Grieving Voices

Searching for Meaning

August 18, 2020 Victoria V Season 1 Episode 8
Grieving Voices
Searching for Meaning
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Show Notes Transcript

In grief, we often search for meaning to our losses. Through my personal story and examples, I illustrate the ways we do this.

You may have found yourself creating memorial walks, pursuing activism or legislation, or fundraisers following the death of a loved one or traumatic experience. And, doing these things are great, as they are a contribution to society. However, sometimes we do these things as a means to distract ourselves and channel our pain, thereby, trying to avoid the actual feelings we're feeling.

I explore this topic in today's episode and plan to do so, even more, in-depth at a later date. I feel like it's an area of grief that's not talked about often, but that explains a lot about our basic human needs and condition as they relate to grief.

If there's a topic you'd like me to explore more deeply on the podcast, send your requests my way here.

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If you or anyone you know is struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, there are free resources available HERE.

If you'd like to share your grieving voice on the show or want to share your thoughts about an episode, please send an email to victoria@theunleashedheart.com.

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Victoria Volk:

This is Victoria of the unleashedheart.com, and you're listening to grieving voices, a podcast for hurting hearts who desire to be heard. Or anyone who wants to learn how to better support loved ones experiencing loss. As a 30 plus year griever. In advanced grief recovery methods specialist, I know how badly the conversation around grief needs to change. Through this podcast, I aim to educate gravers and non Grievers alike, spread hope and inspire compassion toward those hurting. Lastly, by providing my heart with yours and this platform, Grievers had the opportunity to share their wisdom and stories of loss and resiliency. How about we talk about grief, like we talked about the weather? Let's get started. Hello, hello. Thank you for joining me today. If this is your first episode, listening to grieving voices, welcome. I thank you for joining in and listening today. And if you've been following me since the beginning, this is episode eight. And if you've listened from the beginning, thank you, thank you, thank you so much. If you find this helpful, beneficial. If it resonates with you, I would absolutely appreciate and love if you would take a moment to share a review, or share it with someone you know or love who is grieving. Today I'm talking about the search for meaning. But first, I want to share a joke with you. Because I think we all could use a little bit of humor, right? So here's my joke, and it's from daddy says jokes. Due to the quarantine, I'll only be telling inside jokes. I actually chuckled to myself out loud when I first read that, and I thought I'd share it with you. So I hope you got a little smile from that. Alright, on to today's episode, the search for meaning. Well, if you've listened from the beginning, you know that I am a long time graver 30 plus years. And after grieving for so long, I just felt like that long time suffering was not going to be for nothing. I felt like I needed to do something with my suffering. And I believe we find our passions alongside our trauma and our grief. It's why so many people after they lose someone, they tend to have Memorial walks or fundraisers or awareness around a certain issue they go to legislation to have some laws created or changed. We feel like we need to do something with our pain. And if you don't feel this way that's normal and natural to. And these things can be helpful. However, they don't address the pain. It's like putting pain into motion, it's giving it a function or a job to do. However, it can also be a distraction. And when you find yourself, putting on these yearly Memorial walks or these fundraisers and things like that ask yourself is doing all these things and activities a distraction? Am I trying to busy myself from what I'm feeling? Because if that is the case, then it may be time to really address the story, address the feelings behind the story. And that's all great and well to want to raise money and bring awareness and things like that. I'm only saying if it's done as a distraction, or if you feel like it's just a way to distract yourself really I mean that's really the only best way I can put it. If it's for a distraction. That's not addressing the pain. We often seek meaning for that which we can't find meaning. So in another words, especially when we feel our loss was senseless too soon and explicable, traumatic. We desire to make sense of what we can't understand. I believe there are two camps of people. There those who will say it was their time, it's in God's hands. And you may feel that way but not everyone does. So, please don't say this to grievers. It's unhelpful and it's hurtful. And because no matter what you think or feel or say, the griever wishes their loved one was here with them in the flesh. People may also to say, it is what it is they have this attitude of, well, you know, it is what it is, it's they passed away. Again, that's kind of saying it was their time, things like that. So that's one camp of people and the other camp of people feel like there must be a reason why I'm experiencing this. And what is it? Why me? Why them? And this is where we set ourselves on a mission to find or make meaning or sense of what was lost. Regardless of the camp that you are in. Always follow the grievers lead when they're sharing with you about their loss. Leave your own analysis or criticisms out of the conversation. Because as I said, not everyone feels or believes the same way. When I realized I wasn't okay, and understood the ways that grief had impacted me. I then had the feelings that all these years of suffering could not and will not be for nothing. I wanted more than anything to just feel better, and be a helper of others in grief. Because after experiencing what I had in working in a nursing home, working in home health and hospice, I knew that I had the empathy, compassion and the heart to do it. Those years of work led to today and the work I'm doing now as a grief recovery specialist and energy healer, I found my purpose and my pain, your journey will be different. We never know where pain will lead us. But if we're open to healing and are willing to ask for help and accept it, we can transmute our pain from darkness to light. by seeking education and new tools and help for navigating the emotional suffering that we experience. We are then able to transmute our emotional suffering from darkness to light. But it's really a difficult road and long road when we attempt to do that on our own. Now, I'm not saying that you have to go through grief recovery in order to feel lighter, to feel better, or anything like that. There are many ways to skin a cat. So they say right. But I'm telling you what worked for me. And grief recovery worked for me to help me transmute that emotional suffering from many years into something beautiful, into a way that I can give back and pay it forward. Because this work does create ripples in lives. This work created ripples in my life. I feel like I am a much better parent, a more compassionate spouse. I just feel like it amplified those qualities that I always possessed. But I wasn't necessarily using on a regular daily basis. And because I feel like I've been able to shed a lot of the grief that I had been carrying for so many years. It has opened my eyes to possibilities and opportunities that I don't believe I would have seen otherwise. And so it really is important to recognize when we are stuck when we are not addressing our emotional wellness and when we are distracting ourselves by doing all the things that feel good while we're doing them that make us feel like we have a purpose. But what about when that memorial walk is over and you go back home? It's you can plan and execute and all of those things, but you still go back home and you still go back in your bed at night and feel the same feelings, right? Grief makes us feel like we don't have a choice, or a say in our lives. And by doing those activities that make us feel purposeful, that make us feel good, that give our pain a purpose, they make us feel like we are given a choice. And we are making a choice by our own agency that it is of our own doing and that we are creating something out of what we are feeling emotionally, and putting it to work. However, wouldn't it be a better choice to really dig into the feelings around the loss itself. And when you go to bed at night, actually feeling like it's not keeping you stuck in every other area of your life. Because even while we're doing those amazing things and these projects that are keeping us busy and making us feel like we have a purpose, what doesn't change is that in everyday experiences that our loved one is not there with us, right? And so how do we go about addressing those feelings? There's a book by Viktor Frankl called Man's Search for Meaning. And it's his story and an expression of his experience as a prisoner in the Nazi camp. And so it's been on my reading list for quite some time. But I really wish to dig into this topic even more maybe down the road after I've read that book because I do feel like it is just an inclination that we have in grief, to find meaning for our suffering. So that's today's episode. I hope you enjoy him that you found something that resonated with you. I hope to see you back here next week for another episode. And again, if you are enjoying this, please share it. If there's something that you wish for me to speak to messaged me, send me an email Victoria at the unleashedheart.com. Or you can find me on social you can send me a DM on Instagram at the unleashed heart. Also on my Facebook page, Victoria the unleashed heart on Facebook. So thank you very much. I wish you a beautiful day and rest of your week. Bye for now. Much love. From my heart to yours. Thank you for listening. If you liked this episode, please share it because Sharing is caring. And until next time, give and share compassion by being hurt with yours. And if you're hurting know that what you're feeling is normal and natural. Much love my friend