MENDED MAN: Oscar Guerrero on Losing his Son, Post-Traumatic Growth, and Brotherhood

In this conversation, Oscar 'O.G.' Guerrero shares his story as a father navigating the devastating and sudden loss of his two-year-old son, Ollie, and how he has found a way to channel his grief into helping other men heal from trauma and loss.

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Oscar delves into the immediate challenges and trauma faced after the loss, the process of forgiveness, dreams and encounters with his son, and the transformation of his purpose through coaching and podcasting. He discusses the importance of creating a supportive environment for men to grieve and heal, and how movement and exercise played a crucial role in his own healing process. Oscar also addresses the negative comments and judgment he received, emphasizes the power of forgiveness, and not allowing others' opinions to define his journey.

He shares his mission to help men heal and break generational trauma through the Mended Man Podcast, and through his post-traumatic growth coaching program, the Mended Man Brotherhood.

Support Oscar and Rebecca's nonprofit organization, Ollie's Footprint, to prevent drowning accidents.

Related Podcast Episode: Embracing Life After Loss: A Mother's Story with Rebecca Guerrero

Connect with Oscar Guerrero:

• @oscarcguerrero
• Mended Man Podcast
• Mended Man Brotherhood (Facebook)

Connect with Nina Rodriguez:

• @griefandlight
• griefandlight.com
• Schedule a Clarity Call
• Subscribe to my newsletter

Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

Chapters

• 0:00 Preview & Intro song
• 0:41 Disclaimer to understand this episode
• 2:37 Introduction and Setting the Stage
• 5:33 Five days of clinging to hope
• 9:01 Immediate challenges and trauma following Ollie's passing
• 13:38 Trying to escape, PTSD, and the power of self-forgiveness
• 16:27 Lessons from loss
• 18:35 Guilt and Shame; Dreams and Spiritual encounters
• 23:10 Making Meaning and Following Your New Purpose After Loss
• 26:25 Post-Traumatic Growth & creating the Mended Man Brotherhood
• 31:00 How do you respond to hateful comments?
• 37:30 Moving through grief, and healing marriage after loss
• 42:00 The body's physical response to loss
• 45:13 Where to connect and how to work with Oscar
• 50:13 Ollie's Footprint
• 51:47 Drowning facts and advocacy
• 54:09 Oscar's final thoughts and advice to his younger self
• 54:57 Closing song

Transcript

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can heal our children, we can heal our fathers. And this is bigger than just our time on this earth. I want to create a ripple effect so that we're breaking generational trauma, so that we're setting up our sons and their sons to be powerful, strong, courageous, confident, vulnerable men who are not afraid to say what they feel, to share what they're afraid of, but most importantly, to actually confront that pain. You just lost your loved one. Now what?

Welcome to the Grief in Life podcast where we explore this new reality through grief colored lenses. Openly, authentically, I'm your host, Nina Rodriguez. Let's get started. Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of the Grief in Life podcast. Thank you for being here. This is not my usual introduction when I have a guest, but it's for good reason. Today's story is a powerful one. It's a very touching one. It's a very emotional one about a father's love for his

who would be lost in a very tragic way. I found it interesting that as he was describing how he learned about his son's passing, the audio cut out and we were unaware that this happened until after the completion of the recording. It's interesting in that it was only that portion of the conversation that got cut out. So I'm saying this because you're going to listen to the episode and that particular section is missing. It doesn't take away from the fullness and the...

beauty of the episode, so I encourage you to keep listening through and through. I find it interesting that it was that particular segment because our guest and his wife actually did their own podcast episodes specifically retelling that part of the story. And maybe in some way that part wants to be heard as both parents told it. So I went ahead and linked that episode to the show notes. You don't have to listen to it in order. It's not going to take away from this episode.

but I do want to invite you to listen to it afterward for more context and to see it from their perspective. think sometimes these things oddly happen for a reason and maybe that story was just meant to tell the way that both parents shared it. I know that these topics can be difficult, especially if you're a bereaved parent or experienced a recent loss of a child. Keeping that in mind and understanding that these are very nuanced and touchy subjects, listen with care and honor your truth. At the end of the day, this is a story about

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and love and the Father's love for his son.

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Today we have a powerful and inspiring episode for you. Our guest is founder and host of the Mended Man Trauma to Triumph podcast. In March 2020, as the world went into lockdown, Oscar and his wife faced the unimaginable personal tragedy of the unexpected loss of their two -year -old son, Oliver. Oscar will share his journey of navigating this devastating loss and how he has found a way to channel this grief into helping other men heal from trauma and loss.

You'll want to listen to this full conversation, which is ultimately about forgiveness, resilience, and hope in the face of profound grace. I've been looking forward to this conversation. With that said, welcome to the Grief and Light podcast, Oscar. Nina, thank you very much to be here. I appreciate you inviting me to be on here and for being gracious with your time. Likewise, and it's an honor to have you here. I know you have a very powerful.

story from start to finish that is really an emotional roller coaster, but it's very worth, you know, navigating through it because so much has come out of this situation. So first of all, I'm very sorry for the loss of Ali. I've seen the beautiful posts on your social media. The light radiates from him every single post. it just how could you not feel that loss, even though you didn't necessarily know him as somebody watching Oscar's social media? It's so, so beautiful. So thank you for sharing him with the world.

and your story as well. And I know that your wife is also very active on social media and she shares her story as well. So thank her as well. Absolutely. Thank you. And for the listeners, both Oscar and I are actually in Florida. one of the few people talking about grief that I'm aware of here in the state of Florida and addressing this very important topic from our lived experience and our perspective and bringing people hope and showing the journey and how a lot of this can be transformed in our lives. I'd love to start

Who was Ollie? Tell us about that little boy with a beautiful smile and his beautiful energy and how everything changed from there that one fateful day. Yeah, I appreciate that. Well, I'll start off by saying that Ollie was 90 % his mom, 10 % his dad. He was a carbon copy of his mom. My wife, Rebecca, has blonde hair, blue eyes, and Ollie was blonde, light skin, blue eyes, but he had big eyes, kind of like his dad. I've got fairly big eyes

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So yeah, I had that of me. And so it just brought really the best of both parents. I actually just finished listening to the podcast that you did on your podcast with Rebecca, retelling this day from both of your perspectives. And I can also speak from experience. I don't even think I cried when I got the call. I was in such shock. So I hear you when you say, just fell to the ground in fetal position. I want to acknowledge that because it's the lived experience of that moment.

often doesn't look like what you think it would look like in that type of scenario. So you saw your wife giving him CPR. Did you just know in that moment or did you still have hopes that he would be okay? Yeah, you know, I really was, I was really praying that everything was gonna be okay. And I don't know, I still don't know to this day if it was pessimism or I just had this feeling that something really bad happened.

more so than just the drawing, but that this could have been some type of finality. I had a really bad feeling about it. As much as we fought in the hospital, those were really, really tough five days. was agonizing, but I just had a feeling that something went terribly wrong. His body was responding, so he had a pulse. What was the hope in those days as you navigated them, or was there any hope? Yeah, that's a really, really good question.

To answer that question properly, they have to go back to the day of the accident. He wasn't able to be resuscitated at the pool, even when the ambulance came. They put him in airlift, they took him to the hospital. It wasn't until about an hour later at the hospital that they were able to get a pulse back. Now, again, I kind of knew in my mind, I'm like, hasn't been breathing for an hour? There's no way that he doesn't have brain damage. And I remember at the hospital, I didn't say this out loud, but I remember thinking and I was

If he needs to go to be in peace, then I prefer that than having my son come back with like a vegetable essentially and having an incredibly difficult life. And then us having an incredibly difficult life as a family. People are gonna think, my God, that's so selfish. How could you as a father have thoughts like that? And I think it's a very natural thing to have. Like we are human beings. have thoughts that sometimes are dark. Thoughts that maybe you would

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assume are just disgusting, but those were the thoughts I had. that being said, on the other hand, my wife fought like hell. She called the whole conference two days into it with all of the doctors, like, can we do with stem cell? What can we do here? What can we do there? But ultimately, at the end of the day, he had just gone way too long without any oxygen to his brain. And we ended up doing a test at the hospital to see if there was any activity.

When the TOLSR test results came back, it was black. There was zero

And I'm so sorry again, I'm going to link that episode to the show notes for listeners who want to know more about that story because the way that they tell it in the moment to each other is very powerful. And you get to see the intricacies and for anybody who says like, well, I would never think that or think listening to the story things they would do otherwise. I invite you to to understand

In the moment, you just don't know what you're going to say and what you're going to respond to a situation. You think you would. And once again, this theme repeats throughout many of our stories and many of the guests that I've had. When you're actually living the experience, you would be surprised at your own reactions, other people's reactions. And that's why they say we grieve differently because the grief started the moment you got, you you realize what was happening and then those five agonizing days and then getting the news. So this is a sort of prolonged

And to say that we would know what we would do in these situations is a bit naive for a lot of people. So thank you for being honest. Thank you for being open about how you actually navigated this. So what were some of the immediate challenges that you and your wife faced and your family faced right after all these passing? Yeah, well, I'll tell you two first things that come to mind are gonna surprise you guys. And that is first and foremost, how...

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how the police treated my family in the immediate aftermath of the accident. You'd think that they're there to support you. My house was wrapped in yellow tape. My entire home was basically taken apart, people searching for cause. And rather than receiving any type of sympathy or empathy, we were interrogated heavily, my parents especially. And that was tough, because you're like, wow, in a moment, I'm like, I can't even think right now.

and I have to answer questions about negligence. That was tough. That was tough. No parent who's just been through a tragic accident that wants to feel like on top of the already guilt that you have to now be questioned for days about what you did wrong. On top of that, again, the first five days of COVID. So we leave the hospital March 21st, it was late night, we walk outside into Ghost Town. There's nothing going on. And

the immediate days, immediate weeks after, it was all just such a blur, Nina. mean, again, COVID, so the whole world's going kind of crazy. We can't really see people and no one wants to come see us because of COVID. We have to of sneakily go out and see our family. So was just an incredibly tough time in that sense. But I think afterwards, it's anger. There was a lot of anger and...

immediately afterwards there was anger between me towards the world and believe it or not anger from Rebecca towards me. And I'll expand on that so it's helpful so you guys can kind of understand sort of the journey that our relationship went on. Even before our son passed away, her and I were having some marital issues. Like we were struggling, we were having a hard time with certain things. And.

Again, I kind of resigned myself to the fate of I would rather him leave or go peacefully, like his little soul go to heaven. I don't want him to come back and suffer. And again, my wife pushed for everything, everything, everything as a mom would, right? And so she had resentment towards me as in how could you be crying so much? How could you be so sad if you gave up? You don't know what it's like to love him as much as I love him. Mind you, she breastfed him until the day he passed

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So, their connection was like this. So, it took a few weeks, but there was a lot of resentment just overall, like a cloud of resentment. She resented me. I was angry at the world. And as a father, as a man, which is what really spurred what I do now, there's just a lot of dad guilt. The way I see it, was my responsibility to take care of him. was my responsibility to save him. I should have been there. I should have caught

I should have jumped in the pool. I'm a guy's guy. I was supposed to be the one who saving him and I did it and I clenched up when he needed me the most. So I struggled mightily for the first 12 months. I cried every day. Every single day I cried and I couldn't look at pictures. I couldn't look at videos because it was a constant reminder that I had failed at the one thing in my life that I could not fail

And I lost the one thing, the one person that I've ever unconditionally loved, even to this day. So yeah, a lot of dad guilt. And I think any bereaved father will understand that, not to say that a bereaved mother wouldn't, but there is this innate, something innate, I think, within men, especially men who love their families of, got to take care of you guys. It's our duty, it's our responsibility to provide and to protect. And I've always felt that at a very deep level. So I just felt like a massive failure.

for the first 12 to 18 months. Thank you for your openness about that aspect of it. And guilt is such a big part of grief, especially in the early days. It manifests differently for everybody. And I appreciate your perspective as the husband and the father, because I don't want to make this blanket statement, but usually, for the most part, it's true. Men and women grieve differently, right? And I think that sometimes that difference causes a lot of tension in the relationship.

and it could be received from the other party as indifference. And also for the listeners, you ended up having to go back to the house where it all happened after COVID. So your life changed in every way, not just the loss of Ollie, but also literally lockdown and the house that you came home to again, everything changed. So talk about those ashracks if you can please. Yeah, so there was a period where I could not come back to this house.

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And so for the first few months, we ended up living in about six or seven different Airbnbs over the course of about six months. I mean, it was that. And obviously in the moment, you don't realize it. In the moment you think like, just don't want to go back to that house. But when you do, when you reflect on it, I was running away. I was scared to come back here. was afraid to confront the pool. I was afraid to forgive the pool. We could talk about forgiveness

There's so much work that goes into this healing that is. And I just, I wasn't ready. You I wasn't ready to confront this house. I wasn't ready to confront the pool. There's days now where I'll hear like a yell. Today, four years later, this happened about two weeks ago, my wife asked, where's one of the dogs? First thing I did unconsciously was I looked at the pool. And I just got the chills saying that for anyone listening and out watching. I just got the chills because I still like, I could say, yeah, I've healed a lot.

But if something triggers me, it's the pool. To go back to your question, we lived in about six or seven different Airbnbs. And then we moved to Mexico. And then after Mexico, we came back here, still wasn't ready. And then we moved to Denver, Colorado. So it took honestly about three and a half years for me to truly come back to this home, to look at that pool, to get inside of that pool. And I had to learn how to forgive.

And this is what I learned, so I want you guys to all take this. Because we have a tendency, I believe, as human beings, as individuals, to shift blame. And in my research, I've learned that pointing blame is just a way of deflecting guilt and shame and hurt. What I realized in this quest of mine to forgive the pool, I wasn't forgiving the pool, I was forgiving myself. And I needed to learn how to forgive myself. And the day that I learned how to forgive myself was the day that I started dreaming with him again.

And it was the day that I said, and we can go into deeper stuff as well, but it really played a huge part in me learning to say, okay, I can start moving forward, but it doesn't mean that I'm moving on. I can move forward and be happy again and bring joy to this world and maybe even help people change their lives based on what I've learned. It doesn't mean I love any less and I will forever love him. I might love him now more than I ever have. Everything I do to this day,

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whether it's good or bad, is with kind of this undertone of today could be my last day. Tonight could be my last night tomorrow, or it could be 60 years or 70 years. I don't know. But my son's passing and his life taught me that it can come and go very quickly. And so you start to live life a little bit more appreciation. You start to love harder. You start to live harder. And everything you do, or at least you want to do, there's a seed of purpose.

And if you've read Victor Fraunkel's book, A Man's Search for Meaning, fantastic book for anyone who's gone through suffering or hard time adversity, that's an amazing book because through all of the adversity of life, even through our hardest, darkest times in it is always a seed of opportunity, a seed of blessing, a seed of hope and joy. And it took me three and a half years, but I think I found that seed. That was a very powerful statement on so many touch points. One being

the forgiveness of the pool was really a forgiveness of yourself. When these moments happen, these life circumstances happen where they rearrange your understanding of the world and how you show up in it as a sudden death and the permanency and the irreversible factor, like the mind has such a difficult time understanding. How is there absolutely nothing I can do to change a circumstance? just, the mind cannot compute. It does not compute in the moment.

And I can relate to that aspect, putting the blame on something. In my case, was the hour drive north to go meet my parents. There was this big full moon illuminating the way. And I was so angry at the moon. said, you did this. You make people go crazy. You do weird things to people like you. You did this. And I hated the moon for the longest time. And it's interesting you say three and a half years. I'm hearing that as a common theme for a lot of people who have experienced.

sudden loss, example, unexpected loss, it takes about three and a half years to get to a place of saying, okay, now what? Let me move forward with intention. So you get to this place and you said that you started dreaming with him again. I would love to know if there's any dreams or any encounters or spiritual encounters that you had with his energy, his spirit that you don't mind sharing. That would be amazing. absolutely. And this might not resonate with everybody, but this is my journey.

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Again, going back to what you said, of the things I had the most difficulty with was that I felt like I never dreamt with him. My wife would be like, I dreamed with Oye last night, or I had this dream. And I'm like, why don't I dream with him? I was blocked. I was spiritually, energetically blocked. And again, that comes from guilt and shame. As most of you know, or if you don't know, there is a frequency chart of the different frequencies that we live on energetically. Guilt and shame are two of the lowest frequencies. So when you're dealing

a tragedy like that, you blame yourself as a father, you feel like a failure, which spouted into eating poorly, getting out of shape, doing a lot of drugs, drinking a lot. I was just numbing my pain. It just heightened up the low frequency of guilt and shame. And because of that, I believe I wasn't able to dream with him, which blocked me from being able to, I guess, say goodbye or say hello. I just, couldn't connect with him. So look, I had done a lot of work.

I did some very, very difficult men's programs that challenged me, kind of like Hell Week for the Marines or the Navy. And I had done all of this work, but there was still a spiritual block. I went up to New Jersey. This was February of 2023. I went up to New Jersey. It was myself and eight other guys that I trusted. And we did a two -day medicinal retreat. It wasn't recreational. We weren't out there trying to get high.

It was very intentional. had spent months preparing for it. All of us men working through trauma, every single one of us working through trauma, whether it was childhood or adult, everybody had a trauma that they knew was blocking them from being able to live their full life. Day one of that experience, we're about halfway through. started thinking about him and I lay down and all of these memories start rushing towards me and I just start

I'm talking about ugly cry, almost as if that had happened all over again. So I'm bawling, crying, and thankfully I had men that I trust holding my hand. Some guys came and hugged me on the floor and I just start, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And I was, I was seeking forgiveness. I seeking some of that self -forgiveness and I kind of wanted him to forgive me as well, right? And so I'm going through all these emotions and all these images in my head. And then it's almost like it took a

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I got through like the really dark part of it. I went to my favorite memory of Ollie and me, and that is picking him up from daycare. And if for any father, any parent, when your kids are like one, two, three, four, five, whatever age they get to, you're like a superhero to them. You know? I loved going to pick him up from daycare because I'd come into the back door. He'd always be pushing his carts because he liked to push things. He would look, he would see me, he would drop the cart, he'd be like, papa.

And he would always just like, you know, little two -year -old sprint, and he would just come and it would just always like this massive embrace. Every day, I could do it every day and I would do it every day now. So enjoy those moments with your children guys. But that was my happiest memory with him. And during my psychedelic experience, my medicinal retreat, I was able to actually go back into that. I go beyond memory. It was a real, a real experience. I got to embrace him and I could feel it physically, emotionally, spiritually, everything.

feel his hug, and he said, it's okay, papa, it's okay. And for me, that was forgiveness from him that I felt like I needed. And it was also permission to start moving forward without feeling guilty that just because I was moving forward in life or that we were moving forward in life, that we were forgetting him or loving him any less.

What do you say to that? mean, what a blessing to have that. I do believe in these experiences and I know what you mean when certain experiences feel realer than real. Like you just know with all of your being, you just know with all of your being that it was exactly what you needed. It was Ollie coming through and in a way he helped unlock the next stage of your life. After that experience, did you

your work or was that something that gradually built? And I'm talking about the work you do with Grieving Men and with your podcasts and everything. So did that lead to the podcast or was the podcast already in the works and it just amplified and validated this path even more? Yeah, that's a great question. So it's important for people to know this because my fathering, if you will, didn't really start to grow itself the way it has until this version of me has come out, right? But what most people don't know is

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I had a coaching program when my son was alive. So coaching, mentoring, speaking, it's my life. It's what I do naturally. It's something I don't have to quote unquote prepare for. It's something that I'm in flow state when I coach, when I mentor. It's something that I genuinely enjoy and find truth filling in. So I was already coaching people even before the accident. After the accident is when I stopped coaching for three years. I just couldn't. How could

How could I give myself to anyone when I don't even know how to give to myself, my family, or anything at that point? So I stopped coaching. But when you know you're supposed to do something, when you know you have a life purpose, you follow that life purpose. And I fought it. Even after the experience, I knew that this was what I was supposed to do. I knew that I needed to start working with people again. And that life had given me an incredibly difficult experience.

but that I was so maniacal in who I am as a human being. I'm like, you've got a solution. We've got to figure it out. We're going to go swim in the 30 degree ocean at four in the morning until they ring the bell and tell me to quit. I'm like that. I'm going to crawl through the mud into the rock, bleeding, sweating, crying, until I figure this out. So I would say that it was probably within the last nine months.

that I said, okay, Oscar, do you want to just continue chasing the money and the recognition? Because business is something that kind of comes naturally as well. But I was like, no, you have to follow your purpose. And I had people reaching out to me. And I think that's where it validated itself, was people reaching out to me. People saying, hey, how did you do this? How were you able to come out of this?

It all just happened. said, okay, let's start the podcast. And the podcast was really just my contribution to the world. Like I've been through a story. I've been through something. I've learned a lot. Who else can we learn from? It just kind of happened organically, honestly. The podcast led to clients. The clients led to more podcasts. To the podcast led to the Mended Man, is my men's program now. And the Mended Man specifically targets men. I've had some women reach out, but for right now we're working only with men.

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I'm not a grief coach. Let me just say this. I am not a grief coach. I'm actually not the most empathetic person in the world. So I would make a terrible grief coach. Like that's why I always say, guys, I'm not a grief coach. I'm not a grief counselor. I'm the guy that you come to after you've passed that stage of like resilience and you sort of work through your grief because you there are stages of grief. There's not five, there's many. But once you've worked through certain levels of grief, most people, and let me digress for a second, Nina, if I

What I've learned in my research and my study of post -traumatic growth, which is what I love, I'm obsessed with it, is that after a tragic event or even a breakup, right? Because grief isn't always death, it can be anything that feels like loss. And that is that there's three stages. The first stage, which most people are very familiar with, is PTSD. That's where you really just struggle with your grief or your trauma and you kind of get stuck there. You're not able to really overcome it, work through it, et cetera. So you get

The second level, which is where most people get to, which is super, super commendable, and that's kind of like getting back to status quo. You've got a good foundation, you've got a good family, and you're able for the most part, able to work through your grief and your trauma, and you kind of get back to life as you knew it. And again, like I said, that is amazing. But then there's a smaller percentage of people, and again, this is what I'm fascinated with, because I believe I fall into that bucket, people like you fall into that bucket, is

Wait, maybe this experience in life was for a purpose. It was for a meaning. And rather than just kind of dealing it with myself and just learning whatever I had to learn, what if there's even more than I need to learn that's not about me, but it's about what I can learn from helping other people that have been in my position. And what really the catalyst for the mended man was that when I started my grief journey,

we all go to the grief groups, the Facebook groups, I just did not like them at all. I'm the antithesis of the grief community. Because I'm like, man, I go into these grief groups and there was very few of them for men, there's more now. But at that time, every group group that I went into, no disrespect to anybody doing grief work, but everything was like, I'm really sad. This is the worst pain of my life. I don't think I can ever get out of this. I'm miserable forever.

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And all I saw were people like, yes, yes, yes, you should. Yes, that's totally normal. And what I didn't see that really kind of lit the fire under me was what are we doing to give people space to be vulnerable and to grieve and to do all that because that's necessary, especially for men, because we don't have that. Normally we have to be stoic and strong and straight faced. But how can we create an environment of brotherhood where

we can hold space for each other. We can cry, we can be vulnerable, we can share our fears. But at the same time, we're also gonna work on how do we overcome this? How do we move forward without letting go? And how can we kind of use our grief and our trauma to actually mold ourselves into a more purpose -driven, more joyful, happier, more successful, healthier,

better in your relationship, better with your other children, just better in life because you now understand that there is nothing to be taken for granted. Life can be taken from us in an instant. You know this. Everything can change in a moment's notice. Far too many people are living life like they've got tomorrow. Just do this next week. That is why the -to -man exists. It's for the people in the man who are traumatized, who have grief, and they want to not just work through

They wanna really use it to take their life and rocket fuel to new heights and giving back to people who need it. That's what the Mend It Man is about. And thank you for explaining that, for doing the work and for offering that service to other people. feel like when not everybody, as I do believe that not everybody wants to or even it's necessarily meant to do more with what happened, but there are some of us

literally feel a calling and it is something that is just in your mind at all times in your heart and you have a choice. You have a choice to answer that. You have a choice to walk the path, not necessarily knowing where it's going to lead, but just understanding that there's something bigger and it's almost like you can't see it, but you can feel it. exploring that is extremely powerful, life altering, life changing. And I encourage men, women, whoever's listening, that if you've ever felt

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Reach out to somebody like Oscar. Reach out to somebody in this space. Reach out to myself. Reach out, listen to these podcasts. Connect with the people that resonate with you. Follow that. There was a post you had on your social media about the awful comments that you and your wife have received after this life altering horrible experience. Before we get into that, I want to preface it with the following.

I did my certification with Megan Devine, author of It's Okay Not to Be Okay. She's renowned for her work in the grief space. One thing she says is the more sudden and unexpected the loss, the weirder the comments you receive from people, the more support you need, the opposite happens. And you get all these very strange responses and almost blaming the mind likes predictability. How can I make sure it doesn't happen to me? Right? Yes. And a lot of that mechanism in trying to do

self -preservation thing on their end comes off extremely insensitive and accusatory and damaging and hurtful to the people who actually are going through this experience. So I wanted to preface it with that because I know that you've received some awful comments. You don't necessarily have to say what they are, but how did you and your wife navigate that? What would you say to those people that hurled those very ignorant comments your way? There's so many directions I want to go with this. So if I may.

What would I say to those people? I would say it's okay. I think one core value that has stuck with me, because I'll have people defend me in the comments too, which is really funny. And if I may, I'll share some of the really hurtful ones. Whatever you like, yeah. Yeah, mean, look, there's only one comment and I've worked through it. There was only one comment that bothered me because when I started in the grief work or post -traumatic growth, I even thought it about to myself and I was

Am I monetizing off my child? I struggled and I think that's why it took me so long. I didn't want to post about my crying or I didn't want to post about my son for a really long time. I actually took a long time to post because I struggled with that one thing that I never wanted him mostly to ever think that I was trying to gain something. I do a lot of free work. Not in my coaching program is not free, but I give a lot. It's because it was never about the money.

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That's the one comment that I probably had to do the most work around where people are like monetizing off the death of your kid. That's disgusting. Things like that. Everything else kind of made me laugh a little bit. It's really more of a reflection of these people, whoever they are. But like comments like you and your wife should be in jail. wasn't an accident, it's neglectful. So I would just say to them, listen, I forgive you. It's okay. You can feel whatever you want to feel. You can say whatever you want to say.

I hope nothing like this ever happens to you. I actually have no ill will towards you. And then what I'll say to the grief community, because there's so many men, so many people that I've learned now are afraid to speak about their journeys because we live in a society, it's a little twisted where there's something called victim blaming and victim shaming. And so what I'll say to the grief community or anyone out there that wants to share their story but is afraid of the negative backlash is I'll take the judgment.

I'll take the arrows of criticism. I'm willing to stand up and take the arrows of judgment. I'm willing to do that because there needs to be a small group of us that does so that we can encourage and guide others to do the same. And I think that's a very important piece of work that our loved ones who are no longer with us would be incredibly proud of us for doing. So what I've learned in terms of coaching program with that is in order for people to love you and follow

There has to be people who will hate you. I can tie that back to the law of duality. It's like grief, Nina. We only love because grief exists and we only grieve because love exists. And if there wasn't a depthness of love, we wouldn't grieve as hard as we do. So grief, even as hard and as sad as it sounds, grief is a very beautiful thing because it's a representation of how much, just how deeply at a soul level we loved whatever it is that we're grieving.

Otherwise we wouldn't grieve so hard. From the hate that I received, I learned that I'm going to also be loved. And also guys in the social media world, if you want to build a business, if you want to be recognized, you've got to be a little bit polarizing. So I'm not afraid to be polarizing. I'm not afraid to speak my mind. I'm not afraid to say things that people are going be like, hey man, I don't like you. Well, that's too bad. I'm going to keep doing my work because there are people out there that need people like you and I and the other Grief Community members that we've been in touch with. People need

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We're gonna keep doing the work. We're gonna keep showing up. And the only way, last thing I'll say, the only thing that would allow a hater or a critic to win is if you give up, if you stop, if you give them the power of their negative words behind their fake profile pictures, behind their private profiles, if you allow their hateful comments to win, to get you down or to make you stop or to tone you down,

you've given them the victory and that's what they want, so don't give it to them. Yeah, I know you've gone to a place of it is what it is, but for anybody who has been either on the receiving end of this or on the dishing out end of this for whatever reason, right? I am a firm believer that whatever somebody expresses is a reflection of where they are in life and what their frame of mind is. And somebody who doesn't see how those words may impact somebody else, the fact that you took time out of your day

make such a horrible comment on somebody's page or hurl that kind of energy at somebody who literally just lost their love of their life, their son, their loved one. It says more about the person saying it than it does about the circumstance. The work that we're doing is, it's a calling. And for every person who disagrees with it, there are hundreds, if not thousands of people who need this message, who need to hear these stories. I was one of those people when I was in my grief by myself, I was like, I need...

somebody who's been here before to tell me it's going to be okay, I need this, right? And I sought it out and I look for it. And as you learn more about this, as you go through the experiences, you realize what you thought you knew about life shifts so much, so profoundly. And the people who are speaking up, who are sharing their stories, who are helping other grievers, who are doing this type of work

the air that we need to breathe in these very difficult moments and in these very big life transitions. So thank you for doing the work. And I want to touch on something else. I know that you and your wife both move through a lot of the especially early days through literal movement of your body through exercise, will fitness through the time that you take to yourself. So could you talk about the importance of that, how it helped you and your wife actually solidify your relationship?

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and to this day has become an integral part of who you are. Yeah, sure. I say this often and that is that our physiology precedes our psychology. And I'm a big believer that if we move our bodies, if we feel good in our bodies, then we're gonna psychologically be happier. And I don't need to dive into all the science of exercise. Exercise was

releases tons of chemicals, hormones, BDNF, brain derived neurotropic factor, which is like miracle growth for your brain. So it helps rewire because there is such a thing as trauma brain. Our central nervous system is going to overdrive. there's tons of cortisol swimming through our bloodstream. The amygdala gets super hyperactive and we become sort of like flight or fight, flight or fight nonstop. That's what happened to us. And it happens to most people who experience a tragedy. Movement helped us because well, we didn't really know what else to

we learned the importance of movement, move through grief, which is Emily Bingham, know her. I don't know if you know the story. Let me just stop really quickly just to show you the grief world and how crazy this is. And I promise I'll come back. Emily is very well known in the grief community, especially for widows. You've met her, correct? Correct. And I actually did a podcast episode with her week. Yeah, there you go. So here's the craziest story. I'll get through it quickly. So Emily lost her husband, Ian. Ian and I were friends from

But living in China between 2008 and 2013, him and I both lived in China. We met in China. And then serendipitously, we met back in Miami by accident. I was working at Royal Caribbean, the headquarters here in Miami, and he was coming as a consultant, coming for Dick Wright. And we ran into each other in the lobby. Mind you, it's like a dream. Like, my gosh, what you doing here? What are you doing here? That was such a huge, like, my goodness.

what happened with Oliver. was just Ian's passing really impacted me. And obviously that was before Oliver and Emily talks a lot about move through grief. I believe that was one of her first grief programs. So coming back, move through grief is a very real thing. And for us, it started with yoga. Yoga allowed the space to breathe. It allowed the space to cry. I would cry every yoga session. My wife would as well. To your point, we did it together. And

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That was part of the foundation at the beginning of her and I reconnecting because we would do yoga. was like hot yoga and they would turn off the lights to lay down at the end and we would always be next to each other. And she could feel me crying and I could feel her crying. So what would happen as our eyes are closed and we're going to like the ting ting and all that kind of stuff, we'd reach over and hold each other's hands. It was a spiritual reconnection for us. It showed us non -verbally.

that I'm here for you and you're here for me. And that no matter what happens, no matter how difficult this is gonna be, no matter how many people predict, I swear, people were probably putting sports bets like they're gonna break up in like three months. It was us against the world, sort of, right? But that's how we attacked it. was us against anybody and let's prove everybody wrong. And our wedding song, our first dance was Shania Twain. I don't know how the word, I'm not very good at songs. Still the one, think, yeah.

You're still the one that I run to, right? Everyone thought we were going to mess up, but here we are. That was our first dance. And that's what we learned through our adversity. Our relationship truly, it grew, it improved. And not only were Rebecca and I able to move through our grief together, we were able to work through our trauma of the event, but even deeper by confronting the trauma of all these deaths and accidents.

It gave us the openness and the vulnerability and the trust with one another to actually go deeper into our traumas, for her to go into her childhood trauma, for me to go into some of my childhood trauma. And that's what allowed us to grow. Not to say we're perfect, every relationship has its things, but we would not be who we are today as individuals or as a couple had it not been for the work that we did following the tragedy.

And grief is so physical. There's an aspect of it that is so, so physical. Like I heard you say earlier how you heard, I think it was Rebecca asking about a dog. Like she kind of said like, Hey, where's the dog? And your body responded immediately. And you just looked at the pool because these memories, that moment is so marked in time, but it's also so marked in our body and in our nervous system that it is very, very important to literally move all of it through as much as we can through our bodies. And

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You know, like you said, the cortisol, the inflammation. I remember right after my brother's passing my grandmother, her face swelled up so much that she broke out in hives immediately. And initially, nobody understood what was wrong with her. But it was her, her physical response to to the loss. So if I remember my physical body changed so much, the inflammation, you know, I almost didn't recognize myself in the in the mirror. Only recently have I started to physically come back to what I knew myself to look like.

It's very real, it's mind, body, spirit. I appreciate that you and your wife went to the yoga classes and together it's taking care of all of it. So it's the physical component, it's the partnership component and it's the spiritual component as well. So that's very, very powerful. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that because it's true. And you've probably learned this with your grandma, yourself, your whole family.

A lot of that stress starts in the gut and it manifests itself into the outside, right? So skin conditions is a very common thing, hair loss, inflammation, weight gain. They're all symptoms of the stress and the fight or flight, the cortisol that honestly, I don't think we have really any control over it. I teach my guys obviously physical fitness and health. We work a lot on meditation. Meditation was a very important practice that I continue every single

To say that doing those things immediately after would just make everything better, I almost think that part of the grieving experience, the human experience of grief and trauma is going through a period of that because we all go through it. And I would almost say maybe you don't fight it. Maybe you have to experience it. I don't know. not doctor. I'm not an expert on that, but it's a very normal response. Anybody that is currently going through that and they don't know what's going on with their bodies or why they feel a certain way, or maybe they're so exhausted.

Your body is responding in the way that it needs to, which is self -preservation, protection. It's stress. Grief is really hard, guys. It's really, really hard. Yeah, I wish our society could create a more positive narrative around it. And I wish that it was okay to cry and it was okay to be vulnerable without being shamed about it or feeling embarrassed by it or judged by it. What you went through and what your family went through was very normal.

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And I could never imagine a one hour drive. Yeah, it was surreal. Yeah, I send you so much love because that's... Thank you. No, it was surreal. I say something disconnected in me and it was just watching my life as like a movie and I was like, I'm not here. This isn't happening. I need to get to my mom. And it was very slow motion. It was very weird.

We're getting to the end here, and I want to make sure that people can get ahold of you. And if somebody wants to work with you, you said you're only working with men at this time. is this in a group setting? Is this one -on -one? Like how can they get in touch with you and sign up? I appreciate that. So the best way to find me really is Instagram. That's probably where I'm most active. Obviously Facebook as well. You can find me on the Men to Man podcast. So that's where I interview men and women, really. It's not just men, but really the reason we do is

Kind of what you do here is same thing, you know, it's we bring on people who have stories, but everyone's got a story. So we're really interested in speaking with people and giving people a platform to not just share their story, but to share what worked for them and how they've been able to really create something from that story. That's what the Mending Man podcast is about. And then we have the Mending Man Brotherhood, which is a group setting. So we do group coaching. We focus on health and fitness at a core.

We focus on non -negotiables and that can look like a bunch of different things, but really building the resilience in the mind. It is about breath work, meditation, and journaling. Journaling is a huge practice in school. Yeah, you know that. And then of course other little things. And the one thing that I believe separates the men and man from just like your typical mindset or self mastery program is there's a heavy focus on positive psychology. And rewriting the narratives of your pain and your loss. I don't want you guys, let me say this, I'm about to lean

I never want anyone that works with us to think that I'm going to get rid of my pain. And if you're listening to this, I don't ever want you to get rid of your pain. Pain is the reminder that you're alive. Rather, what I encourage you with all the love and faith in the world is rather than running from the pain, let's learn to confront it. Let's learn to become friends with our pain because something else is going to happen in life. It's inevitable. Grief is a part of the human experience.

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things happen where sometimes you're met with adversity or suffering or a really dark time, I want to teach people and guys that the next time you face a really difficult time in life, that you don't run away from it, but you tap into it and you're now conditioned, you're now disciplined and you know what to do so that you can tap into that pain and you can be ready for anything that's going to come your way, no matter how difficult it is, not to say you're going to be perfect.

But again, so many men suffer in silence. Unfortunately, in our society, men who suffer in silence, they seek comfort in alcohol. They seek comfort in drugs. They seek comfort in pornography. They seek comfort in food, video games, work, distraction, Netflix, you name it. That's a distraction. It is suppressing the pain. I want to bring men away from those vices. And guess what? I struggled with all of

Except for video games. And I want to teach them to, instead of going to the vices, use it for good. And that's what the Mend and Man is all about. Beautiful and very powerful space. I encourage anybody, if any part of this resonated, schedule a call with Oscar, listen to the podcast, listen to these messages. There are so many people going through the same thing. And I appreciate that you decided to share your journey, your growth, your post -traumatic growth. And for anybody who's ready

take their life to the next step and integrate all of their experiences into the next iteration of their life with purpose. Contact Oscar, I will link his information in the show notes. I remember in one of our last conversations, there might be a trip to Columbia coming up. I'm not sure if that's still in the works, but what's next and kind of ripple effect do you want your work to have? Yeah, great question. Let me just say this so I don't forget. You've done an amazing job today on this podcast with your questions, with your observations.

I applaud you. What's next? Look, I'm an achiever. I like to think big. I like to do big. So my mission with the Mended Man is for it to be the number one post -traumatic men's program in the world. The deeper mission within that is heal the individual so that we can go out and heal the collective. It's going to sound grandiose, but I believe, especially for men, Nagaj work with

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But I feel like if we can heal ourselves, well then we can heal our children. We can heal our fathers. And this is bigger than just our time on this earth. I want to create a ripple effect so that we're breaking generational trauma, so that we're setting up our sons and their sons to be powerful, strong, courageous, confident, vulnerable men who are not afraid to say what they feel, to share what they're afraid of, but most importantly, to actually confront that pain.

So it's not just about us. It is about generations before us. It's the generations after us. That's the ripple effect. And then the last thing I'll say, something that my wife and I working together is we did launch a nonprofit called Ollie's Footprint. And Ollie's Footprint serves two purposes. It is first and foremost to raise funds for families who have experienced an accident and drowning, because it happens so much. I think people realize how often drownings happen. To give both financial resources,

and any additional medical care for families who need it. And secondly, we've recently just signed a partnership with Pool Guard. Pool Guard creates sensors that you can put in your pool so that when it's not pool time and the pool senses a splash or anything out of the norm, it'll automatically set off alarms in the home saying that there's unusual movement in the pool. Because if we would have had that, we would have been able to save all of our... So we're also donating those

having them set up in pools for families that either are not aware of it or don't have the financial resources to be able to afford it. I just got chills listening to that. my gosh. What a beautiful ripple effect from this tragedy. What a way to help other people to prevent other losses. We live in Florida and one of the top causes of death in kids is drowning. Like people don't understand how commonplace this is, unfortunately.

Thank you for your work. One in four, Nina. One in four. Of all the accidental deaths of children under four years old, one in four, I believe one in three is drowning. Let that sink in. And if I may, just one last thing, because I don't want this to go unsaid. I struggled for a really long time with the image of him splashing and struggling. What we've learned being involved with these pool companies and learning more about drowning advocacy is drowning is a silent

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accident. You think as an adult, if I'm drowning, I'm going to splash. Kids don't know that. So it's not a natural reaction. I always question, why didn't the dog bark? How did no one hear this? And what I've learned is that they don't know what to do. So kind of like the same way I froze, kids freeze in the pool and they sink to the bottom. They seek air, they seek air, they drown. So it is a very silent accident that most people don't understand.

And they always like, why weren't you there? How could you not hear? It's unfortunately a silent tragedy. And I want people to know that if they didn't know that already. Thank you very much for bringing that point. It's something to be aware because you're absolutely right. I could feel like in the movies even, we always have these frameworks for unlived experiences from films, from movies. And in the movies you see the splashing and that is not how it happens. I can attest to it. was at a friend's birthday party. were

there was a pool and so everybody's eyes on the pool and everything and we saw this one kid walk, it happens like this, like it happens so quickly, it's so scary. We actually saw the kid going, somebody screamed, somebody managed to jump in because people were staring at the pool but it takes a split of a second. Not only did it not make a sound, when we looked underneath, you couldn't even see

the outline of the baby. Like we couldn't even see the outline. Like nothing happened in this case, thankfully, but it was terrifying. One, how quickly, how silently and how almost invisibly it happened. So there is a lot of elements that are unexpected in these types of such scenarios. Something to keep in mind. And again, I'm so sorry. This is how we get to honor our loved ones now. Thank you for sharing Ollie with us, with our audience. Please visit his profile. There are beautiful videos

cute, adorable Ali and his bright light. And this is how we get to remember him. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank your wife for sharing her story as well. And as a final question, what would Oscar today tell Oscar in March, 2020? That's so good. So good. I would say, man, would say, look, number one, it's not your fault.

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But I think the biggest thing I would say to myself is you're not alone even if it feels like you are. And I would say that time is gonna help just not on the way you think it is. And then finally, I would say he loves you, he forgives you, he wants to see you happy and alive because I wanted to die for a while. he wants to see you alive. And that's what I would say. And I think that would help him tremendously.

Thank you so much, Oscar. It has been an honor. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.