I Feel Sad Today. And That's OK.

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you.

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 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.

Hey there, everyone. Um, this video and audio is going to serve actually three purposes. So if you're hearing this now It means you're either watching my YouTube channel, you're listening to the podcast, or you're taking the 30-day challenge that I'm teaching. So I'm going to post this in all 3 places. This is a special day. This is Shayna, my daughter, behind me. It's her 22nd birthday. So for those of you who may not know, Shayna was 15 years old when she passed away. This is the 7th birthday that we are celebrating without her. And I was talking with a mother the other day whose son had transitioned. And she was saying that birthdays may be the hardest day. And I think it's true. The thing about a birthday is, there's a twofold thing about a birthday. It's your day, for one thing. It's like, you know, for Shana especially, it was her special day, and everybody had, you know, it was all attention on her. So it's the one time of the year that we have, you know, it's our day. And we celebrate the fact that it's the time that someone came into the world. But we also celebrate the fact that someone's still with us, right? When we light the candles on the cake, we're celebrating another trip around the sun, another day here. So we're celebrating the birthday of someone in spirit, there's an element of that that is missing. And that's the fact that they're still here. And that's especially difficult when it's a child who passed away, in our case, at the age of 15. So birthdays are bittersweet. They are probably the hardest day for us parents to get through. Because while we're thinking about the fact we had the great times with them, I had a wonderful, wonderful 15 years with Shana. Awfully blessed to have her in my life. Got to spend a lot of time with her. I, I homeschooled— we homeschooled her. I worked from home, so we spent a lot of time together. But there's that thing about I haven't had her for the last 7 years. So as I was thinking about it this week, her birthday week, because Shayna didn't have a birthday, she had a birthday week, um, you know, it was— it's a double-edged sword thinking about her not being here, but also thinking about the great times we had together. Now, Shayna's birthday comes right after the holidays in the middle of January. And the winter is an especially difficult time for me. I live in Ohio. It's dark and it's cold here. The only thing I like about winter is football. Football is usually over by this time. I'm a Bengals fan. So this is playoff times. We're not usually in the playoffs. We are this year. But Shayna's birthday in January was kind of a ray of sunshine, you know, and kind of the end of the holiday season for us. Kayla's birthday is November 22nd, then we've got Thanksgiving, we've got Christmas, and then we get Shayna's birthday to kind of wrap that all up. So this is an especially difficult day, and I know it is for my wife and for my daughter Kayla as well. And we do the best we can with it. So for, for us, what we usually do is we have a meal in honor of Shayna. Usually it's pizza. It's always been pizza. We'll have some sort of dessert because Shayna loved dessert. So we do that. But like this morning, I got up, I still took my walk. I haven't— I'm kind of taking the day off today. I did work with a client a little bit on her website. But I'm taking it easy today. I'm recording this. I haven't done a podcast in a while. I'll talk about in a second. But on days like this, I think we all need to do what it takes to take care of ourselves. I've been on a little bit of a break from the podcast. Frankly, I've been a little bit burnt out. It's again, the end of the year, kind of a difficult time. 2021 was a tough year for everybody. I've had a couple of people that I had scheduled to interview that canceled. I've done a couple special broadcasts where it's just me, but I decided I'm just going to take a little bit of a break. So first, I'm taking a break in the 2 and a half years that I've been doing the podcast. So I'll get back into it. I've got some people scheduled for next week. So if you're waiting for the next podcast to come out, that'll be coming out. The thing is, you know, frankly, I put out a couple of podcasts during this time, and there wasn't much response to them. That's okay. That's the way it goes. Sometimes things go better than others. Last year was interesting. I— the viewership, or the subscribers for the YouTube channel, actually tripled last year, which was great. So definitely on course for hopefully a better 2022. And I'll be doing some different things this year, some new offerings. And I've been taking this time off to work on putting those things together. So expect to see those coming up soon. But back to, you know, Shayna's birthday, and when I'm going through it, my wife and my other daughter going through, I appreciate everybody reaching out to us. We've gotten so much support, people making comments on Facebook, people sending us messages. That's all really great. But you know, there is some times when it's— we just kind of feel sad. And the thing is, for the lesson for today and the 30-day challenge that we're doing was about feeling sad. And the lesson yesterday was about toxic positivity. So the thing about toxic positivity, that's where you're pretending to be happy when you're not. And that's when you're even maybe trying to fool yourself into thinking that everything is okay, when frankly, things kind of suck at the time. And then today's— and I did not do this on purpose when I set this up, it just happened to fall today on Shayna's birthday, which is a day that I usually feel pretty, pretty sad. Today's lesson was, you told me I look sad today. I'm sad most days. Today, I just don't have the energy to hide it. And that's okay, maybe tomorrow. And I want to say to people, it's okay to feel sad, it's okay to show you feel sad. Now, for me, it's difficult. I am a coach. I'm a father, you know, I'm a husband. And sometimes we don't want to show that to our spouse or to our others, or to our other children, or to our clients. You know, frankly, nobody wants to go to a grief coach that's sad all the time. But there are times when we do feel sad, and it's okay. And, you know, it's one thing for a coach or someone to model strength, that's great. But we should also model being human. So, I decided to be vulnerable today, which is something that's kind of outside of my comfort zone. And everybody knows that this is a tough day for me. So, what I did is I said, I tried to make it as normal as possible with going for my walk and doing my yoga, and doing a little bit of work, but I'm also going to take a light day today. I'm going to take a day to celebrate Shane. I'm going to take a day to conserve a little bit of energy. And that's okay. And then, you know, get back up and get back to it tomorrow. And that's the thing about, you know, life. Life is a series of ups and downs, good and bad. We are not meant to be here to bypass, you know, certain emotions, and always feel happy all the time. We're here to feel all the emotions, which are what we call the, quote, good emotions. And what we call the bad emotions. Those are all part of the human experience. So what I want to do to say to wrap up is, you know, for you that are listening, if you're always feeling like you have to be up, if you're always feeling like you have to be on for everybody else, give yourself permission to feel sad and show that you're sad. And I know our friends want us to be happy, and they'll always try to encourage us. And that's okay, because sometimes, frankly, people encourage us because they feel bad that we feel bad. But, you know, we'll get over it. We'll get by. I'll get by. I'll be back into it. I've got some big plans for this year. I'm going to say publicly, which I haven't said before, I'm doing too much. You know, I've got like— I have 3 jobs. I work for a software company where I help them sell software. I've got Treasure Locks, which is a retail company. And I'm doing the coaching and consulting, and it's just, it's too much. But I want to put some of that down. And this year, my goal is to stop working on Treasure Locks and to maybe stop working in the software business and work solely on coaching and consulting. That's what I really enjoy doing. And I need to make that, that grow to be able to do that as a full-time kind of gig. So that's my goal for this year. And I'm putting that out there publicly. Hopefully, we'll see, we'll see where I am in December. Um, but anyway, I, I really thank you for listening. I thank you for indulging me in this. I thank you for your support, um, both with my business and personal. I think you support— for your support over the years. For those of you who have been with me over the years, for those that are new, uh, there won't be much more of this type of stuff, but I thought for Shayna's 22nd birthday I could take this time to honor her. Everything I do, uh, everything you see me doing is for Shayna. It's because of Shayna. If she had not come into my life, I wouldn't be doing this. If she frankly, if she hadn't left my life when she did, I wouldn't be doing this. I believe that this is actually part of my life plan. And that's what kind of— that's what keeps me going. So have a great day, and I'll talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to Grief to Growth. Brian hopes that you find this episode helpful, and will come back for future episodes. Brian D Smith's bestselling book, Grief to Growth: Planted, Not Buried, is a great resource for anyone who is coping with grief or knows someone who is. If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support it, there are 3 things you can do to help. The first is to share the podcast with someone that you think it will help. The second is to go to iTunes, rate and review the episode. The third way you can support the podcast is by becoming a patron. Head over to www.patreon.com/grief2growth. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/grief, the number 2, growth, and sign up to make a small monthly donation. Patrons get access to exclusive bonus content and knowledge that you are helping to spread the message of grief to growth. For more about Brian D Smith and grief to growth, Visit www.grief2growth.com.

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