Surviving the Month of LoveWithout Your Loved One

You can see my screen.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

So we're gonna.

I have different topics. I do this every six weeks, and we have different topics so that we can cover a lot of things. And. And I always pray that the thing we're talking about today is what you need to hear. Every. We get many, many people subscribing. A lot of those that are not here, then get the email, and they watch the replay. So my hope is that, you know, like, that God speaks through me and that you are able to find some hope tonight. I am going to show you today how to end suffering. While you continue to love and honor that person that you're honoring today, I want to ask you, if possible, to please turn off all distractions so that we can be fully present. I am all yours right now. I am only with you, and I am giving you my all. And I think the more you give and the more present you are, the more you get out of it. I ask also that you please stay until the end. We have two bonuses, actually. I'll tell you one of them, but the other one is a surprise. The one of them is, I will stick around for anybody that has questions, and I'm going to happily answer your personal, specific questions. And the other bonus is a surprise. So we'll talk about it at the end of the presentation. You are here. You're in the right place if someone you love passed away, if you're going through a divorce or a separation. Frankie, thank you for. For being here. Because a lot of people think that grief is only when a person dies. And. And we experience grief daily. We're experiencing the loss of our life as we knew it every day. We're. For starters, we. You know, we grief our youth every day. But there's. You know, people are grieving their health, they've lost a loved one to divorce, to separation, to. To death. Like, grief is a lot more encompassing that we give it credit. And I think it's important to remember this so that we can be empathetic with those who are going through a different kind of grief and become aware of how similar our pains can be, despite the differences in the reason for that suffering. And if you have experienced any form of grief, which is what I was explaining, and why am I doing this and who am I? And I still ask myself. And the reason I'm here, sharing this webinar with you is because I have a PhD in clinical psychology, and I have been in practice for 20 years. And I think, well, this is important, but I feel that what makes me more competent or capable of sharing. What I'm going to share is not so much my clinical expertise or my clinical experience, but the experience, the personal experience of loss. I think it's hard to talk about loss, to tell people, like, hey, try this when you haven't felt that excruciating pain in your core yourself. So I feel that's what really brings me here.

I want to share a little bit.

Of my story, if you would allow me. This is just five minutes, but hopefully it brings a little hope and perspective.

Our life was a fairy tale. We had the two princesses, the little prince.

We had that little picnic table. And we'd always sit in front of the tv. And that's how I memorized my left and right, because I always sit on the left.

Really? Yeah. We had, like, the perfect family, the perfect life. There was so much love.

Weekends were barbecues, pool trips to Disney, trips to the beach.

Alaina would dance with me with the girls.

We have a video in which he's dancing with Fofi. And you came because you wanted to be with him.

And Fofi was like, mio, mio, go away. He's mine.

I remember taking pictures in the barbecue. One time I came, and I saw her in the deep rain with some other kids. And I said, be careful with Sophie. She doesn't know how to swim too good. So in my mind, I keep on saying, if I knew it, I would take her out of the pool. That's the last time I saw her.

There has been the. The most painful day of my life.

To this day, I don't know what.

Happened or how it happened.

I know that I was talking to Christy, and then suddenly she. Suddenly she says, where's Fofi? And I couldn't. I couldn't see her. And then I realized she was right next to me.

But at the bottom.

We got to the hospital, and we were in a. In a small room, and at some.

Point, I. I see the monitor, and.

There'S, like, a line. Like, a straight line. Like, does that mean she's, like, not, like, no pulse anymore? So I was like, make her heartbeat. Make her heartbeat. And that was my prayer. Like, God, make her heart beat. Please make her heartbeat. And he didn't. He didn't make her heart beat.

The next day, there was a lot.

Of people here, and the priest that baptized all three kids came to visit, and he went into the walking closet.

And sat down with us on the floor.

And as we're there, our line is asking, is it possible to be happy again. And he said, some people are, and some people are never happy again. The people that are never happy again.

They think that the more they loved.

The more they have to suffer, because.

That'S how you show love.

And the people that are happy again.

Are those who choose to love and honor your loved one through service, through gratitude and love. That message defined us.

I think God sent her to earth for a purpose.

You know how people say that you have to go through the pain to get, like, happy or something like that? I feel like if we didn't go through this, we wouldn't be as happy.

Ophi was special, and I feel like.

We all have a piece of her. So we've learned how to embody hope.

For the people around us and show.

That it is possible to be happy again. That in fact, because we've experienced excruciating pain, we've also had the opportunity to feel the most amazing joy. And if we went through this and we can smile again, then everybody can, because they see that it is possible to go from hurt to hope.

That is. That is. She is the reason I'm here. She is the reason I. I chose to. To rise up and. And honor her through service and everything that I do. And along with her. Let me share the screen again. Sorry about that. Along with her, I have a few other people that inspire me and give me purpose and allow me to be here with you. I don't know how to get out of here.

Okay, wait.

Oh, there we go. There we go. Okay. Okay. So here's our family. I don't have a family picture because, well, I do have this family picture, but my little one was born after I lost my fofi. So, you know, I. One of those things, like those little things that are hard to process. Well, it's always been. It was always very painful to me that I didn't have a family picture. So we find ways. We. We find ways of incorporating our daughter. Because love, as you all know, transcends time, space, and death. Love goes beyond this life here. Can you imagine feeling peace during your grief or feeling hopeful? I'm going to talk today about how to do that, how to find hope, and how to allow yourself to feel the pain without entering into suffering. But in order to do that, we have to understand the difference. Pain is hope. When we experience pain, what that means is that something is healing inside of us. Whenever we fall and we see, like, we start getting, like, the little kakarita. How do you say that in English? The someone help Me, my English is not very good. The scab. Yes. You know, like, when that scab's coming off, like, and you touch it and you heard it, like, you know, you touch it too hard or you scrape, you scratch it, you know, it hurts. But the reason that ugliness is coming out is because healing is taking place. And the same is true for pain. If we are feeling pain when we've endured adversity or when we've experienced such a deep loss, then that means that there's healing happening and that pain is hope. The hope that it will get better. The hope that pain means something. The hope that there's healing taking place. Pain is hope. And it's so unfortunate. And I am on a mission to change this. It's so unfortunate that people think pain is bad, right? And that we want to shelter our kids from pain at all cost. Just two nights ago, a client of mine called me and I offered to take her sons to the hospital because their grandfather was dying and they didn't really know how bad it was. And she was like, you know, I don't think they should come and see him like this. And I said, I think they should. And I think they're old enough. They're 12 and 15, and I think they're old enough to decide also. But even if they weren't, my kids are between the ages of 12 and 7, and I tell them the truth about death. I tell them the truth about painful situations, because pain is not the enemy. Pain is that bad. When we allow our children and allow ourselves to be exposed to pain, to sit in the dark with that pain, we're allowing for healing to take place. I feel the first opportunity we have today is to. Instead of wanting to, oh, I just want to fast forward and time to pass by so it doesn't feel this raw and this ugly and this painful. Well, my advice for you is maybe it's time to see pain differently. Maybe look at pain as that healing process that's happening within you. Because pain. And I told this to my client a couple of days ago when I took them. I'm like, listen, your kids being exposed to painful situations is going to teach them that this is part of life, right? Like, when we're too sheltered, we believe that it's not supposed to be that way. You know, like, you're not supposed to experience death. You're not supposed to experience accidents, adversity, like health problems. But the truth is that that's part of life. So if we teach them how to face pain and we allow them to grow from it because, as you see, their pain is also the foundation for growth. And I always say that pain is a fertilizer. What are fertilizers made of? Poop? Horse poop? So pain is like a fertilizer in the sense that it feels like crap and it stinks like it. But like a fertilizer, it helps us grow. It gives us the opportunity to give fruit, to find purpose, to become resilient. We cannot become stronger and resilient if we're not going through adversity or difficult times when everything is going well and everything's easy. Like, even in sports, if you think about sports like, you know, if a kid is really good at everything that he does, he's not going to get better and nothing's going to change, nothing's going to be strengthened. But if that kid is challenged, if we are challenged, then we learn from those experiences. The problem is that the mind is wired to push back on pain, you know, and that's to keep us safe, right? Like, and it's true for physical pain. If you put your hand on fire or on something pinchy, you better get it out. Because the brain is telling you, ooh, pain, danger. Get it out. Don't touch it. So in that case, the. The mind is very smart. The problem is the mind didn't get the memo that when it comes to emotional pain, you don't push back on it. Because the only way around pain, around grief, is through. We can only experience and overcome pain if we allow ourselves to sit with it. So changing your perspective on pain will allow you to use it to growth, to let it fertilize you. And finally, pain is a pathway. It's not a destination. It's the path to hope, to joy, to resilience, to strength, to a better version of yourself. Pain is a gift, if you think about it. But that's different to suffering. And a very wise man called Haruki Murakami said, pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. And I couldn't agree more. We have to go through pain every day. Whenever something doesn't go our way, when we don't have power over something that we want, when we endure loss, we feel pain, we grieve. But suffering. Suffering is a choice. And a lot of us enter into suffering or end up suffering when we've lost a loved one, because we don't realize that there's a difference between the pain that heals and the suffering that we choose to endure and experience. When I first lost my daughter, I remember that night, going into my. I went to her room to sleep with my older daughter. They shared the room. And at some point in the middle of the night, I found myself on the bathroom floor rocking back and forth like a lunatic and feeling like I was. I was gonna go crazy. I was. I was a deranged woman. And I was literally, like, trying to. To take the thoughts off my head because they were unbearable. And at that point, I remember thinking, like, oh, my gosh, I'm gonna go crazy. It's just unbearable. It was dark. That's suffering. There's no hope there. I wasn't thinking, oh, yeah, this pain is healing me and helping me move to the next. Of course not. So are we going to experience suffering at some point? Absolutely. We're humans, but we have the opportunity today to become aware and understand the difference. So suffering is darkness. There's no hope when you're suffering. You think that this is going to be like this forever, and your thoughts are, I can't do this forever. I just want to fast forward time to see if something comes up for me. I can't do this anymore. I want to die. I wanted to die whenever the flashbacks. I still don't know how this happened. I was with my daughter there next to her, and then I kept on imagining, like, how she found I couldn't. But engaging in those thoughts brought on suffering because I'll never have an answer to those thoughts unless God reveals them to me. So asking the wrong questions, engaging in the wrong belief systems or thoughts or flashbacks is going to prevent us from moving forward, which then leads to suffering, holds you back. A lot of people come to me years after having lost their loved one, and they're like, betsy, I feel stuck. It's like my life ended like he was my purpose. I was taking care of him for years while he was sick. And now I, you know, now what do I do? I thought I felt that was my life purpose, and now I don't have it anymore. Betsy, I, you know, I feel stuck because that was the love of my life and I'm never going to find anybody else. Betsy, I'm stuck because that was my one and only child. And who and what do I live for now? I can't have any more kids anymore. Like, we feel stuck because we're in darkness. We don't see the light, we don't see the growth that God or the universe is preparing us for through this pain, through his cross. And then finally we think that pain is the final destination. So we lose hope that's when suicide, the ideation comes up. That's when, when we, when we feel dark and stuck and push everybody away and become lonely and, you know, and just really like create our own hell on earth because we've made it all around the darkness, the pain as the final destination, rather than reinterpreting that pain as the opportunity to grow and move forward. It's very hard to know when you're feeling pain and when you're suffering. Many of. Again, in my online program, the first module is understanding the difference between Pain and suffering. And I obviously go more in depth and there are some exercises in that first module that helps my clients understand the difference, see where they're at, and in the journey of our Hurt to Hope, that's the name of our program. I help them see the difference. Right? Like whenever you are enduring suffering, you don't see the light. You have no hope. It feels dark and unbearable. Whenever you are sitting and embracing the pain, that's going to heal you. Because I think it's actually, I know it is extremely important and a necessary component of our healing and overcoming this grief to feel the pain and to sit with the pain. So I have had many situations in which I tell my client, like, take this week and just be so sad, do nothing, stay in bed, cry, just, just let it all out. Because oftentimes when we experience a loss, especially when it's a sudden loss, we're so busy trying to take care of everything. Like if you lost a husband, you're taking care of everything having to do with the kids, and you feel that, oh my gosh, like, you have to be strong for them and you have to be strong for the other one and you have to take care of all the roles that your spouse took care of that now are your responsibility. Or your dad didn't leave a testament and now you're having to deal with all these things and attorneys and accountants and siblings, and there's so much that can be going on when there's a loss that doesn't allow you to be still and feel the pain that we try to escape it or we try to skip that or no, no, no, I have to be strong. No, you don't have to be strong. Your loved one just died or you just.