104 : Boxing Things Up Meditation

For this episode, I want to share with you this meditation that I do in my coaching sessions with other grieving moms.

It is called ‘Boxing Things Up Meditation’ because we somewhat box our thoughts and then we go to a happy place after that.

This is not ignoring or putting them away, but it is to allow yourself to deal with them when you are ready.

Today is the 2nd day of my  Relief in Grief . This is my 3- day workshop that is so fun and I love getting together with the moms who join.We spend time learning, coaching, and talking. It’s never too late to join. Replays are available. You will also get the first access to a new program I am launching soon, The LIFE AFTER CHILD LOSS PROGRAM + COACHING.To register, go to www.reliefingriefsupportgroup.com

If you want more tools to help you, I have a workshop called Stop Talking Start Feeling, it’s a workshop that dives into emotions, what they are, and how you can begin to feel and process them and get them out of your body instead of stuffing them down. It also goes specifically into processing and releasing the emotions of guilt and sadness. You can get access to this workshop and all the extra things I have in there for only $27. Go to www.meganhillukka.com/workshop to check it out. 

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

103: Post Traumatic Growth

Episode Pointers:

• Post Traumatic Growth - It is positive change experienced as a result of the struggle with a major life crisis or a traumatic event. 

5 General Areas of Post Traumatic Growth:

1. Develop a sense that new opportunities have emerged from the struggle.

2. Change in relationships with others.

3. Change is an increased sense of one’s own strength – “If I lived through that, I can face anything”.

4. Have a greater appreciation for life in general.

5. Deepening in spiritual or religious domain.                                                                                        

                                                                 (Source : https://ptgi.uncc.edu/what-is-ptg/)

•  It’s very important to know that not everyone is going to experience post traumatic growth. And if you don’t want to, this is your choice. But I want to encourage you, that just because not everyone experiences it, doesn’t mean that has to be you. 

• I often use this analogy of building a house. When grief comes into your life, your whole house, foundation, everything is shattered. Everything falls apart around you. 

• With Post Traumatic Growth, you have the opportunity to build a more amazing, stronger, more beautiful house. The house might have some cracks, those are like the scars that you have from the things you have experienced, but with scars comes so much strength. 

• But here’s the thing, you have to do the work. Just like building a house is a lot of work. You cannot have that life you want without diving deep into your grief, your thoughts, your emotions, and holding space for all of them without judgement.  

• You get to make this choice. You get to decide.

- What do you want in your life?

- What do you want in your future? 

- Do you want to learn how to live again?

- Do you want to learn from this experience and find some gifts and lessons in it?    

   Or not?

- What do you want?

Struggling with the emotions of anger, guilt, sadness, and anxiety after the death of your child? Come join me and other grieving mothers in a 3-day workshop, Relief in Grief to help you learn how to process the emotions and thoughts that come with grief. This will be on July 14th, 15th, and 16th. You do not need to do this alone, get on the waitlist at www.reliefingriefsupportgroup.com

If you want more tools to help you, I have a workshop called Stop Talking Start Feeling, it’s a workshop that dives into emotions, what they are, and how you can begin to feel and process them and get them out of your body instead of stuffing them down. It also goes specifically into processing and releasing the emotions of guilt and sadness. You can get access to this workshop and all the extra things I have in there for only $27. Go to www.meganhillukka.com/workshop to check it out. 

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

102: Learning to Love Yourself

Episode Pointers:

• Learning to love yourself is not something that happens overnight, but it’s so important.If you want to love others well, you have to learn to love yourself first.

• When you learn to love yourself, you can take care of yourself.You can give love to others without depleting yourself. 

• Oftentimes, we don’t have much compassion for anyone else when we are hurting.The pain is so overwhelming that we can’t connect and get resentful towards others.

• Working with moms has shown me that many are walking around with beliefs like:

- You don’t deserve to be happy.

- You are bad.

- You are not good enough,

- You don’t deserve anything good in your life. 

             These kinds of beliefs are the lens through which you look at your life through.

• When you have these beliefs, you see things differently than if you were looking through a lens of compassion and love for yourself. Looking through different lenses can totally change how you tell your story. ( EP 51 : What Story Are You Telling?)

Ways in Loving Yourself:

1. Loving yourself includes looking through the lens with compassion and understanding that you would give to others in your life if they were going through a similar situation. 

2. Noticing the words that go through your mind as you berate yourself and deciding that you can talk to yourself in a way that you would talk to a friend. 

• Learning to be comfortable with who you are, and loving yourself anyway is a beautiful thing, not a selfish thing.

• When you come from a place of love within yourself, it’s easier to give that love to everyone else around you.

Recommended Book : The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown

Struggling with the emotions of anger, guilt, sadness, and anxiety after the death of your child? Come join me and other grieving mothers in a 3-day workshop, Relief in Grief to help you learn how to process the emotions and thoughts that come with grief. This will be on July 14th, 15th, and 16th. You do not need to do this alone, get on the waitlist at www.reliefingriefsupportgroup.com

If you want more tools to help you, I have a workshop called Stop Talking Start Feeling, it’s a workshop that dives into emotions, what they are, and how you can begin to feel and process them and get them out of your body instead of stuffing them down. It also goes specifically into processing and releasing the emotions of guilt and sadness. You can get access to this workshop and all the extra things I have in there for only $27. Go to www.meganhillukka.com/workshop to check it out. 

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.

101: Using Colors with Mehnaz Khan

Mehnaz Khan is an Artist and a Color Psychology Specialist.  In today’s episode,she will share how colors affect the way we feel and the way we think.

Episode Pointers :

• Everything in the environment like every single element of a painting, a decor, or texture impacts the subconscious mind.

• Colors are not only visual stimuli but they can impact you both on a psychological and emotional level.

• Every time a color is processed in your mind, there are some chemical changes happening in your body.This why you can use colors to improve your productivity to cope with everyday anxiety, to enhance the quality of your sleep, and so much more.

• This is not going to fix the grief 100% because you have to do the internal work but this is a very it's a great supporting mechanism.

• Your home should reflect who you are.

• You need all the colors. So, when we create a monochromatic space or neutral space, you're living in one state of emotion which is not natural to human beings.

• Everything in the environment is a reflection of an internal.

• These colors are good at inducing sleep : light blue, light green, light pink.

• These colors energizes you : orange and yellow

Reach out to her through her :

Website : www.mehnazkhanstudio.com

Facebook: Mehnaz Khan Studio
Instagram :  Mehnaz Khan Studio

Her Favorite Book:
Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss

Struggling with the emotions of anger, guilt, sadness, and anxiety after the death of your child? Come join me and other grieving mothers in a 3-day workshop, Relief in Grief to help you learn how to process the emotions and thoughts that come with grief. This will be on July 14th, 15th, and 16th.You do not need to do this alone, get on the waitlist at www.reliefingriefsupportgroup.com

If you want more tools to help you, I have a workshop called Stop Talking Start Feeling, it’s a workshop that dives into emotions, what they are, and how you can begin to feel and process them and get them out of your body instead of stuffing them down. It also goes specifically into processing and releasing the emotions of guilt and sadness. You can get access to this workshop and all the extra things I have in there for only $27. Go to www.meganhillukka.com/workshop to check it out. 

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.

100: Who Am I?

“Who Am I?” is one of the sections of my  Life After Child Loss Program. It is a part of my C.A.R.R.Y.ing Grief Framework where the Y stands for You and learning to love yourself again. 

3 Parts of Who Am I?:

1. Who Was I?

• The person we were, died the day our child died. You cannot continue to be the person you were when you experience the death of your child. You are forever changed.

• The people in our lives have to grieve the loss of you as you were, and you also have to grieve that person.

• Take time to grieve who you were. Notice what were your strengths and weaknesses before your child died, because those are often magnified afterward.

2. Who You Are Now?

• You might feel that you are in a place of limbo, a no man’s land. Your world has turned upside down, and you hate who you have become. 

• You do not need to do this all alone. Find help and support and reach out to those you love to help you as well. 

•  Notice how you can begin to help yourself, giving yourself compassion, and then taking little steps forward to help yourself process the grief and pain you are experiencing. Learning why you are the way you are, without judgment. 

• Recognize that your grief journey is your own, and you do not need to compare it to anyone else's experience.

• Give yourself the permission to grieve in your own way that gets you to where you want to go.

3. Who Do You Want To Be? 

• It’s so hard to think about the future without your child by your side. If you believe so deeply that you are not deserving of a beautiful life because your child can’t live anyone, then it can be an incredibly difficult thing to think about.

•  If you don’t take a moment to think about where you want to go in your life or who you want to become, you will just keep plodding away and wake up one day and realize that 10 years have gone by in your life and nothing has changed. 

• Looking at who you want to be, gives you a goal post. Setting the goal post ahead of you gives you a direction to go and an idea of the steps you want to take.

• Start taking the little steps now towards that person, so that you will be that person because you are beginning to think like that person and becoming that person.

Diving into this question “Who Am I? is a very personal one. One of exploration, learning, and being super honest with yourself. You cannot dive into this question without being honest with yourself which can be so hard to do! You go this, my friend.

For the announcement of my 100th Podcast Episode + Birthday Giveaway, go to Grieving Moms Coaching and Community FB Page. FB live will happen at 2 pm CST.

Struggling with the emotions of anger, guilt, sadness, and anxiety after the death of your child? Come join me and other grieving mothers in a 3-day workshop, Relief in Grief to help you learn how to process the emotions and thoughts that come with grief. This will be on July 14th, 15th, and 16th. You do not need to do this alone, get on the waitlist 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

99 : Suffering is Optional- Byron Katie and The Work

Episode Pointers:

• Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. The suffering comes in, when we resist what is. Whether it’s the emotion, the circumstance, the relationship, what is. The resistance brings suffering. 

Byron Katie’s 4 questions in “The Work”:

•  Go through a situation in your life that frustrated you or caused you a lot of stress.

•  Replay that as if you were there again, and pay attention to what was causing you the most stress or frustration. 

• Journal this out, and notice the thought that caused you the most stress.

•  Be as childish and judgey as possible  so that you can get clear answers of what was actually happening.

• Apply these 4 questions below

1. Is it true?

• Sometimes we don’t realize we are even thinking something even though we don’t believe it’s true. When you start to question, you can see how silly it is that you are thinking it, because you don’t actually believe it to be true. 

1. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?

• Taking a moment to think about and truly ponder if it’s absolutely true, gives you another chance to see if you are being honest and true with yourself.

1. How do you react, and what happens when you believe that thought?

• This is all about noticing how this thought makes you feel and act. What emotions come up for you? How do you treat those around you? How do you treat yourself? How do you feel that emotion in your body? How might you start to try to numb to hide that emotion?

1. Who would you be without that thought?
   
   - It always comes back to your identity, and who you are. Who do you believe yourself to be, and why do you keep holding on to a thought?

- Katie says to go back to the scenario and replay it again in your mind, and replay it without that thought and notice what happens. Ask yourself, who or what would you be without that thought? How would you treat others? How would you treat yourself? How would you feel without that thought? Drop all the judgements you have.

• The whole purpose of The work, and of all the work that I do, is not to judge or try to completely change your thoughts or try to stop yourself from thinking, but to bring awareness to what’s going on inside of you, of the resistance that you may have, and then giving you tools to choose thoughts and actions that align with who you want to be and how you want to live. 

• This gives you freedom and choice, and gives you the ability to choose your thoughts instead of just always having them on autopilot without even realizing what’s going through your mind.

Recommended Book:  Loving What Is by  Byron Katie

Byron Katie’s Website : www.thework.com

If you want to join my  100th podcast episode + birthday giveaway, please check the full details on www.meganhillukka.com/giveaway. I’m giving away some products that I’ve found very helpful and useful on my grief journey including some books, affirmation cards, and a journal, as well as some spots in my next Relief in Grief workshop (coming up in July), some spots to my Life After Child Loss Program, and a free 1:1 coaching call with me. 

Struggling with the emotions of anger, guilt, sadness, and anxiety after the death of your child? Come join me and other grieving mothers in a 3-day workshop, Relief in Grief to help you learn how to process the emotions and thoughts that come with grief. This will be on July 14th, 15th, and 16th. You do not need to do this alone, get on the waitlist 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

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.

98: The Decisions You Make with KatRINA Ubell

Episode Pointers :

•  When we make decisions, we make them from the information that we have at the time. Our intention is to make a good decision. 

• On a subconscious level, we want to punish ourselves for the results that we didn't want. It’s easy for us to blame ourselves, or somebody or something

•  If we hold onto guilt that we did something wrong, then we just continue to punish ourselves and sometimes we think we deserve that. 

• You can let that guilt go and let it all be love.

•  Nobody needs to be in pain, nobody needs to be punished. 

•  Clean Pain helps you to move you forward. Dirty Pain keeps you stuck.

•  Grief is patient, it will wait for you.

• It's your thoughts about it that makes it so bad. It’s our thinking that's creating so much of the pain.

• It is possible that it was supposed to be this way and it was always going to be this way. If someone's life is shorter, that can just bring us so much peace.

•  Only a coach can truly hold space and let you process what's going on because most people just run the other way when we talk about emotions.

• Find people or a community who have the same experience as you. Just knowing that you've got this crew of people who will get it no matter what you say is so helpful. They're on your side and they support you.

Her Recommended Books:

• An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken

You can contact her through the following:

• Website : www.katrinaubellmd.com

• Instagram: @coachkatrinaubellmd

• Facebook : www.facebook.com/katrinaubellmd

If you want more tools to help you, I have a workshop called Stop Talking Start Feeling, it’s a workshop that dives into emotions, what they are, and how you can begin to feel and process them and get them out of your body instead of stuffing them down. It also goes specifically into processing and releasing the emotions of guilt and sadness. You can get access to this workshop and all the extra things I have in there for only $27. Go to www.meganhillukka.com/workshop to check it out. 

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.

97 : The Finality and Acceptance of Death

Episode Pointers:

• Acceptance is something that seems so hard to be okay with. You know the fact that your child died and yet something in you fights this reality. Because you don’t want to believe it. And maybe if you keep fighting it, it means it didn’t happen or it’s not true.

• You never have to accept anything. You don’t have to accept that your child died. You don’t have to accept that they are not here. You can fight the rest of your life if you want. 

• However,fighting and not wanting to accept the rest of your life seems so exhausting and causes so much suffering.

• When you accept the reality, you can begin to heal and do the work.

• Acceptance does not mean you have to be okay with the fact that it happened, or that you have to be okay with how it happened. For me, the beginning of acceptance means that you acknowledge that this did happen, and you cannot change it.

• Acceptance doesn’t have to mean that you are done grieving, and moving on with your life. It can actually mean that you are accepting that you will grieve the rest of your life, that you will miss them forever, and that you are willing to do the work of living fully while grieving.

• You do not have to suffer and resist everything in your life. It’s when you let go of the resistance of what is, that you can begin to make changes that help you.

• Acceptance will take a whole lot of weight off of your shoulders, and give you a peace to build your life bigger around your grief. 

If you want to join my  100th podcast episode + birthday giveaway, please check the full details on www.meganhillukka.com/giveaway. I’m giving away some products that I’ve found very helpful and useful on my grief journey including some books, affirmation cards, and a journal, as well as some spots in my next Relief in Grief workshop (coming up in July), some spots to my Life After Child Loss Program, and a free 1:1 coaching call with me. 

If you want more tools to help you, I have a workshop called Stop Talking Start Feeling, it’s a workshop that dives into emotions, what they are, and how you can begin to feel and process them and get them out of your body instead of stuffing them down. It also goes specifically into processing and releasing the emotions of guilt and sadness. You can get access to this workshop and all the extra things I have in there for only $27. Go to www.meganhillukka.com/workshop to check it out. 

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