. And and you're truly alone out there until you tap out. So people go 30. Let me talk about Survivor.

Yeah, it's like Survivor, but more realistic. It's like it's less game showy than Survivor. It's truly you. Here's you get 10 items and you're just by yourself, not in a community.

You're by yourself until you call them and say, I'm out of here. Right. And the last person standing in the wilderness wins, essentially. Right.

So here's here's what I've seen so many times is you get someone and you take away their smartphone and you take away their stirbs, basically. Right. And you put them in a teepee in the middle of the wilderness. I shouldn't laugh because it's sad.

But but you will see grief enter their hearts and they start talking about, you know, my dad died four years ago and he just he I keep thinking about him. And I and they a lot of people make the call that they're done because of grief entering their mind and their heart when they have that type of isolation. Right. And that's right.

Now, here's what happens. Here's why I'm yelling at my TV, because they they love to use the words depression. They love to use the words trauma. The word I rarely ever hear them say is grief.

Right. And to your example, you know, this this the last episode I just saw, the guy literally talks about the death of his father. Right. And all of the communications he wish he could have made, it's right out of the grief recovery handbook.

There it is. Yet. Yet. Yet never did we say on television this is grief.

Right. He kept talking about depression and depression. And so anyway, my point is, is there is so much misdiagnosis in the world that is unresolved grief. Right.

The the ACE, the ACE study is famous. You talk to anyone. And again, I think the ACE study, bravo. We started having the conversation, but we were around we've been around for 50 years.

We were around when the ACE study came out. And yet again. Right. We wanted to talk about everything from grief, from our perspective, that a lot of that is a ranking of unresolved grief.

Right. But again, we're not talking like that and we're not we're not we're not pointing to agree. We are we are we're afraid of grief. Yeah.

You know, working with mothers is extraordinarily challenging. It's another layer of challenging when it comes to grief, because mothers want to hold on to the grief as some kind of badge for, you know, if I if I let this grief go, then that means that I don't love my child or that I'm not in enough pain to show how much I love my child or, you know, we're really it's they're very hard to facilitate. Yeah. And the best person to facilitate grieving mothers is a mother who's a breather who has done the work.

I can say that 100 percent for sure. Yeah. You know, it's very difficult to be understood by somebody who has never been through this kind of an experience. Yeah.

And and it's easy to say that grief is natural and normal. And I agree that that's true. And yet for a grieving mother is against the natural order. And is it really I mean, I would argue that never with a grieving mother would I argue that.

But, you know, I mean, children's hospitals are full of children dying every day. So, you know, kids die. And but it's it's an extra layer of challenging. I couldn't agree more.

And again, I don't want to I don't want to rank effectiveness. And I am sure I'm sure a lot of what you're saying is true. And I and I also just for other specialists out there listening, I also want to say, you know, I have never had that loss. Right.

And I've been asked directly, have you ever had that loss? Do you know how that feels? Right. And I have to answer how I was trained to answer, which is honestly, I can't imagine what that was like.

I have not had that loss. What I can tell you is this method. What what that was born out of the loss of the of a child. their brother. Right.

And John James created this method around the loss of a child. And I have personally worked with hundreds of people with that unimaginable loss. And it is still very, very possible to very effectively help people with that type of loss, even if you haven't had that loss. The advantage that that I have in the majority of the grief recovery work I do, it's in a group group environment.

And so generally, there's, you know, 10 to 20 other people in that room. And and that that helps people to look around and see all of these other people who are working very hard to release things. It gives other people permission to release things. And, you know, and one again, one of the things that that we need to do that that I'll do till the day I die is make it possible for every greever, no matter the type of loss, to understand that there is a possibility of recovery, that you can have a wonderful life, that you can let go of this pain, because sometimes different types of loss we get in these camps and there's this ranking system and you don't understand this is a life sentence of misery.

And, you know, in different camps, there are a lot of unhelpful, hurtful, trapping information put out there. And so, you know, it's like it's it's all those variables. Yeah. Yeah.

People buy into and believe wholeheartedly. They do. And, you know, and again, part of grief is a community. And so when you find a community, you feel accepted and loved and not judged.

Right. And but the problem is a lot of those communities, the the the thing they share is the pain. So it becomes problematic to release that pain, because if again, if I'm attached to this community and all these people are so kind and nice and we all share the pain and I don't have pain or I'm looking at how to let go of that pain, I'm kind of a pariah in that group. Right.

And it's tough. It didn't work for me. You know, I I very early in the early days of losing Benjamin went to, you know, several grief groups and. And I just felt every time I left, I'm like, I was just listening to everybody's painful story that didn't help me at all.

Yeah. And I stepped away from it and, you know, I went to see healers and I did all the things that I knew how to do until I found you guys. But I didn't find those groups helpful. Yeah, at all.

Yeah. Yeah. We we you know, we we hear that story a lot. I and.

And, you know, again, it's it's just it's challenging because in this work, even proposing using the word recovery, proposing that you can feel better, people can get very angry, very angry at that concept or that idea. And frankly, those folks, you know, we don't work with we work with them when they when they adjust their position or we, you know, like you said, we get a lot of grievers who look at a support group or attend and, you know, and they see people and it's 10 or 15 or 20 years after the loss. And and the pain is still right there. And they're like, I just can't do that.

These are all nice people, but I just can't do this. looking for other tools, you know, so, you know, anyway, you know, you can't get the benefit of anything unless you do the work and you have to be ready to do the work. You can't make anybody do this. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, if they're not ready, they're not ready. Yeah.

If the mindset is in that space, you're not going to be able to reach them. So, yeah. You know, I often start with eight. We make space for eight online.

OK. Through Ben Speaks and usually eight will sign up and by the end, there's five. Yeah, that sounds right. Because, you know, and part of it is that, you know, it's fully funded, so there's not as much skin in the game.

Yes. That's a factor, unfortunately. That's definitely a factor, but that's OK. I focus on who's ready to do the work.

Yeah. And being there to support them through that process. And it's amazing what happens inside of this group work when, you know, a group of grievers come together. And again, I work with mostly mothers and in this case, it's mothers.

And there's friendships that will last for a lifetime. Yeah. And nobody else knows how they feel because they haven't experienced it. So that is such a huge piece.

And I can tell you, one of the biggest things of work that you provide that really hits home with mothers, a big aha moment for them is when they realize that what they're feeling and describing as guilt is actually regret. Yes. Yes. And that they have done nothing with the intention to harm their child.

Yeah. 100 percent. And that is that is a major recovery moment. Yeah, that's right. Because guilt, if you're listening and you haven't heard of this concept, if you were to define guilt in most dictionaries, there's a deliberate intention of harming.

Right. And 99 percent of the time for grievers, nothing could be further from the truth. We're dealing with our children. We were not deliberately intending to harm them.

Right. The truth is, a lot of the time we are regretful. And more specifically, we wish things could have happened different, better or more. We wish we could have made different, better or more choices.

We wish that our child could have done something different, better or more. Those are the things that we can actually help people complete when you use the wrong word guilt, because, again, we didn't have a deliberate intention of harming someone. It is very, very trapping. And it is this is a lifeline that is so beautiful and so helpful to to to use with people.

I am so glad you brought this up, Judy, because I do I see that all the time, specifically with grieving moms and dads. I know exactly what you're talking about. We have to educate and get people off of the word guilt. Now, we also do work with grievers who are in prison and sometimes they want to work on the relationship with the person they victimized.

And guilt could be an appropriate word for that scenario. And we're going to help them with the most powerful apologies you've ever seen. OK, so we we have room to help people where guilt is the right word. But I'm telling you guys, moms, dads and most grievers guilt, there was not a deliberate intention of harming.

Right. We just wish that day could have been different or we wish we would have made different choices apparent or we wish we would have known information when when we're making those decisions. Those are the things that, you know, people, again, unknowingly use the wrong word of guilt. And that's that's hard to shake that that feeling.

It is. It's it's a thought and it's a feeling and it lands in the body. You know, motions get stuck in the body, their energy, and they're meant to be in motion. You use the word trapped.

I call it, you know, stuck in the cells, literally, and it becomes dis-ease and ultimately it can become disease. I mean, you know, you hold on to guilt long enough, it can become. You know. Yes, something something in your breast or, you know, something in your lungs or, you know, pain in your shoulders, it shows up in pain points in the body.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's often how I help people recognize their emotions is by pointing to, you know, where are you feeling right now in your body? Yeah, because certain emotions get lodged in certain places and certainly grief is everything heart chakra, everything in the heart.

Yeah. Yeah. And we've had you know, we'd have we've had doctors in the training backing up what you're saying. Right.

There there has been many different types of doctors that that would would agree with these statements. Right. Grief at times may not play the 100 percent or have the the exact role, but it creates a really wonderful environment for bad stuff to thrive in your body and grow and reproduce and all that, you know. So it's it's a factor that we're not looking at.

Certainly not the medical system, isn't it? I mean, I've been in rooms. Yeah, I've had boardrooms of doctors almost laugh me out of the boardroom because they just were so certain they knew everything they needed to know about this topic, you know, and it's very frustrating. But we just keep fighting a good fight and we keep working with who is willing to work with us, you know, and and it's nice, I mean, to have now evidence based, you know, in the title that that is helpful.

And again, we just we get too many reviews from real grieving people. We have too many videos talking about how this helps. Right. And so and by the way, I love to know that you are doing this work online as well.

So Ben speaks dot org and people can go there and they can apply for kind of a scholarship from from your grant and do this work. That's so cool. Our next one starts in May. We will give it to anybody who lives in the metro area within the footprint of the grantor first.

OK. Yeah, that makes sense. So if they if they put in it, it's it's just a you know, it's just a it's not even a full application. It's just their name, their information, and we'll get in touch with them.

Yeah. And you know, if there's room in that in that program for them, they you know, and they're one of the first eight to get there. Yep. They'll they'll be put in the program.

OK. OK, awesome. So if you're after I have a conversation, I always do an intake with them and make sure that they're ready for it. Yep.

Yep. And help them understand that they have to show up one percent. Yep. Yep.

And that and that concepts in the grief recovery handbook, too. And and yeah. That's a great thing. I do the same thing.

I want I want to have calls and a little conversation with people just to make sure that, again, they're looking to take actions. They're ready. They're ready to take responsibility for their grief and. Yep.

And to take those actions and and to go through the process. Yep. Even though it's going to be it's going to be challenging. Yeah, absolutely.

And and I just wanted to I just want to clarify something. We're not saying that you need to take responsibility for the cause of the event or the cause of the death. Right. Sometimes we have feelings that we're partly responsible.

Sometimes we're across the country and it had nothing to do with us. What we're talking about is taking responsibility for how we are moving forward, taking responsibility for what what are we going to do to work on releasing this pain? Right. That's the responsibility we're looking for when people sign up, because a lot of the time, grievers are stuck in the cause of the of what happened.

Right. And that's a very, very hard place to work from. It's kind of like quicksand where you are just stuck. If you're 100 percent and just around stuck in what happened, it's very hard to move forward.

So what we're looking is for people to shift past that into, OK, I need to take ownership of how I'm going to get out of this quicksand. Right. And that's kind of what Judy and I are talking about when we're having calls to see where people are at. And, you know, the other thing I just want to touch on to Judy with your with your program in schools.

And, you know, you talked about kind of mindfulness. What was the term you use? Kind of the reset for them? Change your channel.

Change your channel. I just I remembered I wanted to come back to that. I think it's so important that you're teaching kids that as well. Sometimes people don't understand there's a huge amount of training we cover around present moment skills and grief recovery, you know, and that's a very similar that's a very adjacent topic to what Judy's talking about.

Right. Is when we're grieving and a lot of the time just how life has hit us. We don't have good present moment skills and we are out in the past often or we're out in the future often. Or we hover between the two and we rarely are in the present moment.

I know that was the case for me when I came to grief recovery. And so I just want people to be mindful of that, too, is happiness can be found very often in the present moment and not that often in the past and not that often in the future. And it's a concept that's a lot easier to get better at and to build that habit when you have released rocks in your backpack. So like Judy said, you know, I think you said 20 or 30 you know, I'm probably at that, too.

We did this thing called the loss history graph and we just started getting stuff out of our backpack. And all of a sudden I have the capability to actually have better present moment skills because I don't I'm not being pulled in a bunch of different ways by my emotions from the past, you know, and way better relationships with the people in front of me. Yeah, because I can be present. Right.

And and so what beautiful stuff you're looking to do to educate the children. And again, if you're an adult listening to this podcast, please let us help you with these skills, too, so you can also be a leader for those kids looking to you. You know, so we are we are running up on time, Judy. But, you know, again, please, please let us know.

Well, we've covered it, but let's say it again. Right. Ben speaks to work. You can get in touch with Judy there.

She works with a lot of moms who have lost children. Right. And so if you have had that loss, I think it would be a really safe step for you to reach out to Judy. Right.

And she is offers program. She's good at this. She's done a lot of work in this. So please, please, please.

If there's a glimmering of hope in anything we're talking about, take that action to get in touch with Judy. I think you could probably find her on our website in the directory or just go right to Ben speaks dot org and look her up there. Judy, before we close, what would you like to say to people out there? Oh, gosh.

Just keep on keeping on. I mean, I think I think that, you know, we're all on the spectrum in any given moment, any one of us could be on the spectrum of mental health challenges at any given moment. And and, you know, just buoy yourself up with as many tools as you can. I think we need tools.

We need awareness. I like that you use the word awareness a lot. You know, just be aware of your environment and what you do have the power to control and what you don't have the power to control. Yeah.

And, you know, that's pretty much what we have. We can't control anything else. We can't control the people around us. We can't control the weather.

We can't control the events that are happening in the world. We can only take responsibility for our own energy and our own being. And, you know, whatever you have to do to learn the skills to do that, I think, you know, make all the difference. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, are the difference between survival and survival. Mm hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, well said. And I want that for everyone.

I want that for everyone. And I want that for our future children in particular. Yeah. you know, I think that the direction that we're going right now is a little scary for so many people. And I don't think it has to be.

I think if if we, you know, really shift our perspective and find the way forward, that is going to be coming from a place of centeredness and presence that that we can really have a very different outcome than what we're seeing outside of us now. Yes. Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

And yeah, it's and you mentioned something early choice. Yeah. Yeah. Personal choice.

And and you mentioned something earlier that I didn't touch on, but I would love this opportunity really quickly. You mentioned, you know, currently right now, I think we are missing a lot of diagnoses of grief. I think we are calling it a lot of different things. And of course, there are other things out there.

I don't don't mishear me. But a lot of this stuff that that that we are seeing is grief. And unfortunately, right now, it seems like the solutions are drugs or talk therapy. I work with many, many amazing therapists, so don't misunderstand me here.

But my critique on the modern talk therapy, mental health route is that we are not seeing a lot of things as grief when they are grief. And we are not focusing on help helping people complete the pain around that grief. It's not something that's taught in in school. And when you go to school to become a therapist or a counselor, you are not covering much ground on grief.

That's why we have a certification training. In part, we we help a lot of therapists get a new tool set and bravo to all the work you're doing. But you please, please, please look into this tool set to help your clients with grief specifically. And more importantly than grief, grief, recovery, completing painful emotions from their past, completing the pain associated with the relationship.

That is what we need to look at, because traditional therapy is great for talking about it, exploring and ruminating it. And sometimes those things are helpful, but it is not designed to help people complete the pain that they have been living with sometimes for years and years and years. And so what you will find is if you called 20 therapists from our directory that were that were honorable enough to understand that they had a hole in their game and they came and got certified, I think you would find that probably most of those 20 people would say this is an amazing tool that I use regularly when my client identifies a grief event. And more importantly, now that I'm educated, I see grief in a bunch of different areas.

I didn't even qualify as grief before. And this is a tool I use all the time. So if you're a mental health professional, please look into these tools in addition to the good work you're doing. But this was designed for one thing and one thing alone.

It's helping people complete their grief, move through their grief. Right. So, you know, again, Judy, thank you so much for being on this. I so enjoyed this. conversation.

I want to say, yeah, and I want to express again my gratitude for you finding this work, doing this work for you and your heart, you know, and then also just having such a big heart that you want to help a bunch of other people. So we're we were behind you 100 percent. I love what you're doing with your organization. So, again, thank you for your time.

Thank you. And you, too. Yeah. I love your heart, too.

And the work that you guys are doing. Awesome. It's life changing. Awesome.

It's been life changing for me. I'm very grateful. Awesome. Thank you.

Yeah. And for everyone listening, thank you. Please share this. Please subscribe.

Please leave a review. We need to get this out. We desperately need to get this work out there to more people. And so, you know, thank you.

And and until next time, this is the Feel Free Again podcast. Thank you.