Hi there everyone,
And welcome to the season three finale of Coming Back.
Thank you so much for tuning in today.
Just like the season two finale,
I'm going to share with you a common theme that I picked up from listening to our guests speak this season,
Getting feedback from all of you grief growers and from the monologues that I did at the top of each show.
And the big truth for this season,
Season three,
Is it comes down to choice.
The reality of coming back to the world again,
Of starting to heal,
Of getting connected and reconnected to loved ones and people we want in our lives,
All of that comes down to choice.
We must choose to do it.
At some point we remember,
We recall that we are bigger than our growth.
We are bigger than our grief and have the power to choose where we take it,
Instead of us going wherever the heck that grief tends to take us.
And that's something else that I picked up on this season two,
Grief growers,
Is power.
We all have this power inside of us,
No matter where we are in our grief.
It's the power to choose,
But beyond that,
It's the power to steer the boat and the power to keep going in the direction that we've chosen.
And it's the power to get out of bed and be in the right place.
And it's the power to be a one-time thing.
And choice post loss is not a one-time thing.
It's a practice that we keep doing over and over and over again.
Choosing to get out of bed,
Choosing to put our shoes on,
Choosing to walk out the door,
Choosing to talk to people,
Choosing to be honest about our story,
Choosing to join groups and community,
Choosing to reach out,
To stop hiding,
To show others where our hearts are really at.
We all know people who have chosen,
Consciously or unconsciously,
To continue to be dragged along by grief,
To let their grief define them in a way that keeps them stuck.
Somehow grief has tethered them.
I'm getting visualizations of ropes.
Grief has tethered them,
Anchored them to a spot where they can still choose,
But their choices are very small or very thin or they're breakable or they're limited by fear,
By anger,
By fear.
They're not just a group of people who are just a group of people who are just limited by fear,
By anger,
Or a victim story.
They have decided,
Again,
Consciously or unconsciously not to come back.
People look at me sometimes,
They look at the work that I do or the way that I exist out in the world and they say,
Oh,
You're so brave or,
Oh,
You're so strong for doing what I decided to do with my grief.
And I think a lot of what keeps people stuck in grief is thinking that you have to be brave or strong before you can start taking steps to come back.
But that wasn't what was true for me.
The truth in my life at that time was I just wanted my life to look different than it did.
I appreciated grief for what it was,
But I didn't want to live there forever.
I wanted to honor my mom every single day,
But not have her loss absolutely consume the everyday.
I treasured my anger and the things and the truths that it brought out in me,
But I wanted to connect with people again and rediscover a version of myself that wasn't so bitter.
So I looked around for stories of other people coming back before this podcast existed,
Books,
Blogs,
Writers,
Movies,
Whatever came my way.
And anytime anybody was able to come back from something that totally tore them apart,
I took notes.
Physical notes on paper and mental notes too.
I reminded myself over and over and over again that there are other people out there doing this.
And while I didn't and probably couldn't follow exactly in their footsteps because nobody comes back the same way,
I had the same power within me to choose how I wanted to come back.
The same is true for all of you grief growers.
That's the big truth this season.
You could be like Megan Devine and go down an internet rabbit hole until you find your people with your same lost story.
You could be like Kim Skerritt and insist on finding symbols of life after death that comfort you.
So every time you have to do something hard,
It's a little less so.
You could be like Tara Kaffel and create a space for your loved ones in your physical body.
So you're always taking them with you.
Grief growers,
There's always a way to go.
Grief growers,
There's always something.
There's always something different you can be reaching for.
I can't promise you on the show,
And I will never promise you that it's going to be better than the life that you're living right now.
But I can promise it will take you somewhere and you'll learn something and then you'll get to choose again.
Do you want to keep doing that or do you want to go somewhere different now?
Choose.
Over and over and over again,
Grief and coming back,
It comes down to choice.
And you have that power,
Grief growers,
Just like I do,
Just like every guest this season of coming back has,
Just like every human on this planet does.
You do not have to be brave.
You do not have to be strong.
And you certainly do not have to know what in the heck you're aiming for.
All you have to know is that you want things to look different for you than they look right now.
And then you take one step forward.
Yeah.
That's perfect,
Isn't it?
That's the overarching message for season three.
So I encourage you to go back and listen to each of these episodes again.
Where in each interview can you find these elements of choice?
Where in your own story have you started to choose to do or have or be something different?
Who or what reminds you that you have the power to choose?
That's what I've got for you this week,
Everybody.
I hope you have enjoyed all of the episodes that I was able to bring your way this season.
