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Healing Tails: Louise Griffey's Approach to Pet Loss
22 Plays2 years ago
Welcome to another soul-stirring episode of The Glam Reaper podcast! This time, our host, Jennifer, invites us into a heart-to-heart conversation with Louise Griffey, the founder of Light After Loss.
Louise isn't just your typical guest - she's an Advanced Grief Recovery Method Specialist specializing in helping individuals grieving the loss of a pet. With her journey marked by the end of a significant relationship and the loss of her beloved pets, she found solace and purpose in The Grief Recovery Method®. Her experience is a compelling exploration of grief, recovery, and the strength of the human spirit.
This episode of The Glam Reaper is a profound conversation that underscores the power of empathy, compassion, and resilience in the healing process. Here, Louise's dedication to assisting others through their grief, whether it concerns a human or a pet, shines brightly. This is not just a conversation; it's an invitation to understand the power of healing.
Join Jennifer and Louise for an inspiring and insightful episode that offers a fresh perspective on loss, love, and the journey towards recovery.
LITTLE NUGGETS OF GOLD:
- Louise’s journey through life that led her to found Light After Loss
- How does the Grief Recovery Method work?
- The therapeutic benefits of the Pet Loss Support program
- Different ways to overcome pet loss
Connect with the Louise Griffey:
Website: https://www.griefrecoverymethod.com/grms/louise-griffey
Website: https://www.lightafterloss.ie/
Connect with Jennifer/The Glam Reaper:
Facebook Page - Muldowney Memorials: https://www.facebook.com/MuldowneyMemorials/
Facebook Page - Rainbow Bridge Memorials: https://www.facebook.com/rainbowbridgememorialsdotcom
Instagram - @muldowneymemorials & @jennifermuldowney
Twitter - @TheGlamReaper
Email us here: glamreaperpodcast@gmail.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Glamour Podcast and Louise
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi and welcome to another episode of the Glamour podcast.
00:00:04
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.
00:00:26
Speaker
Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
00:00:30
Speaker
I'm your host Jennifer Muldowney aka the Glam Reaper.
00:00:34
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.
Louise's Journey into Grief Support
00:00:49
Speaker
Thanks Jennifer, thanks so much for having me, I appreciate it.
00:00:53
Speaker
Of course.
00:00:53
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.
00:01:01
Speaker
No bother.
00:01:02
Speaker
So in a nutshell, I help grieving people deal with grief and loss.
00:01:11
Speaker
So I am fully certified in grief and loss.
00:01:14
Speaker
And also I'm specializing in pet loss.
00:01:18
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.
00:01:28
Speaker
So
00:01:31
Speaker
Obviously that was devastating for me.
00:01:34
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.
00:01:45
Speaker
So obviously there's therapy and that's excellent.
00:01:50
Speaker
And I did.
00:01:51
Speaker
And I thought that I got great benefit from that.
00:01:54
Speaker
But I was kind of looking for something a little bit more specific Jennifer, you know what I mean?
00:02:00
Speaker
Just, I was still kind of searching for that.
00:02:03
Speaker
So I stumbled across the grief recovering method.
00:02:06
Speaker
It's actually based in Ohio in the US.
00:02:09
Speaker
So I did my full certification training with them online last year.
00:02:15
Speaker
And I have been having clients since around the end of last year.
00:02:20
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.
Understanding Pet Loss and Societal Views
00:02:30
Speaker
So that is in a nutshell anyway.
00:02:34
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.
00:02:47
Speaker
Well, obviously, you know, what you do hits home with me for sure.
00:02:52
Speaker
You know, my TED talk even was specifically about...
00:02:56
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
00:03:09
Speaker
Think of, you know, the time where we had to stand there and she had to let us go.
00:03:14
Speaker
It still upsets me, so I'm not even going to talk about it right now because but it's it's interesting.
00:03:21
Speaker
I mean, I've ever since then, I've had a cremation jewelry line and one for
00:03:28
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.
00:03:36
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?
00:03:45
Speaker
And I said, well, interestingly, in a heart, it's the pets.
00:03:49
Speaker
So we clearly value our pets more than we value our grannies.
00:03:53
Speaker
But listen, it is such a huge thing, I think.
00:03:57
Speaker
And there is a little bit of, I don't think it's specifically Ireland.
00:04:02
Speaker
I think there is a bit of judgment.
00:04:03
Speaker
Like if you don't have a pet or you're not sort of into pets,
00:04:07
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.
00:04:11
Speaker
And it's not like it's I mean, Roxy was I grew up with her.
00:04:16
Speaker
She was like, we got her when I think I was like 12 or something or 11.
00:04:20
Speaker
I mean, she literally.
00:04:22
Speaker
went through all the horrors of a female teenage girl growing up in Ireland.
00:04:27
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.
00:04:40
Speaker
I mean, it's it's it's wild.
Educational Programs and Therapeutic Benefits
00:04:42
Speaker
So to to then go through the loss of that unconditional love and for there to be no support system.
00:04:49
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.
00:04:58
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.
00:05:06
Speaker
They totally because people
00:05:09
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.
00:05:20
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.
00:05:31
Speaker
And I don't know, obviously there are some vets that are, you
00:05:35
Speaker
you know, really kind and sending sympathy cards and so on.
00:05:39
Speaker
So I think just offering this kind of support is, is just incredible.
00:05:45
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.
00:05:54
Speaker
So people are learning about grief and learning about the facts and misinformation about grief.
00:05:59
Speaker
And then, you know, I do this in a, in a support group format or an individual.
00:06:04
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.
00:06:16
Speaker
So it's, it's,
00:06:17
Speaker
It's really quite incredible and quite different to talk therapy as we would traditionally kind of go towards.
00:06:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's very, it's very, it's so important.
00:06:32
Speaker
I mean, I think everybody needs to sort of talk to somebody and go through certain things.
00:06:40
Speaker
And I do think that pet specific is important.
Lack of Rituals and Personal Struggles with Pet Loss
00:06:44
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
00:07:07
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.
00:07:15
Speaker
I'm like, what?
00:07:17
Speaker
Like you'd never offer that for a human, you know?
00:07:20
Speaker
And yeah, it's fascinating.
00:07:23
Speaker
And so it was it was the loss of your two dogs within 24 hours that got you into this really specifically.
00:07:30
Speaker
And what happened with 24 hours?
00:07:31
Speaker
Jesus.
00:07:34
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.
00:07:45
Speaker
And unfortunately, my other dog had injuries.
00:07:48
Speaker
She had to be put to sleep the following day.
00:07:50
Speaker
So it was a shock and I didn't get to prepare.
00:07:54
Speaker
So I didn't get to prepare.
00:07:56
Speaker
I didn't ever tell myself, you know, I'm going to be losing these dogs.
00:08:00
Speaker
And so I didn't really ever think about what my life would be like afterwards.
00:08:04
Speaker
So there was the initial shock and then there was the confusion and the grief and really.
00:08:12
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
00:08:35
Speaker
huge benefits from doing the program myself, which then inspired me to become a brief recovery specialist.
00:08:42
Speaker
So, yeah.
Interchangeable Grief Support for Pets and Humans
00:08:45
Speaker
And how has business been?
00:08:46
Speaker
Has it been good?
00:08:47
Speaker
And do you specialize in pets, but you also work with humans?
00:08:53
Speaker
You're always working with humans.
00:08:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:56
Speaker
Exactly, yeah.
00:08:57
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.
00:09:07
Speaker
So, you know, the programme is interchangeable, it works.
00:09:10
Speaker
And a lot of the time somebody will say...
00:09:13
Speaker
You know, I want to work through this pet loss.
00:09:15
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?
00:09:27
Speaker
And perfectly fine.
00:09:28
Speaker
Like there's no issue.
00:09:29
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
00:09:42
Speaker
You know, grief is a normal and natural reaction to change or loss of any kind, not just death.
00:09:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:49
Speaker
That's exactly what I said in my TED talk.
00:09:52
Speaker
That's exactly right.
00:09:53
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.
00:10:02
Speaker
It could be the loss of a job or a divorce for somebody else.
00:10:04
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.
Grief Recovery Training and Personal Growth
00:10:15
Speaker
But you know, it's,
00:10:17
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
00:10:44
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.
00:10:56
Speaker
So some trainers will be based in the UK and some in the US.
00:11:00
Speaker
And then there's a lot of, you know,
00:11:03
Speaker
work to do like book work and you know, that kind of paperwork and studying in the downtime of the life trainings.
00:11:11
Speaker
So it was quite intense, but it was all done in group kind of setting.
00:11:16
Speaker
And it was just lovely because
00:11:19
Speaker
Everybody was there for a reason and we all shared our stories and we all felt inspired by each other.
00:11:25
Speaker
So it really was probably some form of grief therapy in and of itself, I'd say.
00:11:30
Speaker
Oh, totally.
00:11:31
Speaker
Because you're doing, you're actually doing the program while you're training.
00:11:35
Speaker
So it's.
00:11:36
Speaker
it's kind of intertwined and you're getting to work on your own losses.
00:11:39
Speaker
So you're going to experience what the clients are going to experience.
00:11:43
Speaker
So it was really, it was really, really, it was just so motivating and inspiring.
00:11:48
Speaker
So excellent.
00:11:50
Speaker
Like, so if anybody wants you to check it out, it's the grief recovery method.com.
00:11:55
Speaker
You know, you can sign up to do the trainings on that website.
00:11:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:00
Speaker
And do you, how are you finding, so your clients, how are you finding Irish versus international?
Cultural Differences in Grieving
00:12:07
Speaker
Are the Irish, because I know from starting 15 years ago, it's like blow from a stone.
00:12:12
Speaker
It's like, come on, come on.
00:12:13
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.
00:12:21
Speaker
And I'm like,
00:12:24
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.
00:12:31
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.
00:12:41
Speaker
I mean, you know, anyway.
00:12:43
Speaker
So how are you finding the Irish versus everyone else?
00:12:46
Speaker
There is definitely an obvious difference, I would say.
00:12:52
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.
00:13:02
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.
00:13:11
Speaker
So, but one major thing that has helped is...
00:13:15
Speaker
I share my story, so it helps them then to feel safe enough and to trust me and everybody else to share theirs.
00:13:25
Speaker
So I think that's a huge benefit.
00:13:27
Speaker
Whereas if I was kind of sitting there facilitating and really not sharing anything, it would be, it will be another story.
00:13:36
Speaker
So...
00:13:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:39
Speaker
No, I understand.
00:13:40
Speaker
That makes sense.
00:13:41
Speaker
Well, listen, amazing stuff.
00:13:44
Speaker
And I think very, very much needed.
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:13:46
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.
00:13:56
Speaker
And it doesn't have to be pet loss.
00:13:59
Speaker
But that's kind of where you're gearing towards, which is amazing.
00:14:03
Speaker
And so that's fantastic.
00:14:04
Speaker
Thank you so much for coming on and for sharing your story.
00:14:07
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.
00:14:16
Speaker
I think it's so, so important.
00:14:17
Speaker
Oh, definitely.
00:14:18
Speaker
Really.
00:14:19
Speaker
And so keep up the good work.
00:14:21
Speaker
Thanks, Jennifer.
00:14:21
Speaker
Thanks for having me on.
00:14:23
Speaker
I appreciate it.
00:14:23
Speaker
I had a good time.
00:14:24
Speaker
Thanks.
00:14:35
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