Stepping stones
Each moment through the pain of grief is a stepping stone, taken breath by breath. There is no speeding through the process and if you try to cheat it, you will at some point be thrust back again into the eye of the storm.
Grief recovery can’t be hurried or bargained with. It is what it is and will do what it needs to until your wound is no longer as open as it once was. With a physical injury you keep it clean so it doesn’t get septic and gradually the skin heals over and a scar marks its place on your body. A symbol etched in flesh of a battle overcome.
Emotional healing is the same. Doing the grief work while the pain is raw and real allows the psyche to stitch itself back together with nothing hidden and left to fester. There will be emotional scar tissue, and we are never the same again.
But life will embrace us once more and move us down the stream to happier times, even if we experience them as bittersweet.
Joy and sadness can and do, co-exist.
Such is the marriage of life and death.
ROAD TO RECOVERY
My Brave New Girl podcast guest this week is Kirsten Wallentin, who lost her husband to Motor Neuron Disease. She and her two young girls went through grief recovery and now she helps others on their own grief journeys.
Kirsten Wallentin is a certified Advanced Grief Recovery Method Specialist and author of the book “When Dad Dies”. In 2016 her husband was diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease for which life expectancy is 2-3 years. Her husband passed away only 18 months later leaving Kirsten a widow with two young daughters.
In the beginning, her children were frightened as they heard people would die from Covid – and after losing their father, they were worried if she could get sick and die as well. As a family they chose to come & live in UK. It has given them chance to face their grief more fully.
Kirsten had a calm, happy childhood with lots of friends, and felt very carefree and self-reliant. Growing up she traveled, spent a time in advertising before becoming an IT consultant.
In 2016 her husband was diagnosed with MND. They way it showed up for him was more internal so the doctors, Kirsten and the girls weren't aware how bad things were getting for him. After 18 months he died suddenly, leaving his family feeling cheated and grieving their terrible loss.
Kirsten had struggled to find help and advice from those who were going through the same as her so she decided to write a book and become a grief recovery specialist. Helping others , as well as herself and her girls, has given her a sense of meaning purpose.
Thank you so much Kirsten for the courage you have shown in taking your own experience of grief and turning that into a way of helping children and parents going through grief and into recovery. Thanks also for showing us that when those times of grief come to us, there are ways to help us into recovery and beyond.
You can find out more about Kirsten’s work on https://griefcoach.uk/ and follow her on Linkedin @kirstenwallentindamgaard
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