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140. Survive, Get Back Up and Live Beyond the Loss- with Eric Hodgdon
126 Plays2 years ago
Eric Hodgdon knows first-hand the struggle that grips us after the loss of a loved one. After losing his 15-year old daughter Zoi to suicide in early 2014, Eric was frustrated with grief support resources that focused on survival as being the endgame of a grief journey.
For the past 9 years, Eric has made it his mission to change the way we approach grief support. He has coached and trained thousands of grieving women and men on how to navigate one of the worst setbacks in life.
Eric has spoken on a TEDx Stage, authored an Amazon bestselling book “A Sherpa Named Zoi” and now works 1-on-1 with his clients, helping them to survive first, get back up and ultimately live beyond the loss of their loved one.
He is most active on Facebook and Instagram where he posts every week about how to move from struggle to strength in the face of loss.
Free physical copy of A Sherpa Named Zoi: https://www.YourJourneyGuided.com/FreeGriefBook
Instagram: @ericbhodgdon
Free grief support community: Let’s Walk Together
TEDx Talk: https://youtu.be/ihp1_szQlM8
Contact Kendra Rinaldi- https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/
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Transcript
Choosing Healing After Loss
00:00:01
Speaker
if there's one thing and after the loss of a loved one that you should walk away from and walk away with I guess as you continue your journey and carry on it is that it is it is okay to choose to get back up that it does us no good if we want to stay in survival mode for an extended period of time it just exacerbates the pain
00:00:30
Speaker
But to recognize that getting back up is a portal to the next level of healing for you. You have good days, you have bad days, but those good days actually become more frequent.
Podcast Introduction
00:00:49
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between podcast.
00:00:57
Speaker
This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief.
00:01:13
Speaker
I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process, as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys. I'm Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now, let's dive right in to today's episode.
Introducing Eric Hodgson
00:01:34
Speaker
On today's episode, I am chatting with Eric Hodgson,
00:01:40
Speaker
He is an author and a father. He also has a beautiful online community of support. He is the author of a Sherpa named Zoe. Zoe is his daughter who we will be talking about. She was 15 years old when she died by suicide. At this moment, for any of the listeners, if that's something that's still a little sensitive for you to hear, you have
00:02:05
Speaker
the permission to take a step back from this episode. But it is a beautiful conversation that we will be having about more things than that, but more about your learnings and your growth and everything that's come from that experience. So welcome, Eric. Thank you, Kendra. I really appreciate the time today to connect with you and your audience.
00:02:29
Speaker
I am so grateful that you're here and that you connected with me. I know we've been on each other's Instagram accounts and following, so known a little bit about each other, but I'm glad that now I have you here in our space. Yes. Eric, let's start with the very trivial conversation of where do you live? Where did you grow up? Let's go into that.
00:02:50
Speaker
I grew up in Maine. My parents are still up there, but I moved in, ironically, the day that Elvis died in 1977. And I spent my childhood growing up in Maine and then experienced different forms of loss when I was growing up there. Didn't really register when you're six, seven, eight years old, growing up through your teen years and all of that.
00:03:19
Speaker
And then after high school, I graduated, I went to school up in Northern Maine. And then I found myself in Memphis, Tennessee for about three years. And then that was, it was too landlocked. I'm an ocean, I like to be near the ocean. And so I moved back to New England, spent 23 years in the Boston area. And now I am down in Tampa, Florida.
00:03:42
Speaker
You've been around. You've been around. I've been around too. Now I get why you made the connection with Elvis, as you're saying, I moved in when Elvis died because you went to Memphis after too.
Impact of High-Profile Losses
00:03:54
Speaker
So it's. Yeah. Well, I did. Ironically, you know, Lisa Marie just passed away too, which was, you know, it doesn't matter if it's a celebrity. It doesn't matter if it's somebody that we do know. I think when you hear of a whole high profile loss, it can still affect you.
00:04:10
Speaker
And that's really challenging sometimes because it not only digs up your own emotions and uncovers those emotions that you may have had with your own loss, but you do feel connected to it because you get what that family is now experiencing.
00:04:27
Speaker
Yeah, it's not only connected to your own loss, but your own mortality to when these people that you're like, wait, I grew up, I'm the same age as she is, or I'm this, or whatever that association might be to this person and this individual. Let's say, for example, when it's different artists that have
00:04:47
Speaker
accompanied you sometimes in some of your
Music as a Comfort
00:04:50
Speaker
hard times. If you've been listening to someone's music for a long time and they've carried you through hardships or have been in happy moments of your life, maybe their music played in your wedding or your birthday party when you turned 16 or 15 and then all of a sudden they're no longer here, right? That's what happened. I grew up a huge Prince fan.
00:05:17
Speaker
And in fact, the month before Zoey died, I took both her and her older sister, Armina, to see Prince in concert. And it was probably one of the best experiences of my life. I still consider it a wonderful experience. And yet, two years after that, he died. And so, but I think that what's left behind is Prince's music, anybody's music for that matter, that is eternal. Like that, for as long
00:05:46
Speaker
as we're gonna be able to listen to music, as long as the artist and the music is still able to be shared and played and people are connecting to it, that's a gift that's gonna carry on hopefully for generations. And that's just a very powerful thing. And so, but you're right, I connected very much so to Prince's music when I was a young kid, when I was going through other struggles. And so whenever I found myself feeling kind of down or despondent
00:06:18
Speaker
just despair. It was something that always lifted me up. And to this day, I was just listening to some music over the weekend. An image of Prince came up on my Instagram feed and I clicked on it and it was a clip from one of his concerts. And I was just like, this is just incredible. And so it still has that power to lift you up.
00:06:42
Speaker
And again, it doesn't matter if it's your own family member, like I know you lost your sister back in 96 and then your mom in 2016. But knowing that gap in between those losses, there's something that still connects you to
00:07:02
Speaker
Uh, your loved one, uh, whether it's music, uh, something that you, they used to share their due together. Uh, Zoe loved the rail, hot chili pepper. She was a big Foo Fighters fan.
Creating Spaces for Memory
00:07:12
Speaker
She just loved music that really connected to her soul. And so every time I hear one of those songs now, I'm like, Oh, that's cool. It's kind of like Zoe's coming through. So yeah.
00:07:23
Speaker
You know, and not only are we connected with them with some of these memories, but we keep on, in our case, that we've created space and community around their memory, really, you know, created this podcast because of what I've gone through. You've created the communities you've created because of what you went through and your experiences. Then they live on also through those moments and those shares. Now, not everybody
00:07:52
Speaker
has to do that in order to carry on the legacy of those loved ones they had in their life. Right. But they might carry it on through a recipe that they cook and that that's the meal that they eat every time or a song that they play every time and reminds them. Yeah, it's different little things that their legacy lives on in some shape or form. Let's talk about Zoe. She passed away and how do you like
Language in Grief
00:08:18
Speaker
to refer? He passed away.
00:08:24
Speaker
It's a really good question because I know that the term can be very triggering for some folks. I say both, passed away, died, and I think either is fine. I've had to come to resolution with that though, because I think if you don't have acceptance or if you're not accepting that the person is not here any longer,
00:08:49
Speaker
it's hard to say that like, am I really saying that this person died? And so it takes some time I think for some to find resolution to that. And it took some time for me as well. But that was something that I also noticed quite a bit that when people were referring to Zoe, they started off with saying that she passed away. And that's honestly a term that's been adopted
00:09:16
Speaker
by our society in the last 30 to 40 years and maybe it is to soften the blow of when you're talking to somebody about it because the word dying or dead died or death is it can be to feel like a real harsh thing to say to someone so yeah I think either one
00:09:36
Speaker
And it's also, you know, like I do interchange the words I use about my mom and my sister, but I also use the word transitioned because in my beliefs, I feel it was just a shift in the reality. And, you know, it just transitioned into another life, another being, even though physically died,
00:10:04
Speaker
There was just a transition for me, right? So sometimes I interchange. So everybody has their way of expressing it, and it's OK if it changes. But in this conversation, we might just interchange the words.
Reflections on Zoe
00:10:16
Speaker
So it was 2014 when Zoe died by suicide. So tell us more about her and her personality, and let's then afterwards dive into how you navigated your grief.
00:10:32
Speaker
No, I appreciate that. Zoe, I would just call her a wallflower is probably too light of a term. I have never met anybody in my lifetime. And I realize that she's my child and I may be biased here, but I've just never met anybody at that young of an age.
00:10:56
Speaker
that needed to connect with others on a deep level. She was not superficial. She would always do a deep dive and if she could feel like she could connect with you on that level, Kendra, it was powerful because she gave all of herself
00:11:11
Speaker
to you. She was very generous and I'm not talking about giving somebody 10 bucks. I'm talking about her giving you her undivided attention, her heart, her love and gosh that was so powerful.
00:11:26
Speaker
And when Zoe was 12, she was struggling. She was just struggling with a lot of challenges, I think, in her young teen, her tween years, if you will. And she had been hospitalized a couple of times. But what I found was those times when she was hospitalized,
00:11:50
Speaker
the connections that she made with the other kids in these adolescent units. I'm still friends with these kids. I'm connected to these kids to this day. I call them kids. They're all 24, 25 years old. And they're just such powerful people. And I don't think we give teens as much credit as we should, struggling or not.
00:12:18
Speaker
They're learning about the world. The world is coming at them in so many different ways now. When you and I were growing up, we didn't have necessary access to the internet at that young of an age. And here they are. That's what they're shown early on in life. And it's a lot of information. But Zoe was just all about that human connection aspect of life. And she would fight for that. And there were times she called me out on it, too.
00:12:48
Speaker
where I would ask her some superficial questions. She'd just kind of look at me like, really, dad? That's what you're going to ask me right now. I love that. I'm going to have to get tips from what kind of way she would do that because I was even telling my son the other day, I would really want to be asking you and your sister a lot of questions, mine are 15 and 14. Yes.
00:13:11
Speaker
But I know you guys roll your eyes every time I do one of my talks. So it's hard sometimes to go deep with teens and the fact that she was the one that wanted that. Oh, I want to take some pointers from her. She was just like this.
00:13:38
Speaker
She would often translate what the counselors and the staff were trying to help the kids with because she just understood it at a visceral level. And when the kids were struggling and it seemed like the connections between the staff or the doctors or the counselors at these units wasn't getting through to the kids,
00:14:01
Speaker
It kind of reminds me of that scene in Airplane from where... Do not make me think of Airplane like that. But she was able to translate and she was able to... No, I'm joking. Tell me the scene. Tell me the scene because it's one of those movies that I watched as a teenager and that I still look at some scenes and cry as I'm laughing. Yes. Good scene. The scene is when...
00:14:29
Speaker
There's two black gentlemen that are speaking Jive, as they called it in the movie. And the woman that stands up is the woman who played, I think, June Cleaver in Leave It to Beaver. And she's like, excuse me, stewardess, I speak Jive. And then she kind of does this thing, and she's speaking it fluently. And they're like, come on, man, I know what I'm doing. It was just very classic. But that's kind of what Zoe did. She was listening to the counselors.
00:14:58
Speaker
She would turn to the kids, okay, what they're saying is this. You know, and- Let me change it to Arlingo. Yes, exactly. You know, so she was just very good at that. And that was, by the way, one of Zoe's favorite movies too, Airplane. And so it was just, you know, every time that I went into this unit to visit her and I went daily, she would say like, dad, I'm sorry, this is my dad.
00:15:27
Speaker
And so that every time when I would show up the next week or the next day, I mean, hi, Zoe's dad, hi, Zoe's dad. And so it's just, it was just like she just, it was just very beautiful, the connection that she had. And I had to learn a lot during that timeframe. Zoe called me out a couple of times because I was being an overprotective parent at times. And she stopped me one day and I said, Zoe, you gotta do it like this. She's like, dad, if I don't make mistakes,
00:15:56
Speaker
I'm not going to learn. I'm like, ooh, okay. Point taken, kid. I think she's an old soul. I feel like Zoe is still teaching me to this day, nine years after she died.
00:16:18
Speaker
And that's just a very powerful thing. And I'm just so grateful that I got to be her dad and that she got to meet these wonderful people that I'm now connected with because collectively they remind me of her.
00:16:31
Speaker
You're so lucky that you are her dad. Yes. You are her dad. Yes, yes. Thank you. Yeah. So, Eric, how did you then navigate your
Grief Journey and Divorce
00:16:42
Speaker
grief? And I know for everyone, it's so different. The experience of
00:16:50
Speaker
Yeah, how you do it. At that moment, when you lost, when you see these are the words I'm saying, she didn't get lost. We know where she is. Back again, you see these kind of lingo that become part of my own. When Zoe died, were you and her mom together at that moment or not anymore? The reason I asked that is because that also plays a part in the dynamic of grief. So if that's okay, and again,
00:17:19
Speaker
You may tell me to edit if that's not something I was allowed to ask. No, don't worry. I'm an open book and I really appreciate the question because I've received that question from a lot of people and know her mom and I were not together. We had actually been divorced for about seven years and navigating her grief.
00:17:39
Speaker
If I can say this, and I don't mean this flippantly when I'm saying it, it was easier to navigate her death than it was for me to go through my divorce. And the reason I say that is because I had no coping skills when I went through my divorce. It was the first major setback that affected me directly in my life that I had no idea of what to do about it. And I was in a very bad spot for about three years.
00:18:08
Speaker
And I went to therapy. My therapist kind of had to dope slap me a couple of times, like, dude, what are you doing? She didn't say it like that, of course.
00:18:21
Speaker
I struggled quite a bit through those initial years after the divorce. I just couldn't believe what was happening. It's like it was too unbelievable to be believable. And because I didn't grow up that way. My parents are still together. My ex's parents were still together. She lost her dad at a very young age. But it was when I lost Zoe, I remember the night that I was driving home from the hospital.
00:18:50
Speaker
uh... that night and uh... my sister had come to to be with me uh... and we were in the car were driving back to my house about a two-mile drive and i am gripping the seatbelt like i'm holding on to it as if i was falling and and i just didn't want to let it go and i remembered how i was after my divorce and i told my sister
00:19:17
Speaker
I really hope I do not go back down into that pit of depression again because it was brutal. I did not like how I felt.
00:19:29
Speaker
And she couldn't really say much other than, well, we'll try not to let that happen. She didn't know what to say at that point. She was in shock just like I was. But I remember a couple of weeks later, I was sitting with my therapist and that was one of the best things that ever happened through my divorce was to get connected to a very strong and very helpful counselor who I had been working with right up through to when Zoe died. And we sat down and she knew my whole story. She knew my whole background.
00:19:58
Speaker
And she knew exactly what to ask that first session. She goes, how are you doing? And where are you right now? And I know what she was asking when she said, where are you right now? And I had some time to think about it because it'd been a few days since we had laid Zoe to rest. And I think for the first 10 minutes of that session, I didn't speak because I couldn't.
Embracing Emotions Beyond Survival
00:20:26
Speaker
when I finally could speak, I said to her, you know, I've had time to think about it, and I think that the whole, that whole of depression is about the size of an ant hole, and I can't fit down in it, so I'm not going down there. And she's like, okay, good. Let's get to work then. Like in a very, very connective way she said that, and I'm paraphrasing.
00:20:52
Speaker
So what I focused a turn from me feeling really distraught, which I was, to what about Zoe's friends? What about my family?
00:21:07
Speaker
It wasn't that I was neglecting my own emotions, because I was feeling exactly what they were feeling. But I wanted to know that they were going to be OK. Like, come hell or high water, I was going to fight for our lives to be better, for better days to come. I didn't know how we were going to do it in those early days and weeks. All I knew is that we had to go that direction, because no one else was going to follow suit. And I was pretty clear. Of course, I can't control what other people do.
00:21:38
Speaker
But they didn't receive it like that. They received it as, okay, this person has our back no matter what. And that probably helped me more than anything to know that we were going to find a way to get through this, that yes, it was going to suck and it was going to be hard.
00:22:00
Speaker
But if we could map this out as we went along, my gosh, we could, okay, look, we have to be okay. We have to understand that grief is hard. We have to accept that the emotions that we're feeling are gonna come in. We do have options other than to stay stuck in survival for an infinite amount of time. And we can think about what it's gonna be like in the future, whether that's a week, a month, or a year from now. And we can kind of let that aim point pull us in that direction.
00:22:30
Speaker
But that ultimately, yes, we have to embrace that this is going to suck. And I think if we do that, we're actually building a map through our grief, which is just something that I have just gone back to time and time again. It doesn't matter what the setback is that's happened in my life, that process, if you will. So yeah.
00:22:55
Speaker
You shared so many things that bring up some questions so, and it were thoughts. So the fact that you had already experienced grief in a different way, being the end of your marriage and had already seeked
00:23:14
Speaker
help and had those resources, already there had a tool that you were able to go to when Zoe died and had already built this trust and relationship with your therapist to help you navigate this really hard moment in your life.
00:23:32
Speaker
That is something to have in mind as people listen to sometimes episodes. They're like, wait, how come this person's okay? We have this tendency to compare ourselves to others in life, right? Like, how come this person's so successful in this job? Is the first time they do this? No, that person's, you know, musicians. Oh, they became musicians, as we were talking about music before. They became sensations overnight. No, you do not know how many times they played on the streets of, you know, for pennies.
00:24:02
Speaker
We cannot compare our journey to another person's journey because you do not know what other tools they've used before and other circumstances that they have gone through that have helped them in some shape or form become who they are now to then have some access to tools to then help them navigate that.
00:24:24
Speaker
So that is something that came up to mind as you were saying that. And the other thing that came to mind is how you switched it because to some extent, your mind already knew you had survived something else before. So you had evidence of, I thought I couldn't survive that, yet I did.
00:24:47
Speaker
There's evidence in my file cabinet here of my brain to prove to myself that I will survive this too. And that is huge. And for anybody that listens to this, try to find evidence in your life of other times that you thought you could not
00:25:09
Speaker
get out or you did not see a way out and they do not have to be of the death of someone. It could be any other thing that you thought there was a door and yet you bound a way through. So you did that in your life and so thank you for bringing those thoughts to mind as your
00:25:27
Speaker
You are sharing those two very poignant ideas for me resonated. The other part, sorry, as you're saying, the other part is that you also shifted into now let's help.
Helping Others as Healing
00:25:42
Speaker
I know I have some tools. Let me now make sure that I grab somebody else's hand and help them along too so that they don't end up being in that pit.
00:25:51
Speaker
that I've been before and I do not want to go through that pit of depression. Again, I am going to hold on to their hands so they don't get sucked down by this Bermuda triangle kind of thing. What is it? The low tide? What is it called when you're in the ocean? The riptide. The riptide that sometimes comes below you. You don't even know it's there. So you held on tight to them. So that is also huge because it's helping others that sometimes also
00:26:19
Speaker
Helps us exactly. Oh Tell me tell me more tell me more than how did you accomplish that then? How did you start then? locking arms with others that were also going through this pain together and Striving forward right? Well, I think the first thing was and I remember this early on in the process that I I had this
00:26:47
Speaker
fantasy that zoe was going to come back at some point even during the week afterwards before we even held the services i had this fantasy that there's going to be this miracle that the hospital is going to call me there's going to be this hallmark moment she's going to walk through the door i'm fine i'm a little messed up you know scuffed up but i'm okay but obviously that never happened and uh i think probably about eight weeks in
00:27:14
Speaker
I had a major breakdown in my house. I think I cried for about three hours straight because I was trying to accept the reality that she wasn't coming back. Oh, and that really, that was a bite that I don't think any of us who have struggled with the loss of a loved one
00:27:36
Speaker
want to ultimately accept, because it's the finality of the situation. You can't talk to them anymore. You can't share with them anymore. Maybe you can. And I love how you use, by the way, transition, because I have a very good friend. Her name is Sarah. And Sarah, that's how she refers to the losses in her life's transitions. And I love it. I think it's a gentle way.
00:28:03
Speaker
it's not softening it it's it's more like what is softening it but it's it's it's actually just an approach that makes it sound so like yeah you know what you're right they their spirit spirit is transitioning from this realm to the next to the next realm and so it's very beautiful um i digress uh i i think the when i finally accepted that's when i started to just turn around say oh i just figured this out that we have to accept this i don't it wasn't a major epiphany it wasn't anything new under the sun it was just
00:28:33
Speaker
the part of my process and so I would turn and I would share that right away with Zoe's friends or my family. I'm like, you know, where are you with the acceptance? I'm not there yet or I have accepted it and it's really hard and so we would kind of work through those. The next piece was something that kind of caught me off guard and that was forgiveness. It was forgiving not only that Zoe took her life
00:29:02
Speaker
but forgiving myself for what I perceived that I didn't do for her while she was here. And as much as I tried, I did the best that I could do with what I had available to me at the time. Tools, connections to her, her friends, the resources, the hospitals, all of it, right? All of that. And I wouldn't say that Zoe was depressed. I would say that she was just struggling to try to make sense of the world around her.
00:29:31
Speaker
And so it was, but that forgiveness of myself took a little bit longer than I wanted it to. But again, when I figured that out, I shared that, look guys, we got to forgive ourselves here. You didn't have that last conversation with Zoe, like you said you wanted to, but you said everything that needed to be said and you did everything that needed to be did for her.
00:29:54
Speaker
This ultimately was not your choice. And so the final piece, and this is why it applies to this podcast specifically, it was that I had to have gratitude for not only
Acceptance and Gratitude
00:30:08
Speaker
being Zoe's dad in the present tense, like you said, but also being grateful that I was now connected to her friends on a level that I probably would never have been, gratitude for what is in my life right now. And I was grateful for whatever connections I would have to Zoe in the future. I didn't know what they were going to be.
00:30:37
Speaker
I don't know, there was something about that little three steps, the reminder of those three things to accept, to forgive, and to be grateful. I just kept on repeating that over and over again. And every time I learned something new in each of those areas, I would turn and I would share it with Zoe's friends in that moment.
00:30:56
Speaker
to say, guys, look, I just experienced something here. I just had a dream about Zoe. I'm so grateful. And then we talk about it. And then they would tell me a story about something that happened to them when they were together that I didn't know about. And it just made us all laugh. I'm like, OK, that is the gift that's being left behind by this horrible thing that's happened.
00:31:16
Speaker
those tears start to turn to laughter and good memories, and then her death becomes a moment of transition versus an everlasting pit. So yeah, I hope that answers your question.
00:31:33
Speaker
It did so, so perfectly. And when you shared the part of her struggling to really make sense of the world that she was in,
00:31:49
Speaker
that just moved me so much because even just how you were describing her before and just this maturity that she had and so many of us in general are constantly trying to figure out where do we fit in because somehow or another society is designed or
00:32:10
Speaker
become a way in which we all have to fit into a certain little box. And when we don't, then it makes us feel like we're inadequate. So to know that there's a lot of us that feel inadequate walking around and just kind of trying to figure it out as we go along in this world and for others that are also feeling that way to just know that you're not alone and feeling alone. Let me just put it that way. You're not alone and feeling alone sometimes.
00:32:40
Speaker
So many, so many do.
Sherpa Metaphor for Grief
00:32:43
Speaker
Yes. Thank you for sharing. Now let's talk about a Sherpa named Zoe and explain the term Sherpa. It's a Greek term. Is that Greek? No, actually it's not. What is Sherpa? You see my ignorance here showing up. So go ahead. No, no. I wrote my book back in 2017 and I struggled for a long time. You're still, I think,
00:33:10
Speaker
in book writing or any type of writing, you're supposed to have the title figured out before you write. But I struggled with it and I think initially the working title that I had was Zoe's Story. And in reality, it wasn't Zoe's Story, it was my story of navigating grief and then finding a way to get back up, survive first, get back up and then live beyond the loss. And so I was having, I went to get ice cream with Zoe's older sister and her brother
00:33:39
Speaker
And I was telling her, telling Arminda, my stepdaughter, I'm like, what is, and by, you know, I say stepdaughter, I raised Arminda, she's my daughter. And I feel the same way about her that I feel about Zoe and her older brother, Christos. And so they're just, just deep, all three of these kids are deep, you know? And so I give that trait to their mom, because their mom is very connective too.
00:34:07
Speaker
We were having ice cream, and I'm like, I can't figure out. I know what Zoe is to me, but I couldn't put words to it. And Armina said something to me. I'm like, it's like she's a guide. I'm like, she's a sherpa. And that sherpa is a guide. I've liked the metaphor and the analogy of climbing a mountain when you're going through struggle. And when you ever watch a documentary on, say, Mount Everest,
00:34:34
Speaker
But when you go, you see documentaries, you see local Nepalese people who are shirpas. They have walked almost up to the top of this mountain without oxygen tanks and they walk out sometimes with barefoot. Okay, but they know this landscape like the back of their hand, regardless of the size and the distance. And so I have always felt that Zoe has been guiding me.
00:35:04
Speaker
And so when I named the book, it made sense to say a Sherpa named Zoe because she's still guiding me to this day. And it just, it really helped to, I don't know, I just felt like that was the right path, so to speak, to go on for writing the book and and
00:35:24
Speaker
The book initially started off as just stories of my experience throughout my childhood and Zoe being born, Zoe growing up with some medical challenges. I didn't really go into depth at all about the divorce because that's a separate story, a separate situation.
00:35:43
Speaker
knowing that it impacted Zoe and her sister and brother, the way it impacted me as well. I just wanted to connect people with what the loss of a loved one could mean for them in terms of, oh gosh, here's the shock of this loss. It just happened. What the hell do we do with this?
Thriving Beyond Survival
00:36:07
Speaker
What do we do with this?
00:36:08
Speaker
And that's the exact questions that Zoe's friends asked me. What do we do with this? What do you mean she's gone? Wait a minute. Like that's not the way this is supposed to be going. I started to chronicle.
00:36:20
Speaker
my experiences, those things that just imprinted themselves on my mind as I walked through my grief, those moments when I asked a bunch of questions, some really dark questions that you don't want to say out loud, those struggles that come up that like the anniversaries and holidays that you're not prepared for. And it's not so much the first year as the second year when they seem to hit you harder.
00:36:50
Speaker
There was, okay, I do see that there is somewhere to go now. I want to help Zoe's friends and my family to get to their better days. That aim point is there. How do we get there? It is so easy and comfortable to stay in a survival mode. It's scary to think of doing anything other than that, but survival is meant to be temporary.
00:37:20
Speaker
And I don't know about you, Kendra, but every resource that I found online was pointing to survival being the end game of your journey. That if you got there, good for you, that's the best you're going to, I'm not good with that. And I know that there are more resources out there that are now going beyond that. I know there's a lot of people that are saying going from survival to thriving and in, you know, at a 20,000 foot level, that that is ultimately what you, what, you know, what, what is possible. but.
00:37:50
Speaker
I don't know if there's many people that are helping you get there. They're not walking with you along that path to get there. And that's what I wanted this book to serve as, is a pathway that they weren't alone. Like you were just saying a few minutes ago, you're not alone on this journey. There are others who have gone through it before you that, you know what? I got you.
00:38:09
Speaker
You don't have to do this alone. You're going to feel alone, but when you can connect with somebody else and they're sharing their story and you're like, oh my gosh, I know exactly what you're talking about, those sleepless nights, those body pains, the inability to eat and the ability to sleep.
00:38:28
Speaker
Those harsh words that you hear from supposed friends and family that are expecting you to feel better after five months. Things that you don't expect to happen along the journey that happen. Truth be told, I could never cover all of it.
00:38:48
Speaker
And so I wanted to at least cover the things that I found along my journey in the hopes that there's one thing in this book that will help them take the next step forward on their journey to be like, Oh, okay. So I don't have to stay here for that long. And there are things that can help me resources to help me get to that next level. And so, um, and I think even no matter what, that if Zoe was my guide, I'm picking up the torch and now I'm going to be a guide for others who are going through the same thing.
00:39:18
Speaker
It's so true. Sometimes we either think we have to stay in survival mode or we get comfortable in sometimes the things that even though they're uncomfortable, that is what we know. And therefore we can end up, yeah, like there was one of the guests I had on the podcast and she said something about like, not only do you stay in that hole, but you bring up
00:39:43
Speaker
pillow and a blanket and like set up a TV. She's like, you just make it be the most comfortable place it could be because you know you're going to be in that hole. So let me just make it be. So no, it doesn't have to be that way necessarily. Again, that survival mode might
00:40:01
Speaker
time-wise may be different for everyone staying in that survival mode, but just know that you do not have to stay in that. There is hope. You don't have to. You don't want to stay. You don't have to stay, right? We don't want to stay there. How long did you stay in survival mode? I don't know. I don't, honestly, because when my sister died, I was 21. I was young. And honestly, I do feel that
00:40:28
Speaker
The tools I had from my own beliefs and the support I had from my parents did help me navigate that grief. I had experienced grief also just several times before, not as close, of course, to a sister. So that was like the first major one. But I don't recall. I think I really just kept going with it. Like I just carried that backpack.
00:40:57
Speaker
you know, of grief along my life. And so it just started to get lighter. But I, you know, you just kind of walk along with it and you and I would I did I did navigate with some tools I didn't even know existed like writing to my sister or things like that. That was the first one. And with my mom, the same, I feel that just all these other experiences I had had were proof that I could go through it. So I don't think I ever was completely
00:41:26
Speaker
in that survival mode. So as you were then navigating your own survival, helping then others navigate theirs and thrive, you've done quite a few things in that journey.
TEDx Talk on Grief
00:41:42
Speaker
One has also been TEDx. TEDx, was it a TEDx? Yes. I don't know when it's just TED talk, when you put the x. So you did a TEDx talk as well. So when was that? When did you do that?
00:41:56
Speaker
How did you do it? Because to be on a stage with talking about grief, talking about your daughter and this very sensitive topic about death by suicide, please take us into that journey, please. I speak.
00:42:16
Speaker
on that stage in early 2018. I had been fortunate to connect with others in a storytelling forum and it was
00:42:31
Speaker
to be asked to share Zoe's story and my story on that platform was just, I'm immensely grateful for that. I wanted the world to know who Zoe was. I'd love for her name to be spoken for generations to come long after somebody last speaks my name. And so to chronicle through a 12-minute talk
00:43:02
Speaker
losing my daughter what I did in order to kind of move through that initial shock and then to provide three steps, if you will, for folks to follow on their journey through any loss that they experience in life. Doesn't matter if it's the loss of a loved one, it could be the loss of a job, any major setback.
00:43:27
Speaker
I'm hopeful that this talk would serve in that respect and putting that talk together. It is a journey in of itself because you are having to access emotions and recollection of events that you don't want to. But there is some major healing that goes into putting a talk like this together. Storytelling actually heals the brain.
00:43:57
Speaker
And so doing these reps over and over again, it wasn't so much that you're saying it to the point where you're just numb. You're saying it to the point where it's actually, oh my gosh, at any moment here, I could say the same sentence five times in a row, and I'll cry three times out of the five. And the other two times, I'll just be able to move through it.
00:44:20
Speaker
There was just some, it was just a very cathartic experience to be able to go through that. And believe me, I accessed a lot in that process from the first iteration all the way up to iteration number 26. And finally saying, okay, I'm done writing, I'm done adjusting. Now I've got to get it in my bones. Now I have to speak the talk.
00:44:49
Speaker
so that people understand that this is important. That if there's one thing after the loss of a loved one that you should walk away from and walk away with, I guess, as you continue your journey and carry on, it is that it is okay to choose to get back up.
Movement and Routine in Healing
00:45:12
Speaker
That it does us no good if we want to stay in survival mode for an extended period of time.
00:45:19
Speaker
It just exacerbates the pain. But to recognize that getting back up is a portal to the next level of healing for you. You have good days, you have bad days, but those good days actually become more frequent.
00:45:39
Speaker
And then eventually you find yourself doing some things that you would never thought you'd be able to do. I met so many people in the last nine years that I never would have met if Zoe was here. Of course I miss Zoe. Of course I wish she was here. But I've just met some very wonderful and supportive and connective people, mentors of mine now, coaches, and they've all
00:46:04
Speaker
been gifts to my life moving forward. And so there was one tool that, and Zoe's friends, by the way, were also mentors for me and this journey. And when I was going through my divorce, I remember sitting in front of my therapist one day and I was just out of options. I didn't know what else to do. I'm like, what am I going to do? And she's like, Eric, you're going to get up in the morning and you're going to put your feet on the floor.
00:46:34
Speaker
You're gonna get dressed, you're gonna go to work, and you're gonna come home, you're gonna have dinner, and you're gonna exercise, or you're gonna watch TV, and then you're gonna go to bed, and then you're gonna do that over and over again. And I don't know, there's something about that very simple but direct message that if I'm ever questioning what I'm going to do, no matter what I'm grieving or what I'm dealing with, that movement is going to be really important. Mindset.
00:47:02
Speaker
movement and then finding meaning in that movement will really start to all those three steps will really help you kind of take your your healing to a new level but after Zoe died a few months sorry a few weeks after that her best friend Jerry came to me
00:47:19
Speaker
And this kid has been playing the guitar since he was four years old. He is. He's in a band now. He's really good. He knows all of Pink Floyd's albums without even looking at music. It's all by memory and he plays them flawlessly. But he came to me. He's like, Zoe's gone. What am I going to do?
00:47:43
Speaker
And that same thought popped into my head, what my therapist shared with me. And I turned to Jerry. I said, Jerry, you're going to get up in the morning. You're going to put your feet on the floor. You're going to get dressed. You're going to go to school. You're going to come home. You're going to have dinner. And you're going to practice the guitar for four hours like you have since you were four years old. And then you're going to do that over and over again until that becomes the normal thing for you. And I share that in my TEDx talk as, you know, discover your badass self.
00:48:14
Speaker
Because it's in there. This loss, just because you lost your loved one doesn't mean your life is lost too. And so we have to find ways to survive, get back up, and live beyond the loss. And we can do it. We don't have to stay stuck.
00:48:30
Speaker
Wow. So many, so many things. So let me ask those three steps that you shared in your TEDx talks, which I have, I have not watched it. Was it movement mindset and finding meaning in the movement? Or was it acceptance, forgiveness, and gratitude? Or neither? Or none of these? None of those, actually. So as you've said, a lot of triads here. Yes. Just that acceptance, forgiveness, and gratitude. You said movement, mindset, and finding. So give me the other triad, please.
00:48:58
Speaker
So the first one is that we're here for a purpose. We don't have to think that we are just existing on this plane with nothing else to do. We do. We have a purpose for being here. I thought my purpose was to raise Zoe.
00:49:22
Speaker
The next thing is to be your badass self and don't be ashamed of that. It doesn't matter what it is that you've got something inside of you that you love to do and you can do it.
00:49:34
Speaker
It takes time, it takes practice, it takes energy, but that can actually pull you through the loss. Now, it may be hard, and people, look, I like to work out, and after Zoey died, I couldn't work out for months. Okay, that's fine. What can I do, though? And then fall in love with that again. And then the last piece is to know that you're not done yet.
00:49:59
Speaker
You know, we, as long as we're breathing, as long as air is going in and out of our lungs, we're not done yet. And so we owe it to our loved ones and ourselves to get back up.
00:50:17
Speaker
Great. Thank you for adding the next three. So as they say, it comes in threes, right? You've shown this with the pattern, several things you've mentioned in threes. Eric, as we are closing off the conversation, I want to make sure I ask you, what have I not asked you that you want to make sure that you share today that our listeners take away?
Open Discussions and Resources
00:50:39
Speaker
That's a great question. First of all, I love this conversation. I love having conversations about this topic because we need to hear it more. And so do I feel like we left anything out? No. Could we have another conversation? Absolutely. Right. So I don't think we've left anything out. This has been a wonderful conversation.
00:51:01
Speaker
with you and I hope that your audience takes at least one thing from it and is able to take another step forward on their journey.
00:51:10
Speaker
Just put their feet on the floor, get dressed, brush your teeth, go to work, come home, have dinner. Yes, yes. Yeah, there are so many learnings. I took several notes here. Okay, yes. Dogs are saying hello. Hello. I want to also ask you, Eric, about your other communities, the things you offer, and how people can get a hold of you, and I'll make sure to add that in the show notes.
00:51:37
Speaker
Thank you so much for asking. There's three ways that you can stay in touch. I have a Facebook community that's free. This is, I call it, Let's Walk Together. And it's a community of like-minded folks who are just trying to take that next step, but to know that they're not alone. So they can come into this group and they can
00:52:00
Speaker
just ask questions. They can contribute to other people's questions. They can offer things that have worked for them, all with the goal of continuing to walk down the path and get out of survival mode. So that's the first thing. The next thing is that I have a free early grief guide that your audience can get if you go to yourjourneyguided.com.
00:52:28
Speaker
And then the last is that I'd love to give a copy of my book for free to every one of your listeners. I've covered the cost of the printing of the book. All I ask is that folks cover the 695 shipping and handling and I'll ship it anywhere in the United States. But I really, I think any resource
00:52:50
Speaker
is would be very helpful for anybody. And even again, if there's one nugget in the book that they get from it that helps them go to that next level of their healing, that's my intent. And I want to make it available to somebody without it being $14.95 on Amazon or anything like that. I want them to get their hands on it so that they have it. Even if they can't read it right now, they could potentially read it when they're ready to.
00:53:13
Speaker
or pass it down to someone that needs it because it's always just great to have something there because a lot of times we do not know what to say or what to give or anything to a grieving person, but sometimes just having a resource, a tool that you're able to hand to them and they will be able to read when it's their time. So thank you once again. Thank you. Eric, we're so grateful to have you and looking forward to keeping on connecting and learning more. Thank you so much.
00:53:43
Speaker
Thank you Kendra.
00:53:49
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief. If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone who may need to hear this, please do so.
00:54:17
Speaker
Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me. And thanks once again for tuning into Grief Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.