Hour of Hope Replay | Sally and Imogen from the “Good Mourning“ Podcast

Thanks, Christina. Hi, everyone. I'm Hope Edelman. This is Christina Currie. Christina, could you raise your hand? Christina is the marketing director at hopeedelman.com. We're here today for the January 2024 Hour of Hope with Sally Douglas and Imogen Karn of Good Morning. We're so thrilled to have them here today with us, and women are filtering in at a very steady rate. So we'll just wait a minute or two. We're almost up to 100 people in the room, which is super exciting. We'll get started in just a moment. But we're so happy to see you and grateful that you've chosen to spend part of your Sunday with us, or Monday if you're in Australia. What time is it over there, Sally?

It's midday. It's 12:02 PM.

All right. So your lunchtime over here in California where I am, it's 5:02 PM, so getting close to dinner. We tried to time it just right. We alternate our Hours of Hope. We do them 4 times a year, and we alternate between late in the day and early in the morning so that twice a year all of our UK and EU followers can join us, and then twice a year our Australian and Asian followers can be with us. And of course, everybody gets the recording so they can watch the link at their own convenience. So anyone who's not here today will get it, and any— everyone who's here today will get it. If they'd like to rewatch parts of today's presentation. Hour of Hope is a free quarterly public service that we here at Motherless Daughters and hopeedelman.com offer to any woman who has lost her mom, or really anyone at all. Those of you who may love a motherless daughter or work with motherless daughters who want to learn more in a specific niche. So today we're going to be talking about how female friendships are affected after a mom dies, and what is likely to occur, and what you might expect, and how you might cope with any changes that you're experiencing. So I see people are still coming in at a really steady rate. If you'd like to drop in the chat box where you're calling in from, we love to see where everyone is located. Um, we have weekly calls on Tuesdays and Thursdays for motherless daughters, and we're just starting in February a new call just for women who've lost moms in the past 2 years. Our Thursday morning call is 11 o'clock Pacific Coast time, 2 o'clock East Coast time. It's evening in the UK and EU. And last Thursday we had women from 9 different countries on the call. It was really incredible. We are a very international community. Oh, we've got someone from Malaysia joining us today. Welcome to you. Seattle, Rhode Island, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, California, New Jersey, Mexico. How exciting. We've got Sydney, Boston, Toronto. Look at that. We're all over the world on this call today. Someone in Washington, the desert in California, Northern California. California is representing today, that's for sure. Alright. So I think we're gonna— we may as well go ahead and get started. Christina, for those of you who've joined just in the past few minutes, Christina Currie. Christina, would you like to raise your hand? Christina is the marketing director at Motherless Daughters, and she's here to answer any of your tech questions. She'll be monitoring the chat box, and she will also be letting people in as they enter. We're up to 112 women. In the room, which is absolutely fabulous. How exciting! So excited to be here today with Sally and Im from Good Morning. We are going to go ahead and get started in just a moment. We're going to be talking today about female friendships, and I thought I would have Sally and Imogen introduce themselves perhaps by telling the story of how they met, because the backstory is really important. The story of how Sally and Imogen, who are the, the powerhouses behind the Good Morning podcast, a new book, and a worldwide community, is really practically the stuff of legend by now. So I thought maybe you could tell us a little bit about what brought you together and what your first encounter was like. And it's always fun to hear both perspectives. So Imogen, would you start us? And then maybe Sally can follow.

I would love to. Thank you, Hope, for having us here, and hi to everyone all around the world. It's lovely to connect with you all. I am Im, one half of Good Morning, and yeah, it's a little bit of a love story how Sal and I met. It obviously came from very tragic circumstances. So when I turned 30, when I was about 30, I can't even remember how old I was now, 31. When my mum died, and she died suddenly from suicide, and it was a complete shock, and it turned my world upside down. I had a 9-month-old baby at the time, and as you'll all very well know, grief is incredibly isolating and lonely, which we'll get into more during this conversation. But I really struggled to connect with people who are around me in my circle, and I looked outside for some support. So that took me to actually the I'll tell you that how we found the Motherless Daughters Australia community was we were both searching online for Hope's book, Motherless Daughters, because it had been recommended to us so many times. And that's when we stumbled across Motherless Daughters Australia, which is a community here for women experiencing mother loss. And it was during COVID and one of the community members was holding a meetup, and we decided to both go. We didn't know each other at the time. And we both nearly backed out at the last minute because it was terrifying putting ourselves out of our comfort zone. And we thought, you know, we are well supported. Why do we need that extra support? But we did feel a real pull to go that day, and we both like to think it was our moms having a hand in our meeting. But we're so grateful that we did. So we turned up at this lunch, and there were 10 women there all up. And Sal turned up late, fashionably late. And I just remember she walked in and I instantly felt connected to her. I don't know what it was. It was an energy thing, I think. And I just thought, this is my person. She looked fabulous as well. So I was like, yeah, I really, I really want to talk to, to her. And we all went around the table one by one explaining who we are, how old we are, we are, we were at the time, and how our mums died. And Sal also mentioned that her mum had died suddenly. We were similar ages, our mums were similar ages, and I just felt really connected to her. And in that moment, I thought, you know what, I'm not alone in this. Someone across from me is going through something similar in real time. And it makes me emotional talking about this, but it was just incredible to find, find someone that could understand the depths of pain that I was in. And, um, we didn't actually get to talk on that day, which was wild. And Sal— and yeah, we just, we didn't get a chance to talk. And then I plucked up the courage to drop her a message on Facebook, and the rest is history, isn't it, Sal?

It is, it is. We, um— hi everyone, by the way. It's really an honor to be here with you all today. And, um, I guess you could say, Hope, that we've got you to thank for our meeting, because if we hadn't Googled your book, then we wouldn't have found Mothers Daughters Australia, and we wouldn't be where we are today. So this is quite a nice full circle moment. Um, so Im dropped me a message on Facebook. She sent me a DM, um, just saying like, I'd love to meet up with you. You know, we met the other day, but we didn't get to talk properly. If you ever want to meet up and talk about mother loss, I really understand. So I jumped at the chance because it can be really lonely, can't it, when you've lost your mum? And if a lot of your peers haven't experienced mother loss or loss in general, they might not know what to say, even if they do want to support you. So having somebody there to talk to and talk about all the crazy things that can come with grief, you know, we don't often— we don't feel like ourselves, or we're not sure if what we're feeling is normal. when it comes to grief and loss. So we just, we just talked for hours, didn't we, Em?

We did.

And it was just so beautiful. And then we became fast friends. And we would just talk for such a long time about all of the experiences that we were having. And it felt like such a relief to be able to know that we weren't alone, but also that what we were going through was normal. I'm sure lots of you can relate to that. And so we decided that we'd start the Good Morning Podcast because we felt that, you know, it was really important to be able to talk really open and, and candidly about all the elements of grief and coping with losing our mums and being able to share our experiences with other people, um, in the hope that it might help them. So that's kind of how it all started. But, you know, it was very— it was nerve-wracking to put ourselves out there and to, to show up at that lunch. Like, we both really, you know, because when you lose somebody, when you lose your mum, you know, you lose that relational being. And often we don't feel like ourselves, you know, we might not feel confident or in the best space to, to show up and make a new friend. So I think it was, yeah, we really had to push ourselves. But I'm so glad that we did. And I think it's really, you know, brave that everyone has turned up here today as well, because connection is just so important, isn't it, when you're And the grace.

I think about that all the time, what courage it takes, especially when women come to a 4-day Motherless Daughters retreat. They don't know anyone in the room, and they're going to be vulnerable in a room full of strangers. And it takes so much courage to do that. I'm, I'm, I'm in awe of it every time. It seems like a whole, almost a sacred, holy experience to spend 4 days like in that kind of environment. Sal, your mom also died suddenly, and you were about the same age as Imogen. Is that correct? So your— but your mom died of a health event. Is that correct?

Yes. So my mom died from something called SUDEP, which stands for sudden and unexpected death with somebody who has epilepsy. So she had a sudden seizure. She was otherwise healthy. And she— I was 33. And living in Australia, and she was in the UK.

So it was a big shock. I want to take an opportunity to show everyone here that you all have a new book called Good Morning, which is absolutely wonderful, and I can't recommend it enough. Sal, in the book, you share that you wanted to fall apart when your mom died, but there wasn't any time for that because there was just too much that had to get done with the estate. You had to fly back to the UK. You had all these practical matters to deal with. You to deal with, and it was all on you to deal with that. And that's something I know that other women in this community have also experienced, especially, especially when we lose a mother in adulthood. Sometimes the emotional aspect of grief and, and the coming to terms with all of the psychoemotional parts of it have to be put on hold because we have to attend to these urgent, time-sensitive matters. We have to pack up a house. We have to sell a house. We have to deal with lawyers. We have to do paperwork. And so when were you able to tap into the emotional parts? And I'm wondering if if you can tell us a little bit about what that process was like for you.

Sure.

And I think that's one of the things, isn't it? People don't tell you about all of the admin that comes with a death. We call it deadmin. There was so much to do. Um, so I was in charge of my mum's estate and it was just me. And so I had to fly back to the UK and I had a month to get it all done because it was leading up to Christmas. Um, it was just so full-on. I had moments of, you know, I felt overwhelmed with sadness and grief, but I also had— I literally had a to-do list every day that I just— if I had— if I didn't tick things off, then I wasn't going to be able to get it done. And it was only really when I came back to Australia, I'd say a month after her passing, that I had a bit of time and space To actually really let the shock and the shock subside. I think, you know, often we're running on adrenaline and we can be almost clouded in, in shock when, um, when a death first happens, whether it's sudden or anticipated, it can still feel really surreal. So I think being back in Australia and being back where, you know, where I live and where I have my home comforts. It started to sink in because I had a little bit of space and a little bit of time. And I wasn't running from one thing to the other or on a constant deadline. Something that really has helped is not pushing the feelings away when they come up. I think sometimes it can feel really uncomfortable when the grief feels all-consuming. So I started having what Im and I call grief sessions, um, and it's where you, you really honor your grief and you really go there. So I have a massive box of, of letters from my mum, of photos, of all, all the sentimental things, you know, the cards that I was sent, um, the sympathy cards, um, all of those things. And I would just really take myself there. I wouldn't be afraid to just push it aside. And that really did help with processing it. But I think also allowing myself the space to slow down after I got a lot of the, you know, the dead men out of the way and I ticked off the priorities, having that space to, to let myself, you know, lie on the sofa and cry if I wanted to for a whole day. And trust me, I definitely did. You know, as lots of you will know, sometimes grief is so exhausting, all you can do is just— rest, you know.

Right.

Um, so it was honoring not only my emotional needs but also my physical needs as well, and, and trying to listen to what my body was telling me, um, and, and honoring that. So those things really helped. But I think just having the space and also just taking myself with the flow of the grief as it came and not trying to stuff it down was really paramount to moving through.

What we find in our community where there are, you know, a fair amount of women who were children, teenagers, young adults when their moms died is that they didn't have the opportunity to do that because they were dependent on the adults around them to create that space and hold that space for their grief. So they had to push it down. And then it would surface later in life. And then even among adults, sometimes there isn't an opportunity because you don't— you finish the administrative work And then you have to jump right back in to your job or childcare or eldercare. And, Em, I know you had a baby at the time that your mom died, and you, so you had a lot of responsibility to another human being. How did you juggle newborn care and grief for your mom during those first few months? That sounds really difficult.

It was really tough. And I think having my daughter was probably what made my grief harder and what also helped me through it. It's a little bit confusing. Like, I think I didn't really have the room to fall apart as much as I needed. I had to show up. I had this baby that was dependent on me, even though my whole world had just turned upside down. My mum was my biggest support as well. She was my best friend. She would come over every week and help me. You know, she was there through the whole pregnancy coming to every single appointment. So I lost a huge chunk of my support too, which was really, really difficult for me to navigate and process. I think one of the best pieces of advice I got in the early days was just to go micro, just strip everything back and just focus on minute by minute and just try really hard to be in the moment. Because I'll be honest, I was so traumatized that I didn't want to be there anymore. Like, I was so depressed. I had suicidal ideation, which I know is really common in grief and with mother loss as well. And I didn't want to be here. And I just thought, I have to somehow get through this for my daughter because I really didn't want her to go through what I was going through. And especially, you know, as a baby, losing your mother, I know, is just hugely difficult. So, yeah, going micro really helped me and just focusing on what was in front of me. I felt whenever I looked too far into the future, because you will all know you can't imagine a future without your mum in it, it felt impossible. So it was all about bringing my attention back into the present moment, really trying to focus on just Getting through the next minute, counting all of the orange things in the room, focusing on my breath. Another piece of advice that was just hugely helpful for me— we interviewed Dr. Edith Eger. I don't know if you are familiar with her. She is a Holocaust survivor. She's also an author and a psychologist, and she's just got some brilliant wisdom that she shares about surviving trauma and how to get through it. And One piece of advice that she shared with us on the podcast was when you experience significant trauma and significant loss, it's almost like you have to live outside of yourself for something or someone else for a period of time. Because in that time when I was trying to be a new mom, I, I didn't wanna be here. So I really had to live for my child. And I could never imagine that there would come a time where I'd start to live for myself again or enjoy my life again, or any of those things, but I can promise you I'm coming into the 4th year and my grief has significantly changed. And I have moments of joy now. I have long periods of the day where I am focused on life and engaged in life. And I have found happiness again. And I just really hope that that can pass on some hope to anyone else who may be in the trenches and feeling like I was. when you can't see hope for the future. But I promise you, there definitely is some, especially in my circumstances. I was able to use those tools, find some resilience, and yeah, sure enough, some joy came back into my life.

Thank you so much for being honest about that, Em. I think it's so important. I know that the whole ethos behind Good Mourning is to have these honest, candid conversations about grief and loss. And losing a mom to suicide is so hard. I know there's women on this call who lost moms to suicide. If any of you want to Post in the chat box and let each other know that you're here for each other, even just in solidarity. And in fact, if any of you would like to post how old you were when your mom died and what she died from, it's a really good opportunity to see if there's anyone here who has a history. I see Charity is posting that she also lost her mom to suicide. It's a really good opportunity to see if there's anyone here who was the same age and lost a mom to the same cause. Cause. I was 17 years old when my mom died of breast cancer. As many of you know, after a year and a half after her diagnosis, it was the summer between my junior and senior year in high school. And, you know, the echo effects have been profound for my entire life. It was more than 40 years ago. And I still, you know, I still feel it one way or another every day. It shapes the emerging personality, but even in adulthood, it shapes so much of who you are and who you will be. So I'd like to talk now a little bit about how friendships are affected by loss, because that's what we're here really to talk about today. I mean, that's what we've advertised. If it's okay with you guys, I'd like to read a passage from the book, because it's so beautiful. What you say, it's so much better than I can. It's on page 148. And I just love this passage so much. I dog-eared it, I, I underlined it. I'm just going to read the 2 paragraphs here at the very beginning of chapter 5, which is called You, Me, and Grief. And then I thought we could take over the discussion from there. You write, when grief strikes, it can shake up your support system. At a time when you sure as hell need all the support you can get, not everyone is prepared to meet you in your pain. Some people show up while others check out. If the ones who checked out are the very same people you thought would help keep you afloat, That can come as a major shock. We all cope differently in times of crisis, and this can be a big factor when it comes to relationship changes after loss. No 2 people grieve in the same way. Some find comfort in talking about the person who died. Others avoid mentioning them at all. You may even end up in a game of whose pain is the worst, because competitive grief is definitely— is absolutely a thing. It's almost impossible for us to nail down all the different scenarios. However, when people around you aren't providing a safe and supportive space to express your grief, or they are dishing out unhelpful platitudes because they don't know what else to say, it can make you feel super lonely and compound your sense of loss. We have a saying here at Motherless Daughters that's developed over the years that losing a mom doesn't show you who your friends are. I mean, there's that adage out there, right? Oh, when you, when you go through something tough, you're going to find out who your friends are. We don't believe that. We don't believe that losing a mom shows you who your friends are, but it does show you which of your friends are capable of showing up for you in the way that you need at that time. Would you guys agree with that?

Absolutely. I think it was important for us when we were writing the book, and especially that chapter, where we didn't want people going and cutting everybody off because grief is really hard to support people in. And what we've found is unless you've been through it yourself, it's almost impossible to know exactly what to do or say. So yeah, we would definitely agree with that, Hope.

I mean, you may find that there are friends who simply don't know what to do because they've never experienced a loss of this magnitude before. They simply don't have the historical experience to draw from. And there are other friends who may be going through crises of their own at that time and simply don't have the capacity to show up fully for a close friend who's in need. But a friendship that you thought was close that doesn't come through for you at that time can feel like a loss on top of a loss. You've written about that, what we call a secondary loss. Sally, can you talk with us a little bit about that?

Well, it can feel like you're losing your friend as well as your mom, and then it's a compounding loss. And it can feel really heightened because If we expect people to show up for us and they don't show up for us in the way that we would like, it can feel incredibly isolating. And something like Im said, when we were writing the book, we really didn't want to say cut everyone off that hasn't shown up for you in the way that you would like them to. Because like you said, Hope, everyone copes differently. And so something that's really helped us is— Reframing our friendships and reframing what roles people play in your lives. Some people might be fantastic at emotional support. They might be there sitting with you in silence and just letting you cry. And just, you know, they might remember the anniversary dates and they might come to the funeral and they might, you know, they might be there every step of the way. But like you said, often people have things going on in their lives, or some people just just might not be able to meet you where you are, but it doesn't mean they don't care and that they can't still be a friend. And I think that's really important to, to think about the different roles that people play. So somebody might be fantastic at being organized and helping you with, you know, planning or finding a great solicitor, but they might not be the person that's going to ask you how you are every day, or they're not going to sit there and let you cry and ask you about all of the emotions that you're feeling. Or you might have somebody that, you know, is really fun, and they might not be there, there texting you and checking in all the time. But if you need a night out, or if you need to do something fun just to give yourself a sense of lightness and just to take, you know, your mind off things for a while, they might be that friend, and they might step up. to the plate and be amazing support for you in that way. So I think it's thinking about the different ways that people can support you and the different ways that people can play a role in your life that can really actually help with alleviating that sense of disappointment and isolation that we can so often feel, can't we? And Im, I know we've both had to change our expectations of all of our friends, haven't we? Not everyone has been able to be that for us, especially in the early days. And I think that That was a huge help, wasn't it?

It was definitely. Expectations are everything. So, and that, you know, we're talking about friendships, but obviously that can then carry on for all the other relationships, especially if people are all grieving the same person. Everyone is going to be grieving the loss differently in their own unique way, and that can really damage a lot of relationships as well, and it can hurt. And I'll give you an example. My sister is 2 years older than me. We both lost our mum. We both had very different relationships with our mum. We're both very different people, and the way we are grieving her loss, we clash. And I can't support her, she can't support me. We end up arguing. We didn't speak for quite a long time afterwards. So it can, it can really shake up your support system when you're experiencing grief. And, and I think that was what was really great about meeting Sally and going outside of my support circle where everyone's grieving on different notes and having that support from someone who understood but wasn't grieving the same loss as me. So we were able to actually support each other and not take things personally and yeah, just be there. And my grief wasn't triggering Sally's and Sally's grief wasn't triggering mine. So that's why calls like this and communities like the incredible one Hope has built is just so important. So you can make those connections outside of your usual support circle.

I see Liz mentioned in the chat box that sometimes people you never imagined would show up for you will do that. And I think that speaks to remaining open to the possibility that people we can't even imagine might step into that role. Because sometimes if we have a best friend or a partner, We may expect that, like, again, you say, expectations, that they will be the one that we can lean on. And, Em, you wrote very candidly about the expectations that you had on your partner and how you placed too much on that relationship. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Sure. So I mentioned before that my mom was my biggest support. We were best friends. And I'm sure a lot of you have had many realizations as well after experiencing the loss of your mom. But one thing that was profound for me was I understood that I had a really codependent relationship with my mum, and I had never really learned boundaries, and I'd never really learned to self-soothe myself. So whenever anything went wrong in my life, I would pick up the phone and I would call my mum, and she would say all the things that would make me feel okay again. And that was our pattern throughout my whole life while she was here. That's what I would do. And she would help me through everything. So when I lost her, and it happened to be the most traumatic and significant life event I had ever experienced, but she wasn't there to support me through it. I was— I just, I didn't even know where to turn. And we were in the height of COVID My partner is from the UK, so he's relocated to Australia with me, so he's got no family here. We had a new baby. We were stuck in isolation. And so what I was doing was I was expecting him to show up for me in unrealistic ways. So every time I had a big grief bomb, we call them, where the emotions just take over and you can't concentrate, and I just needed a hug from my mom. I needed, you know, my mom to tell me that everything was going to be okay. And she wasn't there to do that. So I was expecting him to fulfill that role and to do all those things that I would get from my mom. And then he wasn't showing up in the way that I was expecting him to, and it caused a huge rift between us, and it caused a lot of issues in our relationship. And he was financially supporting me. I couldn't go back to work after it happened. I was obviously had a baby, but I was so traumatized. The thought of going back to work made me feel physically sick. Like, I was terrified because I was— yeah, I just, I just felt like a completely different person. So he was financially supporting me, he was working 2 jobs at the time, he didn't have any support over here himself, he was also grieving the loss of my mum, and I was just putting so much pressure on the relationship. So I had to learn some big lessons, which was how to self-soothe. And I think the grief session is really great where that comes into play. So I started to know that it's okay to look inward, and I've got the strength within me to be able to get through these really hard moments without having that external validation from someone else that I was going to be okay. So I actually went through a huge period of personal growth, and I know it doesn't happen to everyone and it doesn't need to happen, but I, I learned a lot about myself and some really positive things and lessons about myself that I'd never had to learn before because my mom was always there to pick up the phone. And it was a harsh reality. But yeah, now I'm— I don't know. I think I've got some good tools in place now. I hope that answers your question, Hope. I feel like I've gone on a bit of a tangent.

No, it does. It does. And I see Suzanne saying in the chat box, she's thanking you for sharing. She says she's having the exact same experience. It helps to know she's not crazy. And this is why we do these calls. Because what, what, when women come together and they talk honestly, they get validated, their experiences are normalized. And that's a form of really critical support that you can't get in just one-to-one relationships with a counselor, which is very, very important for a lot of the healing process, you know, is, can be that therapeutic relationship or the coaching relationship. But the social support and hearing other women say things that you've thought or felt yourself just reminds you, oh yeah, I'm not I'm not completely off the wall. This is— there is a, you know, there's a framework of normative behavior here, and mine still falls within that. Something that you wrote about in your book that I found fascinating that I'd never seen before was the— when you wrote about the importance of reframing friendships, you talked about 3 different categories of friends that date all the way back to ancient Greece. Aristotle wrote about them, and it's really held up over time, hasn't it? These categories, he talks about friends of virtue who are the ones who show up when things get really tough, and they're your emotional support. And then there's the friends of utility who are more about transactional relationships and practical help, maybe can help you pack up the house or know who to advise, you know, if you need legal support. And then friends of pleasure who you can have fun with and call up and say, hey, let's go out tonight because I just, I can't You know, I just, I need a, I need a break. But not necessarily the ones that you rely on for emotional support. And I'm wondering, Sally, did you find that thinking about the spectrum of friendship in this way was helpful to you and your grief, or can be helpful to others in grief the same way that Im learned that she had to spread out her expectations among several people and not just one?

It absolutely did. And I think having my family so far away, being on the other side of the world from my support, it almost made me have to really zoom in on the different categories of friendships that I had here in Australia because I didn't have that emotional support or the people who had known my mum for a very long time here where I live every day. So that was actually quite— it amplified the loneliness, which is why meeting Im was so amazing. But then with my friendship groups that I had here because— and I think some of you may be in similar situations— because I hadn't grown up here and I didn't have those long-standing friendships with people who knew my mum and therefore might have that more of an emotional connection to my loss, I definitely had to segment the, the friendships into buckets and to be grateful for the friends that I did have here that could offer me that emotional support, but also try to reassess who could show up for me in what capacity without writing everybody off. Because sometimes you do feel let down, right? You do feel let down by friends who don't ask you about your loss or they don't check in often. I had a I think it was the day after I got back from the UK. So I'd buried my mum 4 days prior, and I flew back to Australia, and it was Christmas Eve that we landed. And I went to a friend's barbecue, and she basically hardly acknowledged me, um, didn't really speak to me, um, just kind of left me making small talk with some of her friends who were also there. And I just, I burst into tears. I had to leave because I just felt so let down. And it took me a while to come to terms with, with that friendship and that she wasn't that, that she wasn't the friend that was going to be really considerate, really thoughtful, and show up for me in that way. But she could be a friend to me in other ways. And I think it's just having then some boundaries in place with what you do share with people or how you interpret the friendship. So the buckets and that theory has been really helpful for me, definitely.

You know, when we're talking about the loneliness, Sal, you lost your mom during the COVID-19 lockdowns, right? And I know that there are others on the call who lost moms within the past couple of years. And that's so hard because we can't rely on the regular support system we normally would have leaned on. I mean, I went through a divorce. During exactly through the lockdowns and the girlfriends who would have flown in to stay with me or taken me out for the night. We couldn't go anywhere. We were all stuck at home. And, and that made it, I think, doubly difficult to go through a loss at that time. So what do you suggest for anyone who's feeling isolated and adrift? This is a question for both of you. How can they find other women to connect with?

Online communities.

Yeah, you go, Sal.

Well, calls like, and things like this, like this call today, I can see that the chat is popping off and, you know, being able to share with each other, you know, and ask each other questions. That is so powerful, having that connection and having a lifeline to be able to talk to other women who get it. Listening to podcasts as well. Like, we get so many people in our community of listeners that listen to our pod and say, I feel less alone now because I know that other people are going through it. Instagram, online communities, and also reading books as well, right, Im? Like, that can alleviate that sense of isolation.

Definitely. But yeah, podcasts were massively helpful for both of us. I think that's probably why we naturally fell into podcasting, just hearing other people's stories. And, you know, like this call today, just hearing people's real experiences We found so helpful to help us feel less alone because grief is so complex. And you can feel like, like Sal said earlier, you can feel like you're going crazy sometimes, or like you're the only one experiencing the things that you are. And it's really refreshing when you hear someone say even just one thing that you're going through. I remember the— I remember exactly where I was. I was driving the car in Glebe in Sydney. when I found a podcast episode where a woman had lost her mum, a similar age to me, to suicide, and she had a young child, and she was talking about her experience and was like listening to myself.

Wow.

And I just burst into tears. I'm like, this is normal. Like, what I'm experiencing is normal, and I didn't feel alone. And yeah, I think it's so important. And yeah, online communities are great, connecting with other people who've experienced mother loss and get really niche with it too. Like, Sal and I really narrowed it down to, like, sudden loss, similar ages. Our moms are similar ages. Like, I think that can, can really help too.

Really, what we just want to know is that we're not the only one, right? That's the loneliness, is feeling like we're the only one who feels or thinks that way.

And because we don't talk about grief openly, people don't know what to say. So I think having that sense of like hearing stories of other people who've been through it and being able to join communities like this and like our community, it just gives you a sense of connection. And I would say even like going out there and meeting people in your community as well. You know, it wasn't possible for Im and I when lockdown was happening, but afterwards I made friends in my local community as well. It took a little bit of effort.

Yeah.

But having that support here, um, has been so amazing. And somebody, I saw somebody put in the chat that pets as well, like him and I, we've both got dogs and they were amazing help in our grief, you know, having that companionship, uh, you know, pets make everything feel, feel better even on the griefiest of days.

So.

I saw Madeline just mentioned that isolation can retrigger grief if we have a loss in the past. Because some of us have a mother loss, but we've had a prior loss, or we've lost our moms and then we had another loss. And it can bring up those feelings about being alone, feeling helpless, feeling isolated, feeling confused, feeling despair. And so yes, losses in the present can retrigger elements or somatic experiences from loss in the past as well. But so important to find other women. who have had a similar experience, which is why we asked you to put in the chat box. And that's a great segue because I want to let everybody know about what we offer on a weekly basis. If you like this call and you want a sense of community, I'm going to take just about 3 minutes right now to let you know about weekly support that's available for you and a special offer. And then we're going to come back and we'll have a Q&A with Sally and Imogen. I've seen some great questions in the chat box. Christina, maybe you can tee up some of them. For the women, because there's so many that were popping up on my screen while we were talking. But right now, I want to let you all know about the weekly calls that we've had running since 2021, and the new one that's starting up in just a couple of weeks. So I'll share my screen, and you can see what we've got going on. Here we go. We've got mother—they're called Motherless Daughters Community Calls. And they take place every Tuesday and Thursday. That's for early loss. And by early loss, I mean during childhood, adolescence, adulthood, adolescence, young adulthood into adulthood. And then we have a new call starting on Thursday, February 8th, just for recent loss for women who've lost mothers with just within the past 2 years, because your bereavement needs are different than those of us who lost moms in the distant past. And we want to be able to meet those needs for you. These calls are just for motherless daughters. We do 60-minute support calls on subjects of interest to you. It's a different topic every week. Live chats, interactions during the call, and then at the end, like today, there's an optional 30 minutes where you can stay on for an open facilitate— facilitated discussion at the very end. These calls are really one of a kind. I don't know anyone else who does them the same way that we do. They're international. Women participate from anywhere around the world. Some of you who got here early heard me say that our Thursday call last week had women from 9 countries. They were there from New Zealand, from Austria, from Poland, from Sweden, from Canada, from the US, from all over. Um, they're interactive and eclectic. No 2 are the same, so they're always different. And they're very intentional. We co-create the community. We're asking for feedback all the time to create an environment that works for you. So if any of you here today are on the calls and would like to share something about them or what you get from them in the chat box, might be helpful or interesting for some of the new women to see. We've got 3 options now. You can join us Tuesdays. It's 5 PM Pacific time, 8 PM on the East Coast in the US and Canada. That's Wednesday morning. In Australia, Thursdays we do it at 11 o'clock in Cal West Coast time, 2 o'clock East Coast time because that's evening in the UK and in Europe. So we've got our sisters over there joining us on Thursdays, and now also on Thursdays the recent loss call is starting at five in the evening California time or West Coast time, eight o'clock East Coast time, Wednesday morning in Australia. That's for women who lost moms within the last two years. And we make it 2 years because of what Sally was talking about. Sometimes you don't have time to get to your grief right away because you've got so much administrative stuff. What she called the deadman. I've never heard that word before. That's so good. The deadman work can really get in the way and you don't have time to get to the emotions of grief. Sometimes even for the whole first year. If you can't make it live to the calls, we always send you a recorded link within 48 hours. You can watch it at your convenience. We hear a lot of women. Use the calls as podcasts. They listen to them in the car or when they go for their daily walks or runs. You're probably wondering, what's it going to cost me? It's $59 a month for 4 calls. You pay for the first month and then you don't have to worry about it. You'll be billed on the same day every month unless you cancel, and it's really easy to cancel. And if you can't start in February, new participants are welcome to join us at the beginning of every month. But if you're on this call or on our mailing list for this call, you get a special offer. If you sign up this week, use the discount code right there, capital H-O-U-R-39. You'll get your first 2 months for just $39 for the first 2 months. That's 8 calls. So that's less than $10 a call. That offer is good for new members only. So $39 a month for your first 2 months. That's really inexpensive to join us and get weekly support. How do you join? You just go to motherlessdaughters.com/communitycalls. Christina is going to put the link in the chat box. Just click there and remember to use the code HOUR39 and you'll get your $20 discount for the first 2 months. We hope you'll join us. It's a really terrific community of women both days. On Tuesdays, we have about generally about 50 or 60 women who join us live every day, every Tuesday. And on Thursdays, it's a little smaller. We've got about 30 or 35 who are there live. Um, the same women, it's really building friendships, starting to get to know each other offline as well. So really happy to welcome you if you'd like to join the virtual community of Motherless Daughters. And so now let's move into a Q&A portion with Sally and Imogen. Christina, did you see any questions there that you'd like to pull in and ask our good morning hosts?

Yeah, we had one about self-soothing and if there was anything that you guys recommended that they could kind of take away, some of your favorite self-soothing techniques.

Great question. For me personally, I think this is where the grief sesh that Sal talked about comes in really handy. I think what was happening was I was having a lot of grief bombs. So that's when just the grief just explodes and you're emotional mess. It can happen in the supermarket, dropping the kids off at daycare— very, uh, not great times to be having to deal with lots of emotion. So what I learned was I needed to kind of get on top of my emotions before they got on top of me. So I would set aside time where I would grieve, and I would allow myself to feel all those emotions and not at an inconvenient time. And I think that also really helped with needing my partner to soothe me when I was feeling griefy. So I'd go into a room and you can feel it. Like, it's— Hope mentioned before about somatic, like grief is very physical as well. And I could feel myself, I could feel the emotions getting pent up inside of me and I become quite irritable and I just knew any moment it could explode. So whenever I felt that, I would take myself off into my room. I would get out the, the grief sesh box like Sal mentioned. So if you've got any memories of your mom, photos, handwritten letters, and I'd put on the funeral songs or sad music, music that you know is going to evoke emotion in you. And I would grieve and I would sob and sob and sob. And but at a time that was convenient for me. So it's almost like I took control of my grief and I would soothe myself by allowing myself to feel the emotions. And another thing that was really helpful for me is understanding the mind-body connection and how physical grief is. And I did a lot of talk therapy in the start, and that was really helpful. It's so important to be able to, you know, articulate what's going on for you and, and learn the language that you need to kind let people know what sort of support you need. And, but it wasn't enough for me, I think, because the loss was so traumatic as well. Like, I had a lot of trauma trapped in my body, and I was ruminating constantly. I was having nightmares. I couldn't eat properly. I couldn't sleep properly. So learning about the mind-body connection was incredibly helpful. So I started doing energy healing as well. So that can be acupuncture, Kinesiology. I started doing something called Kundalini, which has been amazingly helpful for me. And so, yeah, I guess my self-soothing now is knowing when I need to help myself and knowing when I need to express my emotions and what's going on for me. And I do it in a safe space where it's— I've got control over it and I'm not relying on somebody else to help me. And, um, yeah, so all of those things have been really helpful for me. Sal, you might be able to input something different.

I think journaling has been really helpful for me.

Mm-hmm.

The act of getting out what is going through, often whirling in my mind, being able to write it out. And it feels like even sometimes just doing a bit of a word dump, it helps me process what is happening for me. Sometimes I can't even articulate what I'm feeling and all of the emotions, you know. Grief is so many emotions. It's not just sadness. And sometimes we can feel all of them at once. So I think that has been a real act of self-soothing for me, is being able to just scribble out what I'm feeling, even if it feels irrational and random, even if it doesn't make sense. I found that really helps.

You know, I see a lot of activity going on in the chat box around somatic work and how important it is because the body holds on to stress that maybe the mind is suppressing. I've been doing somatic experiencing— experience technique work lately. Really recommend it. If anyone has any other modalities that they've done or anything that they'd recommend to the group, of course, we are not a referral service and we are not offering therapy or medical advice, but we do encourage women to share what has worked for them. So please take that in the spirit in which it's intended. Christina, did you see any other questions you'd like to pop over to the The women.

Yeah, someone asked about anger and feeling angry towards your mom. She lost her mom a year ago, and she feels like she's just angry all the time.

Well, sorry, mom, or angry about, um, just in general? Did she, did she specify?

No. Oh, I, I can clarify. It's just anger around why she left and why she couldn't take care of her health better. Okay.

Yeah. Thank you. Um, Im, do you wanna work with that a little bit? Because losing a mom to suicide, I know that can come up and often does.

I can work with that. Anger was surprisingly for me the most prevalent emotion that I felt for at least the first year. I was so angry. I was angry at my mom, and then I felt guilt for feeling angry at my mom. I was angry at myself for not doing enough. I was angry at the world. I was angry at other mothers and daughters having coffee, like, how dare they? Like, everything made me feel so angry. And, um, like I mentioned before, I, I really struggled with my emotions and expressing them. And often it would come out and I'd yell at my partner and we'd get into arguments. And I'd— I remember so many times I'd storm out of the house, slam the door, go for an aggressive walk around the block. Like, I was I was really angry, and it probably wasn't very pleasant to live with at the time. But one thing that really helped me with the anger was car screaming. So I would get into my car, and I would blare music, and I would drive around at a slow speed, very safely— safety is paramount here— and I would just scream. Because we live in a society that doesn't really allow you to be angry. It's not seen as okay. And it is an emotion. It's a very normal and natural emotion, especially when you're grieving, and it needs to be expressed. So finding healthy ways to express that emotion is really important. So yeah, car screaming helped me a lot. I had— Sal mentioned journaling. I actually had a rage journal. So I would just scribble out all the angry thoughts and feelings that I had. Because again, it's a way of expressing it, so it's not staying stored in me and I'm not yelling at someone in the supermarket. Um, so if I'm getting it out on paper— like, I would not open that journal now. Like, I don't even want to know what's in there. I think it needs to be burnt one day. But yeah, anger is really normal. And also just allow yourself to feel it and just let yourself know that it's okay to be feeling that way. And yeah, finding healthy ways— boxing's really good.

Running.

I was doing a lot of running as well. Anything that's going to just get that out. I remember as well, my therapist at the time— so my mum's suicide was really complicated. She was in a DV relationship, a domestic violence relationship. So there was someone else involved with what happened to her. And I had a lot of anger towards another person, which obviously would not be helpful to express to them. And so I used to— she taught me this tool, which was like run around the block and imagine that— this is pretty, I don't know, it's pretty funny, but I imagine that person's face in a ball of glass, and every step I would take, it would smash the glass. And that was my way of processing the anger that I couldn't safely have towards them. So Yeah, there's a few, few little tools and tips there for you. But yeah, anger is very normal.

Well, what you're talking about is externalizing the anger. It's about getting it out of your body, you know, expelling it in one way, in some way. Those of you who are fans of Dead to Me on, uh, I think it's on Netflix, Christina Applegate, she does car screaming after. I don't know if you've seen it. After her divorce, she goes in the car, she cranks up the volume with like heavy metal music. And she just starts screaming in the car. And that's because she has children at home and that's her private space. So yeah, it's a thing.

It is a thing. And what are we trying to fund, see?

That's something that just came and went really quickly. And we don't have a lot of time, but I just want to acknowledge it. Sal, maybe you've got a few words about it before we break for the open conversation. But, Em, you said something about feeling angry about your friends who had moms. Like, how dare they have moms that they can go out with or have lunch with? And this is something we hear all the time in our community, how painful it is not just to see our friends having— getting to have a relationship with their moms when we can't, but also seeing them, in our perception, mistreat their moms or not appreciate them the way that we imagine we would appreciate our moms. So just, do you have any words Any suggestions or insights for anyone who might be feeling that way?

That your feelings are valid. It can be really triggering, and it can make you feel pretty angry. I remember I've been in, in quite a few situations where I felt like, this is so unfair. Do you not understand what you have? I think taking a step back and just limiting your interactions with that person for a while if you find that it's, it's triggering you, it's making you angry, or you just can't cope with the way that they're, they're being, or the way that they're, you know, express— if they are moaning about their mum, or if you are finding that you are feeling angry that people have, have their mum around still. Um, I think just honoring your emotions and letting yourself feel the anger. And Im, I know that's something that you've really, you really felt in the early days especially, didn't you? Like feeling like it was unfair and unjust that other people had their mum still.

I also remember, Sal, there was a day that you were at the beach and I got a message from you and you were eavesdropping on a mother. Oh, I think you were eavesdropping on 2 women who were together and one of them was moaning about their mum, and you were messaging me going, this is infuriating me. Like, she's— the way she's talking about her mum, she's got no idea what it's like, you know. She should be appreciative that her mum's here. I think her mum was coming to stay with her or something, and she was moaning about, um— but just, I think in that moment, having someone that you can express how you're feeling to that understands. So we kind of— I went, oh, that'd be awful. Like, just ignore her or move your towel to another spot. But having that grief buddy, especially that motherless daughter's buddy, uh, who you can talk to in that moment and they can just reassure you that, yeah, that's, that's really hard, and I think can be really helpful too.

Because I think that's all— sometimes that's all we need, right? Like that reassurance that it's okay to feel that way and that we're not alone. It's not just us that's feeling it, feeling that. Like looking at this chat, you know, you're really comforting and reassuring each other right now. You know, it's just knowing that, like, oh, okay, it's not me being weird, or it's okay to feel this. That was so helpful. I remember that day now, in that you've mentioned it. I was furious.

Well, women, I cannot thank you enough for being here with us today. We move now into— we'll stop the recording in a moment. We move now into just It's an open conversation where we all go on the screen together and we just, you know, people raise their hands, things they want to share, things they want to say, things they want to ask. You're absolutely welcome to stay for it if you'd like. If you can't, we understand. We're grateful for the time you gave us. But before you go, I want to remind everybody that Good Morning is available in the US. It's published in Australia, but you can order it online and I highly recommend it. And I just wanted to ask what's next for the two of you? What have you got in the works?

Um, we are working on a membership so we can bring our community together in a more intimate way. Um, we've also got lots of workshops and lots of speaking in Australia this year. So we're going to be at the Byron Writers Festival in Byron Bay in August, which is very exciting. And we're about to launch season, I want to say 8, or is it 8? Season 8 of our podcast in late February. We've got some incredible guests, um, we're covering some incredible topics, um, so definitely tune in, guys. If you haven't listened to the pod before, we're going to be talking about things like how grief can impact your brain, um, how to cope when your relationships change, uh, coping with grief at work. So yeah, we've got some really juicy topics and amazing guests. Have we got anything else on the going? I mean, that's quite a lot, isn't it?

Like to keep ourselves busy. Um, Libby has asked if we've got anything in Melbourne. We would definitely love to come to Melbourne to do an event, and I think it's probably on the cards this year. What do you think, Sal?

It needs to happen for sure. Yeah, I think it will be. Yeah.

Spoiler alert, we're— 3 of us are talking about maybe a Motherless Daughters retreat in Australia in 2025. 2024, we're moving to the UK, maybe 2025 in Australia. We've got— definitely got that in our back pocket. Thank you both so much. So, so much. Sally Douglas and Imogen Karn of Good Morning. I'm Hope Edelman, author of Motherless Daughters, founder at motherlessdaughters.com, and I'll look forward to seeing all of you again in April at the next Hour of Hope.

Thank you so much for having us, Hope. And thank you everyone. It's been, yeah, really special to share this time with you all.