Finding Tranquility In Loss With Kimberly Wilson

I know that we've been wanting to have you on the show since one of the grief growers in the grief growers garden actually requested that you come on.

So I'm so excited that you said yes and that you're here to share your loss story with us.

So let's jump in with your losses.

Yeah.

So,

You know,

Thank you,

By the way,

For reaching out.

This is such an important topic to me and it's something that every time I've had a pretty intense loss,

It's contributed to a pretty big change.

So in 2012,

I lost my beloved grandmother.

She was 99 and a half.

And I know people will be like,

Oh,

It's a nice long life.

And I'm like,

No,

It was not long enough.

And she was in hospice care in Texas.

And I had gone down that weekend to be with her,

Not expecting it to be the end by any means.

She was still trucking along despite having been in hospice for,

Gosh,

Like six weeks at that point.

And we were not expecting this to be the end.

And whenever I got there,

Things took a turn.

And so I ended up staying with her throughout that weekend and beyond and then was with her as she passed.

And that really kind of shook me to the core.

My grandmother was one of my absolute favorite beings from childhood.

I remember I would play in her garden up at the lake in Oklahoma,

This beautiful home that she'd built into a hill and she had this huge garden and we would catch grasshoppers and butterflies and plants,

Flowers.

And so she has been a part of my life for many,

Many years and really truly like one of my heroes.

So losing her was a pretty challenging experience.

And surprisingly so because of course we knew the end was coming.

She was 99 and a half,

But still was not prepared for it.

And so actually after that loss,

I decided probably about a month later,

Maybe about three months later,

And then I announced it and then a month after that,

So in May I went on a semi-sabbatical.

So basically at that point I had been eating,

Sleeping,

Breathing a yoga studio,

Two yoga studios that I had founded and was also in graduate school and just knew I needed to kind of step back.

It was one of those experiences with grief when you can just tell that I describe it as being encased in concrete.

Ooh,

I love that visual.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I mean because it's almost impossible to just get by with a day-to-day.

And so that was a big change for me and I actually never returned from the one-year semi-sabbatical and I continued to be pulled away from the day-to-day operations of the studio as much as a founder can who's pretty obsessed with details.

So I did hand over a lot of management and bill pay and things along those lines.

So that was my kind of first take with it and it was incredibly jarring.

Thank you so much for sharing that story and for telling us kind of that visual of being encased in concrete.

I love people's metaphors and visuals for grief.

When did you know?

When was kind of the point where you were like,

Okay,

I need to drop everything.

This is the point.

This is enough.

Or I need to start doing something different?

Yeah,

I'd say pretty shortly after.

So my grandmother passed in February and I went on semi-sabbatical in May.

And so I would say it was probably around April that I made the announcement and it was a pretty big deal for having managed and overseen a team for 15 years and always kind of at the studio and what have you.

So to take the step back was a pretty big piece of my kind of life trajectory and the fact that I just realized I couldn't do it all and at that point I didn't want to do it all anymore.

It's like I needed the space and the time,

Which is something I'd never really had as a creative entrepreneur,

To fully immerse kind of in the grief process and to just create more space for myself.

So I'd say within a month I knew that something had to shift.

And what was the sabbatical made of?

Well,

The idea was the semi-sabbatical.

I was still going to be teaching at the studio.

I just was not going to be managing or paying bills or there all the time.

So I was still going to be going to graduate school,

Doing a part-time internship and managing a clothing line and all the other things I had.

But from the studio perspective,

I just wasn't going to be there every day.

And you speak a bit on the need for creating space and creating time,

Which I know as a fellow entrepreneur is almost impossible because when you are in a business,

Especially a heart centered business,

Like it sounds like you have a lot of heart centered businesses,

It's hard to step away from that because you literally wake up in the morning and you go to sleep at night thinking about your business,

Thinking about your creations,

Thinking about your work.

And I guess in the midst of that space and time,

Like where did you go?

What did you do?

What came up for you in all of that?

Because when we make space and time for grief,

I hear sometimes it can often surprise us with what comes up in the meantime.

Yeah,

Well,

You know,

It was interesting what came up in the meantime with that is I never returned from the semi-sabbatical.

So I just,

I kept at that level of involvement even after the May 15th,

The deadline of returning had passed.

And I'm like,

Hey,

No one remembers that I said one year and it happened on May 15th.

And then I was like,

You know what?

I don't think I want to return to doing that anymore.

And so during that process,

It was really interesting that it was the ability to step away and actually begin to become okay with it.

And that allowed me also to put more energy into kind of the letting go process and recognition that she wasn't with us anymore and you know,

How life was going to be different,

How I wanted it to be different and what have you.

So that loss in particular,

I think had a pretty profound effect on me,

You know,

In the fact that it contributed to some pretty big life changes.

Yeah,

In the sense that you never kind of went back to that same level of energetic output.

Absolutely.

Yeah,

That's a great way to put it.

You say that you took this time to really focus on the process of letting go.

And what does that look like for you or what did that start to look like for you?

Because a lot of people when they approach grief,

They're like,

I don't even know what letting go is supposed to look like.

And you kind of have to create rituals or even recognition in your own mind that wow,

Okay,

I think I'm letting go of this.

That's what this looks like for me.

You know,

I did a lot of things around.

I'm a big kind of writer,

Journal writer.

She was a big diary keeper.

Yeah,

So she kind of planted those seeds,

Right?

So I did a lot of writing.

I think writing is incredibly healing.

I also,

You know,

It's interesting,

We kept some pieces of her clothing.

You know,

She lived in an assisted living center at that point.

So her closet was tiny and there were just a few things and I kept,

You know,

Like some embroidery thread,

You know,

A little like sewing,

You know,

This cute little like cross stitch sewing pad where you put your needles.

So you know,

I had things like that on display.

I would wear this sweater that she had worn all the time because she was always cold even when it was 100 degrees in Texas.

And you know,

So I kept that.

So I would wear things.

I had things that she had made or jewelry or,

You know,

Little trinkets.

I had those around and it was this way.

And then of course I did a lot of writing.

And so it was,

It was this way to really,

You know,

Begin to come to terms with it.

I also saw a hospice grief counselor for a couple of months,

Maybe two or three until she moved.

And that was so,

So helpful.

I highly recommend that.

I found that to be incredibly helpful,

Particularly somebody who deals with grief and loss.

And you know,

There's so much grief and loss,

Right?

From losing a job to a beloved pet,

Which happened to me in 2015,

Which I still have not recovered from,

To,

You know,

Losing a relationship,

To losing a city that you loved and you,

You know,

You've had to move on or transition.

So you know,

Loss is something that we're constantly dealing with.

And so the more that we're able to work with that,

I think it really helps us to,

To keep going because it's such a consistent part of who we are.

To engage with it helps us keep going with it.

You mentioned another loss of yours in 2015 of a pet.

Yes.

Can you tell us that story as well?

Yeah,

So 2015,

It was interesting.

It was right before,

It was maybe like December 2014,

Like a beloved black pug who I'm totally obsessed with.

He was 10 years old.

Yeah,

He was like,

Truly when I say like I've been,

I've had a partner for 14 years,

I'm like,

Meanwhile,

This dog was the love of my life,

Right?

So obsessed.

His name was Louie the pug.

And you know,

A lot of my like,

Podcast listeners knew him because he was always snoring through interviews or people had met him on retreats or you know,

So he was kind of he was he was a well loved pug.

And it was in the fall,

Late 2014.

We just noticed he had some sinus things going on,

Which is not odd at all for a pug.

And so we took him in and,

You know,

He had,

You know,

The sinus infection pills,

Whatever.

And it seemed to kind of be clearing it up,

But not fully.

And then in January,

He had a seizure.

I thought I was gonna like,

Lose it.

I mean,

It was so scary.

And if you've ever been around a pet or a person,

You know,

Having a seizure,

It's so,

So traumatic.

And then you woke up from it.

He was disoriented,

But he seemed fine.

So it was this really weird experience.

So anyway,

We get him in to see a neurologist.

And you know,

Long story short,

Before I know he's diagnosed with brain cancer,

And he has this large tumor growing like behind his nasal passage,

Which is odd because it's more commonly found with dogs that have like a snout.

And he clearly did.

He had like none,

Right?

He was just flat-faced as a pug.

So that was really traumatic.

And so,

You know,

We really didn't have options because you can't operate in that area.

And then also,

Chemotherapy was an option,

But it would only extend his life a couple of months.

And we were like,

We wouldn't even do that to ourselves.

So you know,

We kept doing all we could to keep him as comfortable as possible and also told ourselves quality of life was critical.

So we would never keep him around just for ourselves.

We knew that we needed to do what was right for him.

So he's diagnosed late January,

And then we lost him mid-April.

And it's even hard to talk about.

It's still so traumatic.

And it's been,

My God,

It's been almost three years now,

But I don't know.

I mean,

I really don't know if I'll ever get over that.

And it's interesting.

You know,

I read to like someone because,

Of course,

I did a lot of reading after the loss of him in particular,

You know,

Around the loss of pets.

And I was like,

Why is it so traumatic to lose a pet?

And you know,

One of the articles I came across was like why it was harder to lose my dog than my mom.

And it was interesting.

And the woman was talking about the fact that,

You know,

With people,

We have stuff,

Right?

There's always stuff.

There's like some place they've disappointed us,

Some place they've let us down,

Vice versa.

There's been some conflict.

You know,

Whereas a dog,

It's like,

Yeah,

They can misbehave.

But there's like this unconditional regard.

And I thought that article did a great way of explaining why pet loss is like truly so,

So traumatic.

And you know,

To get me through that,

I actually within a couple of weeks,

I stopped teaching yoga and I had been teaching yoga nonstop for at that point probably 16 years.

And I was just like,

I can't go in and tell people to inhale and exhale because I don't care right now.

You know,

It's like,

I am just like not in a place where I want to be showing up and doing this.

And I can't like I physically just can't.

And so,

Yeah,

I stopped teaching yoga regularly then and I never returned to a regular yoga class after that.

And that's,

You know,

Despite owning two studios teaching a lot since 1999 when I started teaching.

And it just like,

You know,

It really just brought me to my knees.

I'm so sorry for both of these losses.

And this one sounds like,

Like he's especially lodged in your heart.

And I love that for you.

But at the same time,

It's so heartbreaking.

I'm kind of drawing this parallel between the loss of your grandmother and the loss of your dog and that she died in hospice care and then with him,

You kind of became his hospice experience.

There's not really,

I mean,

To my knowledge,

There's not like a hospice for pets or dogs or cats when we go to lose them.

But this attention and this detail to the quality of his life and keeping him out of pain and things like that,

I think,

I don't know,

I'm getting this energetic sense that maybe your experience from the loss of your grandmother informed the loss with him.

Yeah,

I mean,

I would definitely say so.

You know,

I think too,

Just a heads up,

There actually is hospice for dogs and pets if you can believe it.

And we actually kind of had that,

I mean,

To a degree because we had a natural,

Like I forget the name for it,

But it's like a natural vet.

So it's a vet who has gone through all the MD training,

But then also does this other piece which is like acupuncture and herbs and all of that.

And we didn't find the herbs to be helpful.

We did some acupuncture with him,

But she also was able to come to the house to put him down,

Which is like the worst phrase ever,

Which was really good because we didn't want to take him to this like sterile environment of the vet,

Which is lovely and they had been so great.

But,

You know,

To be able to have him here was really,

Really important.

And yes,

You know,

Definitely it did inform.

And I forgot to mention 2013,

I lost my firstborn cat and similar experience where I also brought this woman in,

He had cancer.

You know,

So that happened in 2013 and that was quite traumatic.

It wasn't the degree with Louie,

But he was like my firstborn and like I was obsessed with this like really mean nasty black cat and I'd had him for like 14 years,

Right?

So we were quite connected and that was pretty traumatic.

And then my dog in 2015.

So I'm like,

Why did I miss the cat one?

I totally skipped that as I was telling you all this and yeah,

It was cancer too.

So you know,

It's just like loss after loss.

I will say it helps to inform how painful it is and to know like,

Okay,

This is what to expect.

Like this is not easy.

And one thing that I read at some point in this book called In Lue of Flowers,

I think,

Is that each loss you have,

It builds on the other.

And so that's why the more losses you have,

Kind of the more intense it becomes.

I don't know if that's true or not,

But that's kind of stuck with me as to why,

You know,

Particularly Louie three years ago may have been so,

So hard.

That's a great point to make and it's something that I've read in my work as well.

It's the idea of grief being cumulative.

Like it builds on itself over time,

The more losses that you have,

Especially if those griefs,

If those relationships go unaddressed.

So if you didn't see a hospice counselor,

If you didn't put the energy into writing,

To reading,

To taking that time for yourself and giving that time and space to yourself to really process these losses.

There's also another school of thought that kind of can run alongside this idea of grief being cumulative and that is each loss has two ingredients and that's time and intensity.

So we can grieve a lot for someone we've known for our whole lifetime and it really just blows our world open,

But we can also grieve for somebody we knew and loved very,

Very intensely,

That we felt very,

Very connected to,

Even if we only felt connected to them for maybe a year or two years and or even shorter than that,

Like six months.

And it's interesting how society like grades quote unquote,

These levels of losses.

So for some reason,

If you don't know somebody for a very long time,

It seems less valid than if you knew them for your entire lifetime or if they're not capable of quote unquote speaking like pets and things like that are.

There's like this less validation that comes from society of,

Oh,

They were just a dog and you're just like,

No,

But this level of intensity that this being lodged in my heart feeling that I have for these babies,

You know,

This is not comparable.

No relationships are comparable to each other.

So yeah,

I think you're really onto something there.

Yeah,

I thought that was really interesting,

This idea of it being cumulative because I don't know,

You're just like,

Oh,

Well,

Can't I get through one and like be done with it and then be fresh for the next one?

That's what the movies tell you.

Exactly.

Hollywood makes it look like that.

No,

I mean,

It just,

You know,

It's surprising,

I think of the depth,

The level of the intensity that happens with loss.

Yeah.

I'm really interested to shift now into the work that you do,

Because your overarching theme is tranquility.

And when I think of tranquility,

I think of like,

Peaceful ponds and Zen gardens and being lost in the forest and like the snow falling and having no one around.

And I'm interested to how you got to this place in this space,

Or I imagine you created it before these losses happened,

But maybe how you've managed to maintain,

Redefine,

Share the message of tranquility through these losses and through your life.

Yeah,

It's funny,

You know,

A tranquility and the images that you just mentioned,

Because you're right.

I mean,

That's,

I think what people have in mind whenever there's this,

The word when you see the word tranquil.

And to me,

I've always kind of been like,

How can we find this sense of tranquility within our everyday,

Meaning within,

You know,

The sirens and the lost keys and the,

You know,

Overflowing laundry basket,

You know,

I mean,

Whatever it is,

It's how to be able to actually bring a little bit of that into our everyday life.

And if you think about it,

Too,

With regard to the grief process,

I think of it as like the sense of softness,

You know,

Bringing in the sense of kind of compassion into a really,

Really challenging situation.

How can we bring like small chunks of tranquility into our grief?

The biggest thing that I recommend for people is to take really good care of yourself.

I mean,

Which sounds trite and cliche,

But I,

You know,

It's so,

So critically important.

So for example,

You know,

I found that during these losses,

I needed to sleep a lot,

Right?

So I mentioned earlier feeling encased in concrete.

So I needed to sleep a lot and I needed to rest a lot more than usual.

So my energy,

Say if it was typically at like 90%,

It went to probably about a 40.

So I had to keep that in mind with regard to what I committed to,

What I took on,

What I said yes to,

What I let go of,

Etc.

And I think that that is one of the biggest things that is so,

So,

So very important.

You know,

Also to do little things to help memorialize it.

And what I mean by that is so with Louie,

When we lost him,

We went the next day to pick up his ashes.

And then we went straight to a Home Depot to get flowers and,

You know,

And colors that he liked.

Not that we knew he liked him,

But we thought he liked him.

And then,

Sure.

And you know,

With monkey grass,

Which was his favorite,

You know,

To play in.

And,

You know,

So we went and we got all this stuff and we ordered on Etsy this stone that said Louie and a paw print.

And we got him this beautiful urn.

You know,

So doing things like that.

And with my grandmother,

I got a small urn too to have some of her ashes.

The rest were buried,

But I was able to take some.

And then also with Bonar,

The kitty,

I've got his ashes.

So like my mantle is like full of ashes,

Right?

It's like got three different urns for my three loved ones that I've lost.

And so that,

You know,

I think has been a really important way for me,

You know,

To be able to,

You know,

Keep this connection alive and keep them as part of me while also knowing that they're no longer with me physically.

And then also,

You know,

As I mentioned the wearing of my grandmother's clothes,

Which may sound a little odd,

But I found that very comforting.

Again,

It was like this sweet little cardigan,

You know,

And it was just,

I don't know,

It just,

It smelled like her,

You know.

So things like that,

I think are really important.

I did tons of reading about grief.

And I also talked,

You know,

With other people who had lost family members or pets and that was helpful.

I will say the one thing that is not helpful that I think everyone should keep in mind is the,

Oh,

I remember how hard it was when I lost my grandma or oh,

I remember how hard it was when I lost little Nookie,

You know,

Their dog.

And I just remember I would get a lot of those sort of cards or comments and it was so jarring because while I get that it feels like this is relatable,

That's not helpful to someone who is grieving at all.

They don't care about your story unless they're asking for it.

Do you know what I mean?

Jadee I mean,

It's crazy.

I don't know why I felt so offended by that.

And yet it was so thoughtful,

Right,

That someone would reach out and send something but yet they're sending me their grief.

And that was just quite jarring.

So that's I think one thing if we could all keep that in mind,

You know,

That it's really important to let people have their story,

Their grief.

And if you're acknowledging it,

To acknowledge it and not how you two have suffered.

Heather Absolutely,

Absolutely.

That listening first and then connecting,

If invited,

Second.

Jadee Right,

Absolutely.

Heather How do you take your experience with grief and loss into your business,

Into your offerings now,

Whether that's continuing to do yoga or your podcast or the books that you've written?

How do you connect yourself with other grieving hearts that you find through your work?

Jadee You know,

What's really interesting is I have quite a few clients who have lost parents.

And it's not at all that they all knew that I worked with people who dealt with loss.

It's just somehow they have found me and I find that to be such an honor and a gift to be able to work with people who have lost family members because I can empathize with the challenge around it.

And I also definitely want to be able to work with people who have also lost pets.

That's an area where I would like to also help specialize and I'm studying veterinary social work on the side.

And so that's another way where I think that will be helpful.

But I definitely bring this into my work and I bring it in and the fact of A,

Giving resources.

So I've got a few books that I always recommend or I'll send to friends or loved ones whenever they have lost a family member or a pet.

That tends to be,

You know,

Being able to share these resources and also to hold a space for them from someone who really gets it.

You know,

I think it would be hard to fully do that if you've just studied loss and grief.

I mean,

I think that would be so powerful,

Right?

Because you've got all the theory.

But to have the practice of actually having been through some pretty significant losses is also,

And studied it,

I think is also incredibly,

Incredibly therapeutic for clients,

For friends,

You know,

And for writing.

What are some of the resources that you hand out?

I have a favorite book and I realized,

I was like,

Oh,

I wish I had it in front of me.

And it's actually at the office because I use it so much with clients.

But what it's called,

It's so good,

Is Grieving Mindfully.

Oh,

I'm writing that one down.

Since I don't have it in front of me,

What I did is I pulled up a blog post that I wrote in 2012,

A couple months after I lost grandma.

And I have a bunch of quotes from it that I found particularly helpful.

So if you'd like,

I'd be happy to read some of these.

Yes,

If you could pick a favorite,

That would be awesome.

Let's see.

I mean,

There's so many.

I think I wrote like 15 in this.

So to pick a favorite might be tricky.

Okay,

This is interesting.

Although grief stems from the loss of a relationship in some form,

It can also be the beginning of a much larger journey,

A journey into the very meaning of your life.

Okay,

No big deal,

Right?

I mean,

That's huge,

Huge.

It's massive.

This is really interesting too.

In this loss,

Your identity becomes unstable.

You feel an eerie sense of life going on yet being radically different.

I mean,

That is like,

Oh my God,

This book is amazing and it's thin.

So people can read it quickly.

There's also some exercises in it and it's written by a therapist from Florida.

So I don't I can't recommend this book more highly.

The losses that you've experienced have put you in a place where you've been able to create more meaning in your life.

It sounds like your life was very meaningful already.

But especially with the loss of your grandmother to be able to step back and say how much work,

How much energy do I really need to be focusing into these places?

How much can I take for myself?

And then with your cat and then with Mr.

Louie,

It's this whole process of how can I keep remembering?

How can I create rituals and honor and memorialize and continue relationships even if they're physically no longer with me?

And so it sounds like you have used this concept of inserting these chunks of tranquility into your life to create these pockets just of acknowledgement that they're still here.

Yes,

Yes.

I love it.

Excellent.

Well,

As we're coming to the end of our interview time today,

I would absolutely love to let my listeners know where they can find you,

How they can work with you.

And if you've got anything else coming up that we should all know about.

Absolutely.

I'd love to connect with your listeners and I can be found at KimberlyWilson.

Com.

So very easy.

And I lead retreats,

I offer mentoring,

I offer therapy for those of you in the DC area.

And I have some books out there on how to find tranquility in everyday life and a podcast on trink,

It's called Tranquillie du Jour.

So again,

I think I'm French.

I'm so not French.

I'm actually German and English.

I have all these random French things and my boyfriend's always like,

You are not French.

I'm more French than you are.

He did Ancestry.

Com,

Right?

I'm like,

That's so not fair.

But yeah,

So I've got Tranquillie du Jour and it's this idea of how do we interject tranquility into our everyday,

Even when we're dealing with loss,

With disappointment.

Just there's so much.

And last year,

Having sold my yoga studios,

That was a really interesting piece about loss too,

Of letting go of something you have birthed and nurtured for 18 years.

One book that I recommend from that process is called Transitions,

Making Sense of Life's Changes.

That's a really good book too,

Because sometimes it is loss.

It can be death or it can be the death of not actually a breathing being,

A sentient being.

It can be the death of a business,

Something that you have to let go of,

You decided to let go of.

And so that,

I think,

Is just a really important thing to keep in mind and that I try to share my experience through the work that I do and offer.

Well thank you so much,

Kimberly,

For coming on the show today.

I'm so glad that one of our grief growers asked that I reach out to you,

Because I think within this show there's been so much validation for losses that you've experienced over the long term.

It doesn't matter that she lived a good life,

Quote unquote,

I wanted more of that.

And also for all of our grief growers out there who I know are listening who have lost pets in the last couple years or so and in their lifetime.

So thank you so much for coming on the show today.