How To Live When Your Child Dies- Vanessa May | EP 255

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Hi there, welcome to Grief to Growth Podcast. Your host is Brian D Smith, spiritual seeker, bestselling author, grief survivor, and life coach. Brian believes that the worst tragedies of life provide the greatest opportunity for growth. Brian D Smith says he was planted, not buried, and he is here to help you grow where you've been planted by the difficulties in life. In each episode, Brian and his guests will share what has helped them to survive and thrive. It is his sincere hope this episode helps you today.

Hi everybody, I'm— this is Brian back with another episode of Grief to Growth. And of course, I'm Brian D Smith, your host. Today I've got with me Vanessa And Vanessa is from London in the UK. She's a holistic grief coach. She's a certified grief educator. She's a nutritional therapist. She's a well-being coach, and she's an author. She wrote a book that we're going to be discussing today called Love Untethered: How to Live When Your Child Dies. And she wrote that in part to make sense of her profound, profound sense of grief and trauma, but also in hope that she can help others who experience a significant bereavement. She believes that life-changing loss can affect us on multiple levels physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. As well as being a memoir, Love Untethered also offers advice to those grieving based on her personal and professional experience. Her second book, Supporting Your Grieving Client: A Guide for Wellness Practitioners, will be published in February of next year. And she's also currently writing her third book, which will be a sequel to Love Untethered. She wrote Love Untethered after the passing of her son Harry. And by sharing her personal experience, she hopes to enable others who have gone through a similar loss to feel less isolated in grief. In the second part of her book, she offers some ideas for supporting physical, emotional, and mental and spiritual well-being, using her experience not just as a bereaved mother, but also as a nutritional therapist, as a well-being coach, and holistic grief coach and educator. So with that, I want to welcome to Grief to Growth Vanessa May. Hello. Hi, Vanessa, it's really good to have you here today, a fellow Shining Light parent. And for people who don't know what that term means, you and I are both part of an organization called Helping Parents Heal, That's a term that we use for parents who have children who have passed in the spirit. So I always like to start off with people, and I'm talking to people who have gone through what I've gone through, losing a child, is tell me about your son. Tell me about Harry.

Well, Harry was just— obviously, I'm going to say this, I'm his mum, but he was just a beautiful soul. He was very loving. He had a big heart. He was always helping other people, helping the underdog. And yeah, I think he was a bit of an old soul. He was very sensitive, but he was also quite unconventional, a bit nonconformist, a bit of a rebel sometimes. So yeah, he was just lovely. Not perfect. So I think we have to be careful not to kind of idolize those we've lost. But he, he was very special, obviously, to me. But he had a big heart, you know, and I think that's so important. He had a lot of love, and that's, yeah, you know, everything really, isn't it?

So how old was Harry when he, when he passed away?

He was 24.

Okay. And, um, so tell me, tell me more about his life.

Well, he, um Yeah, he, he was very creative. Um, he was a musician. He went to university and he did music. And yeah, he loved life. He was funny. He liked to have fun. Um, didn't like school very much. Didn't like, you know, doing the hard work, though he was very bright. And yeah, as I say, you know, his teen— teenage years, it wasn't easy. But we always had a close bond, a very close bond from the moment he was born. And we also were very close just before he died. He— yeah, he'd moved out from home and he was living in a flat. But I used to go over there and take him food because he didn't eat very well, didn't look after himself very well. I'm a nutritional therapist, so I was always taking him food. And, and yeah, he was just a lovely, a lovely boy. But I do believe he's still around me. I do very much feel him with me on a daily basis. And that is a comfort. It doesn't make everything all right by any means. But it's something, and I hang on to that.

Yeah. Now, when you say he was an old soul, what indications did you get of him being an old soul?

Oh, it's difficult, isn't it, to kind of put your finger on it. He just— he was a bit different. He was a bit, as I say, he was— and I think this is sometimes quite common with, you know, people who die young. They kind of have a light about them, but they're not quite, you know, your average person perhaps. And he just felt like he might have been here a few times before. Um, and I feel definitely we'd probably had lifetimes together, without a doubt.

Um, yeah, you know, I, I understand that. I talked to a lot of parents who have children whose children have passed away early, and It's interesting, they always, or almost always, seem to indicate kind of like they're an old soul. A lot of times they have like, it seems like a real zest for life. It's like they know they're not going to be here long, so they kind of live full out and exactly worry about tomorrow. So was that, is that kind of thing that you got from Harry?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he lived life to the full. He had a good time. Yeah, I think I, I mean, I remember when he was a little boy, he used to climb to the top of the tallest tree. He was quite fearless. And weirdly, I didn't worry. I just kind of thought he'd be all right. But I also, as he got towards the end of his life, I started to become what I felt was quite irrationally worried about his safety. Um, and, but Yeah, I— early on, I just— he was quite fearless. He just had— he was just a lovely— he was just a lovely person, really. Um, and he still is. He still is.

So you said toward the end of his life you've got kind of an irrational fear. Do you think maybe that was a knowing that you had that it might not be too much longer?

Yeah, definitely. I had a sense that I wouldn't have him for long. I always think I couldn't visualize him getting married, having kids in the way that I can for my daughter. And I couldn't put my finger on it, but part of me started to think, yeah, there was a sense. So, I mean, in hindsight, obviously we see things, don't we? But I definitely had a sense. And I'd say to people, you know, oh, he could be lying dead in his flat. For all, for all I know. And people would kind of think, well, that's a bit weird. So I was— even though I don't, I don't consider myself particularly psychic, but I had— I was slightly getting a sense as if I was being slightly prepared. Not totally, because it's still an enormous shock. Um, but yeah, I think probably a lot of parents do who lose a child They have a bit of a sense sometimes. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief? Most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up, so you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper. Thoughts I don't always get to on the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night, written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it: the community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing— listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become. A place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there. So looking back on it now, do you believe have you any indications of maybe soul planning? Have you thought about that? Or what are your thoughts on that? Okay.

Yeah, definitely. I, in the first year, and I talk about it in Love Untethered, I saw 3 mediums in the, in the first year, and they helped enormously. And the first one I saw fairly soon after he died, and she said, well, he was never going to be here for long. And I was like, no, he wasn't. No, it was like a realization. And I very much feel that we had planned this together as a family, that for whatever reasons that I don't fully understand, that I agreed to this pain and suffering that I was going to grow out of. Much as I'd rather not, in many ways. And I think he came here, he did what he needed to do. And he was, yeah, just never going to be here for long. And, but he's still with us. I feel it. I can feel it now. He does this on the side of my head.

Hmm. Okay. And if you're other people, you mentioned that, that communication from him, have you had other communications from him also?

Yeah, I mean, quite a lot. The main one is I do feel him on the side of my my head. The usual things, feathers. One birthday, I think it was the second birthday, I said, 'Tari, I want— can you give me a sign today? And not just a random feather.' And we were walking through the park. And there was a bush. And it was literally covered with feathers. And then coming away from this bush, there were feathers all along the path. And I literally said to him, "And not just a random feather." And he gave me that and I thought he was going, "See, Mum?" 'Cause he did have a very good sense of humor. So that was a good one. But I don't think I wrote about that in the book 'cause I think that was in the second year. But yeah, I mean, he plays with lights. He has, as seems to be usual, We don't get these sort of signs as much as we did. Now we know that he's around, but he would play with my phone, go back to emails from 6 years ago. And in fact, there was one— my phone just, just malfunctioned and just scrolled back and it stopped at an email from him. And being a teenage boy, he didn't email me very often. And it just said, "Lost, kiss, kiss, kiss." And I thought, "What's this?" And it was a link. You know the television series Lost? And we used to watch that together. And I never understood it. And he had sent me this link, obviously, which I'd forgotten about, and I clicked on it, and it was explaining in a YouTube video, in about 5 minutes, the meaning of Lost. And then it got to the part where Jack— the main character, I think he dies, I can't quite remember now, but he goes to the waiting room and his father's there waiting for him. And he realizes that all the time, I think if I remember rightly, that he's been dead, but there his father is in this waiting room in heaven or whatever. And I just took that to be a sign that Harry was saying, I will be waiting for you. I would be— and early in grief, that was really important to me because now I'd go, well, yeah, of course he's going to be waiting for me. But then I— when I was searching and trying to understand, that was enormously comforting. So that was a, a very good, um, little bit of interference with my phone. But lights is another thing he was doing, and my daughter's, um, Spotify account, he would play his— because he was a musician, so he'd play his own song. She'd be like, "I haven't played that." Yeah, so we've had a few signs, but I think, you know, as you get beyond that first year, you perhaps don't need them as much. But of course, there's always the issue of people around us thinking it's wishful thinking and we're putting two and two together and making five and But that's what I believe. And it helps me. And I think it helps a lot of people.

So yeah, you know, the interesting thing about signs is we tend to talk ourselves out of them. Most of us, not all of us, but we tend to talk ourselves out of them. And it certainly doesn't help when other people start trying to talk us, talk us out of them as well. So what I tell the clients that I work with when they say to me, is this a sign? I'm like, if you think it's a sign, it's a sign. And if you know that someone's going to shoot it down, then don't share it with them. Don't let them take that away from you. Yeah, again, I'm a rational person. I'm an engineer. So I will calculate the odds about stuff, you know, because things, coincidences, you know, and most of these things that we get and the people tell me that the odds are just They're, they're incalculable. They're, they're astronomical. But people will still say it's a coincidence. But we all know that we have these synchronicities in life. We see them all the time where someone just happens to call you at the right time, or you say something and then something happens later. And that's, I think that's just the way life is. And we just refuse to believe it because we've been taught that the universe is totally mechanical. So when you share your signs with me, I'm like, yeah, I believe you 100% because I've seen I've seen too much of it. And what other people think— people don't realize is that, like, I think it's 70% of people who have lost a spouse say they've had a sign from, from their spouse. It's super, super high. It's a lot higher than people realize.

And I think it's 75% of bereaved parents, isn't it? It's somewhere in my head, but it's a lot. It's higher than you'd think.

It is. And it's not just— again, it's not just wishful thinking, because I know a lot of times people I've talked to, the people that don't believe in science, they'll come up to me and say, this happened to me. Am I crazy? Because, you know, it's happened to me 3 times after, you know, someone passed away. And I'm like, no, they're communicating with you.

Yeah, I think so. But as I say, the— this thing he does, touching, it's just a sensation. That's my sort of everyday sign from him now. That's kind of like, I'm here, man. I'm here. And I talked to him all the time. And it comforts me and it helps. And that's really the bottom line. I think if anyone wants to doubt any of the signs or anything, I believe, just let me have it. Because it helps me and it gets me through, as it does many of us.

I do want to take a moment to say, you talk about him touching the side of your head, because people might say, well, how do you know that that's a sign from him? And I've heard a tip that people can do if they want to get a sign from a loved one. It's like if you set like in meditation, sit very quietly and think about your loved one and just feel your body, feel your body sensations. And a lot of times they'll start to develop a pattern that someone touching you here is your son. And I've heard people even say like, well, my grandmother touches me on my right shoulder, and my son touches me on my left shoulder, and another person touches me here. And so you can learn, and they can kind of show you like which sign is for which person.

Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it? Yeah, that makes sense to me.

Yeah. So I just wanted to— for people that are saying, how does she know that? You— we can all do that ourselves. Like, think about your loved one and just really feel. It's usually very subtle. The feeling you get is usually very subtle, but it'll come.

Yeah, I think so. Another thing I get, but I get it less frequently, but I think it's quite common, is I'll just sort of get shivers, but only one side of my body, and it's always the right side. So again, I think that's Harry because it's, it's just one side. And you know, if you're cold, you shiver on, you know, everywhere, don't you? But this is very specifically the right side. Um, but that's less frequent. So I, I've— and I, I— it's just I have this feeling that he's on that side. But yeah, I think you have to ask Yeah.

Yeah. And like you said, that's, that's, it's like we develop our own language with our loved ones. For everybody, it's different. Because people ask me like, what signs like from Shayna? How do I feel Shayna? And it's like you develop your own dialogue with that, with that person. So people, it can't, it's not gonna be like, well, you know, her son touches her here. So my son's gonna touch me here. That's, that's not the way it is. It's always a little bit different. And yeah, my wife was sitting in meditation, and she would think about my daughter. And she would see like the color purple, like both her eyes closed, right? So just kind of a feeling of the color purple. And her heart would start to speed up a little bit. And she's like, I wonder if that's coming from my daughter. So, you know, you talked about mediums earlier, we had a medium, a friend who's a medium. And she called up and she said, Shayna says you have a question for me, just out of the blue. And my wife goes, no, she goes, no, Shayna is saying that you have a question for me. And she, and she gave her some evidence that was from Shayna. She asked her if she'd been sitting with mala beads, and she'd just been sitting with mala beads. So that was a sign, it was from Shayna. My wife said, you know, I asked her, well, yeah, I do have a question for her. When I'm sitting in meditation, sometimes I get this, this feeling, you know, I see the color purple, my heart speeds up. And through the medium, Shayna said, yes, that's me. So now my wife knows that that's one of the signs that she gets from Shayna, and it was validated by this other person. So just, just another example of how they, they communicate with us, and they, they're still in our lives. Yeah.

And I think actually mediums are great for confirming what you already know.

Yeah. Yeah.

Because sometimes people go to mediums because they, they just want information, communication from their loved ones. But some of us, actually just wanting what we are, but perhaps not. And then we have it confirmed. And I think that's another important role mediums can play is just confirming what we already know.

Yeah, that's an excellent point. You know, we need to learn to trust ourselves, but it takes a while. And it's sometimes good to have, to have that validation that yeah, and I've had, again, stuff has happened around here, Like Shayna would mess with my computer. And then I'd have a reading with the medium, just, and they're like, Shayna says she messes with the computer. And I'm like, okay, now I know that was her. And then I say, well, stop. Because one time she actually broke it. It didn't work for about a week. And I was like, I was calling the repair guy, he goes, I think you have to buy a new computer. I'm like, well, this doesn't make any sense. And then it just started working again. And like, it was never broken. I talked to the repair guy, he goes, I don't have any idea what happened.. But I'm convinced that that was my daughter.

Yeah, what was like my phone suddenly just randomly scrolling through the emails 6 years ago. And I think, you know, they're going to be— they were here and good with technology. Yeah, those skills, perhaps they can manipulate from the other side fairly easily. Whereas somebody who died 100 years ago, I don't know, maybe they, they won't be able to do that quite so readily. Who knows?

Yeah. And that's, that brings up another interesting point. I'm on the Soul Phone Project, which I'm not sure if you've heard of it or not. But we're— yeah, technology to communicate with the other side. And we found out that there are better communicators and worse communicators, even with this highly specialized technology. Some people on the other side are really, really good, and some people are not so great. So the thing about our loved ones in spirit, we'll, we'll listen to other people say, I've got a sign, and it's like this. And people say, well, why didn't my loved one do that? Well, it may be that they can't, you know, maybe they haven't learned that skill yet. It's, it seems to not be as easy as we think it is. It's not like picking up the phone and just dialing it.

I think the Soul Phone project sounds really interesting. I'm Yeah, I'll be very interested to see how that all comes about. And whether in 5 years' time, it'll be available for us to use. It would be incredible. Obviously, you know more about it than I do.

Yeah, it will, it will be, you know, what I've learned though, by talking to people like yourself, and talking to other people have, you know, spirit communication with our loved ones. We've got a lot more communication now than most people realize, you know, We've got a whole lot of communication right now. Again, through dream visits, you know, people need to learn to trust their dreams, through mediums, through these signs that we get, the synchronicities that we get. There's a whole lot of stuff going on back and forth. You said you talked to Harry, you know, talk to your— I talk to Shayna literally every day, you know, and it's not just me too wishful thinking. I mean, I know she hears me.

Yeah, yeah. And, and they, they talk back, as in I feel that I'll get answers, um, not outside my head but inside my head. And you could argue, well, that's just your intuition, or that's just— I don't think it matters, you know. I don't think it matters at the end of the day. It's whatever helps. Um, but yeah, I've had a couple of dream visitations. Never enough. Wish I could have more, but they're very vivid when they come. I had one which was beautiful, and that was him hugging me, and I felt it was like a full-body experience, like no hug. He was a big hugger, but this was like no hug I'd ever experienced. It was incredible. And I woke up and I felt euphoric and absolutely devastated at the same time, you know, because I felt the connection, but it wasn't, you know, visceral. Yeah.

Well, no, I just saw something. I think it was yesterday, said if you remember your dream, that means there's, there's a message in it. Because most of our dreams we don't remember. And we don't always know how to interpret the message. But there's some sort of a message. And what you just said is really important for people to understand that a dream visit. It's, it is, as you said, it's very, it's visceral, you wake up, I've had them and I wake up literally crying, you know, it's like you come out of it. And you're like, you know, there was something different. You know, there was a connection there. You're right. It's never enough. It's never long enough. It's just a, it's a little reminder that they're still with us.

Yeah, absolutely.

So you— Harry passed away, it was about 3 years ago, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. And the book is your first year of grief, which is Well, you tell me what the first year was like.

Well, I think you, you probably know, um, obviously there'll be similarities with, with every parent who loses a child. It, it was just the shock, the trauma, the devastation was unbearable. Um, and I, I was very traumatized and I was later diagnosed with PTSD. And I went to a bereavement counselor first of all, because I, I thought, being a coach, as you will know, you're kind of like, okay, what am I going to do? How do I move through this? How do I go forward? What— you just want to— you're a bit of a doer. Well, I'm a bit of a doer, and I thought, okay, not how— not to the extent where I go, how do I fix this? Because I already knew that wasn't going to happen. But it's like, how can I make it better? How can I what can I do? Um, so I thought about seeing a medium, and I thought about finding a bereavement counselor. And I kind of almost naively thought, oh, this, this will help. And it just really didn't. Um, and I just felt that I was sitting and stewing in my grief, and I was being asked sort of questionnaire-type questions, such as, you know, on a scale of 1 to 10, 'How is your social life?' And I was just gobsmacked thinking, 'Are you serious?' So there was just a disconnect. And I thought— and, you know, the counselor, I didn't have that many sessions. I mean, she was really kind, but it just didn't tick the boxes I needed it to. And I thought, well, if I want to chat about things, talk things through, I've got friends for that. And I just didn't feel it was helpful. I felt I needed something more proactive. And that's where the coaching side, I think, comes in. Just— and then I searched around for other people who might help. That was also unsuccessful. I found Compassionate Friends. That was better because you go into the group, as you may know, and you see— in early grief, you see the bereaved parents further along the line who have kind of got dressed, washed their hair are just there. And, and that feels like an achievement in early grief. And you think, okay, okay, look, they're examples. Maybe I can survive this. Because I think in early grief you think, I can't survive this. I certainly thought, I'll never— this is, this is it for me. This is too much. My bond with my son is so great. I, I won't survive this. And then I, I think I was writing emails with a friend, and she said, you put it— I— you make it really clear what you're feeling. Why don't you write it down, journal it, or maybe think about writing a book? Just write. And so I thought, well, yeah, maybe I— that's a, that's a way of me processing it. So I started to write And then I, I think it was about 5 weeks after Harry had died, there, there was a David Kessler— because I was big busy searching— David Kessler inevitably came up, and he was doing a Writing Through Loss and Trauma course. It was just a short course, and I thought, oh, I'll do that. Obviously it was online, and that really helped. And that made me think, you know what, I'm gonna do this. And it was my— it was my way through early grief, was just writing it down. And, and after, obviously, I went back and wrote about, um, around when he died and before he died and around that early few weeks. And then I pretty much wrote in real time. Then I pretty much wrote as it was happening. And so it was my therapy. So writing was my therapy. And And then as the time— as time went on, I, I thought, well, because I couldn't— I was incapable of working at the time. I kind of lost my— all my clients, my nutritional therapy and coaching clients. And then I thought, I don't— how can I ever go back to that? I'm an entirely different person. And then it started to occur to me, well, how, how can I use what might the skills I've got to help other people in my situation? And if I didn't find the help I needed. And of course, I'm in the UK. It might be very different where you are. There may be better grief counselors for bereaved parents particularly, but I didn't find one. And I just thought, well, maybe I can, maybe I can help others. And as we know, often our way through grief is, is to find meaning and purpose, to make sense of our grief by helping others. And so the writing of the book made me think I might be able to do this. And I thought, well, why don't I have a section of the book where I talk about the physical aspects of grief, because I, I had no idea that I would shake for 48 hours from the shock, that my heart felt like I was going to have a heart attack. It was just beating so fast that I wouldn't sleep for 3 whole weeks. These physical aspects of grief— feeling nauseous, thinking I was going to be not being able to eat. Not everyone has all of these physical symptoms, because they're symptoms of shock and trauma. And, you know, not every loss is traumatic, and not everyone, even if it is traumatic, has that experience. But I did, and so I knew other people might do, and I thought, this isn't really talked about. And when you go to bereavement counsellor, they certainly don't say, and what physical symptoms have you had? And I thought, well, my background, you know, I've got a degree in nutritional medicine. I, and it just, I thought grief is the biggest stress you can ever go through. And I was, I'd been dealing with a lot of stressed people, a lot of stressed clients. And I thought, well, this is just the far end of the scale. So I've got the skillset to help people. With their diet through supplements, lifestyle, and then the coaching. Um, and then I thought I, I did a few courses in grief, and also it had been part of my training for my coaching anyway. But also I had my own experience of grief, which I felt was— lived experience was valuable as well. And then later I, I did, um, David Kessler's grief educator certification, but So yeah, so that's what I did. So the, the last part of the book is the practical side of things that might be able to help you. So it goes from physical support to things you might try, like Reiki, or, um, ways you can— continuing bonds. I talk about honoring the person you've lost, various ways of grief yoga. Just people in early grief probably haven't discovered these things yet. And I thought, I'll just put it all in one place. I think we do discover these things as we go along. So they wouldn't be new to you, for example, but people in early grief, you do feel completely at sea. You literally don't know what's happening. And I think a lot of us are just thinking, what am I meant to— how do I make this better? We don't make it better, but you can soften it and you can ease some of the suffering by being proactive. And so I do believe you sometimes have to sit with the grief. And just feel it and like purge the pain. And then there's also a place for going, okay, now I'm gonna go for a walk. I'm going to plant some bulbs that will come up in the spring that will remind me that life does continue. I'll get my hands in the soil. I'll, you know, I'll look up at the sky and see how vast it is and be reminded of my place in the world. So all these things that we discover as we go along. And I just wanted to, you know, help the people coming up behind me, really. Um, so yeah, and, and then I, I also talk about physical, the emotion, but also the spiritual, because that is one way— I think losing someone you love dearly, we know the detrimental effects on the body and the emotions and the mind. But the positive is you do, you do have soul growth, or the potential is there. You can still have your child or the person you've lost. You still have that bond, and that does, you know, energy, love doesn't die. Um, so That's the thing that I think is— I don't want to call it the positive of grief, but it's one part of grief that kind of— I don't know how to put it really— just can give you a little bit of understanding because you start to question what's it all about. Um, and while you have to look after yourself physically, emotionally, then you can explore finding your child wherever they are, or the person you've lost, whoever it might be, if that makes sense.

Um, I'm curious, when you went to the Breeman Council, the first one you went to, what do you think was missing there?

I think, well, it's difficult to say because I don't want to criticize her. She's a perfectly nice person, but I don't know if she dealt with a bereaved mother before, but one who was literally on the floor in tears— not literally on the floor, but just absolutely distraught. And I don't think she knew what to do with it. And I also sometimes think with counseling, it's a little bit passive, and that didn't suit me. And I basically, I just wanted a bereaved mother who happened to be a counselor who'd go, I know how this feels. It was the not— I felt she didn't really get what, how bad, how huge this was. Um, So that was— but that's, that's my perspective. I'm not saying every counselor, that was just my—

No, I was asking for your perspective. And I think, you know, what you said there, because I went to a grief counselor too. And I went about 3 times, and nothing at all wrong with this guy. First of all, I've done a lot of grief training. And I found that grief counseling generally doesn't work. It's— ironically, they've done studies, it generally doesn't work. Doesn't mean it's not good. That's it. But it's just not for everybody. So like, if your grandmother dies, going to grief counselors, probably not necessary, and probably not going to help. Yeah, but what I have found, and I took David's course, you and I, I think, took it at the same time. Yeah. And David talks about this himself, because he was a grief counselor before his son passed away. And one of the things he teaches in his course is people in grief need to be witnessed. And you have a grief witness and other people can kind of witness our grief. But nobody like who's been through what we've been through. And I think, yeah, I, and I'm not to put words in your mouth, but I think that's one of the things that's missing with a lot of grief counselors, because they're, they're pulling out their books, they're doing their survey, they're putting you on a chart, they're saying, she's at an 8 here, she's a 7 here. This is the stage of grief she's in. Yeah. And then a lot of them are very reluctant to talk about what I have found to be the most helpful thing, which is the continuing bonds.

Yeah, well, on our, our course in the summer, how many therapists and counselors were on there? And I, I thought that really made it fairly clear that they needed more training. They felt they needed more training in grief and they hadn't got it. I thought that said it all, really. Yeah.

Um, Yeah, that I remember there was a young girl in particular that was in the course. And you could tell she was just fresh out of like, you know, she was, she was in a professional role. She was in a job where she was doing, you know, psychotherapy, whatever. But she's just asking, you know, you could tell, just just, she's been, she'd been trained in traditional school, which doesn't teach you how to deal with real grief. And it doesn't teach, like I said, I think, because we go through the different models, you know, and we talked about how Freud had done this stuff and all that. And it's like, Yeah. If you don't acknowledge the spirit, and you talked about the physical, the mental, the emotional aspect, but if you ignore the spiritual aspect of grief, I think that's where traditional grief counseling just doesn't work.

Yeah. Well, yeah, I agree. Although if you remember, David did kind of say, if people ask you about your belief, you say, well, I'm more interested in yours, and you deflect away. And he sort of kind of said, he warned us slightly off going too much in that direction. And I just thought, well, if I— because I do, and I'm sure you do as well, but I work with people who are grieving and they don't have a spiritual belief, and I don't go there, and I can work with them perfectly well without going there. Um, I certainly don't impose my feelings, but if I see a little bit of interest I will talk about it and see where it goes. I'm very mindful of, of, you know, what they might need or not need.

Yeah, it's interesting, because I've worked with David Kessler, and I work with Dr. Terry Daniel, who's— she's a— I guess you'd call her a thanatologist. She's got her PhD, and she's worked hospice, and she's a chaplain, and she is a professional chaplain. And they tell the chaplains, you know, don't impose your beliefs on people. So that's, that's the training. We're not— we're never here to impose our beliefs on anybody. No, But I was, I was working with her one time. And I said, you know, but your job is to comfort people, right? And she said, yes. I'm like, so if people, for example, believe that their loved ones are in eternal hell because their religious beliefs, or they believe that they're going to eternal hell because of their religious beliefs, aren't you trying to persuade them when you say, you know, you're walking through this? So I guess for me, because I came at this the other way, I came at it from experience, and I've gotten the training, you know, on the back end, I'm never here to impose my beliefs on anybody. But what I tell people is what I believe— I don't even like the word believe. It's a rational understanding. It's what science and philosophy and metaphysics and quantum physics and experience, near-death experiences, mediums that have been studied— it's where all the evidence points. It's not, it's not a religious belief. I know it's my belief is not religious at all. It's not— and I don't even like the word spiritual because spiritual implies something supernatural. And I always say to people, there, there is no supernatural. There's only what we don't understand yet.

Yeah, yeah.

So I, I, and I, you mentioned Compassionate Friends, and I never pick on anybody else's organization. So I know a lot of people love Compassionate Friends. And I think that organization is evolving. But one big difference with them and Helping Parents Heal has been we encourage continuing bonds. Yeah, we encourage signs, dreams. If you want to go— we don't push people to see mediums. But if you want to see a medium, we certainly don't shame people. And we let people talk about all those experiences. Whereas they kind of, at least at one point, would discourage that, say we don't talk about signs, for example, in our meetings.

And I think they do that because they don't want to offend people who don't believe that. But I— well, thank God for Helping Parents Heal. Yeah, because we have them, or have you, um, if, if we do have that belief and we want to be able to share it without kind of feeling we have to suppress it. Um, but I think, yeah, that going back to what you said about the counselor I saw I, I wouldn't have opened up about the spiritual side of things, science, whatever we want to call it, because I, I just wouldn't have felt that she would have got it. In fact, I did open— I saw another one later, and, and she really was kind of like a little bit patronizing towards me, and I thought, no. And, and that's— that really puts you off. But then interestingly, just recently I've done some EMDR sessions, uh, because of the PTSD. And, and I— it was quite interesting because I, first of all, I had to relive the trauma and it was absolutely horrendous, right? And then I started to go back to, um, when we found Harry's body, and instead of the how devastating it was, I would— I could sort of step back a bit. And I saw Harry's soul rise out of his body as a being of light, come over to me, put his hands on my heart, cross the room, do the same to his dad. And as I was seeing this, I thought, well, I'm just going to say it to the trauma therapist. I'm just going to say it. So I told her what I saw. And I thought she'd— and I actually— this shows I mean, this was me. I just said, it probably just is my brain. It's my brain's way of trying to process it. So I think it's, it's all good, you know. And she, she said, that's amazing. And then she started telling me about her own signs, how she saw feathers, how she had this belief in the afterlife. And I thought, my God, I— it was such a relief. And so refreshing, really, that I'd found someone, and she was so excited that I'd had this experience. And I was ready to kind of dress it up as my brain. And it could be that it's just my brain finding a way for me to deal with this terrible event of finding my son's body. So that's how I'd sort of put it. And she'd then gone back, no, this is amazing. Um, and it was incredible, right?

Yeah, it is incredible. And as we're having this conversation, I interviewed someone a couple days ago, it hasn't been released yet. But she's a, she's a psychotherapist. And she calls herself a transpersonal psychotherapist. And she deals with the whole thing, the holistic, the mind, body, soul, spirit, you know, everything like that. And she said, this wasn't in the recording, which she said after we got done, she said, you know, a lot of these therapists have, she called it a colonized mindset, which I hadn't heard that applied to that before. But what you're saying is, and what we say when we say I don't want to impose my beliefs on somebody, was we're saying is, I'm going to restrict my, my approach to a materialistic approach to this Western materialistic approach. We're not going to talk about that. But that would be like a doctor saying, I'm not going to talk about, I don't know, radiation therapy or chemotherapy or something, because people might not believe in it. I mean, it's proven science. And this is my mission in life, and I'm really passionate about it, is to break out of that and to normalize the experience that you had. Because when, when I hear you tell that experience, and you're right, when you're going through an EMDR session, it's your brain, you know, processing stuff. But it reminds me people that have had near-death experiences that said, I lifted up out of my body, I went over to my mother, I put my arms around her. I went over to my father, put my arms around him. Elizabeth Bassan, the founder of Helping Parents Heal, the organization we're talking about, was on the phone with her son Morgan when he passed away at the base of Mount Everest. And she said, I felt a hug from the inside. So what you just said aligns perfectly with that experience that she had. And I'm, I'm here to normalize that.

Thank you, and you're braver than me because, you see, I, I had to dress it up as something else, even though in my heart I thought, oh, thanks, Harry, for coming through in that way and, and showing me that, showing me what happened. Um, but yeah, because we still live in this sort of society which not only is grief-averse but is also afterlife averse, for want of a better way of putting it, or how you would phrase it. But yeah, thank you for being brave and braver than me.

Well, I— what I hear when you just said that, that experience that you had in the EMDR session is so healing, you know, just from a practical perspective. And I love the language you use, because language I think is really important. You said, we found Harry's body, not when we found Harry. Because a lot of people identify their loved one with their body. And that's where the trauma comes in. Where it's like, you know, what was their— what was— what happened to their body? What do we do with their body? And I like, for example, we had Shayna's body cremated. And I always, I always use that language. I never say we had Shayna cremated because you don't cremate people. We don't bury people. We bury bodies.

I agree. And I think I— as soon as I saw Harry's body, I was like, Well, where, where is he? He's not here. That's— and I had this realization that I can't quite put into words, where I just knew he was somewhere, and it wasn't in that shell. I immediately knew. But it's just, how do I find him?

Right?

How do I find him? And the reason I've called the book Love Untethered is because at first I thought I've got all this love for him. Where's it going to go? Where's it going to go now? I don't know what I'm going to do with it. I very quickly realized I just carry on sending it to him, right? I've got a place to go. It's not untethered at all, you know. It's not free-flowing. Oh, where's it going to go? It's, it's just I still give it to him and he gives it back to me. So love doesn't die. Um, but I knew as soon as I saw his body that I was gonna have to find him. I didn't know how. It wasn't perhaps quite that obvious a thought, but it, it was. I was deeply in shock, but somehow I knew that was just a shell. It was so clear to me.

And then what were your beliefs about that before Harry passed? What were your beliefs about afterlife? Or had you thought much about it? Or where were you on that?

Yeah, I think I was always sort of slightly— yeah, no, I hadn't been— well, I hadn't lost anyone. You know, I'd lost grandparents. But I hadn't had— so I hadn't needed to question it very much. But I think I would occasionally stop and think, well, this can't be everything. I wonder what it's all about. It won't just be this. But I didn't really question too deeply. I was always on the sort of alternative side, you know, I discovered Louise Hay in my 20s and So yeah, I— but it was just the, the most terrible thing that had ever happened to me. And that opened me up to questioning and seeking answers. I, I wanted to problem solve, which obviously you can't do, but I've learned so much. And that would be One thing I would say that I've just learned so much and I've opened up to another sort of level, um, of experience. But if you said I'd rather go back to sleep and have Harry back, but that's not how my life is and I don't have that choice. And if, if it was, um, a soul plan, then You know, just got to get on with it.

That's a really interesting question that a lot of us parents ask, right? Because we talk about— and I just had this conversation with my wife the other day, because we were talking with friends about our daughter passing away. And most of us say, yes, I've learned so much, I've grown so much. But we feel like we always have to follow up with, I would, I would trade it all back in to have my loved one back. We follow up with that. And to me, it's a question that I turn over in my mind a lot. I think the truth is, on some level, because we did plan this, that we knew it would be worth it. And we knew that, but from our human aspect of it, if we stay in our humanity, we say it's not. So we're like these dualistic creatures, you know, which I—

Yeah.

There's our human self and our higher self. Yeah.

Yeah. And the fact is we have to live in the real world. We have to earn a living. We have to go to the shops. We have to cook. We have to clean the house. We live on— this is Earth school, as we know. But so we have to be practical as well. And we have— this is what we've signed up for. But it's painful. And that's— I think I do feel I probably took on too much. And there are other losses and there are other things that come along in life. That compound the pain. So, you know, it's, it's hard. I find, I find this life very hard. So I can't dress up and go, oh, I now, I connect with my son and it's all wonderful, because it really isn't. Um, aspects of it are amazing, but most of it is just very difficult. But then, of course, you're further down the line. I'm only in the third year.

I love, I love the fact that in your book, and you talk about in the bio you sent me, you said it's not about toxic positivity, because I'm not here to dress everything up and say it's all good either, because we do live in this world, even though we are still in the other world as well. We did, we did, I believe we did plan this. But maybe we didn't know how difficult it was going to be. You and I talked right before we started recording about a post I made a little while ago, because I talked to hundreds of parents. And almost universally, when we talk about reincarnation, they all say, I'm never going to do this again. So you can tell how you were, how you reacted to that.

Yeah, I just, I really don't want to come back. I want this to be my last time. I'm, I'm hoping that I'm cramming a lot in. Um, and Buddha said you learn more through suffering than from joy, and I don't know how I feel about that, but I feel like I've had a lot of suffering one way or another. And if I can find meaning, find purpose from it, so that when I see Harry and my other loved ones, I they go, well done, we know how hard that was for you, well done. And that— and, and I think I would rather— and I, I've put this out there— I'd like to help from the other side. I feel if part of my purpose now is to help others, well, I'll do it for a few years, but then I'd like to help from the other side. And I know the growth— you say the growth is slower that way. Becoming here, it speeds up your soul growth. And that's— losing a child really speeds up your soul growth because it's such a big thing. But that— but I don't know, you're further down the line, so it may be a time thing. Not that I like that, the whole time heals phrase, but we do know that it shapeshifts. Grief does change its shape. And it does.

And I am, I am further down the line in terms of years. I like what you also said, though. It's not about time, because I've seen people— I'm, I'm 8 years in, 7 and a half years in, and I've seen people 10, 15, 20 years in, still, still bitter, still where they were the day. So time does not heal. That's, that is a myth. It takes time to heal, but time doesn't heal itself. And, and I'm not saying that I'm ready to come back either. And I'm not saying this life is easy, because most days, there's at least a couple times a day, I'm like, why am I here? So I'm still there at 8 years. And I, and I put that out there to people. I'm not here to tell people that everything is great. But again, I've turned this thought over my head so many times. And I've talked to parents, and I think about what other things do we like in our life that we do that we say, I'm never going to do this again.. And then we do it again. Women that have babies, you know, it's like, in labor, they're like, I'm never doing this again. And then they forget about that pain because that child is worth going through the pain. I was talking to someone once and they said, Brian, you're so negative. You always talk about how you just can't wait to get out of here. You know, are you— you're just throwing your life away. You're not appreciating this. And I said, none of that is true. I'm just acknowledging that this is hard. I got a degree in chemical engineering. That was the hardest 4 years of my life in terms of studying and stuff. It was, it was awful. That I wouldn't go back and do that again for anything. But I did it because I knew that that degree would set me up for a career. I knew that, that I had to go through that. So I, I paid money to go there and be tortured. And I'm like, maybe it's like that when we come here, right? You're like, yeah, I'll, I'll do that. I will do that because I'm going to get that advanced degree. And so, you know, there's some people here that are in kindergarten, and they're just like bopping along. And there's some of us here that are saying, you know, I'm going for my PhD.

Yes, that's a very good way of putting it. Yeah. That's, that feels about right.

Yeah. So that's, that's what works for me. I mean, it's different for everybody. I have another friend who says we don't come here to learn, Well, we don't all come here to learn, but some of us, I think, do. I think some of us say, yeah, give me that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna sign up for that. And I've— wow, I've seen people that, you know, been through a lot more than, more than we would ever think about, you know, loss of multiple children, divorces, homes burning down, you know, loss of a spouse, all to the same person. And I look at those people now, I'm like, What a warrior. That's why it's like, what, what a warrior.

Whereas other people look at them and go, what bad luck. Gosh, why does— why do bad things happen to good people? And that just doesn't really work for me. I have to think, well, they signed up for it. And, you know, how brave. But I do think there might be an element of when we're over on the other side, oh yeah, I can do that. 'And that'd be great.' And you perhaps, maybe you've got your spirit guide going, 'Are you sure? Are you sure?' Um, I— yeah, but I do think it's important to acknowledge the parents who don't have the beliefs that we're talking about here and aren't— aren't— are stuck in their grief. Because it is hard. And I wouldn't want anyone to sort of look at us even and, you know, and kind of think, oh well, they're doing much better. I don't feel I'm doing that. So you might, but I, I really don't feel I'm doing that well. But I think it's important to have role models and think, yeah, maybe I, I can, I can, you know, it'll get easier and whatever. But I think it's important to acknowledge that this is just as awful as it is. I think Megan Devine, you know, the, um, writer Megan Devine—

not familiar with the name—

she's written a book called It's Okay That You're Not Okay. Um, yes, she starts off her book by saying, this really is as bad as you think. So going back to the toxic positivity, I think it's You know, I think she's one end of the scale. And then there are, you know, the books which are just a little bit towards toxic positivity. And I kind of like to be somewhere in the middle, acknowledge that this is horrendous. Grief is just terrible, but that there is a little bit of hope. And it's not just this, and it's for possibly for a higher purpose.

Eventually, the thing is, both things can be true at the same time. This life sucks. And it's tough. And it's brutal. But on the other hand, it's short. And it's beautiful. And we are benefiting from it. And both things are true. And so our, our challenge is to be able to shift that mindset. When we get down and I do, I mean, literally every day, I have these thoughts. And it's that it's being able to shift that mindset to say, what's the long-term thing here? You know, what's, what's the long-term effect? Why am I here? Why am I still here? And understand there's a purpose. And so yeah, there are people that don't have that belief in that. And that's fine. I'm here to try to offer people like Okay, this is why I believe it. And this is why it works for me. You— people are certainly free to choose to say this is a random universe, bad things just happen to people. And if that works for you, and if that's the way you see the evidence, then that's okay. But I'm here to offer an alternate point of view to people and why, you know, even in your own— even in our own lives, you know, I'm 60 years old, 61 years old now. I look back at things that happened in my past and thought, that's horrible. You know, I've been fired from a job twice. You know, I've been divorced. I've been through— I've been through stuff. We've all been through stuff. But it's always worked out eventually, you know, even, even in this short period of time that I see now. So when I look forward, I'd say my daughter passing away, how might that be beneficial? Can I even see the possibility? Of something good that can come out of that. So yeah, that's just the hope you need to hold on to, I think.

Yeah, I think so. But I like what you say about both can be true. Yeah, yeah, it can be terrible and amazing. It can be, you know, be two things at once.

Yeah. So I, back to your book, I love the fact that you do talk about that, that early, that first year grief, because a lot of people We don't often get that insight. We often— people hold that to themselves. And then when we go through it, and we're having these physical symptoms, like you said, and I had to— we're like, something's wrong with me, something's off, this isn't, this isn't normal. But all those things are normal. They're not— we don't all have all the things. But those things are normal.

Yeah. And I think people And a lot of books on grief are, um, not written by people who've had the experience, right? And another reason I wrote the book is I read— I found reading books by bereaved mothers really helpful, but they were all the ones I read written by, um, bereaved mothers in the US, and Sometimes I wanted a few— that was great, and it worked for me, and vice versa. I hope people in, you know, in America will read my book as well. But there were occasional references or resources that I thought, oh, I just felt there was a bit of a gap in the market for a British bereaved mother. So that's another reason why I wrote it. But I do think the lived experience is what I just want people to read the book and get it and just think, yeah, I felt like that. Yeah. And my heart beat out my chest for days. I didn't sleep for 2 weeks and just kind of feel a bit of relief that they can identify with what I'm talking about. And then if there are a few things later in the book where they might try a few things to just ease the path a bit, then that's, that's what I'm, that's my, my goal really.

Yeah, I love that. I love that outline. I love that, you know, that you said, you know, because you talk about the experience. And I, my thing is, I tell people, I'm trying to normalize this, right? Trying to normalize whatever it is you're going through grief, I'm trying to normalize this spiritual— I don't like the word spiritual perspective. But this perspective that we are whole people who have, who are eternal, who came here for a reason. And all these things that happen to you, it's, it's not easy. It's not— it's the toughest place in the universe possibly to be. That's what people say about Earth. But there's— it's serving some purpose, it's serving some greater purpose. And you can either find per— you can, you can believe the purpose is there, or you can make purpose out of it. You've chosen to make purpose out of it. You said, okay, I'm going to take all this training I've had, which I believe prepared you for this. And then, and then, and then Harry's passing is the catalyst that starts the reaction that launches you to the next thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what we have to hope. Yeah. But it would be great. I mean, I just really hope that it, it will help other people like the books I read helped me. If you find the right book for you, it makes a difference, particularly if you can't find a bereavement counselor or trauma therapist at that moment in time. Books, I think, can be amazing.

Yes, I think they can be amazing for the reasons that we, that we just, you know, outlined there. Because humans, we feel alone in our grief. Yeah, you know, no matter how many people are around us, no matter, you know, whether we have a spouse, you know, whatever, it's a very lonely thing. You feel like you, you know, you're the only one that's ever been through this, you're the only one that can understand it. You feel like— and I love you said, you know, you said, I thought my life was over. Because I still remember one day I was driving my car, I was, I was just starting to listen to podcasts after Shayna passed, because I really listened much before. And this author came on, she was, she was promoting a book, her name was Donna Vissaki. And I think it was called Meet Me at the Bottom of the Mountain, her daughter passed away. And the thing that caught my attention more than anything, she said, I was standing on the curb. And I was, I felt like stepping out in front of a bus, there's a bus going by. And I just want to step out from the bus and end it all. And the fact that she was willing to admit that, I was like, I have to get that book. Because yeah, I, that's what I felt. And you know, and we were embarrassed to say that in public.

But well, it's funny to say that. Yes, I'm so glad you brought that up. Because I haven't mentioned that yet. But I do talk about how I just didn't want to be here. I didn't actively want to do anything, but I did not want to be here. I wanted it to be over. And I think we do need to normalize that for bereaved parents, and anyone else. We must open it out, I guess, to not just bereaved parents, but absolutely, I think that's so important to normalize and not to be ashamed of. And I write about it very openly. I mean, my book is brutally honest. It's quite dark in places, but I hope there's also the light. But I think we have to have the dark to see the light, so I'm not going to shy away or dress it up as, um, as something it's not. I went to very dark places, you know, and obviously you did as well. I, and I think most bereaved parents, maybe not all of them, but a lot do, and some stay there for longer. You know, than others.

Yeah. And it's, you know, I've talked to enough of them that I know that people have stood in the kitchen with a knife to their wrist, you know, again, not so much planning to do it, but just like, what if, what if, you know, what if I just ended this all right here and just end the pain?

Yeah.

And I saw when I— when people talk about suicide, I'm like, some people say, I don't understand it. I'm like, I do understand it. I do understand that temptation. It's— I understand it's It's usually a momentary thing that if you can get through that moment, you'll be okay. Um, but some people do act in that moment, and I think it can help people build strength to know a lot of us go through that. A lot of us go through those moments, and maybe most of us go through those moments. Most of us just don't talk about it, where it's like, yeah, I just, I just went out.

Um, but yeah, well, I talk about it, and I think I'm so glad you brought it up, actually, because it didn't occur to me. But, but I'm so glad you brought it up. This is so important. If anyone is listening to this and they've they feel that, then we can go, well, we're still here, but we know how it feels. And, and I hadn't felt like that in my life before, but I did. And it wasn't just on one occasion, you know, it comes around again, but I'm still here and you're still here. So I hope people will take— but it just gets so— it's so painful that you just want it to stop and you want to be with your child, right? You know, you want to be with your child.

Right. And that's, you know, there's a couple things going on, because you do want the pain to end, which is normal human biological behavior. Our bodies are designed, evolved, to avoid pain and to go towards pleasure. So when we're in pain, we'll do anything to stop it, whether it's emotional pain or physical pain. So that's normal to want to stop it. The other thing, as a parent, you always want to be with your children. You always want to make sure your children are safe and protected. And when you're— when you have a child on the other side, it sets up this dilemma for you, where it's like, I either have to choose to be here with my other loved ones, my other children, my other child, or be there. And I can't be in both places. So it puts you in an impossible situation.

Yeah, it really does. It really does.

Yeah.

But important to know, lies. Definitely.

Right. And not to end on that, because we can, and as you've done, develop that relationship with our children on the other side. And it's not the same, but we can have both for a while while we continue our walk here.

Yes, very well put. Exactly that. That's what we hold on to.

So yeah, I'm really, I'm glad for this conversation. I'm glad for your book. I know there's a great place for it. I know, you know, it's, it's not just the memoir, which is always interesting and helps people not feel as alone, but also some practical things that people can do to, you know, to strengthen ourselves as we go through the grief. Yeah, we can survive. Yeah, to survive. Yeah. So remind me, remind everybody again, it'll be in the show notes, but sometimes people are listening when they're driving.

Love Untethered. Um, it's out on Friday in the, in the UK and in the US on the 1st of December. Amazon, Barnes Noble, where you are, I think anywhere where you can get a book online, you should be able to get it. Um, So yeah, and I have a website. My author website is vanessamay.co.uk. And on Instagram, which is @may.wellbeing, anyone wants to connect with me on there.

Awesome. Vanessa, thank you so much for being here.

And thank you for having me.

Yeah, thank you for what you're doing to help other parents and other people in general. You don't have to have a loss of a child. And I was, I was in something the other day, I was actually interviewing a a young man, and he's like, so my illness he had in his early life and divorce and, you know, drug addiction in the family, and, you know, etc. He goes, I haven't lost a child though. And I'm like, but you had a lot of loss. That's all grief. All those things are grief. So we can't really compare each other's grief. We've all, we've all had trauma. We've all had suffering. So I think this book could help anybody that's gone through any type of trauma.

Yeah, hopefully, fingers crossed.

Well, thanks for being here. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Thank you.

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