Walls Where There Used To Be Doors With Stephenie Zamora

Author and personal development coach Stephenie Zamora grappled with anxiety, depression, and PTSD after the sudden death of her ex-boyfriend. We're diving deep on choosing to come back after devastating loss and how we can take care of ourselves in our darkest moments.

Transcript

So let's start with your last story. Yeah, So at the end of 2014, I ended a two year relationship with a man that I cared very deeply for, But who was no longer the right fit for me. And two weeks after that, And two days after I had to ask him to leave me alone, He ended up committing suicide. And it just absolutely flattened me and my business just instantly. And before that I had been doing really well. I felt like I was on a good path. I felt like I knew who I was and what I wanted to create. And everything just came to a screeching halt the moment that I got that news. And the best way that I can describe it is that it cracked me so far open that I changed just so dramatically at my core in an instant and nothing has been the same since then. So flattened me, Flattened my business. I started having massive anxiety and panic attacks and had PTSD. I would sit in front of my computer and cry because I couldn't remember who half my clients were. I couldn't remember how to build websites, Which is something that I had done for years. And I couldn't even put my own life story in order, Let alone tell you what I did the day before. And it was horrible. I mean, My brain just, It just didn't work anymore. I couldn't understand logistics. If you told me to go from A to B, I could barely handle that. If you threw in a time or I needed to bring something, I would end up on my couch in a ball of tears, Just like, I don't know what you want from me right now. And after about seven months of that, It finally came to the point where I just couldn't, I couldn't run on the fumes of the aftermath anymore. I finally reached out to a mentor and told him what was going on and had a really intense healing session with him that gave me my brain back, Most of it, Overnight, And just began the journey of uncovering who I was in the aftermath and what was different and what needed to change in my life and my business and how to really, Really begin healing so that I could start thriving. That's phenomenal. And tell me, I mean, In the beginning of your life before that major loss, Had you ever experienced anything that you could even categorize into a place of loss, Or was this just the first, Holy crap, It's happening, And it just explodes your world? Yeah, That was my first experience. I had had a lot of loss. I mean, I had changed jobs, I had ended relationships. Like, I had gone through a lot of different types of loss in my life already, But this was just the first experience that rocked me to my core. And I had never experienced grief like that. I mean, Just instantaneously, You're thrust into grief, Which I know you know, And it's just like you, It's a whole different world, And your relationship to everyone and everything around you is suddenly very different, And the world is very jarring because you're so raw. It's like you're just so cracked open that everything is harder and feels different and is more intense, And not to mention all the emotions and all the experiences that you're having internally. Yeah, That was my first big experience with that. And what about it made it so different? I think it was, You know, I have lost grandparents before that, Family members, But it was the first loss that was, For one thing, Very unexpected. It was very tragic. There were a lot of aspects of it that were traumatic for me, Like questioning my own safety with somebody that I loved and cared for, And that kind of rocked my sense of trust with the people around me, As well as the finality of it, Because he was there one day, And he was somebody out in the world that I cared about, And even if he wasn't the right person for me, And even if I never saw him again, There was something about knowing he was out in the world that was comforting to me because he was a great guy. He treated me well. And so it was a finality of like, Oh my gosh, Like, He's just, He's gone. Like, He just opted out and he's gone now. And really realizing that the way that that impacts everybody, Like when it's a death and it's unexpected, And especially when it's suicide, The ripple effect from that loss is just insane. And so it, Yeah, I had never, I had never had a close traumatic loss like that. Wow. Yeah, I hear that a lot with instances of suicide, That there's, You can't really compare it to anything else because there's nothing to compare it to. It is something that has this edge of finality in it. And yeah, I love what you said about how there's a comfort in knowing that the people, Even if you're no longer with them, Are still floating out there somewhere in the world, And to not have that presence there anymore, And to know and be told that that presence is not there anymore is a shock of news. So I want to jump into the aftermath, Which I know you touched on a little bit. There's a concept that I teach called mind circling, Which is all of the things that we wish we would have said or done or that we did say and didn't want to say, Or did do and didn't want to do. And we feel like there's these thoughts that kind of circle around in our brains that kind of haunt us after grief. And I'm kind of wondering what was haunting you in those moments? Like what did the aftermath feel like other than the exterior symptoms, Which of course affected your business and your relationships with other people and ability to even physically pull through a day? What was going on internally for you there? Yeah, That's a great question. And I think what's really common with suicide loss is that everybody who knew the person really wonders, Like what could I have done differently? And I have some specifics of that that I'll talk about, But with my ex-boyfriend, There was people who felt guilt around really seemingly insignificant things. Like, Oh, He had asked me for help with this and I hadn't got around to it. Like, Could that have been, Like there is a lot of guilt that comes with suicide loss for everybody that knows the person. And that awareness was, You know, In a weird way, It was comforting for me because having been so close to him, I felt massive, Massive amounts of guilt. And I blamed myself and I felt like it was my fault. And, You know, What could I have said and done differently? And, You know, Specifically in my situation, It was, I needed to ask him to leave me alone. He was showing up, He wasn't respecting my boundary of asking for space after the breakup. And so I felt like I needed to be really clear. And in clearness, I turned cold. You know, I didn't feel like I could be warm and loving. I didn't feel like I could tell him that I cared about him and that, You know, Maybe one day we could be friends or, You know, I felt like I just had to be clear about you need to leave me alone. And this is still, This memory can still get me really, Really emotional and I'm still working with the guilt around it of a moment where I felt like I watched him check out because, You know, The relationship was over and he was really understanding that. And so that moment specifically still lives with me to this day of what could I have said and done differently? And while I've done a lot of work around knowing that it's not my fault, I'm not to blame, There was a lot more to the story that I wasn't aware of. There was a lot of stuff going on for him that I didn't know about, But it's really, What could I have done and said in that moment and would he still be here if I had done things differently? And so that really, Really still to this day, Like I said, Comes up for me. But I think that that's the most common thing with suicide loss is the guilt of what could I have done and why didn't I know? Why didn't I see the signs? And with suicide, Sometimes there are signs and sometimes there aren't. And that's what's really hard. You start to just pick through everything to look for, Something that might not have been there at all. And there's nothing that you could have done. And suicide especially, And grief in general, The sister of guilt is shame. But was there any secrecy surrounding his loss or people that, Whether they were in your family or your network of friends or his family or his network of friends that were trying to cover up or trying to hide or kind of gloss over what happened, Was there anybody that tried to change the truth of what happened? No, There was actually a lot more information that came to light after the fact that I didn't know that, And his story isn't mine to share, But a lot of information that kind of put all the pieces together to where I was able to heal more of the guilt and the blame and the shame of, Oh, This was a much different story than I thought it was. And what happened actually makes a lot more sense now. And so it was more a bringing to light things that I wasn't aware of that had been presented to me in a completely different, From a completely different perspective or in a completely different light. And so I don't think that everybody gets that blessing of having some of that information when it comes to suicide. Some people keep it all, They keep it very close to their heart, What they're going through. And having been somebody who was suicidal when I was younger, I understand that. You don't necessarily share those feelings with people. So in a lot of cases of suicide loss, It's completely unexpected. And there was no, Again, No signs leading up to it, Nothing you could have done differently. And in the case with my ex, It turned out there was a lot of backstory that I hadn't been made aware of from much earlier in his life. And so it was actually a very helpful and healing process to learn that information. It didn't wipe out the guilt and the pain and the shame that I was experiencing, Because that took a lot more work with myself and healing and lots of processing, But it was helpful to have more information. Yes, Absolutely. I can imagine, Especially in the midst of grief. I know for me personally, And for a lot of people to search for information of why things happened, How they happened, Where they happened, When they happened, Is almost the more information we get, We think the better we'll feel about everything that's happened. And I'm interested, You used a phrase that I really liked. I believe it was running on the fumes of the aftermath. What moment was it in the aftermath where you told yourself, I can't live like this anymore, And you sought the help of this mentor that you knew? Was it like a moment in time, Or one day you just woke up and you're like, This is gonna be the last day I do this. What did that coming back start to look like for you? Yeah, It was a very specific week where it kind of came to head. And for me, Running on the fumes of the aftermath was, I didn't eat and sleep for months. And even when I started eating, There was three foods that I could eat, I could stomach, And then I could hardly eat any of them. And in order for me to sleep without sleeping pills, I would go for runs or I would go to the gym and I would just work my body or run until my legs gave out. So I was literally running on the fumes. And even when I did start being able to get more food in, My anxiety was so intense that to sit still at a networking meeting that I was part of, I would have to pull on my fingers under the table. I mean, To the point that they would ache. I just had so much anxiety coursing through me and I wasn't sleeping well even when I started sleeping. So I was just not healthy. I wasn't, My body was just all out of sorts. And the specific week, My memory was getting worse and worse. And I had started seeing a new person. And I remember that particular week, I went with him to one of his jobs and I was working while he was working. And I was just sitting there sobbing. And I couldn't remember, I couldn't code anymore. It got to the point where I just sat there looking at the message of letters and characters and I couldn't make sense of them. And I was like, Am I gonna have to learn this all over again? It took me years to get to where I am now. I don't know who these clients are. Like people are upset with me because I'm not responding to their emails because I didn't even remember I was supposed to. And having stepped into a new relationship, There was expectation there, There were plans being made. And I think it was the overwhelm of all of it all at once that I just, I didn't know what to do anymore. And I was part of this networking group and my mentor is in it. And I went over and I told him, I was like, I need help. Like I can't work anymore. I can't even, I would have to go through a whole process of locking my door where I had to memorize what I was wearing and tell myself where I was going because five minutes later, I was gonna wonder if I even closed the door because I would literally lose moments. They would just disappear. And I wouldn't know where things went or why I was where I was. And I told him that and it was actually, It was really nice because he reflected back to me that it was obvious externally that something wasn't right with me. And he was like, I have noticed that you haven't fully been here for a while. And I was wondering like, Where did you go? Where did she go? And this makes perfect sense. And it had not occurred to me that I had PTSD and he gave a name to it. And I think that there is positives and negatives to labels. And at the time it was helpful for me to have a label that was like, Oh, This is what's happening. Like there is a thing happening in my body in response to something else. And it's something that I can work with. And so he was able to help me start working with that PTSD and recognize that, Okay, I have trauma and the trauma comes from these specific moments and these specific things so that I could really start working with it. Yeah, I love being able to finally hit on a name of this is what's happening, This is what's going on with me and that he was able to provide that insight with you. Did you guys share, Or I don't wanna use the word commiserate, But did you, Was there like a mutual bonding and I've also been here before? So he has worked with a lot of people around a lot of different traumatic experiences. And he actually would fly to a small city up in Canada and work with a community that had a lot of suicide loss and actually had helped them reduce their suicide rate tremendously in the time that he was working with him. So he didn't have a direct experience that was like mine, But he has been around quite a bit of trauma and grief and suicide and just horrible horrific things that people have gone through. So for him, It was like, Oh, Of course, Like of course this is what your body and your mind is doing in response. And so there was a comfort in that for me of like, People around me understood that I had been through something, But nobody had experienced anything similar. So nobody could fully understand and help me, Especially when I was having panic attacks or when I would talk to my mom, She would send me supplements for this should help your brain. And people were trying to help me with the best of their ability, But to connect with somebody that had been around a lot of trauma and for him to just be like, Oh, Of course, Like let's work on this now. That was huge for me. I love how affirming that is for you. And tell me about the type of work that you did to come back. Yeah, So the healing process of my mentor was a big part of that. We actually did a couple and I was getting certified in acupressure. So I did some acupressure, But the biggest thing for me was actually discovering the hero's journey, Which is a narrative pattern created by Joseph Campbell. And I had kind of accidentally started writing my next book and same mentor, He recommended the writer's journey, Which is all about how to use the hero's journey to write more specifically screenplays, But it just breaks down to the different steps. And the hero's journey for anyone who doesn't know is a narrative pattern that has three primary phases and 12 core steps that basically make up the foundation of every story, Myth, Movie, Book that we have read or have come across. And when I realized I was writing this book, I started studying it and I remember specifically, So it was in the fall of that first year after my loss and I had started to get my brain back. I was struggling with, Am I ever gonna get it fully back? Like I was noticing a lot of the places where I just wasn't the same anymore and I was really struggling with that. So there was, I think it was Thanksgiving and I was just a hot mess again. Like I felt like I was having the second coming of like the grief, Like all these waves of grief and the PTSD had gotten triggered again and I was really feeling like I'm never, Like what is wrong with me? Am I never gonna get out of this? And so I kind of instinctually picked up the hero's journey and started reading through it and had this moment of, Oh my gosh, Like the fall is not the hard part. It's actually the comeback because the fall, It kind of just happened, Especially in traumatic losses or unexpected losses or all of the things that we go through in life, It's actually quite easy to fall, To face plan, To hit rock bottom. And there's not necessarily going to be a bounce back when we hit rock bottom and there's not momentum to carry you all the way around on the journey. So we get to that death and rebirth, We get to that rock bottom place and finally it clicked for me that I really actually had to choose to come back. Like it wasn't just going to happen with time. I had to make the choice that, Okay, I've learned what I need to learn. I've been to the very bottom of this grief journey and I'm doing the healing work and now I actually have to claw my way back from the depths of it. And it was really difficult because, When there's, Especially when there's trauma and PTSD involved, But if it's grief, If it's loss, If there's anxiety, It's really hard to choose it. Like it wasn't this inspiring moment where it was like, Oh, I'm going to choose to come back and then bam, Everything was amazing. It was every moment of every day making different choices, Like making the choice to get out of bed and get dressed, Making the choice to actually get ready and go out into the world even if I didn't want to, Making the choice to try to work on my business when I would rather just sleep or making those tiny choices. I would go to the gym and I would be kind of having a temper tantrum like a three-year-old the whole way there and I might go and pick up a weight and lift it twice and then go home and cry, But that's what the choice looked like to get to a place where I was moving through it and I was choosing a different outcome and I was really, Really coming back from the really deep depths and the grips of grief. That for me was one of the biggest aha moments of it's a choice and it's hard and we have to keep choosing it every moment of every day. I absolutely love that and it speaks so well to my own experience because you're right, It is very easy. It's easy to fall. Life kind of just puts those griefs upon us. And there are ways we consciously choose grief as in initiating breakups or making moves across the country or filing divorce papers. These are griefs that we can instigate and then we feel the grief that comes from the fall. But the real grief comes from being in that darkness and realizing that me staying here is totally up to me. Like, Am I gonna live here or am I just visiting? Let's see, Where do we wanna go next with this? Tell me about how those moments of choosing to consciously come back are informing your life today. Like, Do you still feel like you're making as weighted of a choice every day or has it dissolved into routine for you or does it vary? What does that look like? Yeah, It really varies. So it's gotten easier for sure. And there have definitely been distinct moments in the last year and a half years where I feel like, Oh, Like I'm back in this specific way. Most recently, Really coming back into my business, Which it took two and a half years to really reorient to my work and to my business and to how I wanted to serve and support people. And the way that I've described it is the work has become noticing where I'm bumping up against walls where there used to be doors. And that has been one of the most frustrating pieces of the work is noticing, Again, Like I feel like I'm just hitting my head against a wall. Like I used to be able to do this and trying to do things or be a certain way the way that I was before and finally stepping back and saying, Okay, This is one of those things that's just different about me. Sometimes there's a block, Like sometimes there's another layer of the grief or the trauma or the guilt that needs to be worked through for me to unlock that part of myself again. But a lot of it has been realizing again, Like, Once we go through something that is altering us at our core that has changed who we are, Especially so quickly and so intensely, It's about reorienting to literally everything around us because we are so different. And that has been the work that I still do where I notice, Okay, Like this doesn't, I can't be that person anymore. So how do I turn in a new direction and start walking a new path? How do I start finding a new way of being? How do I let go of the idea that I'm this type of person when she's not here anymore? Again, Some things can be worked on to bring them back to life and other things. It's about just letting that part of yourself go and figuring out who you are now. And that's been the biggest work that I still do today and really just incorporating everything I've learned into the new body of work that I'm creating, The new website that I have and teaching the heroes journey. And yeah, Just continually reorienting. And I think it's important with any loss, Especially the big traumatic ones, The ones that just change you so quickly is it takes time. And I remember six or seven months into my loss, Working with a coach of mine and her telling me like, One day you're gonna look back and you're gonna ask yourself, How did I ever think that I could do this or be this way so quickly after what I'd been through? And I didn't understand that. And I really get that now. I mean, I'm still finding places that need work. I'm still finding ways that I need to reorient. I still have triggers that bring up my PTSD, That bring up another layer for me to work with and clear. So it's just, It takes time. It does. And I always tell people, People are, I hate the euphemism that time heals all because it's all dependent also on what you do with your time. Because the passage of time helps in the sense that we're able to look back and kind of, We have more life to have lived to have a wider lens to view our grief from, But also you have to do the work of even noticing that. And then of course the work on moving yourself forward as well. I'm interested to know if you could write a love letter or maybe you already have to the person that you were, The day that you found out about his suicide. What would you tell her about what's ahead? I think that I would tell her, Yeah, One of those things is it's going to take time, Like be patient with yourself, Because I really did try to jump back into my business specifically very quickly. And I would also tell her really face into everything that's coming up for you right now. And I did that very instinctually a lot of the times, But there were places I resisted it and face into whatever emotion or feeling or experiences coming up, Like don't resist it. Don't try to explain it away. Don't try to rush through the process of fixing or healing it, Like just be with it and feel it all the way through. And don't let anyone tell you what they think about it. Like just be with that experience, Because that's where the biggest healing and wisdom and insights and lessons came for me. And really that's what allowed me to clear all of the stuff that I've cleared so far, Was just not trying to bypass it, Not trying to rush through it, Not trying to use the, Oh, There's a light at the end of the tunnel and everything happens for a reason. And all that stuff is fine and true, But it's not helpful in the moment. It's like, You just gotta be in it. And you have to let it be okay that you're in it and that you're feeling this way. And that maybe you are in a ball on the kitchen floor, Just crying your eyes out. And that's the work, That's what needs to happen. And just let it be okay and process it and you're gonna move through it. That's so healing and so uplifting for people who are in the immediate aftermath right now. There's this sense of co-easy that comes with it because holy crap, Is it gonna change your life. Yeah. Tell us in your own words, I know you mentioned the website and you mentioned the new book, But kind of give us a little rundown of everything that you're working on right now, As well as where people can find you. Yeah, So I just launched a new site, It's callofthevoid. Tv. And it's built around this body of work, Which is using the hero's journey as a tool to really rise up and come back from the dark, Hard chapters of life, Whether that's grief or trauma or depression or just big life transitions like you talked about earlier. And more importantly, This is what I'm really passionate about is the work of how do you reorient to your own life in the aftermath? So how do you reconnect with yourself and who you've become? How do you reorient to your relationships, To your work? And really redefining who you are and what you want to create. And that to me has been quite possibly the hardest part of it. Now there is the comeback, There's the healing work that is pretty intense, But how do you really rise up and come back? So I'm working on my next book, Which is about pretty much everything that we've talked about, My own journey through this. I have a coaching offering, Which is journey mapping. So how to uncover the purpose of whatever path you're walking now. And then I have a lot of great articles and videos and resources for people who are going through it. That's lovely. And I love having found a kindred spirit in you and I love the opportunity to have gotten to talk to you today. Yeah, Thank you so much for having me and you're doing such amazing work. And I know if people are listening, They obviously already know you, But just follow everything that she's doing because you are fantastic and you're doing really, Really important work.

Reviews

How amazing. I learned so much. Feel massive empathy for, and admire the courage of, your guest speaker. I feel tears behind my eyes. Thank you / her for sharing ❤️

Insightful and much appreciated 🕉