Honor What You're Going Through With Sharon Ehlers

Tell us your last story.

Start from wherever you'd like.

Alright,

So let's see.

Career wise,

I've worked in the cybersecurity field,

You know,

And security field for most of my life.

And so that was primarily my career.

And in 2009,

My best friend Joy,

Who I talked to every day,

Died by suicide.

And it just sent everything spinning into oblivion,

Basically.

I was one of the last people to talk to her.

And it was very difficult trying to move forward from that.

I had never known anyone who had died by suicide before.

I didn't know what to do.

So it was very much a struggle for me,

Knowing how to move forward.

And of course,

People don't talk to you when somebody dies,

But they certainly don't talk to you when suicide's involved.

Move fast forward to 2012,

And my former fiancé,

Who I had lived with for many years,

And we bought a house together.

We were actually broken up at the time,

But I still loved him and still do.

But he also died by suicide.

So that really,

Really sent me reevaluating everything in my life,

Trying to figure out where do I go,

What do I do,

How do I grieve,

How do I move forward.

My job was just,

You know,

Stressful and driving me crazy,

Which didn't help.

And so I was trying to find my own tools for how to heal and get better,

And I wasn't sure what to do.

So basically,

I took some time off of work.

I started,

I'm also a Reiki master,

So I started practicing Reiki on myself,

And I found that I was much more able to sleep and relax and sort of calm down.

I reevaluated my career and decided it wasn't making me happy,

And that I needed to find ways to help other people.

And so I signed up for the Grief Recovery Institute's certification program,

Became a grief recovery certification specialist,

And started my own business just out of the blue and decided that in order for me to move forward,

I really wanted to be there for other people,

Knowing that grief is such a difficult topic that people tend to be avoided.

And I felt that way when I was grieving,

And I didn't want anybody else to feel that way.

So I thought maybe in starting my own business,

I could help other people.

As a part of my business,

I've written a couple books,

And I've set up some seminars and talks and course material to help integrate all the different components of grief,

Because it's not just the emotional,

It's also taking care of yourself physically,

It's also understanding where you are spiritually,

And that's sort of been the basis of where I've been for the last year or two.

And that's refining and evaluating and developing a different approach to grief that looks at all components and helps people to move forward so they're not stuck in their pain.

The next thing I really want to know is how you discovered Reiki in the first place,

Because it sounds like you already had that as a tool at your disposal.

Yes,

I did.

Absolutely.

Well,

What happened was,

As a part of my profession,

I was a federal employee for many years.

I lived in Washington,

Lived and worked in Washington,

D.

C.

My boss was a presidential appointee at the time,

And it was a very stressful environment.

I exercised and did yoga,

And I was just trying to find ways to relax from my job.

I was on a business trip back here in L.

A.

,

Saw a business card in a coffee shop that said relaxation,

And I grabbed it and called the number,

Having no idea what it was about.

It turns out that I experienced my very first Reiki session with a wonderful woman.

I felt so different during the session,

And when it was over,

That I thought,

There's got to be something to this.

So,

Over the years,

I not only got sessions and treatments from her,

But I opted to start to learn more about it.

I took Reiki 1,

Which is healing yourself,

Took Reiki 2,

And then became a Reiki master.

That started in probably around 2006,

2007.

I've been doing Reiki for about 10 or 11 years now.

That's beautiful.

It's such a cool download of energy.

I have such a hard time describing it in any other way besides that.

You're absolutely right.

I think originally,

For me,

It was primarily to relieve stress because of my job,

But I found that the stress created by my grief also benefited from me practicing self-Reiki on myself every day.

I found,

Like I said,

That I slept better.

It doesn't take the sadness away,

But it does help you to feel more prepared and energetic and not so drained.

I tell people that I did not get sick at all during those years with my grief.

That's so unusual for a greever because grief is such an energy-depleting emotion that most grievers find that they do end up getting sick.

For me,

I stayed very healthy,

Which allowed me to really focus on my grief and handle it emotionally and spiritually in a better way.

That's such an interesting piece of evidence,

Too,

Because I know in my own loss,

I did get very sick.

It was only after that point when I reached for spiritual tools like Reiki to really tune in and to do something about it.

I'm curious in your experience if you had any naysayers.

If you revealed to anybody that you were doing Reiki to cope with your grief,

Or if that was more of a private practice,

And if it was a more public thing,

Did you have anybody who was like,

Does this really work for you?

A couple things.

When I first started practicing Reiki,

I kept it pretty quiet because I work in corporate America.

My background is in engineering,

So I work with people who are very logical and analytical.

It's often difficult to have those discussions in the kind of work environment that I was in.

Being Catholic,

That was also another discussion with my family members.

It's like,

Isn't that contrary to being a Catholic?

Isn't that a woo-woo kind of thing?

There's got to be something strange that goes on with Reiki.

In the beginning,

It was more of a private thing.

As I moved through my grief,

My Reiki teacher became an obvious advocate because she was helping me.

In fact,

She was the first person I called after I learned about both of my loved ones' deaths,

And she was able to see me right away.

I did Reiki almost on the same day that I learned about their deaths,

Or within a day or two.

Over time,

Because it worked,

I found that I became more vocal about it,

And I tried to let people I knew who were grieving know about the benefits of Reiki.

Now that I sort of get it and have my own business,

That's kind of one of the primary things that I think makes Reiki for Grievers very different,

And that is teaching people the simple things they can do at home while they're going through their grief to help themselves.

I find,

Because I talk about it more now,

That more people know about it.

It's more mainstream than maybe it was 10 years ago,

Although I know people who've been doing Reiki since the 70s.

But I think 10 years ago,

It wasn't quite out there as much as it is now.

Now,

A lot of the hospitals in our area are offering Reiki.

It's in the media.

There are well-known public figures who speak about it on their TV shows or in their radio shows or whatever.

So I think there's less of a stigma now,

But in the beginning,

It was very difficult to talk about.

I really did keep it private,

But I'm finding now when I say it,

People are a lot more understanding of what it is and seem to be very supportive.

That's wonderful.

I'm working around in my brain the fusing of Reiki with Grief Recovery.

So could you tell us what Grief Recovery is or means to you,

How you came upon it,

And then what made you decide to get certified in it and then fuse it with Reiki to create this whole new kind of offering that adds on a spiritual component?

Or do you keep them separate?

I'm just so curious about how your whole business came to be in existence.

Sure,

Absolutely.

Well,

After John died and it threw me really into the depths of the abyss of grief,

I just got to a point in my career where I was so lost and disenchanted with what I had been doing for 30 years.

I didn't know if I needed to quit my job,

Find another job,

Start something completely different,

But it seemed like I had no time to think.

I worked a lot of hours because I did what a lot of grievers do is I became a workaholic,

Threw myself into my work so I wouldn't have to deal with my grief,

And of course it reared its ugly head.

So as a way of self-protecting,

I decided to have elective foot surgery,

Which sounds really funny,

But I had something I needed to be done on my foot.

It was one of those things that is a nice-to-do,

Not a necessity.

I chose to do that because I figured it would give me six weeks off of work where I could think about what I wanted to be when I grow up,

Or where I was going,

Or what I needed to do.

One of the things that I did was I started Googling grief support.

I had done a suicide support group when Joy died and that was very helpful.

It wasn't wonderful to be around people who had also gone through suicide,

But it was also comforting to be with people who understood.

So that was a wonderful experience for me,

But it didn't seem like enough and I had so much pain still with both of their deaths that I needed to find something else.

As I was Googling,

I found the Grief Recovery Method or Grief Recovery Institute,

Which was here in Los Angeles,

Out in the valley,

Not very far away.

I noticed that they had certification classes and I thought,

Wow,

That might be good.

Let me try that.

So I signed up,

Not really ever reading their material or having any idea of what it was about.

I just knew that if I went through the program,

It might be another tool that I could use to help myself.

So I did.

Russell Friedman was my mentor and he's one of the founders of the Grief Recovery Method and the experience was life changing for me.

As a result of that,

I opted to start a business,

Not really knowing what direction I was going to go in,

But knowing that I needed to kind of bring the Reiki aspects and what I learned in Grief Recovery together.

Today,

The way I practice it is I keep it very separate because we've signed an agreement with the Grief Recovery Institute to teach the Grief Recovery Method very specifically.

So I keep those courses and stuff separately,

But I did develop my own program that integrates components of grief with Reiki in a way that helps somebody who is grieving to look at themselves,

To understand grief better,

To understand that they need to really focus on the spiritual,

Emotional,

And physical aspects of grief.

Because a lot of the grief-related issues most people have,

I believe,

Have to do with their physical impacts.

And so I take the principles of grief and grief recovery and I integrate just practical information for a greever and I specifically tailor it to the things that you can do when you're grieving.

For example,

Meditation specifically focuses on your heart chakra because when you're grieving,

One of the energy centers in our body that's primarily affected is our fourth chakra or our heart chakra.

And so focusing the Reiki in those particular areas that would affect a greever the most is kind of how I pulled that course material together.

So I teach students how to be Reiki Level 1 certified,

But I add a twist of,

Okay,

And if you're a greever,

These are some things that you need to know so that when you're practicing Reiki,

You can focus in those areas that would be most beneficial for a greever.

To incorporate grief with Reiki to me is just so cool because that was something in my own experience that I explored after my loss and I would have loved to have known going in or would have loved to have had access to someone else who knows going into my grieving that this is kind of a broader picture of what's happening.

Because I expected emotionally to be sad and mentally to be foggy and physically to be tired,

But to have all of these things be connected with actual energy and energy work and to be capable of being focused on with a different kind of energy,

The Reiki energy,

And have some benefit come to that.

I would have never guessed or expected those things to be true.

And I think it's really fascinating to me that the first person you contacted was your Reiki teacher and that it has just been such a vital component in your coming back process and you're building your life after both of these losses.

I know you said meditation is a great example of combining grief with Reiki.

Is there another concept that you want to share with people or that you wish more people who are grieving knew about the grief process?

Well,

I think a lot of the issue with grieving is that we're so traditionally,

I guess,

Quote unquote,

Educated by society that we should be grieving in a very particular way,

That there's some mainstream way of doing it.

When Joya died,

I didn't know what I was going through.

I thought I was going crazy.

And I think understanding that everybody's journey is different,

That there's no one way to grieve is so important.

And I think that's where Reiki comes in because Reiki is tailored really to the person that's receiving it.

And I think finding those components,

Those teachings within Reiki's,

For example,

The principles,

I mean,

Just saying the principles every day.

When you wake up,

I will not anger,

I will not worry.

I mean,

One of the things that grief often brings into your life is fear,

Worry,

Anxiety,

And I think the calmness and the spirituality of Reiki was very comforting to me.

So,

Focusing on the principles,

I created a routine when I woke up in the morning that I would,

When I was in the shower,

That I would use specific Reiki symbol every day for myself.

And I kind of went through all my chakras,

My energy centers,

And I sent Reiki to each particular area.

And I got into a practice where I started my day out that way.

And I found that I was much more relaxed,

Even though I was still working,

Much more relaxed going into work,

That I handled things better.

There's so many different components of Reiki that you can use crystals.

There are very specific crystals associated with grief.

I infused,

I'll use Apache Tears,

For example,

And fused that with Reiki and I carried it with me.

It really kept me calm at work,

I have to say.

Sometimes if I had,

I'd be driving and in my grief mobile and having a tough time,

I would send Reiki to myself,

You know,

While I was sitting at a stop sign or a stoplight just to kind of help me,

You know,

Move forward.

So there's so many different things that you can do.

In fact,

In the book that I wrote,

I have all kinds of activities that people can do to use Reiki and other spiritual techniques to really help them when they're grieving,

Which is a little bit more non-traditional.

I mean,

Maybe it's not for everybody,

But for me,

I found that the tools that Reiki provides really,

Really helped me,

I think,

Be in a totally different place than I would have been if I'd continued on the path that I was going without it.

So it seems like Reiki was the catalyst and you coming back,

Which is the title of this podcast,

But that's kind of in my mind and in my definition,

It's kind of like reawakening to life again after loss.

Does that ring true for you or would you describe that in a different way?

No,

I think Reiki had a big part of it and I believe that,

You know,

What you said coming back really awakens you.

The trigger for me was having foot surgery,

Which as painful as it was,

Like I said,

It gave me six weeks to think and reevaluate and decide that I wasn't happy,

That I didn't want to be stuck in my grief.

It obviously helped with my foot to heal too because I used the Reiki on my foot as I was healing,

But I think that propelled me into looking beyond what I might have traditionally done and that is,

You know,

Read another book or go back to a traditional grief support.

It propelled me into the grief recovery method,

I think,

Which really opened so much for me and took this huge weight off my shoulders that I'm finding that because I'm in a different place,

My Reiki practice is different because I practice Reiki on people as part of my business now,

That everything has shifted.

I find myself being more intuitive,

I find myself so many things opened,

You know.

Not only emotionally,

You know,

Do I feel peaceful,

You know,

Have a new perspective,

Felt like I've let go of the pain,

Have different priorities about life.

I think also spiritually,

I feel so much more attuned to a different part of life,

Which is not of this world,

If that makes sense,

That spiritually I just feel more open-minded.

My loved ones are always sending me signs,

I think practicing Reiki as much as I do,

Not only myself but now on other people,

Has just really opened the door for understanding that it isn't just about this world and that our loved ones are so much with us all the time.

So,

I mean,

My whole perspective came back,

I guess,

Or changed or morphed or grew as I continued.

And how do you see them these days,

Your loved ones?

How do they show up for you in your life?

Is it something that you do in terms of like a physical ritual or do you see signs for them or symbols?

Because I know grief symbols are very important,

Things like flowers or feathers or birds or pens or things like that.

Or do they show up,

Do they float into your dreams or your headspace?

How do you incorporate your loved ones into your life today as opposed to how they were physically in your life before?

Well,

They are everywhere,

I have to say.

And my dad passed away in January.

He is a very busy man because my mom and I get signs from him all the time.

Music and just reminders.

For me,

It's a combination of the nature signs,

I guess.

There's the rainbows and the butterflies.

Each one of my friends,

John,

When I'm at the beach walking,

I see pelicans.

I've seen pelicans for some reason.

I don't know why I picked pelicans since he died.

And I walked at the beach to kind of let go of my grief.

That was my way to kind of get away from everybody.

And as soon as I started,

There were pelicans.

So I see those kind of signs.

I also see numbers.

I have numbers that are associated with different people.

So I see numbers and that's always a reminder.

John was also in the federal government and I used to call him 007.

So I see 007 on license plates.

I see it in phone numbers,

Like if I'm buying something at the store,

It'll be $10.

07 and I see 007.

So I know that he's around.

Other ways that my loved ones come forward are definitely in dreams.

Always in dreams.

Interesting enough,

I know when I dream of John,

Not so much John,

But Joy and my dad,

That they've passed away.

So it's an interesting dream.

I know Joy loved to go shopping and we used to go to Walmart all the time and that was just her thing.

And so when I dream of her,

We're shopping.

And I'm looking at her going like,

Why are you buying this stuff?

You are dead and you don't have a house.

And she just looks at me and smiles.

We're shopping,

Shut up.

This is our thing.

And so we just shop.

With John,

It's very different.

We're working still through things and so the dreams are very different.

But it's constant.

It's all the time.

It's all around me.

And I think practicing Reiki has really opened it up for me in so many ways to recognize and appreciate that our loved ones are with us all the time.

All the time.

What advice from either the grief recovery method or Reiki or both?

Like what principle there do you think would be of the most help to someone who has just gotten very devastating news?

So somebody's in the first week of their grief.

What's the first thing that you tell people?

Honor what you're going through and understand that grief is very unique and that what you're going through really has no rhyme and reason.

So you can feel sad one day and maybe a little bit better the next day and then worse than the first day.

It's such a roller coaster that it's not predictable.

And it's not something to try to control because we tend to try to control it.

So respecting your emotions,

Honoring them,

Allowing them to just come and go.

If you feel sad,

To be sad.

If you feel like crying,

To allow yourself to cry.

I think that was something I didn't understand in the beginning because I thought,

Okay,

Well I'm supposed to be in a certain stage.

So what is that stage?

Anger.

Well,

I don't feel very angry.

So should I be angry?

Don't second guess how you feel.

Just accept it and appreciate it and know that what you're going through is normal and natural and to just let it flow through you.

I think the other important thing to understand is that not.

.

.

I go back to Don Miguel Ruiz and the four agreements.

And that is one of his agreements is don't take things personally.

I learned in the beginning,

Well I thought in the beginning that people were avoiding me because they didn't want to be around me.

And it was very hurtful to feel so alone.

But in going through the grief recovery method,

I realized that the reason people stay away is because they don't know what to do.

And it doesn't really have anything to do with you or what you're going through.

It really has to do with them and what they are going through and how they maybe haven't addressed their grief.

They don't know what to say.

There's so much misinformation out there about grief that traditionally people don't know.

And over the years,

We've kind of trained people to stay away.

So number two would be don't take that personally.

It has nothing to do with you.

It's really about them.

And you have to,

As a greever,

Sometimes reach out to people and express to them what it is that you need because they can't read your mind and they don't know what to do.

So being honest.

And option B,

I think Sheryl Sandberg talks about that a lot,

Is just facing the elephant in the room and talking to people about your loved one,

Talking to people about how you're feeling.

I find I have found that if I'm not doing well and somebody asks me rather than plastering on the fake smile and saying I'm fine,

I say,

You know what?

Today hasn't been a very good day.

I really appreciate that you asked me.

But I'm hopeful that tomorrow will be a better day.

But being honest about it and not acting like you're fine and feeling like you're falling apart inside,

I think that's very important.

I also think that self-care,

Not worrying about everybody else and worrying about you and taking care of yourself.

That's one of the things I tell clients all the time.

If you're tired,

Take a nap.

If you want to go cry,

And I've done this in a place where John had lived out here for many years and there's a place in Palos Verdes that overlooks the ocean.

And I go up there and I cry.

I mean,

I don't care.

I just cry because I need to get it out.

It makes me feel better.

I listen to sad music if I need to.

I listen to happy music.

So I think going with whatever self-care regimen you can,

Because you have to have some sort of spiritual,

Physical,

Emotional resilience to get through your grief.

Otherwise,

You become a victim.

And victimhood is not a good,

It's not something good to carry with you.

So taking care of yourself is the first way that you learn how to move forward.

Not move forward in a way that's negative,

But move forward in a way that's healthy as a graver.

I love all of that.

To wrap up,

Tell us where we can find you,

The things that you've produced,

The books that you have out,

Those classes that you have coming up.

Oh,

Okay.

Well,

Let's see.

My website is grieff-reiki.

Com.

And on my site are all the classes and services that we offer,

All the blog entries,

Everything that we make available.

Right now,

A lot of the classes are local.

I'm hoping to be able to branch out into more online classes so that we can reach a larger audience.

But right now,

A lot of the classes that I do are in the local community.

But all the contact information,

Everything is there.

The two books that I focused on or have written as a co-author with Linda Fell,

I've been part of the Grief Diaries series.

You can go to their website and learn more,

Www.

Griefdiaries.

Com.

It's also on my website as well.

The book is available on Amazon.

It's called Grief Diaries,

Surviving Loss by Suicide.

It's 12 stories of people who have lost a loved one to suicide.

And for me,

Writing in that book was very cathartic.

The stories are uplifting and heartbreaking at the same time.

So I'm very proud of that.

It's won three national awards.

I'm very proud that this book has helped other people.

That's very exciting.

The book that I wrote by myself that kind of brings all the spiritual components,

Physical,

Emotional components,

Is just called Grief Reiki.

That's also available on Amazon,

Kindle,

Barnes & Noble,

And whatever.

This really talks about the things that I mentioned today of how to bring different aspects of your grieving process,

How to use different tools to help you get through just one hour if you need to as you move forward on your grief journey.

I also have an app on iTunes and in the Google Play Store for Grief Reiki.

They're healing oracle cards and they give kind of like the tarot cards or the angel cards that During Virtue does.

It's a basic app that pulls up different cards on a different day and sort of helps a greever from an emotional,

Physical,

Spiritual perspective and gives you a message of support and kind of helps you to have something in your day that you can carry forward with you as you move on your own grief journey.

Those are the big ones right now.

That's such a beautiful collection of creations.

These all seem like heart pieces from you and I'm so glad that they exist out there in the universe.

Thank you so much.

One of the things that grief does is it just splits your heart open in ways that you can't even imagine.

I appreciate that you said that this feels very heartfelt because that's exactly how I feel as these things.

It's about where this came from and it came from a place of love which I never would have thought but it did because it somehow grief affects you that way and sort of opens the door for all kinds of things that you can't even plan for I think.

Absolutely.

Well,

Sharon,

Thank you so much for interviewing with me today.

It was such an honor to have your presence on the show and just to hear more about how Reiki and grief can be fused together.

Well,

Thank you so much,

Shelby.

Thank you.

It's been an honor and privilege to be here today.