Latest / Terri Messenger's Genius Zone / The #1 Secret to Healing a Broken Heart — That Nobody Talks About

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The #1 Secret to Healing a Broken Heart — That Nobody Talks About · Terri Messenger's Genius Zone

0:01
Hey, hey, hey, and welcome to Terry Messengers Genius Zone.
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And you know, this is the place and the space where you get
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something really powerful and life changing every single week.
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Now the lady that I am about to bring on is going to be offering
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something very powerful. Her knowledge, her own personal
0:30
experience, and of course her certification as an Advanced
0:36
Grief Recovery Specialist. Now this lady, Dawn Jackson
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believes in infinite possibilities as a trainer.
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She is an international best selling author, registered
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nurse, and a passionate advocate for emotional healing and heart
0:58
restoration. So with no further ado, let's
1:01
bring on the beautiful Dawn Michelle Jackson.
1:06
Hello, Dawn. Hi, Terry.
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Thank you so much. I'm honored to be here with
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everyone today. Awesome, awesome.
1:14
So now let's ask you, where are you?
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I live in Oregon in the United States.
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OK, so you are right on the other side of the world, which
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is so incredible. So I guess it's, you know, it
1:31
goes to show that we are really in a timeless zone because it's
1:37
man made, isn't it? Because if your time is one time
1:40
and my time is another, then someone made it up.
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So yeah, we we're gonna be talking about a lot of these
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supernatural elements that are involved in grief.
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And you know, I guess to kick off because I feel that what you
2:02
told me backstage is extremely relevant for many people that
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will be tuning into this once we go to air on our podcast and
2:14
right around the world. So people consider grief as I
2:20
guess often a loss or a death of a loved 1.
2:26
You actually thought this yourself until you became a
2:32
obviously a specialist in the field.
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Would you like to firstly talk us through what loss is and what
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it really means? Because some people may not even
2:43
understand what they're feeling and why.
2:47
I would love to, Terry, Thank you so much.
2:49
You know, I think when most of us hear the word grief, it's
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like that elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about.
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It's uncomfortable. And so many people equate it to
3:00
death. But the truth is, is that grief
3:03
comes as a result from any loss that we experience in our life,
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any transition or significant change.
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So when you move, when you change jobs, when your children
3:17
move out, when your relationship breaks up, when you start
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experiencing health issues or financial issues, when your
3:27
loved ones are struggling, those all create grief in our hearts.
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And so one of the things that I really work on is educating
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people because it is that elephant in the room.
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And I want people to understand that grief is the result of so
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many things because that starts the conversation.
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Because so many times grievers don't feel heard because no one
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wants to talk about those scary things.
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But these are things that we all experience in our lives.
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And you know, we, we know too, as coaches, that awareness is
4:05
extremely powerful. So for that person out there
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that may have broken up with a loved one or felt abandoned or
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deserted by someone who didn't necessarily lose them via death,
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it could be a breakthrough just by hearing what Dawn has
4:24
generously explained, by knowing that it's not necessarily about
4:30
the loss and the death of a loved 1.
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So, you know, one of the things we also recognize on the genius
4:39
side, and it comes with a lot of the authenticity about our show
4:47
and when people are choosing and selecting their mentor, their
4:53
coach, their healer to work with.
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There's a very important piece to this puzzle, and that is
5:01
being able to define your own personal experience.
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And what you actually did express backstage, and I thought
5:11
this was beautifully put, is that there were three
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significant emotional events. And of course, then came the
5:22
divorce inside of that and what that you know how that played a
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very significant role and you had a kind of an awakening about
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that. Can you talk us through those
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three significant emotional events?
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Because I do feel that it's really important for people to
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know that you don't have to be dealing with everything.
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Sometimes by dealing with the significant elements, it has a
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domino effect. So over to you.
5:53
Oh, thank you. Well, you know, it's interesting
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because when I walked into the certification training to be a
5:59
grief recovery method specialist, I didn't realize I
6:02
had experienced so many grieving events in my life.
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But the truth is that we all experience them from childhood
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on. And so I grew up in an alcoholic
6:12
home. My father was an alcoholic and
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my parents were divorced, and then my stepfather was an
6:19
alcoholic. So I grew up, you know, trying
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to navigate that and always trying to be the good child
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because I didn't want any more tension to be in the household
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than already was based on the addiction.
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And so in my teenage years, you know, which are really
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impressionable years, I ended up in my first romantic
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relationship. And I thought, well, this is
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great. This is someone who's, you know,
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giving me this loving attention, or so I thought.
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But as time went on, I recognized that it wasn't a
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healthy relationship. It was physically, emotionally
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and verbally abusive. And I found myself stuck.
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It became my normal. Pattern in this.
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Relationship. I didn't know how to get out of
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it, and it took years to finally step out of it.
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But when I did, I didn't realize that there was so much on my
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heart that needed healing. And I didn't have those tools
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right? Because most of us don't learn
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those things, you know, when we're young.
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And so I ended up entering a marriage with a really loving
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person. He was always good to me.
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But the problem was, is I brought all this baggage in,
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which was my emotional pain because I didn't know how to
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process it. And I didn't even realize that I
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had it. But, you know, I didn't have
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good communication skills. I had a lot of anger inside from
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the things that I'd gone through.
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And so sadly, we ended up divorced.
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And at that time I was devastated and I couldn't see my
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part. I wasn't able to understand that
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it was my emotional pain from the past that really had led to
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this destruction of my marriage without.
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Oh, that makes a lot of sense. That does to me.
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It makes a lot of sense because number one, for the people
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tuning in and listening to the podcast, what you said about
8:31
things becoming your normal, this is a very real thing.
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So you don't know what you don't know.
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So if you're going through something and you've never
8:44
experienced this freedom before, that Dawn is going to unleash
8:49
throughout this broadcast and come to us with some very
8:54
powerful tips at the end. So you want to definitely stay
8:57
to the end, you know, for something to be your normal
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allows you to tolerate it and you will, yeah, you will
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continue to get what you tolerate.
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The other interesting point that I do want to point out is that
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wherever we go, we take our self with us.
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So if we take the old baggage with us.
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So for example, you've gone into this, you know, wonderful
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marriage and you felt that you were with a, a perfectly good,
9:34
you know, marriage person, et cetera.
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However, what you didn't realize is that what came with it was
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all your baggage that you hadn't dealt with.
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And I feel that is absolutely pertinent for our listeners to
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hear because they'll be able to see that, Oh my gosh, is that
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the reason that I'm leaving a trail of destruction behind
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because I haven't dealt with the past.
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And this is what makes it so incredibly powerful to be able
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to go through and have a person, a specialist like Dawn, who can
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move you through the process. Because not only is it going to
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help you release the grief, the loss and the associated
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feelings, but it's going to help you to move forward in a way
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that is going to give you so much freedom.
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So, you know, I see that your mother did the same thing.
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She married a man who was an alcoholic, and then she moved on
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to another man who was also an alcoholic.
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So you can see how that goes from generation to generation.
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So obviously facing that devastation of losing your
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husband, you know, do you think that was the turning point?
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Because I know that you mentioned backstage that you
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pursued a few things, workshops, mission trips.
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Would you like to walk us through that?
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Because I think people need to know that as well because they
11:14
might run to the other side of the world to try and get away
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from themselves or, you know, think that something that is
11:22
quite superficial is going to change things when it doesn't.
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So let's hear your story. Yeah, certainly.
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So, you know, after my divorce, there was a lot of blaming that
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came from me. You know, you didn't want to
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stay married to me. You left our son and me, you
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know, and I, I couldn't see my side of it.
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I couldn't understand. And maybe I didn't want to, at
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that point, take any ownership. And I didn't know how to move
11:53
forward. I was devastated.
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And I remember, you know, putting my son to bed at night
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and then just crying and, you know, wishing that my husband
12:02
wouldn't come back and he didn't.
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And I will share a story about that at the end of this that I
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think is really pertinent. But I actually decided I was
12:15
going to out focus. I was going to put my energy on
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helping other people because maybe that would help me.
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And I didn't know how to help myself.
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So as a nurse, I started volunteering to be a part of
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surgical mission trips to underdeveloped countries.
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So we did surgery, plastic surgery, cleft lips and palates
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and repaired this malformation on children who'd never had a
12:39
normal life until our team arrived in their town.
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So I felt very fulfilled and I did.
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Multiple of. These each year.
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But as time went on, I started to notice that while those were
12:54
really fulfilling, there was still something in my heart that
12:56
didn't feel right and I didn't know what it was.
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And so I started kind of doing some personal growth work.
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I picked up a lot of books and read them.
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I did workshops and I noticed that things were shifting a
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little bit, but I still felt this degree of pain in my heart
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and I didn't know what to do with it.
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And I thought, well, maybe this is just me and maybe I don't
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know how to feel joy and happiness and I'm always going
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to feel this pain inside. And then I met someone who
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decided to go to get certified to be grief recovery method
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specialist and paid for me to go.
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And my words were I don't know why I would need to do that
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because I don't have any grief. Well, day one, I showed up and
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because I had in my mind that grief was just about death.
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And while I'd had some grandparents pass away, I didn't
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have anybody that I was super close pass away.
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And so I stepped into the room and within the first hour when
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they talked about what grief actually is, the normal natural
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response to any significant change or loss in our lives, I
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couldn't believe it because I realized, oh, wow, my life, I've
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had so many grieving events, but that's not how I characterized
14:26
it. And I just figured that that was
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normal because all these things can normally happen in our life,
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but I didn't have the tools to process them.
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So that's kind of how I ended up in the certification training
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and started doing the work to heal the pain that had been
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keeping me stuck and unable to live the joyous life that I
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desired. That is just so incredibly
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powerful and you know, in one of the elements that you utilize
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having become a specialist and by the way, wow about what you
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were doing on your missions for children and plastic surgery
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because that's, you know, that's a big form of healing their
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lives, even though it wasn't enough for you personally.
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But see, the fact is, it doesn't matter what you do or what your
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Zonogenius is in life, when you can get to the core and you can
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do the healing that Dawn has done and that she specializes
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in, that is when your world will change and things will elevate
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in such a powerful and incredible way.
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And one of those elements in In the Process of Grief recovery
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was busting the myths around grief.
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So what are some of those myths? Is it about time healing?
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Is it about replacing loss? What is it?
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You hit two of them right on the head.
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So one of them is that it just takes time.
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And, you know, I love to lead women's retreats.
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And I always ask women, can you raise your hand if something
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still hurts your heart? That happened over a year ago.
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And everybody raises their hand. And then I go to 5 and 10 and
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15. And I say to individuals, or I
16:28
ask them, if our hearts healed within time, wouldn't you think
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15 years or 10 years or five years is enough?
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Who's got time for that? Right I.
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Ain't never got time for. That it's not time, it's what we
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do with the time. Time will just pass.
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It's kind of like when you get a flat tire on the road.
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If you just sit there, it's never going to reinflate.
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Like if you need to do something to reinflate the tire.
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And the same happens with us when our heart hurts, we're
16:58
experiencing sadness. When we're grieving, we need to
17:02
do something. We need to take some action.
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So that is definitely one of the myths.
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Another one is that keeping busy will help us move forward, will
17:12
help us heal. And so, you know, I'm sure
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almost everyone can say that they've used this as a coping
17:19
mechanism before. Keep busy, because then you're
17:22
just going to forget and everything will turn out fine.
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But keeping when people can't stop, isn't it?
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You see these people that are just go, go, go, go, go, go, go,
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go. And really, they're running away
17:34
from themselves. Right.
17:37
Yeah, because if you stop, get what happens, you start
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thinking. And so people don't want to
17:44
think when their heart hurts. I mean, it happens to all of us,
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so that's another one. Replacing the loss is big.
17:53
And you see this in relationships all the time, you
17:57
know, oh, this relationship didn't work out, so we're going
18:01
to get into another relationship.
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Or when we're kids and we have an animal, our dog dies and our
18:08
or a cat dies and our family goes out and buys us another
18:11
one, but we're still greeting the one that we just lost.
18:15
Yeah, that does make so much sense.
18:18
You know, when I first met my husband, Dawn, back in 2006, his
18:26
wife had passed and, you know, she passed away from cancer and
18:33
he had gone through to a workshop, you know, like what
18:37
you're talking about. And incidentally, Ian is a
18:42
chiropractor and, and just is incredible and gifted at what he
18:47
does. But obviously, as I mentioned to
18:50
you backstage, that came to a halt last year.
18:53
However, when he was in this workshop, he was told one of the
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myths about the grieving process taking a lot of time, and he
19:07
decided that it didn't need to take a long, long time.
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What did happen as a result, as we both witnessed, is that
19:18
people couldn't come to terms with it.
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You lost your wife like here and now you're recovered here.
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However, he also said that he'd gone through that grief for a
19:34
lot longer than anybody knew because it was kind of a private
19:39
affair. And they, I think they thought
19:41
she was going to get over it and she was going to get well.
19:44
So you know it. I know that he proved to me that
19:48
you didn't have to be stuck in a lost loop and a grief loop or a
19:54
trauma loop for 15 years. I mean, that's just crazy.
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Who's got time for that, right? You know and.
20:00
That's exactly right, and one of the sad things is that many
20:04
people believe you're never gonna get over something,
20:08
meaning you're gonna stay in that pain for the rest of your
20:11
life. Like losing a spouse, like
20:14
losing a child. But the truth is that there are
20:17
tools to help us move forward. It doesn't mean we're ever going
20:21
to forget that individual. We're ever going to love them
20:24
any less or let their memories go.
20:28
And we might still feel sad, but we can get to the point where we
20:32
can move through our life without the pain every single
20:37
day and experience joy again instead of staying stuck in that
20:42
really difficult state that is very sad and depressing for
20:48
people and keeps them from living their fullest life.
20:52
Look, 100% and our loved ones, I mean, if the ones that have
20:58
passed, you know, wouldn't want us to be stuck in that sad loop.
21:03
And As for the ones that may have hurt us or we've been hurt,
21:09
you know, our higher consciousness doesn't want us
21:12
to, you know, abandoned our own self worth and what we deserve
21:19
to claim back our power. So I love all of these, you
21:24
know, great elements that you're talking us through.
21:27
So the other element is encouraging, identifying and
21:32
acknowledging the significant emotional events in life and you
21:37
talk about how you focus in on them.
21:41
Now, I've been hearing a lot around this lately where don't
21:44
run away from the pain or ignore it, but face it, embrace it and
21:49
feel it to heal it. That sounded good, didn't it?
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I just. You did.
21:54
It sounded great. But can you kind of enlighten us
21:59
about that? Yeah, certainly.
22:01
So, you know, when we keep all of our pain inside, we isolate
22:05
ourselves. And when we isolate ourselves,
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it keeps us stuck. And it's a lonely place to be.
22:12
We, I think we've probably all been there so many times we
22:16
don't feel safe, you know, sharing with others what we're
22:20
experiencing, our emotional pain.
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Because often we're met with, well, I know how you feel
22:26
because such and such happened to me.
22:29
Or if someone's passed away, well, they're in a better place.
22:34
So there's all these intellectual statements that
22:37
people share with us when they don't know what to say because
22:42
they want to fix the situation. They don't want to see us
22:46
hurting. And so they offer something, but
22:49
they don't realize that what they're offering is actually
22:52
leading to more pain. Like, it can be true that our
22:58
loved one who is suffering is in a better place, but that doesn't
23:01
help our heart. That's an intellectual
23:03
statement. And our heart is hurting, not
23:05
our head. And so, you know, I always tell
23:08
people, one of the best things you can say is I can't imagine
23:12
how you're feeling. Because the truth is we can't.
23:16
Even if you and I had the same mother and she passed away, I
23:22
don't know how you feel because you had a different relationship
23:26
with her than I did. We never, every relationship is
23:29
neat, unique. We never have the same type of
23:32
relationship. Exactly.
23:34
And so it's really important to honor each individual's feelings
23:40
about an experience and understand that it is unique
23:44
instead of trying to lump it in. Well, I also lost my mother, so
23:49
I know how you feel. You might have some of the same
23:53
feelings that I did, but you don't know how I feel.
23:57
So it's just really being sensitive to others when they're
24:01
grieving and, you know, holding space, saying how can I support
24:06
you versus just offering advice because grievers need to be
24:11
heard. They want to be heard.
24:13
But so often they keep to themselves because of things
24:17
that they've heard in the past from those that they loved and
24:21
they trusted. And that's so true.
24:26
And I believe we allow a lot of our past stories and paradigms
24:32
and experiences to affect the flow of how we move forward when
24:38
that's the saboteur brain, right?
24:40
That's the the sabotaging part in US that says, Oh, no, don't
24:44
do that or don't say that or you know, this is bad or, you know,
24:48
it's like the screaming monkey on the shoulder where, you know,
24:52
if we become almost surrendered and accepted into where we're
24:59
at, it's very liberating. Now you've covered so much in
25:07
what you have said this far. So I'm wondering if we could
25:12
kind of like just pick this out here, which is the where it
25:18
involves mapping and graphing these life events and losses.
25:24
Can you talk me through? That so when I work with my
25:28
clients and make them through the grief recovery method, we do
25:32
a lot of different things. One of them you already brought
25:35
up as we look at the myths that were all taught earlier in life.
25:40
And then we kind of look at our whole life and graph out the
25:44
different losses that we've experienced because most of us
25:48
don't realize how much we've gone through in our lives until
25:52
we actually have it sitting in front of us.
25:56
You know, our minds will go to certain events that happened,
26:01
but we often, you know, forget about all these other little
26:06
things that equally affected us. So we take a look at that and
26:11
then we look at the relationships that are really
26:14
affecting us right now and keeping us stuck or the ones
26:17
that we think are affecting us the most.
26:20
Oftentimes I find it's actually family of origin issues that
26:27
have really affected every single relationship and
26:30
experience in our life. And so healing some of those
26:34
family of origin wounds is one of the, you know, best ways to
26:41
move forward in our life. That's powerful.
26:45
That's very powerful because I mean, let's face it, our
26:48
formative years are between zero and seven years old.
26:52
And you know, even with well meaning parents, we pick up
26:57
their story, you know, their beliefs and what they say to us.
27:03
And then a lot of the time, we make our own meaning out of it.
27:08
And, you know, if people can really come into that
27:11
understanding, and I love what you said about, you know, being
27:16
able to really get it down on paper because, you know, there's
27:20
something very freeing about taking it from here and putting
27:25
it on paper. Do you find that that works well
27:29
in accountable workshops or programs or mentorship, or do
27:35
you get them to do that on their own?
27:37
What usually works best? And I guess again, how Long's a
27:41
piece of string? Some people are going to be OK
27:45
by doing that, depending on, you know, where their emotional, you
27:50
know, kind of radar is. Others may need that, OK, like
27:56
the De Martini breakthrough. He does a very long and arduous,
28:02
and I say this with the utmost respect, breakthrough where
28:07
you're looking at, you know, every single thing that's
28:11
happened in your life, including those you need to forgive.
28:15
And you're looking at what that person has done.
28:20
And regardless of how absurd it may be, you've got to find how
28:26
you've also done the same thing, you know, and it'll kind of
28:31
appear in a different way. But I swear, if I wasn't doing
28:36
that training in his workshop of about, I'd say 300 plus people
28:42
in Melbourne at the time, I probably would have just run out
28:45
of the room and done something else because you had to
28:49
literally go through so much. But holding us accountable and
28:55
then of course, breaking through was obviously such an incredible
29:00
thing. And this happens over a 2 day
29:04
event. Intensive.
29:07
But what do you generally recommend when you're, you know,
29:11
getting people to map and graph? So I always tell people hard
29:17
work is hard work, You know, it's.
29:21
Difficult for most. Of us to step into this without
29:25
like a coach by our side because it does bring up so much
29:29
emotional discomfort. And so, you know, I work closely
29:34
with my clients and I at this point just do one-on-one because
29:38
I really feel like then I can give each individual client my
29:44
100% attention. And it's not going to, you know,
29:47
a group of people. It's just going to them because
29:51
there's so many things while doing this work that my clients
29:54
share with me that they've never shared with anybody in their
29:57
entire life. And so they're choosing to be
30:00
vulnerable. And it's kind of like I'm there
30:04
to hold space and hold their hand through it and encourage
30:09
them and remind them of what their vision is for the future.
30:14
And that's usually something along the lines of to feel free
30:17
again, to experience joy, to laugh, to, you know, move
30:22
forward towards my dreams versus being stuck where they've felt
30:27
they've been for quite some. Time 100% and for those of you
30:33
out there, we do have Dawn's links in the show notes so
30:38
please reach out. This is bespoke, specialized,
30:44
you know, work that you're gonna do.
30:47
This method is very, very powerful and you know you get to
30:52
experience this one-on-one. So through addressing all of
30:57
these single foundational grief, interconnected emotional pain,
31:04
do you find that most of your clients do come out released?
31:12
Yeah, I have never had somebody come back and say I wish I would
31:16
have never done this work. I don't feel any different.
31:19
Every single client I've worked with says things like I feel
31:24
free again. I feel joy where I didn't feel
31:28
joy anymore. I can navigate this really
31:32
difficult relationship because sometimes people come to me
31:35
because they're struggling in a relationship, whether it's with
31:38
a partner or a parent. Those are two of the big ones or
31:41
a child, and they don't know how to navigate it.
31:44
And it's so often we want the other person to change.
31:48
But as most of us know, the only thing we can do is change
31:52
ourself. And so when we work on our own
31:54
healing, we show up differently. And sometimes that is a big
31:58
enough shift for the relationship to move forward.
32:02
And so I've worked with multiple people who've come back and
32:07
said, you know, I can navigate this relationship with my mom
32:10
again. Like I don't have the anger and
32:12
the sadness that I was experiencing before and feeling
32:16
like every time I was around her that, you know, I was becoming
32:20
less of myself. So and the same thing with
32:24
children, fathers, partners. So this work isn't just for, you
32:31
know, a loss such as I've lost my job or I've lost my health or
32:37
a loved one has died. It's also for ongoing
32:40
relationships that you're just trying to be have be healthy.
32:45
I mean, I do this work on my own partner.
32:49
We're both specialists, and so we do our own work so that we
32:53
don't carry resentments forward. And it's like wiping A
32:58
chalkboard clean. We're going to start from here.
33:03
I love that. I love that it's, you know,
33:07
imagining all of the messy dots. I'm seeing this white board and
33:11
it's got all of these, this mess all over it.
33:14
And then the heads in a scramble and you're in this overwhelm and
33:18
you can't think straight. And then Dawn comes along and
33:22
goes cool 1 sweep and then just wiped the board clean.
33:27
I love that. So, you know, one of the things
33:30
that I do hear time and time again and also I shared with you
33:37
backstage was, you know, the shock of where my husband, Dr.
33:43
Ian Messenger, you know, suddenly went into out of
33:46
control diabetes that has led him to full time Care now non
33:51
verbal wheelchair. And I honestly do not know
33:56
myself how I would cope in a situation of grief other than to
34:02
know what you talking about around this work.
34:09
And if I had a dollar for every person who said this, I'd fly us
34:14
back and forward to your favorite place in the world.
34:19
But how do I take care of myself?
34:21
So a lot of people see that I am absolutely, 100% devoted to
34:30
being with him every single day. I've only missed one day in the
34:35
entire time since he's been in there.
34:37
And look, the honest truth dawn is I feel worse when I'm not
34:42
there. The only reason I didn't go on
34:44
that day is because I had a suspected virus that I certainly
34:49
don't didn't want to pass on to him.
34:51
But how do we? This is the number. 1.
34:55
Key secret. And I mean, even though we're,
34:58
you know, I'm utilizing this as a, as a sort of a key example,
35:03
what's the number one secret to overcoming grief and perhaps in
35:09
terms of taking care of oneself or what's your belief around
35:14
that? So, you know, it's interesting
35:19
because the stuff we teach is usually the stuff we need to
35:21
learn the most. And one of my biggest lessons
35:24
through life that I want to share with you is that when I or
35:30
we choose to continue taking care of others and we forget
35:37
about ourselves, then we can't show up in the best version of
35:42
ourselves. And it's really hard to set some
35:47
boundaries and to not always be there for our loved ones,
35:51
especially when they have health issues and they need us.
35:56
And so I tell people, even if it looks like 10 minutes, you lock
36:01
yourself in the bathroom, you know, or closet, whatever you
36:07
can do for a few minutes to get yourself grounded and centered.
36:11
I don't tell people you have to have all day and have a massage
36:15
and all this because it's not realistic and it hasn't been in
36:18
my life. And when I was a young mom, it
36:21
was those 10 minutes in the bathroom where I could just lock
36:24
the door and I could just breathe and recenter and
36:27
refocus. And so that would be one of the
36:31
things that I would say to you is just, it's OK for you to be
36:35
there every day, but remember to just make some time each day, if
36:40
you can, to breathe, to center yourself, to get in that
36:45
peaceful space so that when you do present yourself in front of
36:50
your husband, you are the best version of you.
36:52
And also be graceful with yourself.
36:55
Like we can't show up. It's impossible to show up every
36:59
single day as the perfect person that we want to be.
37:03
We all have bad days. And so to just be graceful with
37:08
however you look and be emotionally honest with people
37:12
as well. Like I am not in a very good
37:14
space today. I'm trying, but this is what I'm
37:18
experiencing today and I need to be OK with this and I'm not
37:21
going to beat myself up. So I hope that's a little bit of
37:24
helpful insight. Yeah, I love that transparency
37:30
and really nurturing yourself. And you know, a great big
37:36
massive gold nugget in there is, you know, when you are looking
37:41
after yourself, you are then positioned to really take care
37:47
of others. And I will admit this, that if I
37:51
had a young family, I'm not sure how I would go, to be honest
37:56
with you. I'd probably have to lock myself
37:59
into a closet with a bottle of vodka.
38:04
But I didn't have a situation the other day.
38:09
I mean, I, I raised a young family obviously, and everything
38:13
else where I had my very young grandchildren, 3 and 5, five
38:19
years old, and we had an absolute blast.
38:22
But I literally had them overnight.
38:23
So it was 24 hour innings where I was exhausted at the end of
38:31
it. Now, I'm going to pick your
38:34
brains a little bit here because I'm, I had this question in my
38:39
brain going over and over. This question that was driving
38:43
me insane #1 well, I take that back.
38:47
It was just making me extremely curious #1 how does my daughter
38:53
coat? I mean, I know I was in this
38:55
situation and she's younger than me, so she's 25 years younger
38:59
than me, so that makes a big difference.
39:01
So how does a woman coat in a situation where they're dealing
39:07
with grief or they're dealing with this, you know, situation
39:12
and they are caught up in that busy life that is a non
39:18
negotiable. That's very, very hard.
39:23
I mean, I have. I work with people sometimes
39:27
that just cannot find the time to focus on themselves and do
39:33
the work. And so I always gently and
39:36
lovingly remind them that it's so important to take that time.
39:41
And like I said, sometimes it's 10 minutes.
39:43
You know, sometimes we don't have the time to do the grief
39:47
work, but we have time to breathe.
39:50
And you know, it's amazing how we can get through things when
39:56
we don't think that we can. Somehow we come out on the other
40:00
side. And then we can take a deep
40:02
breath and then we realize, oh, maybe it's time that I focused
40:07
on me. But when we're in the middle of
40:09
it, you know, it's kind of like the fight or flight mechanism
40:14
that's working. But sadly, our nervous systems
40:18
end up being on so much. The time that when we do have
40:22
the time to just take a deep breath and maybe meditate, it's
40:26
hard to sit still because we've been on so much.
40:31
And so I just remind people again, you know, we are so hard
40:36
on ourselves. Each one of us is our own worst
40:38
enemy. So if we're constantly beating
40:40
ourselves up about I'm not making time for me, then we're
40:44
doing a disservice to ourselves. So be gentle, be gentle and kind
40:49
to yourself and do what you can do.
40:54
Make yourself a priority, but also be kind to yourself when it
40:59
doesn't feel like you can do it right now.
41:02
And sometimes that priority is I'm going to choose to get a
41:06
healthy snack or a healthy meal, or I'm going to choose to go for
41:10
a walk. It doesn't always have to look
41:11
like I'm going to meditate, I'm going to journal, I'm going to,
41:15
you know, go do a personal growth workshop.
41:19
Sometimes it's the little things because it's not just our
41:24
emotional health, it's important, it's all of it.
41:26
It's our mind, body and spirit, all of that together.
41:30
So if we can do anything for any of those categories, you know
41:35
that's going to help us move forward.
41:39
And the last thing that we want is to be stressed out about what
41:43
we need to do to take care of ourself.
41:46
So what Dawn has just explained is so mightily powerful to heal
41:54
your heart, to be able to, you know, really look at your grief
41:59
and be so kind to yourself. And I know that I heard someone
42:04
who says they set their alarm one hour through the day, a nice
42:09
sounding alarm and they set up a bit of an anchor for themselves
42:14
where they take a 3 deep breaths because as you know, dawn that
42:21
regulates the nervous system. And just taking those 3 deep
42:26
breaths, if you did that on the hour, especially if you are in a
42:30
trauma loop or going through such grief.
42:35
Now finally, our last question. And I always love to ask this
42:40
question because it's one of those questions that when you
42:44
get off and you kind of reflect on what you've really imparted
42:51
to our guests, what would be the one thing that you would like to
42:58
share with us that maybe if you got off this podcast and you
43:03
never had the opportunity to do so, you'd think I'd love to do
43:07
that because this is going to reach those people that really
43:13
are praying for your help. Is there any share that you
43:16
would like to share that we haven't touched on?
43:19
Yeah, I would really like to remind people that you are not
43:25
what has happened to you. You may have had so many
43:30
traumatic experiences in your life, but that that's only part
43:34
of your story. It's a chapter in your book.
43:36
It's not your whole story. And you have the power to heal,
43:42
and you have the power to feel joy again and make something
43:47
different for your life. I look back on everything that's
43:52
happened in my life and I now see it as a huge gift.
43:55
My husband leaving me was one of the biggest gifts and I've ever
44:00
received because he gave me wings to fly, to find myself and
44:05
to heal from all the things that had hurt my heart.
44:09
And I did find joy again and I experience it every single day.
44:14
But it's was important for me to believe that I wasn't all those
44:20
events and experiences that happened to me and that there
44:24
was more for my story. That is gold.
44:28
That is gold turning your pain to power your you know your
44:33
wound to wisdom and your glory to story and giving that gift of
44:40
pain wings to fly. Wow, that is so good.
44:44
So guys, you can contact Dawn and we will have the contact
44:51
details through links on this page on the show notes.
44:57
Where would you say is the best place to find you where you like
45:01
to hang out? I.
45:06
My website is a great place to find me, you know, and there's
45:10
links to my calendar. I'd love to have conversations
45:13
with people and just check in and see what's going on in their
45:15
life. So feel free to schedule a call
45:19
with me, but you can also find me on Facebook.
45:23
I'm on there all the time. Or you can send me an.
45:25
E-mail. Awesome.
45:27
And is that call with you free? Yes, it is.
45:31
Yeah. 30 minute call with me is free, no charge.
45:35
That is so beautiful. Well, what can I say, Dawn?
45:37
Thank you for adding so much value here today and even giving
45:42
me so much wisdom and it's been an absolute pleasure.
45:48
Thank you so much, Terry. I'm honoured to have been here
45:52
speaking with you today.