The Energy Of Grief With Sharon Ehlers

Sharon,

I am so excited to have you on the show to talk about your lost stories and the bereavement cruise as well and I just want to give a very public shout out to you today for being the person who informed me that the bereavement cruise even exists at all.

So the fact that I am going,

All you grief growers can thank Sharon for her influence in that and if you'd like to check out the interview where she first discussed the bereavement cruise with me,

You can check out her series called Grief and Healing Corner which is a series of Facebook live videos that she does which is very cool.

So we discussed that off the air and then the next day I applied.

So Sharon,

I'm so excited to have you on the show again.

Thank you for being here and can you start us off with your lost story?

Oh absolutely.

First of all,

Thank you and thank you for all you do.

It's just been a pleasure to watch you grow in your career and through your grief as well and so I'm honored to be back.

I'm honored to be back.

So my lost story starts about eight years ago when my best friend Joy died by suicide.

I really hadn't been exposed to grief of that magnitude before and the fact that it was suicide really threw me for a loop because people tended to avoid me.

I struggled to get better on my own which didn't work and as a result,

I found that I was having a really difficult time just as I was starting to sort of get my way through it quote unquote.

My former fiancé also died by suicide and that just sent me into a tailspin big time.

I didn't know what to do.

I didn't know where to turn.

I ended up joining survivors after suicide support group which was very beneficial but I struggled for quite a while both personally and professionally about how to get through this.

I found the grief recovery method and that really helped me to lift the burden that had been on my shoulder kind of off and move forward.

As a result of that,

I decided to help others move through their grief and loss journey only because I felt so lost and alone on my own.

It just made sense to try to reach out and be there for other people and I found that doing that actually gave me the tools that I needed to be able to handle loss in my own life especially when my father passed away about 18 months ago.

I found that as much as I miss him,

I mean I miss him every single day.

I handled my grief much differently.

I didn't feel so lost and alone.

I was able to talk about it and so in a nutshell,

Those three losses kind of propelled me to where I am today using the grief recovery method as well as Reiki tools which we'll talk a little bit about I'm sure later but the Japanese healing art of Reiki was also very instrumental in getting me through my loss and so here I am today.

I love that you talk about how your ability to grieve has changed with working on your grief as well because I know a lot of our grief growers,

People who are finding this podcast for the very first time are also experiencing a devastating loss for the very first time and a big thing that I know that I looked for,

Hoped for,

Kind of sought after when I was looking for resources after the death of my mom was hope that if and when this happens again I'm not necessarily going to be better at it but I'll know more of myself and I'll know more of what to do or what I need or what I want to talk about.

Can you talk about kind of the progression of learning how you grieve over time and working with it?

Absolutely.

I think in the beginning I was just completely lost.

I didn't know what to do and I think for me I gravitated to all of those things that I've learned in becoming an advanced grief recovery specialist that were misinformation like I tried to be strong,

I kept busy.

I mean I worked like a year and a half worth of work in one year trying to I guess get through it thinking that I would do better.

So I followed all of the misinformation those first couple years and I felt worse.

I just completely felt worse.

After John died and then kind of forcing myself to move into support groups and the grief recovery method I realized that I wasn't going crazy.

I realized there was no process that I was supposed to be following.

I'm a cybersecurity engineer by trade and so I'm very analytical as like give me the steps,

Give me the process,

Where's my milestones.

Where are the numbers on this?

What are the success rates?

Exactly.

Where's my action plan and my milestones and my goals and it's like I'm supposed to be at a certain place and I'm like I don't feel like I'm going forward at all.

I feel like I'm going backwards.

But realizing that it was just normal to go through everything I was going through because it was specific for me just changed everything and I was less hard on myself.

I was less so determined to kind of do it correctly because there is no right or wrong way to grieve.

It's really about the relationship and the intensity of the emotions that you have for that person.

And I think what happened was as time progressed and as like you said you know that these losses are going to happen.

You know I quit my job,

My dad died,

All of these things.

I mean my relationship with my dad was amazing and it's not to say that the intensity of my grief wasn't there but I didn't default to those behaviors that don't work and I just allowed myself to be.

I allowed myself to feel how I was supposed to feel or how I was feeling on a particular day.

I didn't judge myself if I was down one day and then up the next because I realized that it's a roller coaster once you get on that grief roller coaster.

It's just all over the place.

And so I was kinder and gentler with myself.

I did more self-care.

I stopped criticizing and I think that made all the difference in the world.

So if I wanted to have a piece of chocolate cake after my dad died I would go have it right.

And I would go alright that's okay,

That's what I feel like right now.

If I want to sleep,

I don't normally sleep during the day but if I needed to sleep because my body said sleep because I was up all night thinking then I would sleep.

So that made all the difference in the world was having the tools to understand what works and what doesn't work.

I think that's so powerful and such a big reason why resources like the ones that you put out into the world are so important because people are like how do I do this?

How do I navigate this?

And of course with grief there's the fear always that the other shoe is going to drop,

This is going to happen again and what am I going to do then.

I'm curious to know now kind of how you went from the analytical brain to working with grief full time and kind of what your days look like.

I think I asked this during our very first interview in episode 6 of Coming Back but what space does grief occupy in your life now?

You know it's almost like it is my life and people may think oh that's depressing and sad but I think I was always a creative brain to start with and so force fitting myself into the analytical world I think I did that to survive.

I mean as a cyber security engineer it's pretty much male dominated and so I work with engineers who think that way all day and so I kind of just grab,

In fact my ex-husband was an engineer,

Sort of just gravitated into that thought process and it never really worked for me and so using my soft skills as they say,

The compassion and the empathy I mean it doesn't often work very well when you're sitting in a meeting with the government and you're talking about hacking and all of that.

I mean sometimes the compassion and empathy has to be there but it certainly isn't one of those things that you can get through a lot of meetings doing and so for me being able to just be myself and to be compassionate and to listen to other people's issues without you know analyzing,

Criticizing or judging and really going home at night even though the work isn't easy as you know I mean it can be very emotional,

It's often very emotional.

My clients are going through all different kinds of things but I feel so fulfilled at the end of the day because I've been able to talk to somebody and listen to what they have to say about what they're going through because I never felt that for myself when I was going through it in the beginning and so just knowing that I can be there and not even say anything and listen to somebody and they feel better when they hang up the phone means everything,

It really does.

It's just changed my whole perspective on life actually.

I want to know now because we actually received a listener question about alternative healing modalities,

I really want to know kind of if you'll redefine Reiki for us,

The Japanese healing modality,

I'm certified in this as well,

But how Reiki kind of gets you into a different place while you're grieving because there are things like support groups to join,

There are things like the grief recovery method that have been supremely helpful to me in my own loss but when people ask how Reiki is helpful they're like from the outside it just looks like you guys are having your eyes closed and you're just near each other.

But I'm curious as to yeah I guess how Reiki is super super helpful in grief and what it can do specifically for a grieving heart.

Sure Reiki is a Japanese energy healing modality that I primarily started learning about when I worked as a cybersecurity engineer for the federal government.

I lived in Washington DC,

I was working in a very stressful job,

I knew nothing about it but I was just looking for things to help me relax and decompress after a hard day at work so I was doing yoga,

These kind of things.

Anyway I found a business card that said relax on it.

On my first appointment it turned out I didn't even say Reiki on it,

I just went because it said relax.

If that's what you're offering I'm going to show up for that.

Yes absolutely,

It's like you know what as you can tell with the political climate today you know Washington is a very stressful place to work and so I wanted to keep my sanity,

I needed to decompress when I left the job and I needed to be kind of in a good place while I was working.

So anyway the first session I had ended up being a Reiki session,

I had no idea what to expect and so over time I started to learn more about it.

There's three levels,

Our bodies are made up of energy and energy moves around our bodies and I guess in the short description when things like grief which is an energy depleting emotion hit us or stress which is also energy depleting you know the energy in our body just sort of blocks and we end up having all sorts of physical maybe ramifications as a result and I found with myself at work I was getting headaches,

I was you know getting stomach aches and I was doing you know a disservice to my body by not being able to relax.

So Reiki had the ability to help me relax and I think one of the things that I found and no one taught me this it just made sense that when I was grieving which is a very stressful energy depleting time in your life that and I couldn't sleep,

Reiki does help with sleep that I found that doing self Reiki on a daily basis really helped me to navigate the emotional ups and downs that I was going through.

So Reiki from a physical perspective put my body in a place where I stopped having chest pains,

I wasn't having heart you know heart issues or head issues like you know headaches that my stomach didn't feel like there was a concrete block in it because it kept the energy moving within my body and allowed my body to have the stamina that it needed in order for me to face the emotions which again are coming at you from all different directions while you're grieving.

So Reiki for me was able to address not only the emotional component which I think we've talked about where grief recovery method and support groups really talk mostly or really deal mostly with the emotional perspective that Reiki helped me also to work on my physical and spiritual perspective and that's where I think from a grieving perspective you have to look at all three of those components in order to successfully navigate through your grief.

I think you're so right in that and for me I think Reiki too especially receiving it from another human was like oh look somebody else cares like somebody else can see that and is applying energy to it or about it or around it and being seen is just even if it's you seeing yourself you talk about self Reiki is such a powerful thing in grief because for so many of us we're trained to not see it or we just don't want to see it.

We think it's going to be too hard or too painful because it is hard and it is painful but to be able to sink into that space is just really really powerful and that's where a lot of transformation I think happened for me is in that type of energy.

I think you're absolutely right and it's funny that you say that because the first thing I did after my best friend and then my former fiance died was I called my Reiki teacher and I said I don't know what to do but I know that Reiki will put me in a place of calm and so just having her there like you said and having someone hold that space for you it just opened the door.

I think it was almost the same day or the day after each time and fortunately she answered her phone which I think was divine intervention but it gave me the ability also to sort of come back to a place of peace in some ways and release some of the emotions because as soon as she placed her hands lightly on my head it was just like what it all came out so yeah it was a beautiful experience to have that and share that with her.

It's a connecting energy but it's most often worthless and I think sometimes we need that too.

Yeah very cool.

So I kind of want to shift now into what workshop you'll be leading on the bereavement cruise.

Maybe first how you even found out about the bereavement cruise and then what workshop you're going to be leading on board and maybe what else you're looking forward to participating with on board.

Yeah it's interesting I've been watching the bereavement cruise mainly because there's a few people that I've worked with before like Linda Fell,

Linda is the creator of Grief Diaries,

The Grief Diaries book series.

I had supported multiple books with her and I follow her and so I noticed that she was doing some work with the bereavement cruise and that there were others and I thought well that's interesting and I made this,

It's funny,

I made this pact with myself this year to follow,

I mean I've had it for a while but I'm certainly more in tune with it now that my intuition tells me when I see things not to let it,

Especially on Facebook,

Not to let it move past me but to follow up if it's something that I'm interested in and so I think during this year's bereavement cruise,

Earlier this year I think they went in March,

I saw their page and my Facebook feed came through,

Oh looking for presenters and I thought oh they're looking for presenters,

I wonder if I should do that and I thought no you're not going to wonder about it,

You're just going to do it and so I stopped and I actually wrote the proposal up right away,

In fact I think she said I was like one of the first ones for the next year cruise but it was really,

It really sounded amazing to me and such an opportunity to work with people like yourself but also to be there for those who are going on,

You know,

Going through their grief journeys now and be able to offer the tools and the support and the holding space and the companionship that we so desperately need on our grief journey so it was really just a fluke,

You know,

Facebook came flying by,

It looked good and I thought you know what,

This is my new year's resolution,

I'm going to follow up with everything that seems to hit me in a certain way and it certainly hit me that morning and I stopped what I was doing and sent in my proposal.

I love it,

That makes me so happy because these resolutions are so often,

Especially when they're related to intuition,

They're so often a big part of our coming back of you know,

Becoming curious again,

Trying things on again and maybe experimenting with you know these weird things that seem to inexplicably pop up into our periphery so I love that the bereavement cruise was just like hello and then of course when I got on board I recognized the Grief Diaries series and I was like where have I heard that before and I was like oh my gosh,

My friend Sharon is a part of that as well.

So tell us now that you've pitched your presentation,

What will you be leading on board that people going on the bereavement cruise can take part in?

Well the course is really about harnessing the power of Reiki to help you move through your grief journey,

You don't have to be a Reiki practitioner,

A Reiki master in order to use the energy within your body.

I mean we all basically have the skill to do that and what Reiki does is it trains you how to you know be more proficient at it but literally I mean there are very simple exercises and things that you can do on your own without being a great you know without being a Reiki master that will help you on your grief journey.

So I'm going to talk about integrating the spiritual,

The emotional,

The physical aspects of grief using Reiki and other spiritually based tools so that I think the important thing is that a greever,

I mean everybody's grief journey is different and everybody's toolbox is different right?

We talk about Glen Lord and the grief toolbox,

I mean there's lots of different tools that you can use and I think this offers up Reiki as one of those tools in order to face these different components with some you know very simple activities that you can do when you don't feel like doing anything right?

Just some very simple activities that you can do to sort of get you through your day and then you find that the more you do them the better that you feel.

So understanding that and looking at all of those components using Reiki is really the intent of the course.

That sounds like so much fun and is something that I've definitely applied in my own work and my own coming back as well.

What blocks do people usually have to try in Reiki for the first time?

Maybe taking down some walls so people want to come in.

So I could say that as an engineer I thought this is absolute nonsense right?

I mean this is woo woo,

New age,

There's no way that the stuff you know works.

It's like I don't know people drink the Kool-Aid however it is until it happened to me and until it started to work for me and then I realized that you know some things are bigger than your brain trying to figure it out but I also looked at it from you know quantum physics perspective and the fact that you know our bodies are everything is made up of energy and it makes logical sense that when we don't feel good that something you know something in our body isn't working the way that it should be and maybe you know the energy is blocked in those areas.

That really helped me to understand it better but I think what really helped me was that very first session and not understanding it and have somebody you know performing Reiki on me and I felt better.

It was kind of like I left that first appointment thinking oh my gosh I actually do feel better and all she did was just lightly place her hands you know in various places around my body and I'm thinking how did that work?

I know I feel better and so I think that's the biggest thing for me is not only can you you know analyze it understand it from a quantum physics perspective that everything is energy but the fact that it actually makes you feel better.

So I would say to the people who aren't sure about it I think we're going to have the opportunity it sounds like maybe to offer some Reiki maybe short Reiki sessions that while we're on the cruise so if that is available to you maybe you know taking a few minutes in the morning or in the evening whenever this is and just allowing yourself to experience it and see how you feel you know and I'm not saying it works for everybody but I think most people who've experienced it do feel better and if nothing else that's something we really strive for when grief comes a calling and so even you know for a short period of time so you can sleep better at night I'd say just be open-minded maybe the proof is in the pudding if you actually experience it yourself and see how it works for you.

That's very true and I'm going to share a funny quote that I heard on another podcast that's actually about meditation which is similar to Reiki but not quite I think it puts you in a similar kind of mental state and I know I do a lot of Reiki with my clients lying totally down some people do chair Reiki where you're sitting up in a chair and some people do you know totally laid out like on a massage table or on the floor or wherever people are comfortable and this other podcast I was listening to about meditation they say a failed meditation is really a successful nap so worst case scenario a failed Reiki session is a very successful nap and I was just so tickled by that because I thought of it in my own practice too because I have had people fall asleep and when I've received Reiki I've fallen asleep too I'm like maybe that's just what I needed but in the moments where I've been conscious in it too it's been it's been a really transformative experience working on other people I've I've seen colors or numbers or I work with Norwegian runes also sometimes which is very bizarre but my very first symbols in that alphabet came to me through doing Reiki also and that was such a powerful experience and then receiving it too I'm like I can feel things moving around and I thought it was crazy too I'm like I don't I don't know if I'm gonna subscribe to any of this but hey the very first time I did it I was like hey I get to sit in a chair for 10 minutes and not have to think about anything and that was enough for me to to sign up and do it so yeah I really agree with your your tactic with skepticism is a the quantum physics part but be just try it on and we say this so much on on coming back is just try it on see what works if it doesn't you don't have to do it again and if it does you know maybe circle around back to it and that's that's just a really lovely thing I'm so excited to be a fellow Reiki practitioner on board with you that's gonna be so much fun and to meet you in person we have never met in person before I feel like I've met you in person even though we've spoken I mean it it'll be nice to physically be in the same place at the same time so I'm looking forward to that as well yeah that'll be very cool