Transcript
Speaker: Hi and welcome to another episode of the Glamour podcast.
Speaker: On today's episode I'm talking to a fellow Irish woman who is also obsessed with pets and pet loss and grief and so the two of us have a chat let's take it away.
Speaker: Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
Speaker: I'm your host Jennifer Muldowney aka the Glam Reaper.
Speaker: On today's guest, on today's show we have Louise who is a fellow Irish woman although controversially she is from Clare but living in Cork so we'll have to delve into that a little bit more but welcome Louise.
Speaker: Thanks Jennifer, thanks so much for having me, I appreciate it.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: So tell us, tell me, tell the listeners what exactly it is that you do and why you're on the Glam Reaper podcast.
Speaker: No bother.
Speaker: So in a nutshell, I help grieving people deal with grief and loss.
Speaker: So I am fully certified in grief and loss.
Speaker: And also I'm specializing in pet loss.
Speaker: So I have, from my own experience in Ireland, I experienced losing both of my dogs within 24 hours of each other back in 2019.
Speaker: So
Speaker: Obviously that was devastating for me.
Speaker: So I searched and I searched for like specific pet bath support, you know, in my own country and I just couldn't, I couldn't really find anything.
Speaker: So obviously there's therapy and that's excellent.
Speaker: And I did.
Speaker: And I thought that I got great benefit from that.
Speaker: But I was kind of looking for something a little bit more specific Jennifer, you know what I mean?
Speaker: Just, I was still kind of searching for that.
Speaker: So I stumbled across the grief recovering method.
Speaker: It's actually based in Ohio in the US.
Speaker: So I did my full certification training with them online last year.
Speaker: And I have been having clients since around the end of last year.
Speaker: So I am on a mission to try and spread awareness, put lots of awareness in Ireland, but I can work with clients worldwide, which is incredible.
Speaker: So that is in a nutshell anyway.
Speaker: But the benefits of COVID especially, I think, really opened the world up to, you know, that everyone can work from home and sort of still help each other out and still gather together as a community.
Speaker: Well, obviously, you know, what you do hits home with me for sure.
Speaker: You know, my TED talk even was specifically about...
Speaker: pet loss and sort of the judgment of that and what I felt when we lost Roxy which it's so many years ago but it's still like I can't listen to the Rainbow Bridge poem and I kind of can't even
Speaker: Think of, you know, the time where we had to stand there and she had to let us go.
Speaker: It still upsets me, so I'm not even going to talk about it right now because but it's it's interesting.
Speaker: I mean, I've ever since then, I've had a cremation jewelry line and one for
Speaker: It's the same jewelry, but we do we have it for pets, Rainbow Bridge Memorials, and then we have it for humans and farewell Celtic Ashes.
Speaker: And what's interesting to me, and I've said this on I think it was on the Elaine show, but I've said it several times is that, you know, they ask, well, which is the most popular?
Speaker: And I said, well, interestingly, in a heart, it's the pets.
Speaker: So we clearly value our pets more than we value our grannies.
Speaker: But listen, it is such a huge thing, I think.
Speaker: And there is a little bit of, I don't think it's specifically Ireland.
Speaker: I think there is a bit of judgment.
Speaker: Like if you don't have a pet or you're not sort of into pets,
Speaker: And it can be a bit sort of, oh, it's just a dog or such a goldfish or it's just a whatever.
Speaker: And it's not like it's I mean, Roxy was I grew up with her.
Speaker: She was like, we got her when I think I was like 12 or something or 11.
Speaker: I mean, she literally.
Speaker: went through all the horrors of a female teenage girl growing up in Ireland.
Speaker: Like, you know, she, the uncondition, exactly, and the unconditional love, you know, I mean, I joke about, I could have told her I was Hitler and she still would have been like, okay, you know, I love you.
Speaker: I mean, it's it's it's wild.
Speaker: So to to then go through the loss of that unconditional love and for there to be no support system.
Speaker: Like, as I've said, I have a creation jewellery now, but the amount of times I get emails and phone calls looking for support or just somebody to talk to.
Speaker: And I would I'd spend hours on the phone, especially at the beginning, where people just wanted to vent and just wanted to speak to somebody who kind of understood.
Speaker: They totally because people
Speaker: They, it's, it's, it's almost like with the vet care, you know, your pet is euthanized or, you know, it passes away and then there's the cremation business, which is, which is already there.
Speaker: But I just feel like there is that one thing missing, you know, for the, for the actual human that that's suffering with the emotional pain, you know, and that's really, really intense.
Speaker: And I don't know, obviously there are some vets that are, you
Speaker: you know, really kind and sending sympathy cards and so on.
Speaker: So I think just offering this kind of support is, is just incredible.
Speaker: So when I say that I offer support, it's the programs that I offer are education and based, but they have huge therapeutic benefits.
Speaker: So people are learning about grief and learning about the facts and misinformation about grief.
Speaker: And then, you know, I do this in a, in a support group format or an individual.
Speaker: So they have the choice, whatever they're comfortable with and they can learn how to process this unresolved grief, you know, within the safe environment while they're learning as well.
Speaker: So it's, it's,
Speaker: It's really quite incredible and quite different to talk therapy as we would traditionally kind of go towards.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's very, it's very, it's so important.
Speaker: I mean, I think everybody needs to sort of talk to somebody and go through certain things.
Speaker: And I do think that pet specific is important.
Speaker: is so important because it is it is a little bit different because we don't really and it's something I'd kind of like to change we don't really do funerals for pets and so therefore there's kind of a link missing like I remember my friends kind of didn't really know what to do with me because it's like do you send flowers do you think adults curse me I don't know um and I understand that you know I we I probably all felt it and
Speaker: And even when it came down to the cremation thing, I couldn't kind of comprehend that you were offered like group cremation or a single creation.
Speaker: I'm like, what?
Speaker: Like you'd never offer that for a human, you know?
Speaker: And yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker: And so it was it was the loss of your two dogs within 24 hours that got you into this really specifically.
Speaker: And what happened with 24 hours?
Speaker: Jesus.
Speaker: Yeah, so back in October 2019, I just came home on my lunch and my older dog was lying dead in the back garden.
Speaker: And unfortunately, my other dog had injuries.
Speaker: She had to be put to sleep the following day.
Speaker: So it was a shock and I didn't get to prepare.
Speaker: So I didn't get to prepare.
Speaker: I didn't ever tell myself, you know, I'm going to be losing these dogs.
Speaker: And so I didn't really ever think about what my life would be like afterwards.
Speaker: So there was the initial shock and then there was the confusion and the grief and really.
Speaker: not not being understood or not being heard and you know having to bury that grief as us Irish do so when we just bury it and then chronic distractions we use those so that went on and on for several months until I stumbled stumbled across um the grief covering method where I trained and got
Speaker: huge benefits from doing the program myself, which then inspired me to become a brief recovery specialist.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: And how has business been?
Speaker: Has it been good?
Speaker: And do you specialize in pets, but you also work with humans?
Speaker: You're always working with humans.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Exactly, yeah.
Speaker: I'm specialising with the pet loss due to my own personal experience, but I have helped people, you know, processing grief with human loss as well.
Speaker: So, you know, the programme is interchangeable, it works.
Speaker: And a lot of the time somebody will say...
Speaker: You know, I want to work through this pet loss.
Speaker: And then, you know, after, after we completed the program together, you know, they might contact me and say, you know, I've lost a family member, even if it was a long time ago, could I, you know, could I work on that?
Speaker: And perfectly fine.
Speaker: Like there's no issue.
Speaker: So really it opens the book for someone to understand that they may have patterns that they've carried through to their life from their grief because
Speaker: You know, grief is a normal and natural reaction to change or loss of any kind, not just death.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's exactly what I said in my TED talk.
Speaker: That's exactly right.
Speaker: It's, you know, it can be, I can, it can be the loss of my dog could be overwhelming and most horrific thing that ever happens to me in my life.
Speaker: It could be the loss of a job or a divorce for somebody else.
Speaker: Like it's, it's not for, I mean, the amount of divorcees I've spoken to said they wish they were, they wish he or she was dead because it wouldn't be easier, which is wild.
Speaker: But you know, it's,
Speaker: you nobody gets to judge what you're grieving or what you're going through and that really really irritates me when when I kind of hear that um and so okay so you started on this journey um I tell maybe um some of the listeners who might be interested in this brief recovery um course that you did in Ohio like I don't know pricing or how long it took you or what was what entailed and did you have to do anything have anything done before you went into it or
Speaker: So it probably took in and around the space of four to five months, um, with online kind of live trainings with, with the trainers.
Speaker: So some trainers will be based in the UK and some in the US.
Speaker: And then there's a lot of, you know,
Speaker: work to do like book work and you know, that kind of paperwork and studying in the downtime of the life trainings.
Speaker: So it was quite intense, but it was all done in group kind of setting.
Speaker: And it was just lovely because
Speaker: Everybody was there for a reason and we all shared our stories and we all felt inspired by each other.
Speaker: So it really was probably some form of grief therapy in and of itself, I'd say.
Speaker: Oh, totally.
Speaker: Because you're doing, you're actually doing the program while you're training.
Speaker: So it's.
Speaker: it's kind of intertwined and you're getting to work on your own losses.
Speaker: So you're going to experience what the clients are going to experience.
Speaker: So it was really, it was really, really, it was just so motivating and inspiring.
Speaker: So excellent.
Speaker: Like, so if anybody wants you to check it out, it's the grief recovery method.com.
Speaker: You know, you can sign up to do the trainings on that website.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And do you, how are you finding, so your clients, how are you finding Irish versus international?
Speaker: Are the Irish, because I know from starting 15 years ago, it's like blow from a stone.
Speaker: It's like, come on, come on.
Speaker: How are you finding, and it always cracks me up, by the way, when I'm abroad, people sort of say, oh, the Irish are great at dealing with death.
Speaker: And I'm like,
Speaker: We're great at funerals, we're great at weeks, we're great at doing that, but we are not good at talking about things in general.
Speaker: We're not going to talk, you know, the gift of the gab and we'll talk shite for ages, but we won't actually ever address like whether it's emotions or, you know, death.
Speaker: I mean, you know, anyway.
Speaker: So how are you finding the Irish versus everyone else?
Speaker: There is definitely an obvious difference, I would say.
Speaker: But I find, you know, obviously with the international and people in the US, like they are easy to open up and to tell their stories.
Speaker: But with the Irish, they kind of feel like they need to warm up a little bit or to trust, to trust the environment that they're in, the people that they're kind of with and stuff.
Speaker: So, but one major thing that has helped is...
Speaker: I share my story, so it helps them then to feel safe enough and to trust me and everybody else to share theirs.
Speaker: So I think that's a huge benefit.
Speaker: Whereas if I was kind of sitting there facilitating and really not sharing anything, it would be, it will be another story.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I understand.
Speaker: That makes sense.
Speaker: Well, listen, amazing stuff.
Speaker: And I think very, very much needed.
Speaker: And we would love to share, obviously, this we're going to share this podcast, but we share your information below if people want to reach out to you in specifics and talk about it.
Speaker: And it doesn't have to be pet loss.
Speaker: But that's kind of where you're gearing towards, which is amazing.
Speaker: And so that's fantastic.
Speaker: Thank you so much for coming on and for sharing your story.
Speaker: And we wish you the very best and hopefully we'll get you on another year from now and maybe you'll be, you know, headlining some international stages talking about it because I do.
Speaker: I think it's so, so important.
Speaker: Oh, definitely.
Speaker: Really.
Speaker: And so keep up the good work.
Speaker: Thanks, Jennifer.
Speaker: Thanks for having me on.
Speaker: I appreciate it.
Speaker: I had a good time.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: So that was our episode with Louise who was live from Cork in Ireland and we were talking about pet loss which I know is a serious subject for a lot of you guys so let us know your thoughts and glamourreperpodcast at gmail.com that's glamourreperpodcast at gmail.com and hopefully we can do some more pet focused episodes in the future Ciao for now
