Today’s offering is on the 22nd birthday of my daughter Shayna who passed away in 2015. This is the seventh birthday without Shayna here with us.

The birthdays of someone who has passed are bittersweet. Birthdays are not only a time to celebrate someone coming into our lives, we celebrate the fact they have made another trip around the sun. The birthday of someone who has passed from this realm is missing half of that celebration.

Today, I feel sad. And, that’s OK. Notice, I said I feel sad, versus I am sad. There is a subtle but important difference. I am sad today would indicate that I have changed. I feel sad means that sadness is an emotion I am experiencing. Emotions pass through us. They do not define us.

Transcript:

Brian Smith 0:02
Hey there, everyone, this video and audio is going to serve actually three purposes. So if you’re hearing this now, it means you’re either watching my YouTube channel, you’re listening to the podcast, or you’re taking the 30 day challenge that I’m teaching. So I’m going to post this in all three places. This is a special day. This is Shayna my daughter, behind me. It’s her 22nd birthday. So for those of you who may not know, Shana was 15 years old when she passed away. This is the seventh birthday that we are celebrating without her. And I was talking with a mother the other day, whose son it transitioned. And she was saying that we birthdays maybe the hardest day and I think it’s true. Think about a birthday as we there’s a two fold thing about a birthday. It’s your day. For one thing, it’s like, you know, for Shayna especially, it was her special day and everybody had you know, it’s all tension her. So it’s the one time of the year that we have, you know, it’s our day. And we celebrate the fact that is the time that someone came into the world. But we also celebrate the fact that someone’s still with us, right? When we light the candles on the cake. We’re celebrating another trip around the sun another day here. So we’re celebrating the birthday of someone in spirit, there’s an element of that that is missing. And that’s the fact that they’re still here. And that’s especially difficult when it’s a child who passed away, in our case at the age of 15. So, birthdays are bittersweet. They are probably the hardest day for us parents to get through. Because while we’re thinking about the fact we had the great times with them at a wonderful wonderful 15 years with Shayna. Awfully blessed to have her in my life. Got to spend a lot of time with her. I homeschool we homeschooled her. I worked from home so we spent a lot of time together. But there’s that thing about I haven’t had her for the last seven years. So as I was thinking about it this week, her birthday week Shana didn’t have a birthday. She had a birthday week. You know it was it’s a double edged sword thinking about her not being here but also thinking about the great times we had together. Now Shayna’s birthday comes right after the holidays in the middle of January. And the winter is especially difficult time for me. I live in Ohio. It’s dark and it’s cold here. The only thing I like about winter is football. Football is usually over by this time. I’m a Bengals fan. So this is playoff times we’re not usually in the playoffs we are this year. But Shayna has birthday in January was kind of a ray of sunshine. You know and kind of the end of the holiday season for us. Kayla’s birthday is November 22. Then we’ve got Thanksgiving, we’ve got Christmas and then we get Shannon’s birthday to kind of wrap that all up. So this is an especially difficult day and I noticed for my wife and for my daughter Kayla as well. And we do the best we can with it. So for us, what we usually do is we have a meal in honor of Shayna. Usually it’s pizza that’s just always been pizza. We’ll have some sort of dessert because Shayna loved dessert. So we do that. But like this morning, I got up, I still took my walk. I haven’t I’m kind of taking the day off today. I did work with a client a little bit on her website. But I’m taking it easy today. I’m recording this. I haven’t done a podcast in a while I’ll talk about in a second. But on days like this, I think we all need to do what it takes to take care of ourselves. I’ve been a little bit of a break from the podcast, frankly, I’ve been a little bit burnout. It’s again, the end of the year, kind of a difficult time. 2021 was a tough year for everybody. I’ve had a couple of people that I had scheduled to interview that canceled, done a couple special broadcasts where it’s just me. But I decided I’m just gonna take a little bit of a break. So first of all, I’ve taken a break in the two and a half years that I’ve been doing the podcast. So I’ll get back into it. I’ve got some people scheduled for next week. So if you’re waiting for the next podcast to come out, that’ll be coming out. The thing is, you know, frankly,

I put out a couple of podcasts during this time and there wasn’t much response to them. That’s okay. That’s the way it goes. Sometimes things go better than others. Last year was interesting. I, the viewership or the subscribers for the YouTube channel actually tripled last year, which was great. So definitely on course for hopefully, a better 2022. And I’ll be doing some different things this year, some new offerings, and I’ve been taking this time off to work on putting those things together. So expect to see those coming up soon. But back to you know, Shayna, this birthday and when I’m when I’m going through it, my wife and my other daughter going through, I appreciate everybody reaching out to us. We’ve gotten so much support, people making comments on Facebook, people sending us messages. That’s all really great. But you know there is times when we just kind of feel sad and the thing is for the lesson for today and the 30 day challenge that we’re doing was about feeling sad, and the lesson yesterday was about toxic positivity. So the thing about toxic positivity, that’s where you’re pretending to be happy when you’re not and that’s when you are even maybe trying to fool your into thinking that everything is okay. When frankly things kind of suck at the time. And then today’s and I did not do this on purpose. When I set this up, it just happened to fall today, on Shayna’s birthday, which is the day that I usually feel pretty, pretty sad. Today’s lesson was, he told me I look sad today. I’m sad most days, today, I just don’t have the energy to hide it. And that’s okay, maybe tomorrow. And I want to say to people, it’s okay to feel sad, it’s okay to show you feel sad. Now, for me, it’s difficult, I am a coach, I’m a father, you know, I’m a husband. And sometimes we don’t want to show that to our spouse or to our other or to our other children, or to our clients. You know, frankly, nobody wants to go to a grief coach, that’s sad all the time. But there are times when we do feel sad, and it’s okay. And you know, it’s one thing for a coach or someone to model strength, that’s great. But we also model being human. So I decided to be vulnerable today, which is something that’s kind of outside of my comfort zone. And everybody know that this is a tough day for me. So what I did is I said, I tried to make it as normal as possible with going for my walk and doing my yoga and doing a little bit of work. But I’m also going to take a light day to day, I’m gonna take a day to celebrate Shayna, I’m gonna take a day to conserve a little bit of energy. And that’s okay. And then you know, get back up and get back to it tomorrow. And that’s the thing about, you know, life life is a series of ups and downs, good and bad. We are not meant to be here to bypass, you know, certain emotions, and always so happy all the time, we’re here to feel all the emotions, which are what we call the, quote, good emotions, and we call the bad emotions. Those are all part of the human experience. So what I want to do to say to wrap up is, you know, for you that are listening, if you’re always feeling like you have to be up, if you’re always feeling like you have to be on for everybody else, give yourself permission to feel sad, and so that you’re sad. And I know our friends want us to be happy and always try to encourage us. And that’s okay. Because sometimes frankly, people encourage us because they feel bad that we feel bad. But you know, we’ll get over we’ll we’ll get by, I’ll get by, I’ll be back into it. I’ve got some big plans for this year, I’m going to say publicly, which I haven’t said before, I’m doing too much. And I’ve got like I have three jobs, I work for a software company where I help them sell software, I’ve got treasure locks, which is a retail company, and I’m doing the coaching and consulting. And it’s just it’s too much. But I want to put some of that down. And this year, my goal is to stop working on Treasured Locks, and to maybe stop working in the software business, and work solely on coaching and consulting. That’s what I really enjoy doing. And I need to make that that grow to be able to do that as a full time kind of gig. So that’s my goal for this year. And I’m putting that out there publicly. Hopefully, we’ll see. We’ll see. We’re where I am in December. But anyway, I really thank you for listening. I thank you for indulging me in this. I thank you for your support, both with my business and personal thank you support for support over the years. For those of you who built me over the years for those that are new. There won’t be much more of this type of stuff. But I’ve thought for Shayna’s 22nd birthday, I could take this time to honor her. Everything I do. Everything you see me doing is for Shayna, it’s because of Shayna. If she had not come into my life, I wouldn’t be doing this. If she frankly if she hadn’t left my life when she did. I wouldn’t be doing this. I believe that this is actually part of my life plan. And that’s what that’s what keeps me going. So have a great day and I’ll talk to you soon.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

I spoke with Crystal about life after the suicide of her sister Gina, in 2019. Crystal was raised Mormon and the suicide of her sister tested her faith and caused her to wrestle with guilt. It ultimately led to Crystal forming two businesses to help others deal with these same things.

Crystal Partney is an author, speaker, suicide grief coach, and founder of Scattering Hope and Owl & Thistle.

She is also the host of the upcoming You Are Loved Podcast. The day before her 32nd birthday in 2019, would be the day that changed her life forever. Little did Crystal know; she would receive the devastating news that her sister Gina had taken her life that morning. After this tragedy, Crystal needed the next steps on how to begin the healing process. She discovered that the first 30 days are often the most important step when it comes to healing after suicide. Crystal wants to thank you for saying, “Yes” to beginning your journey towards healing.

Reach Crystal at
https://scatteringhope.com/

I’d like to ask you for three favors. You can do one, two, or all three.

1.) Make sure to subscribe to the podcast through your favorite podcast app, so that you don’t miss an episode.
2.) Please rate the podcast at ratethispodcast.com/grief2growth
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Transcript

Brian Smith 0:01
Now that you’re here at Grief 2 Growth, I’d like to ask you to do three things. The first thing is to make sure that you like click Notifications, and subscribe to make sure you get updates for my YouTube channel. Also, if you’d like to support me financially, you can support me through my tip jar at grief to growth, calm, it’s grief, the number two growth.com/tip jar, or look for tip jar at the very top of the page, or buy me a coffee at the very bottom of the page, and you can make a small financial contribution. The third thing I’d like to ask is to make sure you share this with a friend through all your social media, Facebook, Instagram, whatever. Thanks for being here. Close your eyes and imagine what are the things in life that cause us the greatest pain, the things that bring us grief, or challenges, challenges designed to help us grow to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we’ve been buried. But what if like a seed we’ve been planted, and having been planted, who grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is grief to growth. And I am your host, Brian Smith. Hey everybody, this is Brian back with another episode of grief to growth. And today I’ve got with me crystal party. I’m going to read her bio, and then we’ll have a conversation like we always do. Crystal partner is an author. She’s a speaker. She’s a suicide grief coach. And she’s founder of scattering hope, and Alan ficil. She’s also the host of the upcoming you our love podcast. Now the day before a 32nd birthday in 2019 would be the day that changed her life forever. Though, Crystal now that she received the devastating devastating news that her sister Gina had taken her life that morning. And after this tragedy, Crystal needed the next steps on how to begin the healing process. She discovered that the first 30 days are often the most important step when it comes to healing after suicide. And she wants to say thank you for our say yes. Or Thank you for saying yes to beginning your journey towards healing.

So with that, I want to introduce crystal party.

Crystal Partney 2:24
Thank you, Brian. I’m so glad to be on. Thanks for having

Brian Smith 2:28
me. Yeah, it’s good to have you here. I know. Suicide is a sensitive subject. It’s a tough subject, I work with a lot of people who are survivors of people who have taken their lives, even the language around it, you know, we have to be very careful with the language that we use. So I want to let everybody know that we’re going to you know, we want to talk about the subject because it’s it’s a subject that we don’t I don’t think talk about enough and it’s kind of it’s kind of hidden away. So first, I’d like to ask you about your sister Gina, tell me about Gina.

Crystal Partney 3:00
Oh my goodness, Gina. She was just a ball of energy. And you know, it was interesting because we both work for the for my family business. And she worked out of a different location. And when my coworker met my sister immediately came up to me and said, Oh my gosh, Gina like doesn’t slow down. She’s like the Energizer Bunny. And like I Yeah, yeah, that’s my sister. And that was how he described her it. It was such a beautiful tribute to her because it was that’s exactly how she was she hardly ever slow down. Whenever you saw her. She was, you know, going from one thing to the next and just constantly, you know, busy and just a ball of light. Mm hmm.

Brian Smith 4:00
So is she, your older sister younger sister tell me where she fits in the family

Crystal Partney 4:05
is my oldest sister. Yeah.

Brian Smith 4:07
Okay. And so if you don’t mind, what how did you find out about her taking her life and tell me? Do you know the circumstances around it or?

her passing?

Crystal Partney 4:22
I do. And, um, so she was newly divorced. And her children lived, who they wanted to live with their stepdad and their stepdad lives about, oh, golly, I’d say at least three hours away. So it was really hard on my sister to watch her transition from the married for over, you know, 20 plus years to be newly single and having children that were in their teenage years and not Having them be with her not having them be around her on a daily basis was really, really hard for her. And so when she was making that transition to being newly single and divorced, she came to live at my parents house. And she was just struggling. And we knew that as a family and so we, you know, tried our best to get her the help, that she, we knew that she needed, whether that was, you know, going to see us a counselor. And, you know, making sure like, Okay, so you’ve been prescribed medication, let’s make sure that you’re taking it consistently. And we really thought as, as a family, we really thought we were turning a corner that she was turning a corner. And that we got to sneak glimpses of her, her old self. And it was so it was such a breath of fresh air for us, because we will see these moments of her being her usual self, her usual bubbly self. And we’d say, Ah, she’s back. She’s back, we got her back. Because, you know, I’ve never been divorced. And I don’t know what that’s like, and having to not see my children, if months a month, if that. And I just knew the turmoil that my sister was in. And that was really what I would say, you know, conspired her to take her life, at the end of the day was that longing to have that love in her life, and it wasn’t from us, as a family as your siblings, as you know, my mom, or even, you know, my dad passed away. But even from someone like my dad, it wasn’t that she didn’t need that connection, because we were very present. And we’re very active in her life. But she really needed it from her children. And so I think that’s, that’s where the breakdown started to occur.

Brian Smith 7:20
Yeah, yeah. So when you when you got the news of your sister’s passing? How did you how did you react to that? How did you take that I know one of the things you said and information you sent me earlier, and we read it in the bios that you the first 30 days are really important on that healing journey. So what were the first 30 days like for you? And did you discover this during that time? Or was it afterwards that you discovered how important that time was?

Crystal Partney 7:49
Well, I would say, you know, especially suicide, it’s unique to every single person that is tragically experiencing it. And for me, when I found out, I had the very painful decision that I had to tell my my daughter, who was three at the time, that her aunt Gina had passed away. And of course, that opened up a whole plethora of questions like, What do I say to my three year old? In regards to you know, what do I tell her? Do I say that she took her life in if I say that, how to how do I say that, and being in a very open and transparent way, but also recognizing the fact that she was three. And so I couldn’t just, you know, say, say what I really wanted to say and be open, as opposed to, you know, some of my, you know, cousin, or some of my nieces and nephews who are older, in their in their teenage years. So I’ll just share with you the the morning that I had to tell my daughter, and it was actually a really beautiful story. But so my daughter, she was noticing that I was crying a lot. And if you you know, have children, especially as young as three, they pick up on things. And I didn’t think she noticed me I thought, Oh, she’s not noticing this, this change this tragedy. She hasn’t picked up on it yet. Well, I was in the bathroom, and then she came into the bathroom. And she kind of blindsided me because she just said, Mommy, why are you crying? And I said, Oh, honey, I’m sad. And she goes, why? And then I decided, okay, I need to tell her. I can’t keep this from her. And so I told her, I said, You No, honey, I’m really sorry. But at Gina has died. And she looked up at me and said, Mommy, why? And I said, you know, and then lovingly and honest way that it could I just told her I don’t know. I said, I don’t know, honey, I just know that she was really sad. And then it was so beautiful because she got really quiet. And then she started to smile. And I was like, wait a minute, I just told you that your aunt Gina has died. And now you’re smiling. Us. I said, Honey, where are your smiley? And she says, Well, does that mean that she’s with grandpa? Lanie? That’s my dad. And I said, yeah, yeah, she’s with Coco Lanie. And she said, okay, and she ran out of the bathroom. And it was in that moment that I realized that everything was going to be okay. It was going to look dramatically different. But that she was my sister was in good company, that she wasn’t alone, that she was, you know, safe, and that she was surrounded by people that I love and miss dearly. But she wasn’t on bone. And, and that brought so much peace and so much comfort. And, you know, to have my daughter react the way that she did. Now, granted, I didn’t go into detail. I simply said exactly what I just shared, that she had died and to have her, you know, have her three year old brain understand that. But then very lovingly, you know, respond. It okay. And that just like I said, it’s brought me so much peace.

Brian Smith 12:05
That is really incredible. You know, and a lot of times we underestimate first of all the sensitivity of children, we think they don’t know what’s going on, you know, with us emotionally and stuff. And they do they perceive so much. But the wisdom that she had to say, Okay, well, she’s okay, you know, she’s with she’s with grandpa. And that was good enough for hurt, right? We don’t need to sometimes we overly think overthink how much detail we have to share with children and really just give them enough till they’re satisfied. And, you know, she didn’t need to know the circumstance. That’s, that’s awesome. But can only imagine the piece as you said, that must have brought to you. Because her perspective is so much wiser than most of us adults. You know, we worry about ourselves. Oh, yes. Not the person that’s that’s made the transition. So that’s awesome.

Crystal Partney 12:51
Yeah, it was, it was completely remarkable. I was just completely astonished at her response. But I was, I was very pleased. And like, you know, reberty said, it brought me a lot of peace to say, okay, like, I don’t need to go into any more details on that. And, and she, you know, accepted it. And now she’s, she’s five. And so she is asking more and more questions just about death and about grief in general. And so, but, you know, thankfully, I’m, I’m kind of on the forefront, and I can say, Okay, this is how we’re going to approach this. This is how I’m going to handle these questions. Because let’s be real, they’re not going to go away. They’re only going to continue as, as her life continues.

Brian Smith 13:43
So I’m curious as to what you had said to her about death prior to this, if anything, and what were your beliefs about the afterlife or where your sister was? Or how your sister was?

Crystal Partney 13:58
Yeah, oh, my goodness. That’s a beautiful question. And to be fully transparent, I don’t recall talking to her about deaths up until that point, because she hadn’t experienced it. So she wasn’t born when my dad passed away. And so, to have that discussion, and to have her response, be the way that it was it was it was quite, you know, like I said, shocking, to say the least, but in a good way. And, and it was shortly after, you know, my sister passed away that that we had to put our dogs down, and he was 16. And so for me, she had more questions about shorty than she did about Gina And I think it was just because she was so little at that time. So, but I definitely, and I was talking with my husband after my sister passed away. And I was very transparent and having the conversation with him and saying, I’m not keeping this under the rug. I am bringing it into our everyday conversations. And as she asked questions, I’m going to do the very best that I can to answer them, and be honest, and make sure that it’s age appropriate for her. And so even my mom, in fact, we were she was driving, it was just her and my mom in the car, and they drove past the funeral home. And she said, Well, that’s where Aunt Gina died. And my mom was kind of startled by it. She goes, yeah, yeah, that’s right. And, and that was the extent of the conversation. Like it wasn’t, it didn’t go any further than that. But I remember my mom sharing that with me. And it’s, again, it was so astonishing to see that because and to hear that from her, because, in my mind, it’s like, Did she really understand what was going on? Could she conceptualize what was going on at that time? And, and again, it’s that constant reminder of, she does, and she’s remembering and she’s way much more aware than I’m giving her credit. But I do, I do find ways to remember my sister and, and my dad and shorty. And like, I have pictures of them all over the house. And, you know, she can ask me questions. And for my sister’s birthday, we go out and we get her favorite ice cream. And so she knows that ice cream is, you know, at genus favorite. And so I find these little moments to really just embrace the beauty of it. And not, because it’s so easy for me. And for everybody that’s experience a loss to suicide to just be like, Nope, didn’t happen. It didn’t occur. We’re not gonna talk about it. But like I was sharing earlier, I really talked over with my husband and said, I’m not hiding this. I can’t, because in like going back to the, the experience of having to first tell her, it was in that moment that I realized something so profound, and that is that she was going to look back whenever she experiences a tragedy in her life. She was gonna look back at that moment, and ask herself, well, how did mom handle it? How did mom, like approach it? Did she cave? Does she, you know, not get out of bed? Does she, you know, find something that brought her happiness. And she continued forward. Because it was in that moment that I was like, Oh my gosh, it’s not just me. It’s not just me experiencing this tragedy. We as a family are experiencing it together. And we get to decide what our next steps will be.

Brian Smith 18:41
Yeah. Well, I I think that children, especially around before the age of five or six, they’re still connected to the other side, they come in and, you know, because I asked you that question, what did you talk to her about before because we all assume that children are blank slates and they only know what we tell them. But I think they have memories, you know, for big on the other side, and I think they’re still somewhat connected. So, you know, that’s, that’s just such a profound it’s photolysis profound but for her, it’s probably just like routine. It’s like yeah, I just came from there. And that’s where Grandpa is and that’s for all right Gina wet. So I’m curious as to what your thoughts were at the time about about the afterlife or spirituality, you know, when your sister password, this is something that you had thought about or given much, you know, or what was your thoughts?

Crystal Partney 19:30
Yeah, I, you know, I grew up in a very, you know, Christian household that was predominantly Christian. You know, we were LDS and, and that’s just how I was raised. I was raised in a predominantly Mormon household. And so faith was was natural for me to say, okay, and, you know, my husband was completely opposite. He didn’t he didn’t grow up. Having a really, I guess, strong and bold face, he just knew that he would see his loved ones again. He just he has that deep rooted Ness in his face that even though you know, some might consider his face to be, you know, quite small, he has that, that knowledge and that perception of, well, why won’t I see them again? And and if that is truly the case, like if I will never see them again, I don’t want to go there. You know what I mean? Like, like, oh, well, in that case, I don’t want to go there. Because if that means that I can’t see them again. I mean, I can’t think of a greater hell than that. And personally, but it really it to be quite honest, Brian, it shook my face. Because it just leave, you know, remembering the events that led up to my sister’s death. And then having experienced her death, it really just was like, Okay, if all of these events still occurred, and yet, my sister still passed away, she still took her life. Why? And so that, you know that the million dollar question is why. But no answer is going to be sufficient to fill that question of why. And it doesn’t matter. You know, she did leave a letter. But even then, we were still like, yes, that made sense to you. But we want you we don’t want this piece of paper explaining. We just want you back.

Brian Smith 21:55
Yeah. Well, what you said is very common, you know, we have a faith a religion. And then when something like this happens, something so tragic, something so close, it does shake our faith, and sometimes, you know, people will actually even get angry at God, you know, it’s like, why did you let this happen? So I think that’s, that’s a very common occurrence, when something that just so out of out of left field or out of order, or just doesn’t seem, you know, it’s not the same thing as when, like, your grandmother passes away or something. So it causes us to question, you know, everything. So I think your spots is actually very, very normal. So in terms of your faith, did you did you somehow reconcile that?

Crystal Partney 22:43
Yeah, yes. Yes, I did. I had to, and to be, you know, fully transparent. I really wrestled for it for for a couple of months, I would say after she passed away. And, and I just felt like, okay. And also order for me to live the life that I know, my sister would want me to live. I need to address this, I need to be able to say, yes, there were events leading up to her death, that unknowingly, you know, maybe maybe could have prevented her from taking her life, I don’t know. But, again, I was reminded of my daughter and her words of just innocence of saying she’s, she’s with dad, she’s a grandpa. So there’s nothing to worry about. There’s nothing to cry about. That’s like, okay, yeah, she’s right. And I’m, again, just knowing my sister and what she would want for me. She wouldn’t want me to just like, I keep using that word cave, but she wouldn’t want me to just settle and just be like, This is the new normal, it is a new normal, but I don’t have to stay here. I can choose to continue forward with my life and knowing that she has my back and she’s supporting me in every decision I make. And it’s only because of my face and reevaluating and saying okay, this was, you know, not my fault. It wasn’t, you know, God’s fault. But, you know, it’s not even my sister’s fault. Like, just accepting things as they really are. allowed my faith to be reignited and say, Okay, this is this is how we’re going to approach it and to really look for those signs that she still present. She’s just not The physical form that I want her to be in, but make no mistake, she’s here. She’s experiencing life with me.

Announcer 25:07
We’ll get back to grief to growth in just a few seconds. Did you know that Brian is an author and a life coach? If you’re grieving or know someone who is grieving his book, grief to growth is a best selling easy to read book that might help you or someone you know, people work with Brian as a life coach to break through barriers and live their best lives. You can find out more about Brian and what he offers at WWW dot grief to growth.com www.gr IE F the number two gr o w th.com. If you’d like to support this podcast visit www.patreon.com/grief to growth www.patren.com/g RI e ff the number two gr o WT H to make a financial contribution. And now back to grief to growth.

Crystal Partney 26:04
I often joke I said, you know, I’ll talk out loud and then I’ll say Gina, you know, I’m sorry, I’m kind of boring. But you’re more than welcome to hang out with me. I’m kind of boring, I’ll just be honest. And I’m sure she’ll just censure she just laughs like okay, well, too bad. I’m gonna hang out with you anyways.

Brian Smith 26:25
Curious, how does that align with your faith? Because I know some people think that Christianity teaches that when were quote, dead, were asleep or were in heaven were somewhere else. So it’s interesting to hear me say here, you said that your sister is still living life with you.

Crystal Partney 26:43
Yeah, I, it’s just again, it’s just me being aware of the signs that are that she’s present. Like, I’ll hear I’ll hear a Garth Brooks song. And I’m like, Oh, okay. There’s my sister and, or I’ll see her name in the most random of places. It’s like, Okay, those are those are signs that she’s reminded me, Crystal, I’m here. I’m here with you. And, and yeah, I know that she’s probably busy and doing other things. And, but I know that she’s still here. And she’s experiencing life with me and my family. So it’s really beautiful to not have it be. I don’t want to say so black and white. Because I feel like our faith can tend to be that way, at least in my own experience, where it’s like, well, let’s either this way or that. And there’s no, there’s no gray. But when I think about it, not just conceptually, but from a spiritual standpoint, sexual Why wouldn’t they be here? Why wouldn’t they be, you know, doing both whatever it is that they’re doing, and still be present, you know, finding moments to remind me that they’re still here.

Brian Smith 28:06
Yeah, I totally i That’s my view also. And it’s interesting, I just I someone just, I have a video that I did with someone who had a near death experience. And I it’s funny, the comments I get I get so much pushback from people who are there have been taught to be fearful by religion. And as you said, it’s either this way, or it’s that way. It’s black and white. No, they’re not here. No, you can’t communicate with them, etc. And I personally find that very sad. So I was really intrigued to hear you say that, you know, your sister, you still talk to her. You still had that communication with I think that’s, that’s awesome. So how, how, what’s How long since your sister pass? Did you start cuz I know you started two companies. So tell me about the company you started and how that happened?

Crystal Partney 28:57
Yeah, well, after, you know, my sister died, it was about a month later, I was graduating college. And that in itself was a victory. My book because I was in my senior year, and I was left with a decision do I graduate or do I not? And I just told myself, okay, what would my sister want? No, she would absolutely want me to still graduate. And even though at that point, you know, grades really didn’t matter. Because I was like, I just need to go through. And I have the, you know, the full support of my professors and I’m so grateful for them that they were, you know, encouraging me and, and they shared, you know, I had one professor that actually shared with me, a very sweet story she said of another students very similar to me in the sense that she had a You know, lost a sibling to suicide, but that it broke her heart as a professor to have to give the student a failing grade, because she never returned. And she shared very openly with me that she didn’t want that for me. And I said, Okay, you know, I appreciate it. Thank you for telling me. But I’m finishing. And I, there was that strong conviction in me that I’m like, I just need to finish I’ve worked so hard up until this point, you know, the sleepless nights and the, the tears and all of it. So I just need to finish. And so when I did, I finally graduated. And I told myself after that, that I was going to take a year off, and just heal, whatever that looked like, I didn’t know what the heck that looks like. And like, I don’t know how to do this. I mean, yes, I did it for my dad. But but this is different. This is just naturally different for me to to lose my sister and to lose my sister in that way. It was just completely different for me. And so in that years, timespan, I kept getting this download from my sister that I can only say it was her because she just kept, she just kept coming. And she just wouldn’t be quiet. Just kept saying, Crystal, I want you to help other families that are going through a similar situation. Like, like we’re experiencing right now. And I remember sitting there kind of arguing with her. I was like, but Gina, I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be a coach. I don’t know how to do anything like this. And she’s like, It’s okay. Just do it. Yeah. I’m like, Okay, and again, it circles back to my faith and saying, I don’t know the how, but something tells me I wasn’t meant to know the how I just, it was a matter of me just simply saying yes. And stepping forward and saying, Okay, if this is the the dream and the mission that you’ve placed on my heart, well, I have to accept that and say, Okay, I don’t know what it’s gonna look like. But yes, yes, I’ll do it.

Brian Smith 32:24
Yeah, cool, answered the call. So tell me about scattering hope. What? What is scouting hope? What do you offer to people?

Crystal Partney 32:31
Yeah, so scattering help helps families heal after losing a loved one to suicide. And we offer just a variety of different things. Like you mentioned earlier, I offer grief coaching, I offer a subscription box that is monthly, that includes different items that really reflect me and how I began to heal on a monthly basis. And then I also wrote, I’ve written a 30 day journal, that walk somebody through the first 30 days after losing a loved one to suicide. And I really, I wanted it to become something that a tool that someone can use that even if it’s been passed up three days, if they’re just wanting to simply start the healing process, to be able to pick up the journal and just know like, Okay, for the first for these next 30 days, regardless of what month it is, regardless of what day it is, we’re just gonna take one day at a time, and begin to process and heal and, and so that illustrates, just again, just a very simplistic, very bite sized pieces, to how you can begin to process your grief. And so that is what scattering help is all about, and helping helping families begin to heal after their own tragedy to suicide. And the sister company, really in my sister’s memory is called owl and thistle and it focuses on suicide prevention. And it again offers a subscription box for those for those people that are struggling. And I really wanted it to be able to, to touch the people in our family to say, Hey, I see you and I see the struggles you’re going through. But I love you and to just remind them that they are loved, and they’re not alone. They’re not alone in their struggles. They’re not alone in their pain, but they have an army of support that want to help them and really, you know, just provide the love that they so desperately need in those moments where they don’t feel like they’re enough and they don’t feel like they’re

Brian Smith 35:00
Yeah. So when it comes to suicide prevention, how would you recommend approaching that subject?

Crystal Partney 35:10
Well, I believe it’s it, as you mentioned earlier, it’s a very, very difficult conversation to have. But I’ve watched it with my own sister. And see, I don’t want to say the signs. But just simply telling her that, that I see her. And I’ll share just briefly, a quick story that illustrates this, this idea of letting the people know in our life, how much they’re loved the Christmas unknowingly before my sister passed, I was at Christmas shopping. And I’m the I’m the youngest of eight. So you can do the math, we all have kids. And that’s a lot of Christmas gifts. So needless to say, we, you know, we stopped buying other Christmas gifts a long time ago, because I quickly got expensive. But just whenever I was out, you know, this particular time, I was out Christmas shopping for my family for my daughter, my husband, and and I saw this little wooden sign. And as soon as I saw it, I was like, Oh, my gosh, I have to get one for Gina. So I did. And I gave it to her before Christmas. And I walked downstairs into my parents basement. And I said, Gina, I got you a gift. And she’s like, what, you got me a gift. And as a kid, I got you a Christmas gift. She’s like Chris, like, you know, we don’t do that. I know. But I saw this. And I immediately thought of you. And I just said, you know, just shared very openly and said, Gina, I see you I see the struggles you’re going through an even though I don’t know what it’s like to be newly divorced and have your children live three hours away. And, and, you know, dating again, and having, you know, time with your children be divided between actually being present and being on their phones. Like, I don’t know what that’s like, but I just want to let you know that I see you. And Brian, she started to cry. Because in that moment, I realized it was a long time since someone actually saw her, let alone a family member. And kids, you know, really meet her where she’s at and acknowledge, Hey, I see you. And that’s the the inspiration behind Alan pistol, was remembering that beautiful moment with my sister and just saying, What if I shared that with other people? What if I allowed other people to have that same experience as me? Where they could see that? Hey, I know you’re struggling. I know you’re going through a difficult time right now. But I just want to let you know that I’m here. And I see you. And you are so loved. Please stay. That’s that’s what I am inviting people to to happen in their life. I’ve to get that opportunity for them. Yeah, you’re Alan Cecil.

Brian Smith 38:36
Yeah, and this is where this is a very sensitive question. It’s a very sensitive subject, but I want to bring it up because I’m hesitant to talk about suicide prevention, because I know so many people who are survivors of suicide, you know, in their family, and they feel guilt. They blame themselves. And they say, Well, I could have done something, I should have done something. I should have seen this. I should have stopped it. And so when we talk about suicide prevention, it could put the idea in someone’s head. Well, I didn’t do what I was supposed to do. So how would you respond to that?

Crystal Partney 39:14
I would respond but the only way that I know how, and it was from my own experience is you got to give yourself grace. And know that your loved one wouldn’t want for you to carry this brick. Have I could have should have, how could I? This guilt, ashamed, even the anger? They wouldn’t want you to carry this around for the rest of your life. And it’s understandably you’re sad, you’re heartbroken. But I think every loved one and what they would want for you in that moment and saying, Okay, I’m choosing to to process my grief, and choosing to not blame you, and, and allow just love and compassion, and just, again, grace into your life again, no matter how small and especially help, always hold on to hope you only need a sliver of it. That’s all you need. And if that’s enough to get you out of bed, fabulous. And just know that that’s what your loved one would want for you, your loved one wouldn’t want you to just sit and be in the heaviness of your pain and your grief, they would want you to find these moments, these these slivers of hope to continue to be able to, you know, have a very fulfilled and joyful life, even though they’re gone. But like I shared earlier, they may be physically gone. But don’t mistake that they’re not with you on a regular basis daily. In fact, you just got to, you know, ask him, ask him to show up, ask them to be there, ask him, you know, if you need to release a lot of that anger, you know, find ways that you can release that anger, right? I have a friend she said, she was watching a show. And they were they literally went outside in the show. And they were showing the scene of this, this girl at the lake and she just started screaming. And then she was like, oh, okay, they feel better. Like, even little things like that to just helps release some of that that pent up. Just, you know, I call it anger, I call it grief. You know, it’s all a cumulative. But we need to have these little moments where we can say, okay, it’s gonna be okay. I may not know what tomorrow is gonna bring. But right now, this is how I’m going to, you know, go about this. And just, if I can emphasize one thing, it’s, please don’t, please don’t push, please don’t like shove it under a rug, and act like it didn’t happen. And finding these daily. Whatever it is for you, whether that’s journaling, or, or screaming or whatever it is just finding these little moments where you can slowly begin to heal this key.

Brian Smith 42:42
Yeah, I think that was beautifully said. And I’m glad that you answered that way. Because I do find a lot of times people that that frustration, the the will be turned within the anger will be turned within. And we’ll blame ourselves for the actions of someone else. And we think like we I should have, I have control over the situation. And I deal with a lot of parents, particularly parents of children who have taken their lives the parent will want I mean, its parent, we always think we’re responsible for everything happens with our child. So I appreciate your answer. And I love the story you told about Gina and, and and the Christmas gift. And you saying you saw her because you did exactly the right thing. You know, and sometimes we can do all the right things, and we still just can’t prevent the action someone else is going to take. So we have to do what we can do. But we can’t control the outcome is the way I look at it.

Crystal Partney 43:43
Yeah, I agree. I agree.

Brian Smith 43:46
So when people if someone wanted to work with you, how would they go about getting started? Should they go to your website and get the journal? Should they sign up for the gift box to coaching? How would you recommend someone get started with you?

Crystal Partney 44:01
Yeah, that’s a beautiful question. They can reach out to me on my website, either scattering help calm, or Owl and the soul.com. And there are links to you know, this subscription box, there are links to the 30 day journal, you can reach out to me via email. And both of my emails are on both corresponding websites. And we’ll make sure to get those over to you. But yeah, I would love for people to connect and just reach out and share their heart or their story. And I think that’s one of the most powerful things that we can do is to you know, share our story and not but our loved ones truly be gone. Because they don’t want to be gone. They don’t truly want to be gone to they want you to remember that. And I’m constantly reminded of my sister and she You know, telling me like, don’t forget about me. Don’t forget about me, like, find ways to remember me and you know, laugh and smile and continue with your life. But please don’t forget about me. And I would just encourage your listeners to do the same. Don’t forget about them. Find ways to remember them, celebrate them. honor their memory. But But please don’t. Don’t let them die. Permanently.

Brian Smith 45:38
Yeah, yeah, I love what you just said about Don’t forget about that. And I get the same message my daughter, which is why she’s in my background, when I when I do my podcast and stuff, because everything I do, I do, you know, because of her and for her. And I hear constantly saying, you know, you got it, you got to keep doing, you got to keep doing this stuff this. So I think, you know, people will sometimes ask, you know, can people be sad in the afterlife? And I don’t know the answer to that question. I think it’s kind of complicated. But I know the one thing I think would make them sad, it’s, we’re sad. I think if they look at us, and we’re not living our lives to the fullest, and we’ve let their their passing destroy us. I think that’s the one thing that could make them sad. And I think we have an obligation, as you said, to keep their memory alive and to to live to the fullest for them.

Crystal Partney 46:26
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more.

Brian Smith 46:29
So any, any final thoughts you want to get before we wrap up today?

Crystal Partney 46:35
Just like I was mentioning earlier, just hold on to that hope, whatever that looks like if you are in that dark place, and you just feel as if you know, I’m not loved. I don’t feel like anybody would care if I’m gone. I just want you to know that that’s not true. There are people out there, they may not express it. They may not even show it. But I promise you from the bottom of my heart that there are people out there that need you that live here. And they would just be absolutely devastated if you were gone. And like I said, some people have a really funny way of showing it but make no mistake you are that.

Brian Smith 47:23
Wow. Yeah. Great. Great. Thank you Crystal. Well, just let everybody know. There’ll be links in the show notes also but the are your website is scattering hope.com and Alan fissile calm and your name is Crystal part ni P R T n EY. Sometimes people are listening they don’t get they don’t see the show notes. I want to get that on the audio. Crystal. It’s been great having you on grief to grow. Thanks for being here today. Thanks for what you’re doing. It’s It’s incredible that you know, only a couple years after your sister’s passing, that you’re carrying her legacy in the way that you are. So I know she’s really proud of you.

Crystal Partney 47:54
Oh, thank you so much. And thanks for having me and, and I hope your your listeners, you know, found some some help, help and my story and that they can, you know, find themselves in it and know that there’s always that, that hope to hold on to.

Brian Smith 48:13
Awesome, thanks. Have a great rest of your day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

As the parent of a child who survived the passing of her sister, I know one of the biggest concerns, when a child dies early, is, “How do I help my other child?”

Michele Benyo is a mom of two, a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist®, an early childhood parent coach, and the founder of Good Grief Parenting. After her 6-year-old son died of cancer, her 3-year-old daughter said, “Mommy, half of me is gone.”

This heartbreaking statement defined Michele’s life purpose. Her mission is twofold: to help parents through the unimaginable challenges of parenting while grieving the death of a child, and to help parents meet the unique needs of a child who has lost a sibling in the early childhood years.

The desire of Michele’s heart is to see families live forward after loss toward a future bright with possibilities and even joy.

As the parent of a child who survived the passing of her sister, I know one of the biggest concerns, when a child dies early, is, “How do I help my other child?”

Michele Benyo is a mom of two, a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist®, an early childhood parent coach, and the founder of Good Grief Parenting. After her 6-year-old son died of cancer, her 3-year-old daughter said, “Mommy, half of me is gone.”

This heartbreaking statement defined Michele’s life purpose. Her mission is twofold: to help parents through the unimaginable challenges of parenting while grieving the death of a child, and to help parents meet the unique needs of a child who has lost a sibling in the early childhood years.

The desire of Michele’s heart is to see families live forward after loss toward a future bright with possibilities and even joy.

ℹ️ https://www.goodgriefparenting.com

If you enjoy this episode, you can leave a small tip at:

I’d really appreciate a review at:

Shelley F. Knight is a positive changes expert who can help you through her written and spoken words. Shelley has been intuitive for her entire life and comes from a family that encouraged her spirituality.

She has worked as a nurse for decades and uses that experience along with her intuition to help others make positive changes, even around the subject of grief and death.

Shelley passionately shares her years of clinical, spiritual, and holistic experience in her books, podcast, coaching program, newsletter, YouTube, and social media work.

Shelley F. Knight is the author of Positive Changes: A Self-Kick Book (November 2018) and Good Grief – The A to Z Approach of Modern Day Grief Healing (24th September 2021), and the host of the award-winning mental health show, Positive Changes: A Self-Kick Podcast

You can find Shelley at: ℹ️ https://www.shelleyfknight.com

Transcript:

Brian Smith 0:00
Close your eyes and imagine what if the things in life to cause us the greatest pain, the things that bring us grief, or challenges, challenges designed to help us grow to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we’ve been buried. But what if like a seed we’ve been planted and having been planted, who grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is grief to growth. And I am your host, Brian Smith. Everybody this is Brian back with another episode of grief to growth. I’ve got with me today, Shelly F Knight, and Shelley as a positive changes expert who can help you through her written and spoken words. She passionately shares her years of clinical spiritual and holistic experience in her books. In her podcast on your coaching program, in our newsletter, on YouTube and on social media network. Shelly Knight Shelly F Knight is the author of positive changes, a self kick book that came out in November of 2018. And Good grief, the A to Z approach of modern day grief, grief healing that came out in 2021. And she’s the host of the award winning mental health show positive changes itself kick podcast, Sally connects and works. Connected with Shelly has a wonderful opportunity to work righteously and start creating your positive changes as she brings with you and she brings with her an entire toolbox of qualifications and experience to support you on your journey of growth. In terms of her clinical expertise, Shelly holds a first class degree in adult nursing it and postgraduate studies in palliative care and life limiting illness, patio, patho psychic pathophysiology of cancer cytotoxic chemotherapy, and clinical hypnotherapy that’s hard to say all together. In addition, she has a plethora of holistic and spiritual qualifications, including transformational regression therapy, spiritual coaching Spiritual Development Teacher, holistic diagnostic skills, diagnosis skills, mindfulness Neuro Linguistic Programming, herbalism, and Dream Therapy. She’s also an intuitive tarot card reader and intuitive Tarot coach with Cliff’s gifts, a clairsentience, clairaudience and clairvoyance. That was a that was inherited from her ancestors. So with that, I want to welcome to grieve to Grace Shelly F night.

Shelley F Knight 2:39
Thank you so much, Brian, thank you so much.

Brian Smith 2:42
Thank you, Shelly was, you’ve got a awful lot of experience an awful lot of tools in your toolbox. One of the questions I was going to ask you before we get started was how you got started in this, but it sounds like there’s some background, your family of intuitiveness. So how did you get started on this, this journey that you’re on?

Shelley F Knight 3:01
So my family are really open. And I think when we’re growing up, we think our family is normal. And it’s only when we have conversations like oh, you don’t speak about no spirits, death and things like that. But I was raised very open about spirits being around us and like psychic, aunties and grandmothers. So it’s always been my norm and talking about death. And grief has always been like a kind of did a conversation for us. So it’s probably one at ease with it all.

Brian Smith 3:30
So are there mediums in your family?

Shelley F Knight 3:34
My great grandmother was But since then, no one really I think some of us have the gifts or thing but we don’t work actively, we just kind of tap into that intuition that knowing for our own benefit and our loved ones.

Brian Smith 3:48
So yeah, that’s that’s your right. That’s kind of unusual. I think a lot of us know avoid the topics of death and grief and stuff like that. So you said this was normal in your family? When did you discover that it wasn’t quite so normal for everybody outside of your family?

Shelley F Knight 4:03
Whenever we went to college, you know, like, you’re on the train going off to college, and you say like what happened at home last night. And it’s just like, other people would watch a sort of soap opera will do their homework. And we’d have been talking about a haunted house, my dad was renovating or something like that. Or somebody died because my grandparents were a huge part of my upbringing. So there was always quite a lot of death around. That’s not to McCobb to say, but yeah, like when you go to college, and you have those sort of conversations and you’re like, Okay, maybe not.

Brian Smith 4:36
So you obviously decided to take your gifts and turn them into what you’re doing now as kind of as your life’s work. So how do you help people to make positive changes?

Shelley F Knight 4:48
I break it down into like steps and I never want anyone to do like a massive change. I think when we make big changes, it’s just too much and if it’s not a successful change, we feel more of a failure and more stuff. In life, so I just do like small but mighty changes, and is just like looking at your current reality, what area of your life you want to move forward in. And, you know, my mom always used to say to me never get stagnant in life. And I never really knew what it meant at the time. But it is that like, if you’re unhappy, or you know, you have a dream, but if you’re 1000 miles away, don’t stop do something each day. And you know, I just say, like, 10 minutes a day of being with yourself working towards a dream. You know, I know, we say we’re busy, but I think everyone can spare 10 minutes a day to try and move on from their current reality.

Brian Smith 5:39
Yeah, I think that’s really important. That people, you see, sometimes people take on too much. And they just say, I’m gonna do all these things and make these big changes that are, first of all, they’re not sustainable. And secondly, they’re not achievable. And then we get frustrated, and we stop. So I like your approach of doing things that are that are small and sustainable. That you bring that into the work that you do. So you do coaching with people to help them make these changes.

Shelley F Knight 6:08
Yeah, so I don’t really like the word coach. And I said, I am a coach, but I prefer the word mentor. I think coach is quite harsh. And I’m not here to judge anyone I prefer, like sort of spiritual mentor, like just someone who has your back. And it is I sort of start with like a magic wand, because people, you know, they have that in a nickel that search like, is there more to life, this was good as it gets kind of thing. And I want them to sort of just start on one area, because you might hate your job, be unhappy with the relationship, not like your body, your plans are falling apart. And that’s just too much. So just I always say start with yourself, because I think Self Love is a huge thing very underrated. But yeah, sort of look at what area of your life needs to change. And if there are loads, just choose one. Because as you say, otherwise, we’re just going to get stuck and be ourselves up to being a failure. Not working out. Not going to try again. become our own worst enemy. So yeah, start small and one area of your life.

Brian Smith 7:04
Yeah, so yeah, absolutely agree with that approach, because we’re our own worst critics. Right? So if someone’s abusing someone, what’s what’s wrong with you? They’re gonna give you a list of 100 different things.

Shelley F Knight 7:15
Yeah, but what’s good about you? What do you love about yourself when it’s like? Well, I don’t you know, and it’s just small steps.

Brian Smith 7:23
And so how does this help and when people are dealing with grief, because I know you wrote a book called Good grief, the A to Z approach of modern day grief, healing. So how does that help? How does this approach help with that.

Shelley F Knight 7:38
So it’s still about creating positive changes. And I just want people to sit alone for 10 minutes a day, really, Brian, if I’m honest, I want an hour. But I just want people to sit with their grief. And just allow stuff to come up. Because I’ve seen time and time again, that people just push it down. And it doesn’t work, you know, the sticky plaster approach the band aid, it doesn’t work, you just need to dig out the wound and move on from it. So with grief, it is 10 minutes a day. And like in Good grief, the age set approach of modern day grief healing is like it’s made up of different parts, is what goes into live life stages die in death after death. After life, and it’s got a big section on communication, then the largest part is the A to Zed the tools. And in there, they’re just loads of tools you can do at home, and around your local community. Because not everyone’s for talking therapies, not everyone wants medication. And I just get really passionate that I think we forget, or we’ve never been told just how powerful and amazing we can be. And the tools are just to chip away at your brilliance that I think you know, we have grief, which is traumatic enough, but a lot of us come from, you know, a childhood or relationship or a job where I’ve been spoken down to, we don’t feel worthy of healing or worthy of being heard or, you know, worthy of anything sometimes. And so the tools you can start to do in your own home and some of them are spiritual because you know, I am a sucker for oracle cards and tarot cards, like in a candle grabbing a crystal, but it’s other things like journaling, yoga, because, again, it comes down to just 10 minutes a day can make a big difference while we’re just sitting there in your grief is saying in our family, like you only get what you’ve got. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you only get what you got. And other people used to visit and they sort of know to check on you up. But it’s true that if you keep doing what you’re doing, nothing’s really gonna change whereas 10 minutes a day, half an hour, one hour of trying something new will have a ripple effect.

Brian Smith 9:59
Yeah, So how would you define what is grief? What would you say that grief is?

Shelley F Knight 10:04
So, I’m a little bit feisty about this, Brian. Because I think people think that grief is death of a loved one, when actually, that’s bereavement. Grief is the loss of anything with which we have an emotional connection. So we would have all experienced grief in the pandemic. So it’s like loss of finances, jobs, health, dreams, plans, freedom, you know, a sense of security, a sense of control, when we lose something, that we have a connection with something it’s part of our daily life, that can trigger the grief process. So I suspect many of us, if not all of us, around the world, have had grief on some level in the last 18 months.

Brian Smith 10:45
Yeah, I think that’s really something that a lot of people don’t recognize that that we are, most of us, I’d say we’re in some sort of grief right now. Most of us experienced some loss of freedom, financial things, a lot of us experience a loss of a person, but the loss of a job the loss of a relationship. So when people sometimes hear about grief, they’ll say, Well, I’m not in grief, but because I haven’t lost anybody. So what are some signs and symptoms that people have when they’re going through grief so we can recognize that we’re in grief.

Shelley F Knight 11:18
They are so vast, it’s a little bit like people think grief is no death of a loved one. They think grief is like this emotional journey. And it’s mental health. But it’s more than that. It’s like really multifaceted. So it is like physical, your social behavior on spiritual to like physical. You might just think you’ve had a hard day at the office because you might have a headache or migraines or dizziness. You might have changes in skin, I get really sore skin when I’m sort of stressed and grieving. Things like sore throats, dry mouth ulcers. sensitive to noise, light, that’s nothing I’ve experienced. And then the heart I know, is a very emotional thing. Grief, like we said, but it is like the heart palpitations or just like a pain in your chest and things like that. So yeah, to meet grief is huge. And I think a lot of us, you know, just say, Oh, I’ve eaten something wrong. I didn’t agree with me. I think I’ve got no chest pain, or I’m just tired. We’re naturally These are all signs of grief. And the body, you know, the immune system has taken a knock. So yeah, there’s so many signs.

Brian Smith 12:23
Yeah. Well, that’s, that’s good for people to know. Because as we were saying earlier, sometimes people don’t recognize there’s they know there’s something off, but they might not realize during grief. So they might look at a book like yours and say, well, that’s not really going to apply to me because again, I’m not I’m not. I’m not in grief, but you could quite possibly be. So we’ve covered grief, and we’ve covered bereavement, bereavement, how would you define mourning?

Shelley F Knight 12:45
So mourning is more like when it’s stipulated by your religious beliefs. So like certain people and certain faiths believe they should mourn for a set amount of days. So someone like 100 days, some of the month and a day, someone’s 100 times a year. And that’s when your grief process kind of dictated to you

Brian Smith 13:06
in line with that religion. Okay, yeah.

Shelley F Knight 13:09
But I met a lady the other day, and I found this fascinating, because while we’re awfully English over here, and we try not to grieve, stiff upper lip, you know, chin up, be strong before it’s over here. But I’m a lovely lady the other day, and she was speaking about morning. And she absolutely loved it. Because she said, like, you know, English people, you sort of say things like, Well, you never get over it your life’s over. And she goes, but we just totally commit to how we feel in those 30 days. And we celebrate them, remember them, and then we carry on. And it’s really interesting about I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, it’s more of an observation that you can kind of control your grief, you can put it into little compartment, or you can no spend the rest of your life trying to overcome it. But yeah, morning to me, I find fascinating.

Brian Smith 14:03
Yeah, and it’s interesting to have that that time. And there are cultures that have like a set time or at least a time when you’ve given you’ve been given permission to grieve, right? So you might wear different clothing or something. So people realize when you’re acting this way, it’s because you’re, you’re in bereavement or you’re in some sort of grief. So I think that is nice. You know, the I guess the flip side of that might be well, you’re passionate 30 days so let’s get over it on. And I How do you feel about grief is grief common? Like one size fits all? Just like is it the same for everybody?

Shelley F Knight 14:39
No, I always say that your grief is going to be unique as your fingerprint. Because how you grieve will be based on how you’ve seen your parents grieve how I’ve been told at school, all your life experiences up to that point, any loss you’ve had before it. And then if you’ve got sort of current health issues or mental health issues and things like that, then it’s your community, do you have a good support network? So it’s so diverse and how you grieve. But then there’s like 17 different types of grief as well. I mean, when I did my nursing degree, 20 years ago, there was three, you had like normal grief, absent grief, or delayed you have a cry in wasn’t or you would in the future, there was that was it. But now, I think this is before the pandemic, even, you know, medical world has changed, and we’re living longer, and we’re sort of treating more conditions, we’re always having clinical deaths, and on and on it goes. And so different types of grief, like anticipatory grief is a new grief. Because, you know, there’s still the physical presence, and they want to physically die, right. But you’re grieving that person, the way you remember them and things like that. So yeah, grief is huge. It’s huge, because we’re all different. And what’s causing the grief is unique as well.

Brian Smith 16:02
Yeah, like, would you touch on it? You know, it seems like our understanding of grief has really changed over the last maybe 100 years or so. And as you said, we’ve started breaking down different categories. And I know like the psychiatrist used the DSM, and they’ve kind of redefined grief. And, and people that are grief experts were there were used to be three types. And now they’re, you know, 17 types. And I was speaking with someone just a couple days ago, who knows that their child is going to pass and they know pretty much when they’re going to pass. And they were like, well, I but I’m not in grief yet. Because you know, she’s still here. And I said, Well, you actually are it’s, she said, It’s something called anticipatory grief, when we know that something is coming, we can still already start the grieving process before they’re even gone.

Shelley F Knight 16:53
Yeah, you do is you see it sort of like in dementia, or when you’ve got that diagnosis, like my own dad, I say, biological dad, because a lot of my grief work stemmed from my stepdad dying, but my biological dad, you know, got antasari great grief for him at the moment, because we know, you know, it’s got a limited life. And, yeah, and you sort of like grieve everything that’s gone before, like, you know, so we’ve missed out on many years together, my father and I. So it’s like everything that we’ve missed that we could have been doing, it’s the fact that the future is limited as well, but he’s still physically here, but you can get anticipatory grief, you know, through medical conditions, and some people even have it like, when their partner walk works away, back in service, you start to grieve that loss because that relationship has changed. So I think, again, it comes down to probably a lot of disagreement, but don’t recognize it.

Brian Smith 17:47
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that’s why I like that expanded view of grief because I talked to a woman whose son had been estranged from the family, and she didn’t know whether he was alive or dead. And I’m like, from your perspective, just as if he’s dead, it’s the same thing you don’t know if you’re going to see him again, you don’t know when you’re going to see him again. And then there’s this added component that it’s his choice. So and that just kind of goes back to the point like you said, every grief is an individual’s our fingerprint, because we’re all different people. And we’re all in different circumstances. I did want to ask you, cuz I did talk to you. You mentioned earlier that you know, your family has the intuitive abilities, and your family talks about death and dying a lot. But a lot of times when people get into this work, there’s there’s like a triggering event or something that happens. That says, Okay, this is why I want to dedicate my life to this. Was there something like that in your life?

Shelley F Knight 18:43
Yeah, so even though I grew up with my family being very open about spirituality, you know, psychic, Granny Joe, and things like that. I never really used it. And it was only really when I started to experience loss, and probably just life in my own journey that I started to become more open to it. So even when I went into nursing, I went into health care, and didn’t realize actually, it wasn’t all about health. There was a lot of death in that health, Brian, and I wasn’t well prepared at all, no student nurse was and that’s why I love Good grief. It’s the book I wish I would have had as a student nurse. So I went into healthcare, and there was people dying, I worked in a very busy acute medical ward. And then I had the news. My beautiful stepdad died, but really suddenly, no goodbyes. So it’s probably my biggest life traumas losing him such a beautiful soul. And so then that was like the first positive change really, that was on a wall that I didn’t really love because I went into hematology and oncology. And it’s kind of a strange reason. It was kind of like my own grief healing, but I wanted to know what it was like when you do have that time to say gigabyte lender live, what would I have done differently with that and things like that. And I loved it, I truly loved it. But then the last continued, like my grandfather died, my grandmother died my own infertility, we lost many children. And with each loss, I just became more spiritually aware to the point like fast forward a decade, and it was very hard to nurse having felt and witnessed so much spirituality around like, death, to be honest, it wasn’t that sort of Western medicine woman, you know, we sort of give you this treatment, but that and that’s a sort of no drop the secretions this once or do your pain. To me, I started to see a change in the room would be softer, like the walls, temperature changes, colors, and body would look different. And so many spiritual differences, not just the clinical decisions I had. And that’s what happened really, though, as I experienced my own grief in work, and personally, I realize we’re more than the physical body. And it’s quite hard to nurse with that mindset. Or for me, it was,

Brian Smith 21:07
yeah, yes. So that we started working in palliative care at that pointer.

Shelley F Knight 21:14
So sadly, as a chemotherapy nurse, you know, we do a lot of active treatment, but sometimes, you know, we don’t respond to the treatment, or we caught the cancer too late. And so that’s how I ended up doing my end of life and learn about palliative care. And it is them but you can see in acute medicine, I just started to see like these bodies, like we’d all be standing around morning. But the body looked different. I just knew the soul had gone like self protection, I don’t believe it’s there. While we’re crying by the bedside, I think they’ve already gone, you know, you’d have nonverbal patients talking to people that have already passed, that’s going to allow me to go now you know, it, it just can’t put it into that, you know, nursing degree.

Brian Smith 21:59
Yeah, so as as an intuitive did you experience anything when people were transitioning anything? Like, you know, seeing the soul leave? Or, or having communication with someone who was non communicative? Yeah,

Shelley F Knight 22:14
so that happens a lot, my own grandmother and patients time and time again, they would just say it’s all right, or Okay, or hello or ongoing. Now, energy wise around the chest area, there would always be like a mist or like an aura. And they just felt like some it was going up towards the head and leaving. There is a really lovely tradition here in the UK, for nurses, political and spiritual like that when a patient dies, we open the window a little to let the Spirit out on its journey. But that’s about as clinical and spiritual as it is. We agree really. But yeah, I become aware of like mist around the body, the skin always looks smoother to me. The eyes kind of look empty. I really believe that we do. You know, leave before you know the families there.

Brian Smith 23:03
Yeah, yeah. So um, you’re kind of talking about the tension, I think, between the clinical and the spiritual. And so for you, it sounds like you just decided you needed to move into more of the spiritual. So I know. And as a former nurse, people probably expect you to be more, you know, clinical. And, you know, spirituality is a big part of what I do in my grief. Or in fact, that’s, that is 90% of what I do in my grief work is, is convincing people that this is not the only life we have. So do you. Have you experienced pushback on that? Or how are people how do people react to you being so spiritual in your in your approach?

Shelley F Knight 23:45
I think they find me fascinating, but I don’t think they always believe me, Brian. I was recently away on a retreat just before Good grief came out a few days off. And I was speaking to like this lady, and she was just like, you know, open mouth and starstruck because she says, I find you fascinating. But that was that kind of that’s fascinating story. But yeah, I think she just went back to her daily job. I just don’t think people believe it. But I’m nearly 50 So you know, if I doubted it’s like once spirit new universal throw it back at me until I got the lesson. So, you know, at the end of the day, you know, if you believe in anything, believe in yourself, and I totally believe you know that we come down here to learn lessons then we can go back at the end we just keep learning and learning and learning. And that brings me comfort that’s what I wanted to get across in good grief that you know, try all the tools just find what brings you comfort, what resonates with you what doesn’t resonate with you, but just do something and sit in your grief.

Brian Smith 24:45
Yeah, and yet the thing is, I tried to tell people you know, you could try on different stories. You know, you can you can try on different things that you want to tell yourself so, if you want to believe that we are just biological accidents that’s happened appear on this planet that you were born one day you die one day and that you cease to exist. That’s a story that you can tell yourself and you can find evidence to support that. Now, how does that make you feel? And how does it? How does it give? Does that give you any purpose in your life? Does it give you joy in your life, and I’m not here to tell you whether it should or not. Or you could try on this other thing that says, I am a spiritual being that came here to have experiences. And when I when my body dies, I go on and and therefore I find some sense of purpose in that. You can you can try that on. And so, you know, it’s funny, because I will get people that have listened to my podcast, and then they’ll they’ll call me up for a consultation, they’ll say, Do you really believe that we know that we really live on? Do you really believe that? Like, my, this is my daughter behind me? Who passed away six years ago? Do you really believe you know, and I’m like, Yeah, I really do. That’s why That’s why I do what I do. But I’m also like yourself, my background is science. I’m my background is chemical engineering. And so I’ve I’ve studied this, and I’m like, if you studied the evidence, you would believe it, too. And that’s, that’s what I’m here to do with people. I know. That’s what you’re trying to do with people is share this, you know, bigger picture of who we are.

Shelley F Knight 26:12
Yeah, I love the fact you’ve got science background, there’s we’re seeing more and more of it, aren’t we? Is it like even Alexander, and welcome you to the past life and things like that. And I love it when, you know, you can put science and spirituality together?

Brian Smith 26:27
Well, you know, a lot of people, and again, being a scientist, I’ve done a lot of research and a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that materialism equates to science and it doesn’t. And you know, some of the guys some of our most famous scientists, Niels Bohr, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Heisenberg, all these guys believed in something beyond just the body. And they all believe that they’re that we are they are, we are spirit. And these are some of our greatest scientific minds we’ve ever had. And it wasn’t just that they made it up. I mean, they looked around and they saw evidence for it. So it’s really been something where humans have lost over the last 100 200 years that we’ve fallen into this materialism which, you know, people like yourself, are helping people to understand this. This is just not true.

Shelley F Knight 27:16
Yeah, and I think, you know, we need to find something to believe in. I had this conversation with my son just now at dinner. Because they were talking about religious education at school is that what I don’t believe in God? And I was like, well, that’s okay. But what do you believe in me? You know, and he is that isn’t it? It doesn’t have to be Saint like was talking about morning when it no particular religion, but you do have to believe in something whether it starts with yourself believing yourself, your local community, volunteering, afterlife, you know, whatever you believe in, but I think in life, it’s always, you know, just comforting. To have that purpose. That belief. You know, the reason you get out of bed every morning, we all need.

Brian Smith 27:58
Yeah, it’s interesting. My daughter’s she’s 24. And we just had this conversation a couple of days ago, because she’s, she says she’s an atheist. And I’m like, so what does that mean to you? You know, but she believes she she has spiritual beliefs. She believes that we still go on after we after we pass. So we we have to really be talked to people like you did with your son and say, What is what does that mean to you? Because I don’t believe in the guy that a lot of people believe in either. But I believe there’s too much evidence to to go to the extreme. I call it throwing the baby out with the bathwater. People will read the Bible and say, Well, this guy doesn’t exist. Therefore, no, God exists. Therefore, there’s no spirituality, there’s no soul. There’s no higher be. I’m just this body. And that’s, that’s an extreme point of view. That’s, I think it’s faulty.

Shelley F Knight 28:46
Yeah, no, I think my younger self would just think I’m just this body. But then my older 47 year old self thinks I am this body, I chose it in the life between life, you know, goes far beyond my teenage ideas.

Brian Smith 29:01
Yeah, well, it’s for me, it’s been an evolving thing. And I think, you know, we need to encourage young people and older people to keep exploring, you know, because we’re so much more is being revealed to us. You know, in terms of even our scientists, like you mentioned, Eben Alexander, which I was so grateful that he came out as a neuro neuro surgeon, who was a strict materialist, who said, This is impossible. It’s an artifact of the brain. And now I see him, you know, all over the place going, No, no, I was, I was wrong. And we need people like that out there. And again, people like yourself who get that clinical background, who have the experience, you know, with with the people that are transitioning, to say no, but you know, it’s not what, as it appears on the surface,

Announcer 29:47
we’ll get back to grief to growth and just a few seconds. Did you know that Brian is an author and a life coach? If you’re grieving or know someone who is grieving his book, grief to growth is a best selling easy to read book that might help you or someone you know, people work with Brian as a life coach to break through barriers and live their best lives. You can find out more about Brian and what he offers at WWW dot grief to growth.com www.gr IE F, the number two, gr o w t h.com. If you’d like to support this podcast visit www.patreon.com/grief to growth www.patren.com/g RI E F, the number two gr O W th to make a financial contribution. And now back to grief to growth.

Shelley F Knight 30:44
Yeah, and I think, obviously, it’s a comfort to us to have this belief in here like the science, you know, telling us that it’s more, but I think it’s reassuring for the dying as well, you know that? It’s not final for them either. You know, so I think everyone just needs I think everyone’s so scared of living, which is why we’ve become so scared of dying is what I’ve observed. People always got this fear of failure and making a change is no wonder we fear death as much because we’re even fearful in life. And I’d loved for that to be a huge shift in the world. I really would.

Brian Smith 31:17
Yeah, so in terms of dying, is there any such thing as a as a good death?

Shelley F Knight 31:24
Yeah, I think so. I think one of the key things if you’ve had a good life, so you’ve like lived that adventure, got all of those, you know, bucket list things out and felt loved given love, I think you know, had a good life, then you can have a good death because you don’t die with all those regrets within you. Because I terrify my husband, Brian, if I’m honest, because I, you know, wanted to publish your book, I want you to large family, I want to travel the world, you know, all these kinds of things. And I’ve done it Oh, and I think people have heard me speak before or know that my last pregnancy was very traumatic. And I had like a semi colon moment and wanting to take my own life. And, you know, I’ve got through it, my daughter’s now seven. And it was another big huge spiritual thing for me as well. But because I’ve come through so much, I, you know, obviously I don’t want to die tomorrow, but I don’t have a fear of it either. Because I’ve had such a good life. Quite difficult, hence all the wrinkles. But that aside, you know, it’s kind of been a blast as well. And so I think it can have a good death. If you’ve had a good life. And then you know, even if you haven’t had a lovely life, you know, again, those medical advancements over 100 years, we can make, you know, death dignified as well, for those who might still have things they want you to do. Sadly, that is often the case we don’t live fully. But I think you can have a good death. You know, if you’re not in sudden death always like my dad, I don’t what his dying wishes were because we never knew. But I think you know, are you sort of like, you know, reconnected with the family, what your papers in order, you know, and had a dignified death. Within line with your wishes. I think we can have them. Yes,

Brian Smith 33:11
yes, yes, I agree. And, you know, when you’re saying that, you know, you’ve had a good life, and you kind of scare your husband, you know, we’re very shy about talking about death, you know, in general. And if you say, I’m not fearful of death, or, like, I know several people because I’m part of an organization called helping parents heal. And so it’s all parents whose children have transitioned, and you’ll hear a lot of us say, I’m looking forward to death. And people go, Oh, that’s bad. That’s terrible. You should never look forward to death, because death is something to be avoided at all costs. And it’s scary. And the more that you the more that I study it, the more the fear goes away. And the more I hear people tell about their near death experiences. And I talked to intuitives who can speak with people on the other side and everything I’m like, I know. There’s nothing to fear, it’s, it’s, it’s natural. It’s built into our biology, you know, again, being a nurse, you know, this body is not designed to live forever. And there’s a reason for that. So what’s what’s the reason for it? Because this is not where we’re supposed to be. This is not our home. So saying these things for people can be shocking, you know, even to even to our loved ones sometimes.

Shelley F Knight 34:24
Yeah, but I just want to be really honest with him. I mean, I don’t know. To me, it’s really simple. It might go back for like my upbringing or my nursing degree or having lost so much I don’t know. But for me, it sounds really McCobb now I’ve thought in my head but you know, death is already certainty in life. And I think we’re just kidding ourselves thinking it’s not going to happen to me if we don’t talk about it. You know, it doesn’t come any sooner than talking about it, but it makes it easier. When it comes if you have spoken about it. I just don’t. I people don’t talk about I talk about my Kids, you know, we’re really open, probably to open actually, because our teenager went for a sleepover. And obviously, the siblings couldn’t see him. And they said, Oh, is he gone? Do we just make another one? Now? What? No, he’s literally on a sleepover. To open, you know, when when someone’s out of sight, I think they’re dead? And do we just replace them? Yeah. So maybe I’ve gone to the other extreme, but I just think we shouldn’t fear it. Because it’s like, anything is new. Like, you know, if you want to be a certain job role, if you don’t go for it, you’re always going to fear it. I think when we face our fears, they no longer have fears, they’re just thoughts that you’ve told yourself, which have come a belief. So, you know, just tap into it.

Brian Smith 35:45
Well, I can say, as someone who suffered from from that a phobia for most of my life, you know, fearing death, that the only thing that got me over that was facing it. And as you said, and people don’t like to hear it, but it’s an absolute fact. You know, there’s, we have a saying, at least in the US, the only thing certain in life are death and taxes. But the only thing certain in life is death. And the only thing that once you’re born, it’s it’s certain you’re going to die. So it’s just a matter of where and when. But you know, you were right. I know, I put up buying life insurance for a long time, because we think it’s a jinx. If I if I buy life insurance, I’m going to die or people don’t want to work on their wills, you know, I know people that are in their 40s and 50s, that haven’t done a will yet because they don’t want to think about death, because it’s this vast, unknown. But it’s like, it’s like driving at a wall at 100 miles an hour with no brakes, you’re going to hit the wall at some point. So but it’s not bad. I mean, that’s the thing. That’s the thing that’s so fascinating for me is once I started studying it, everything I’ve found has been good. I mean, everything I’ve found about about what we call death has just been it’s just a transition. So I encourage people lean into it, you know, if you have a fear of death, don’t try to avoid it, because that’s not going to happen. Just really dig into it.

Shelley F Knight 37:03
Yeah, and I think, no, I’d absolutely love to do that. But I’ve been really blessed because my was a chemotherapy nurse for many years. And so I get to see people when they’re diagnosed with cancer. And when you face your own mortality with a life changing diagnosis, you have, well, I suppose you do have a choice, but not many people choose not to think about their own mortality. So some people might think, Oh, I give up but very few. I honestly don’t know who in my entire nursing career, most people are facing your own mortality. Because you think you’re bumbling along and you’re never going to die. And you’ve got told you’ve got this cancer. You know, that’s facing your own mortality, you know, life just got real. And you have to really look at your life. And I think the pandemic’s on that, if I’m honest, you know, that we’ve really, you know, if we lost jobs, so I hate that job anyway. Or, you know, anything, when you face your own mortality, or start to lose things which you thought were given, that’s when you can lean into that sort of death. Just think actually, what do I want from life? Because you know, the life lessons I learned from the dying I still apply to my life now I’ve been really privileged in my career, when they face their own mortality or their end of life or through the cancer Yes, so simple how to live your life. But we don’t we live in fear of life and actually, it’s really simple. It just comes down to a few things that matter and it’s not money.

Brian Smith 38:29
So what are some of those lessons you’ve learned?

Shelley F Knight 38:33
The first one which I always found quite sad is used to say just be happier you know, if we achieve things we don’t celebrate them we just play it down to someone else to having a bad day. You know, just allow yourself to be happier. And I thought it’s a given but apparently it’s not you know, loads of different generations has married a girl they thought they should because she got pregnant or she was a nice girl. That’s not they wanted but you know, allow yourself to be happier. Another one similar to what we seen earlier about belief was dislike connect to something bigger than yourself. You know, absolutely love yourself. But no, you’re more than that. So whether that’s local community, you know, research in the afterlife, always connect with st bigger than yourself. Which is lovely, because then you know, you know, that you’re part of the universe your star Das, which I think is beautiful. Speak your truth was a real poignant one for me. I’ve nursed men and women, but I must say a lot of men with esophageal cancer slide around the voicebox. And that, and they used to say about speak your truth. And there was one patient if you ask a nurse, we always remember one patient. And mine was this gentleman with a song with your cancer, whose whole life again hadn’t been happy as he could be. And never spoke out of line. He had like a nagging wife or dominant father, you know, he just had all these Before was just silence. And he was allowed, you know that you’d never used his voice and he was about to lose his voice. And he said, like, just always speak your truth. And it might not be the ultimate truth, but it’s your truth and you’re valid. And that sticks with major. I mean, that must have been 20 years ago, but you know, yeah, speak your truth. Simple things like do more of what you love. And sadly, I don’t know if we do know what makes us happy and what we love, but they always said, do more of it. And similarly to the others, it was sort of like live your life and I thought you are this, like we’ve been slightly don’t really live your life, you just Bumble along and then you might get a diagnosis or someone might die, or here we are, you might get a pandemic, you didn’t see it coming in. And then when you face your own mortality or things, you know, you hit rock bottom, and your rug is pulled from beneath you. That’s when you start to live your life, you start to rebuild, you know, you get the job you want the qualifications you want, you have no money. So you start small, by creating my with things you’re passionate about. So they’re all very similar, but just be happier connections, speak your truth, do more what you love and things like that, which isn’t rocket science. But I think we’re so fearful of failure that we don’t, you know, allow ourselves to be happier, go for that job, that man, that car, whatever it is you want. So yeah, simple, but they’ve stayed with me.

Brian Smith 41:26
Those are really important lessons. And they are simple. And the thing is, I’ve heard people say this, you know, the illness that I got was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it really caused me to reevaluate. And this pandemic is an illness for all of us. And it’s interesting to see how people are right now, here in the US, we’re having trouble finding people to fill certain jobs, because a lot people said, I’m just not going back to that job. I hated it. It didn’t pay enough money anyway, you know, I’ve been living this life that I don’t want to live. And I’ve realized because of looking at my mortality, and realizing that I’ve got other options, I’ve just, I’m not going back. And it’s really kind of thrown the whole system, a monkey wrench, as we call it. And the whole system, people are like, what are we going to do when people don’t want to work at these these terrible jobs. But people are realizing Life is short. And almost all of us now know someone who’s lost her life do this to the pandemic, and a lot of them young, healthy people that we thought were gonna live, you know, for forever.

Shelley F Knight 42:31
Yeah, and I think that’s key what you said there, that, you know, we have this saying here in the UK, that when people die in their old, like my grandparents, people say things, or at least they had a good innings, which means they’ve had a good life, or so it’s assumed that because they’ve had many years, but you know, the pandemic showed us that actually, even teenagers have had to face their own mortality, something they might not have done. And we’ve been bumping along on that sort of not truly living our life. So it’s been a real wake up call. I know a lot of people say it’s been a global spiritual awakening. But we don’t always get to look at our own mortality into our health taken from us. And I think, you know, as you said, so many people walked away from jobs they didn’t want to do. But were there done that without the pandemic? Probably not.

Brian Smith 43:15
Right. Well, and the thing is, the reason why I asked you earlier if there was a grief event that triggered you on this journey is almost everyone I’ve interviewed is doing this type of work. There’s there’s something or some things that kind of like, bumped him off of the path they were on onto the path they’re on now. It’s like, I think human beings almost kind of need that wake up call. If we talked earlier, we come here with a lesson and a plan and certain things but we get so caught up in the game that we’re playing, that we forget, we’re just playing a game, and we need something to kind of remind us.

Shelley F Knight 43:49
Yeah, so my was the trigger was my beautiful stepdad died. And then my grandparents, my husband, I have no grandparents, like, we’re only in our 40s. But we have no grandparents. But it was my infertility loss and infertility, like I was pregnant and have miscarriages. And it is one of those sort of disfranchise Greece because no one knows why you’re grieving. But you said it right. If you’re a morning you were black, but as people don’t really know you were pregnant. No one really knows why. You know, they just think you’re a miserable cow on dates next to her in the office kind of thing. But it was again from that hitting rock bottom from you know, in a nutshell, it’s quite a long story in itself. But basically my last pregnancy I was pregnant with triplets. And then I lost and it was twins and a lost and now we’ve got seven year old Daisy, who’s amazing, but she didn’t really break me dry and she didn’t really break me. Yeah, and it is from that. So basically, we’ve had many losses. We’ve had seven miscarriages, many of them multiple. And when we had our 20 week scan, we was told that his baby wasn’t going to last beyond 28 weeks of gestation. And they told us to terminate we’re doing it now. But having had So many pregnancy losses, I was like absolutely no way because my success rate isn’t very successful. And I’m probably going to lose her anyway. So clinically, they gave up on us. And so I didn’t have anything else to go on. But I’d had a vision for 18 months, two years absolute clear vision, the tiny, dark haired baby girl to come. You know, we had these blonde children, but had this dark haired girl to come. And so clinically was told to terminate, that was never going to be a choice of mine. And so I just went all in spiritually, I’d have a spiritual vision for 18 months, two years, like weekly then getting more and more frequently. And so I went all on in and every day I would do like an affirmation teller she was well work with color. With every single book miracles you could ever imagine. I had Reiki every two weeks. Somebody did psychic surgery on me. I called in mediums, daily walk Mother Nature, absolutely everything. And she’s seven now. And so, you know, clinically, she had one in 80,000 chance of making it. Wow, maybe less. But yeah, I mean, I just read so many books, never thought she was ill coding guides, everything. And it worked for me. And that’s why I get so passionate. Now, if you’re sitting there and you’ve had loss in your life, whether that’s death of a loved one and miscarriage, job, direction, confidence, you know, just try a spiritual tool each and every day. Yeah, because at the end of the day, no matter what the outcome is what it was like, for me my daisy journey, no matter what the outcome, I knew I would have tried, I didn’t want to die with those life lessons in which I learned, you know. And just always try because you’re never going to know. But just don’t sit there and your grips. I nearly broke me. But that’s how I went very strongly then from the clinical to the spiritual, because clinically, they didn’t believe in me. And as I said, you always have to believe in something. So I believed in myself.

Brian Smith 47:06
Yeah. And, and you know, again, as a rational, skeptical kind of person. The more I talk people, the more I realize that the miracles happen. There was a woman you were telling remind me of a story of a woman I interviewed who had this vision that she was going to die in childbirth, and she kept telling everybody, she was gonna die in childbirth, like over and over. And of course, people weren’t listening to her. You’re having visions, you’re having dreams, you’re just hysterical because you’re pregnant. And she ended up having an indeed, during childbirth, she died, and they were able to bring her back, but only because she insisted on telling them over and over again. So the anesthesiologist last moment, brought in like an extra crash cart if it hadn’t been there, she would not have come back. But she kept listening to that spirit that was telling her this is what you need to do. And yeah, I hear a story like this. And it’s funny, I was talking to me the other day, and they said, you’re gonna think I’m crazy. I’m like, No, not at all. Because I listen, I love about what I do. I get to talk to people like this all the time. And I’m, I’m like, I’m here to tell you this this to God thing happens. And, you know, Miracle children, like Daisy do come about because you insisted on following your spiritual, you know, intuition.

Shelley F Knight 48:19
Yeah, I still do. I mean, nowhere on the level of days, I think I’m hoping that was my biggest lesson in this life. But in November 2019, I’ve been an RN for about a year really about giving up nursing because happy to real realization, I was a bit kooky to the average nurse. And it was a year on after positive changes itself keep book came out. And I’d always had this people that have a spiritual career. But in November 2019, it was so strong literally, like get out kind of thing by this boy, they were kind of shouting at me spirit. Well, I thought I was just that leap of faith, which I do quite often to scare my husband leap of faith and just going to have a go. So I left nurse in this real strong sense. And then, you know, January, February, we started to hear about this Coronavirus. And here we are, and I’m so glad I left. I mean, absolutely love and gratitude to those that still lay on the front line. But again, it was listen to my intuition. I thought why now, you know, I’ve been debating for about a year about getting out and it was so strong, and I listened to it got out and thank goodness I did for me personally.

Brian Smith 49:27
Yeah, it’s important, I think to listen that. I do want to ask you though, because I’ve talked to several nurses, and this is a stereotype but it seems to play out to be kind of true, where nurses will believe a lot of times in the spiritual. It’s the doctors who don’t and I don’t know if it’s because the training or the doctors aren’t there as often. But a lot of time nurses are the last ones there when a person is actually transitioning and they see and hear things that other people don’t. So do you find there’s still pushback against that in the UK that against the spiritual

Shelley F Knight 49:59
Yeah, and it’s been there for absolute decades. And it wasn’t even acceptable. The name used to be that it’s like the nurses know, but now it is called, like the nurses intuition. And I remember I was newly qualified and you might be quite quiet. That was before I learned the lesson of speak your truth, I was already doing it. And remember, this doctor had started a patient on a new type of intravenous antibiotics. And I was like, Yeah, I think we should call the family and he was like, No, absolutely not. We’re changing the treatment. Absolutely not. I’m a bit feisty. So I called the mean, and they traveled from overseas. And she did she she died. I mean, they got there in time. But she, they were in UK, they flew from Germany. And it’s just like, it’s just that intuition that doctors will never have it, because they’re very western medicine. You know, I mean, now it’s getting a bit soft. And we do maybe they might mention hypnotherapy for anxiety before surgery. And, you know, if you’ve got cancer, they didn’t have these like, holistic therapy units attached to them here. Now we can get sort of, I don’t think get Reiki but you can get massage in that. But still, the amount of times I absolutely defied these very strong personality doctors to call him family and I was never wrong. Maybe I was just a jinx, Brian, but no, I like to think it’s my intuition.

Brian Smith 51:21
Oh, yeah. And again, I know, at least here most of the nurses are women and women do tend to follow their intuition more. I don’t know what the reasons are. But it does seem like nurses generally believe more than than the doctors, at least to hear. And so it’s good to hear someone who’s who follows her intuition. And it’s really good for people to hear this, you know, because, again, I think especially in the West, we’re like, we have to be rational and everything. So you, you say you’re gonna do something people ask you what, what are your reasons for doing that? And what are your odds of success, and I find the people that tend to be most successful, if you want to call it you know, I use that with air quotes. But the people tend to be happiest or people do learn to follow their intuition. And they’ll just say, I’m doing this because I feel like it’s the right thing to do. And so many times, it turns out to be the right thing. So someone like your, your story can help reinforce our own belief in our own intuition.

Shelley F Knight 52:18
Yeah, I honestly believe in it. I just think like, is this inbuilt Sat Nav tells you where to go, you know? Now, if you’re walking out a night, there’s a dark alley, and your intuition says don’t go down there and really don’t go down there. Don’t think I’m going to walk a little bit taller, you know, got this amazing safety mechanism within us. Why wouldn’t we use it?

Brian Smith 52:39
Well, you know, the thing that would you say, it reminded me we do have we talked about five senses. But I’ve actually heard biologists say we have more like 17 senses, we’ve got we’ve got all these different senses, like sense of balance sense of where we are, you know, spatially stuff like that. And I believe we have we will call intuitive senses. And, again, this has been studied, people have taken in the lab, and people have pre cognition, they can, they’ll show them images, and they can react to the image before they actually see it, or something called Remote remote viewing has been studied, where people can draw a place that they’ve never been, and this is not, quote, woowoo stuff. It’s the stuff that’s been studied. So we do seem to have a sense, sometimes a little bit of what’s upcoming, we’ve all been sitting there and we’ll think of somebody and then the phone will ring. And we’ll say, you know, I was just thinking about you. And we we write that off as coincidence. But again, this has been, it’s not it’s not coincidence. So I love what you’re putting out there for people to say, you know, start to trust your own intuition a little bit. I’ve heard people, even with exercises, develop your intuition. I remember one guy was saying, like, if you’re in a office building, there’s a bank of elevators, see if you can figure out which one’s going to open first. So we can exercise that just by playing little games with ourselves.

Shelley F Knight 53:54
Yeah, I love that. Again, that is so quick. Don’t make it busier. So can do that in their daily routine?

Brian Smith 54:02
Yeah, absolutely. Well, shall we, um, I want to tell people where they can reach you. What I want to remind them what your books are. This will be in the show notes but like to have it in the audio just in case people are listening whether driving or walking or something.

Shelley F Knight 54:17
Yeah, so I’ve got a website which is Shelley F night.com. And over there you can find the books and the podcast newsletter. Any articles I’ve written and then Good grief, the age set approach one day grief eating is kind of everywhere. It seems. Amazon Kindle Barnes and Noble online retailers that’s out now.

Brian Smith 54:39
Yeah, awesome. Well, it’s been a pleasure getting to know you, thanks for being on grief to growth. Any any last thoughts before we leave, you’d like to leave with the listeners?

Shelley F Knight 54:48
No, other than just, you know, maybe after this show or when you’ve done the school run, you know, just tap out 10 minutes every day just to sit, you know, get to know yourself a bit better. allow whatever it is to come up

Brian Smith 55:02
like that. Thanks. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you Take care, Brian. That’s it for another episode of grief to growth. I sure hope you got something out of it. Please stay in contact with me by reaching out at www dot grief to growth.com. That’s grief the number two growth.com or you can text the word growth to 31996 That’s simply text growth gr o WT H 231996. So if you’re watching this on YouTube, please make sure you’re subscribed. So hit the subscribe button and then hit the little bell here and it’ll notify you when I have new content. Always please share the information if you enjoy it. That helps me to get more views and to get the message out to more people. Thanks a lot and have a wonderful day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

In Part 2 of our conversation, Alba continues the story of her experience with Aurelia. Alba Monn is an author and a mother who had a fascinating experience with the birth of one of her children, Aurelia. Alba had a near-death experience that changed her life. It was, in actuality, a shared death experience, as you will learn when you hear her story.

I’ve broken this very special episode into three parts. In parts 1 and 2, I get out of the way and let Alba tell her story as she recalls it. It might be a bit confusing in parts because the story doesn’t begin on the night her daughter was delivered in an emergency situation, it begins years earlier.

In part 3, I ask Alba to go into more detail and we discuss the lessons from her absolutely amazing experience. In her experience, Alba learned:

• Forgiveness is absolutely essential for our soul’s well-being
• Souls have no age * Humans are all flawed equally and differently.
• A life can have profound meaning no matter how short the time here on Earth * Something prepares us for the tough lessons we’re about to encounter if we pay attention
• Tragedy is less of a punishment and more of an opportunity Her book tells the story about healing after the loss of her child, PROOF OF ETERNITY by Alba Monn. It is intended to give hope to everyone who has lost a loved one, especially their own child.

It’s available at Amazon as an ebook.

Transcript

Brian Smith 0:00
Close your eyes and imagine what are the things in life that causes the greatest pain, the things that bring us grief, or challenges, challenges designed to help us grow to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we’ve been buried. But what if, like a seed we’ve been planted, and having been planted, to grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes, open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is grief to growth. And I am your host, Brian Smith.

This is part two of my interview with Alba mine. If you haven’t listened to part one, please go back to the previous episode and listen to the opening. This experience with Alba is how her unborn child was born. And they shared a near death experience and how it saved her life and led her to a life of forgiveness. So

if you have listened to part one, please go back and listen to part one. And with no further ado, here’s part two.

Yeah, yeah, I can only imagine how tough that there had to be.

Wow. So what do you think the purpose of this experience was of a rally as coming to you? And this this whole thing that you went through? Do you think that that serves a purpose?

Alba Monn 1:34
My near death experience with her? Yes, yeah, I think, to me, the purpose was pretty clear, because she,

I realized that she had been without a heartbeat for more than an hour. So he was on the other side for quite some time. And in my understanding, she was given a choice if she wanted to stay, or if she was prepared to come back for some time, or a small timeframe, to try to change everything for the better. And the situation when she was actually dead was before my emergency operation. And I was still in the process of dying. And between my emergency operation and my MD, I always had flashbacks of my husband having a deadly car accident on his way home. So because he was on his way home in the in the night, it was raining, it was

dangerous, and he didn’t get any sleep for a long time, and he was sleepy. And

I have this concept that if she hadn’t come back, I wouldn’t have had the d&d, I wouldn’t have had the second operation because I had a second emergency operation right after my daughter had died. Because they had to check on me before they would let me go to the other clinic to see her for one last time. And so they found that there was so much fluid in my body that they had to operate again and try to stop me from bleeding to death. And my concept is that my and he was

actually my only helped that I got in a situation where nobody could reach me. And my daughter decided that she would give us some more time to try to change the whole situation so that it would not be destructive for both of us, for not even me because I would be dying in the clinic without anyone noticing. And my husband could have had an accident, maybe, I don’t know, in what timeframe, but I guess the same day. So I had two older children and they would have not only lost a sister, but also their mother and their father. So they would have been orphans within a day and would have lost three family members. And I think that was the way it was supposed to be or was going to happen. And she decided to come back and end change First of all, the moment of her death. So she would come back for a couple of hours to to reach me and to change my attitude because if I would have got the message of her death in this attitude of anger to incite hatred, and and all these accusations that I had, it would have been detrimental for my spiritual survival To be honest, even if I would have survived I would have accused my husband for the death of our daughter for the rest of my days. And when I was in this room, feeling those four emotions love and and grief and remorse and this desperate, desperate feeling that I want to be forgiven. I realized that the grief was in the future it started now, but it was stronger in the future. And I sensed that there was something like a very heavy burden in the future that I would have to carry. And I was grieving about that. I think it was also something in the future of my husband and my children, of course. So all of this was changed with my near death experience. And my daughter tried to make me understand in the telepathic discussion first, and I think if I had understood what she wanted, and if I had forgiven him, the rest would have never happened, it would have been easy for her. It felt like when you start a car, and you take the gear, to the first to the first gear, and it’s just starting to go. And that’s how easy it was for her. As it felt to me, the telepathic discussion was the easiest way for her to reach me. And then all the other changes were always harder for her or for me, I don’t know, it was harder, it felt like second year was when she appeared, and it freaked me out. And she saw that it was not doing any good. And so she tried to

change the setting, I think, with this whispering sentence that she said, trying to reach me so that I wouldn’t fall asleep because I was about to fall asleep out of a loss of strength. And then in this room in, in eternity, I saw the truth. And later on, I call it like the Chamber of truth or a hall of truth, because everything that I saw was the truth that I didn’t want to accept. But that was presented to me in a way that I finally understood. And the last scene seen just before transitioning through this gate, through this wooden fence, I felt like it was gear number four, it was going very fast. And I, I if I would have been a little bit faster, I would have just gone through this fence and been on the other side. And so I was to put it back before that could happen. And it, it wasn’t my decision. But it was a decision in my best interest and also in the best interest of my children. Because when I heard that, the doctor told me that our failure had died. I remember thinking I want to be with my child. And if she’s dead, I want to be dead also. That was the first thing that came to my mind. And then within seconds, I realized I can’t do this to my two older children, because they would be in my place, they would be exposed to all these feelings and difficulties that I felt too weak to encounter, to be honest, if it felt too much for me to go on. And then I realized I can do this to my children. And that’s when I decided I have to stay strong and stay alive and get well again to take care of my children, my young children because they were pretty young at the time. So I have

Brian Smith 8:09
to ask you, I know you had some other premonitions about the passing of earlier is that true before before this, you had some premonitions that she was going to not live very long?

Alba Monn 8:20
Yes, that’s true that this day that changed my life forever. And it was actually two difficult instances within a few hours, the death of my child and the near death experience, which was a huge help on the one hand, and on the other side. It was tremendous difficulty because I couldn’t tell anyone about it. I couldn’t tell anyone in the clinic and I couldn’t tell anyone at home, I didn’t want for family and friends to know what had happened, what my husband had done, so there was no way to explain it to anyone. And the thing that consoled me was that I had three different dreams before or alias birth and death that had warned me and unfortunately I hadn’t understood what they meant. One of them was even eight years nearly to the day before she died. And so it was just a couple of days away. And I had written it down because it was so it felt so special and extraordinary that I thought I have to write this stream down so I wouldn’t forget it. I didn’t understand anything about it. But it showed me the details of the emergency cesarean section. So I had a hole in my in my belly that was the size of a fist and you could look through my body and then there was a little a little sealable thread coming out of it. That was pulling me along. And so there were a lot of different details that reminded me of her emergency operation of, of the grieving process. For instance, I got two messages about the physical healing and emotional healing. And I didn’t understand any of it because I didn’t know what what incident was it was pointing to. So there was nothing in my life at the time that made any sense in the stream. But when I found it a little bit, after a really a staff, I was shocked. I was so astounded that so many details were so clear and describe what I was going through eight years later that I realized that this was unbelievable, to be honest. And at the same time, there was one angel with a sword, and it said, I never saw him. So I had written down, I never saw his face, but he touched my belly very, very softly. And he wanted to warn me and to console me. So this was obviously before the pregnancy was over. So even during the pregnancy, there was obviously an angel trying to console me and warn me and I just hadn’t understood what it was all about. And the second train started when I was about in the fourth month of pregnancy, and it recurred every week. And it was horrible. Because in the in the beginning, I didn’t think there’s something like that was possible. It was in the middle of the week. And I think it was Wednesday, anytime, anywhere, I had three or four days that I was afraid of destroying to come again. And then I had three or four days after it when I was just recovering from the shock of it. And this train showed me I was standing at home, in my living room, I was standing with my pregnant belly. And out of my belly button, a very tiny baby came out, it was so pale that I understood at one set, it wasn’t really able to be healthy. And I tried to put it into something that looked suitable for for her to be kept in. So that would it would remind her of my belly and I went into the kitchen, and I put a soft cloth in my salad bowl and I put the baby inside and draped little cloth around her and around her head. And I was looking at her totally started what this should mean because the belly was huge, and the baby was so small. And I didn’t know how to care for her. I was thinking, how should I make sure that she isn’t too coward. And it felt like I couldn’t provide the surroundings that she needed to survive actually, or at least to be okay. And at that moment.

The mailman was pressing my my doorbell and I ran downstairs to get the mail and I had to sign a little form that said I had gotten a package and I took the package and went back upstairs and I put it away on the kitchen counter. And a few steps away from the salad bowl, I realized that this whole cloth was rearranged while I was gone, somebody must have opened it up. And my baby wasn’t there anymore. And I was I was in such a state of horror. I was running through the whole house, looking for my child everywhere. And coming back to the kitchen realizing that she was nowhere I started to open all these all these counters, everything where I could look for her, or the cabinets or the doors, I ripped everything open, I put everything on the floor. And I was in a frenzy going for the whole house, nothing was in its place anymore. Everything was torn down. And when I was finally going back to the kitchen where I had started, I was so exhausted that I lent my the back of my head against the coolness of this refrigerator door. And I remember that it felt so cool and and my heart was beating so fast in the stream that I felt relieved that I was at least having some help from this coolness of this refrigerator door and then I was thinking I can never find her again. Because if she’s not in the house and she’s so tiny, where should I ever look for her and I will never be able to find her. And I was in a state of resignation. So I I felt like an endless sadness came over me and I realized there’s no way I could ever find her. And I had lost her and now she’s gone. And I was so sure that she was somewhere in the house for some reason. And I hadn’t found her and then my my eyes fell on the so I looked at this little package in front of me and there was my name on it. And without even moving anything. Not even my head without even moving Anything of my body, I realized that my babies in this little package bundled up for me, sent to me. air tight, and I was starting, I was thinking, I’m going to go crazy. And I was starting to yell like, I’ve never yelled in my whole life. And I was thinking, this is it. And I felt my heart racing such a beat that I didn’t know. And I always woke up at that point. And this dream kept coming back. And I told it to my husband, he said, this is a stupid dream, don’t take it seriously. And I was trying to analyze some different details of it with some friends of mine, but we couldn’t get any explanation. For instance, why is the baby so small, of course, as the birth as the time progressed, and birth came nearer, I realized that it must have another meaning it must not be actually that the baby starts small, but it must have a meaning that says, The baby is not in a state where it can survive outside of the womb, that was the meaning of this detail. Do you know what I mean? So all these details made sense. Looking back at it, I realized that the salad bowl was the incubator where my daughter was put in, and the people who had taken her out were the medical personnel and the other clinic. Because I wasn’t there, I was gone. Like in the dream, I was gone to talk to the mailman. So she was alone with others, and they took her out and took care of her. So in every little detail, I found some meaning that came through later on. And in the stream. I don’t know, I was prepared for all those emotions that I was exposed to after she had died. So it was kind of a preparation dream. And I had this feeling that if I would understand what it meant, I wouldn’t have to dream it anymore. And I was trying to figure out what it meant. But I never really figured it out until it was too late. And so this was the second dream. And the third dream was a positive dream. It was a dream of, I should say contemplation, it was a dream of her being buried in a very beautiful way. Because for instance, I saw myself in, in a dark church, everything in discharge was gone. There was no altar. There was nothing anywhere in this church. So the church was totally stripped down from everything that was inside. But there was a little circle of small white canvas.

And they were lit and it was a circle of mild light. And within those candles, there was there were flower petals, orange, and pink, and white and, and kinds shades of reds, and a little bit of purple. So it was girls colors. And I was holding my daughter in my hand. And then everything was peaceful. And there were people standing around the circle of Canvas, so that the whole space of this church was filled up with people being present at the ceremony. And it was a very, very solemn but also peaceful and very respectful setting. So everything was peaceful and nice. And I gave my, my little daughter into the hands of my best friend who was standing next to my right. And she put her down on a soft on a soft, small carpet that was dark wine red, and she put her down, and my daughter was asleep. She had her eyes closed, and she was bundled up and we were standing there. And then as I felt that everybody’s waiting for me to do something. Um, we were standing there for a very, very long time. So it felt like one or two hours. And then I felt like I’m an actor in a movie. Everybody knows the script, but I have no idea what my next line is. And I couldn’t figure out what everybody was expecting from me. But I did something that I felt was the next natural thing to do. So I I walked past at the side of this little carpet where my dad gave a little baby was resting on. I stepped over all those parents, I stepped over to Kansas, the people made way for me so I went to a little door that goes behind the altar. And strangely enough it was when I went through it. I came into the same church again. The church was dark, it was empty, and all the people were gone. It was totally empty except for one chair that was sitting in the middle of it. And I knew that it’s my Chair, just my place. And I went, slowly, I went over it over to it. And I sat down. And I was sitting down. And then I was so sad. And I started to cry. And I couldn’t stop. And I was crying and crying in the stream. And I realized I didn’t know why I was so sad. And so I was trying to figure out, how can I be that sad? And what could be the reason for me to cry so much. And as I was thinking about it, I didn’t have any clue what could be so devastating that I would cry so much. And as I realized that there is no explanation for it, I woke up, but this train was just, I just rant once, and the other one was recording every week. And later on, I felt like this stream had more or less the same content as the other one,

Announcer 20:56
we’ll get back to grief to growth in just a few seconds. Did you know that Brian is an author and a life coach. If you’re grieving or know someone who is grieving his book, grief to growth is a best selling easy to read book that might help you or someone you know, people work with Brian as a life coach to break through barriers and live their best lives. You can find out more about Brian and what he offers at WWW dot grief to growth.com www dot g ri e f, the number two gr o w th calm. If you’d like to support this podcast visit www.patreon.com slash grief to growth www.patreon.com slash g ri e f, the number two gr o w th to make a financial contribution. And now back to grief to growth.

Alba Monn 21:52
But the other one was a little bit scary for me. And this one was calming me down and and showing me the ceremony that we had arranged for her for her birthday. And actually, I had never told anyone of my family have this dream. And at the time, when the day came when my daughter was to be buried, my mom went outside in her garden and she cut up every flood flower in her garden. So she went to, to the grave with too heavy baskets full of flowers. And she didn’t tell anyone, she had no idea that I had dreamt that. And she put the flowers onto the you know, onto the soil inside the grave. And I had to have another emergency operation the day before a radio was buried. And I had to fight to be able to be there in a wheelchair. And I was only allowed to stand up in front of the grave. And to sit down right right away again. But when I was standing up, and I looked into the grave with all those flowers, and enter a little coffin being you know, lay down on on a bed of flowers, I was so moved because I realized this was exactly what I’d seen in the stream. So I had seen that she would be cared for not only by me, but by other people they would love her so much to to make such a present for her. And my mom wouldn’t even tell me for another two or three days, that it was her who had done that as a last gift for her granddaughter. And the only one I had told her that I’m going to ask all of my friends who it was because I was so grateful for that person. Then she admitted that it was actually her. And I said, You know, I can’t put it in words how thankful I was for her to do that. And what a beautiful sight to see that your baby is laying on a bed of flowers. And so this was another detail that I had seen in the dream that came true.

Brian Smith 24:02
Yeah. So Alba, I want to ask you have you had communication with the railroad since then, or she come to you? either in dreams or visions or anything since since this time?

Alba Monn 24:15
Yes. The first time that I had been contacted by her was when I was in the funeral home. And I had been in the clinic in the hospital for about a week. And when I was finally released from the hospital, I told my husband I want to arrange everything for her to to be you know, cared for and and to be buried and in a way that shows that. We love her as much as if she would have been 70 years old. It didn’t matter how much people think that she had an impact on us or on our family that she meant as much to us as anyone else in the family would have meant. And so I was I was eager to finally see her again for once, and secondly to arrange everything so that she would have a very beautiful funeral. And when I was seeing her for the first time, she was laying in her coffin and I had picked out all the clothes that she was wearing. And we had arranged for soft

for soft lining in her coffin because it was bare wood as we had picked it out. And so we put some baby blankets in it. So I had a couple of baby blankets from home that we had bought for, and we folded them up and put them inside so that she could lay on it. And I had decided to spray everything with my favorite perfume because I thought she never was able to turn out to sense my perfume I wanted to get as much from myself as I could. And I took a sweater that I had knitted myself my favorite sweater, and I put it in, in I had liked it put in, in that little coffin in her coffin. And a man who had dressed her because she was cut up from a procedure to make sure what was the cause of her death. So she was cut up, but she was dressed beautifully. And I had the man who put her in the coffin, I had asked him to put my favorite sweater underneath her and so that it would end just utter neckline. And when we would close her coffin, we would wrap the sweater around her body and and wrapped it just rapid like to answer from other that would cradled her, you know, one side to the other. And we had beautiful flowers for her for each hour that she had left one flower and we said a prayer together. And before we close the coffin, I said to my husband, I want to hold her in my hands, because I have never been able to ever hug her in my life. And I just wanted to get her as close to me as possible. So my husband didn’t want for me to lift her out of the coffin because of the procedure that she had been actually cut up and sewed back together. So I didn’t, I didn’t want to get in a discussion with him. So I agreed. So I had arranged that there was a little seat for me to sit on. So because I couldn’t carry her because I had just had another operation. So I had to sit down. And then my husband, put her into my arms. And when I looked at her, I, I was so happy, I don’t know how to explain it. But in the deepest grave, I was so happy that I was finally together with my daughter, the way that I should have been together from the start, in a way, you know, right after the birth. And, and suddenly I heard her telepathically Tell me, Mom, don’t be so sad, because I’m so happy that it’s all over. And I realized that it must have been hard for her to, to live for those couple of hours when she was in the ICU, in the children’s ICU. Because it must have been hard for her to come back and go through it all, just for the sake of us and and I realized that this meant that she didn’t want for me to to grieve, you know, for forever, but it meant that she wanted for me to know that she was okay with the situation. And that she was fat. It was a big source of consolation for me actually.

Brian Smith 28:53
Yeah. There’s just so much in your experience that you know, it’s just, it’s so informative, I guess for all of us, you know that because we sometimes wonder like, if someone comes in and they’re only here for a couple of hours or a couple of months or a year or a few years, could they really have made an impact and obvious, you know, your daughter, she, she saved your life in a way I guess. And you know, the fact that people say well,

Alba Monn 29:23
definitely, because Yeah, well I was thinking about the actor. He was a little pain medication she was without any brainwaves. She was without normal breathing. She had to be on a respirator. He or she had to have everything else. So she wasn’t she wasn’t having any other vital signs except for her heartbeat. But in fact, in the spiritual realm, she was a grown up person, she was totally, I felt when I talked to her she was so forgiving. She was she was so much better than me as a, as a person, she was so way ahead of me that I had the feeling that she was actually my coach, she was my teacher in this situation. And she was like a mentor, taking someone else by the hand and showing them the way to go. And, and later on, I realized I had this strange thought that maybe she didn’t stay among us for that long, because what could I ever have told her like she couldn’t have learned anything from me anymore. It felt like it was just a gift that I had had the honor to meet her actually. And, and this just this was just so unbelievable, because I had never felt that little baby could have actually spiritually such a, such a personality that brings so much hope and, and goodness to the lives of others. And just to think about what her impact was, she not only saved my life, because of her death, right after the end, he I was checked. And if I hadn’t been checked, right after she had died, because I wanted to see her, nobody would have realized that I was still bleeding internally and in the process of dying. So I had to undergo some more checkups. And then they found the source inside my belly, and then they fixed it. So I would definitely have died. And as I said, I’m afraid that even my husband would have died, maybe just out of a lack of concentration on his way back home. And the whole family would have been destroyed and away. Yeah, because I couldn’t even I couldn’t even start to imagine what it would have meant for my two older children.

Brian Smith 31:54
And the other thing I think is really important in your, in your experience is the power and the purpose of forgiveness. I mean, a lot of times, and I love the way you went through this process where you, you knew philosophically The best thing to do is forgive but emotionally, you still couldn’t do it, until you realize that forgiveness was really for yourself.

Alba Monn 32:15
Yeah, that was the problem before I went into this realm in the spiritual realm, it felt like forgiveness was a service that I would do for others. It felt like it was a way to stretch out the hand for my husband, but it did not have any meaning for my own well being I couldn’t make this connection that my well being was actually also connected with my husband’s well being and then I would also hurt myself the same way I would hurt him. Because if you imagine if I wouldn’t have been able to forgive him, even if I would have survived and wouldn’t have died because of the internal bleeding. If I would have survived for the rest of my life, I would have carried this burden. And this burden would have been huge, just like this huge boulder that I saw in the other room, it would have been impossible for me to to move it, I would have been stuck for the rest of my life with this accusation against my husband and not forgiving anyone. And to be honest, what astonished me the most is that I had felt in this chamber of truth that there was no way that I could ever change even one little inch of the outcome of my life result at this point. So there was no way to change it. But the only way to change it was forgiving someone else. So this meant I had this huge urge all the time that I would be forgiven. This was a desire that was as strong as you could imagine somebody who is who is nearly dying from hunger and thirst. It was like somebody being hungry and desiring something to eat and to drink. This was how much it is. These emotions were so strong, I could hardly think of anything else. And this desire was so great that I would be forgiven, but I couldn’t make it. I couldn’t change anything about it. And and only when I forgave my husband, automatically, it felt automatically in the same moment. I was forgiven everything that I had done wrong. And that was the thing that astonished me the most when I was actually back in the ICU as I was thinking to myself, how, how much power is in forgiving if even in eternity when when you decide you would forgive someone else, you would change your own life result. I mean, this is huge. And if you think about it in, in the prayer that Jesus had taught his disciples, it says God Please forgive us, the way we forgive others. And it’s also there, the connection is there that, in a way, it seems to me as if it was impossible for God to forgive us everything he would wish to, if we were stuck in not forgiving others, there’s, there’s some connection there that I experienced. And it it was heartbreaking before I finally got around to forgiving my husband. And even on the other side there still, this power of forgiveness, it was unbelievable, to be honest, when I came back and thought about it.

Brian Smith 35:37
Yeah, it’s it’s really, really incredible. Wow. But I want to thank you so much for sharing your your experience with me today. It’s just, it’s just incredible and fascinating. And I know the listeners are going to love it. I want to let everybody know that Alba has a book out. And the book is called proof of eternity. And her name is spelled al ba and the last name is m o n n. that’s available now on Amazon. And I’m sure there’s a lot more in the book. But I really appreciate you sharing this very rich, very enlightening experience.

Alba Monn 36:13
Well, thank you so much for having me. And I have written my book, actually to reach out to all other parents who didn’t have an MD and would be interested in hearing what I had been through and what my daughter had actually done for me, and I’m sure my daughter is no exception. So I’m sure that the children that die are very early in their lives, they have a very huge impact on all of us. But the impact should be the goodness that they had brought to us. And one last thought that I would like to share with you is at some point, when I was very sad about the death of my daughter, I asked myself, if it was up to me, if I could have decided, did I want for a rally to be born to be in my life, and bring so much sorrow together with the happiness that we had about her? Or would I decide to not have her and just not experience any of the sadness and all of the emotions that came with her death. And I decided, no matter what I would always make the decision to have my daughter in my life because of what she meant to me. And that was a point of no return. That was the point when I started to be more thankful for her being in my life than being sad about the grief and the loss that I had to experience because of it. And so I just wanted to share that with your viewers as well.

Brian Smith 37:43
Yeah, beautifully said beautifully said. And you know, you’re right for all of us that have had children that have come in and left early. And we ask why? We can look, we can see that they love gems in our lives, and no matter how long they were here, and I’m so grateful that you shared this with with me today. I’m really I’m honored to have you here.

Alba Monn 38:05
Something else because of the you mentioned that we often ask ourselves why we had to lose our children. There’s a little explanation that comes from Elisabeth Kubler Ross. And she was answering a question from a little boy that was dying of cancer. And he asked her why does why is it that little children have to die? And what how does God think about that? And then Elisabeth Kubler Ross told him that God is a great teacher, and all of us are his pupils. And some artists starting to learn how to read and write. And some of us are in our final exams, and just, you know, before graduation, and she said, If God had a very, very hard problem to solve, to which pupil do you think would he give it? And then the boy said only to one of the best. And he smiled at her and he was able to accept his fate as something that was extraordinary. And I think this is the truth for all of us. All the parents that have lost a child, they are actually getting their PhD from the University of life. And they are about to graduate when they are able to finally accept their faith and find some goodness in it and the strength to go on.

Brian Smith 39:32
Wow. Wow. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Well, I’ll bet you enjoyed the rest of your day. Appreciate your time.

Alba Monn 39:40
You too. Thank you so much. Bye, bye.

Brian Smith 39:45
There you have it. That’s the end of part two. Now please proceed to part three, for our answer a lot of questions that I have her and fill in some of the blanks that you might have missed as she told her story earlier. So that does it for another Episode of grief to growth I sure hope you enjoyed it. If you liked this content, make sure you subscribe so click on the subscribe button here, and then click on the bell to receive notifications and click on all. That way you’ll be notified whenever I release new content. Thanks for watching, and have a great day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai