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How Dr. B Survived the Death of Her Children and Husband · Groove with Portia

0:06
Speaker 1: Welcome to Group Porsche, the podcast that uncovers the hidden
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Speaker 1: treasures within grief. I'm your host, Porsche the Producer, and
0:13
Speaker 1: I'm inviting you to join me on a transformative journey
0:15
Speaker 1: where we were exchange laughter, of course the best medicine
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Speaker 1: of them all, reflect on cherish memories, Remember that time
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Speaker 1: that the little boy grabbed my hand instead of his
0:23
Speaker 1: mother's at the amusement park yikes, And of course, discover
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Speaker 1: gratitude while navigating one of life's hardest challenges lost. So
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Speaker 1: get ready to grow with me, Porsche the Producer, let's
0:35
Speaker 1: dive in. Hello everybody, and welcome back to Groog with Porsche.
0:47
Speaker 1: I am your host, Porscha Booker, and as always, please like,
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Speaker 1: share subscribe to keep it with the latest and greatest
0:53
Speaker 1: of all with Grew with Porsche. So today, everybody, I
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Speaker 1: have the honor of having doctor Christy Bundu Kamara who
1:01
Speaker 1: will go buy Doctor B for this conversation. Doctor b
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Speaker 1: is the founder of the Clinic Mentally Strong, based in Colorado.
1:10
Speaker 1: She is also an author, the author of Pain and Purpose,
1:14
Speaker 1: My Journey to Mental Strength, and she is also the
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Speaker 1: mother of seven. But as many of you know, I
1:22
Speaker 1: love to have people who have experienced transitions in their
1:25
Speaker 1: life come on the show and share how they found
1:29
Speaker 1: their groove through these adverse circumstances. And today we're gonna
1:33
Speaker 1: talk to Christy doctor B about her journey and how
1:36
Speaker 1: she found pain found purpose through her pain. So welcome
1:41
Speaker 1: doctor B to grou with Porsche. How are you today?
1:44
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me, doctor B.
1:47
Speaker 1: You know one of the things I love to start
1:49
Speaker 1: my conversations off with this gratitude. What are you grateful
1:52
Speaker 1: for today?
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Speaker 2: Ooh, you know it sounds cliche, but definitely my relationship
1:58
Speaker 2: with God and being able to have that solid spiritual
2:04
Speaker 2: connection with my children who have passed.
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Speaker 1: And you know, doctor B, I'm glad you brought that
2:11
Speaker 1: up because I know when we experience loss right, sometimes
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Speaker 1: it shatters our faith. Sometimes it makes us question. And
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Speaker 1: you've experienced the transition of three out of your seven
2:27
Speaker 1: children and also your beloved husband. And I'm curious, doctor B.
2:31
Speaker 1: What did it take for you to walk towards your
2:35
Speaker 1: faith and not walk away when you had these transitions happen.
2:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I can take it was a huge journey.
2:45
Speaker 2: I would say that I had a born again experience
2:48
Speaker 2: at about age nineteen, I had two biological children, adopted
2:53
Speaker 2: five children from the foster care system, so they with
2:57
Speaker 2: they were older, they came with trauma and like that.
3:00
Speaker 2: So we are in the midst of trying to manage
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Speaker 2: that in a godly way. And our first tragedy happened
3:08
Speaker 2: where Johnny died in a drowning accident. And then within
3:12
Speaker 2: a year, my son, Reggie started having catastrophic epilepsy. And
3:18
Speaker 2: Reggie is biological and he just was very sick, and
3:23
Speaker 2: so we never really got to grieve the loss of
3:26
Speaker 2: Johnny while we are fighting for our son's life, Reggie
3:32
Speaker 2: and my adopted children. And the only reason I say
3:35
Speaker 2: adopted children because they came with this trauma and then
3:38
Speaker 2: they were going into their adolescent years and just began
3:44
Speaker 2: kind of manifesting that trauma, right, you can imagine. So
3:48
Speaker 2: they're manifesting their trauma. I'm trying to take care of
3:52
Speaker 2: my sick child and just overwhelmed and never losing my faith,
4:00
Speaker 2: but beginning to question, like I'm doing all the right things,
4:04
Speaker 2: Like I was, you know, this person that had like
4:07
Speaker 2: the black and white, like this is what God likes
4:10
Speaker 2: and this is what God hates, right, And I'm doing
4:12
Speaker 2: all of what God likes. And I don't think it's
4:15
Speaker 2: that simple anymore. My spiritual walk has changed tremendously. But
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Speaker 2: in my mind, I'm doing all of the right things
4:24
Speaker 2: and so therefore blessing should come. And so I thought that, Okay,
4:31
Speaker 2: my son is going to be healed. My son. That
4:33
Speaker 2: was very sick because there's no way God would let
4:35
Speaker 2: me lose more than one child like that. That's just
4:38
Speaker 2: you know, people lose one child and that's horrible, right.
4:43
Speaker 2: So we went through ten years of medical trauma with Reggie,
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Speaker 2: and in the midst of that, I developed what I
4:51
Speaker 2: now call the mentally Strong method, but it was really
4:53
Speaker 2: just a survival like I'm trying to survive my what
5:00
Speaker 2: I'm going through. And I'm a psychiatric nurse practitioner, so
5:04
Speaker 2: I had like the educational background, but when you have
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Speaker 2: to practice what you preach, it's completely different. And you know,
5:12
Speaker 2: so I created this mentally strong method and I'm, you know,
5:17
Speaker 2: trying to save my child and I'm losing a little
5:21
Speaker 2: bit of faith because I had a very profound experience
5:26
Speaker 2: with God and he told me that he was going
5:30
Speaker 2: to heal my son, and I had other believers tell
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Speaker 2: me oh, well, you know maybe on the you know,
5:35
Speaker 2: in heaven, he heals them. And I I was adamant
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Speaker 2: that God was going to heal my son, and he
5:44
Speaker 2: did not. Like my son just got worse and worse
5:47
Speaker 2: and worse. He was born normal. Seizure started at age six.
5:52
Speaker 2: By age eleven, he couldn't walk anymore. By age fifteen,
5:57
Speaker 2: he was confined to a wheelchair one hundred percent of
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Speaker 2: the time being YouTube fed. So his last years of
6:03
Speaker 2: his life, I wouldn't pray for him back right like
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Speaker 2: it was.
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Speaker 3: You know.
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Speaker 2: He passed in twenty sixteen. And I tell you that
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Speaker 2: he was a biological child because my daughter and my
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Speaker 2: husband had the same genetic condition, but they were not
6:20
Speaker 2: sick like he was. My husband began showing very mild
6:26
Speaker 2: signs around age forty five, but not even ones you
6:30
Speaker 2: would go to the doctor for. You would just be like, oh,
6:33
Speaker 2: you're getting clumsy, or you're you know what, you're losing
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Speaker 2: your memory, you know, like you the things you would
6:39
Speaker 2: joke about, but you wouldn't go to the doctor for,
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Speaker 2: not until age forty five. And so I thought, even
6:45
Speaker 2: though my daughter genetically had the same condition, I thought, well,
6:48
Speaker 2: if my husband lived to at least forty five. My
6:49
Speaker 2: daughter's going to live totalleast forty five, right, because she's
6:52
Speaker 2: also not showing signs. But she she did have seizures,
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Speaker 2: but very different than my son. Her seizures. When she
7:01
Speaker 2: would have a seizure, it would be like one and
7:06
Speaker 2: you know, the doctor would adjust her medication and then
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Speaker 2: she wouldn't have another one for six months or you know, longer. Right,
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Speaker 2: So she was very well controlled. And so the manifestation
7:16
Speaker 2: of this genetic disorder was not like Reggie. And so
7:20
Speaker 2: in my mind, you know, yes, I might lose my
7:24
Speaker 2: husband and my daughter from these things, but way down
7:27
Speaker 2: the road. And then in twenty twenty one, my daughter
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Speaker 2: died in her sleep, and that was literally the biggest trauma.
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Speaker 2: And I can tell you it was the straw, the
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Speaker 2: spiritual straw, right, Like I had began questioning my faith
7:48
Speaker 2: as Reggie was just getting sicker and sicker and sicker.
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Speaker 2: And I tried to work that out with God, and
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Speaker 2: I still had my faith. But when my daughter died
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Speaker 2: in her sleep with no warning, no like you know
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Speaker 2: this might happen, right, and I started from scratch. I
8:12
Speaker 2: was like I screamed out to God, like you I
8:18
Speaker 2: know you're real. I've had experiences, right, so I can't
8:21
Speaker 2: deny that there's an experience. But all the rest of
8:25
Speaker 2: the stuff, the doctrine, the rules, this that you know,
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Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know what's true. I don't
8:33
Speaker 2: know what's true. I know that, you know, Jesus was
8:37
Speaker 2: a physical person who lived in you know, an historical figure,
8:42
Speaker 2: factual figure. But all of this stuff around the doctrine
8:47
Speaker 2: was just like, Okay, I know there's a God. I
8:50
Speaker 2: know that there's something. And so I went on a
8:55
Speaker 2: pretty significant spiritual journey from sperienced things that the church
9:02
Speaker 2: would have taught me was evil, you know, went to
9:06
Speaker 2: a medium, you know, learned about tarot cards, did you know,
9:11
Speaker 2: meditations from multiple cultures around the world, and really began
9:18
Speaker 2: on an authentic spiritual journey, like like, I know God
9:25
Speaker 2: and it has come full circle. I also have a
9:29
Speaker 2: relationship with Jesus, but I also have a relationship with
9:33
Speaker 2: you know, my husband and my children who have passed,
9:36
Speaker 2: and and so the spiritual journey you know, started in
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Speaker 2: a traditional way and ended in a very intimate personal
9:49
Speaker 2: way that some people you know might say is not uh,
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Speaker 2: you know, doctor only true. I don't even know how
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Speaker 2: to say it, but it's my story and I'm sticking
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Speaker 2: to it, right, and that's all.
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Speaker 1: That matters, Doctor B. I mean, this happened for you, right,
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Speaker 1: and I mean talk about really wrestling with your faith. Okay, God,
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Speaker 1: you promised me my son would be healed, and then
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Speaker 1: he's gone in sixteen and then my daughter goes in
10:28
Speaker 1: her sleep five years later. And I'm curious, doctor be,
10:33
Speaker 1: how long after that did your husband transition?
10:36
Speaker 2: So it was so three years, three years, and his
10:44
Speaker 2: was very different. By the time Maya passed, he was
10:48
Speaker 2: he was in a wheelchair, and after Maya's passing, he
10:52
Speaker 2: just really went downhill of you know, the emotional toll
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Speaker 2: of grief also has a physical manifestation in the body.
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Speaker 2: And he very good man, of utmost highest character, but
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Speaker 2: a man, and they don't know how to deal with
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Speaker 2: their emotions well, and you know maybe we don't either,
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Speaker 2: Like we women, we tend to deal with them in
11:19
Speaker 2: chaos and men tend to avoid them. Neither is healthy, right,
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Speaker 2: And so yeah, so he ended up passing three years later.
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Speaker 2: But I knew it was coming, you know, it got
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Speaker 2: to the point in my mind and I was so
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Speaker 2: in shock of Maya's death and just trying to hold
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Speaker 2: it together myself that like it was okay, and he's
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Speaker 2: has a very strong relationship with Jesus, Like we we
11:52
Speaker 2: even went and solid medium and Jesus came through for
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Speaker 2: my husband in this medium. So there's no question for
12:02
Speaker 2: me of that that was his purpose. And yeah, so
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Speaker 2: the journey has changed, and I'm in a point in
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Speaker 2: my life where I'm trying to figure out how to
12:17
Speaker 2: communicate that. I have a lot of really strong Christian
12:22
Speaker 2: friends who are concerned when I talk about not talking
12:29
Speaker 2: to my kids. They who would dare say that to
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Speaker 2: a grieving mother, right, but that you know, I'm not
12:37
Speaker 2: quite sure that the way that we present God as
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Speaker 2: a black and white, good and bad, you know, heaven
12:44
Speaker 2: and hell is is true.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, yeah, I think grief really opens you up
12:52
Speaker 1: to question everything about what you once believed. Right, because
12:58
Speaker 1: I remember I grew up in a how told where
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Speaker 1: you don't question anything that God does. God has the
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Speaker 1: final say, you don't ask anything. Remember doctor B. When
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Speaker 1: my mom made her transition, I wrote a letter to
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Speaker 1: God said, God, do you like to see your children suffer?
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Speaker 1: Help me understand this? Right? And because I was angry,
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Speaker 1: and you talked about just now how men struggle with
13:30
Speaker 1: really communicating their grief, communicating their emotions, and I think
13:34
Speaker 1: us as women too. I didn't want to admit that
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Speaker 1: I was angry. And I know one of your techniques
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Speaker 1: in your mentally strong method has to do with putting
13:48
Speaker 1: your anger somewhere. Yea. And I'm curious, doctor b what
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Speaker 1: did it take for you to integrate and build that
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Speaker 1: relationship with your anger without a stigma that goes along
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Speaker 1: with being a woman and being angry.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, one of the first things that I remember learning.
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Speaker 2: I'm sure I learned a lot of things, but way
14:10
Speaker 2: back in school to be a psychiatric nurse practitioner, and
14:13
Speaker 2: you're learning about psychology and psychiatry, and there's two concepts.
14:21
Speaker 2: One is from Freud. Now there's a lot of Freud
14:23
Speaker 2: stuff we kind of throw out, but he did study
14:26
Speaker 2: human behavior for a really long time, and his theory
14:29
Speaker 2: on depression is anger turn inward. And that always resonated
14:35
Speaker 2: with me, right, because I'm not a sad person in general,
14:41
Speaker 2: but I would never display my anger outwardly either, right.
14:45
Speaker 2: And I think we see this in women, and so
14:47
Speaker 2: women have a more tendency to depression and men have
14:51
Speaker 2: more tendency to anger. But the reality is, the second
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Speaker 2: thing I learned is that anger is always a psychon
15:00
Speaker 2: and dairy emotion. And that's really hard for people to
15:04
Speaker 2: understand because they're like, well, there's justified anger. Yes, there's
15:07
Speaker 2: absolutely justified anger, But why are you angry? Why? And
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Speaker 2: you just keep asking yourself that and if you go
15:15
Speaker 2: deep enough, you will find an emotion that you are
15:17
Speaker 2: not comfortable with, right, So you're not comfortable with that emotion.
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Speaker 2: So anger is just more comfortable. It's protective. I think
15:27
Speaker 2: of anger like this, you know, forest field around you.
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Speaker 2: It does, and it does protect you when you're angry
15:35
Speaker 2: and irritable. People you know, don't you know spend a
15:39
Speaker 2: lot of time with you, don't you know? You kind
15:42
Speaker 2: of push people away energetically, right, And it protects your heart,
15:48
Speaker 2: which is hurting. So knowing that coming into this, so
15:57
Speaker 2: in the mentally Strong method, we have ten categories. And
16:01
Speaker 2: the reason there's ten categories is because often when we
16:04
Speaker 2: read self development books, or we go to church, or
16:07
Speaker 2: we you know, reading the Bible, we're trying to take
16:10
Speaker 2: one concept and replace all of our pain with it.
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Speaker 2: For example, the scriptures that are often used, you know
16:20
Speaker 2: for people you know, do not be anxious about anything,
16:23
Speaker 2: or and that it's great positive psychology, Like do that,
16:30
Speaker 2: you know, memorize your scriptures, it's great positive psychology. It
16:35
Speaker 2: will not take away your trauma. It will not help
16:39
Speaker 2: you process your grief. And if we don't allow people
16:43
Speaker 2: to address their spiritual conflict. So the mental health community
16:49
Speaker 2: doesn't allow people to address their spiritual conflict because they're
16:52
Speaker 2: scared of prosalyization, like you're going to try to convince
16:54
Speaker 2: me to believe the same thing you believe. Right, the
16:58
Speaker 2: church doesn't do it because out of think, out of fear,
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Speaker 2: Like if we like, this is what we have. We
17:04
Speaker 2: have this book and every answer that we ever need
17:07
Speaker 2: is in this book. And when there's a spiritual conflict,
17:12
Speaker 2: do you believe something and it's not manifesting in your life,
17:16
Speaker 2: Like I believe that God is good, but it was
17:19
Speaker 2: not manifesting in my life. You can't just keep telling
17:23
Speaker 2: this person, just keep saying God is good. Just believe
17:26
Speaker 2: that God is good. No, I've lost three children, Like
17:32
Speaker 2: I can't just say God is good and at least
17:37
Speaker 2: not that at that time in my life. And So
17:41
Speaker 2: what you have to be able to do, and this
17:42
Speaker 2: is why we have the different categories grief and trauma.
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Speaker 2: You process and work through those things very differently. Grief,
17:52
Speaker 2: you process and you cherish. That is your badge of honor.
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Speaker 2: You are allowed to take that pain everywhere with you.
17:59
Speaker 2: But what is unhealthy is when it's a messed with
18:01
Speaker 2: trauma and you're holding onto trauma. Because trauma will wreck
18:05
Speaker 2: havoc in your life. So you've got to separate the
18:08
Speaker 2: grief from the trauma and get rid of the trauma.
18:12
Speaker 2: But what happens when they're spiritual conflict. The mental health
18:15
Speaker 2: professionals are not addressing it. The church is only addressing
18:19
Speaker 2: it with well, this is what you have to believe, right, like,
18:22
Speaker 2: this is the answer. But that's not resonating with me. Right.
18:26
Speaker 2: There's a conflict from what you're saying and what I'm feeling. Right.
18:33
Speaker 2: And when we allow people to address spiritual conflict, we
18:38
Speaker 2: give them because what happens when you try to address
18:41
Speaker 2: it in the church, they try to fix it. So
18:43
Speaker 2: if I said to someone, yeah, but I'm really anxious,
18:49
Speaker 2: I'm really anxious and God says don't be anxious about anything,
18:51
Speaker 2: and they don't have the mental health background to really
18:53
Speaker 2: understand anxiety. They're just they think every answer is in
18:57
Speaker 2: this book, and they just keep telling you this thing
19:00
Speaker 2: over and over again. It's either going to want push
19:04
Speaker 2: you away from a spiritual relationship or it's going to
19:10
Speaker 2: have a negative impact on your mental health. Right, And
19:14
Speaker 2: anxiety is a perfect example because I think everybody has
19:18
Speaker 2: experienced the emotion of anxiety. And I'm not good at
19:23
Speaker 2: translation from scriptures and things like that, but I can't
19:26
Speaker 2: imagine he's saying don't be anxious about anything because the
19:31
Speaker 2: way anxiety works, anxiety is a natural part of our body.
19:35
Speaker 2: You're supposed to be anxious. The problem with our culture,
19:42
Speaker 2: in highly productive culture, is that we have chronic anxiety,
19:45
Speaker 2: and then when something that we should be anxious about happens,
19:51
Speaker 2: we go into severe anxiety. Right. But if we did
19:56
Speaker 2: not allow ourselves to have this chronic anxiety when something happened,
20:00
Speaker 2: then we would just have mild to moderate anxiety, which
20:03
Speaker 2: actually helps you function better, so being able to integrate.
20:10
Speaker 2: I think I think God put me in the most
20:12
Speaker 2: perfect position being a psychiatric nurse practitioner prior to any
20:16
Speaker 2: of these traumas happening. To me and then being able
20:21
Speaker 2: to work that out through the trauma over you know,
20:25
Speaker 2: obviously over a long period of time. But I'm I'm
20:30
Speaker 2: always trying to figure out how to make this better
20:35
Speaker 2: and how to communicate that so that other people can
20:40
Speaker 2: learn to navigate this crazy world we're in.
20:44
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, because I mean, grief is a part of
20:47
Speaker 1: the human experience, right, And I love Doctor b how
20:51
Speaker 1: you reinforced the term integration, right. I think there's one
20:58
Speaker 1: extreme or the other. You avoid it or you integrate it.
21:05
Speaker 1: Then you're afraid, right that fear of am I going
21:08
Speaker 1: to be stuck here forever?
21:12
Speaker 2: Right?
21:12
Speaker 1: Like you're allowed to question your faith, right, you're allowed
21:18
Speaker 1: to say, Look, I'm grieving. I don't think I need
21:23
Speaker 1: to be put on a bunch of medications when I
21:26
Speaker 1: just lost somebody. Yeah what if I just want to
21:29
Speaker 1: talk about them in order to start really working through it?
21:34
Speaker 3: Right?
21:34
Speaker 1: And I can tell you from my experience, you're right
21:37
Speaker 1: about the anger piece, and it was very fear based. Yeah,
21:41
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know what to do. Where do
21:44
Speaker 1: I go now that I'm an adult orphan?
21:48
Speaker 3: Right?
21:49
Speaker 1: And I had to really work with my grief and
21:55
Speaker 1: really start to ask myself some of those tough questions
21:59
Speaker 1: and just allow myself to feel, you know all. And
22:04
Speaker 1: I know another one of your methods focuses on don't
22:08
Speaker 1: stifle all of your emotions.
22:10
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and I love what you said about feeling,
22:15
Speaker 2: because this is what we don't do. We don't like
22:17
Speaker 2: pain in our culture, right we suppress pain, and the
22:22
Speaker 2: pain of grief must be felt or it's just gonna
22:27
Speaker 2: stay there forever. And I have this thing called control
22:30
Speaker 2: grief where I tell people to go home and evoke
22:35
Speaker 2: the emotion, allow yourself to cry, to feel the pain,
22:41
Speaker 2: bring out old pictures, bring out I have a room
22:44
Speaker 2: in my house that has you know, all of my
22:46
Speaker 2: kids toys and blankets, and you know, several of my
22:50
Speaker 2: husband's things. And like when I'm like doing it proactively, saying, okay,
22:58
Speaker 2: Sunday evening, you know, I'm start to feel, you know,
23:01
Speaker 2: kind of heavy. I'm going to go and get some
23:04
Speaker 2: of this stuff out. And in the beginning, I would say,
23:09
Speaker 2: for safety purposes, you want to have people with you,
23:12
Speaker 2: Like I remember, you know, right after Maya died, and
23:18
Speaker 2: like trying to do that kind of control grief, that
23:22
Speaker 2: the pain was so much that you can actually get
23:25
Speaker 2: to a point where you want to hurt yourself, like
23:27
Speaker 2: you want to go and be with your kids and
23:29
Speaker 2: I and I think it's important to talk about these
23:32
Speaker 2: things because they're a real feeling that people, if they
23:40
Speaker 2: are conscious of how people think of them, they will
23:45
Speaker 2: never tell anyone, right. And the problem there is that
23:51
Speaker 2: then we we don't like it's not it is not
23:58
Speaker 2: always a psychiatric emergency. It can just be a place
24:03
Speaker 2: of I am absolutely overwhelmed, I don't know what to
24:08
Speaker 2: do with this pain, and having a supportive person sitting
24:14
Speaker 2: with you in that and not rushing you to the hospital. Yeah,
24:19
Speaker 2: I'm a psychiatric in respectitioner. I send people in a
24:21
Speaker 2: hospital that have these thoughts all the time. Like, I'm
24:23
Speaker 2: not saying that there's a place for that, absolutely, but
24:26
Speaker 2: if the person is able to say no, I'm not
24:30
Speaker 2: actually going to do it. I just don't know what
24:32
Speaker 2: else to feel. Right, it can be a feeling and
24:37
Speaker 2: not an action and allowing.
24:43
Speaker 3: That to.
24:45
Speaker 2: Just sit in that pain. The pain of grief is hard.
24:48
Speaker 2: Like we think, and this is the spiritual journey too,
24:51
Speaker 2: is that we think it's the end. But one of
24:57
Speaker 2: the first things that my daughter Maya said to me
25:01
Speaker 2: after her passing and when she she came to me
25:05
Speaker 2: and she said, time and space is not real. I'm
25:10
Speaker 2: right here, like literally right here, and your mom is
25:17
Speaker 2: right there with you. She's so proud of you, like,
25:21
Speaker 2: you know, pointing it together, helping other people like and
25:26
Speaker 2: she's right there. We have this group of people who
25:32
Speaker 2: are cheering us on that we don't tap into that
25:36
Speaker 2: energy at all. We feel so alone, but we're not alone.
25:42
Speaker 2: We are surrounded by our loved ones that know our
25:47
Speaker 2: purpose and that they're you know, they're cheering us on
25:51
Speaker 2: along the way.
25:52
Speaker 1: Oh, doctor b that's a whole conversation just about what
25:57
Speaker 1: you brought up. Those suicidal thoughts and are not necessarily
26:02
Speaker 1: like hey, I want to go right, It's more so
26:06
Speaker 1: of I'm so overwhelmed with the sadness, the guilt, the shame,
26:13
Speaker 1: the feeling as though I'm the only one. Everybody else's
26:17
Speaker 1: world is going on like nothing happened where mine has
26:22
Speaker 1: just crashed. Yeah, and it's like armageddon. I'm finding little
26:26
Speaker 1: puzzle pieces to put my life back together, but there's
26:30
Speaker 1: always one puzzle piece that won't ever complete the puzzle
26:34
Speaker 1: because of that.
26:36
Speaker 2: Yep. Absolutely, And I think it's important to because oftentimes
26:41
Speaker 2: in the self development self help world, we're very anti medication,
26:46
Speaker 2: and I want I always tell listeners if somebody if
26:51
Speaker 2: you are having suicidal thoughts, that is definitely a line
26:54
Speaker 2: that just take the meds the doctors are prescribing at
26:57
Speaker 2: least try like because it doesn't matter, because oftentimes people think, well,
27:02
Speaker 2: then there's something wrong with me. It doesn't matter what
27:06
Speaker 2: came first, the chicken or the egg stress, which you're
27:09
Speaker 2: obviously going through. If you're thinking about those things, causes
27:14
Speaker 2: a decrease in neurotransmission, So it doesn't necessarily mean that
27:19
Speaker 2: you have this thing that's forever, right, But taking an
27:23
Speaker 2: antidepressant for a period of time or doing you know,
27:26
Speaker 2: whatever the clinical presentation is, is important for your healing
27:31
Speaker 2: because if you can't get your thoughts under control, you're
27:35
Speaker 2: not going to be able to heal, right, And so
27:39
Speaker 2: think of the medicine as just like a way to
27:41
Speaker 2: help you get your thoughts under control and then continue
27:45
Speaker 2: on this journey. But I can't stand it when people
27:48
Speaker 2: are like, oh no, no, nomad's you know, And it's like,
27:50
Speaker 2: there is a time and a place for many many people,
27:54
Speaker 2: including myself, who where there were periods of time that
27:59
Speaker 2: I needed an anti depressant, like, do what you need.
28:04
Speaker 2: Don't listen to all the gurus that say, you know,
28:08
Speaker 2: meds are bad.
28:10
Speaker 1: Well, I think to your point, right, there's so much
28:13
Speaker 1: chatter of this is how it works. No, you're wrong.
28:17
Speaker 1: You have to do what feels right for you. Really
28:20
Speaker 1: lean into that intuition, like I know that I'm struggling
28:23
Speaker 1: here and I need additional support and what has worked
28:29
Speaker 1: in the past. We just really working through that shame
28:34
Speaker 1: of asking for help, you know, will really be beneficial.
28:39
Speaker 2: And I always tell people, you know, many gurus in
28:44
Speaker 2: this field are man now, and the man's brain is different.
28:50
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that they don't have some good tools.
28:57
Speaker 3: But.
28:58
Speaker 2: Just just be careful. You know what content you're consuming
29:02
Speaker 2: and if it's not resonating with you, and it's making
29:06
Speaker 2: you feel like you're not going to measure up and
29:08
Speaker 2: you're not doing well enough, and you know, if I
29:11
Speaker 2: could just do what this guy's saying, I want you
29:15
Speaker 2: to just take a step back and say, is that
29:18
Speaker 2: a man's brain? Is that even possible for me? Right?
29:23
Speaker 2: And you know this is this is rampant, right, because
29:26
Speaker 2: everybody's got an opinion, like you said, but even when
29:29
Speaker 2: you talk about like physical health, you know, like the
29:32
Speaker 2: trend is these cold plunges and everyone's saying, how you know,
29:36
Speaker 2: amazingly healthy cold plunges are, and from the I hate cold.
29:43
Speaker 2: But from the very beginning it didn't resonate with me
29:46
Speaker 2: because what you're doing is you're putting your body into
29:49
Speaker 2: a stress response. And I'm like, I'm in a stress
29:52
Speaker 2: response all the time. Why would I put myself in
29:55
Speaker 2: a stress response? And sure enough, now the new research
29:58
Speaker 2: is coming out that is not healthy for women, so
30:04
Speaker 2: at least not in those extreme things, right, So just
30:09
Speaker 2: just there's so much information out there, and just try
30:14
Speaker 2: to we're all responsible for our own journey and try
30:18
Speaker 2: to learn to listen to our intuition one.
30:20
Speaker 1: Hundred percent, you know. And I think back to your point,
30:23
Speaker 1: like really asking yourself those deep questions and not being
30:29
Speaker 1: afraid to do so, you know, And I definitely, doctor
30:32
Speaker 1: B want to have you back on this okay to
30:35
Speaker 1: talk more about the suicidal thoughts that arise when you're grieving,
30:42
Speaker 1: especially when you're really struggling, because all the emotions I
30:47
Speaker 1: like to say, are fighting for center stage. You know.
30:50
Speaker 1: It's almost like they're lodged in your throat so deep
30:55
Speaker 1: that you don't even know which one is trying to
30:57
Speaker 1: come up, So you're you're kind of like stuck. And
31:00
Speaker 1: Doctor B. For our audience who's tuning in, if they
31:03
Speaker 1: want to connect with you, if they also want to
31:06
Speaker 1: get a copy of your book, I see it right, Behinore, Yeah,
31:09
Speaker 1: how can they do that?
31:11
Speaker 2: So my website is mentally strong dot com and at
31:14
Speaker 2: the very top of the website there is a link
31:16
Speaker 2: to get a free copy of my book. I would
31:18
Speaker 2: love for you to read it, and then we will
31:20
Speaker 2: invite you to a webinar to you know, learn a
31:24
Speaker 2: little bit about what we do here mentally Strong. I
31:26
Speaker 2: have everywhere from a psychiatric clinic if you lived in Colorado,
31:31
Speaker 2: to grief intensives where you can come and spend three
31:35
Speaker 2: days with me and really go deep and come out
31:38
Speaker 2: with a solid plan of how I'm going to confront
31:42
Speaker 2: whatever's going on in your life. Excellent.
31:45
Speaker 1: So those of you who heard doctor B, you can
31:47
Speaker 1: go to her website mentally Strong. You can do a
31:50
Speaker 1: Google search if that's easier for you, and you can
31:53
Speaker 1: get a copy also of her book Pain and Purpose.
31:57
Speaker 1: Doctor B. Thank you so much for coming on the
32:00
Speaker 1: show today. Before we conclude, you've left us with a
32:04
Speaker 1: lot of things to really think about, right, Really enmeshing
32:08
Speaker 1: in a controlled grief environment, having that support system right,
32:14
Speaker 1: working with integrating your grief, and not being ashamed to say, look,
32:19
Speaker 1: I may need to be on some meds for a
32:21
Speaker 1: couple months because my old methods haven't worked, Doctor B.
32:26
Speaker 1: For our audience, what piece of wisdom can you leave
32:29
Speaker 1: with our audience today, Especially if there's someone who is
32:33
Speaker 1: new on their grief journey, well, maybe they've experienced a
32:37
Speaker 1: series of losses in a short period of time. What
32:40
Speaker 1: words of wisdom can you lead with them today?
32:43
Speaker 2: So the mentally strong method goes down to three words. Think, organized, choose.
32:47
Speaker 2: We all think we know how to think, but we're
32:49
Speaker 2: often ruminating and just solidifying negative neuropathways. Number two, the
32:56
Speaker 2: organized grief makes everything a meshed And if we don't
33:01
Speaker 2: start pulling that that just think of a yarn that
33:04
Speaker 2: got all tangled up, right, If we don't start pulling
33:07
Speaker 2: those pieces apart, it will manifest in either mental health
33:12
Speaker 2: concerns or physical concerns. And so organizing that grief is
33:18
Speaker 2: grief and we will all experience it, and it is
33:23
Speaker 2: it is part of our story. Don't use the five
33:25
Speaker 2: stages of grief. That's a whole that's a whole other topic.
33:29
Speaker 2: But the like getting rid of the trauma, addressing the
33:33
Speaker 2: spiritual conflict in justice. Oftentimes someone will come to me
33:38
Speaker 2: and they'll tell me all about this horrible story and
33:42
Speaker 2: it's all about the story, and they think that that's
33:45
Speaker 2: the grief, and that's not the grief. The grief is
33:48
Speaker 2: the pain of the separation. Everything else you're supposed to
33:53
Speaker 2: do something else with, right, but we we mesh at
33:56
Speaker 2: all and hold on to all of the holiness when
34:02
Speaker 2: as you've experienced, you know this transition can be beautiful
34:07
Speaker 2: and that that your loved one is there with you.
34:10
Speaker 1: Well, everybody, that was doctor B that you heard from.
34:15
Speaker 1: And that concludes another episode of Grew with Porsche. Everybody,
34:18
Speaker 1: thanks for listening and until next time, Peace and har Greece.
34:21
Speaker 3: Everyone. I don't want