BONUS: Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance: Gentle Ways to Stay Connected, Navigate “Move On” Pressure, and Get Unstuck

[TRANSCRIPT BELOW]

What this video covers

-The pressure to “move on” and why grief has no deadline

-Unhelpful comments (“at least…”)—and what to say instead

-How to advocate for yourself and set kind boundaries

-Why action (not time alone) creates relief in grief

-Gentle, practical ways to remember and stay connected to your baby

-Supporting each other as partners without “being strong” for one another

 

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome + prayer + why this space matters

02:00 Emily’s story and why she serves grievers

06:30 Pregnancy/infant loss: the unique loneliness and “move on” messaging

08:15 Myth-busting: “be strong for each other” (what healthy support looks like)

11:00 Grief timelines: why they vary + action vs. time

16:00 Moving forward while taking your baby with you (continuing bonds)

18:00 Language swap: what helpers can say; self-advocacy scripts

22:00 Why friends go quiet + the health of tears

24:30 Don’t suffer in silence: find safe community + a simple check-in system

26:30 Gentle remembrance ideas you can do in 5–30 minutes

33:00 Connection lives in small, honest moments

36:00 Where to start: The Grief Recovery Method (why Emily recommends it)

42:00 A story of hope without rushing grief

43:30 Your next step + free ways to connect

 

 

Key takeaways

-Grief is not linear and has no deadline.

-“Be strong for each other” often blocks real connection; choose honest support instead.

-Time helps, but action creates relief: small, doable steps matter.

-Continuing bonds are healthy: you can carry your baby with you into your future.

-You’re allowed to set boundaries and correct “at least…” language with kindness.

 

Helpful scripts

For supporters: “I’m so sorry for your loss. I’d love to hear their name if you’d like to share. How can I support you—meals, errands, or simply sitting with you?”

Self-advocacy: “I know you’re trying to help, but when you say ‘at least…’ it’s hard to hear. What helps is ___.”

Boundary: “I’m not taking advice today. Listening would be really helpful.”

 

Gentle remembrance ideas (choose one)

5 minutes: light a candle and say their name/initials; hand on heart, 3 slow breaths; play “their” song

15–30 minutes: write a short letter (“I wish we had… I will carry you by…”); start a keepsake box; choose a living symbol (plant/flower); drop a stone in a special bowl for each memory

 

Ongoing rituals: a necklace/ring/bracelet as a touchstone; sunrise walk or prayer on due dates; simple shared language with safe people (“Today is a heavy day. Please hold space.”)

 

Family ideas: 2-minute circle—each person shares a word; sibling drawings; a blessing (“May your memory be a blessing to me…”)

 

Nature as sanctuary: notice “hellos”—a breeze, butterfly, light through leaves

 

Resources mentioned

The Grief Recovery Method (Emily’s go-to starting point)

Coaching & community support with Emily (DM to explore your exact next step)

 

Free next step

Live class: The Four Seasons of Grief — Thursday, Oct 16 at 1:00 PM CT (get a simple, one-thing focus based on your season). Replay will be available—DM “SEASONS” for details.

If this helped

 

Comment with your baby’s name/initials if you’d like, or share one gentle practice you’re trying this week. You’re not alone. 💛

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TRANSCRIPT:

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance
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Emily: [00:00:00] Was encouraged to do it was something I just decided at the end of last week needed to be done, which is providing a space for people who have experienced pregnancy or infant loss, or people who feel that they are grieving in silence and that no one no one understands. Okay, I am gonna start by kicking us off in prayer.

For those of you who don't know me, I am a faith-based life coach. And I like to start with prayer. And so here we go. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for our time together and just the moment to acknowledge and honor the babies and the losses in our life that we have experienced. And those souls who have gone, been gone too soon, and to acknowledge the grief and the hurt and the pain that moms and dads [00:01:00] are, and family members have experienced with this sort of loss.

We ask for your comfort. We ask for your peace and ultimately your guidance for the future. In Jesus name we pray, amen. Okay, so for those of you who do not know me, I'm gonna give a quick introduction and a really big fat disclaimer. Okay. So my intro, my name is Emily Tanner. I was widowed in 2021, just three weeks short of what would've been our 20th wedding anniversary.

And. My husband and I were sick with COVID that morphed to double pneumonia. And ultimately he would go into ICU for 11 days and I would be called in to be told that he was brain dead and that tests need to be run, decisions need to be made. And ultimately I ended up having to explain to my four [00:02:00] teenagers that we had together that their dad was not gonna come home.

And so I have been on this crazy wild ride over the last, over four years now of trying to figure out life as a widow and a solo mom and trying not only to learn about grief. To figure it out for myself, but to help the people, all the people that continue to reach out to me asking for help, asking what they can do to support other people who are going through grief.

And there was a time, I'm not gonna share the lengthy version of my story, but there was a time where I just, I wanted to give up. I felt like. I could see myself dying from a broken heart because life wasn't getting better and I felt hollow on the inside, and I didn't know if what the point of any of it was.

But I decided for my kids and for my [00:03:00] family that I would learn like stubbornly, dig my heels in, learn everything I could about grief, and figure out not only how to get through grief and through the pain. But also how to build a life that I could enjoy again. And so I didn't know if that was gonna be possible.

But ultimately I would end up talking with thousands of widows, interviewing hundreds of them, launching The Brave Widow Show, which is an online podcast, and then founding The Brave Widow Coaching and Community, which I have been running for the past almost three years now, and I'm happy to share. I do love my life again today.

I do experience moments of joy and peace and gratitude in a way that I never. Really thought was possible in the beginning, and I get to help now. Widows and widowers navigate grief, heal their heart, and start to rebuild their life completely from [00:04:00] scratch. And I did end up, people always wanna know, so I did end up getting remarried just a year and a half ago and gaining a bonus son in the process.

And I've done all sorts of wonderful, amazing things like becoming a real estate investor, traveling to five new countries, getting to meet Dave Ramsey in person, and thanking him for the work that he had done, which allowed me to be in the position that I was in when I was widowed. Today I wanna talk with you about the grief that people experience with pregnancy and infant loss because October is actually pregnant pregnancy and infant loss remembrance.

And October 15th, which is today, is pregnancy and infant loss, like Remembrance Day. And I didn't really see a space for that. And I'm gonna give you a really big disclaimer, okay? I've not personally experienced pregnancy loss or infant loss. [00:05:00] Many of my clients have many of them multiple times through miscarriages.

And so to me, what I have learned from working with my clients and from people that I know in my life who have experienced this, is that it often is a sort of grief that people expect you to move on from. And move on from quickly where people tell you things like you're still young. You could have another one.

Here in six weeks you can try again. You have other kids, so you just need to be grateful for them. Or things like, oh, God just needed another little angel. God just needed that little human being, so he just called him up to heaven. Things that are not helpful, things that are hurtful and things that are well-meaning, but leave people feeling like they are suffering in silence.

That they must grieve in silence, and that they're ultimately [00:06:00] left unseen, unheard. And lonely. And so one of the programs that I use in my coaching program, one of the tools that I use is right here called the Grief Recovery Method. And as part of Grief Recovery Method, one of the things that we do is we make a literal graph of all of the losses that we've experienced throughout our life.

And many of my clients who may be in their forties, fifties, sixties, even seventies, when they're making their graph, they look at the pregnancy losses they've had, or at times the stillbirth or the infant loss that they have had, and they're like, wow. I am just now realizing at this point in my life, I never really got to grieve that loss.

It still weighs heavy on my heart and that maybe I try to distract myself. Maybe I try to I was working so I just had to keep working and had to [00:07:00] keep going back and didn't realize that I wasn't able to process this loss. And so today, even though I have not personally. Experience this sort of loss this moment is an honor of those of you who have, and if that's you, and if you feel like sharing, just put in the chat like, yep, that's me.

Or Yep, I know somebody that is close to me that's experienced this. And what I'm gonna share with you today is I'm gonna talk about the pressure to move on. The pressure we feel from society to move on. The unhelpful comments that people share, how to navigate grief when it feels like you're supposed to suffer in silence.

And then I'm gonna share some gentle ways that you can remember and keep connection with your baby. And here in this space and what I teach my clients to do is that. In these losses we remember the babies, we remember the [00:08:00] names, we say their names. And our goal isn't to rush the grief process.

Our goal isn't to, once the body is physically healed, that means you should be over it. Our goal is to be honest in grief and to acknowledge that people have different grief timelines and especially as. We may have parents, right? We have a man and a woman who are both grieving. One of the biggest myths that we learn about grief is that we need to be strong for the other person.

In fact, this book was written by a man who lost a baby, okay? John James. He lost a baby. And he was, he believed that he was supposed to be strong for his wife, and she believed she was supposed to be strong for him. And so what happened is they both were focused on being strong for each other, which meant [00:09:00] they weren't honest with each other about the hurt and about how they felt about grief and over time.

They stopped communicating, they stopped connecting, and ultimately their relationship would end up in divorce. As many relationships do when there is a loss of a child, people would tell them, oh, you're, you could have another one. Or You should be grateful you already have one daughter. You should be grateful.

You at least have one. Or people would say, God needed this little angel like it's in here in the book. And so that is where this whole program comes from the heart of a grieving dad, from the heart of somebody who experienced divorce because he didn't know how to handle grief. He wasn't taught as, many of us are not taught how to handle grief.

Okay? And so if you take nothing else away from this today, if you are. In a relationship or you are [00:10:00] married and you are both grieving is the goal is not to be strong for each other. The goal is to communicate, is to be there for each other, is to recognize that you might be on different grief timelines.

So maybe mom feels a certain way about it and she's in a certain place where she's feeling more joy and the dad is really struggling with. Sadness and overwhelm. And so we wanna communicate and be there for each other. But we know that grief is not a linear, doesn't follow a linear timeline, right? And so there isn't a point where it's oh, I feel better better, better.

Now I'm over it now. It's no, it's up and down. And the volatility gets smaller and. It can feel better over time with action, but just giving it time alone, just waiting for things to go feel [00:11:00] better isn't what helps us through grief. Okay. One of the things I wanted to cover today is the pressure that people feel to move on.

So we know grief has no deadline. It has no timeline and there are always the questions, especially in the space that I'm in of how long is it gonna feel this way? It's been three years, it's been 14 years, it's been six months. What is the point where I'm just never gonna feel grief about this?

And answering the timeline question is really hard because everyone not only has had a different experience, but everyone's had a different life. So if you've experienced a lot of loss or a lot of trauma, the loss of a spouse, the loss of a baby, the loss of an infant that can reopen a lot of that.

Past loss and past trauma that has never been processed. And so that grief journey looks very different [00:12:00] than someone who relatively has experienced very little loss in their life. And this is their first major one that they're going through. It also is different because people do things differently.

Like I had someone message me the other day or comment on a video and say, it's been 14 years and it feels the same as it feel the first year. I don't feel any better. It feels worse. When is it gonna get better? And so my response to that is. There's no perfect answer. I can't promise you in six months or a year that you're going to feel better.

You're gonna feel a shift, but it's not gonna take as long as you think to feel a shift in grief. The key, though, is that, and one of the things that I learned from Grief Recovery Institute is that the key to recovery and grief is action, not time. So time is a component, time is an ingredient, and the recipe.

But time alone does [00:13:00] not heal our wounds. Even though we say that time heals all wounds, time makes everything better. That's incorrect. Time helps. It takes time. It's like going to the gym or any other goal, like any goal that you're working towards does take time. But. If you have a goal or you have a desire and you only give it time and you don't work towards that goal, then time alone isn't going to get you there.

It's the same thing with grief. Time alone isn't going to magically allow you to feel better.

So we can feel, especially with this type of loss, people can feel that societally, there is a pressure of you need to keep moving forward. You need to move on. It's been long enough. It's been a year, it's been two years. You just gotta pick yourself up by the bootstraps and keep going.

Have you guys ever felt that way? Put in a chat if you have felt that way in grief. Hey Brad. Good to see you [00:14:00] and Patty. Hey, Tammy. Yeah, so especially with the loss of pregnancy or the loss of an infant, or someone told me the other day, the comment to them was you didn't, it's not like you knew 'em very long, right?

Like you could just try again and have another one. That's the same thing. That's another myth that I learned about in Grief Recovery Method is that. You can replace the loss. So like for me, when I lost a pet as a child, my parents are like, oh, don't you know, don't be too sad 'cause we'll get you another pet.

And it's oh, okay. By getting a new pet now all of a sudden I'm not sad about the old pet. It is not that my parents were being mean. That's just how we think about grief. Oh you had a pregnancy and you miscarried that's okay. You'll just get pregnant again. It'll be fine.

Oh, okay. Yeah, but no, that child probably had a name. That child [00:15:00] probably, I already had a picture of what that was gonna look like, what it was gonna be like to bring them home. What was it gonna be like to. Raise them and if they were gonna look like me or they're gonna look like their dad or they're gonna I already had these pictures in my mind of how it was gonna be, and now all of that is lost to me.

So one of the things that we want to do in navigating grief is to realize that we are moving forward. We want to take steps forward, but we take our person with us. We take that emotional relationship that we have with that baby, with us into the future moving forward doesn't mean we're moving on or that we're leaving them behind, or that we forget about them, or that we have to say goodbye to that relationship into that person.

That's not what we do at all. We can say goodbye to the pain. We can say goodbye to the hurt. We can say [00:16:00] goodbye to. The dreams and hopes that we had for the future, that now are not going to happen. We can say goodbye to those things, but we can still continue a relationship with that baby, with that infant.

So I'm curious for those of you where it's been, i'm curious to know for from you all one way that you have stayed connected to your baby post-loss. So put that in a chat if you have something that helps you feel connected to your baby, and if you haven't had anything because you feel like. You don't deserve to or because people wouldn't understand or you just haven't had any ideas.

I have some ideas for you here at the end, but I'm just curious if there has been something that's helped you feel connected to your loss and to your baby. What was that, what that looks like and. If you had [00:17:00] already decided on a name for your baby or if you would want to share that, or even your initials that you had picked out for your baby,

okay. So we all know that we in grief get a lot of unhelpful comments, right? People will say oh, at least this, at least that you're still young, you can try again. Or you already have other kids, like, how many kids does one person need, right? People can say. Very hurtful and unhelpful things. So I just wanna give you some ideas.

If you're supporting someone who is going through this loss of what you could say instead. So one might be, I'm so sorry for your loss. I wish you had more time, or, I'd love to hear their name if you would want to share more. How can I support you, whether it's meals, errands, or just sitting with you, and as [00:18:00] someone who's grieving, when people make these unhelpful comments, some of the things that you could say in return, some self-advocacy words.

We, and I'll preface this by saying we tend to get really frustrated with people because they say the wrong things. They don't know how to support us. They disappear. They don't show up for us. They just pretend like we need to move on. They don't see that we are really hurting on the inside, and it's easy for us to become bitter and angry and resentful and hurt because those things happen.

And also I try to give people grace because they just don't know. Most people just don't know how to be there for you, how to show up for you, how to support you in the way that you wanna be supported. And so you get to decide if you want to educate some of the people around you, advocate for yourself and what you need.

And so you might say something like, [00:19:00] look. I know that you mean or I know that you're trying to make me feel better, but when you say at least whatever it is, they said, that's really hard to hear right now. What would help is this, or you might say, please say their name. Hearing it is a gift to me and.

As people love to give unsolicited advice and they love to have their opinions, especially in something they have no expertise in. You can also say something like, look, I'm not taking any advice today. If you wanna help me, listening would be helpful.

And for those of you who are supporting someone who's grieving, a lot of times I get asked what should I say? Or What should I do? Or how can I help them feel better? And the answer is that you can't. You can't take away the pain. You can't they're not broken. You don't need to fix them.

It's not your job to make them [00:20:00] feel better. And so what people need who are grieving and who feel invisible and lonely is they need to know that they are seen and that they're not alone. They need someone to sit with them in the grief and be a witness to their suffering. And so sometimes I will tell people like, the best thing that you can say to someone who is grieving is to just listen.

Okay. Say nothing. Like even job. His friends sat with him for what? Seven days and said nothing. They sat with him and I'm like, yes. Now after seven days, I think they kinda lost their patience. We know how that story goes, but I'm like, wow, what friends? Like what? What a, what an amazing friend to sit with you as a grieving person in silence for seven days.

Wow. That's pretty incredible [00:21:00] and maybe that's not practical for where you are, but people who are in grief, they don't need to be taken out of their home to go do fun things. They don't need to be cheered up. They don't need to be made to feel better. They don't need you to tell them that it's gonna be okay.

They need you to, when they haven't showered for three days and they're sitting in their old pajamas. With a box of a bazillion tissues and the TV like mindlessly playing in the background, they need you to just sit on the couch with them and cry with them, or let them know that you're here.

Like it's okay. And then if you're able to do things like wash the dishes, mow the lawn, help with practical things, that just takes it to another level.

So how can you navigate grief when it feels like you're supposed to suffer in silence? Have any of you guys felt that way? Like you're supposed to just suffer in silence, you gotta, toughen up. You gotta, be strong for [00:22:00] other people. I think especially in this situation, one thing I hear is that, the husband, the boyfriend, like the man in this situation is oh, you gotta be strong for your wife, right?

She's falling apart. You can't allow her to be that person. You can't also let her see that you're upset too. And that's just. Just wrong. It's just a thought error. It's just a belief a myth, a belief that is incorrect. And so how do you navigate grief when you're supposed to suffer in silence?

Many times in the widow community where I spend a lot of time we lose our social circle. Our family and friends just disappear. They go quiet. We don't hear from them. And there are a lot of reasons why that could be. One is it's uncomfortable for them. One is they're afraid they're gonna say the wrong thing, like they're afraid to make you cry.

Whereas someone who. If someone were more [00:23:00] well equipped to help a person in grief, they might know that it's okay if if you cry, it's okay. It's not like you forgot that you experienced this trauma. It's not like you forgot that this baby who meant the world to you, you will not get to a raise in the future.

It's not like you forgot about it and they're gonna say something that reminds you, but people are afraid of saying the wrong things. And if they say something or they ask how you really are and you start crying, then they feel bad instead of recognizing that crying and is actually healthy and helpful.

I recently had, someone on the podcast that talked about how tears release a natural pain killer within your body, like a chemical. Don't ask me to pronounce it, I don't remember exactly what it's called. It was very complicated. But tears [00:24:00] can release a natural chemical in your body that's a pain killer.

And so when we shove down our emotions and we swallow that lump in our throat and we refuse to cry, we're actually depriving ourselves of feeling that natural painkiller chemical. That's why sometimes if you have a really good cry afterwards, you're like, Ugh, I feel a little bit better.

So that's why people tend to go quiet. It's very helpful for you to join. Be part of some sort of community of grief, whether it's other parents who have lost a child, whether it is a grief share group, a grief recovery group, a advocacy group, like whatever it is important for you to be in a community of other people who in their own way, understand.

Because then you don't have to explain, you don't have to explain why a [00:25:00] miscarriage is hurt, hurtful, and why even if you were to get pregnant three months later, that doesn't solve the hurt doesn't take away the pain. Like they know this. People in those groups that are on this journey, they know that.

You might choose one or two people that you feel like are safe and have a have a process where you can text them and say, you know what? Today I'm just having a really hard day today, or Today feels really heavy. Can you check in with me?

I'm gonna share with you some ways that you can remember your baby. You can keep a connection with them, but I would love to hear from you if there are things that you have done to feel close to your baby or to stay connected with them. Anything that you found helpful, I would love for you to share that in the chat so that other people can learn.

From that as well. So these were just some ideas that I searched [00:26:00] and or have heard of that I thought might actually be helpful.

Yolanda? Endorphins? Yeah, I can't know. I can't remember the name. It's like Luca. I don't know. Totally gonna butcher it. Okay, so here are some ideas some ways that you can. Remember your baby and keep a connection with them. You could light a candle. And here's the thing, don't worry about writing down a list of all of these things.

I'm gonna include 'em in the notes of the replay on YouTube. So you'll have them if you wanna go back. But what I would encourage you to do today is just to listen, and if you hear one idea that resonates with you. Or an idea that gives you another idea that resonates with you, that you take that and use that one.

Like you don't have to implement all these things. Okay? You're not a bad, you're not a bad parent if you don't. Okay, so my ideas, if you have five minutes, then you [00:27:00] might light a Kendall and say their name out loud. Or say their initials out loud and share a sentence like you might say today. I'm going to remember you for this.

You might put a hand over your heart and close your eyes and take three slow breaths. Just picture like a favorite detail. Maybe it was a blanket you had picked out. Maybe it was the ultrasound, maybe it was like their little toes that you got to see or that you got to feel. Maybe it's playing a song.

Maybe you, there's a song that reminds you of them or that you had decided this is gonna be their song. Maybe it's just playing a song and letting yourself just feel like letting yourself. Miss them and feel sadness that they're not physically here with you. Someone commented on both [00:28:00] the due date and the miscarriage dates.

I take short time in prayer to God. Yeah. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. If you have 15 or 30 minutes, you could write them a short letter and you could write them a letter that says, I wish we had, and list out some things that you wish that you would, would've been able to do. And you could end that letter by saying, I will carry you by and maybe share a way that you're gonna continue to carry them with you.

You could have a keepsake box where you have their ultrasound prints. If there's a hospital bracelet, you could have that in there. Maybe a ribbon with their name or their initials, or a note that you write for them, or maybe it's a box of love letters that you write to them. You could have a living symbol, which is maybe you have a plant that you [00:29:00] take care of, or a flower that you put in a vase, or one idea that I read about was taking having a special bowl.

Having a small stone for every time you have a memory or you have a special thought about them, like a remembrance about them and what you wanted that to be, that you put a rock in the bowl and have a collection of that. Some ongoing quieter rituals that you could do would be wearing, like having a wearable.

They call like a touchstone. So that would be like a bracelet, a ring, a necklace that kind of links them, links you to them, and then you can just touch it, whenever you wanna think about them or remember them or just gives you something if you're a little more hands-on, gives you something to just touch when you're thinking about them.

Or you need a little steadiness.

On due dates, birthdays, or milestones. You could [00:30:00] do something like lighting a candle a sky lantern or an alternative like bubbles or going on a sunrise walk or like someone said, like going to prayer to God in prayer. Just something that allows you to feel like you're honoring and acknowledging their life.

You can have shared language, like a phrase that you use with trusted people today is a heavy day. Please hold space for me. Today is gonna be a hard day. Please, just I might not be myself. Please show grace and patience. It's just a hard day. It's a sad, I would tell my kids like I'm just having a sad day.

With your spouse, partner, family, or friends, some things that you could do would be to, have a little circle if it's two or three minutes, and everybody could share a word or something, a phrase that describes what this child means to them and what they [00:31:00] meant. Siblings could pick a sticker, a flower, or a drawing that they want to send to the baby, and we can remind the siblings that all of their feelings are okay,

and you can ask them just to have a moment of silence with you.

You could, if from a faith perspective, have a blessing or a memory excuse me, a blessing or a prayer. So you could say, may your memory be a blessing to me. May I love you and how I live each day. You can use nature as your sanctuary and sit in the sun, sit under a tree, sit out. I used to sit out in the memorial garden for Nathan and just notice anything that might feel like a hello or a wave, or a God wink or whatever you wanna call it, which is like a gentle breeze, a butterfly.

Light that shines through a certain way, a heart [00:32:00] on a leaf, like anything that you could just smile and let that be something that's meaningful to you. Patty says, planting a tree or placing a memorial plaque or stone at a place that means something like a flower, conservatory, or zoo. Oh, that's a beautiful idea.

I love that. And then you could revisit that place and see their name there or their initials there every time. Yeah.

The point is that there are ways to stay connected with your baby and with the relationship that you had. Even though society may tell you like, oh, it's been long enough, or you need they don't come out and say you need to get over it, but that's the underlying message it's been a couple years, it's time.

You just move on. Or, you have kids, you have someone else that needs your time and attention, like you need to be strong for them and you need to show up for them. Those types of things. But [00:33:00] the reality is that society is just not educated in grief or how to help people in grief. And so staying connected with a baby or a child that you love that is gone is not wrong.

Staying connect, you'll always, one of the things I love about grief recovery method, you'll always have an emotional connection and relationship to the person that is, is gone. And so you will see it in the moments when you go to Disney World, you'll have that experience of Ugh, I wish he or she were here.

When you go to someone's high school graduation, you'll be thinking about the graduation that your child doesn't experience. So you're not wrong. It's not incorrect to feel like. You want to continue to have that relationship. And so one of the things I just wanna remind you today is that [00:34:00] connection doesn't require big ceremonies.

You don't have to do a whole, get everybody together a couple times a year. Like the connection will live in those small and honest moments. In those small just daily life moments. And so what you can do is to choose one thing, one thing that feels gentle and comforting and allows you to just feel all of the things, feel the sadness, feel the joy.

Maybe you got to hold them for a period of time. Maybe they were living for a period of time. You get to feel joy for some of those moments and sadness all at the same time, and it's okay. It can be enough.

All right, so for those of you that have just recently joined, I am gonna share the replay of what I covered today, but we talked through [00:35:00] the importance of honesty and communication with the person you're in a relationship with. As you're supporting each other through grief, your job is not to be strong for each other.

Your job is to support each other. And to be honest, we talked about the pressure to move on and why grief doesn't follow a timeline, how there are going to be lots of unhelpful comments and what people can say instead and how you can have, you can advocate for yourself and you can have boundaries. How to navigate grief when it feels like you're supposed to suffer in silence and some gentle ways to remember and keep connection with your baby.

And so I wanna thank you for spending some time with me today. I want you to know that you are seen. You are cared for. Your grief is valid and it matters. And for people that I inevitably get [00:36:00] asked, where should people start if they have not done any? Anything that has helped them with grief or they feel like they're stuck in grief or they just want help taking that exact next step, what can people do?

So I shared this book, this program here is called the Grief Recovery Method. I shared this grief recovery handbook. This is the tool in my toolbox that I use with widows and widowers, and even people outside of that who are grieving. This book covers 40 different types of losses, and look, whether or not you do it with me doesn't matter to me.

Like you can go online, grief recovery method. You can find people who do it in person, people who offer it online. You could get this book on Amazon. It doesn't matter. If you haven't done it yet, go do it. It will cover losses that you've experienced all throughout your life, even starting at childhood that go beyond the loss of a person that go [00:37:00] to loss of safety, loss of a job, loss of a pet, loss of the things that, all the losses we've experienced that no one has taught us how to process people tell us things to get us to stop being sad essentially.

And what we really need is a way of processing the pain and a way of having tools to navigate grief ongoing so that when we struggle, when we feel stuck, when we have difficult relationships in our lives, whatever it is, this will give you tools to help you. Doesn't solve all your problems overnight, but this will really give you tools to help you.

So go check this out. It's called Grief Recovery Method. It's the only program outside of my coaching that I will put my name behind that I pay. Money for every year to be maintain my certification and my license to be able to teach it because I believe in it that much. So this is a great place to start.

If you're like I don't know, I need a place to start. Or maybe you've [00:38:00] tried. I have plenty of people who have tried counseling, they've tried grief groups, and for whatever reason it hasn't resonated with them. I encourage you to do that, to take care of your heart. The loss that you have experienced to some people might seem small or insignificant, but I want you to hear from me that it's not that the loss of this life and the loss of all the dreams you had for the future is monumental.

And so I will encourage you to make space to heal your heart and to learn how to navigate grief. Patty says, truly great sharing. Thank you. You are so welcome. Angie says, we often say, girls, if you were here today, and we wonder as a family how our day would have looked if they were by our sides. Oh, I love that.

My coach, Dr. Betsy. One of the reasons that I started learning from her and that I went through the [00:39:00] Faith-Based Life Coaching Academy is because the podcast I heard her on, she was sharing about her daughter Sophie, and the story of her loss, which was they were having a big, party family of get together like a bunch of people over at their house.

They were in the pool. They were having a pool party. Her daughter Phy was I think three at the time. And she's everybody's laughing. The kids are jumping in the pool. We're all playing. We're all right there. And someone just threw out the question like, where is phy? And then everybody started going where's Phy?

Where's fo? Where is she? She's I look down and my daughter's at the bottom of the pool, and she shares the story so much more eloquently than I ever could, but I remember her on that podcast just retelling the story of how yes, she had other children, but this loss brought her to her knees [00:40:00] and she's a clinical psychologist.

She helps other people with grief and she was living her life crying and grieving and on the floor of her bedroom, and she said, my husband was like freaked out. If she doesn't know how to handle this, how am I supposed to know how to handle this? And in part of her story, she tells about how she went to their priest and she remembers asking him, does it ever get better?

Can people be happy again? And what he told her is that some people can find joy again, and some people don't. The biggest difference is that the people who find happiness again, choose to. The people who don't choose not to. And so for her, that started a journey of healing, of learning, of growth, of not giving up hope for the future again, while still honoring her daughter's life.[00:41:00]

And she does a beautiful job of honoring her daughter's life. Still to this day. And Angie, when you were sharing that in the comments that really made me think about that, right? Like even in her family pictures, there's like an imposed picture of FFI that's there with them, and she thinks about that a lot.

And so hearing her story. Then hearing how she could talk with such passion and joy and hope and love for other people. When I heard her on that podcast, I was like, I don't know what this lady's done. I don't know what she's figured out, but I have to have that. Like I, I gotta figure it out. If she can go through all of that and still be full of joy and light and radiate just.

God, like she radiates God. I was like, I gotta figure out like what she's doing because I need that for me. And so I wanna just give you [00:42:00] hope that even if you're in deep grief now, not as a way of telling you not to be sad, not as a way of telling you like, oh, don't worry. 'cause you'll be happy again one day.

Not at all. Like you get to feel your grief and be sorrowful and. Say that life is unfair and all of that. And over here we have hope that we can have a point where we're not in deep grief every day and we are able to honor the life of this person that we love so dearly All. Thank you guys so much for joining me.

If this has been helpful to you, if you want help in taking your next steps or navigating grief, I am happy to help you. You're welcome to send me a dm. I do free calls with people all the time to help them figure out where they are in the grief journey and what exact next step is [00:43:00] right for them. I'll be sharing the full replay over on YouTube.

So if you'd like to see any of the notes any of the list of ideas that will all be there waiting for you later today. All right, bye-bye.

Stuck is one of the top things that I help people in grief with. It's actually very common for people to feel stuck, to feel like they're going backwards, to feel like somehow they fold themselves, that they were doing better and now they're doing worse. I'm actually hosting a free life training tomorrow, October 16th at 1:00 PM Central Time called The Four Seasons of Grief, where I'm gonna share.

Like one simple thing that you can focus on based on what season of grief that you're in. And of course, if you would love me to personally help you get unstuck, just shoot me a DM and I'll be happy to tell you the next step. Getting unstuck.

Getting unstuck is one of the top things [00:44:00] that. Actually very common for people to feel stuck, to feel like they're going backwards, to feel like somehow they fold themselves that they were

okay. So we get outta there.