Just because your child dies, doesn’t give you a free pass from other things happening. It seems like it should, but for some reason, crap can still happen. Hard things can still happen. I had this thought after Aria died that nothing more can happen because I’ve been through the worst. But the truth is, bad things can continue to happen. Not only do they continue to happen, but if they keep happening over and over again, you can start to feel really weighed down and like you just want to give up.

I wanted to share this all with you, for one, to understand more about what is happening in your body if you’re experiencing this kind of this, but also for you to know that it’s not that you aren’t trying hard enough or not relaxing enough.

There’s nothing you can do logically to calm your body down when your mind is continuing to perceive a threat. So it’s not that you aren’t thinking good enough or aren’t doing enough, it’s just this little spot in your processor that’s got a little bit of a fuzzy read on the situation. It’s jammed. And when you clear that, your body no longer needs to be on alert and jumping at every situation.

This episode was inspired by a conversation I had with a mom in Grieving Moms Haven. She was just talking about how tired she is. How she’s so exhausted of grieving and so tired of the pain. So tired of feeling this way. She doesn’t want to do anything more. She just feels exhausted beyond belief.

And I knew exactly what she was talking about. This exhaustion is just beyond belief. But she shared with me, that she was in Grieving Moms Haven to have a place of accountability, a place to process and do the things that will support her on her grief journey when she’s just so tired she doesn’t want to do anything.

We talked with Daniel - from the United Kingdom, a father who experienced with her wife three miscarriages and lost their first-born daughter, Isla-Rose, before having their first-born son - Jaxson.

Dan shared that Isla-Rose was born prematurely at twenty-three weeks and six days. Isla-Rose only spent 18 days in the hospital before she passed away. Isla-Rose as Dan’s first-born child is the reason, he can call himself a father.

Encouraged by his wife, Dan created an Instagram account where he can share his experiences. Put out all his thoughts with grief and loss. Being able to help the dads, partners, and boyfriends who reach out to him with the same experiences of grief all around the world.

Sarah Cox experienced having three living kids and has lost three children due to chemical pregnancy, early miscarriage, and stillborn. A whole lot of grief that she’s gone through with the losses. Jasmine was the most hard-hitting pain for her among her early losses.

Founding the Project Finding Your Rainbow, It’s like finding your rainbow after the storm.  Over two and a half years now, the project has already shared 250 unique stories from all over the globe.

One thing I haven’t really touched on in the podcast yet is physical pain and health problems after your child dies. The absolute stress of what you are experiencing and going through absolutely affects not only your mental and emotional state but your physical state as well. I was so sick so many times after Aria died. My immune system was just not there because my body was under so much stress.

Here’s why making time to grieve is important. Imagine right now you are carrying around a heavy suitcase. It’s always there, and you are busy surviving every moment, and inside the suitcase, there might be things like anxiety, trauma, terror, inability to sleep, isolation, loneliness, overeating, not eating, anger towards anyone and everyone, health issues, not wanting to live. All these things can live inside the suitcase. And you’re carrying them around 24/7. 

When you don’t take the time to grieve, you just keep constantly carrying these things around, thinking that you don’t have the time, so you just gotta keep doing what you're doing, that maybe will time these things will get lighter and easier and maybe someday in the future, you will have more time to take care of yourself.

That’s a huge lie. The only time is now. There is no time in the future. If you’re not making it now, you’re not going to make it in the future. And as I always say, time does nothing. In twenty years, you’ll open that suitcase up and there they all will still be, anxiety, trauma, fear, panic, inability to sleep, health issues, overeating, keeping busy, whatever they are. Or maybe you’re taking medication now to manage them, but they are still a part of your life.

So, what if you made time for your grief? What if you sat down with that suitcase, and began lifting out the things inside of it? Taking care of them. Clearing them. Processing them. You still have to carry the suitcase of grief around for the rest of your life. This is something all of us whose child has died will do, but you can make the suitcase so much lighter. As you clear trauma, all sudden the suitcase is lighter, and you have more energy because you’re not trying to manage triggers all day long. You’re body can finally relax because it’s not alert waiting for the next threat and shoe to drop. Then you clear up your sleep, and you finally get a restful night of sleep for the first time since your child died, and you can’t believe how tired you’ve been because you have only been sleeping 3 hours or less a night. But now, that weight of that exhaustion disappears because you’ve taken the time to process your grief and get your body and mind in a place where they can fall asleep and stay asleep peacefully without medication or stress.

Dr. Jon shared his perspective on grief and his experiences. Talking about the type of how he’s looking at grief is so different than what most people would hear or see anywhere.

We also talked about how it's very common that if you are hurting emotionally, you go through a process that will enable you to not be hurting so much. And this common process is certainly a long and painful one.