Grief Doesn’t Ask Permission: Healing on Your Own Terms

[Music] Time is precious and so are our pets. So time with our pets is extra precious. That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 24/7 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow-ups for up to five pets. You can message a vet at any time and schedule a video visit the same day. Our vets can even prescribe medication for many ailments, and shipping is always free. With Dutch, you'll get more time with your pets and yearround peace of mind when it comes to their vet care. Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Keeping It Real on Purpose and this is our special segment called Real Talk um with Life Coaches. And today we have we're going to talk about grief with our special guest, none other than Danielle Bower. Danielle Boer, I am so sorry. Please forgive me. Okay, Danielle Bower. Um, she is, let me get her description now so I don't mess her up. Danielle Buer is a grief coach, a speaker, and an author who helps others heal through perseverance and forgiveness. After witnessing her brother's suicide via telephone, she embarked on a powerful forgiveness journey, becoming a life coach, and writing a book in his honor. Drawing from her experiences with trauma, teen motherhood, homelessness, narcissistic abuse, and child loss, Danielle inspires others to find strength, healing, and p purpose beyond their pain. welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Well, I am so glad that you're here. How do you show up in a world? I think that's a great question and um my answer is different than it used to be, but authentic now. So, I show in the world authentically me and um I wasn't that before. So, it's awesome to say that. Yeah. you know, um I get I get this all the time cuz I I speak about this in everything, au authenticity. And I can't express to people how gripping authenticity is. And I know that they say it's overused, but it's not used enough. Just like Dr. Phil says, common sense is not common. You know, you know, so authenticity, talk about your authenticity. talk about discovering that. Yeah. So, um I kind of I can go into more of why later, but I kind of at one point was just like skating through life. Um kind of in like two different worlds. Um and on the outside I looked like I was okay, on the inside not okay. And I was a single mom. Um, I'm a single mom again, but different different children. Um, so I had kids young, 18 and 20. Okay. And so now years later, I've been through a lot. We'll talk about that. But becoming authentic was like, who in the world am I? What do I want? What do I So when I became I was turning 40 that year and now I'm turning 43 this year. So, um, I had actually he's my ex now, but he was very supportive and he said like I said, I wanted to be I want to be an actress. I want to do this. And he's like, go ahead, try it. Um, and I'm a nurse, so you know, I don't have a lot of time to do other things um, per day. But I that like year before that I started like doing some background acting and then I did um that year I started standup comedy and then I started um my podcast and then I became a life coach and then I wrote the book. So like all in one year I was like and um and then I figured out like things that I love like who I am. I'm not ashamed of who I am. I am I'm a lot, right? So, I'm very like I talk to my patients a lot. People sometimes like make snarky comments about it and all this stuff, but I love my patients. Yes, I could be a little bit faster sometimes with time management, but they have a really good connection with me for the most part and people really appreciate it at the end of the day. So, that's great. I started to be more confident to love myself. I do positive affirmations and so I figured out like who am I? What do I want? And I really love myself and the longest time I would have never really said that. So, and it takes a lot for you to get like that. And I'm going tell you how I became authentic is I had to go back and do a lot of inner work and a lot of childhood work and a lot of um shadow work only to find out that brave little girl at five should have been around. The one that talked junk all day, wasn't afraid to jump out of a tree, you know, wasn't afraid to jump off a roof, wasn't afraid to tell the truth. That's who we really are is that 5-year-old kid that that was like, "Okay, if you asked them if they had an ugly dress on, right? How's this dress look on me?" They would tell you, "Oh, it's ugly." You know, right? Right. We just know how to do it a little bit more diplomatic now, you know? So, authenticity isn't applied enough. And I'm so glad that you grasped it. It's so important. Okay. So tell us about, you know, I know that you're a grief coach and I like that this is being captured, you know, and it's it's very important. Talk about what how you got to that point and how it was introduced and um maybe even talk about your brother and how that played a great part in that. Yeah. So um as you uh mentioned that I have experienced grief in a lot of ways. So I and lots of people don't understand that grief is just like not if just not only somebody passing away, right? Exactly. It could be a pet or say you have to rehome your pet and you had them for 10 years and you can't take them with you. That's also grief. Um divorce. Um I had a blended family and had I left the state and then my son that I raised for seven years. um they stopped letting me see him and stuff like that. So that was a grieving process. Um and so there's a lot. But you know, I lost a baby still born and just all kinds of stuff. But my real like grieving that I didn't even know that could be that deep was when um I witnessed my brother commit suicide on the telephone and I kind of just shut down. I went from the most extroverted person in the world to like literally just just like so monotone. And I was in nursing school at the time and I was a single mom. So I was working two jobs going to my prerequisites and taking care of two kids by myself. And so I was who knows where I was or when I was. I was like, "Oh, I'm so confused." He was on autopilot. Yeah, I was. And so, um, when he passed away, I wanted to drop out of school, but I got accepted, which was such a blessing. Um, a lot of people didn't get accepted on their first time to nursing school, but I did. And so, um, he passed away in July and I got accepted into the night program in September. And so, I had to really deate debate like, am I going to do this? Can I do it? And so, um, that was a a journey in itself. um the psych like uh rotation in clinicals was really hard for me because he had just passed away and now I'm helping people that may want to commit suicide or doing all these things. And so um at the time I did well but then later on I would cry and just break down. I was triggered by a lot of stuff. Um, and so years and years and years later, like I ended up, well, first then I started dating someone, then he moved in with his son, which I just mentioned. Um, he was four at the time. And so I kind of started over with a four-year-old, which was also a blessing because, um, my boys were a little bit older and so with the four-year-old, he was still kind of toddlerish, so I had to do things for him and it kind of like snapped me out of it a little bit. Um, but then I was still going to school, then planning a wedding. Then we ended up getting separated. I moved to Georgia, which is where I am now. And it like I didn't realize that I wasn't healed because I just kept going. I always kept when I lost the baby, I literally returned to work early. I had to get a blood transfus transfusion. I almost died. I was bleeding out. I almost died. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. And so, um, I just like kept going. And so that was my thing. But I um when I moved to Georgia, like I said, I started dating this guy. And so um I wanted like I started thinking about things that I liked or wanted to do that I just didn't do because I put them on the back burner. Then I was raising four kids because I have a daughter now. And so, um, I went through a forgiveness journey and became certified as a life coach after, um, like I said, I started doing comedy and then became the co podcast. And at first, I never talked about how my brother passed away. I didn't really speak about it. And it was because um that word or suicide and the topic is very much like pushed under the rug, but it really happened. And so when I went to church in Ohio, I wasn't allowed to talk about it. And so finally I got to the point where I was like, "No, I want to help people." So that's kind of how everything happened and I got certified. And then at one point I said I might change my uh my niche for coaching because my book is for children. It does not talk about the suicide at all. Um actually talks about it's a character. It's a fiction because my brother didn't get help. So this character gets help. He has severe OCD. So I thought well maybe I'll help because my my second son has a lot of diagnosis and I went through a lot with him. Maybe I'll help parents and kids. Well, then people will come up to me literally in the store, um, anywhere, in the laundromat, wherever I'm at, and we will talk about people that they lost. And it's like it was like I was meant to do it. Um, it's a really tough topic to talk about. And so, I'm very I'm very grateful that people even open up to me and they're vulnerable with me and they trust me. So, um, I feel like I was called to do that. I also do trauma, help with trauma as well, but feel like I was called to do it. And so, um, I'm very grateful that I'm able to um because it's really important and we all experience grief at some time in our lives, right? So, let's unpack because you packed everything in and I didn't want you to. I want you to tell a piece at a time. So I want to take apart that's something you said very importantly because it's part of grieving and we all don't know that we do it and it is being on autopilot. That's a symptom of grief. Let's talk about that because it's important that you said it because as you were talking you were on autopilot but let's talk about auto let's talk about being on autopilot pilot and grief. Yeah. So basically um when you're grieving you might not know where to start or what to do and you just try to continue life. Um if we lose someone essentially especially if they're your spouse or your child, you have to figure out what the new normal like what's your new routine? What are you going to do? And so a lot of times you just kind of skate through life and it's like literally like on autopilot. Like every day is like monotonous just like kind of the same thing. You don't have maybe not as much joy as you used to. You don't really you're just kind of getting by. You're not really you're like just surviving but not thriving. And so that's kind of how I look at it. Yeah. I know when people experience um uh when they when they're on autopilot and I've you know I've seen this with some of even with some of my clients and friends they're they become emotionally numb and they detach. So it's like they're walking around almost in a zombieish like I'm here but I'm not here kind of you know um I guess effect. and they their their daily routines they do their like you said they do them all day they're enga you know fully engaged they get things done and but they're overwhelmed and I think autopilot is a way to protect them when they're overwhelmed in pain am I correct yeah I mean that's that's what I would say too it's kind of like kind of not the same thing as denial but kind of just like just going by cuz I my first thing back then was denial even when I was losing the baby was denial and like it so it was like whoop everything's fine no not everything is not fine you know and so that's the thing when you're on autopilot it's like you you don't go anywhere towards the healing because you're kind of just like at this stagnant like state you know and so it's it's a lot I've been there it is it really is And I could tell you that um I experienced it after my brother had passed away. No, I'm sorry. And um he Beth passed away on his graduation party and he it was a swimming accident. Someone pushed him in and no one knew how to swim at this. I don't know why that even was a thing for them to be at a pool party. Nobody knew how to swim and there was no lifeguard there. But um I was I was so upset because we were we were best friends, you know, and we were like best friends and I just knew that he was gone, you know, before we even got there. I was like, he's not here. I feel it. And it just disturbed me. But I was so I was one of these grievers that was out loud. Everything was loud. I was I was breaking things. I was screaming, you know. I was just out there. I was just, you know, and I think not that I like it better, but when I when I was depressed about when I was at work and I was be becoming burnt out because that is almost you get into that depressive state, right? You get into that and and and and you get into that mode. It's like you're you're lost. You're gone because once you become burnt out, right, you're gone. So it's like a grief almost. Correct. So you I would I didn't know that I was I was always getting headaches, right? I forget stuff all the time. I would forget everything like like what the heck I'm driving like where am I going, you know? Um I I felt disconnected. Um I was always tired, sleeping all the time and I I like you said it was survival mode. I was trying to survive by just shutting out everything. Yeah. I I Exactly. Exactly. So, if I didn't have kids, I don't know what would have happened, but I had to keep going for them. And that's why I ended up going to nursing school, right? Thank goodness because I have been a nurse for 11 years now. And it is such a beautiful thing and I'm so glad I get to help so many people. What? I almost wasn't there. I tried to drop out of school three times during nursing school and once was the week before. We all want to feel our best, but let's re be real. 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According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications than non-sponsored jobs. Don't wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/kidsandfamily. Just go to indeed.com/kids andfamily right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Like like no, not even a week before. I think the the week of my graduation I tried to drop out and they're like no. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense now. Right. And I was like I can't. They're like Yes. But it was depression. And it was depression that just had you didn't make any sense. You were thinking about it, right? Yeah. Your brain was not there. It was just like it was there in a sense, but I want to say the mind, you know, the the mind wasn't there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh it's it's very um grief is very intricate. Um like I said, I was one of those ones that grieved out loud. You know, when my brother passed, I was tear tearing up things very, but I was emotional every day. I was crying every day. It was like I was crying every day. Song would come on that guy, you know. Yeah. And um you know, I was younger. I'm three years older than he. However, it's it you know, it that was my best friend like like you know, I was I think I was mad at God. I was mad at everybody. I was mad at my mother. I was I was like, "Mom, why didn't you beat these people up?" I'm like, "Beat him up or something." I was mad at everybody. Just everybody. And I think that what you said about grief autopilot, even in my anger, I still was functioning at work. But the thing I was doing at work, I was quiet as I was quiet as a mouse. I remember it now. I'm thinking about it. I was I wouldn't socialize with anybody. I'd be in my own head. Grief has a little bit of intricacy into it. It's very intricate, you know, and we I think we go about life not realizing it, you know, especially if we're grieving. We could grieve a job, you know, we could grieve a job. We could, like you said, a pet or something, you know? Yeah, absolutely. That's happened a lot. I mean look at like so COVID or different times like that say hurricane Katrina in that area. Yes. Look at everybody losing their businesses, losing their house, the goosebumps because like it's something that that's grieving like absolutely you know or the fires in um in LA like you lose your whole belongings everything like absolutely you know pictures all these things and like it's like you can't get those back. No it's a blessing that you're alive. Yes. Um but you can't see it because of that what's going on. Right. You can't see it. Right. Right. So, like it's there's so many things that happen when we grieve and everybody is not the same. Um, some people may never go through denial. Some people may never get angry, some people may, you know, it's just it's just different. And so, um, but something you talked about was when you're mad. So, like my thing is that I teach, not that I made this up because it sounds like I did not make up. No, it did sound like that. It did not sound like that. But my main thing um step one uh that I go through with clients is forgiveness. And so um like you said, you just get like you're just like what? Why didn't you stop? Like what happened? And you're start blaming. Yeah. You start blaming. And um so with me, I had to forgive myself. Self forgiveness is one of the hardest ones. Um because you know, I it's the most overlooked. It's the most overlooked too as well. Yeah. Right. So, you know, when I was a young mom, yeah, I made mistakes. I had to forgive myself for that. That's right. That's true. And so, um, but with like my brother, my mom called me on the phone to stop him or to calm him down. And so, I thought in my mind, my job was to save my brother, right? It's not. It's not my job to save my brother. So when I forgave myself, oh that's good. So much weight got lifted off and I was like, oh now now I can I couldn't heal until that and I got goosebumps again because that's good. I was so stuck and I help people get unstuck but I was so stuck like you said autopilot all that stuff and was didn't even realize because I was just going through life that I was all these things were bothering me and I um like you said migraines stroke symptoms all this stuff was having all these things and never realized it right you did you realize it did you like even like it didn't even click for me didn't even click not at all and So with forgiveness, when you forgive somebody else, it's for you to gain back control. It is not for them. Well, that's good, too. That's really good. Gain control. That's really cool. That's one thing. Yes. So, you don't forget what happened. You forgive it for you. Yeah. Okay. So, now you hopefully will not allow that situation, person, whatever to evoke emotion in you for you. They control you. So, say for instance, I'm mad at Stacy and I every time I get to work and Stacy's there, I'm like and I get upset. I might not do my job. I'm not doing my job correctly. I'm thinking about all day. Oh, Stacy Stacy drink. I don't even drink coffee. I'm not allowed. But, but Stacy drink my creamer and this this and that. And I'm mad at Stacy. Stacy don't give a hoot nanny. She's doing her thing. You are being controlled by the emotion. Yeah. That you are feeling attached to that person. Right. Right. If you forgive and there's a lot of things that I say dump out in your brain, you might not even know who you want to forgive. You just you Exactly. It could be something that's associated with that Stacy's doing from the past that somebody else did. Right. Right. Yeah. So, you have to you I want like I want people to write it down. Yes. and what it is in your brain. What does it make you feel? Okay. Well, when I see Stacy, especially if she's drinking creamer, definitely this is all made up, by the way. We're all making it up. I'm not creamer Stacy drinking. But but when I see Stacy, I might get red. I might race. I might clench my fist. I might sweat my eyebrows. Right? So all those things are evoking uh physical symptoms or like you know or emotions. So absolutely. Yeah. So identifying those which is my second step is identifying triggers is helpful because then you can nip them in the bud to the point where again you're in control. So I did not know that anything that sounded like a gun for the longest time would freak me out. I would duck down. I would cry. I would shake. It would take me hours. Like hours. If I watched a movie and I didn't know somebody was going to die in it, especially a certain way, I whoop, I was done for like one, two hours, I would be so upset. And so now I can watch something, not that I choose to. I don't like those kind of movies, but I can watch something and somebody can die in the movie. And this one time, it wasn't even that long ago, maybe like eight months ago. And I said I laughed and said that looks so fake. And so now it's like I know that it's not my brother. Nothing's happening to anybody. You changed the narrative around it. You changed Yes. Got it. Got it. Yeah. You have to shift your mindset and look at stuff differently. And it's harder with some situations. Okay. I was in domestic abuse relationships. Okay. It is harder for me to uh forgive a narcissist than it is just Stacy, right? Because that's different. So, I also have a kid with the person. And I am going to go see uh one of the people that abused me. Uh he's going to be in the same place as me and April, and I haven't seen him in years. And so, my forgiveness is going to be so tested the day. Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. And so, but I can I've seen them. I've seen him before. Um, it's been years, but um, we're gonna actually be in a birthday party for our grandchild together, right? So, I am going to be tested the whole time and I'm in control of how I react, right? And that's what I, you know, that's what I go through with people. Okay, great. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. So, I like that you said control. Um, I like that you gain, you gain control, uh, back. That's really really important. The the one you said prior to that was um that it wasn't your responsibility. And I think we don't we don't realize that cuz I I you just brought this to my attention. When my brother died, it was my we had made a pack to take care of each other. It was and then when you know in my family I was a second mom because my mom was always troubled with my stepdad and situations with with them and I became their protector. So I took it hard. I took it really really hard like I was supposed to be there with him you know um and he got you know in my head I'm saying he got my got out of my sight one time and this what's happens you know and we that's so important to know that you know they're not your responsibility you know they're you know gods if anybody's you know what I'm saying but really they're not you know especially a certain age let me just say that I don't want to say children are you know you train them up that's responsibility, but when they're older, you you're not responsible for saving everybody. You can't save everybody. And then the second thing you said is control. Oh my god. You you um you gain more control because when you don't forgive, I was out of control, man. I wasn't forgiving anybody. Everybody had to pay. Everybody had to pay. Every time I saw somebody from that party, you was like blasting them. I'm blasting them. you know, everybody had to pay. But I didn't have control and not until um I did, you know, sit down and like really I guess I was talking to him at his grave site and I said, "I have to let this go. It's eating me up." And the, you know, it gave me this resting face that was like, "Don't you mess with me." Like it was like, and I was walking around like that for ages, like, you know, for years. And I and everybody's like, "Why do you look so mean?" I'm like, and in my head, I'm because I'm in my head. I'm not even looking at them because I'm still thinking about this. And I had to realize, man, this face is really serious. This is a a problem. It's a whole problem. But gaining control back, ladies and gentlemen, that is so good. Those two pieces there, diamonds, diamonds. So let I want to talk about what you said about your life about your your you um divorcing. Let's talk about in the spectrum of grief. Did was there a time when you were divorcing that you had grief about who you thought he could be or that you grieved about it in any way in any form? Yeah. So my situation was uh kind of weird but I'll keep it brief. So, um I don't want to put his business out on the street, but that's fine. The last couple of the last couple of years, we were not no good together. Okay. We would switch back and forth like we would live together, we were married, we tried to go to counseling, it just did not work. Um and so I for that part at that beginning yes but by the time I was leaving right um the grief was more about my son my dog that we adopted together my house and my businesses I lost my businesses. I had to start all over. I left with three kids because unfortunately I couldn't take him because it was illegal because I didn't adopt him. Um, but I had I left with three kids. I went to the same church for years. So, I left my church, my two businesses, hospital I was at for two years. My I lived there for 11 and a half years, but not in the same house. But that house, they denied us that house and I had to write a letter to the bank to get that house. I I worked so hard for all those things. That's what I grieved over was like the kid that I'm he's on my back. All four of my kids are tattooed in a heart in my back. But like that's the hard part was like my life got flipped upside down and it wasn't even about him anymore because I was kind of over that at this point just because it had been two years of us trying to make it work. And um but it was like the area that I had been in all my f like everything you know my family was there only my mom was in Georgia so I didn't get to see my dad anymore. I used to see my dad twice a year. He was in Maryland and he would come. I didn't get to see him more like just like so many things happened. I had to pay back a person for their wedding because I was supposed to photograph their wedding but I had to pay it back. So it was a lot of grief was going on. A lot of grief. Yeah. I was like, "Ah, yeah, that's Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah, I didn't even realize that. Make it now. It's See how it's it's just coming coming together?" Yeah, I understand it even more now. So, now we're wrapping it up kind of now audience um to my guest, what's one small compassionate action that maybe someone in the audience is um that they're that they should acknowledge grief and begin the process of healing? What's one small thing that they can do? Wow, they can do a lot of things. Um, one thing like we just said, forgiveness. Um, you can listen, be there. Um, ask for help. Important. That's one small thing you can do is not not be alone. Don't suffer in silence. Please ask for help. Reach out to people. You're love and you're worthy and you're so important. So please just ask even if somebody comes and sits with you and you don't even say a word at least do you know reach out to someone right that's good okay all right Danielle how can we locate you my audience locate you around the internet okay so if you look me up you Google me you will find all the things but um Danielle Buer but my Danielle Ber 82 is my Instagram I can't get into it right now but I have a lot of Instagrams authentic Okay, coaching. That's my coaching one. Um, but if you look me up on Facebook, which is Kate Danielle Brewerstrom and all the names. Um, then you will find the links to all of my things. That's the easiest way to say it. You'll find the link to everything. Awesome. And what's the name of your book? So, we can look for it. It's called Inside CJ's Mind in. Wow. Okay. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we really thank you for being here today with us and enjoying and learning about grief. And I want to thank my esteemed guest Danielle Bower for being here today on Keeping It Real on Purpose. Thanks so much. We'll see you next time around. Thank you. Bye for now.