5: Leyden’s birthday, blank checks, and emotional fitness

Hello, friends, and welcome to Grief Guts and Green Smoothies. I am your host, Melissa Dugalecki, and I am so excited to be here with you all to chat about ways in which we can all get through different adversities, challenges, and loss, and how getting outside of our comfort zone and maybe having a green smoothie or two can help us do so. Where we cover different topics ranging from interviews to. To recipes, to sharing my own stories of my grief journey and the loss of my daughter, Layden. And I'm honored to be able to share her light in hopes of helping you spread yours. Now let's dive in. Hi, friends, and welcome back to Grief Guts and Green Smoothies. My name is Melissa Dugalecki. I'm excited to chat with you about all things related to the ways we navigate our different journeys, whether it be grief or just a regular life journey, which can bring its own challenges and heartaches as well. Here we talk about how getting vulnerable, stepping outside of our comfort zones, and touching some of the less comfortable stuff will produce growth and really allow us to transform into the very best versions of ourselves. On today's episode, I share what Laden's birthday, being busy, and blank checks have in common. So let's dive in. So my daughter Layden would be 5 on February 20, and this time of year, I always feel it really coming to the surface. When February hit, I felt what reminded me of nesting when I was pregnant. So any other moms out there or moms to be may be able to identify with that feeling of just wanting to have, you know, the baseboards clean and to have all the laundry done and, you know, you're ready for whatever may come your way. Everything is organized, and it brought this kind of reminder of the emptiness, you know, that while intuitively I feel like a mom and I feel laid in, I don't have that child to actively care for and you know, whose birthday to celebrate. And so it's really normal in grief or really any trauma to feel energies coming to the surface around different milestones. So if you've experienced that, there's nothing wrong with you. It's very normal. And it's really important to be aware of it now. What's also important to know is that it manifests and it looks different for all of us. So while I share my experience and the experiences of others, they all vary. And what matters is having that awareness to then choose what authentically aligns with what we need, what's going to serve us well. So as Layden's birthday approaches, I feel that increased sense of angst and a little bit of that eggshell feeling. I use the term emotional fitness a lot in my life coaching. And emotional fitness, just like physical fitness, you have to pour energy into building your strength, right? In your physical fitness. We build it up at the gym, and your emotional fitness, you can build it up in other ways. I very much view life coaching with clients similar to having a personal trainer work with clients treating injury. We're not looking back at the past as much, of course, you need to know that as you plan for how to move forward. You know, it's not medical intervention, but it's really setting goals, creating strategies, and finding ways that work best for each of us, because each of us are going to respond differently to physical fitness, and we're each going to respond differently to emotional fitness. So building your emotional fitness around whatever you're managing is really important to navigating it through. And because I've had some time, laden would be five. So she passed away in June of 2014. I've really built that capacity, right, that emotional muscle to manage these milestones. It doesn't make it easy, right? It just makes it possible. With her birthday coming, I found that I was making myself very, very busy. Like, very, very busy. As in this past Saturday, I Left at about 5am I ran a lot of miles. I taught a few yoga classes, I took a class. I did some work for my business, met a friend for dinner, managed to have to stop to do a little bit of shopping, which I very rarely, very, very rarely do. And before I knew it, it was 18 hours before I got home from leaving. So I say cue. I busied myself from the grief. But what I've learned in grief is that grief is patient. It's going to wait, right? Grief is not going to just disappear. It refuses to be ignored. I think grief is very stubborn. And that's a lot. That's a lot. Like many other challenges that we face, whether it's, you know, loss, pain, hurt, emptiness, fear, insecurity, loneliness, all of these things that grief is an intense manifestation of at a less intense level, we all experience these at different days. So the thing is, is that these challenges, they don't go away. So as much as we busy ourselves and try to avoid it, they're just there waiting for us. And I have found four things to be really helpful in getting through these heightened times of challenge. And the first is a reminder. As hard as it is in any given moment, it will pass. Truly, it will pass. It doesn't make it Easy, right? It doesn't make it quick, it doesn't make it enjoyable. It just makes it possible. And I believe that's why once we get through these milestones, once. I do not believe grief gets easier. I do not believe it's year after year that actually makes it easier. I believe we strengthen our trust with knowing we can get through it. We strengthen our faith in that pain, the knots, the nausea, the debilitating grief, that it will pass. So it's not so much that loss gets easier, it's that we've strengthened our emotional fitness, our trust, our understanding, and how it passes. The second strategy is accepting it is less exhausting than resisting it. And I see this with a lot of the clients I work with. I see it in myself. I have to be aware of it. It's very human that we will run in circles expending energy. Literally just picture running in circles, running in circles, running in circles, running in circles, avoiding and trying to get away from whatever's in the center, whatever's at the core. When we are finally ready to stop expelling and spending energy in ways that are avoiding or distract or busying. And we accept, we acknowledge and we let in whatever we're dealing with and we can face it and confront it, even if it's just a little bit ahead of time. It's not ever a one shot deal in grief, right? It's a progression. Well, that's a lot less exhausting than all the energy we spend running in circles. Again, it doesn't make it easy, but it makes it possible. So the third strategy is in terms of getting through these things, and I don't know if it's even so much a strategy as much as a reminder is that grief or challenges, they're not a blank check to be a jerk. And I don't want to sound cold hearted here. There have definitely been times I've been a jerk and I'm sure there will be more in my future. Luckily, I've become really good at honestly apologizing. But grief and challenge, a lot of times, I see many people carry it as an entitlement to kind of be a little bit of a jerk and to have expectations of others to, you know, accept less than kind behavior. It doesn't mean we're always happy in every moment. It doesn't mean that you have to put on a mask, right? But I don't have the right to go and be rude or mean or condescending or hurtful to other people. Because when we do that, what we're actually doing is we're just taking our pain and we're projecting it, right, or we're deflecting it. We're trying to take that energy of pain and put it elsewhere. And that's not a productive way to manage our grief. And it's not a fair way to move through our journeys and have integrity with our energy. So what we want to do again is not resisting it. And to accept that our capacity during these times is going to be less. We probably have to say no a little bit more. But know that we're doing it out of love. We probably have to take a little bit off of our loads, a little bit off of our to do list. Right? But know that that's self love and that's also being honest and true to other people and making sure that we give them what we can give them. If we don't have a lot to give them, well, then maybe that's not the data. Plan something that feels a little bit too overwhelming. So it's not a blank check to be a jerk. We don't just get to go around lashing out on people or expect others to, for this prolonged period of time, cater to our difficulty. You know, at the end of the day, it's got to come from us. We've got to do it. Doesn't make it easy. I know. Believe me, I've been in the trenches. I still am there. It just makes it possible. And the last thing is a reminder that all of these moments, these milestones, these heightened times of challenge, well, they can be an opportunity to strengthen our relationships with ourselves, right? By knowing our capacity, by building that emotional fitness, by finding acceptance and building that trust in things that will pass. And if we're lucky, it's an opportunity to strengthen our relationships with others. To have those difficult, honest conversations, to ask for what you need. Maybe to apologize, to lead with love, to be vulnerable, to be open. All of these different things that again, they're not always comfortable, but they are possible, they are productive and they are darn powerful. So I encourage you in whatever you are carrying, whether it's grief specifically or just some other challenge, pain, hurt, loss, fear, emptiness, loneliness. To try and apply these reminders, right? Apply these reminders to yourself. Maybe these little mantras we can call them and allow them to offer you some support during the challenging times. Notice when these milestones are approaching. For me, it's Layden's birthday. Recognize what our avoidance technique may be, whether it's being busy, turning to something else. And recognize that we don't have blank checks to lash out on the world, but we do have an unwelcomed responsibility and an unwelcomed opportunity to channel the energy of our challenges into places of love and growth. And that is my wish for you. I will always say it is not easy but it is possible and it is powerful and you deserve to employ the supports and the strategies you need to be able to achieve that. And I am certainly rooting you all along in your own journeys. Thank you all for tuning in to Grief Guts and Green Smoothies and allowing me to share Layden's Light in ways that may help you in your own journeys. I encourage you to keep learning to stay curious. Get in touch I love Instagram. You can find me at gutsngrief or you can catch me on my website@griefandguts.com I would love to chat with you, hear your story and see how ours can align moving forward. Enjoy your day, stay strong and keep on moving.