The Five Facets of Healing after loss with Annah Elizabeth

In this episode, host Nina Rodriguez speaks with Annah Elizabeth, a grief coach and founder of the Five Facets of Healing™. They discuss the complexities of grief, the importance of recognizing personal loss, and the journey of healing. Annah shares her own experiences with loss, including the death of her son and the betrayal of loved ones, and how these events shaped her understanding of grief. The conversation emphasizes that healing is a personal journey, not a destination, and introduces The Five Facets of Healing™ framework, which helps individuals navigate their grief and find hope.

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Click here to watch on YouTube
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Takeaways:

• Annah's journey began with the loss of her firstborn son, Gavin.
• She emphasizes the importance of knowing grief does to have to last a lifetime.
• Each person's grief experience is unique and should be honored.
• Healing is a journey, not a destination.
• Grief and healing can occur simultaneously.
• Loss, grief, and healing are distinct but interconnected.
• Recognizing the significance of loss is crucial for healing.
• The Five Facets of Healing provide a framework for understanding grief.
• Pain and suffering are distinct; pain can be tended, while suffering can be adjusted.
• Significant life loss events can impact individuals deeply, regardless of their nature.
• It's important to honor all forms of loss, not just those associated with death.
• We are all born with five universal gifts that influence our healing journey.
• Self-acceptance and agency are crucial in the healing process.
• Hope is essential; healing is possible for everyone.
• Connecting with others can provide support and understanding during grief. 

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Connect with Annah Elizabeth:

• IG @annahelizabethheals
• annahelizabeth.com

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• @griefandlight
• griefandlight.com
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Transcript

griefandlight (00:00.162)
Seven years after his death, something that was completely devastated upturned my life in a different but similar way. And it was like, why am I crying over spilt milk? And so what happens when we do that is it inhibits our growth. It inhibits our healing because what are we doing? We're beating ourselves up rather than honoring, wow, this was...

This was a very impactful loss. And so I don't refer to primary, secondary, because to me, none of that matters. And what I say is if it feels like a significant loss to you, then it is a significant loss. And that's all anybody needs to know. And that's for you to recognize. 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. Welcome back to the Grief in Life podcast. Thank you so much for being here. Today's guest has been on a mission for over 25 years to provide hope and inspiration to grievers. A journey that began after experiencing multiple losses over a seven year span.

including the loss of her baby and betrayal by some of the people she loved most. She has thus developed powerful frameworks to facilitate healing and reclaim hope after loss and grief. I'm honored to welcome Anna Elizabeth, the founder of the Five Facets of Healing and creator of the Five Facets, Philosophy on Healing. Anna is a published author, TEDx speaker and workshop facilitator who integrates both academic and alternative modalities in her coaching and training programs.

Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets and helps individuals thrive personally, professionally, and even in the face of adversity. Anna is also an international medium, a certified master instructor in both integrated energy therapy and Reiki, as well as a certified medical Reiki master. I am still looking forward to this conversation. Welcome to the Grief and Light podcast, Anna. Thank you. Thank you.

griefandlight (02:18.254)
for that warm introduction, Nina. I'm so happy to be here and I'm so grateful for all the work that you are doing in honor of Joseph's death, your brother, and in recognition of everyone who's struggling. So thank you. Thank you as well for being generous with your time and with your work as well. You are a wealth of information. was reading your bio and seeing some of your videos and it was really touched not just by your story, but

how you have managed to harness the power of this energy that is loss and grief and turned it around to live a very full and hopeful life. And so I want our listeners to get to know some of that, but let's go back to the beginning. Where did this journey start for you? Perhaps start with Gavin and say as much or as little as you would like. Yeah, thank you. So Gavin is my firstborn son and my firstborn child.

picture -perfect pregnancy, and there were unexpected delivery complications. There was an emergency C -section, and he lived 26 minutes before dying, and I was under anesthesia the whole time, obviously. And hours after I came to and heard the message that, I'm sorry, he didn't make it,

I remember having this distinct thought that I did not want to spend a lifetime mourning him. And what I say is I didn't know what that meant, what it looked like on the other side or how I was gonna get there, but I just had this thought that I did not want to spend a lifetime mourning him. Over the next seven year period that you mentioned, I went on to experience two second trimester miscarriages, two complicated but successful pregnancies.

a six -week psychiatric stay for severe depression, and one final pregnancy six weeks before that child was born, I discovered that my husband and my best friend were having an affair. So massive amounts of loss in a short period of time. And there was one question that drove me throughout all of...

griefandlight (04:37.57)
those events and that was how is it that some people go on to live happy fulfilled lives following tragedy, mess up or mayhem while others succumb to drugs, despair, life avoid or suicide. And I literally that question drove me and that one question spawned thousands more questions and I just relentlessly pursued them. And all of the answers that I found eventually

I compiled into the coaching program, which you mentioned is the Five Facets philosophy on healing. What I discovered and it actually, it wrote itself in my memoir, Digging for the Light, One Woman's Journey from Heartache to Hope. And that was when I wrote about the morning I finally got confirmation of the affair.

I wrote about that in the book and what I wrote was every piece of hope I'd ever held on to before had just been shredded. My faith, my trust in dignity and God, every spiritual, emotional, social, physical and academic part of me laid in a heap to be tossed out with the garbage. It never made it to the garbage. I recycled it instead. And for any, I think you've written a book I read, am I right on that?

No, I have not, but I've been definitely thinking about it. So maybe you're perceiving this. Okay. There must have been one of your other guests then. So for any, you who's going to write a book, because I do believe that, and for any listeners who have, like writing the book is the easy part. And then there's hundreds and hundreds of edits. And it was in one of those final hundreds of edits that that passage stood out to me like,

a neon sign and those five things, academic, emotional, physical, social and spiritual sides of the self. And what I heard was that's it. And then what I realized is that we are all born with five universal gifts. They exist in a hierarchy that's different for each of us. What's at the top drives both our suffering and our success. It's the lens from which we see and experience all life.

griefandlight (06:59.894)
Yeah, that put me on a whole new path of understanding myself, understanding my grief, understanding my conflict slash suffering. I think they're all synonymous. I think all conflict that we experience in life stems from some unresolved grief. And I share that we've definitely. Yeah. And so my focus is on how we heal and

I know you are also part of the Get Griefy magazine and that third issue just came out for everybody watching, grab your copy. one of the things early on that I realized is most of us, most everyone I've encountered anyway, at some point in their life have asked the question, how am I going to survive this? And what we're really asking is how am I going to heal?

And for the first probably 10 years of my work, 15 years of my work, I kind of avoided what I call the grief or bereavement industry because I didn't want people to feel like I'm saying, get over your grief. Cause let's face it, there's enough people telling us that, right? And I didn't want people to feel like their grief didn't matter.

And then it was probably about 12 years ago. I literally got this message and this understanding that healing it just like happiness is not a destination. It's a journey and healing happens in micro -memons. So that's a whole nother conversation. And so it helped me realize that there's different things that we need at various

places along our grief journey. And there's something for everyone to help them heal whatever they're having and it starts small. So yeah, that's my, that sort of encapsulates my story and my journey, helping people. One of the things that I say in every course I teach, in every stage I am on, I say, it doesn't matter what the group is, I know longer more than my son's life.

griefandlight (09:27.406)
I finally did figure and discover what it was that I did want and that was to celebrate his life. And I stand as a beacon of hope to let people know that no matter what you have experienced, you can 100 % fully heal across each of your facets, across your entire being. And what that looks like for each person is different.

And it's always an honor to help people navigate whatever, whether it's the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, loss of health, loss of home, loss of finance, loss of a pet. I mean, just to help people understand what it represents to them, it truly is an honor. Beautifully stated. Thank you for your work. I know that

putting such a long story in succinct words the way that you did, that journey that you've gone through is not easy, but it also speaks to the ways that you've healed yourself. And I know that in the grief space, the word healing has many connotations and it could mean different things to different people. So actually, before I get started, I'm sorry for the loss of Gavin and for the painful things that you experienced at the end of the day, the human part of us.

suffers those things. I'm also appreciative of, you know, we live in the both -and world, so I'm very appreciative that you also managed to create such beautiful work thereafter and help so many people for a long time. So I want to acknowledge both things at the same time. And getting there is a process. As far as healing, it could mean something different to different people. We were talking about this before we started recording, but what is helpful to one person may actually not be helpful to another person.

And that nuance is very important in grief work. So when you talk about healing, could you please define what healing is to you? How do you help people get from hurt to healing with your process? That was one of the first things that I did. And one of the things that I talk about that's paramount in understanding how we're going to move through grief and healing is, and 100 % is an and.

griefandlight (11:46.294)
We simultaneously grieve and heal and what it looks like for each person is different. One of the things that I realized right out of the gate is that we use expressions like loss and healing and grief and healing. When we do that, we actually are eliminating one piece of our experience. And so it's really important. One is to recognize the loss event or event.

Two is to recognize our response, which is the grief. And three is to understand what healing means to us. And that may very well change over time. So I have identified it's loss, grief, and healing, and they're all autonomous. And the simple definitions are loss is an event. It's an event where

something or someone tangible or abstract goes missing from our life. But at its core, it's an event. Grief is a response. It's our individual response to the loss event. And as you know, and many of the people who are watching this will know, it varies and it changes and it's unique to each of us. And it can be different from loss event to loss event. It fluctuates depending on where we are in our life.

Grief is already complicated. Grief is already jumbled up and confusing and so is loss. So when we learn to separate the loss and the healing and the pain and all these things, we understand how to work with each one, what needs to be tended, pain gets tended, suffering gets adjusted. And so we have to understand the parts that we can control and the parts that are what they are, they're fixed elements. my gosh. So you just said

pain gets tended and suffering gets adjusted. Wow. Okay. So before you said that it came back, healing is the resolution of the conflicts that comprise our grief. And that's within each of those facets. So recognizing the autonomy and when I'm working with people, we're identifying what the loss event is, where it's impacting them.

griefandlight (14:08.846)
across their life, their being their five facets, what they want to accomplish. And then I just help navigate and help them get to where they want to go. And ultimately it's an action plan, but it really is what do you want to achieve and how are you going to get there? And then introducing people to other modalities that they might not be aware of or connecting them with people who

might have skills that can help them that I don't have and just helping them better understand who they are and what their loss event represents to them. So at the foundation, that's the first and foremost is understanding those three things. And that's a very important point of nuance because that's the sign of a true coach and healer and practitioner. They meet you where you're at.

and they don't just start blurting out like, this is what you need and it's not prescriptive. This walking the grief path is not prescriptive. This is so unique when people say everybody grieves differently, truly everybody grieves differently and the needs are different. And I love that you say it's a collaborative effort with the person who's grieving and you have your experience, knowledge and wisdom professionally and personally, but you take the person by the hand and you say,

What are your goals? What is healing to you? And what does that look like to you? And I will help you get there. So that's huge. That's, you for the listeners, you will see, you know, let me help you heal 10 steps to heal, five steps to whatever. You will see all these frameworks, but I encourage you to talk to each person and like Anna just explain the first step is to see where are you and where do you want to go? And I think that's a very important and beautiful way to approach it because that's truly how it works. It's very unique.

and not everybody needs the same things and not everybody sees grief the same way. So in your case, you have this aha moment after all these multiple losses. And I also want to highlight with your loss, you had the loss of Gavin and the miscarriages, unfortunately, but grief is not limited to the physical death of a person. It's also the grief of the betrayal from the people you loved and, you know,

griefandlight (16:27.416)
How did you navigate those things? Was there a nuance to the types of grief and how you navigated both of them in your life? Or did you use your same frameworks for both types of losses? Wow, Nina, that's big question. the question. I mean, it's a good question. So what's coming to me, there's someone I follow in the spiritual space. And I've heard this from other people as well, but basically it's just

You don't, you're not starting from scratch. You're starting from experience. so each loss brought about its own unique aspects to my grief. I'm just trying to be mindful how I was answer this. Cause it is such a big question. So I had the experiences that I had already had in moving forward in healing and then each loss brought it on. So for instance, the first miscarriage, one of my struggles was

being a flawed human being. It's one of the things that I struggled with from early childhood, not feeling worthy, not feeling seen, not feeling hurt, not fitting in. I was always very different. If I had a dime for every time somebody said, you're a rare bird, that's odd. I'm like, I'd be living in a castle. So the first miscarriage really brought that.

to a much more heightened level, feeling that I wasn't worthy of motherhood. The depression, I did discover I had had low level depression probably since my teenage years, and I was just very high functioning and masked it very well. So that was a whole different aspect with the affair. It was the beginning, the cusp of me recognizing how rejection is a major sort of

player in my life. And there were, could see threads of that. was, it would turn out to be many years later before I really dug into how rejection was influencing so much of my life and my relationships and my fear and all of those things. There were, there's threads. And one of the things, you we talk about, you mentioned loss is not just about the death of a loved one.

griefandlight (18:52.632)
Thank you for recognizing that. So many people in the grief space will say, acknowledge that, but then when you read their work or listen to them, that's aside. And we tend to put the death of a loved one at the top. Like that's on a pedestal. That is the ultimate pinnacle loss. And that is one of the things that

I recognized in hindsight, coming back to your question, was when I found out about the affair between my best friend and my then husband, literally it felt equal to, if not more impactful than the death of my child. And I know...

that might be hard for some people to understand. And again, coming back to each person is unique. The more we are attached and identify to a relationship, a thought, a process, a life, whatever word you want to put on it, the more we identify with that, then the greater our

grief response is likely to be. And again, that's a broad brush. It's not a given. I went around for many years with this underlying belief system that what was wrong with me and why was I crying over spilt milk? I'd already experienced the worst loss. And again, some people are, many people, all people I believe are well -intended in this space. And there's

mental health professional many years ago who wrote the book The Worst Loss. And it was based on her experiences in helping other people. And what she found is that the people who came in with the greatest response to grief was, or the greatest grief was those who'd lost a child. And somewhere along the way, that got picked up and coined that child loss is the worst loss.

griefandlight (21:05.954)
And that was one of the first things that I heard. And so once somebody told me that, like we believe that when there are people in positions of authority, we take that as the gospel. so now I'm having seven years after his death, something that was completely devastated upturned my life in a different but similar way.

And it was like, why am I crying over spilt milk? And so what happens when we do that is it inhibits our growth. It inhibits our healing because what are we doing? We're beating ourselves up rather than honoring, wow, this was a very impactful loss. And so I refer to these events as significant life loss events.

That's how I phrase it. I know there are many people who talk about secondary losses. I don't refer to primary, secondary, because to me, none of that matters. And what I say is if it feels like a significant loss to you, then it is a significant loss. And that's all anybody needs to know. And that's for you to recognize that there's nothing wrong with you.

I hope that answers your question. no. And absolutely, thank you for being open and vulnerable. I feel like there's so much people can gain from hearing these types of stories from a very open and authentic point of view. So I thank you for sharing that. And I completely agree. What's sort of funny is I was going to follow up your statement with, it's like the secondary losses. And then you just touched on. Fine.

Because I'm learning as I go too. And I actually really appreciate your perspective because it is so true. Secondary losses implies there's a step down. It went down in volume or intensity, if you will. And sometimes that's not the case. That's not the case at all. And I've heard with compounded grief in terms of loss after loss after loss. I've heard people say, I feel like I'm being punished, or I feel like I did something wrong, or I feel there's all these

griefandlight (23:27.072)
Our mind likes explanations. Our mind likes to understand why something's happening. And sometimes we tend to blame ourselves as if it's something that we did or we're not worthy or it's something internally flawed. So what would you say to somebody who has experienced or is experiencing multiple losses and they're internalizing the guilt and the shame and taking it as punishment? What would you say to somebody like that knowing what you know now?

Well, the first thing, and I'm gonna come back to sort of your first conversation, I would say I am sorry for your losses and I am happy for the healing that you're experiencing and the fact that you're recognizing it and you're reaching out, you're watching podcasts, you're doing research to help yourself because that in and of itself is healing. So first of all, would say the hand, both of those things. The next thing that I...

I would say from the coaching standpoint is where in which facet is your most significant conflict line and then address that. And I have a quick checklist assessment that looks at each five facets. It's a way of what am I experiencing in this facet? What do I want to experience? Like we talked about earlier, but it's a quick assessment so that people can

check a box and then say, wow, okay, get it out of the head, out of the body, onto paper. But then you can see very quickly and isolate what it is in a very, it's just a one page form. It's so simple. And then you could say, okay, wow, this is what I want to address right now. So first of all, understanding where in your being

that conflict is. So you mentioned guilt and shame. So that could be from the spiritual facet. It could be in the academic. Obviously, it's an emotion, right? So it's in the emotional facet, but where is it stemming from? And so for some people, that emotion is actually, and somebody said this to me about a year ago, it was

griefandlight (25:52.792)
funny because he said to me, he's another healer. And he said, you know, you intellectualize your emotions. And I was like, whoa, mind blown all the work that I've done. I didn't realize that. So I'm constantly just talking away and analyzing my emotions. So for me, that guilt or shame could very well be in that academic facet. So where is it? That is a start.

because one of the things that I talk about, so the second part of the program is called the 5Ds. And it's, I talk about when we're feeling overwhelmed, it's like this big loss umbrella. And there's all these pieces that we don't know. It's just all these pieces that simultaneously exist. And they're like ghosts batting at us in the dark all the time. When we can shine a spotlight on it, it no longer has control over us.

Now we can make a recognition. And sometimes that alone is just enough, that aha moment that you mentioned earlier. And sometimes we can go, wow, there's this, this, this, and then we get to choose. So one of the things that I say is loss and grief are unempowering because we seldom have a say in how our loss event is going to play out and when and where our grief response.

is going to surface. And healing though is a choice. It's empowering because we get to choose what it is we want to work on or what it is that we wanna do. So coming back to that person, I would say, where is it in your body? Recognize that you're experiencing that. Okay, I'm feeling guilt or shame. What do you want to experience?

and then recognize, okay, if it's in this facet, what are some things that I know that I can do to help achieve that goal? Beautiful. That's very, very powerful. And I love that. And you touched on the facets early on at the beginning of the episode, could you give, it could be a high level overview of each one. And so what are the five and what do each entail?

griefandlight (28:22.136)
Not sure if I'm asking that right, but basically like just give it a little bit Absolutely. So basically high level in a nutshell, and it is equally simple in its complexity, if that makes sense. So the academic facet is our ability to learn. These are five universal gifts that we are born with. And many of these you'll see in other modalities, I have

I have not seen these five alone and other modalities and concepts that I've encountered. So the academic facet is an ability to learn. We're all born with an ability to learn. It's just different for each one of us. How we learn is different and unique to each one of us. The emotional facet is our ability to feel. We are all born with an ability to feel. It's just what we do with those feelings.

and how we feel that is unique. The physical facet is two -pronged. We're born into a physical body and a physical environment, and that's unique to each one of us, right? I do it in alphabetical order, so it's easy to remember. So academic, emotional, physical. So the social facet, we all have the ability to connect to the world around us in some way.

And for alliteration, I say people, pets, plants, and places. So some people connect more to people. Some people connect more to animals, pets. Some people connect more to nature, the plants. And some people really are drawn to place, people who travel a lot or people who are really like anchored in and rooted in their home.

place, space. So there's so many variables, but that is the social facet, connecting to the world around us and helping people understand what that looks like. So for somebody who really connects to people, but another who is perfectly content in nature where there's nobody else, somebody who's super social might label that other person as isolated.

griefandlight (30:42.134)
It's not that they're isolated, it's just the way that they connect is different. And one of the things that I'm hoping to move into and I'm really excited about is using this modality to help people with team building and bonding, community bonding for people to better understand one another. The last facet is the spiritual facet and it's the divine self within.

It's the soul, the spirit within whatever word somebody wants to use. It is separate from religion. Religion can be a support resource for the spiritual facet, but we're not born with religion. We're just born with that soul within. Those five facets, they exist in a hierarchy that's unique to each one of us, and that gets a little more complex. I'm really working on trying to build a

questionnaire that can help people quickly understand their hierarchy, have a good scope of that for people who are watching. The two main questions I use is when you are feeling successful, which facet is always in the mix? What I say is it's driving the bus of you. And when you're suffering, which facet is always in the mix?

driving again, the bus of you. And oftentimes that facet that's at the top, it's always in the mix, that's at the top of the hierarchy. That facet you have to kind of understand and manage, whereas what's at the bottom, what's at the bottom is like the foundation of your house and it's kind of out of sight, out of mind. So it has the least impact and influence on your daily life.

And you have to be intentional in supporting it. And then as you work down, so that's kind of in a nutshell. I hope if you are listening or watching, you are taking notes because wow, what a powerful framework and the beauty of these tools is that you can work them as they are true to you.

griefandlight (33:05.568)
and you can take inventory of what you have, what you're maybe lacking or where you like to gain additional support in, et cetera, et cetera. And it just gives you a sort of blueprint for where you are and where you want to go and how can each area, each facet be worked towards healing, towards the hope and towards the life that you want to create.

within the context of grief and loss. Like what a beautiful tool. Thank you for creating this. And as you were talking about the facets, I was resonating with all of them in my own experience, particularly the people, places. The social facet. The social facet. places. The social facet. Because I hear people say, well, you know, she's really isolated and she's really just, she went on a long road trip and hasn't come back and I don't understand something's wrong with her, right?

And I say, is there really something wrong with her or is she just grieving the way that she needs to? Is she reconnecting with herself the way that she needs to or himself, know, whoever's grieving? So we have to be mindful that when we judge somebody's journey as this is not normal, you have to be mindful of what that means and what context they're navigating this part of their journey. So very, very powerful frameworks. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. And you know, it's interesting. So, in 2020, I experienced another series of, significant life loss events in my life as I had known it, for three decades, like completely was stripped away. And one of the things that I ended up doing, I'd always been somebody who super organized. I had.

Plan Z for Plan A and everything in between. just, and I ended up when I knew my life had to change and I needed to create something different. was, and it was right before COVID. Long story short, Scotland started showing up. like, what am I going to do? What does somebody my age do to literally start over?

griefandlight (35:20.546)
There was a homeless village in Edinburgh, Scotland, and I was in discussions with them about going and staying for a year and volunteering to help get people, give them the tools and resources and knowledge to become independent again. And then COVID hit when the world opened back up a year and a half later, I ended up booking a trip to Scotland. When I left, I only knew where I was going to be for the first eight days.

And where I was going to be for like seven days in December. And it was a three month and one week trip. When you said, you're talking about the person that you knew that went off. People literally in my old life work worse. She's crazy. She's going off to Scotland. You know, it was the best thing for me and what I realized. And it's the next book, a little, Well, preview.

But it's the next book that I'm finishing right now. And it was all about coming back to self -love. That trip was because I started somebody who was an over planner who left with out a plan. And I started feeling all of the anxiety and I was like, wow, okay, what, do I know? What, what do I know? And it's like, wow, okay, if I get there and it doesn't work out, can.

change my ticket and come back. Like, yeah, it might cost me a little, a few extra bucks. Okay. when a few extra bucks were hard to come by, but that was a choice, right? Healing. What is healing? It's a choice. So I was healing that conflict. And then I got there one day and I was trying to find a place. I ended up walking seven miles because I didn't know how to read the little walking

thing, which direction I was going and I kept walking and I walked seven miles in the place that I was supposed to go. was a quarter of a mile from where I was. And it started getting dark. like literally lost in Inverness. That's a chapter in the book, by the way, lost in Inverness. And I felt that panic rising as my phone was dying. And then I'm beating myself up because I forgot to bring my battery pack. And I'm like, wait, wait a minute.

griefandlight (37:46.21)
This isn't helping anything. And I'm like, what do know? I'm not afraid to go knock on somebody's door. And fortunately I was in a very, older, well established community in the area. So that was a bonus, but I'm not afraid to lock on somebody's door and ask for help. I'm not afraid to flag a car down and ask for help. it's like, you got this. And so I went on my merry way and I found.

I saw a sign that looked familiar and ended back up where I started, but it was like a seven mile journey. But all of that, right, coming back to us and what's normal for one person, what one person needs is so different. And there was a place I was going to go one particular day. I wanted to go and celebrate one of my children and I went to the train station.

very familiar with the trains. went to the train station and I said to the person, I want to get to whatever town this was. I need a ticket for that. And he's like, aren't any trains that go there. And it turned out it was in an industrial area in the Glasgow region. And I said, well, how do you, how do you get there? And he looked at me and he said, don't go. What option I could. Like, why would you want, why would you want to go there? And I was like,

That's not an option because I woke up that morning. I'm like, this is what I'm going to do today. And so it would have been very easy for me to stay hunkered down out of beer and to just not get out and push those limits of myself, which is what I needed to really, I mean, I've always been successful and an entrepreneur, but this was a whole different level. was.

just for me, it wasn't for anyone or anything else. It was really helping me dig deep into healing that conflict. yeah, everybody's normal is normal. there's a term in grief in this world, the new normal. if I'm being honest, I'm not sure how I feel about that.

griefandlight (40:09.666)
the same way the worst loss sets us up for failure. Like I realized that in the aftermath of the first affair. that really set me up at so many other people for failure. the way I look at it, like every day we're a new person. Every day we wake up, we're somebody new. We're hours older, a day older, we're wearing different clothes.

Our processes are similar and yet still they're different, they're unique. And so a new normal is every day. And I think sometimes we tend to put so much emphasis, but again, and it's what we were talking about before we started recording about Say Their Name. know, I acknowledge Joseph, your brother, and you said thank you for saying his name. And in all the years that I've been doing this work,

It's been probably the last six years that are so that that's really become sort of a theme and a social media tag is say their name, say their name. And I say Gavin's name all the time. was sharing with you his siblings who came after him and never knew him, but they did. I mean, we created a life with him even though he's in spirit and not here. I've encountered an equal number of

people who it's painful for them. And so if I find myself in a chat, you know, in a group comment about a post and one time I was a dear friend of mine hit mates, you know, and it's like, you have to say their name, you have to say their name, you have to say their name. And I just made a short comment honoring those who want to hear the name and those who don't. And actually another person

replied to my comment and said, thank you so much for saying this because I thought there was something wrong with me all this time. So much to unpack there and so much truth. First, I am excited to read your book. I will be one of the first ones to read it. As soon as it comes out, I feel like that would be such a fantastic journey to experience as a reader. And so much of grief.

griefandlight (42:35.208)
work, if you will, or grief journey is returning a sense of agency to ourselves and that means different things to each person. And it could be in terms of how do I show up in the world again? How do I show up as this new version of myself or this post -loss version of myself? How do I, for example, I had to redefine what it means to be a sibling in this world. I went back to work after my brother's loss and somebody said,

well now that you're an only child. And I said, what? I've never, not once, not ever thought of myself as that. Felt like that was even a title that belonged to me, but it made me question, is that what I am now? Am I an only child? And years later, that was extremely painful. It felt like a punch to the gut. I've said this in previous episodes, but I now know I am his sister. I will always be his sister.

was and is the biggest honor and privilege of my life. It has literally helped define who I am today, the work that I do, why this podcast exists, why we're sitting here having this conversation, it has literally become this new iteration of my life. I am, you when I go home and I'm with my parents, it's just the three of us physically. So there is an element of, sure, it does rearrange your life, it changes how you show up.

He is present with us in spirit. There are things I will have to do on my own, but how we redefine how we show up, how we identify after loss is very personal. And I pause here because I was thinking the spiritual journey, the emotional journey, but also this physical journey. A lot of people leave everything they knew. They were very Taipei like yourself. They had all the plans, all the schedules, the forecasts for five, 10 year plans. And all of a sudden,

That gets put to the side and you realize, gosh, there's really so much we're not in control of and I'm going to discover this other side. And a lot of that is walking those seven miles to understand I can trust myself. I can do this on my own. I can knock on doors. I can do this on my own because at the end of the day, our journeys are unique, whether in life or death. we are walking this path alone. We arrive alone. We leave alone our earthly existence.

griefandlight (44:58.816)
In the meantime, we meet people along the way, but that path is so unique. So I really appreciate your story. I think there's so much beauty in that. And I love how you help other people. I love the work that you're doing and the facets. The facets are really, really interesting and very helpful. So if somebody wanted to work with you, what's the best way to do that? Where can they reach you? How can they work with you?

From a coaching standpoint, I have a free consult. And if you go to my website, it's the five facets of healing .com or AnnaElizabeth .com. Anna has that H on the end. Either of those places you can find the coaching. So I have two types of coaching. do for those people.

meaning people where they're at, to use your term, for those people who are only interested in the academic process. I have strict coaching and for those people who are open to some of the more holistic alternative aspects, the soul sort of concepts, spiritual concepts, then I have coaching plus, but this both will lead you to a free consult.

And then you fill out an intake form and figure out where you are, what do you want? How can I help you? And in that discussion, I just make sure that we're the best fit for each other. If people are connected on any of my socials, Instagram or Facebook, they'll also find the link back to my website. And I know we're wrapping things up. think I want to ask you a question. If you don't mind, were you ever able to

reconcile that now that you're the only child. I know you've processed, like you mentioned, it's both of those experiences, but were you able to put that in a context or a framework that feels right to you? So thank you so much for that question. No, that's a beautiful question. I think it's a work in progress. It's something that I redefine every day because something new shows up as time goes by.

griefandlight (47:10.99)
For example, I feel connected to him. I dream with him. I've had mystical experiences. I do not question. I have no doubt he exists in a different form and we are connected. That is very clear and nobody can take that away from me. He lives in my being. He helps me be a better person because every time I feel fear to do something, think like...

just do it. He would personally have encouraged me to do so. And because his life was cut so short, I realized we don't have time to be analyzing every decision. If it's good and it's exciting and it's not going to harm anybody, please do it. Just do it for the plot twist. Do it for the curiosity. Just do it. And so in that regard, we're still partners. He's still my sibling, all the things. Where I still struggle is siblings share a language.

We share our family history. He's the one person in the world I never had to explain myself to. He's a person that we had our inside jokes and there's certain things I would like to think to him and I can't, not in physical form. For example, we had this one inside joke as kids and he always remembered it. I always had trouble remembering it. But whenever I prompted him to remember it, he would just immediately say, it was blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I still struggle. I've been trying so hard to remember that and I can't. So things like that, as small as they may seem, they're very painful. And then the second part that's very, very painful, and I was speaking to another person who lost her only sibling about this, is assuming life takes the natural path and my parents go first, I will have to bury them by myself and I will have to live my life by myself. And I don't have children. My brother didn't have any kids.

There's this heaviness of my branch of my family tree ends with me and that's a very heavy burden to carry. So there's a lot of heaviness there. There's a lot of finality to I'll never be an auntie. There's all these things that elements that I have yet to reconcile fully. I think I'm working on that. But as far as am I his sister, I am beyond doubt always am, will be and continue to be.

griefandlight (49:32.546)
I have no doubt there. Thank you for that question. That question is beautiful. You're welcome. You're so welcome. And I empathize with you for in all of those unknowns and in those questions. And one of the things I've been involved in so many discussions around what to say and what not to say and how to

help people and the one thing that I invite everybody to remember is that everything comes to us from our own frame of reference based on our own experiences. do coming back to something I said earlier, I do believe that most people, their intentions are well. Sometimes they say things that seem...

so callous and cruel and hard. Sometimes it's just that they don't know and sometimes what's coming out is their own fear. And one of the things that I learned years after I thought that I had resolved all of the conflict around Gavin's death was I had

My maternal mother, she made donations until he was 21 to the local Children's Miracle Network. I had another group of close people in our circle who every time I brought up his name, they would change the subject. And I would get frustrated and I would feel like they're ignoring him and take it personally. And one day, it was one Christmas, I...

And I had been saying for years, like I no longer mourn his son or my son. And one Christmas it dawned on me that happened and I could feel that well up. I was like, my gosh, like that is the, that's the social facet for me. it's that connection. And I realized in that moment, that's how they need to process their grief has absolutely nothing to do with me.

griefandlight (51:49.91)
And it's not denying him. It's about how they need to process their grief. And one of the things coming back when you said the only child, if I can just offer something for you. So I have four children and it took me years to process that. You have two siblings in your family. What I now say is I refer to my three living children. And so for you, you're the

only living sibling. You are the living sibling. If you want to take the word only out, you are the living sibling. I don't know if that helps you. I don't know if that resonates with you. Some people it may, some people it won't. I joke all the time, this isn't the gospel, right?

It definitely resonates. I do say that, you know, when people ask that question, like, you know, do you have any siblings? I always say yes. And depending on how I'm feeling trust wise with that person, I may elaborate, but I say, yes, I have a brother whose name is Joseph. And if they want to know more and I feel comfortable sharing, I elaborate. Exactly. And that's what I found where I ultimately landed with how many children do you

And I went back and forth kind of like you mentioned for a while. was like, well, I have three. And then it like, but no, really, have four, you know, I have four children. It's just one of them is dead. And I can laugh about that now at the time I wasn't laughing about it at all. And so same, would, I, when I meet strangers and they say how many children and

I'll say four, they're like, where they live, what do they do? And I start with the youngest and work my way up. And if by the time I get to the oldest, they're still engaged and asking questions, as you said, building that trust, then I share. So yeah. That's beautiful. I see you, I have a dear friend who had a very similar situation as she says, have a four earth side, one heaven side.

griefandlight (54:00.834)
That's how she defines it. And she was actually the first person who gave me the words to say this, a framework or an idea of how to answer that question. And I think it's beautiful because it is true. Like once here, and you know, even my mom, if somebody asked her, where does he live? She's like in heaven. And then she just let the silence speak, fill in the space there. Yeah. stayed very similar. I have three on earth and one in heaven. That's, yeah. So.

And it's true because they exist. They so very much exist. And I thank you very much. I'm going to link all your information in the show notes. And if you are interested in also getting a copy of the book, Digging for the Light, which I understand you have the 10 year anniversary of the book or the new copy? can't remember. At least the 10 year anniversary in April, the end of April. So that is available.

People can purchase a signed copy through me. They just have to pay shipping and handling, or it's available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Beautiful. I'll link everything. And it has been a pleasure and honor, I love these conversations. They fill me with so much joy. And meeting people like you makes me so happy and so honored that I get to do this work and I get to connect with you. I want to...

allow a few minutes to maybe have you say something that's on your heart or something that I didn't cover that I didn't ask that you feel is important to complete the conversation today. Honestly, the one thing that I would just say to everybody listening and watching is truly, truly, truly, truly just hold on to hope. If you're feeling despair, if you're feeling like there is no hope, allow me to be and

Nina, to be just living proof that you can live your best life. It's not hopeless. Reach out and just keep holding on to hope because your grief is not forever and it won't be forever. It doesn't have to be. Beautifully stated. Again, thank you, Anna. Thank you for being you, for your work, and for being generous with your time. It has been an honor. Thank you. Thank you as well. That's it for today's episode. Be sure to subscribe to the Grief in Light podcast.

griefandlight (56:19.564)
I'd also love to connect with you and hear your thoughts and your stories. Feel free to share them with me via my Instagram page at griefandlight or you can also visit griefandlight .com for more information and updates. Thank you so much for being here, for being you, and always remember you are not alone.