Alex Kapellas
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Introduction to Grief Recovery Method
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[00:00:00] Emily: Hey, hey, and welcome to episode number 142 of the brave widow show guys. I'm recording this intro on a Sunday and I just wrapped up eight weeks of grief recovery method. The purple book here. If you are not watching this on video, if you are listening, I have the purple grief recovery method book that you may have seen me hold up many times.
We just wrapped up eight weeks of grief recovery method with eight widows and it's always bittersweet. It's always a bittersweet experience to see all of the growth, all of the movement towards completion from the hurt and pain of a relationship. And it still remains one of my favorite tools in my toolbox on how I help widows heal their heart and step forward to start rebuilding a life that they can love again.
And these eight widows now are fully equipped with tools. With strategies, with the knowledge that they can now continue to build upon that foundation and move forward without feeling stuck. Move forward without holding on to the guilt of grief and the beliefs that they've had.
Upcoming Grief to Growth Challenge
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[00:01:24] Emily: And speaking of that, I'm hosting another round of the three day grief to growth challenge.
I did this a few months ago back in December. I am doing it again in April and it's an hour a day. Three days from April 8th through the 10th. I think the time is 11 a. m. to 12 p. m. Central Time. And what you're going to learn in this three day challenge are the things that are holding you back in grief, the things that are keeping you stuck.
What to do about those things, what to focus on, why do you experience guilt? How do you get rid of it? What do you do? I'm going to teach you all of that. It's a free public three day challenge. You can join, a friend can join, we have a private Facebook group, and a way to connect with other people who are also going through the challenge.
So to sign up for that, you can go to BraveWidow. com slash challenge.
One-on-One Coaching Availability
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[00:02:21] Emily: Also, I had a question recently, if I was still doing one on one coaching, and Yes, of course, I'm still doing one on one coaching. So I want to make sure that you all are aware of that. I'm going to be focused on a little bit more here over the next few months having that availability for one on one coaching and being able to work with people in such a deep and transformative way.
Over these next few months together.
I love group coaching. I love masterminds. I love courses. I love community. I love it all. But I have to say for me personally, the way I've been able to grow and develop and move forward. The fastest way possible has always been by working with a coach one on one.
It's also the fastest way that I've seen people grow and develop and be able to move forward in a way of working with me. So not everyone enjoys one on one. Some people like to be a little more independent. They're a little more self paced. They're a little more self directed, and that's totally fine.
But if you've been on the fence, if you've been thinking about whether or not 101 coaching is right for you, I encourage you to set up a consult call with me. This is a free one hour call. We'll chat. I'll learn more about you and where you are. I'll give you specifically how my one on one coaching program could help you, what the steps are that we would take, what results other widows have been able to accomplish by going through this one on one coaching program and allow you then to decide if
Working together is the best fit for you. To sign up for a free consult call, just go to BraveWidow. com and I will see you there.
Meet Alex: A Widow's Journey
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[00:04:13] Emily: All right, let me introduce you to Alex. Alex is a 38 year old widow to colon cancer and mom of three living in Vancouver, Washington. She's an aspiring author who spent the last year healing and navigating life without any family nearby.
You can find her at love. interrupted, and I will have the links to her accounts in the show notes. Alright, let's dive in.
Welcome to the Brave Widow Show, where we help widows find hope, heal their heart, and dream again for the future. I'm your host, Emily Tanner. After losing my husband of 20 years, I didn't know how I could ever experience true joy and excitement again for the future. I eventually learned how to create a life I love, and I've made it my mission to help other widows do the same.
Join me and the Brave Widow membership community and get started today. Learn more at BraveWidow. com
Alex, thank you so much for joining me.
[00:05:18] Alex: I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
[00:05:20] Emily: Yeah, absolutely. So I know our audience would love to know a little bit more about you and about your background.
And then we can really just dive into your story wherever you want to start.
Alex's Love Story and Family Life
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[00:05:32] Alex: Hey I guess I'll give a brief intro to I met my late husband, Aaron, when we were both working at a private jet center in Sacramento, California, where we were living. I grew up there. And it was pretty quickly that we had fallen in love.
We were both in the same place in our lives hoping to be married and have our own family and create our own life. And yeah, we moved pretty quickly. We dated a year and a half and then decided we knew we wanted to have kids and be married and actually I had been taking birth control for so many years.
I said if we know we want to get married, let's. Let's be prepared for a family. And yeah, we immediately got pregnant after we decided we wanted to be married. And so we had a a wedding at the San Francisco courthouse. So we could do it with just a few family members before we moved to Hawaii where he was going to be working full time.
So we could raise our daughter there and I was going to stay home with her. That was the plan. And so we made pretty much all of our dreams and our goals happened together, which was really beautiful. But we moved five different times. In our marriage, we were married 10 years until he passed away.
So we were busy. He was working. Constantly. And I was raising the kids and we have three children. My youngest is Bo who's three. And then I have two daughters, Maxine, who's eight and Vivian is 11. And yeah, we ended up here in Washington where he was an aircraft mechanic for Delta airlines, which was a wonderful company to be working for, but when I was pregnant with Bo, he.
Facing Cancer and Loss
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[00:07:17] Alex: Started experiencing these really awful symptoms that he chalked up to internal hemorrhoids, which really it wasn't it at all. It was stage four colon cancer. And didn't want to go to the doctor while I was pregnant. He felt like he wanted to wait till Beau was born which made me really nervous because I could tell he was really sick And I just didn't think cancer at all.
That wasn't on my radar and it wasn't on his either. I don't think unless he had been Googling symptoms because if you do Google those symptoms, stage four cancer is one of the top things that comes up. So, when my son was three months old, he got his diagnosis and it was very grim and he died two years after his diagnosis.
So October 10th 2023 is when he died. And it was, it seemed really. Really fast. He was on hospice for four days. And that seemed very surreal.
[00:08:24] Emily: And how do you go from living, all over different places of the country and thinking about having this baby and bringing him into the world and then.
a few months later, just getting that kind of a diagnosis. Like, how did you even wrap your mind around that?
[00:08:41] Alex: Yeah, I'm not even sure if I did. I just kept moving in a forward motion, thinking, okay, we're just gonna do whatever we have to do for you to survive this. Because, I've heard of people Surviving stage four cancer.
And so I figured he would be one of them because I thought there's no way this would happen because we planned our life. That I was going to continue to be a stay at home mom and raise the kids. And yeah, he had not purchased life insurance either. And so he was really dead set on, he wanted to just keep working.
And I said, I really think we should think about what you want to do with your time. Because on the other end, I was reading that if you are diagnosed with stage four colon cancer, The average time on treatment is two years. And so I always have kind of the worst in the back of my mind. So I wanted, to talk about all these things.
But he was actually in denial his entire illness that there is, was a possibility that he would die. So he never really wanted to talk about it and he actually, it was a difficult marriage, our entire relationship, because we were very opposite. He was not very emotionally. available and I just always worked around it.
And it wasn't even until the end of his illness that I would look back and think, Oh my gosh, I can't believe I was in a marriage like that. Because I am someone who really likes. To have emotional intimacy and have a lot of communication like that and he wasn't like that. And it became really apparent towards the end when he didn't want to talk.
We didn't even get to say goodbye. He declined so rapidly. So that was really difficult to deal with and to move past but now that.
[00:10:37] Emily: I hear that often that you think if we have a diagnosis, we have time to have these conversations. We have time to make a plan and do some things, but there is a number of widows where their spouse just refuses to talk about it or.
Feels like talking about it means that they're giving up hope. And so it has to just be really difficult, especially as you are a caregiver, for maybe up to two years that you were going through those motions and didn't. Didn't have the ability to have that connection.
[00:11:13] Alex: Yeah, that was challenging.
Coping with Grief and Finding Support
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[00:11:15] Alex: And I reached out and I found support groups for families who were dealing with the same illness. And so that was very helpful. I got a lot of resources for the kids. Because I wanted to talk to them to prepare them because once I realized hospice was going to be in the future, I wanted them to be prepared.
So I would read to them I wish I had the book in front of me about loving someone with a terminal illness. And it's like a workbook and we did activities and then had some conversations around it. And I think that helped them a little bit to be prepared. I know my son, who was actually in my arms the moment that he died, he still remembers that.
And he talks about Aaron probably the most which surprises me because I thought because he was so young, he wouldn't keep those memories very long, but it really shaped him I think, for who he is. That was a pretty special moment that he came in because he just walked past the room and decided to climb up into my arms.
And I knew that my husband was getting really close to his last breath. And it was really sweet that Bo came up and sat on my lap and gave me a hug while Aaron was leaving. It was really beautiful, but
[00:12:34] Emily: that is a beautiful gift. And how old was he then?
[00:12:38] Alex: Almost two. Or he just turned two.
Yeah.
[00:12:41] Emily: That's very beautiful. And comforting, I would imagine.
[00:12:45] Alex: It was, yeah. It was. I'm, yeah, I feel so blessed to have these three children. As much it is difficult to be alone raising them. They are so special. I know, you know exactly why they're here.
[00:12:59] Emily: Yes. So what was it like for you over those next weeks and months?
Did you have a lot of support from family and friends? Did you feel that you really were carrying this all on your own shoulders? What did that look like?
[00:13:14] Alex: I know my mom came to stay for the few weeks. Before hospice and after she was around to help me plan the memorial service. But I definitely feel like I could have, or I should have taken a break or had rest because I didn't ever rest or take breaks.
I just kept going and wanted to make sure I kept the kids lives as typical as possible. So I probably could have used a little more support, but I don't ask for help. That's something I really have to work on. I find that I won't ask anybody for help. Sometimes I'll accept it when it's offered.
If the timing is right, I feel like, but yeah, it's difficult to ask for help. And now I'm doing that because I didn't rest enough, I have adrenal fatigue and, or adrenal insufficiency. So now my body is like forcing me to rest because I have chronic pain and exhaustion. So now I'm getting over that hump to, to keep doing all that I want to do.
[00:14:21] Emily: I'm glad you pointed that out or shared that because one of the things that we teach through grief recovery method is that there's often either accidents or illnesses or injuries or things that manifest in the body that happen around periods of. And people are always like how could that happen?
Like, how could you develop a physical, illness or challenge after a period of loss, but you just hit the nail on the head. This is exactly one of the ways that can happen is we just push ourselves to keep going. And it's difficult when you're a high achiever. And sometimes maybe it's an ego thing.
Maybe it's a pride thing. It's a, how we were raised thing, but asking for help feels really uncomfortable. And I know for me, it took a lot to just be able to lower the expectations I had for myself and to give myself grace and realize that I can't function even at the same level I was before, even though all of these extra things just got piled.
On me overnight. And that's really, it's really a difficult struggle.
[00:15:32] Alex: Yeah, I see a naturopath, and she shared that if you are living in chronic stress for so long, you stop making cortisol, you're not making enough. Because I always thought I'm always under stress, I must have just tons of cortisol, right?
And she goes, no, actually, you're not making enough because you must have, depleted it because you had You know, such stress for too long. So that made a lot of sense. And I definitely have lowered the expectations for myself. I let the laundry sit in the basket a lot longer. I leave the dishes in the sink longer than normal.
And if I'm depleted, I'll just be done and, catch up with whatever the next day. And that's, yeah, something that's. I just have to do it. I don't really, I don't have another option because I have been noticing that the exhaustion just gets to be more than I can handle. And then I don't have any thing to give the kids.
And so, yeah, it's definitely opened my eyes to self care and taking it one day at a time.
[00:16:44] Emily: Yeah.
Reflections on Healing and Moving Forward
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[00:16:45] Emily: It's been about a year and a half, almost since you lost your spouse. And for some people, they can't even fathom coming on a podcast or talking about it or feeling like they could even share their story. So what would you say Since that time has really been the most helpful for you in feeling that you are healing or that you are Taking steps forward or that you can even be here sharing your story today.
I
[00:17:17] Alex: think because I immediately Reached out to local widows in the area. I looked for resources for widows really early on Because I knew what was going to happen and I wanted to be as prepared as I could and knowing that all of my family lives out of state that I was going to be alone and I wanted to make sure I didn't self isolate too much.
And so I think seeing these other widows thriving and knowing that. Life will go on to see the hope was really helpful. And there was a sense of relief once he died, he was out of his suffering. And I was out of my suffering also. It almost felt like a breath of fresh air and I, that I was given a second to make the most of that.
And to know that our time is short and precious and we don't get to know how much time we have which was really apparent because six months before my husband died, my older brother died suddenly of a heart attack. And he actually had come to me in a dream and the dream ended with him saying, we don't ever get to know how it turns out.
And so I always think about that in the back of my mind yeah, we don't get to know the end. We don't get to know what's going to happen next. We just really have to be in the present moment.
It does feel easy for me to talk about my experience. I appreciated everybody sharing with me So if I can give back in the same way, I'm so happy to do that.
[00:18:56] Emily: What did you feel was really helpful in like meeting other widows connecting with other widows?
What was maybe the best thing that you got out of that experience?
[00:19:06] Alex: I think to see these other widows Happy was really comforting to know that you can go through traumatic, heartbreaking experience and still have the capacity to feel joy and to still live the life that you want or hope for. I think that was. Really good to see. And I see so many remarried widows, which is really nice because I always hope that, I didn't want to stay single forever.
So I always looked to see, who was happy with their partner because I hope that one day for myself.
[00:19:50] Emily: Resonate a lot with that and that's one of the reasons really why I started The Brave Widow show was because it was so helpful to see other people's stories in their journey and to be able to relate to some of the things that they had gone through.
So that was going to be one of my next questions is if you're thinking about being in a relationship in the future, or maybe getting remarried or, how you were thinking about that
[00:20:19] Alex: I just I would love to be remarried and Do it the way that I had always dreamed it would be.
Cause I wouldn't necessarily say, it was that way the first time around. But I don't plan on getting on any dating sites or anything or doing that. I wrote a list of the character qualities that I. Hope to find in somebody and just hoping that yeah, that God opens that next chapter for me.
Yeah, I struggle with self confidence or self worth. I just yeah, I don't know if I feel ready to put myself out there. So that's why I just hold the hope that, it'll just happen organically. But I would love someday.
[00:21:02] Emily: It's interesting in that we can put ourselves out there.
For me, I know I struggled with, I'm a homebody. I didn't really like to go out, I didn't like to meet new people. I didn't like to go to places or local groups or meetups where I didn't know anyone. But I also knew that the person for me couldn't just show up on my door , like that would be weird.
[00:21:26] Alex: So it does take, some effort to put yourself out there, but then you can focus on like being a magnet and attracting the person that, God has in mind for you.
I actually did, I did meet somebody that I had fallen for through a widow group on Facebook. But I didn't really know.
[00:21:46] Alex: How to communicate. I think what I. Really desired. And I'm not into casual dating. And so it made it difficult. It was long distance
[00:21:57] Emily: Long distances is hard. There's like an element where you feel safe. Like they're not just gonna show up out of nowhere one day, but also that can make it a lot more challenging too.
So I feel for you on that.
[00:22:11] Alex: Safe because. He could be, he's dating people near him. And so then I thought, what am I supposed to think so far away? It made it hard to be vulnerable and plan for the future.
[00:22:25] Emily: It does.
Advice for New Widows
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[00:22:26] Emily: Alex, what would you say to people who are like they're in the storm?
They're in the first few weeks or months, and they're at a point where. They want to believe that it's possible to like their life again, that it's possible to have joy again, but they just feel really unsure. What words of wisdom or encouragement would you give to those widows?
[00:22:51] Alex: I would say to never give up hope, even when you're in your darkest hour, and you're feeling the worst you've ever felt, and you're questioning everything, that's okay. That's a normal experience to have, and you might feel it again and again, but there is always hope. And I have this book that I read by Clarissa Moll, Beyond the Darkness.
I felt really resonated with me. And she writes here at the end, our loved one's death transforms us in the very hardest ways and in beautiful ways to parts of you died with your person's death. Parts survived and amazingly parts have been born. And so I felt like that was a beautiful sentiment because we will forever be changed, but it doesn't have to be for the worst.
We can definitely take the experience with us. And make it into something beautiful and in any way that we know how some people are creative.
[00:23:53] Emily: That was very beautifully written how she said that. And I know for me, I had no idea how much like grief and being a widow was going to change.
My identity and what I thought about myself and all of those things. I love that. I love that you shared that.
[00:24:11] Alex: Yeah. Yeah. I recommend this book to a lot of people who I know who are experiencing grief depending, on losing a loved one or a breakup. Because I know, you can grieve everything that you've.
Any, everything and anything that you've loved. So I feel like grief really is love with no place to go.
[00:24:33] Emily: Yes. Thank you so much for coming on today and being willing to share your story. Thanks for having me. It was really nice to meet you, Emily.
If you're newly widowed and aren't sure where to start, you need the brave new widow's starter kit inside brave new widow. You'll find a starter guide to help you through your first few months. A quick start guide. You can share with family and friends so they know how to help you. And a collection of some of the frequent topics that widows want to learn more about. To get the brave new widow series.
Just go to brave widow. Dot com slash start it's free and you'll get instant access. That's brave widow.com/start S T a R T. See you there.
