Episode 125
You are listening to the Life Reconstructed podcast with me, Teresa Amaral Beshwate, grief expert, bestselling author, and widow. I'm so glad you're here because in this and every episode I shine a light on the widowed way forward.
Hello and welcome to episode 125. I recently presented a webinar called The Overachievers Guide to Grief, why You're Not Further Along and How To Start Moving Forward. In this episode, I'm sharing the replay of that webinar and I know it will help you. And if you want even more help, the doors are open for life reconstructed, which is my group.
Coaching program exclusively for widowed people, but the doors are not open for long. They close on August 28th, and the September group begins September 8th. Join us and you'll have the most efficient and effective tools for grief and for life. And you'll face the holiday season feeling equipped and confident.
Hello and welcome. I knew some people were gonna be here early. I knew it. Overachievers. I'm so glad you're here. Let's go. So 517 people signed up for this webinar and I'm so glad you did. Whether you are joining live or catching the replay, I'm so glad to have you. 500, over 500 people who I know I get to help today.
And that nothing makes me happier than that. You are in the right place if your spouse has passed and you cannot stand the thought of waiting for time to heal. It doesn't heal anyway. So good. Um, grief groups, maybe they have helped you a bit. Maybe they now leave you feeling worse instead of better.
Maybe therapy helped for a bit. Maybe now therapy feels complete to you. You're in the right place if you're functioning again, but you, it feels like this muted, mundane, you know, shade of gray kind of life. There's no hope. There's no joy, and you're functional, but you're far from that high functioning version of you that you once were.
You're in the right place if you've gotten good at putting on your game face for others, but inside it's a whole other story, right? You don't feel strong at all, and maybe you've taken a do it yourself approach to grief. I certainly did, and you get a little help here and a little help there. It's kind of a piecemeal approach, and you would like one systematic, comprehensive approach that would help you to know you're on the right path.
You are in the right place if you don't understand yourself and if the very things that were once your identity seem to be gone completely, not only your identity as a spouse, but also your sense of purpose, your, you know, that old, that former you, the one who had the ability to get very focused and motivated and decisive and all those things, you're in the right place if you fear you're doing it wrong and if it seems to be getting worse instead of better if you don't see a way forward.
I am so. Glad you are here. I do wanna also welcome anyone who's here who has not lost a spouse. Some people do join these calls to just better support the people they love who have lost a spouse. You are welcome here too. We need, uh, more grief savvy society. Everybody who can help create that is welcome.
Grief is not easy for anyone understatement of the year, but it can feel especially disorienting and super frustrating if you're the kind of person who always makes things happen that that organized, focused kind of high capacity person, the one people go to for things, um, you wonder why are you not further along?
Why isn't anything working? I know because I felt the same way. Today you're going to learn why your usual tools are not helping the way that they used to and exactly what to do instead. So today's, um, webinar is designed for these, this type of person that's very high functioning, very driven, people who are grieving the loss of a spouse, and you're ready for real actionable guidance than today is for you friends.
Grief does not respond to willpower. But there is a way forward, right? It's just different than what you're used to, okay? And that starts now. You will leave today with an understanding of why you don't feel that you've made sufficient progress and practical tools to help you. That alone will save you time and heartache and stress, and you'll have hope because you will see a way forward.
That is what I want for you. Really quickly about me. I was widowed suddenly in 2012, couldn't find the resources I needed, um, was really certain I was failing and doing it wrong. Today, I'm a bestselling author, certified, uh, professional coach. I master's degree in public health, and I care deeply about helping widowed people learn to live again on purpose.
And this topic matters so much to me because I'm one of those overachieving kind of people too. And I made all the mistakes that I see overachievers make for years, and I wanna help you. I don't want you to spend a lot of time making these really common mistakes. I wanna call them out for you so that you can see them in yourself.
I spent six years attempting to, you know, solve for grief, trying to get an A, which by the way, there's no one. Handing out grades. Um, and I finally found the tools that for me changed everything, and I'm gonna share some of them with you today. Today I live, I feel like I live so fully, so on purpose, and I have created a life that I love, one that honors Ted, my late husband.
And meanwhile, I've created a new version of me. There was a time I kept waking up and I was very annoyed by the fact that I still had a pulse. And I think maybe you can relate to that. And today I wake up and I think I have such a great life. It's beyond what I could have imagined for myself, especially in those early years after loss.
And I want that for you to, okay, so here's how today looks. We're gonna talk about why overachievers are unique in how they tend to grieve. I'm gonna make some generalizations, of course, and there are some nearly universal mistakes that overachievers make that I want you to know about. We'll talk about why grief does not respond to willpower checklists or mental toughness.
I'll give you two major reasons why high functioning people stay stuck in grief. We'll talk about coping versus actually healing. I'll give you practical tools today that you can start using today. Okay? And we'll talk about what healing actually looks like for those of us who are used to holding everything together.
If you're wanting more help after today's webinar, I will tell you how to get it. Okay? So wouldn't it be nice to go beyond existing and actually feel like yourself again and figure out how to truly live again fully? Wouldn't it be nice to get back to that motivated and disciplined and focused version of you, and to have a sense of identity and purpose again, and to feel hopeful and alive again, and happy and peaceful and actually joyful.
And wouldn't it be nice to know that you are making significant strides forward through your grief. That you're on the right path for you with certainty. Wouldn't it be so nice to know those things? And what am I missing? What did I not, did not say that you want for yourself. Use the q and a. What did I miss?
What do you want for yourself, Cindy? Yeah. My husband died when our wedding anniversary too. Oh. Three weeks. You're so new. Yes. Peace. Peace, Teresa. Hi Teresa. Good to see you. We want peace. Absolutely. What is that? You haven't felt that in a long time, right? Strength. Isn't it so interesting that people look at us and they'll say, oh, you're so strong, and yet strength feels anything but strong.
Inside and what people look at and see as resilience feels anything but resilient. I wanna be comfortable doing things alone. No more loneliness. I want happiness. Hi Millie. I want happiness. Um, and the truth is that it's peace version 2.0. Happiness Version 2.0, joy, version 2.0. It's a different version of it than you have experienced, and that I think is good.
It's there for you. It is there for you, friends. Okay. Thank you for using the q and A. It's really helpful for me. When I ask people what they want for themselves, they tend to say those things that I just said that you just said. Okay. Forgiveness. Oh, good one, Holly. Will this hypervigilance ever end, Sharon?
Yes. It's just your primitive brain. I'm writing a book. I'm writing a new book. Currently it's titled new book, but I'm sure something better will come to me. And I just finished this chapter, Sharon, and I'm talking about the brain, and I'm talking about specifically the primitive part of your brain. And I love analogies, so I called it.
I called it, um, your neurological bodyguard like this, you know, muscled up, anxious, nervous, over caffeinated bodyguard that is your primitive brain, and he's on the lookout and trying to keep you safe at all times. That is just your brain doing its job because the primitive part of your brain has only one job, which is to keep you safe.
And given that you've lost your person, the primitive part of your brain is operating on overdrive, right? Searching for danger around every corner. And when that happens, the thinking part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, kind of the adult in the room, it goes offline and it should, because few step onto a busy street in front of traffic.
You don't wanna overthink that your primitive brain is doing it, do its job and get you back to safety, right? So it makes sense that your prefrontal cortex goes offline when you're in actual danger, right? What you're in here, I'm guessing, Sharon, you are physically safe. So we just have to convince your brain, your primitive brain, that you're not in actual danger.
We have to learn to calm the nervous system so that that prefrontal cortex can come back online. So that's a really, really quick explanation of hypervigilance. That's such a good word. All right. I don't wanna feel anymore. I know, because it's so hard, right? But what you're feeling is the pain of loss that's already hard, and then there's layers.
I don't know. You welcome Kim, but my guess is there's layers and layers and layers of suffering on top. It's like saying, I don't wanna carry a heavy purse anymore. There's probably rocks in the purse. Can we take those rocks out? Yes, we sure can. So when we say, I don't wanna feel anymore, I get it. But what you're actually feeling is pain plus, plus, plus many layers of suffering.
And what I wanna help you do is take away all the extra layers, and now when you just just feel the pain of loss, it's shockingly more doable than you think. I ran for six years. I don't want you to run from the pain for six years, okay? When I ask people what they want for themselves, that's what they say.
I want peace. I don't wanna hurt like this. I wanna figure this out. I wanna learn to live again. I don't wanna feel lonely. I'm so deeply tired. I want peace. And I always say, okay, what's standing in the way of that? And the answer 95% of the time is me. I'm standing in the way, like I can't get out of my own way.
This is what overachieving people say a lot. I'm the problem. And then I'll say, what do you mean? And they say, well, I can't get motivated. Tons of inertia here. I feel stuck. I feel alone. The things I have tried have not moved the needle, not significantly anyway, I can't forgive myself. Someone said that earlier.
Can't find anything that brings joy or purpose or even a break from the grief. And we find ourselves just people pleasing. We, we get very fearful of moving forward without him. We struggle with decision making. Can't get past the loneliness, the fear, the anger, the guilt, have no sense of direction. Right.
What else? What, what's standing in your way? Of, of getting the peace of getting what you want for yourself. I cry when not expected. I lost my husband in February and part of me is relieved and sad at the same time. Yes, because two seemingly opposite feelings do co-exist at the same time. Disorienting.
Huh? It's been just under two years. Married over 50. I'm safe. Healthy activity are good. Sleep is usually better. Yeah. Anxiety, emptiness. Yes. These seem like barriers. So what overachievers tend to try is we impatiently wait for time to heal, even though probably don't believe time actually heals. 'cause you see lots of people who were at five years and 10 years saying it hurts like yesterday.
So that means that time. In and of itself doesn't heal. Right, and, and three day weekends are the worst, aren't they? So waiting for time to heal sounds like a terrible idea. If you're anything like me, launch into busyness. Really, really busy. Yes. Afraid to try new things, Kathy. I'm gonna come back to that.
We try to numb the pain. Whether that's overeating over drinking, over scrolling, staying overly busy, binge watching, insert any overing behavior. How do we know it's an overing behavior? Because it has its own negative consequence. Like we gain weight, we, there's a hangover. We, you know, are exhausted from being insanely busy.
Things like this, we kick ourselves. That's such a big one. We just get tough with ourselves. Give ourselves some deadlines, right? Because that seemed to work before. We might focus on the needs of others, right? We might just fake it. Keep putting on a game face, like fake it till you make it kind of a strategy.
The academics among us, the academic learners among us. It's like get all the books, go to the groups, go to therapy, go to counseling. Like learn, outthink It outlearn it so busy that when I lay down at night, I just cry. Yes, you are not alone on that. So many people dread going to bed. We dial up the willpower and we double down on checklists, on mental toughness.
That's what overachievers tend to quite naturally do because those, those strategies have worked in our life. They seem to have worked, got us to where we wanna go in life, right? Most people who I work with are, have some great results in their life. They're achievers, they get things done. Okay, so we experiment with these what seem to be solutions, but we end up creating results that we don't want.
So we already have the grief, and now we have other results that we don't want, like we blame ourselves for grieving wrong. We deem what we're doing as wrong, and we get stuck in these spin cycles that are very dark. We get very disgusted and very confused, which lowers our self-confidence. And we create suffering in addition to the pain, right?
Meaning we, we create salt and throw it into the wound, which doesn't heal the wound just normal. I did it all too. We make no significant progress. It is just deeply frustrating, and we feel like a failure maybe for the first time in life, right? Our brain makes meaning out of it and deems us a failure.
Okay. Super normal friends. Here are the two biggest reasons, high achievers stay stuck and suffering. Number one, we blame ourselves for not doing it right. There's no such thing as right. There's no right or wrong, but very instinctively when we don't see measurable progress. We blame ourselves for not doing it right, as if there's a right.
We don't know. It's vague what is right. We don't know, but clearly we're not doing it. That's what we decide. That's number one. We blame ourselves for not doing it right. And the second reason that high achievers tend to stay very stuck and spinning and suffering is we try to use the same tools that have always worked for us, former us.
So that's self-reliance, being very, you know, independent, determined, very focused, very motivated. And that looks like willpower checklists, mental toughness. We try to use the same tools that we know that we're familiar with. Of course we do. And here's why grief doesn't respond to any of that. Are you ready?
That approach worked to get you, to get you the degree, the career, the thing you wanted in life. Fine, but this is not that. Grief is a whole other ballpark. It requires new tools. My guess is you've never done anything this hard. The old tools that have always worked in life, it's like, it's like using a hammer to build a house, which you could do theoretically, but what you really need is like a nail gun and some other power tools, right?
Have you ever used a screwdriver to get something done when actually what you needed was a screw gun or one of those like impact drivers? What's the difference? It's, it's efficiency is the difference, the effort, the time. It's efficiency. Okay. So we blame ourselves for not doing it right. We try to use the same tools that we've always used.
Two big reasons. That overachievers stay stuck. And I, I say this with love and I know this because I did it and myself, and then I see lots of other people do it right? Because overachievers tend to come to coaching to get coaching. This is mainly who I coach or high achieving people, friends. The actual problem is not you.
It's not you. Your person's death changed everything, including you. It's that catastrophic. Including your brain and how your brain is working these days. Not forever, but for now it's so catastrophic that it impacts your entire body. I don't know if you've read the Grieving Body, Dr. Mary Francis O'Connor, but it, there's nothing, it doesn't impact in your body, no system in your body that grief doesn't impact.
It changes your relationships. It changes the future you planned. It changes everything that once was familiar to you. It leaves nothing untouched, and that leaves us with this massive learning curve. At the worst time in our life, you are not the problem. The problem is that death is this catastrophic.
It's this hard to lose your person. What? What overachievers high achievers naturally do is they just look to themselves as the problem I did too. They try to find the solution by being tough on themselves, which is to rely on former you and what former you knew to work. This is exactly the time that you're not that version of you.
You are not your former self. Death changed you too. And very little of what used to work then will work now very little. This is the time when the number one emotion that is so useful and no one tells us. This is curiosity. No one tells us though. Grieving is learning. That's another thing no one tells us.
Grieving is learning. Sorry you didn't sign up for this course. It's the course of your life, and I wish you weren't in it. I wish you had no reason to be here. But since you are here, I want you to know that grieving is learning and therefore, the most powerful and useful feeling is curiosity. It's not intuitive.
It's not hardwired. In fact, I think it's counterintuitive to be curious, not it's counterintuitive for people like us for overachievers, high achievers. And I want you to know the relationship between, um, it's the grieving body, Judy, Dr. Mary Francis O'Connor, the grieving body, and I also, that, that one's really new, but I also love her book, the Grieving Brain from maybe two years ago.
So the relationship between self-criticism and curiosity is an inverse relationship. So us high achievers, we go straight to self-criticism. Well, when we're in self-criticism, we can't also be curious, but it's like a teeter-totter, right? But if we can get curious, then we're not being self-critical. If we're genuinely curious, now we can learn.
And grieving is learning. Okay, so do you see why the overachievers default position does not work? It's because of that inverse relationship between self-criticism and curiosity. That is why losing a spouse can be, it's not easy for anybody, but it can, it can be extra tough for high achievers. This is why, and there's no owner's manual and there's no rule book, and there's no way to get an A.
These are all things that high achievers really appreciate, right? Just show me what to do and I'll do it. Someone tell me how to do this. Grieving is learning. Grief needs tending, not toughness. Grief needs tending, not toughness. It needs gentleness, not deadlines. It has its own timeline, friends, and it's not neat and it's not tidy.
And it's not linear and it's not categorical. Five stages of grief were not meant for us. They're very outdated and they were never meant for people grieving the loss of a loved one ever. Right? They were applied in an incorrect way. If you read a book with the five stages of grief, no, it's wrong, it's misinformed, but you know, some things are really sticky and that stuck in 2012 when Ted died.
That's all I could find. Five stages of grief, and I wanna throw it across the room because there was nothing categorical or linear about what I was experiencing. It's just a, a hot mess. High achiever is such a good question. Thank you, Harry. It's someone who gets things done, focused, right, creates results.
Who people, people rely on. It's a person who's motivated, like a go-getter. Those efficient kind of people Who's. Early, not even on time to things, but early, right? Who has checklists? Efficient kind of person. Maybe a little Type A possibly. Okay. Grieve is not linear or categorical. It requires, here's the thing I want you to hear.
This requires a brand new relationship with yourself. No one's telling you this about grief. No one told me this. It requires you to form a brand new relationship with yourself. Your number one relationship is with you, and the quality of it really matters now, like never be well, I feel like, not like saying like never before.
I think that's accurate. The relationship that's you have now, you need now with yourself is one built on. Guess what, love. It's not about time. It's not about mental toughness or checklists or motivation or deadlines. It's about love and curiosity. You've probably never had to love your way forward before.
You've never had to love your way through something difficult. Again, this is different grief. Grieving the loss of your spouse is different. So coping, coping, getting by, right? That's putting on your game face. It's going through the motions. It's like faking it, but never feeling like you're actually making it.
It's trying to kick yourself into shape. It's, it's building a house with a hammer. Healing is building a house with power tools. It's understanding how your brain is working. Now, there are very specific ways that your brain works. Now, that wasn't true before, and there's a future for your brain that's different again, but the brain you have now is the brain you have now.
Okay? The key here is to observe your journey without judgment. We're not good at. We're not good at that. We observe things and then when we, we decide whether it's appropriate, whether it's working right, we make meaning, or maybe we shouldn't be making meaning. Observe your journey without judgment.
Curiosity, objective. Curiosity. Be willing to learn. I'm talking about mental flexibility, observing your thoughts objectively. Objectively and then evaluating them being willing to be wrong. I, the only reason I ever started stepping forward in an efficient way was because I was willing to be wrong about everything I thought was true about grief.
I don't know, my brain just handed me a bunch of thoughts that just seemed absolutely true. Like, here's one example. If I'm not miserable, I didn't love him enough. That'll keep you stuck. I believe that for years and for the first 18 months, I was stuck in believing that I wasn't a good enough wife and friends, whatever we believe, our brain will go find more evidence that it's true, and maybe this is even more important.
Block out any evidence to the contrary. So all I could see was the times I was, you know, snappy and hangry and crabby. All the times that we don't show up as the best possible version of ourselves. 18 months of that spin cycle, right? So you have to be willing to be wrong. You have to be willing to challenge that.
It's called confirmation bias. You have to be willing to challenge it. Okay, brain, thanks. And can we go find the ways? I was really good, the days I really did show up as the best possible version of myself, right? We have to be willing to be wrong. Another solution here is to tend to your feelings proactively instead of attempting to dodge them.
Now, our all humans have these brains that are hardwired to try to dodge difficult feelings because to your brain, difficult feelings. Pain equals could be danger, could mean death. And your primitive brain's only job is to keep you alive. So it will urge you and in fact, demand that you try to dodge in some way, shape, or form difficult feelings.
That is our hard wiring. It's primitive, it's primal. So what I'm saying here is override the most primal setting of your brain and tend to your feelings proactively. I know that's a big ask. That is the way forward. We have to unlearn what's not true 'cause all of us, by way of being human are here walking around believing things that are actually not true.
So sometimes we have to unlearn what's not true. Example, I wasn't a good enough wife, so that we can learn what is true so that we can think true to us. And useful and kind. Thoughts on purpose. That is the way forward. And I, you know, businesses have strategic plans. I love a belief plan for us, meaning a list of thoughts that are true to you.
True enough. Like on a scale of one to 10, where 10 is it's absolutely true, like at least a six or higher. A list of thoughts that are true to you that are useful. That are kind and having that be your belief, like your strategic belief plan and practicing that offensively get up, you're brushing your teeth, you run through it, and also defensively when your brain tries to, you know, bring up something that is not true, that is not useful, that isn't kind.
Okay. Our brains are just like, there's just like jukeboxes in there and you know, an unattended jukebox sitting in some corner. It's just gonna play songs. That's what it's designed to do. That's okay, and we can go up to it and tell it what songs to play. Where that analogy ends though, is that a jukebox has a specific number of songs you can choose from.
It's not that many. Our brains have an infinite number of thoughts. That we can choose from. So if we can choose from an infinite number of thoughts, then why not make sure that they are true to you, useful and kind. Why not? You have infinity to shop from and the shopping is free. My brain thinks I should be done with this and I don't.
Oh, I lost your comment. And I don't handle. The old and new me. The new me doesn't know how to be the old me. Can't be. Yeah. Yes. What you have, Teresa is today you, and she's different from former you and she's also not yet future you. Just today. You just, today you, I also, I know Teresa 'cause I, she's been a client of mine.
Teresa, you also are in a brand new era where you actually have time on your hands. Teresa just retired. Whole new ball game. Okay, so lots of learning there. Some delayed, unintentionally delayed feelings probably just because I happen to know you were crazy busy at work. Okay? So whole new era. Whole new learning curve there, okay?
And you could argue that maybe you didn't quite get familiar with current you, because current, you had a really busy and taxing job. Yeah, your brain isn't, it's nowhere where it used to be, right? And it's not nearly as sharp. Nope. It's not gonna be. It's not going to be. Just for now though, isn't There's gonna be fog and you're gonna forget things and you're not gonna be able to, I remember not reading a three sentence paragraph.
I would read a three sentence paragraph. By the time I got to the third sentence, I had no idea what the first two sentences said. No idea. So you're gonna fun. You're gonna function well below your pay grade. Whether you work or you don't work, you get what I'm saying? Okay. That's the way of it. And that we can get mad at it.
And guess what that does? Makes your brain perform worse. Even worse. Or you can think of it as, okay, this is the brain I've got, my loss impacts my brain and my body and my spirit. We're talking about the brain right now. Think of it. Think of yourself as having had a stroke. I remember thinking this must be what it's like to having to have had a stroke because I know my brain isn't working and I cannot make it work, right?
But, but it was actually a good analogy for me to continue to use because I don't know, if you had a stroke, you wouldn't know how your brain is gonna work for now. But we know that brains heal themselves. We know like neuroplasticity exists, right? So we know that our brain's gonna get better. But the question is, what about this current brain that I have?
How does it even work? Curious observation and how do, and then I can learn how to support it, but do you see if you're just mad at it that you never get into curious observation, therefore you never learn how to support it. I know Harriet, I got one of those, um, carabiner things for my keys, and I only allowed my keys to be like attached to my purse if I was out or on the hook when I got home.
So how did I solve for that? I didn't judge myself. I got myself out of self-criticism and into curiosity, so I could think of a simple solution so I could actually find my keys and I didn't make it mean that I was losing it or I was crazy or right. Just like, no, this is what I've got for now. This is the brain I've got.
I can be mad at it or I can try to learn it so I can try to learn how to support it. Okay. Do you see all these little moments where we just wanna be mad at stuff? I get it. It's totally normal. It's probably our default position, and that's okay. But then as long as we go, oh, right, right. I, I'm getting self-critical and that doesn't work.
So I have to remember that grieving is learning, which means I have to get myself into curiosity so I can figure out this brain, so I can figure out how to support this brain. That's actually the fastest way forward. Self-criticism is a, is a spin cycle of stuck and your brain will actually work worse because there's so much pressure and now we're talking stress hormones, like it's just this spiral.
Okay. Are you with me? Good. Good. Harriet. I know. So what I'm suggesting to you kind of boils down to seven skills that we can start practicing right away. Number one, look at your relationship with yourself. What do I mean? Listen to how you talk to yourself on good days, on bad days. How do you talk to yourself?
Is that how you would talk to someone you love, who is in the worst chapter of their life? How would you talk to someone you love going through hands down, the worst, most difficult chapter of their life? Talk to yourself that way. Listen to how you talk to yourself, eavesdrop on your own thoughts. That is number one.
If you, if you work with me, if you join my, uh, group program, chapter one, day one, we're diving into our relationship with ourself and I have a pledge for my clients to sign it. Is that foundational is that important? Number two. Start practicing the most useful feelings. Do you remember what they were?
Curiosity and love. Start practicing those. How do I, how do I practice a feeling? You might wonder, how do I create that? Well, you think thoughts that are true to you, that create those feelings, genuinely create them in your body. So number one. Audit and maybe overhaul. Probably overhaul your relationship with yourself.
Number two, start practicing the most useful feelings, love and curiosity. Step three, observation without judgment. So can you observe yourself, your thoughts? Yes, your feelings, your actions, the results you're creating? Can you observe those? Objectively and not make judgment, not get into that really easy place of self-criticism.
What does that sound like? Oh, okay. It's 9:00 AM on a Tuesday and I'm already crying. Okay. This is, this is apparently what we've got today. I wonder why, maybe it's 'cause I slept like two hours. Oh, well maybe I can get to bed early. Right. Do you see how that leads to curiosity, how that leads to maybe some solutions versus it's nine o'clock and I'm crying already and I'm obviously failing at this and I'm back at square one and I'm so mad at myself 'cause I should be able to figure this out.
Do you see how that does not lead to any curiosity and I'm promised you grieving is learning and maybe, okay, let's say you get on the scale. And you've lost a ton of weight or you've gained a ton of weight, whatever you don't like the number, let's say it that way. You could really beat yourself up. You could really, your brain will want to make meaning out of it.
You're failing. Gotta do better. So that's a result you found and, and so easy to judge it, when I'm saying is observe it without judgment. Hold back the judgment, get curious instead. Okay, so that could be about any thought that's playing like a broken record. Record in your head. It could be a feeling that you have a lot.
It could be actions you're taking, like you're reaching for the thing, the chocolate, the drink, the whatever. Or it could be a result you're creating, doesn't matter. Just whatever you're observing in yourself. Observe it, but don't judge it. And see if you can get to curiosity. Number four, examine your own thoughts for truth, kindness.
And usefulness or otherwise known as like, are they in service to you? What do I mean by that? Do they make you feel like crap, right? If your thoughts make you feel like crap, no, you gotta delete that and then go thought shopping because thought shopping is free and thoughts are infinite. And you can try them on for size like an outfit and see how they make you feel.
Thoughts cause feelings, friends. So examine your thoughts for truth, usefulness, and kindness. I love this question. So you're examining your thoughts for truth and usefulness and kindness. Ask yourself what would love say, what would love do in this moment? What would love say? It's such a good question 'cause we're learning how to love ourselves, right?
Probably haven't. Relied on that in our lives much. Okay. Number five, process. The feelings sounds like a terrible idea. It is actually the best idea ever. It is the thing. I was afraid to feel my feelings I ran for six years. I don't want you to waste that time process. The feelings, episode four of my podcast, which is called Life Reconstructed.
We'll walk you through how to do it. It is a game changer, friends. And these feelings that I was so afraid of, the more I ran, the bigger and scarier they got until I was just so deeply exhausted years later. And I feel like I had no choice but to face them. 'cause I promise you, they will wait for you feelings, demand to be felt, and they will wait sometimes decades.
For me, it was years. And when I started actually processing them, processing them, using the method I teach in episode four of my podcast, it changed everything. They, they shrunk back to proper proportions. And do you know what? They were doable. Like I could process them. Processing feelings is like a bit like digesting food, like it leaves our body.
That's number five. Number six, intentional thought creation. Meaning choosing thoughts that are true and useful and kind and practicing them, like the belief plan example I gave you earlier. Powerful. And if we choose our thoughts really carefully, then we get to feel however, those true, useful and kind thoughts make us feel quite naturally.
Because thoughts cause feelings, and from feelings, we take actions very naturally. So this whole, this downstream effect very naturally flows. If we simply choose thoughts that are true and useful and kind, that's what I help people do in coaching. And then we choose them, right? We shop around, we choose thoughts that are true and useful and kind, and then step seven, we make that belief plan and we practice it proactively on offense, on defense.
We're teaching our brains to think these thoughts. Our brains are looking for the path of least resistance, right? So the more we teach the brain, these are the thoughts we believe brain. At first. It starts out at a dirt road in your brain. And then, but the more we travel the dirt road, now it becomes a one lane paved road and then a two lane and more we practice them.
The more we create this like eight lane superhighway, the brain doesn't care. It will be happily travel the eight lane super highway. Doesn't care which one we travel, so we might as well direct it to thoughts that are true and useful and kind. Summary number one, probably, oh, need to overhaul your relationship with yourself.
That's my guess. No, thank you, Harriet. I'm not saying to try keep everything positive. No, not at all. Thank you for asking that question. It's about true being true to you. Useful for you and kind to you. If that happens to be a positive thought, great, but maybe it's not like what we would call a positive thought, right?
I'm calling it a chosen thought, an intentional thought that you have really curated. It's very different than positivity. Like, let me give you an example. Um, for, for years I said I should have been able to save him. And I, so I, I had myself locked up in this prison of my own creation, right? Not allowing myself to fully live because I didn't keep him living.
Okay? That's one example. The thought that I eventually chose to think on purpose, that's true to me, and really useful. It's not like all unicorns and rainbows and positive. It's, he wasn't for me to save, it wasn't for me to save him. Honestly, that thought is just kind of sad. Um, it doesn't make, it isn't happy or positive, but it's true and it serves me well because it takes away the, like the, the, I would've called it guilt that I should have been able to save him.
No. Right. And it's kind to me because it's, it sets me free from that prison that I had myself locked up in. Harriet, tell me if that helps you. They're not always positive thoughts, but they are chosen on purpose. They're like us telling the jukebox what to play and my only criteria are it's true to you.
That thought is true to me. He wasn't for me to save. I wish he were, but I know he wasn't. How do I know? Because if he were for me to save, I would've saved him and I didn't save him. It's useful for me 'cause it sets me free from that prison. And it's kind to me too because it doesn't, it's not me holding myself responsible for something that actually, you know, I did everything I need to do.
Okay. Good. Harriet, A great question. I'm really glad you asked that. Okay. Recap, overhaul your relationship with yourself. Start practicing the most useful feelings, which is love and curiosity. Observe without judgment, your thoughts, feelings, actions, results, anything you see notice in your life. Number four, examine your thoughts for truth, kindness, usefulness.
Okay. Number five, process your feelings. I know that sounds like a terrible idea. It's the best idea I can give you. Number six. Intentionally create thoughts and therefore you get to feel the feeling and do the action and create the result. It's a bonus. And then number seven, belief planning and practicing those intentional thoughts you've created.
Okay. Those are super important skills. They're important skills, yes, for this, for grief, but also just for life. These are life skills. I just so happen to have lost my husband. I just so happen to help widowed people through coaching. So I'm applying these tools to grief, but they're life tools truly. And what result does that create?
What does healing actually look like? What does even healing mean? Okay. One definition is the loss and the pain no longer control my life. That's one definition. One that I love and the author is unknown to me is, um. Healing is remembering with more joy and less pain. I love that one. Another way to think about healing, it's like I carry this heavy backpack every day.
I carry it, but you know what? Ergonomically a backpack is like the best way to carry something that's heavy and I'm strong enough to carry it. There was a day that I couldn't carry it. But now I can carry it and I wear this backpack and I can go like weeks and months and I hardly, you know when you're hiking and you have a backpack and you kind of forget you're wearing it.
That's this. I can go months without noticing that I have this heavy backpack. 'cause ergonomically it's correct and I'm strong enough to carry it. And then other days I'm like, yeah, got this heavy backpack. But if, if I could set it down, would I know I don't, I don't wanna set it down. Ted's important to me.
His life matters to me. He's a part of me. I don't wanna pretend he didn't exist or that I don't grieve him. I do. Okay. So that there's some ideas about what healing even means. 'cause probably some of you're wondering like, what the heck does it even mean? So what does this look like to actually heal for people that are high achieving, that used, are used to holding things together?
It's. It's knowing exactly what tool to use, in what situation. It's knowing exactly how to work with your emotions rather than against them proactively. It's understanding there. There is a perfect, unique curriculum for each of us in this moment, and what I teach is uncovering that and getting all the lesson out of it in this moment.
It means to stand on a solid foundation rather than shaky ground. Our brains will put us on shaky ground often when actually a solid foundation exists. Right? I will. I will coach clients and they will be convinced that they're doing it wrong. They're right, should be much further along. By now. There's like everything is failing shaky ground.
And I'm like, okay, but hang on. Tell me, tell me what you have accomplished. Tell me what's gone well, like factually the things in your life. And they'll be like, oh, well, okay, this, this, this, and this. So all I'm doing is getting them back on the foundation, strong foundation that is factually theirs to stand on.
But the brain will have you over here on shaky ground, right? So. That's a skill we have to realize we're on the shaky ground and then get ourselves back onto the solid foundation that is factually ours. Okay? It looks like taking efficient strides forward in a way that honors your person. There is no need to move on or get over it.
Those aren't even things, but there is integrating your person, including your person as you step forward in this life, honoring your person as you honor yourself. It's discovering this version of you. Would we trade her or him? Yes. Yes. We would trade them to get our person back, but here we are with this version of ourselves.
There's also a future one. What we've got is this version of ourselves with this brain, right? Gotta figure out who that is so we can continue to grow. It's knowing. We have a sense, we have a sense of identity and purpose, and we're clear on that. It's knowing that we're fully equipped for anything life is going to hand us, and it's knowing that we can create any result for ourselves because we know exactly how to do it.
These are the skills that are so important. That's how we know we're healing, right? It's living life fully and on purpose. That is possible. For you, my friends. If you found this podcast helpful, I invite you to join Life Reconstructed my coaching program exclusively for widowed people. It will help you step forward toward a life you will love.
Again, simply go to the sudden widow coach.com and click work with me.
