53: Building Your Support System

As a grieving person, it’s exhausting to be alive. It’s exhausting every single day. And then there are people around us who don’t understand or who don’t say the right things or don’t act the right way and that adds another layer of pain. It’s easy to think that everyone around you is stupid and should be doing better. That everyone around you should do better and know exactly what to do. It’s easy to get angry, hurt, mad, and begin to separate yourself from those who you thought would be good support for you because they said something that hurt you deeply. Even though you are grieving and you are the one in pain, it’s still up to you to build your support system around you.

-Building your support system is up to you

-Allow others to help in the way that they can

-4 different types of support people

-Notice who is helping instead of who is not

-Ideas of how to find support if you don’t have any in your life

Links to any resources:

It’s here again! Relief in Grief Retreat! This is a chance for you to connect with other grieving moms who are looking for support and tools to navigate the difficult journey of grief. If you are feeling hopeless and like things are never going to get better I want to encourage you to give this a try. It’s free and I promise there is nothing like this out there. I will do coaching, meditations, thought work, and also teaching about grief. You will get to be a part of this amazing experience with other moms who have also lost a child. I truly believe if you show up and do the meditations with me, and learn the tools I’m teaching you will start to feel a shift and change in your grief. This is for you if you are looking for hope, but don’t know where to turn. This is for you if you are feeling stuck and are starting to feel like this is just the way it’s going to be the rest of your life. Friend- there is so much more for you. Please come join me in Relief in Grief! To learn more about this go to www.reliefingriefsupportgroup.com 

This starts on July 28th, it’s so much more than a support group. You truly don’t want to miss this. Save your spot for free at www.reliefingriefsupportgroup.com 

If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community

52: Pregnancy After Loss with Amy Watson

Pregnancy after loss can be a terrifying experience. The worries and fears that come up after you know the possibility of losing another child is a real thing are very real. So I wanted to talk with Amy about this experience, and how we can support ourselves through this experience. Having a baby after loss is a beautiful thing, but it can also be hard.

-Who is Amy and how did you come to know grief?

-How can this kind of pregnancy change after adding and utilizing tools to support?

-Allowing the experiences and emotions such as anxiety to be there without judging them

Links to Amy’s Accounts:

Instagram: Amy Smooth Stones Coaching

Facebook : Smooth Stones Coaching

Her Recommended Book: Pregnancy Brain by Parijat Deshpande

If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community

Some links may contain affiliate links in which I receive a small commission if you decide to purchase something, this helps support the grief work I'm doing.

51: What Story Are You Telling

The way we tell our story is a powerful thing. We can tell our story with shame, resentment, guilt, and where we keep beating ourselves up. Or we can tell our story with love, compassion, and kindness for ourselves. In this episode, I’m telling my story of Aria’s death from 3 different perspectives- Judgement, facts, compassion for myself.

If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community

50: Why You Should Invest in Your Mental Health

Right now, you cannot buy anything from me. I have nothing to sell you at this moment. So I wanted to talk about investing in yourself and why I believe you need to be investing in your mental health.

Truly, your mental well-being is a gift. But it’s also something that if you want to, you can invest in yourself the time, money, and energy to supporting and caring for so that you have the energy to take care of your family. There is nothing wrong with you. God made you exactly how you are supposed to be, and I believe he has also given us these tools to support ourselves and process our emotions. 

-Free vs. Paid ways of supporting yourself in your grief

-How mental well-being affects every part of your life

-Why everything shouldn’t be free

-How mental health is a gift, but also something that we can support and work towards

 If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community

49: Getting in Tune With Your Emotion

Looking inside ourselves and beginning to feel our emotions is one of the most difficult things we can do.

We are driven by our emotions. Everything we do is because we feel a certain emotion. As a society we have been taught that emotions are fluffy, emotions are bad, emotions are a sign of weakness. But I believe that emotions are a gift that we have been given to process and release the energy of our experiences from our bodies.

Our emotions also help us act, not act, respond, and do things in the world. Truly, our emotions are a blessing.

-How I started becoming aware of my emotions

-Ways to think of emotions that make them easier to process

-Letting go of judgment

-Exercise to feel the emotion on demand

If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community

48: Generational Trauma

I’ve been meaning to do an episode on generational trauma for a while, and I wanted to do it now, with all the discussion around racism and systemic racism. I believe the more we can listen and understand, the more compassion we can have for each other. This is just a small piece of what I’m learning and understand. I’m focusing this mainly on grief, but this understanding of generational trauma helps to show how we are affected by the events that happened in our past.

-What is generational trauma?

-Description of an IG photo by Ayan Mukherjee (Here’s the link to check it out https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwmp1nRA7Ow/)

-How I began to learn the mother affects her children

-My story with my children

-Is it still selfish to care for yourself?

To join Life After Child Loss 6 week group coaching program go to

www.lifeafterchildlosscoaching.com 

If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community

47: An Honest Conversation With a Grieving Mother

In this episode, Marcy Larson, another grieving mother comes to share her story of loss, and how she’s learning to navigate grief. This is a lifelong journey we all face, and it’s a process. Marcy is so open and vulnerable with how her grief is a part of her every day, and how Andy is still a very big part of her life.

-Marcy’s Story as Andy’s Mom

-How grief changes you

-Who am I after loss, and how do we come to terms with that

-Marcy’s take on finding life after loss

-A favorite memory of Andy

You can follow along with Marcy’s journey here:

Website: www.andysmom.com

Facebook: Always Andy’s Mom

Instagram: Always Andy’s Mom

Her Recommended Book : Rare Bird by Anna Whiston-Donaldson

If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community

Some links may contain affiliate links in which I receive a small commission if you decide to purchase something, this helps support the grief work I'm doing.

46: How I Became A Grief Coach

Because it’s May, and Aria died in May- I want to share my story again and a little bit about my journey to become a grief coach.

-Very quick version of a very long story

-My journey through grief and wanting to help others

-As a grief coach, what’s important for me to do

When my daughter Aria died suddenly 4 years ago, I wondered if my life was over. My heart was shattered into a million pieces. How was I supposed to go on without such an important person in my life? How can I breathe when I'm literally suffocating and drowning? It was difficult to describe my pain; it was an endless feeling of hopelessness.

I carried sharp, intense grief for years. I felt as if I failed my daughter as her mother, and was terrified it would affect my other children as well. Everything felt so bleak and empty. What was the point and purpose of life?

It's difficult to describe this pain to someone who doesn't understand the depth and duration of child loss. There is something about this connection among us as grieving mothers, that we can speak without words.

If you are a grieving mother, and looking for connection, hope, and ways to move forward after the death of a child, join me in 3 days of grief support. In this space, you will find support, encouragement, and deep knowing amongst other grieving mothers.

Join to save your spot, go to www.reliefingriefsupportgroup.com. Again, in these 3 days, we are going to be walking through How everyone grieves differently, Emotions and stages of grief, and noticing thoughts patterns and emotions that come up for you in your grief journey. To join go to www.reliefingriefsupportgroup.com

If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community