From Grief To Peace: Guided Journaling For Mindfulness & Compassion

The tables are turned as Heather Stang, the regular host of the Mindfulness & Grief Podcast, is interviewed by guest host Audrey Hughey about the new guided journal for grief, From Grief to Peace, which releases on June 1, 2021. Heather shares how she began journaling about her grief over her Uncle Doug's death in high school and the differences between free journaling and guided writing with prompts. From Grief to Peace is based on the Mindfulness & Grief System developed by Heather Stang.

Transcript

In the 47th episode of the Mindfulness and Grief podcast,

We'll discuss the benefits of journaling through grief,

And I'll share insights from my new book,

From Grief to Peace,

A guided journal for navigating loss with compassion and mindfulness.

The Mindfulness and Grief podcast is brought to you by Awaken,

My meditation for grief program that helps you cope with the heartache and pain of loss with mindfulness-based practices for your body,

Mind,

And spirit.

Join Awaken to participate in weekly meditation for grief groups.

Access the complete Mindfulness and Grief course library that features guided meditations and streaming video,

And connect with people who understand what you're going through in our live sessions.

Grief is hard enough.

You don't have to do it alone.

Learn more and join the community at meditationforgrief.

Com.

I am your host,

Heather Stang,

Author of Mindfulness and Grief and the guided journal From Grief to Peace.

If you find this podcast helpful,

Please click on the subscribe button so you'll be notified of future episodes and leave a review so other people can find the Mindfulness and Grief podcast and benefit from the teachings.

In this episode,

I will be interviewed by Audrey Hugley,

The founder of the Author Transformation Alliance,

A community dedicated to uplifting and empowering authors at all stages to reach their vision of success step by step with a powerful network of support to guide them.

Audrey has been a passionate writer from a young age,

Her notebooks quickly filling with high fantasy and science fiction short stories.

What began as fiction writing evolved to consist mostly of report writing and formal business communication during her 14 years of active and reserve duty in the United States Army.

I am a member of Audrey's Author Transformation Alliance,

Which is a monthly membership program for writers.

I'm also an avid user of her author's planner,

Which is something she puts out annually.

I'm in my third year using this book.

I wanted to invite her in to interview me because not only is she an expert on writing,

But she's had plenty of grief in her own life too.

Before we dive into the interview,

I wanted to share how I started journaling.

I had a few diaries when I was really little,

You know,

Those books you would pick up at the grocery store that had the little lock on it that certainly were not really secure.

And it was in freshman high school English class.

My teacher,

Joanne Frymuth,

Had us keep a daily journal.

We were supposed to write a certain number of pages each night,

Probably like three or four.

I don't really remember.

And I know I had spiral notebooks that I used for my journal.

And every day before we started the lesson,

We would open up our journals for her to look at.

And read things because to her confidentiality was really important.

She had a deep respect for her students.

It was probably around that time that I began processing my grief for my uncle who died by suicide when I was seven years old.

I was doing a lot of writing around what it would be like to have him in my life and reflecting on the day that my mom told me the news.

And unfortunately,

I don't have those journals anymore.

My father found them,

Read them,

And threw them away.

He was not happy with some of the content that was in there,

Some of which I imagine was around maybe my musings around my uncle's death.

But there was probably a lot of other teenage banter that made a parent uncomfortable.

Despite those words being gone forever,

I know that the process of journaling during that time did help me find some meaning and some direction for my own life that clearly stayed with me for decades until this day.

I know in my heart that having teachers such as Joanne Frymuth giving me the space and encouragement to journal during that difficult time in life is a key step on my path to becoming a writer and has a huge impact on this guided grief journal from grief to peace.

So I just wanted to send some gratitude out into the atmosphere.

And now onto the interview.

So welcome,

Audrey,

To the Mindfulness and Grief podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

You are one of my heroes,

In part because of your,

The scheduler,

Which I'm going to make sure we have on the show notes page because anyone who wants to be a writer,

I have the 2021 author's planner on my desk all the time,

Along with erasable friction pens that you introduced me to.

My fave.

And it's these tools that have gotten me to where I am as a writer.

And so we're going to turn the tables and with my gratitude for you getting me to hear,

Let you interview me,

Which is a whole different thing on the Mindfulness and Grief podcast.

We've done this once before.

So this will be fun.

I like this.

This sounds like a really fun format.

I'm so excited to be here.

And to be talking about your new book.

So I've been very excited.

I've been following you while you've been working on this and of course asking for your updates.

So it's good to see this come to life and be shared with the world.

And I think the first question for me is like,

Probably,

What would you say separates this book from your previous works?

I'd say a lot of blank lines.

Because this is a guided journal.

And so there's a lot of spaciousness for the reader or we'll say the writer to record their thoughts and feelings.

But I think of what I'm doing in this book is,

If anyone's ever gone bowling,

And you've seen kids bowl,

And how they put up the bumpers in the lanes so that the kids don't get a gutter ball.

Yes.

Or adults in some cases.

You know,

I'm giving you some bumpers so that you can stay in the lane of doing your grief work while also grieving your own way.

And so that's the difference,

I think is a lot of the space.

But there's a big similarity,

And that is that this book follows the mindfulness and grief system,

Which is my eight step.

I'll call it a process.

Eight steps of guidance that are in my first book,

Which is mindfulness and grief.

And from grief to peace,

The guided journal follows those eight steps.

And I also just turned in a chapter on those eight steps for the Handbook of Grief Therapy,

Which it's a great honor to be included and to contribute to that.

That'll be a textbook that'll come out much later.

So we'll come back to From Grief to Peace.

But I feel like over the years that I have been working in the field of grief,

That these eight steps have stayed true.

Yes,

That's so comforting to know.

Because sometimes you can go and there's such a wealth of information.

And in a lot of fields,

It feels like the information can change so fast and to have that comfort to know that this is a process that works and that is steady through changes to study through time really is a comfort to know it's something that you're going to be able to use regardless of when you need it or when you might need it again.

So I was gonna say that's a great point.

You know,

Unfortunately,

I've had this experience and many listeners will have had this experience where you have a major loss and it shatters your world.

And you work with that.

And then months,

Years,

Sometimes weeks,

Sometimes decades down the road,

You either have another major loss or you might revisit that earlier loss through different lenses.

Like if you have the loss as a teenager,

You might look at it differently.

So I think part of why the eight steps work is because they're grounded in ancient practices as well as contemporary research and my observations and interviews working with people.

And I wanna be really clear,

It's not eight stages or tick off these eight things and X,

Y,

Or Z will happen.

It's about developing a lifestyle of self-compassion,

Compassion and wellness and meaning in the wake of grief.

That's beautiful.

And so it sounds like it can help add or enhance the other areas of your life as well.

And because there's a lot of things we can grieve,

You know,

Loss of relationships,

Divorces,

Or things like that,

And of course,

Actual death.

So but it sounds like using these techniques can help us in other areas of our life as we're going through the inevitable changes that come in life.

Yeah.

And when my publisher reached out to me about producing this guided journal,

They did so at the beginning of the pandemic.

And so they wanted me to address non-death loss as well.

You know,

Most of what I do is grief.

It's about losing someone that you care about,

Like an actual living being.

But from grief to peace was written,

There are only I think three pages that really specifically address a death-related loss,

Although the other 144 pages you can use for any type of loss including a death-related loss.

Because they realized that so many people are going through both death and non-death losses right now.

And some people might want to go through this a couple times or several times for,

You know,

The loss of a loved one is what we call primary loss.

And then we have all the secondary losses,

Which might be a loss of income,

A loss of companionship,

A loss of a confidant.

Or even a sense of freedom.

As so many mothers out there,

I was looking forward to having my kids both in school full-time finally.

And then of course,

Virtual school,

I couldn't do that.

I'm not going to complain about that.

I'm going to take care of my children.

But at the same time,

After over a year of being in the house with them full-time,

And there's no Starbucks to go to to sit to write,

There is no,

There's no respite,

Really.

There's no place for me to go and have me time.

There are no spa days for me.

I didn't feel comfortable after having,

You know,

Had COVID and how severe it was and then dealing with long COVID.

I did not feel comfortable even when services did open up again.

And the loss of that sense of,

I have somewhere I can go to escape what feels like the Groundhog Day.

Right.

Well,

And you mentioned having COVID and having long COVID.

And there are people who are grieving who've also gotten COVID.

I've worked with many family members who've not only lost a loved one,

But maybe have shared the illness with that loved one.

And there are moms and dads and aunts and uncles and grandparents out there who are feeling that pressure that you're feeling.

Or it's not even pressure because I get it.

You love your kids.

I know,

You know,

You would do anything for them.

It's but we do have to take time to refill our cup.

And that is doubly so when you are caring for other people.

And that is true for anyone who's grieving who also has little people relying on them.

Or you know,

There's,

You know,

The thing is,

Is there's so many different permutations and combinations to how grief lands for people.

And we could sit here all day and list the different ways.

But the reality is if you're listening and you are suffering for any reason,

You know,

This guided journal is written to help you process not only the pain of what you're going through,

But to record the memories,

To record the impact that the relationship of your special person had on you to dig deep into what do you really want?

Which in the early acute grief,

Like that's not even a question I would begin to ask.

That's much later in the book.

Yes.

And I'm glad to face that during the pandemic too.

Like they had to,

They were forced,

We were all forced to stop and look at our lives and really examine are we living a life that we believe is worth living?

And that's a question that many people who are going through acute grief,

Again,

May not even be ready to look at.

And that's okay.

Be patient with yourself if that.

But some of you,

I was speaking with a woman this week who,

A widow whose husband died years ago.

And while she's not in acute grief where she's not crying all the time,

Of course she misses him and anniversaries come around and birthdays and even those non-special days where you just go past the park the two of you used to love.

And yet she's wondering,

Who am I now?

And one of the challenges of grief in the pandemic is if you are at that point in your loss experience,

You don't get to spread your wings in the same way.

Yes.

Yes.

It's definitely,

It feels so limited.

So definitely like we're caged or the wings are clipped and so to speak because there are fewer opportunities yet to do the things we'd like to do to redefine ourselves.

I've always defined myself partly by my desire to travel and experience new places and new things.

And we haven't done that.

We don't do that.

And of course,

Eventually that will open up,

But when you're forced to,

When you're a traveling soul,

A wandering soul,

And then you're stuck in one place for a really long time,

That definitely causes you to maybe have some identity crisis or feel like a part of you that you love is not being filled.

Yeah.

And if everything else has changed too,

Because someone you care about is no longer on this physical plane,

One of the things we talk about in grief and one of the things I try to do with my first book,

Mindfulness and Grief,

And this book From Grief to Peace,

Is really embody the principle of the dual process model of bereavement,

Which is,

Strube and Schutt did the research on this.

And it's the idea that we oscillate back and forth as humans between what we would call loss-oriented coping,

So where we're crying or looking at photos or just addressing our emotions or missing the person,

And restoration-oriented coping,

Which is where we start living our life again.

We go back to work.

We do the things on our to-do list.

We read books.

We connect with friends.

And that restoration-oriented coping piece is a little extra challenging right now,

Again,

Because we just aren't able to connect.

I don't want to dwell on that too much and get too,

I want to acknowledge it and say,

This is really hard.

We have to get creative,

Which when you're grieving,

You just don't really even have the energy sometimes to put on the same outfit,

Much less be creative.

And that's where this book comes in.

My hope is that by asking some evocative questions,

And even asking some questions you've probably already asked yourself,

But haven't taken the time to write it down.

And that is really crucial,

I think,

To self-exploration and exploring where you are and being really honest with yourself.

There's nobody to look at your answers or grade you or judge you.

But the act of committing yourself to words that you're writing on paper has this huge impact on us really drilling down and figuring out how we're feeling or how we're coping or what the real problem is.

Sometimes we don't know the real core problem in a situation until we're forced to choose the words in order to write it down or say it out loud.

That's a really great way of putting it.

And of course,

Someone from the Author Transformation Alliance would put it that way.

Sometimes we know how we feel.

And sometimes how we feel is pre-verbal or without words.

That's why I included a few expressive arts exercises in the journal as well,

Where you can get out some crayons or colored pencils and just have at it,

Or doing a collage or that kind of thing.

But sometimes words escape us.

But sometimes words clarify.

They do.

And some of the things that I've really,

Some aha moments in journaling for me has been when I've written down something that's totally not true.

And that's,

I think,

A fear sometimes we have with blank paper.

And you know,

As someone who coaches writers,

Like,

You know,

We get paralyzed.

We're afraid to write.

Because sometimes when you're writing down your answer to a question,

And there's finally nobody around to look at it or grade it,

Like kind of what we talked about.

And then you write down what you think the answer is supposed to be.

And you have to face the realization that it's not true.

That is absolutely one of those epiphany moments where you have to face this.

It isn't true.

What is true?

What is the truth for me?

Or do I need to explore more to find that?

But when nobody's looking at your answers,

You don't have to say the right answer.

You can be authentic,

You can be honest and true to yourself.

And then there are those times where you say exactly it and you write down words and you're like,

Yes,

I want this on a bumper sticker.

Oh,

Yes.

You know,

This is exactly how I'm feeling in this moment.

And one of the things I encourage people to do in the introduction of From Grief to Peace,

I have tips,

You know,

Journaling tips in there.

Because great teachers have given me journaling tips and they've always been helpful.

And the most helpful tip I ever received was when I was a Phoenix Rising yoga therapy student in training.

One of the mentors,

His name was Barry.

Barry had us journal one night.

It wasn't part of the program.

It was just we all sat in the dining area and journaled.

And Barry said,

Keep your pencil moving.

Don't pick it up.

Don't backtrack.

And we did that for two minutes.

And then he said,

Okay,

This time,

Don't write as fast.

Because there was something that was happening where by not picking up our pencils,

We felt like we had to go really quick.

Yeah.

And you kind of get out of the moment then because your body tenses up,

You can really feel a difference.

And I love that instruction.

Just keep it moving,

But that doesn't mean you have to rush.

That's very mindful.

Yes,

Yes,

Absolutely.

And I think an added touch is when you force yourself to,

If you're in the moment,

Stream of consciousness,

Sometimes I think you really just have to let it flow.

But when you really want to write that stream of consciousness and find that meaning,

I found that actually concentrating on writing my letters while concentrating on the beauty of my penmanship actually helps me figure out what's really important.

What am I thinking about that has the most meaning?

And it is all about meaning.

Yeah.

I like that idea of concentrating on penmanship.

That I might have to bring to my own practice.

I think you would enjoy it.

And I think it can help people too.

For me,

I love typing and I can type.

I can type really fast,

But when it comes to my handwriting,

It's sloppy until I know I want to write something that means a lot to me.

And it can be negative or not negative,

But it doesn't have to be happy and positive.

And I can still want to say,

This is so important that I'm going to take my time to write this beautifully or write this well.

And even if it's just for me,

This thing that I'm writing means something to me and I want it to be beautiful.

Hmm.

That's very sweet.

Isn't it?

Let's talk a little bit about different types of journaling.

You bring up stream of consciousness,

Which is our stream of consciousness writing,

Which is something I think most of us think of when we think of journaling.

I think that's true.

And that would just be where you're writing what flows.

And that can be really helpful,

But there is one research study where they had people do non-directive writing,

Grieving people.

So these are people who are bereaved,

Non-directive writing.

And then another group of people that did directed writing,

Where they're reminiscing about their loved one or they were given a direction to go in.

And they found that in this particular study that the directed writing,

The people at the end of the program felt better and had less incidences of complicated grief and less sadness,

Less symptoms of depression,

Which is really interesting.

And I was wrapping my head around this because what was fascinating is I know one of the authors of the study,

I respect her.

I think she's amazing.

And when my publisher reached out to me with an email,

They cited the study,

Which I already knew about in there.

And I was like,

This is great.

My publisher has really done their research and they understand the benefits of having some guidance.

And I think what can happen,

And this isn't true for everybody.

So if this isn't true for you,

Just ignore what I'm about to say.

But for some of us,

There are times where we ruminate in our journals.

We stay stuck.

We go down that,

I mean,

I have stacks from my probably 20s of journals that I wouldn't say actually helped me grow,

Where it was just complaining.

And there is something to getting that out,

But it's making sure that you're also kind of moving forward.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

And I think that's what's wonderful about your guided journal is like you said,

You put the bumpers up so we can stay focused,

Stay moving forward and not get trapped in the things that aren't going to help us cope or move forward.

And I imagine if I were someone picking up this journal and I hadn't actually written it myself,

It might be the type of journal where I would work in the journal for maybe 10,

15,

20 minutes.

And then maybe meditate a little and integrate like what stood out for me for the time I just wrote and then maybe grab my blank journal and do some stream of consciousness.

So it's not that you have to be in one camp or the other.

You can make imbalance.

That sounds like a great thing to add to your miracle morning for anybody who does miracle morning.

My miracle morning right now is about 15 minutes of yoga and then meditation.

There's no writing in it,

But that might be a really good idea.

I could go back through my questions again and do that.

Yes,

Absolutely.

And then I kind of wanted to touch on something you mentioned about people who they had COVID and then they've also lost loved ones who had COVID.

So is this something that can help people with survivor's guilt as well during their grieving process?

So I think a big part of survivor's guilt in terms of addressing it is cultivating self-compassion.

Because you have no control over that.

And so absolutely,

Because everything I do and so every page in that journal is built on a foundation of self-compassion.

And there's sections on self-compassion.

I'm not saying every page is on self-compassion,

But the idea is for you to recognize that what you're going through is really hard.

And you're doing the absolute best that you possibly can given the circumstances.

I'm glad you asked that question because survivor's guilt is showing up more and more.

It really is.

Early on,

I read about people in their early 30s,

Like I'm in my mid 30s now,

But still people know- Now you're a youngin.

So,

But husband and wife both have it and then the husband doesn't come back.

So you think about that and well,

Why did I make it and the love of my life didn't or,

And it can,

I think also spur the existential crisis that a lot of people are experiencing right now.

And so something like this is definitely helpful for that,

Right?

Yeah,

Because it's holding your experience in that middle ground of mindfulness where you're not denying that it happened,

Nor are you pouring fuel on the fire of hurt and pain.

Mindfulness is about gazing at what is true and finding a path to alleviate the suffering.

Guilt shows up with grief often,

Not always,

But often because,

And this goes back to one of my early podcast a few episodes ago that listeners,

If you haven't listened,

Go back and play it.

It's with Rabbi Leder who wrote the book,

The Beauty of What Remains.

And he talks about his father's struggle with Alzheimer's and their difficult relationship.

And we talk about guilt in that,

About guilt from my loss with my stepfather,

And his loss with his dad.

And he says something so beautiful and it's,

The idea is that when you love someone,

You're never going to feel like you did enough.

You're never going to feel like,

Because that's just the nature of love,

You probably did more than you possibly could.

You know,

Or more,

Not more than you did,

But you probably did more than anyone would imagine.

You were probably heroic because you do everything you can,

But there's so much we don't have control over that we think we do.

Yes.

And that includes other people,

Like with my stepfather's death.

Part of my guilt was that I didn't tell him not to have the surgery.

If he had heard me say that,

Would he have listened?

Absolutely not,

Dr.

Heather.

I have no medical basis,

Right?

It was my own fear.

Some people might say instinct,

But it really was fear.

I don't think it was actually premonition or instinct.

I think it was just my own anxiety.

But the thing is,

You're going to feel that.

I'm not saying that to dismiss the feelings.

The feelings are very real and I know firsthand they're very painful.

They're very hard.

That self-compassion piece,

That showing yourself mercy,

Giving yourself the mercy you deserve,

Is a really big part of it.

Yeah.

I mean,

Even this isn't nowhere near the same,

But even with my ex-husband,

We had been no contact for a number of years after our divorce.

And when he died,

I thought,

Well,

What if I had tried harder as a wife and kept us together,

Would he still be alive?

Yeah.

And that was part of my grieving process and realizing that what happened to him had nothing to do with me.

But isn't that,

I think this is one of those losses that doesn't get talked about,

Right?

Is ex-spouse or ex-partner loss.

And my stepdad and my mom were four days away from divorce when he died.

Oh,

Wow.

Yeah.

So that's a whole other thing.

And what you experienced with your ex-husband then dying,

And that even though the relationship was technically,

We'll say legally over,

It wasn't really over.

Oh yeah.

And I still had a lot of pent up anger over the things that he put me through.

And I felt like if I ever did see him again,

I would get to get those things off my chest.

I didn't want to reach out to him because it was a very toxic thing.

So I think I'm definitely not the only person who's- No.

No.

And I'm glad you brought it up.

That might be a whole other podcast we need to do just to address that because grief is often rooted in love,

But it's not always rooted in like.

And there's a difference between the two.

And you can grieve someone with whom you've had a really tumultuous,

Hurtful relationship,

Even someone that you never had a love affair with.

And this can get into trauma survivors and victims of sexual abuse.

So grief is a severed attachment.

And be gentle with yourself when you feel emotions for those difficult people,

Because it means you're human.

That's a tough one,

But I can't wait to get you home.

Well,

Maybe we should sit down and not compare notes because I guess the privacy piece is.

This is a great thing for us to talk about too,

Is private writing versus public writing.

Absolutely.

And I think one thing we had spoken about before too was how we can explore our grief through writing.

And I explored some of that grief with my ex-husband and his death in my first thriller book.

Interesting.

So you're making fiction now.

So just a reminder to everybody,

Audrey's group is mostly fiction writers.

I'm one of the rare nonfiction people in there because I want to be a fiction writer.

So that's interesting.

Say more,

How did you transform your nonfiction into fiction?

Well,

It was something that I was still struggling with because I never really faced it.

And because of everything that he had put me through,

Everyone close to me was like,

Well,

You know,

They acted like I shouldn't be mourning that or that I would be.

He hurt a lot of people in my family.

So my family was definitely not like,

Oh,

You know,

Poor you or whatever.

I helped his mother get his remains sooner by acquiring his dental records and things like that.

But through that,

I never really got to talk about what it meant to me because I was taking care of her.

I was taking care of the people who reached out to me who did still love him and things like that.

And so I think when I was writing and I started this book from a very short fiction I wrote for the NYC at Midnight short fiction contest.

So you get a prompt and then you have to write to that prompt and in 24 hours or 48 hours,

Whatever.

But I don't know how,

But while I was writing and developing these characters and their stories,

It ended up revolving around her solving the death of her ex from whom she'd been estranged.

And I was like,

I know this is personal.

I know that this is part of me and part of my experience in my life.

And through writing that and my current husband is like,

Why is she always ruminating?

Why is she always coming back to this inner monologue about her ex?

And I'm like,

Well,

Because I can't really say.

It hasn't been resolved.

You know,

That was me always thinking,

Well,

Things have been different.

You know,

If I had tried harder to turn them around,

Which I know now older,

More,

You know,

A little bit wiser,

Maybe that,

You know,

You can't force anyone to do anything or live,

You know,

A life that you imagine them living.

But it actually really helped me reflect on the reality of my relationship with my ex-husband and that even if he was remorseful about some of the things that he had done during our relationship,

He still went out and lived the life that he lived.

And I had no control of that.

I had no impact on that.

And it really just helped me pin down my own feelings about his death and explore that and let him go so I can move on.

For some reason,

Having my character,

Lucia,

You know,

Explore and dig into what he did after he,

After they split and then solve his murder,

Of course,

It's not a murder mystery for sure,

But she does find the killer.

And it really helped me see her,

Let him go to coach myself into letting go,

If that makes any sense at all.

Yeah,

It sounds like you kind of,

It sounds like you externalize the characters because I think that's another thing that journal writing or fiction writing,

Any kind of writing,

It gets it out of your body,

Right?

Because it's in your head or it's in your skin.

And once you put it on paper,

It's outside of you.

Yes.

And you can see it in a different light.

And I imagine,

As a fiction writer,

You have a lot more control over the character's behavior.

100% control,

By the way.

I've learned that but sometimes they do their own things.

But that's,

Again,

Another podcast or something people can learn in the author Transformation Alliance.

But back to journal writing,

You know,

You're talking about changing your relationship to the relationship after someone dies.

And a lot of times,

People feel like they'll,

Okay,

Someone died,

I'll never get to apologize or they'll never apologize to me or that never comes in.

And it's true,

You're never going to hear that,

Right?

Never going to say face to face.

But you can feel it sometimes by writing them letters,

Or by writing yourself a letter or by imagining a conversation.

Someone in my Awaken meditation for grief program recently,

Who lost a partner was talking about how she imagined like during a meditation that her and her partner forgave each other for anything,

Everything,

All of it.

And that it felt like a shift.

And that shift as well,

When I had written through that,

I finally reached the end of my book.

And I think that's what took me so long to finish it was that the way things progressed,

And when I got to the end,

I'm like,

Internally,

She's not resolved.

I can't resolve this until for her,

For my character.

So I'm somewhat more resolved myself and write through that and explore it.

That's true.

When we lose a loved one,

Sometimes we need to acknowledge those residual feelings and give them voice.

And even in the best of relationships,

There are still going to be things that might linger for many people.

I'm not saying everybody,

But for many people.

Not to mention the loneliness of it.

And,

You know,

We should probably address loneliness since we're,

I don't know if we're at the end,

The tail end of the pandemic or the beginning of the next,

I don't know.

I have no idea.

But the reality is,

A lot of people are lonely.

And grief makes you lonely.

You miss your person.

And one of the ways to address that is to remember.

And probably many of us have stories of being around other people who are uncomfortable with us remembering.

Especially if the relationship was an estranged one,

Or just if the person's really uncomfortable with emotion.

Absolutely.

I know someone I'm very close to who is very avoidant,

Doesn't want to deal with feelings and sometimes is made insecure by others expressing their feelings.

So even though I'm close to this person,

I can never talk about this experience with them because they completely shut down and actually kind of lash out.

So it was something else to deal with.

But yeah,

So it did feel really lonely.

And definitely now it's not like we can go out,

Like you and I before the pandemic,

We're meeting at Starbucks.

Right.

Right.

Talk and catch up.

I wasn't so lonely.

I wasn't just trapped in my house.

And now I may have a lot of people here,

But that loneliness still persists because of the situation we're in.

Right.

So if someone,

Your partner,

Your child,

Your parents,

Someone you're living with is no longer in the house and you're spending extra time in the house.

And so some people might think that the best thing to do is avoid memories.

But avoidance,

While it might be a good temporary,

Very short term coping mechanism,

It is not a long term solution for deep emotions or deep love.

And one of the things I incorporated into my book,

Which again,

Some things are broad enough for any type of loss,

But everything in there can be viewed through the lens of loss or grief,

Specifically death related loss.

I included a photo reflection exercise.

I included one of my favorite meditations to teach in my Awaken Meditation for Grief group,

Which if you haven't checked that out,

Please go to meditationforgrief.

Com and check it out.

Definitely.

Is an imprint meditation that comes from a couple other thanatologists.

Started off as a journaling exercise.

I've woven it into both the meditation and journaling exercise,

But where you really reflect on what,

If you're biologically related,

What are the physical mannerisms?

Although even spouses and adopted children,

They'll pick up mannerisms,

Even face the way hold your face.

These things,

Expressions,

That's the word I'm looking at.

I'm a writer.

Expressions.

What are the hobbies?

What are the things about them that you want to name and say,

This is how they impacted me?

This is how they make me see the world differently than I would have without them.

And also,

What are the things you want to let go of?

Yes.

And making a list of those.

You know,

I have many people in my family who I have loved deeply who have died,

But I do not want to be 100% like them.

Yeah.

Maybe I want to be 90% like them.

Yes.

Yes.

Maybe 80%.

But you know,

What is it that you want to drop away?

And so that's a reflection exercise.

But then also we got to come back to us,

Right?

Because we're talking about that.

Who am I now that this loss has happened?

And so just as with the mindfulness and grief system,

Which starts with just helping you cope with grief.

Oh,

And one of the things I love about this book is I was given a couple page spread per section where I could give a little guidance.

So the first two page spread that's not as direct of journaling,

Maybe more instruction,

Although it does have some places,

Forms for you to fill out,

Is your resilience toolkit,

Which is something that I created for Awaken,

The group,

But that wound up in the journal.

And it helps people reflect on like,

How do you react to stress?

You know,

What are the situations that trigger you?

And what do you normally do?

What's your go to response?

And then there's a coping skills makeover section.

How could you do this differently?

You know,

So if my reaction to feeling worn out is to just try to power through more coffee,

I'm just kind of making this one up on the fly.

You know,

I'm exhausted because I'm grieving,

My body's tired.

I'm just going to keep drinking coffee and sugar.

How's that make me feel?

Well,

Then I don't sleep.

What could you do differently?

Absolutely.

Yeah,

Or I think for some of us,

This,

I didn't,

I don't do this anymore.

But I think when I was grieving in the past,

I would simply push people away and isolate myself.

And you know,

Through being in the army,

I had to get over that.

I had to,

I had to transform that behavior into something healthier,

Which not like it happened overnight.

It was a process that took years and recognition of those behaviors and what they were doing to me and to my relationships that made me start to transform how I reacted.

And of course,

The military has been working on resilience training for years since Iraq and Afghanistan.

So they would force us to go through that stuff.

Which is hopefully a good forcing.

It was.

Check the box thing at the time,

But it really was really helpful.

The other aspect to resilience,

You know,

Coping skills is what I think of as one half of it or maybe or part of it.

The other part is self-care.

And self-care are those things that you do regularly.

Underscore,

Highlight,

Bold,

Emojis around it.

Things you do regularly,

Not just you take a spa day once a year.

That's nice.

That is self-care.

But in the grand scheme of things,

We need more frequency.

Little things every day.

Maybe one big thing once a week or once a month.

Yeah.

It's still hard to prioritize ourselves.

So I think having that,

Having a guided journal like this,

If that's part of it,

Is teaching us to build that into our routine,

Self-compassion and self-care.

Just absolutely crucial.

Something I still struggle with,

Especially in this situation.

Like,

Where do I go?

We can work on that together.

We could just go hiking.

We could.

And that's one of my self-care things is,

And not just a walk around the neighborhood.

That was actually my first step to getting movement back into my life was walking around the neighborhood every day.

But then I found if I get off my own little land here,

That makes it sound like I have acres and I do not have acres and acres.

I have a little,

But if I get out of my own house,

Out of my own neighborhood,

Go to the state park that's five minutes down the road,

Change of scenery,

Lake,

Mountains,

Outdoors.

I love it.

By the way,

I know what you're talking about.

Greenbrier.

Yes.

It's a great,

Great state park.

Beautiful there.

It is a really beautiful there.

I think you have a great point too,

Because in the neighborhood,

You can still feel like you're trapped within,

Like your house has a tractor beam on you.

I'm pretty sure it does because there are times where I'm like halfway around the loop,

I call it.

And I'll be like,

I should just turn around and get home quicker.

Which way would be quicker?

And then like,

Why am I in a hurry?

You know,

I've made it this far.

I've walked for 10 minutes.

I could just turn back around.

But I know for me,

Just based on watching myself,

And this may not be true for everyone listening,

You got to find your own thing.

But for me,

It is that not having the house beckoning me,

Like I have to go get in the car and drive back to do anything else.

I need to kind of be in a whole new scenery.

And I think that probably carves some new neural pathways and refreshes me and then I can come back and sit down and do my work.

And some of you listening are bereaved people.

Some of you listening are grief professionals.

And you know that compassion fatigue is real.

And a big part of,

Then you can have compassion fatigue,

Even if you aren't doing this professionally,

You can have compassion fatigue if you're a parent.

Or if you're,

Well,

There's 10,

000 different ways you can have it.

But one of the key things,

I've been doing a lot of webinars for healthcare organizations during the pandemic on compassion fatigue.

And I always end up by saying the real key is to preventing it is living your life fully.

It's not just squeezing in a meal and then getting back to work like you need to live,

Whatever that is for you.

Going through emotions and checking the boxes is not enough.

No.

And if you're listening and you're grieving,

I will say that checking the boxes and getting through in the first period of grief is like a victory.

So I'm not putting that down.

Sometimes just making it through the day is huge.

But at some point,

At some point you start dipping your toe back into that water,

Going back to that oscillating back and forth between coping with grief and living.

It doesn't mean denying your grief,

But living is really important.

And I hope that,

I don't just hope,

I know that these practices I've put in this journal can help.

And those two page spreads in each of the eight sections will give you a little more training on the techniques I use,

Not only with my clients,

But with myself.

There's nothing in this book I don't do myself.

That is so reassuring to hear because you always wonder if sometimes people actually practice what they preach,

If they actually use what they create.

And you know,

I'm a big proponent of that because I could not have finished my bachelor's and my master's degrees double time without my own planner.

Right.

Well,

You know,

There's a lot of things I could do for a career.

Not everybody knows I have a background in web design and my undergrad was in art history.

And I've worked in the pet industry.

I've worked in suicide prevention,

Which I kind of consider similar to what I'm doing now.

There's a lot.

Here's one I don't think I've ever mentioned on the Mindfulness and Grief podcast.

I was a cheese buyer for a year.

A cheese buyer?

A cheese buyer.

It was fantastic.

There was a lot of cheese.

Wow.

But the thing is,

In that year,

We can call it the year of cheese just to be silly.

I did it because I was burnt out from doing yoga therapy.

I had nothing to give.

I knew it.

And I took a break and I bought cheese.

And then I noticed,

Like one day,

I just couldn't take it anymore.

Not the job,

But I hated not helping people.

It was the break I needed to reinvigorate my passion.

But I also realized that when I wasn't teaching meditation or doing yoga therapy during that year,

I wasn't practicing much.

I was kind of off the rails.

And once I went back,

I got my own space to teach out of.

And I realized,

Like,

I have to teach to keep my practice honest.

But in order to teach,

I have to have an honest practice.

I can't teach well if I'm not doing it.

Absolutely.

It's not just an academic exercise where I'm coming in and reciting something.

I want to connect with the people in my Awaken group,

Not only as someone who's been gifted,

Who's had the privilege of being taught these wonderful coping skills and self-care practices from numerous fantastic teachers,

And that I get to share that.

That's an honor and a privilege,

And I love doing it.

But I also want to connect as a human.

And I don't ever want to be like,

I don't know,

I've never been comfortable with gurus or I mean,

I'm not saying they're bad,

But like me personally,

I like sitting across from a teacher that I know has been through it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I want to get to know how much you talk to and get an answer from and feel like they really do care about what you're going through because I strive to do that same thing.

There's nobody who is in any of my groups,

If they say,

I'm struggling so much,

I'm thinking about quitting,

I'm not going to be like,

Well,

If you sign up for this appointment,

I'm going to say,

No,

Let's talk right now.

Get on Facebook Messenger,

We're going to video chat,

You're not quitting.

I'm not letting you quit.

What do we have to do to keep you moving forward and to keep you doing what you love?

So that passion is so important in everything and in living fully,

Right?

Right.

Yeah.

And that's what I really want from the people.

Again,

I'll say the writers rather than the readers,

The writers in From Grief to Peace,

Or from the readers of Mindfulness and Grief or from the students that are in Awakened Meditation for Grief,

I want for them what I want for me.

Yes.

To be able to live fully,

See the sunshine again,

Warm your face.

And to be able to talk about your person with people that aren't going to judge you and to have the wherewithal when you are judged to decide whether you're going to walk away or give them a gentle correction.

Hopefully with the coping skill of not screaming.

And it is possible.

I work with a wide range of loss types.

I've been doing this a long time.

I've seen people the day of their loss.

I've seen people a week after.

I've met people years after.

Everybody has the potential to continue life after loss.

Yes.

And some people,

Their life will be,

Everybody's life will be different.

It doesn't go back to the fame because someone's missing.

Some people kind of reenter life with the same type of energy that they had before.

Many people,

And the people I work with in particular,

Because I like to say that meditation primes the pump for me.

It's not that I'm magical,

It's that the practices are.

That if you have something like meditation or journaling or yoga or Tai Chi or whatever your secret sauce is in your back pocket to build that resilience,

That you see the world differently but it might not all be bad.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I think that's the hardest part too after a loss is trying to see that good and the things that you can be happy for.

And of course,

Not feeling guilty for it.

Not feeling guilty for still enjoying life and wanting to enjoy life,

But getting over that numbness at first.

And that's a process and it's not a quick one.

There's no time frame we can say and you do what you need to do right now as long as you are taking the best care that you can take of yourself right now.

So not feeling guilty for feeling bad,

Not feeling guilty for feeling good.

In fact,

Wouldn't it be nice if that guilt thing just went away?

But it is a practice.

I mean,

I still have moments where I go back to that,

But it's a practice.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I want to just thank you again.

I know we're kind of coming to the end of our time,

But thank you,

Audrey,

For your 2021 author's planner.

I'll get the 2022 as soon as it comes out.

I had the 2020 planner as well and I did get a chapter done.

Like honestly,

That chapter was harder to write than this journal.

Well,

It was an academic chapter.

It's different than this.

This journal,

This is what I want to say about From Grief to Peace.

From Grief to Peace is all of the journaling prompts that I wanted to include in Mindfulness and Grief,

But no one was going to publish a 300-page book at that time on this.

So it's been burning in me since 2014 when Mindfulness and Grief came out.

Before you got contacted about this,

I remember you saying you wanted to create a workbook like this.

So look how beautiful it all came together.

I know.

The universe,

Both of my books have landed in my lap.

That is beautiful.

And I'm grateful for that.

I mean,

Granted,

It's because I put out,

It wasn't accidental.

They weren't just randomly throwing out book contracts,

But they knew that this was my passion.

But I feel lucky that I didn't have to stress about making it happen.

And my editor was fantastic with this.

I will share a funny story.

When I wrote the introduction,

And they kind of told me,

We want this to hit all areas of loss.

And I made a list of all the types of loss.

And I wrote this paragraph about whether you're feeling this or that or this.

And my editor read it,

And she's like,

After reading this,

I feel really depressed.

And she was right.

And having someone else look at it,

We found a way of saying things without this list.

But in a way,

It was kind of good for us to start out the project,

Holding in our hearts the weight of the grief,

The death-related losses,

The marginalization,

Racism,

Sexual abuse,

Sexual trafficking,

All these things that cause people to shut down,

Understandably.

And I want to help us feel safe enough to open back up.

Yeah.

That's beautiful.

I'm so glad you did this.

And thank you for letting me come here and speak with you about this and ask some of these fun,

Well,

Not always fun,

But these helpful things to explore this.

I'm really excited to dig in and have the bumpers to keep me in the lane.

Yeah.

Well,

I want to give anyone who's listening,

Because you've gotten to see the book.

Well,

You've gotten to see the PDF because I don't have a book in my hands yet.

But you will.

If you think you're interested in this,

If you go to mindfulnessandgrief.

Com,

There's a place where you can get an excerpt.

And that includes the introduction,

Which that in and of itself has really great journaling tips.

And then it also has several of the writing prompts from the first section,

Which is all about bringing some mindful awareness to your experience.

And so I hope people will go there.

And if you're listening to this prior to May,

How many days are in May?

May 31.

Okay,

So if you're listening to this prior to May 31,

2021,

There will be book bonuses for pre-orders.

Oh,

I love bonuses.

I know,

Who doesn't?

And the bonuses are going to be audio snippets that you can listen to before you dive into each section,

Each of the eight sections.

That's wonderful.

I love hearing your voice.

And I've been in Awaken,

And it is so soothing and so comforting to have your voice talking us through these things and guiding us through meditation.

It's like enchanting.

I get entranced by it.

Well,

So those will be,

Those eight audio guide,

I guess we'll call it audio intention setting because that's really what it is,

Is intention setting for each segment.

That'll be free to anyone who pre-orders the book and goes to the book page at mindfulnessandgrief.

Com.

There'll be a place for you to send me a code on your receipt basically,

And I will get you those free.

And then even afterwards,

They'll be available for purchase,

Whether that's going to be on my website or Amazon,

I don't know yet.

I'm definitely pre-ordering.

I need that.

Well,

You're going to get those just for taking your time to interview me today.

I mean,

You're a guest podcast interviewer,

So you get all the goodies.

You get the book.

But I really tried to think what do I want to give people to even boost the value even further.

And anyone in Awaken is going to have like tons of stuff to go with it because again,

Everything matches with those eight modules.

Yes.

It sounds like it's perfectly complimentary to each other.

So mindfulnessandgrief.

Com,

This is normally in the podcast where I'd ask the guest,

Where can we find you?

So I'll ask me,

Heather,

Where can we find you?

You can find my book and the excerpt form at mindfulnessandgrief.

Com before May 31st.

You can find the book itself.

You can pre-order it on Amazon right now on June 1st and after.

You can order it.

And you can listen to the Mindfulness and Grief podcast,

Which we're already doing.

So please,

If you are,

Hit subscribe and feel free to leave a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast.

And now we're going to ask the interviewer,

Where can we find you,

Audrey?

Well,

If you're a writer and whether you write fiction or nonfiction,

We do have mostly fiction writers,

But we also have some nonfiction writers as well and people who dabble in both.

So if you're looking for us,

Then you go to thewriteservices.

Com and that's W-R-I-T-E services.

And then if you're into thrillers,

Then you would go to AKHUEHUGHEY.

Com and you can find out more about my fiction,

Which again,

I explored my own grief in writing the first book in my thriller series.

And it's something I continue to do.

And I think I do a little bit of exploring that compassion fatigue like you spoke about because it does touch on the,

Not touch,

It focuses on the themes or the issues of missing persons and human trafficking.

So there is my character who experienced the grieving process with her ex also goes through that where she struggles to feel full and live her life because she knows there's so much darkness going on around her.

So it's exploring how to still live well going through this,

Which Heather's podcast and Wiggan helped so much with getting my head around all of it so that I can help my character.

Yeah,

Well,

Thank you for that.

And both my links and Audrey's links will be on the show notes page at mindfulnessandgrief.

Com slash podcast.

We just go to mindfulness and grief and click on the podcast button.

You'll see it right there.

So thank you,

Audrey.

I'm grateful for your writers wisdom.

You are my Sherpa.

You are my organization queen.

That's what you are.

You keep me on task on schedule.

I love that one of the lines in your author planner and on each week is what am I doing this week to honor the four most important priorities in my life?

So I love how you weave self-care into writing.

And on that note,

I hope you all think about checking out the From Grief to Peace guided journal either pre-ordering it or ordering it once it's launched.

Come visit the site for your excerpt and to get your goodies and go see Audrey if you need help with writing or to be organized as a writer.

Thank you so much.

Big hugs.

Big hugs.

Thank you for listening to the Mindfulness and Grief podcast.

Please help us spread the word and subscribe to this podcast or even write a review.

A special thank you goes to our podcast engineer,

Todd Campbell of Hub City Recording and to the Atomic Mosquitoes who provide our theme music.

This podcast is a service of the Mindfulness and Grief Institute.

Visit us at MindfulnessandGrief.

Com to download your free copy of Navigating Grief and to learn more about our Awaken meditation for Grief group and one-on-one support.

I am your host,

Heather Stang.

May you find some peace in knowing you are not alone and please be gentle with your grieving heart as you move through the rest of your day.