Healing Through Loss: The SERVE Method with Dr. Michelle Petticolas

Transcript

Copy

Complex Grief and Disconnection

Speaker 1 0:00

So I work with people that have what I call complex grief , which is that they had some unresolved losses earlier in their lives sometimes often in their childhood usually around some abandonment issue it could be emotional or physical abandonment and so when they have a current loss and almost always when we have grief it is about disconnection , not losing connections , and that's what causes the grief .

Speaker 2 0:33

Okay , so you have a different take on how to heal grief right .

Speaker 1 0:38

I have a system and I do work with four different superpowers . One is the body , so the body is super important and I really work with people in terms of actually releasing the emotional energy out of their body so it isn't stuck in their cells and that's also working with the emotions but it is in the body , but you have to use the emotional tools to get it out . And then mindset is really huge and I help my clients to change their story around what they're doing , and I have great examples of how I do that Wonderful , love , love examples . And then the last thing is other people , because if you lost a connection , you actually need to reconnect with people as well . That makes sense .

Speaker 1 1:27

And then the final one is spirit . So I'm a spiritual being having a human adventure . That's part of what I offer is to help them to connect with what their divine purpose is , what they are authentically here to do . And so grief becomes this gateway doorway , because when you think about it , especially if you lost somebody to death is you're like really right on that edge of the two worlds , and so it's an opening to really take you through to the next level . That's a great way to look at that .

Speaker 2 2:00

I like that . I like that . Welcome back to Mental Health Warrior and NeuroSpicyMama , the show that dives deep into the real stories and life-changing conversations that help us all live a little bolder and love a little harder . I'm your host , amy , and today's episode it's one you do not want to miss . We're joined by Dr Michelle Petacola , a truly extraordinary grief specialist and transformational coach , whose work has changed countless lives .

Speaker 2 2:34

If you've ever faced loss or supported someone who has , this episode will give you the tools , the hope and the inspiration to move forward in a way that truly serves your spirit . From understanding the hidden layers of complex grief to learning the powerful serve method for healing , dr Michelle shows us how loss can become the gateway to a deeper connection with ourselves and with the people and purpose that matter most . If you're ready for honest wisdom , practical steps and the kind of big-hearted encouragement that will have you feeling empowered by life's biggest challenges , you are absolutely in the right place . So grab your coffee , settle in and let's get started . All right , today we're talking to Dr Michelle Padicola and she's talking with us about grief . Welcome , michelle .

Speaker 1 3:34

Thank you , Amy . I'm so excited to be on your show .

Speaker 2 3:43

Oh , I'm excited to have you here . So we've been talking a little and I'm fascinated by what you do and how you help people . You've got a system right .

Speaker 1 3:48

Yes , I do have a system .

Speaker 2 3:50

Okay , is there a name ?

Speaker 1 3:51

to the system . Well , it does . It has an acronym and it's SERVE , and each of the letters has a meaning for the process they use . Okay , do you want me to go into that now , or you want ?

Speaker 2 4:03

to yeah definitely Okay .

Speaker 1 4:05

So the SER serve system number one S is surrender . So many people get stuck in fighting their grief . You don't want to fight your grief Although I understand why people do that because our culture literally encourages us to repress our emotions , especially grief emotions , and we feel ashamed and embarrassed , especially if we start crying suddenly , and so all our focus is on trying to hold those emotions in . But it's the worst thing you can do , because emotions emotion need to move and if you don't , they don't go away . They don't like evaporate . They get stuck in the cells in your body and , depending on where they get stuck , they could do damage to you .

Speaker 2 4:57

They can come out in other ways too that you didn't want right ?

Speaker 1 5:00

Oh , absolutely , because it's like pressure in a teapot it's suddenly , they'll burst out at the wrong moment and you'll overreact . But also when you're holding them in and I know a lot about this because I've held my emotions in for years is you're using the muscles in your body to literally constrict and hold them in and hold them in , and when you imagine what it would be like to hold your fist for an hour and then imagine a week or a month and that's what you're doing to your body You're literally holding it . And so when I work with people around releasing their emotion , I help them to get into their body and find where the emotional blocks are . Where , literally , are they holding that energy in their body ?

Speaker 2 5:48

Is it wherever the tightness is in their body , like somebody feel it in their neck and that kind of thing .

Speaker 1 5:54

Yep , yep . In the neck or in the belly , or in the heart or in the head , it could be any number of places . A lot of people , a lot of women , have problems around the neck because they aren't expressing , they're holding , they're restricting it right at the neck level .

Speaker 2 6:12

Wow , that's interesting and that affects your thyroid and different things like that .

Speaker 1 6:17

Oh yeah .

Speaker 2 6:17

Yeah , sure Interesting . I'm a thyroid cancer survivor , so that made me wonder yeah , the body is telling you

The SERVE Method for Grief Healing

Speaker 2 6:25

the information you need to know .

Speaker 1 6:26

So , where it is in your body , you think about the function of that particular organ and you say , well , what is the function of that organ and what is my body telling me ? By putting the block right there , because it's a two-way street , it's where you're holding the emotions in , but the body is getting the blocks because it's trying to tell you what you need to let go , what you need to work on .

Speaker 2 6:49

Wow , Well , that makes so much sense . But then you have to figure out how to work on it .

Speaker 1 6:55

Yes , that's true . So I was talking to another woman and she was telling me about her sister or maybe it was her mother , I forget which who had worked really hard in this job for years and then she did not get the promotion she expected and her heart was broken and she eventually died from cancer of the female organs down here . Well , this is the area of creativity , down here , in the sacral area . That's where we produce babies , right ? So that's the creative area . So that she got cancer there is because that particular issue was not resolved and she was holding that . How sad .

Speaker 1 7:37

Okay S surrender . So you need to surrender to your emotions . So the next one is E , which is engage . Because you've lost some connection or bonding connection . You need to re-engage with other people , and sometimes this is difficult because human beings are very particular about who they want to engage with and who they don't , which is good . But , for example , I had a client and she had lost her adult daughter and I said your body needs hugs , you need to hug people even if they're not your daughter , and she was very resistant to this because she wanted her daughter . Well , your daughter is gone and your body doesn't really tear if you hug another person . It just needs that hug . It needs that physical connection with other human beings . Of course , I spent a lot of time in my program helping people to identify who are the right people and to recognize that when you are going through grief and loss , your address book's going to change . Some people will be there for you and other people will disappear .

Speaker 2 8:56

Right , well , and I think that that kind of brings up to me when someone loses , like a loved pet , want to get another one right away because they're scared of being hurt again . Right , the same thing for you know , losing your child , you don't want to open up to someone and get hurt again , right , right .

Speaker 1 9:16

Well , I know a lot of people and of course we've been taught that in our childhood . You know replace the loss right away so you don't feel and you don't get . Oh , here , you're feeling bad here , let me give you a piece of candy or you'll make new friends , no problem . But the same way that we their emotions through their partner , through their feminine partner , is that the person that you bring in , if you haven't grieved , you're not going to really be able to engage in that relationship fully . I had a friend . She lost a dog that she had for 15 years and she got one that looked like that dog . What a bad dog . And so she has never been able , she's not bonded with that dog .

Speaker 2 10:12

Which is sad for both of them .

Speaker 1 10:14

Which is sad for both of them . Yeah , okay , that's E . So the next one is R , which is the reframing . It's the working around the story that we have , and oftentimes we have a story of being either victimized like it wasn't fair , or he shouldn't , or she shouldn't have left me , or you know why me , why did it happen to me ? And I help my clients to change their story so that it ends up being empowering .

Speaker 2 10:47

Can you give an ?

Speaker 1 10:47

example of that . So I'll give you a simple example . Well , I'll give you two examples , because I have two really really good ones . I was working in hospice as a partner law support facilitator and there was this one man . He was from the Philippines and his wife died of cancer and he believed that he would never have another wife , that that was all in his culture , that's all you get and that's the love of your life . And he was struggling because things would remind him of his wife's death . He'd hear a radio program about her particular disease or he'll read an article and he would feel that grief .

Speaker 1 11:29

And I said well , what if you change your perspective of that grieving ? And instead of seeing that as a failing or a sign that you haven't gotten over your grief , imagine that that's actually an expression of your love , that it's a measurement of how much love you have and that every time you grieve , you're sending that love up to your loved one . Yeah , that's beautiful . He changed . He changed so fast . I mean he was out of out the door in less than a month because that was it . That was that one little teeny shift that just said oh , I mean , I don't have to feel bad about this . This is my love . And every time he would grieve , he would welcome it , he would engage in it , he would appreciate it , he would enjoy it , he would indulge in it . Yeah , what a different response . What would appreciate it ? He would enjoy it , he would indulge in it . What a different response . What a different reaction . A whole new life , a whole new life . And in some ways , when we lose somebody who's really close , we may grieve them for the rest of our lives . But if we see that grief as a measurement of our love , then we don't see that as a failing . Oh , okay , right , we see it as something positive . And that's huge , that's a huge change , yeah .

Speaker 1 12:53

So this other case was very different . A woman came to me and she had been grieving the loss of her father for three years and she was stuck and she couldn't move forward with her life . And it turned out that her father had died of cancer and she wanted to take care of him . She wanted to be his caregiver , to be with him and have him die in his own home . He didn't want that . He wanted to be in a nursing home . He wanted strangers to take care of him . He didn't want to burden her . He had the money , he wanted to do it this way and she felt so guilty that she hadn't insisted on his doing that . And that was what was holding her back .

Speaker 1 13:40

So I said , do you believe in an afterlife ? Do you believe that your father is up there somewhere ? And she , eh , kind of I said , well , what if he's watching over you and you have stopped your life because he refused to go along with what you wanted ? Her eyes like popped open . It's like oh my God , I said , and he can't do anything because he's dead . And here he is having to be burdened by this guilt of holding you back from living your life Totally changed , totally changed her perspective . She just like , oh my God , I don't want to do that to my dad .

Speaker 1 14:30

I'm so crippled right , Right . Oh wow , what a great turnaround . So that's just , it's one of my geniuses is to be able to see that different perspective for somebody and help them to make that shift . And there are a whole bunch of other ways in which we shift them , but that's just one of the things .

Speaker 2 14:46

Have you always been able to find that shift , or is that something you learned later in life ?

Speaker 1 14:51

Well , I have to tell you that most of them , probably my first 45 years I was totally shut down . Yeah , I had my own childhood wounds and fear of abandonment and I learned to repress my emotions . I had to learn that's why I'm good at this is I had to learn how to bring my emotions and my feelings back online . As a very young child , I escaped into my brain , into my head , into my thoughts , and that became the safe place for me because my emotions weren't working for me . You know , nobody responded to me .

Speaker 1 15:31

My mother was a young mother and she had two other children and she was moving a household to Japan . My father , who I had bonded with , he had been transferred to Japan by the US Army and she couldn't help me . So I had to shut down my emotions because I would become you know , I'd be dehydrated if I were to cry all the time . So that's what I learned and , having listened to this stuff about neurodiversity , I believe that I am actually a super hypersensitive person and that it was so intense for me that I had to shut down . Yes , Now that I brought those feelings back online , I have these capabilities of sensing what somebody else feels and

Body Wisdom and Releasing Emotion

Speaker 1 16:22

actually feeling in their body , where they are feeling the block , I know Immediately .

Speaker 2 16:28

Where it is .

Speaker 1 16:28

You feel it in yourself , I feel it in myself .

Speaker 2 16:31

Wow , okay , and when you finally brought your emotions back online , was there like one moment where it was just overwhelming , which is what everybody's afraid of , or was it more peaceful ?

Speaker 1 16:44

Well , it came in steps . Okay , part of it was that my first husband actually left me . So first my father left me and then my first , my first husband , abandoned me for another woman and it was very , very distressing and I ran off to a spiritual community where I traded my brain for spirit , you know , and so I hid out in the ether , which is a little bit what they talk about the spiritual bypass . So I did that and I actually didn't grieve the loss of that husband for a long time . But when I got together with my current husband I saw I was able to see how I was setting up for being abandoned again , so that anything that he showed that showed like he was resisting or holding back , I would pull back . I would see that I said , oh , I need to work on this . So I actually did some very , very early childhood healing program and that was huge . But the big breakthrough was that both my parents died within six months of each other .

Speaker 2 17:57

Wow , how did you handle that ?

Speaker 1 18:00

Well , it was hugely eye-opening and emotionally opening and that's why I work with people a lot around grief and death and loss . That was transformational for me . In fact I even made a documentary film series about death because it was so impactful . And the moment that really was key for me was I had come home to help my mother finish up her business , and my mother was a toy designer . She actually sold her toys to major toy companies in New York City with my aunt . So she was a pretty amazing creative person . But she also had six children and we only got thimbles .

Speaker 1 18:51

It wasn't like she didn't love us , but she didn't really know how . She didn't have much love in her childhood . Anyway , we're sitting in her studio and I'm trying to be the dutiful daughter and help her clean up her mess , because she's a creative , she's got stuff everywhere . So I pick up a piece of paper it's a Xerox copy of one of her designs and I hand it to her and I say do you need this anymore ? I'm like I'm throwing stuff out , I want to get rid of stuff . And she looks at it and she says I guess I'll never get to that project . Oh my God , it was like she nailed me with an arrow through my heart , because in that moment I really got what deadline means she ran out of time .

Speaker 2 19:43

Oh , that gives me chills , just thinking about how far that must have been .

Speaker 1 19:50

But I did not engage her then and you can imagine this I had craved all my life intimacy with my mother and this was that moment and I ran away because I was not ready for the emotional level of that . I was too afraid . But when you make mistakes , you learn a lot from those mistakes , lot from those mistakes . So the big thing I got out of that moment was if my mother could have regrets and she was like my poster child for living your life passion if she could have regrets , where did that leave me ? And I was somebody who had totally shut down . I was a people pleaser . I worried about everybody else's needs and didn't take care of my own needs , and it transformed me . That's when I went after she died . I decided I was going to make a documentary film , which morphed into Three , and I got into this whole stuff around grief and loss , and I've never turned back . I've never looked back .

Speaker 2 20:56

Yeah , because it sounds like you were at a place in your life with your new husband where you were living that self-fulfilling prophecy of I don't want to be left , so I'm going to make that happen . Right , You're pushing him away .

Speaker 1 21:09

Right .

Speaker 2 21:10

So I'm interested what happened with your mom and what happened with your new husband ? How did that correlate ?

Speaker 1 21:19

He actually championed me because he's a creative , so he always encourages my creativity . He thinks

Storytelling and Reframing Grief

Speaker 1 21:28

I work way too hard , way too much time on the computer . He wants me to be doing watercolors , not doing all this stuff , especially because coaching can be a challenging work . But I have to go with what I believe is my soul's mission . And my soul's mission and the mission of my film is to wake people up to this short and glorious experience in this three-dimension plane and to make the best use of it , to be yourself and not be what everybody else wants you .

Speaker 2 22:03

So do you actually help them find out what their purpose is ? Yes , yes , that's part of it .

Speaker 1 22:09

So where were we ? We were at reframe , we didn't get to the other . Oh sorry , okay , great . So the reframe is to change the story , but the story now provides you with that trajectory . Towards where do you go next With this story ? What's your happy ending ? What do you envision for the rest of your life ? That's what changed me . I changed my perspective , I changed what I was going to do with my life . So the next is V , which is vision . What's your vision ? What fits with what you learned about yourself , having gone through your whole life and seeing it as the hero's journey ? Where are you going ? Where does it make sense that you're going ? What resonates with your heart ?

Speaker 2 23:00

Pardon People always have the answer to that .

Speaker 1 23:06

They have a sense of what appeals to them , and if they don't , it doesn't matter , because you say , oh , now I get to try different things out and see what works for me , and maybe you'll work on something for a while and then you'll decide this isn't what I want and you try something else . There's no failure , there's only information . That's great . That's great , but what a difference to make decisions and to do something in your life based on what feels right inside of you , as opposed to what people have been telling you you need to do .

Speaker 2 23:47

Yeah , that's definitely different . That's great .

Speaker 1 23:52

One more letter , so the last one is another E , and this time it's express . So you have a vision , but you actually have to birth it into the world and that's express and share it with others . And now the grief that served you . Now you're serving other people .

Speaker 2 24:12

Well , yeah , I've always believed that when you're helping others , it helps you , so that's good . So you said you've been doing this how long ? Since you were 45? .

Speaker 1 24:27

Well , I started the films when and I was actually older than that I was in like 48 . I started making my films and it took me about 10 years and I started screening the films , especially in cancer communities and engaging people in that realm . And then I started studying how to be a coach and doing that and being in business . When I was working in hospice I was doing partner loss groups . It's like , oh , this is what I want to do , this is what I'm interested in . It's not so much death or hanging out with people who are dying , it's people who are alive and I'm like that midwife for the rebirth .

Speaker 2 25:15

Yeah , you're totally helping them process that and rebirth themselves . That's great . I asked about the age because I'm 54 and I didn't go back to college for my grad degree until 52 . And it seems like lately I'm seeing all these women in their mid and later life doing incredible things like you've been doing , and so I think that is so incredible that you're doing that .

Speaker 1 25:43

Well , my mother was like an example for that . She was still doing her business . You know , it's like for that time I have more stuff to do . No-transcript .

Speaker 2 26:20

No , it ends up being like that's the place they go to die .

Speaker 1 26:23

That's the place they go to die and they should be having classes on . Okay , how can I engage in the world , even if I'm in this community ? Who can I make a difference for ? It could be somebody else in the community , or they could be be writing letters , or there's so many things that people can do and then they can feel like they're worthwhile . I'm going to share a story that I heard when I was I guess I was screening one of my films at a hospice and one of these nurses said no , she was a hospice volunteer . And one of these nurses said no , she was a hospice volunteer and she was visiting this man who used to be the patriarch of the family . He was powerful , he was decisive , he was the patriarch , and now he was dying and he was totally dependent on other people and he felt depressed and devastated and she said this changed the story . She said why don't you be the patriarch and show them how to die ?

Speaker 2 27:30

And he took it on . Oh wow , that's amazing . That changed it for everybody in his family . I'm sure that changed it for everybody in this family . I'm sure that changed it for everybody in the family . No-transcript Right . Like they shouldn't have a happy

Finding Purpose After Loss

Speaker 2 27:56

day , they should always be grieving .

Speaker 1 27:58

Right , right , yes , yes , and I do run into that . That's one of the things people feel like , if they allow themselves any joy , that they are dishonoring the memory of the person they've lost . And I just help them to see it in a different way and say , first of all , what do you think that person is thinking right now about you choosing not to feel joy ? How do you think they feel ? What do you think they would want ? What would they say to you ? What are they saying to you right now ? Just close your eyes and feel in and what are they saying . And that usually helps them to make that shift is to hear that . And the other thing , like for mothers , if they have other children , it's really important for them to be there for their other children too a funeral or they see a friend that's grieving , or what is something that is acceptable to say and can be helpful and not harmful .

Speaker 1 29:05

Hug . Okay , Just hug them and say I'm so sorry . I'm sure you are really struggling . I just want to know you , to know that I'm here for you and I will be reaching out to you and checking in on you , and you can push me away as many times as you want , and I'm here .

Speaker 2 29:26

Oh , that makes me tear up . That's beautiful . I love that .

Speaker 1 29:32

So many times , what we think is that we somehow have to solve the problem or that we have to stop them from feeling , which , of course , is what we want to do . If you ever need somebody to shoulder to cry on , I'm here for you , right ? You won't upset me if you cry .

Speaker 2 29:50

That's great . I think that'll help a lot of people . So tell me a little bit more about finding your purpose , like how you help people do that . I know you talked to them about what they envision their life being Right .

Speaker 1 30:06

I'm just wondering how you do that ? How do you do that ? So , first , they've re-framed their story as a hero's journey , and some of the things that they've been challenged by and very often the things that are most intense for them , is spirit's way of telling them or teaching them what they need to know At least that was the case for me is the stuff that I struggled with and overcame became something I could share with . For other people is share that , share my journey , share my discovery , share my process , and so that might be one way to look at it , but sometimes I would just take them through a going into their body and listening to their body . So I'll take them through a guided journey there . And I was having a workshop with this woman and she suddenly came up with I want to sing . She says oh , but I'm too old .

Speaker 2 31:10

I said oh , ed you're too old , as long as you can sing .

Speaker 1 31:14

You may not have to become an opera singer , but you can still sing , and that's what she started doing was getting involved with groups and singing . That's great . You know , we put these little restrictions on ourselves that we don't need to do .

Speaker 2 31:31

Right when really it's an open world out there . It is .

Speaker 1 31:35

And it doesn't necessarily have to be a career , it can just be a sideline , as long as you still have that meaning and you're fulfilling your purpose and you're feeding your soul and you're being creative .

Speaker 2 31:48

Yeah , Right , that makes sense . I have another question about spirituality . Do you find that this is a time in life where people that are going through this grief process change their spiritual ?

Speaker 1 32:03

beliefs . You know , especially if they lose an adult child , they may lose their faith . As I said , they can go through that victimization and that , by the way , that's a totally reasonable response when you think that losing somebody is experienced by a human being as a threat to their survival . Because we are social animals , that is , we are literally wired in our brains and in our bodies to bond with other people and we actually do better as a species in community . So you break a significant bond and that triggers that survival response . Literally , these chemicals just start flowing in your body and they trigger the fight , flee , freeze , and I guess the latest one is fawn Fight , flee freeze , fawn response .

Speaker 1 33:04

And you can see it , it pops out at you all the ways in which people flee , like they start traveling all over the world because they're trying to escape their grief . Or they get angry at people , they get angry at their family members , or they get angry at the doctor , or some person is called up about the person that they've lost , not knowing that they've lost them , and they just take it out on that person on the telephone . That's the anger , and sometimes they internalize it and that that becomes , they internalize and they get angry at themselves . Oh , I should have known better , I should have realized that they were in danger of dying . I should have pushed them more to go to the doctors . Blah , blah , blah . So you have to release emotions , release emotions .

Speaker 2 33:51

Yes , I know . When I was right out of high school I was in college one of my high school friends was murdered by his mom's dad and I still remember I was not so angry at his I mean , I was angry at the guy who shot him but I was really angry at my friend , the dime , make sense .

Speaker 1 34:14

Yeah , yes , oh , yes , oh yes , and that's one of the things that I work with my clients on is regrets and resentments . Regrets are the things that you did or didn't do that you feel bad about , and the resentments are the things that the other person did or didn't do and leaving . There's that abandonment , you know , and , yeah , you're pissed off . Why did you put yourself in that situation where you would get shot , you know ? Didn't you know that that guy was gonna kill you , didn't you ?

Speaker 2 34:44

Right , but it makes sense .

Speaker 1 34:47

Yes , it totally makes sense , because that's that anger response . And anger is better than despair or depression because it's more activating and so it's something you can work with to release . And oftentimes I encourage my clients to use gibberish to express their anger , because and this is something that anybody can use when you're angry at something , if you use words , you are recycling the anger over and over again because the brain hears it and then the body gets upset and then you recycle it again and again . But if you say gibberish , you can get the emotional energy out without stimulating the brain to tell these stories that are going to make you angry again the brain to tell these stories that are going to make you angry again .

Speaker 2 35:38

Wow , that is fascinating . I would feel silly doing it in the beginning .

Speaker 1 35:41

Well , you don't have to do it in public . You know in the back through or in your car . Right , that is cool , because the other way is , if you're angry and I've certainly experienced this where you're angry at yourself , you can really curse yourself out and it's terrible because you're really all your cells are saying well , yeah , you don't want to do that .

Speaker 2 36:02

Worst enemy , yeah . So this has been fascinating . How do people work with you ? How can they get in touch with you ?

Speaker 1 36:12

Well , the best way to get in touch is first to ask yourself do you have complex grief ? And I have a checklist or survey that they can take , that they can fill it out and I will send them an interpretation , an assessment , and then they'll get some follow-up emails that will help them to start to engage in the CERV system . So they can get it by going to complexgriefchecklistcom

Practical Support During Grief

Speaker 1 36:41

.

Speaker 1 36:41

Okay , and that will take them and they need to put it in the not Google search , but in the browser so that it will take them to the right place . So they put it in the search . Look at weird stuff .

Speaker 2 36:54

We don't want that .

Speaker 1 36:56

No , so just put it in the search . Look at weird stuff . We don't want that .

Speaker 2 37:02

No , so just put it in there Complexstriefchecklistcom . Okay , and is this something you do ?

Speaker 1 37:05

on Zoom with people or in person . Yes , yes , if I actually have somebody who's in my area , I can work with him in person , but mostly on Zoom . I've been doing Zoom for a long time .

Speaker 2 37:15

Isn't that an incredible way you can do nowadays ? I know , I know .

Speaker 1 37:19

Well , fortunately before COVID I had already been on Zoom . Oh , you were sort of a game . I was , I was . That's great .

Speaker 2 37:29

All right . Is there anything you'd like to leave our audience with today ? Any words of wisdom ?

Speaker 1 37:36

you'd like to leave our audience with today Any words of wisdom ? Sure , you are essential . Every one of you out there are essential . You're here for a reason , and every one of us , every one of you , have something to give to this world , and that is your journey is to find out what it is and to engage with it .

Speaker 2 37:57

I love that . All right . Well , thank you so much for coming today . I really appreciate it .

Speaker 1 38:07

You're so very welcome and thank you for inviting me .

Speaker 2 38:08

Wow , just take a breath and sit with all of that for a moment . I hope you feel as moved and energized as I do right now . Dr Michelle's insights on grief , purpose and transformation aren't just powerful . They're life-changing For any one of us who's ever struggled with loss or wondered where to find meaning again . If this conversation sparked something for you , please let us know . Rate and review this episode , because your feedback helps us reach more listeners and grow this beautiful community of courageous , open-hearted people just like you . And if someone in your life needs this message maybe a friend , a family member or that soul in your circle who's walking through something heavy share this episode with them . You never know how one heartfelt story , one shift in perspective , can change a life . Thank you for being here , for showing up for yourself and those you care about . Remember you are essential , you are needed and your journey matters . Until next time , keep advancing , warrior .