Latest / She Rises with Ashy & Tijana / 194. Love, Loss & the Space Between: How Do You Heal After Becoming A Widow?

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194. Love, Loss & the Space Between: How Do You Heal After Becoming A Widow? · She Rises with Ashy & Tijana

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Apologie production.
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  Speaker 2: I need your advice.
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  Speaker 1: Are you okay? What happened?
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  Speaker 2: Promise it won't be too much.
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  Speaker 1: Bring it in.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to our bestie segment.
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  Speaker 3: My god, this is the place for you. Welcome back
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  Speaker 3: to our Bestie Advice segment. This is one of our
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  Speaker 3: favorite times of the week, really is. We have some
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  Speaker 3: very interesting bestie advice questions coming in this week, and
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  Speaker 3: we wanted to share something with you that was a
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  Speaker 3: little bit of a sad one. So really sad ashi,
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  Speaker 3: do you want to take it away?
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  Speaker 1: ALRIGHTI hi, girls, I lost my husband of thirty years
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  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three. First of all, oh my gosh,
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  Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. I'm now forty nine. I guess naivete
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  Speaker 1: made me think this will happen one day, just maybe,
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  Speaker 1: when we were both really old. I was not prepared
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  Speaker 1: for the loss in the way that it's shown up
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  Speaker 1: for me, thinking would just be sadness and tears. I
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  Speaker 1: buried myself in our business with our two adult children.
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  Speaker 1: I worked, and I'm I'm still working to avoid my mind.
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  Speaker 1: I've been hospitalized for low hemoglobin with no real medical
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  Speaker 1: reason why I feel so lonely, Yet I think about
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  Speaker 1: the blessing that was my life. My husband was an
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  Speaker 1: incredible man, my everything. He's the only human in my
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  Speaker 1: life that knew me so intimately like no other human ever.
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  Speaker 1: Has he seen me grown as a woman who I
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  Speaker 1: am today, and it's all because of him. The life
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  Speaker 1: I had today is because of the love, the commitment,
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  Speaker 1: the respect, and the care that we have for each
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  Speaker 1: other and the future path we were planning together. The
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  Speaker 1: moment my husband took his last breath, I felt a
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  Speaker 1: deep sense of gratitude for the life that was, for
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  Speaker 1: the blessing of being able to share an end of
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  Speaker 1: a life event with my human, to say goodbye, to
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  Speaker 1: be that pillar of strength for him at a time
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  Speaker 1: when he was stripped of all of his dignity and masculinity.
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  Speaker 1: I've seen a human strength where his world was literally ending,
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  Speaker 1: and he still shows up for me, caring for me
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  Speaker 1: and the kids and never complaining. I genuinely feel so
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  Speaker 1: lost in my life as I don't know what to
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  Speaker 1: do now. I hadn't planned for this life alone. I
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  Speaker 1: hadn't given thought as to what I needed. I was
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  Speaker 1: a wife and that's all the role that I knew.
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  Speaker 2: Well.
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  Speaker 1: I'm now widow. I don't know what that looks like
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  Speaker 1: with me in it. I feel terrified of the thought
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  Speaker 1: of never feeling that love again, or being loved like
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  Speaker 1: that again. I'm not sure who I am without my
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  Speaker 1: human How do I find a version of me I've
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  Speaker 1: never known?
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  Speaker 2: Oh that makes me so emotional, so sad.
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  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.
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  Speaker 2: I just I'm just so sorry that this is what
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  Speaker 2: you've had to go through.
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  Speaker 1: So sorry.
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  Speaker 3: Not you can't mentally prepare for any level of graph
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  Speaker 3: that comes our way, Like life throws curveballs sometimes and
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  Speaker 3: it doesn't make sense, and it feels unfair, and it
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  Speaker 3: feels awful and heartbreaking, and it's a lot.
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  Speaker 1: It's actually the worst thing all humans have to go
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  Speaker 1: through is grief, like any situation, whether it's losing a child,
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  Speaker 1: losing a partner like you have, losing our parents, grandparents,
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  Speaker 1: like friends.
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  Speaker 2: It's awful.
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  Speaker 1: He's the hardest part of life. It's the most fucked
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  Speaker 1: up thing about life is And the more grief you feel,
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  Speaker 1: it's like the more love that you had for them. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I get, Like, how do you exist and keep going
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  Speaker 1: without them? I mean, you have to and you are,
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  Speaker 1: and I bet you're doing an incredible job even though
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  Speaker 1: you don't feel like you are, and now it's exploring
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  Speaker 1: what your new life gets to look like. I think
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  Speaker 1: if I was in this situation, or say you were
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  Speaker 1: going through this, I think I personally would be just
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  Speaker 1: leaning on my support system. Yeah, my close girlfriends, my children.
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  Speaker 1: I would definitely be getting some sort of life coach
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  Speaker 1: or counselor, and just getting as many stabilized as I
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  Speaker 1: could that I could lean on and turn to when
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  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm crumbling. Because grief there isn't a
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  Speaker 1: timeline where you all of a sudden are over and
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  Speaker 1: you forget about it. It's a forever things. I would
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  Speaker 1: make sure I had support forever, however that felt a
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  Speaker 1: need for me, I'd be really focusing on, just like
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  Speaker 1: my health, my body, my nervous system, just like be
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  Speaker 1: able to get through each day and finding things that
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  Speaker 1: bought joy. I've watched a girlfriend go through immense grief
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  Speaker 1: this last year, and it's the duality of all of
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  Speaker 1: it in the same day, in the same moment, she
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  Speaker 1: can feel so much gratitude and so much depth of sadness.
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  Speaker 1: They literally always coexisting together. That doesn't ever go away,
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  Speaker 1: but she the more she leans on gratitude, and the
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  Speaker 1: more she's on purpose and in her passion and surrounding
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  Speaker 1: herself with her community and her loved ones, the more light, pleasure,
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  Speaker 1: play and happiness and joy she feels while she's also
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  Speaker 1: holding all of the grief there. So that's what I
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  Speaker 1: would be doing.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just a tough one when it comes to
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  Speaker 3: grief in general. You really do have to make so
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  Speaker 3: much time for it. You know, you have to be
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  Speaker 3: able to be willing to like let your grief come
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  Speaker 3: along on the journey, sit in the passenger seat of
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  Speaker 3: your car, life with you as you do normal life.
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  Speaker 1: You know.
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  Speaker 3: It's like, I think, the reason why I feel like
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  Speaker 3: it's so important to lean on your community and the
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  Speaker 3: people that love you and the people who support you
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  Speaker 3: is because yes, you might not be at one hundred
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  Speaker 3: percent when you're with them, but you'll be at a seventy.
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  Speaker 2: Five as opposed to a thirty five.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and in that moment, it's going to
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  Speaker 3: give you that spark of like happiness or joy, or
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  Speaker 3: moment where you laugh with your girlfriends because they said
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  Speaker 3: something so funny that your belly is hurting, and then
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  Speaker 3: you'll leave them and then you'll just give yourself permission
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  Speaker 3: to cry too, because you've come back down and now
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  Speaker 3: you're sitting in the car and you're crying, and that's
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  Speaker 3: so it's also okay too. It's like life is not
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  Speaker 3: meant to be some big high or moment of high.
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  Speaker 3: It's allowing the ebbs and flows of life to kind
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  Speaker 3: of come. And I think, and again I haven't been
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  Speaker 3: in your position, so I can only say so much,
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  Speaker 3: but I really do believe that, like, you've got to
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  Speaker 3: be willing to let those waves of grief come through
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  Speaker 3: because kind of awidburn and all of what you feel
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  Speaker 3: is true, all of it. It gets to exist, the grief,
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  Speaker 3: the feeling loss, the fears around not feeling like you'll
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  Speaker 3: feel love like that again, like I would have those
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  Speaker 3: same fears too. But also on one hand, you sound
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  Speaker 3: like you have a very good mindset and a very
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  Speaker 3: good perspective on life. And it sounds like also you'd
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  Speaker 3: be very loved by your community. So I think the
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  Speaker 3: balance of knowing that those things can exist without judging them,
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  Speaker 3: but also knowing that there's also a part of you
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  Speaker 3: that knows that you will be loved, whether it's through friends,
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  Speaker 3: whether it's through family, whether it's through finding another partner.
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  Speaker 3: I think keeping the mindset that there's an abundance of
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  Speaker 3: love to go around in and within you and also
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  Speaker 3: within your community who can pour that back into you
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  Speaker 3: will keep your head above water in the days that
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  Speaker 3: you're crumbling. And I just think it's also okay that
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  Speaker 3: if you have days that you crumble. Grief, real grief
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  Speaker 3: is not linear, and it's not pretty, and it's heavy,
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  Speaker 3: and we get scared that we're going to get stuck there.
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  Speaker 3: But I think you can also keep the mindset that
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  Speaker 3: you're not going to get stuck by feeling. It may
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  Speaker 3: feel heavier for a longer period of time, and you
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  Speaker 3: may sit in it for longer, but you won't get
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  Speaker 3: stuck there because there will come a point where you
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  Speaker 3: come up for air. And I think that's something to
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  Speaker 3: just be mindful of, to just keep swimming through the
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  Speaker 3: grief and know that every now and again, you're going
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  Speaker 3: to come up for air and it's going to give
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  Speaker 3: you this. You know, you're going to have those moments
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  Speaker 3: of joy and happiness, and then you'll come back into
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  Speaker 3: the grief and then you'll come back into the lightness.
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  Speaker 3: But the more that you feel into it, and the
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  Speaker 3: more that you allow space for it, I truly believe
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  Speaker 3: that you'll be able to process through it. And I
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  Speaker 3: don't necessarily think that it will get easier, but I
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  Speaker 3: think that you'll get better at dealing with it, and
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  Speaker 3: then in those moments, you'll be able to leave in
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  Speaker 3: the gratitude like what you're currently doing already.
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  Speaker 1: I know for some people they don't like this, but
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  Speaker 1: other people they do. Is having people around you that
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  Speaker 1: have been through the same thing, Like, no matter what
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  Speaker 1: you're going through, this always Facebook forums and like, I
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  Speaker 1: don't know, if there's a widow group and you would
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  Speaker 1: find connection other women that are also going through what
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  Speaker 1: you're going through and also actually understand what you're going through,
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  Speaker 1: because I think sometimes I know when I've gone through something,
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  Speaker 1: if that person they haven't gone through what I've gone through,
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  Speaker 1: I find it harder to open up to them because
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  Speaker 1: I'm like, you just don't get it, You're not gonna
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  Speaker 1: get it, and so judgment against them. But having someone
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  Speaker 1: that's like, oh my gosh, I've been down that road too,
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  Speaker 1: how is it when it feels like this and it's
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  Speaker 1: just you've got that connection of I don't know if
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  Speaker 1: it's trau and bonding, but it does help outstanding. It
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  Speaker 1: sounds like Steve and I have had this conversation around
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  Speaker 1: when one of us passes, and Steve's nine years older
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  Speaker 1: than me, so he's forty six now, and we've started
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  Speaker 1: planning like the next five years of him hopefully being
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  Speaker 1: able to retire and everything, and it's like an exciting chapter.
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  Speaker 1: But then I also the other day I had this
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  Speaker 1: wave of like, oh my gosh, you are getting older
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  Speaker 1: and that's so scary. We've have had conversations in the past,
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  Speaker 1: like one of us was to pass, like would we
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  Speaker 1: want to find love again? And I said to him,
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  Speaker 1: I fucking.
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  Speaker 3: Hope you do.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you do. Oh my gosh. Like I'm not
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  Speaker 1: limited to thinking that there's only one person in the
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  Speaker 1: world for you. I think like like friends, like family,
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  Speaker 1: Like my heart's got endless amounts of love for so
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  Speaker 1: many people, and you have different connections with different people.
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  Speaker 1: So I just hope that your heart is open to
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  Speaker 1: meeting someone new and experiencing It's not gonna be the
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  Speaker 1: same as your partner, you know, your husband, but it'll
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  Speaker 1: be different and that can still be beautiful and you
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  Speaker 1: can still be loved in a way that feels really
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  Speaker 1: good for you. So I hope your heart's open to that,
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  Speaker 1: because I know if one day I was to lose
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  Speaker 1: Steve or vice versa, I hope I find love again
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  Speaker 1: because life is not meant to be done alone. We're
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  Speaker 1: meant to be you know, with people in community and friends,
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  Speaker 1: and to share it with someone that you love is beautiful.
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  Speaker 1: So there's no rush or pressure on that. But also
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  Speaker 1: if your heart's craving that, because I can hear that
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  Speaker 1: you're like, I'm scared I won't be loved like that again,
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  Speaker 1: I hope you're keeping your heart open to that and
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  Speaker 1: the possibilities of finding someone again, because that will be
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  Speaker 1: beautiful And I think that would never take away the pain,
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  Speaker 1: and that person's not going to want to try and
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  Speaker 1: do that, but it would definitely give you more light, love, pleasure, joy,
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  Speaker 1: all the things that you're craving more of and that
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  Speaker 1: you deserve more of.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I love that. That's so beautiful.
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  Speaker 1: Sending you so much love, and really hope you have
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  Speaker 1: a lot of stabilizers around you and if not, you
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  Speaker 1: can create that, create your village.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think something that's really cool and again, not
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  Speaker 3: that I've been able to say this from a position
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: of being in your position, but just from a space
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  Speaker 3: of being able to help women find their identity again
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  Speaker 3: after life changes. From that perspective, I think what's really
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  Speaker 3: important is creating a life that feels expanded than what
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  Speaker 3: you previously lived. Because what I've noticed is, like, say,
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  Speaker 3: for example, and obviously this is different, but this is
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: a context that I know. If a woman has a
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  Speaker 3: relationship and then they no longer have their partner in
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: their lives and they have to move on without that person,
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: what tends to happen is when the life their life
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  Speaker 3: stays exactly the same, there's this big hole, this big
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  Speaker 3: gaping hole of where that person used to be. But
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: what tends to happen is when women expand their lives
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  Speaker 3: after the relationship and start to try new hobbies, meet
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  Speaker 3: new people. They're hanging out with different friends, They're hearing
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  Speaker 3: different perspectives, they're having different conversations. They're now once you know,
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  Speaker 3: never used to do anything. Now they're rock climbing or
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  Speaker 3: maybe you know, maybe they're you know, swimming at the
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  Speaker 3: beach every day. Their life now expands twenty five percent
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  Speaker 3: more than what it did before. So where there was
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  Speaker 3: previously a whole missing from the exact same monotonous life
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  Speaker 3: that they previously lived, they're filled at twenty five percent.
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  Speaker 3: So when they do feel that little niggle or that
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  Speaker 3: little oh my gosh, this person's no longer in my life,
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  Speaker 3: they also realize that they have so much more in
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  Speaker 3: their life now too. And I personally have experienced that.
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  Speaker 3: When I felt that whole of like my ex partner
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  Speaker 3: not being in my life anymore, I expanded my life
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  Speaker 3: and now all of a sudden, I had all of
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  Speaker 3: these things to be so grateful for, things that filled
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  Speaker 3: my cup, made me feel loved, made me feel bigger
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  Speaker 3: as a person that when I missed him, I missed him, sure,
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  Speaker 3: but then when it was gone, it was kind of like, Okay, cool,
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  Speaker 3: I can move on with my life now too. Now.
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  Speaker 3: I know grief is different, your situation is different, but
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  Speaker 3: I think this could really be beautiful for you in
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  Speaker 3: learning how to expand what your life now gets to
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  Speaker 3: look like, you get to choose and create what that
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  Speaker 3: looks like. And it's not neglecting your grief or pretending
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  Speaker 3: like it doesn't exist, or pretending like you don't miss
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  Speaker 3: your husband, because that's always going to be there, but
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  Speaker 3: it's like, how can we create fullness now because he
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  Speaker 3: would want you to live a life that lights you
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  Speaker 3: up and makes you so happy because by the sounds
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: of it, he always wanted you to be happy and
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: he will want you to be happy now too. And
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: it's also okay that grief comes along.
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  Speaker 2: On that journey too. Sad.
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  Speaker 1: So you so so much love and we're here for
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: support as well. We can always pop into our dms
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: and then you'll be cuddle.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: We love you, Bye bye