*WARNING: This podcast mentions suicide & trauma and may be triggering.
Episode Summary
Liverpool-based grief coach Rachel Hart-Phillips shares her profound journey through multiple layers of grief, including losing both of her parents and then her husband to suicide while she was pregnant with their first child all before she turned 30.
Rachel shares how she transformed her experiences into a mission to support others through her grief coaching and support practice The AfterGlow Space.
In a raw and deeply personal conversation, Rachel opens up about what it meant to become a widow and a mother at the same time—carrying the devastating loss of her husband while preparing to welcome their baby. She talks about the realities of grieving a suicide, the questions that don’t always have answers, and how she learned that healing isn’t about leaving grief behind. It’s about finding a way to carry it while continuing to live, love, grow, and make space for joy again.
This episode explores the complex coexistence of grief and joy, resilience, and the power of community and holistic healing.
Episode Sponsored by The HelpHUB™
Struggling with your mental health? Feeling lost, overwhelmed, or just alone? Well, you're not. Welcome to The HelpHUB™—your online destination for mental health resources, treatment options, content, and tools to help meet you exactly where you are in the moment. Visit TheHelpHUB.co to get started.
Key Topics
- Rachel's experience with layered grief including losing both parents and her husband to suicide
- The impact of early loss on identity and sense of belonging
- The importance of community and shared experience in healing
- Holistic and somatic approaches to grief recovery
- The concept of building a life around grief rather than trying to 'move on'
- The significance of hope and resilience in difficult times
- The role of self-awareness and personal growth through trauma
- How grief influences personal confidence and priorities
- The origin and meaning of the name 'Afterglow' in Rachel’s work
- Resources and support networks for those experiencing grief
Mental Health Resources
- If you or someone you know is struggling, please call 988 for help.
- The Survivors Podcast Website – https://thesurvivors.net/
- National Domestic Violence Hotline – Call 1-800-799-SAFE (7223)
- Surviving: Finding Hope After Suicide Loss (Familius Books)
- The HelpHUB™ – Mental health resources, tools, and support networks – https://www.thehelphub.co/
- Connect with Rachel at https://www.theafterglowspace.com/
Follow & Connect With Us
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See you next week! In the meantime, keep surviving.
00:00:01 --> 00:00:04 Hey friends, before we dive into this week's episode, just a heads up.
00:00:05 --> 00:00:09 Our podcast talks about suicide, sexual abuse, and other trauma,
00:00:09 --> 00:00:13 and some of what you hear may be triggering. So please listen with care.
00:00:14 --> 00:00:19 This is The Survivors, real stories, raw conversations, and the truth about
00:00:19 --> 00:00:21 what it means to keep going after the hardest things.
00:00:22 --> 00:00:25 We're so glad you're here. Let's keep surviving together.
00:00:28 --> 00:00:32 Rachel Hart Phillips. you're right here in front of me. This is so exciting.
00:00:32 --> 00:00:36 You and I have been connected now for a little bit, kind of going back and forth
00:00:36 --> 00:00:40 and supporting each other. And you came all the way from Liverpool for this
00:00:40 --> 00:00:42 conversation. It's so exciting.
00:00:44 --> 00:00:46 She's still in Liverpool. She's just on a screen.
00:00:48 --> 00:00:52 Actually, I wish I was with you because London and the UK is one of my favorite
00:00:52 --> 00:00:57 places in the world. But we are so grateful to have you today.
00:00:57 --> 00:01:02 This is going to be slightly different in format today than people might be used to.
00:01:02 --> 00:01:06 So I'm here solo, because our good friend Natasha,
00:01:07 --> 00:01:13 who also works every day in an office and sometimes needs to prioritize that
00:01:13 --> 00:01:17 before she prioritizes anything, unfortunately had something she could not get
00:01:17 --> 00:01:18 out of at the last minute.
00:01:18 --> 00:01:22 So you are stuck with just me. So we're doing a one-on-one today,
00:01:22 --> 00:01:24 and I appreciate you being so flexible.
00:01:25 --> 00:01:28 No problem at all. Yeah. It's just good to be here. Yeah. Thank you for having
00:01:28 --> 00:01:30 Yeah, of course, of course.
00:01:30 --> 00:01:33 So, we're just going to dive right in, which is what we typically do anyway.
00:01:33 --> 00:01:39 So, one of the things that we talk about often on this pod is that grief does
00:01:39 --> 00:01:42 not happen in a straight line. We talk about it a thousand different ways,
00:01:42 --> 00:01:46 and in your case, grief absolutely did not happen in a straight line.
00:01:47 --> 00:01:53 It did not happen once, it didn't happen twice. It happened more than that.
00:01:54 --> 00:01:59 By your mid-30s, you had already lost both of your parents. And then,
00:01:59 --> 00:02:01 if I'm remembering this correctly, you were pregnant.
00:02:02 --> 00:02:07 And while you were pregnant, you lost your husband to suicide. Is that accurate? Yeah.
00:02:09 --> 00:02:12 So sorry. What was your husband's name? His name was Ant.
00:02:14 --> 00:02:18 And what were your mom and dad's names? My dad was Tony and my mom was Pam.
00:02:19 --> 00:02:22 Pam and Tony. Okay. Pam, Tony, and Ant. I love hearing the names.
00:02:22 --> 00:02:24 I love it when people ask their names.
00:02:24 --> 00:02:29 I do too. That's why I ask. I know how it feels for me when their name is kind
00:02:29 --> 00:02:33 of spoken. It just elevates things. It brings them to the surface.
00:02:33 --> 00:02:34 I'm glad you appreciate that too.
00:02:36 --> 00:02:42 So you've had an extraordinary amount of loss for a single person to carry.
00:02:42 --> 00:02:47 And I mean, Natasha and I have also had our share. So we understand what that
00:02:47 --> 00:02:52 compound trauma and loss feels like. And there's no other way for me to say
00:02:52 --> 00:02:54 it, but it absolutely sucks in every way.
00:02:55 --> 00:02:58 And we're so sorry that you've had to deal with it too.
00:02:58 --> 00:03:04 But I think that something that gets lost when we talk about people who've experienced
00:03:04 --> 00:03:08 really, really profound compound grief like you have, which is for anyone who
00:03:08 --> 00:03:11 doesn't know what that term means, it just means compounded.
00:03:11 --> 00:03:14 It's layer on layer on layer. And that's what we're talking about here.
00:03:15 --> 00:03:20 We tend to start people's stories off with, and I don't mean we in this podcast
00:03:20 --> 00:03:25 because we don't, but people talk about those traumas and those losses first.
00:03:27 --> 00:03:31 That's not what we want to do here, at least not from the beginning.
00:03:32 --> 00:03:35 We don't want to talk about the worst thing that's ever happened to you right off the jump.
00:03:36 --> 00:03:39 Obviously, your story didn't start there. Take us back.
00:03:39 --> 00:03:45 Take us back a little bit. What did life look like while mom and dad and aunt
00:03:45 --> 00:03:48 were still alive and well? Walk us through that.
00:03:49 --> 00:03:56 Yeah, well, yeah, I was my dad when I was 20. So, yeah, life before that,
00:03:56 --> 00:03:59 you know, I just had such a great childhood. Growing up, it was just me and
00:03:59 --> 00:04:03 my parents and my child. Me too. And, yeah, yeah.
00:04:05 --> 00:04:09 And it's yeah it was just such a lovely childhood i just had the best parents
00:04:09 --> 00:04:13 and yeah i was just not very fortunate just to have such a lovely,
00:04:14 --> 00:04:18 lovely childhood really and just felt so loved and had so much time so obviously
00:04:18 --> 00:04:22 my dad i'd met aunt when i was in my early 20s obviously my dad never got to
00:04:22 --> 00:04:26 meet him which which it was always very sad but yeah,
00:04:27 --> 00:04:33 my mom we married and yeah and my mum and my stepdad love dance so much we used,
00:04:34 --> 00:04:35 to do lots of things together,
00:04:36 --> 00:04:40 yeah me and I just had such such a great time we had a shared love of dance
00:04:40 --> 00:04:47 music I was there and going out and just having a good time as you do when you're in your 20s yeah,
00:04:48 --> 00:04:52 yeah I love that I love that where did you meet we met through a friend who
00:04:52 --> 00:04:57 actually worked with him in ibiza so they're like holiday reps over there causing
00:04:57 --> 00:04:59 chaos yeah causing chaos i love it,
00:05:00 --> 00:05:06 yeah my husband and i have been together since we were 17 so we've been at it
00:05:06 --> 00:05:09 for a long time and i know those feelings of being out with your.
00:05:11 --> 00:05:15 Boyfriend or your you know your new husband when you're young and just playing
00:05:15 --> 00:05:19 and having all the fun and doing all the things yeah those are good times those
00:05:19 --> 00:05:21 are really good together isn't it and,
00:05:22 --> 00:05:27 figuring out life together yeah that's what we've done and we continue to do
00:05:27 --> 00:05:31 that together so i i totally understand that but my father,
00:05:31 --> 00:05:37 never met my husband never obviously got the chance to meet my kids so i i kind
00:05:37 --> 00:05:41 of share that grief with you i understand how that feels yeah so
00:05:41 --> 00:05:46 losing both your parents relatively young can change your entire sense of where
00:05:46 --> 00:05:49 you belong in the world how you move around in the world did you feel that.
00:05:50 --> 00:05:54 Yeah absolutely and i'm losing my dad at 20,
00:05:54 --> 00:05:59 i think as well because it was such a long time ago there was no sort of nothing
00:05:59 --> 00:06:05 like this and there was no grief support there were no groups or not that I knew of anyway and,
00:06:06 --> 00:06:10 I mean it's still it's still the same now but you just feel so isolated from your peers,
00:06:11 --> 00:06:17 and it's almost as if as if you just want to just carry on and I think yeah
00:06:17 --> 00:06:20 on another note on that as well when you when you are young I was at university,
00:06:21 --> 00:06:25 but you know I know people who've lost parents when they were sort of doing
00:06:25 --> 00:06:28 exams and stuff you don't really have much choice you have to carry on,
00:06:29 --> 00:06:31 you have to keep living your life,
00:06:31 --> 00:06:34 doing all those, you know, doing all those studies and you don't want it to
00:06:34 --> 00:06:36 affect the rest of your life.
00:06:36 --> 00:06:41 So you can't really push it down when you're young and you'd not really appreciate
00:06:41 --> 00:06:44 the gravity of what's happened until you were a little bit older.
00:06:45 --> 00:06:48 It's interesting you say that because what's coming up for me hearing you say
00:06:48 --> 00:06:52 that and thinking about that in terms of my own life.
00:06:53 --> 00:06:57 So I didn't know my father's suicide was a suicide for 35 years of my life.
00:06:57 --> 00:07:01 He died when I was 10. I was told it was a heart attack and it came out when
00:07:01 --> 00:07:04 I was 45 that he had actually died by suicide.
00:07:04 --> 00:07:09 So that was a whole different kind of experience and I've grieved him twice
00:07:09 --> 00:07:12 in my life. But I know what you're saying like in terms of that loss,
00:07:12 --> 00:07:16 like childhood loss. You're not supposed to lose your parents when you're a kid.
00:07:16 --> 00:07:19 You're just not. And I think you
00:07:19 --> 00:07:25 might be right about just our lack of a capacity to really dial into it.
00:07:26 --> 00:07:31 I think that helps us in some way to just be able to carry on and kind of have
00:07:31 --> 00:07:38 that free-spiritedness and childlike mind that can't see it for what it really is, maybe.
00:07:38 --> 00:07:42 I mean, the pain is intense, but, and the loss is a real thing,
00:07:42 --> 00:07:43 even when you're a child, but,
00:07:44 --> 00:07:48 I think you're right. I don't know what I would have done if I had had a different
00:07:48 --> 00:07:51 kind of capacity to understand it all. Yeah, yeah.
00:07:52 --> 00:07:55 And I think as well, when you're young, like, your parents are just old,
00:07:55 --> 00:07:56 aren't they? You don't really appreciate.
00:07:57 --> 00:08:02 Yeah, when I was getting older, I was like, my dad was 46 when he died,
00:08:02 --> 00:08:04 and I was like, that's really not old at all.
00:08:05 --> 00:08:09 You just don't realize it, do you? And yeah, maybe it's a protective thing.
00:08:09 --> 00:08:14 Yeah, yeah. And I just think our perception is so skewed. Like anybody who's
00:08:14 --> 00:08:16 in their 20s or 30s, wow, they're so old.
00:08:17 --> 00:08:21 But I know that. I remember thinking back to how old my father was and feeling
00:08:21 --> 00:08:24 like he was so much older. And now all of a sudden, here I am.
00:08:25 --> 00:08:30 And I'm 13 years older than my father was when he died.
00:08:30 --> 00:08:34 And it's such an interesting perspective because I don't feel that way.
00:08:34 --> 00:08:38 He's still my dad. So to me, do you have this feeling that your parents are
00:08:38 --> 00:08:44 still older than you are because that's where they were at when you lost them. So I feel the same way.
00:08:45 --> 00:08:48 Yeah. So I'm approaching how old my dad was. I've got three years.
00:08:49 --> 00:08:52 How was that milestone for you?
00:08:53 --> 00:08:55 You know, it's interesting. Nobody really has asked me that.
00:08:55 --> 00:08:57 So I really appreciate the question.
00:08:57 --> 00:09:03 I had some interesting experiences. I found out when I was 45.
00:09:04 --> 00:09:08 That was the same age, it was very sobering for me. It was very paralyzing,
00:09:08 --> 00:09:10 I think, in some ways for me.
00:09:10 --> 00:09:15 What hit me worse, honestly, than being the same age that he was when he died was.
00:09:16 --> 00:09:21 Was my children being the same age that I was when I lost my father.
00:09:21 --> 00:09:25 That was the thing. And I think that probably in regard to that,
00:09:25 --> 00:09:31 it was more focused on my husband and whether or not they would then be concerned
00:09:31 --> 00:09:35 about my husband's life and longevity and all that.
00:09:35 --> 00:09:45 And yeah, I think those age markers are just funky things. They just do something in our wiring.
00:09:46 --> 00:09:52 And it gives us a sense of fear or mortality or just paralysis.
00:09:53 --> 00:09:57 It paralyzed me for a little while in regard to my kids being that age.
00:09:57 --> 00:10:01 But it's a weirdness. I can't explain it, but I know you know what it feels
00:10:01 --> 00:10:04 like because I can tell you know what it feels like. Yeah.
00:10:05 --> 00:10:11 I also had it when I realized I'd lived longer without him than with him. That was a big one.
00:10:11 --> 00:10:14 Yeah, I've had that totally relate to that as well. And I mean,
00:10:14 --> 00:10:20 now, I mean, I had 10 years with my dad, but certainly not all of those 10 years,
00:10:20 --> 00:10:23 those first handful of years when I was just a young child or an infant,
00:10:23 --> 00:10:24 like you don't remember those things.
00:10:25 --> 00:10:29 And so I really feel like I only had five or six good years with my father where I remember.
00:10:30 --> 00:10:35 And even those are so limited. But yeah, I mean, I've been without him now for 48 years of my life.
00:10:36 --> 00:10:41 And it's just a, it's a big number when I say it like that. Yeah.
00:10:42 --> 00:10:48 Yeah, I grieve really hard for my dad these days, and I think it's because of
00:10:48 --> 00:10:52 all that time I've missed with him and everything he hasn't seen and just imagining
00:10:52 --> 00:10:56 how different life would have been if he would have been here for all of that.
00:10:57 --> 00:11:01 Yeah, no, I get that too. And my mother's been with someone that she actually
00:11:01 --> 00:11:02 went to grammar school with.
00:11:02 --> 00:11:09 They met maybe, I don't know, maybe 15 years after my father passed away and
00:11:09 --> 00:11:13 they were childhood friends and he was divorced and they've been together.
00:11:13 --> 00:11:17 And now they've been together, of course, decades and decades longer than my
00:11:17 --> 00:11:19 parents were ever married. Yeah.
00:11:20 --> 00:11:24 I often wonder, you know, I mean, he's the only grandfather my kids have ever
00:11:24 --> 00:11:25 known, aside from my father-in-law.
00:11:26 --> 00:11:33 And you just have to wonder, what would it be if my father had still been here?
00:11:33 --> 00:11:36 Would I have met my husband? I mean, all the things that your mind can do,
00:11:36 --> 00:11:39 you go down that rabbit hole, and then all of a sudden, it takes you to weird
00:11:39 --> 00:11:42 places. It really, really does.
00:11:43 --> 00:11:47 So, we talked about you losing your mom and dad when you were young.
00:11:48 --> 00:11:52 There was another loss. We mentioned it at the top of the episode,
00:11:52 --> 00:11:54 your husband and aunt. How long were you married?
00:11:56 --> 00:11:59 We were only married 18 months, actually. We were together 10 years.
00:12:00 --> 00:12:06 10 years. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So you ended up getting, you both were starting
00:12:06 --> 00:12:08 a family. You ended up getting pregnant.
00:12:11 --> 00:12:15 And your husband passed away. He took his life. Take us back there, if you're comfortable.
00:12:15 --> 00:12:22 Take us back to whatever you feel you want to share about that time,
00:12:22 --> 00:12:26 what he may or may not been going through that you knew or didn't know.
00:12:27 --> 00:12:33 And then take us back to how that all went down. Yeah, of course.
00:12:34 --> 00:12:40 So, yeah, I didn't see any signs. I had absolutely no idea it was coming, like so many others.
00:12:41 --> 00:12:46 But yeah, he was always a bit of an anxious person and he had had some mental
00:12:46 --> 00:12:50 health problems, but he'd been fine. That was very early on in our relationship
00:12:50 --> 00:12:52 and he'd been absolutely fine.
00:12:52 --> 00:12:59 So, you know, we just got married. We bought a house. As you say, we were settling down.
00:13:00 --> 00:13:02 We tried for the baby. We got pregnant. And the week before,
00:13:02 --> 00:13:06 we'd been for the five-month scan, 20-week scan.
00:13:06 --> 00:13:11 So we were all excited and it was sort of all systems going to,
00:13:11 --> 00:13:18 you know, nesting really and decorating the nursery and just doing all that stuff.
00:13:18 --> 00:13:23 And yeah, he'd been going out a little bit more and really nothing.
00:13:23 --> 00:13:28 I mean, you could just, in hindsight, maybe I could see things.
00:13:29 --> 00:13:33 But, you know, things that you would only notice with that knowledge,
00:13:33 --> 00:13:35 not things you would notice day to day.
00:13:36 --> 00:13:40 But, yeah, in terms of the day, so he'd been away with work all week and he
00:13:40 --> 00:13:41 was coming home on the Saturday.
00:13:42 --> 00:13:46 And it was a bit of, like, this is it, we're settling down now because.
00:13:47 --> 00:13:50 You know, it was sort of the end of, well, it was middle of the summer,
00:13:50 --> 00:13:53 but it was sort of getting towards a time where we were going to be thinking
00:13:53 --> 00:13:55 about nesting and settling down a bit.
00:13:55 --> 00:14:01 And yeah we had dinner planned and yeah there was just all kinds of plans we
00:14:01 --> 00:14:04 were going to book a little holiday before the baby came,
00:14:05 --> 00:14:10 and yeah he'd been on a work night out and the next morning he sort of flashed
00:14:10 --> 00:14:14 up us online on whatsapp but then that was it and i was just kept checking whatsapp,
00:14:15 --> 00:14:20 wondering where he was and then the hours were just sort of ticking by and i
00:14:20 --> 00:14:24 was just getting really worried but thinking you know has he stayed in the hotel
00:14:24 --> 00:14:29 late has he stopped off for a nap if he's drunk too much you know anything,
00:14:30 --> 00:14:33 and started getting really panicky towards it you know towards the afternoon
00:14:33 --> 00:14:38 and start ringing around and stuff and then about half four and the police knocked
00:14:38 --> 00:14:42 on the door and said that he'd been found in his hotel room but,
00:14:43 --> 00:14:47 the police didn't know how he died at that point either because he was in a different city,
00:14:48 --> 00:14:53 and even at that point and suicide just didn't cross my mind that's how off
00:14:53 --> 00:14:58 my radar it was to consider it as an option yeah yeah yeah.
00:14:59 --> 00:15:04 Yeah, it was, yeah, as you can imagine, it was just a shock.
00:15:05 --> 00:15:06 I never felt anything like it.
00:15:08 --> 00:15:12 Yeah. It took me a little while to remember that I was even pregnant at the time.
00:15:12 --> 00:15:15 Oh, God, yeah. It was about 20 minutes after the game, and I was like,
00:15:15 --> 00:15:17 I hadn't pregnant. Yeah. It was gone.
00:15:17 --> 00:15:24 Well, I mean, I think you go into such deep shock that you're just not processing.
00:15:24 --> 00:15:30 I feel like most people in that moment, regardless of whether you kind of drop
00:15:30 --> 00:15:35 to your knees or whether it feels surreal, whatever it is that you feel, you're in shock.
00:15:35 --> 00:15:38 And that reaction is going to be so skewed.
00:15:38 --> 00:15:43 And I can't even imagine what that moment was when you remembered,
00:15:43 --> 00:15:49 oh, my God, I'm actually pregnant and we're just having a baby. Yeah, I'm so, so sorry.
00:15:50 --> 00:15:55 I mean how far away was he at the time from where you were at home it was a
00:15:55 --> 00:16:01 couple of hours away by by flight by plane by car okay by car so yeah,
00:16:03 --> 00:16:08 did you have to go there yeah and it wasn't until till a monday we could go
00:16:08 --> 00:16:13 with it being the weekend okay and yeah even then i was you know you know and
00:16:13 --> 00:16:17 you've still got that bit of hope even though You know, it seemed so perfect,
00:16:17 --> 00:16:19 but I was just thinking it's not going to be him.
00:16:19 --> 00:16:25 There's going to be some kind of mistake and it's not going to be him, but it was. Okay. Okay.
00:16:26 --> 00:16:32 And so at that point, what happens? You go and you obviously have to identify
00:16:32 --> 00:16:35 him and you realize that it is in fact him.
00:16:36 --> 00:16:42 Was it then when you had to travel to where he was found that you learned it was a suicide?
00:16:43 --> 00:16:49 No, no. we did find out later in the afternoon and making a lot of phone calls,
00:16:49 --> 00:16:51 to the police in the other area.
00:16:53 --> 00:16:57 Yeah. Yeah, as I say, it didn't even cross my mind. You know,
00:16:57 --> 00:16:58 when you've got all those plans and,
00:17:00 --> 00:17:06 Yeah, I remember the plans. Ironically, it's funny you say plans because I can
00:17:06 --> 00:17:10 remember vividly right before my father passed away.
00:17:11 --> 00:17:16 My dad used to race cars as a hobby. And so anything involving cars was something
00:17:16 --> 00:17:19 my father was so passionate about and driving. And my father,
00:17:19 --> 00:17:22 when he was young, had driven across the United States several times on his
00:17:22 --> 00:17:25 own, just because he loved driving and wanted to see the country.
00:17:25 --> 00:17:31 So we had had this big plan as a family of three that we were going to be driving
00:17:31 --> 00:17:35 across country that summer. And this was, he passed away the very beginning
00:17:35 --> 00:17:36 of August, the 1st of August.
00:17:37 --> 00:17:44 And again like like you said like there was there was no sign or signal or concern,
00:17:44 --> 00:17:51 and all these plans had been made yeah and then and then everything changed yeah,
00:17:52 --> 00:17:58 so how did life look for you after that how far remind me how far into your
00:17:58 --> 00:18:01 pregnancy you said you had a scan were you halfway where were you in that,
00:18:02 --> 00:18:07 yeah i was five months you were five months okay so you You're roughly halfway.
00:18:08 --> 00:18:15 Take us back to all that. What was that like? Who did you turn to for support?
00:18:17 --> 00:18:21 I do remember as well, yeah, just a couple of things, you know,
00:18:21 --> 00:18:24 like the things people say. I remember someone being like, well,
00:18:24 --> 00:18:26 at least you've got the baby. I'm thinking, oh, no.
00:18:27 --> 00:18:29 It's the worst thing about it at the moment. Yeah.
00:18:31 --> 00:18:37 I felt really trapped. And then another helpful bit of advice is you need to stay calm for the baby.
00:18:37 --> 00:18:45 How do you do that a lot of pressure yeah yeah a lot of pressure and but yeah sort of.
00:18:46 --> 00:18:51 Yeah it was a very very sort of mixed really one of the first things i did is we had um,
00:18:52 --> 00:18:57 like at the scan the week before and had really wanted to find out the sex of
00:18:57 --> 00:19:01 the baby and i was sort of i really against it i obviously won on that argument,
00:19:02 --> 00:19:05 and again that's that's a little thing, you know, one of those little things
00:19:05 --> 00:19:08 that you would write and you'd think maybe if we found out the second it would
00:19:08 --> 00:19:10 stop you here because you would, yeah.
00:19:10 --> 00:19:14 And it's, you know, those little things will haunt you forever,
00:19:14 --> 00:19:17 won't they? Yeah, they do, unfortunately.
00:19:18 --> 00:19:22 But, yeah, one of the first things I did was went and got a gender scan because
00:19:22 --> 00:19:24 I was like, I need to be able to plan. I need to know.
00:19:25 --> 00:19:30 And bond as well. I bond with the baby. And that really, really helped me do that.
00:19:30 --> 00:19:35 What did you have? What did you have? A boy. You had a boy. What's his name?
00:19:35 --> 00:19:39 His name's Johnny. And he's nearly seven now. He's six, yeah.
00:19:39 --> 00:19:43 God, he's seven. Six, seven. Oh, my gosh. You're right in the thick of it now.
00:19:44 --> 00:19:47 Yeah. Aren't you? Lovely age. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it is.
00:19:48 --> 00:19:54 And now there's this new person in your life who you madly adore and love at
00:19:54 --> 00:20:01 the exact same time that there is this enormous absence in your life.
00:20:01 --> 00:20:10 All I can see is those two opposing things just constantly smashing into each other. What is that?
00:20:10 --> 00:20:13 Talk about grief and joy having to coexist.
00:20:14 --> 00:20:17 What was that even like? What has that been like for you?
00:20:17 --> 00:20:24 Yeah absolutely and that was it it was it was because yeah at first it was all
00:20:24 --> 00:20:27 the sort of resentment almost and like i don't know if i want to do this i'm
00:20:27 --> 00:20:29 scared why do i have to be pregnant.
00:20:30 --> 00:20:36 But then as i sort of as the time went on he started giving me hope and,
00:20:37 --> 00:20:41 yeah i just don't think i would have looked after myself and taken care of myself
00:20:41 --> 00:20:44 as much as i did if I hadn't had him.
00:20:44 --> 00:20:47 All the stuff, that advice that you give to grieving people,
00:20:47 --> 00:20:49 I was doing because I was pregnant.
00:20:50 --> 00:20:53 Yeah. Which I might not have been doing anyway. Yeah. Interesting.
00:20:53 --> 00:20:58 It's interesting how the universe works in that mysterious sort of way that
00:20:58 --> 00:21:02 gives us the thing that maybe in the moment we think is the last thing in the
00:21:02 --> 00:21:06 world that we might need and it ends up being the thing in the world that we need the most.
00:21:06 --> 00:21:10 Yeah. That's fascinating to me. Yeah. I mean, were there...
00:21:12 --> 00:21:15 Were there moments, either right before Johnny was born or after,
00:21:15 --> 00:21:23 or since, that when you felt guilty or sad for being happy about the birth?
00:21:25 --> 00:21:28 You know what? I don't think there was. Good. I've never done.
00:21:29 --> 00:21:33 Good, good. And if there were, that's a normal thing. That's okay, too.
00:21:34 --> 00:21:37 Yeah, I mean, all of it. There's really nothing that anyone,
00:21:37 --> 00:21:41 I find, can experience that isn't appropriate.
00:21:41 --> 00:21:46 It's just such a grab bag of everything loss in general grief and loss in general
00:21:46 --> 00:21:53 especially a suicide loss there's just so much more i feel and maybe maybe you can speak to that too,
00:21:54 --> 00:21:58 just i found with my own experiences i've lost three people i love to suicide
00:21:59 --> 00:22:06 and you know all different ways different circumstances some we were aware some we weren't and,
00:22:07 --> 00:22:13 the grief it's just anything goes I feel yeah yeah nothing there is no right
00:22:13 --> 00:22:18 wrong way yeah and I did find myself having a lot of anger as well.
00:22:20 --> 00:22:24 And a lot of anger and I think sort of abandonment,
00:22:25 --> 00:22:29 and you know a lot of anger about you know that we'd planned for the baby we'd
00:22:29 --> 00:22:31 made this decision together and then I felt really like,
00:22:32 --> 00:22:36 you know he'd left and then I'd feel so back the guilt came in when I would
00:22:36 --> 00:22:40 feel guilty for feeling angry because then i thought about you know how much
00:22:40 --> 00:22:43 an awful place he must have been in and why didn't i help him with it and then
00:22:44 --> 00:22:46 why why am i angry with him and that was a sort of,
00:22:47 --> 00:22:52 sort of spiral i got myself into yeah yeah feeling angry and abandoned and then
00:22:52 --> 00:22:57 feel guilty and sad for that it's an easy spiral to get caught up in isn't it yeah yeah,
00:22:58 --> 00:23:03 yeah but you didn't know you it's like my mother both of you similar situations
00:23:03 --> 00:23:09 i mean obviously my mother had a 10-year-old child, so different in that regard. But I mean...
00:23:10 --> 00:23:14 It's what I say to my mother now that, of course, for the last 13 years since
00:23:14 --> 00:23:17 I've known the truth, we talk very openly and honestly about it.
00:23:17 --> 00:23:20 And I can be there to help her navigate it because she never spoke about it
00:23:20 --> 00:23:23 for 35 years, never told a soul.
00:23:23 --> 00:23:28 And now we get to talk about it and I get to say you didn't know.
00:23:28 --> 00:23:33 And you can't help someone who you don't know is hurting or suffering.
00:23:36 --> 00:23:39 And how did you how did you navigate those moments like especially the moments
00:23:39 --> 00:23:45 where you felt so angry how did you prevent it from overtaking you or maybe
00:23:45 --> 00:23:49 it did and and if it did that that would be such a typical,
00:23:50 --> 00:23:58 typical response how did you navigate that i found journal and really helped really really helped,
00:24:00 --> 00:24:04 and like you said about being open I was just really open with some of my closest friends,
00:24:06 --> 00:24:10 yeah I was lucky to have a really good support network around me in terms of
00:24:10 --> 00:24:11 friends and other family,
00:24:12 --> 00:24:16 Hey it's Lisa Sugarman co-host of the Survivors and founder of the Help Hub,
00:24:17 --> 00:24:21 If you're listening right now and you're not okay if you're feeling overwhelmed
00:24:21 --> 00:24:24 stuck or like you're carrying more than you can handle,
00:24:25 --> 00:24:29 please know you don't have to go through it alone you can call or text 988 or
00:24:29 --> 00:24:35 chat online at 988lifeline.org to connect with trained counselors like me who
00:24:35 --> 00:24:37 are there to listen and support you in the moment,
00:24:38 --> 00:24:43 reaching out is a brave first step and you owe it to yourself because your life
00:24:43 --> 00:24:48 matters your story matters and help is always just three numbers away.
00:24:50 --> 00:24:56 Yeah, I think community for me is one of the things that I've discovered is
00:24:56 --> 00:25:02 the most powerful, one of the most powerful tools in terms of just any kind
00:25:02 --> 00:25:05 of grief, any kind of loss, any kind of challenge anyway.
00:25:06 --> 00:25:11 But in particular, grief and loss, just to know that you have someone to lean
00:25:11 --> 00:25:13 into, even if you don't know how you need to lean into them.
00:25:13 --> 00:25:15 Yeah. Just knowing that they're there.
00:25:16 --> 00:25:22 Yeah. Yeah, there was a lot of sort of frantic searching for people in the same
00:25:22 --> 00:25:28 situation as me as well. And yeah, surprisingly, I found two girls who were
00:25:28 --> 00:25:30 both pregnant and lost their partners. Oh, really?
00:25:31 --> 00:25:34 One of them was actually in Liverpool. You're kidding. No.
00:25:35 --> 00:25:39 Oh, Liverpool. Like, that's a crazy, crazy coincidence. Yeah.
00:25:39 --> 00:25:42 Yeah, they brought me more comfort than probably most people. I bet.
00:25:43 --> 00:25:46 Yeah, just not feeling like I was the only person in the world.
00:25:47 --> 00:25:51 Yeah, because any kind of grief or loss like that in particular is,
00:25:51 --> 00:25:55 like you said before, so unbelievably isolating.
00:25:55 --> 00:25:57 And look, being pregnant. I
00:25:57 --> 00:26:02 mean, we have two daughters. They're grown now in their 20s and late 20s.
00:26:03 --> 00:26:06 And I remember just being a mom just being
00:26:07 --> 00:26:11 home and pregnant and not able to go and maybe do the same sorts of things that
00:26:11 --> 00:26:15 you did with your friends when you were not pregnant and then after you have
00:26:15 --> 00:26:18 the baby and you're just kind of isolated in your home and that's your
00:26:19 --> 00:26:24 central focus is recovering from childbirth and raising this new human and being,
00:26:25 --> 00:26:28 it's all consuming but but it's also so isolating.
00:26:28 --> 00:26:32 And then you layer a loss like the ones that you've had.
00:26:33 --> 00:26:38 And I can't imagine the place you must have been in at that time.
00:26:38 --> 00:26:45 Yeah. Well, funnily enough, it was a couple of months after Johnny was born. It was lockdown.
00:26:45 --> 00:26:49 Oh, okay. For a lot of people. I know how hard that was. But I actually moved
00:26:49 --> 00:26:53 in with my auntie for six months through that time. So I wasn't on my own.
00:26:53 --> 00:26:56 I had the support of a maternal figure in my life.
00:26:57 --> 00:27:01 And you know what, Lisa? It was just so nice that everybody else stopped as well.
00:27:01 --> 00:27:06 Yeah, I bet. Yeah, and I didn't feel like I had to go to baby groups or I was
00:27:06 --> 00:27:10 missing out or I had to be doing anything in particular. I could just focus.
00:27:10 --> 00:27:13 I've just walked and walked for hours every day.
00:27:14 --> 00:27:18 Yeah. And yeah, in terms of processing anger and stuff, I think that was huge.
00:27:18 --> 00:27:20 Just being with it, walking.
00:27:22 --> 00:27:25 I love that you just said what you said, just being with it,
00:27:25 --> 00:27:28 just kind of letting it run its course.
00:27:29 --> 00:27:32 Yeah, yeah. And we try to fight it. We don't, I mean, they're uncomfortable.
00:27:32 --> 00:27:38 These feelings of anger or grief or sadness are so uncomfortable, crying.
00:27:38 --> 00:27:44 I know so many people who just can't stand the act of crying and having those kinds of emotions.
00:27:44 --> 00:27:51 But I feel like when we can process them outwardly and just release them in
00:27:51 --> 00:27:54 whatever way, it's so cathartic.
00:27:54 --> 00:27:59 Yeah. And I think sometimes as well with anger, and I don't know if I feel like
00:27:59 --> 00:28:01 this was the case for me for a little bit.
00:28:01 --> 00:28:06 But I found anger quite a sort of, well, it's sort of a movement emotion,
00:28:06 --> 00:28:08 isn't it? I found it quite productive.
00:28:08 --> 00:28:14 I used it to sort of get through it, almost, and I think I was a little bit
00:28:14 --> 00:28:20 scared of feeling what was underneath that anger in case I got stuck in sadness. Yeah.
00:28:21 --> 00:28:27 I mean, that's a real fear. That's so legitimate, but almost when you said that
00:28:27 --> 00:28:28 just now, it made me think of,
00:28:29 --> 00:28:34 like somatic healing and that process of just releasing what it is,
00:28:34 --> 00:28:39 you know, audibly, whether you're yelling or you're crying or you're jumping
00:28:39 --> 00:28:46 up and down, just to kind of be one with those emotions and making those emotions
00:28:46 --> 00:28:49 take on a physical form and then expelling them.
00:28:49 --> 00:28:53 It's not that it's an end-all, be-all cure, but I just know that so many people,
00:28:54 --> 00:28:59 who talk about somatic work that they've done in terms of grief and healing
00:28:59 --> 00:29:04 it's so powerful yeah it is yeah i do a lot of that in my work as well,
00:29:04 --> 00:29:08 it's so so powerful yeah well let's you know what i'm glad you said your work
00:29:08 --> 00:29:12 because i let's let's just completely switch gears for a second.
00:29:13 --> 00:29:21 You had these three tremendous tremendous losses and at the same time you're starting a family,
00:29:22 --> 00:29:29 and you're trying to kind of ground yourself into this new life And at some
00:29:29 --> 00:29:35 point, everything that you've lived through started informing the work that you do now.
00:29:35 --> 00:29:42 So how did you go from someone who experienced all this profound loss to deciding,
00:29:43 --> 00:29:47 I need to help or I want to help other people navigate theirs?
00:29:48 --> 00:29:52 Take us through kind of that thought process. Was it an event?
00:29:52 --> 00:29:54 Was it a slow burn? How did it happen? Yeah.
00:29:55 --> 00:30:00 Yeah, it was a bit of a slow burn, really. I remember going for counselling,
00:30:01 --> 00:30:05 after Anne died and just not having a good experience at all.
00:30:06 --> 00:30:10 And it sort of, because, you know, when you go for counselling stuff,
00:30:10 --> 00:30:15 they don't always, often, or they definitely don't talk about it, lived experience.
00:30:16 --> 00:30:20 And, yeah, I remember offering me antidepressants at my first appointment with her.
00:30:20 --> 00:30:24 And, you know, I've got nothing against antidepressants and having health if
00:30:24 --> 00:30:25 you're struggling to function or anything.
00:30:25 --> 00:30:29 But this was sort of the first thing she sort of said. I was like,
00:30:29 --> 00:30:35 I'm not depressed. I need to feel everything. I need to, when I just put a plaster
00:30:35 --> 00:30:37 on it, I just need to process it.
00:30:37 --> 00:30:42 But yeah, that was sort of like sort of grief coaching and more of a holistic
00:30:42 --> 00:30:45 approach would have been definitely what I needed at that point.
00:30:46 --> 00:30:50 So yeah, it just made me realize how limiting grief support is,
00:30:50 --> 00:30:55 whereas I was getting so much more from these people who'd had a similar experience.
00:30:56 --> 00:31:03 So would you say that that whole experience of not getting what you needed is
00:31:03 --> 00:31:07 what made you realize that you, not only that you needed something different,
00:31:08 --> 00:31:13 but that possibly so many other people in your situation would need something
00:31:13 --> 00:31:17 different and that you wanted to become that different sort of option?
00:31:18 --> 00:31:23 Possibly, yeah. Yeah, I remember sort of when I went back to work,
00:31:24 --> 00:31:27 sort of after my turn to leave.
00:31:27 --> 00:31:30 Yeah, after my turn to leave. I was trying to work out which one was bereavement
00:31:30 --> 00:31:33 leaving, which one was eternity. But yeah, after my turn to leave,
00:31:33 --> 00:31:37 going back to work and just being like, you know, sort of a corporate nine to
00:31:37 --> 00:31:39 five and being like, this just doesn't fit anymore.
00:31:40 --> 00:31:43 And sort of thinking about what I would really like to do, thinking I would
00:31:43 --> 00:31:44 really like to help people with grief.
00:31:46 --> 00:31:50 And i think because you know we haven't suffered so much grief it kind of felt
00:31:50 --> 00:31:55 like well surely i must be meant to do something with all of that thank you
00:31:55 --> 00:32:00 for saying that i thank you first of all thank you for saying that and thank you for acting on,
00:32:00 --> 00:32:03 those thoughts that you were having at the time because,
00:32:05 --> 00:32:08 i just had this conversation with my husband the other day i had gotten off,
00:32:08 --> 00:32:12 i'm a lifeline counselor as well a crisis lifeline counselor here in the united
00:32:12 --> 00:32:15 states And I had a particularly hard call.
00:32:17 --> 00:32:22 And took time to process it and kind of worked through it and talked a little bit about it with him.
00:32:22 --> 00:32:25 And he just said, I don't understand how, you're an empath. I don't understand
00:32:25 --> 00:32:29 how it is that you're doing this. You're immersed in all of this all the time.
00:32:29 --> 00:32:33 If you're not on a lifeline, you're on the podcast or you're writing about it
00:32:33 --> 00:32:34 or you're speaking about it.
00:32:35 --> 00:32:39 And I said, I don't know. I just feel like it's the place that I'm called to be.
00:32:40 --> 00:32:44 And somehow it's aligned.
00:32:44 --> 00:32:48 It's aligned with what I've gone through and and what I want to do in the world
00:32:48 --> 00:32:53 and I love when I get to hear like it makes almost makes me want to cry when I hear you say that's.
00:32:54 --> 00:33:01 Where I felt I belonged yeah yes beautiful yeah and I feel like yeah people
00:33:01 --> 00:33:02 sort of ask me that sort of thing
00:33:02 --> 00:33:06 as well I always know heavy you know speaking about grief all day and,
00:33:07 --> 00:33:13 I didn't find it heavy at all actually when i'm with a client you know i have
00:33:13 --> 00:33:15 so much going on outside but when i'm with a client,
00:33:15 --> 00:33:19 i'm i'm there it's like probably one of the only times where i'm absolutely
00:33:19 --> 00:33:25 100 present and i i find that really grounding for myself i love that i love that for you
00:33:26 --> 00:33:31 so afterglow grief coaching was born from all of this,
00:33:32 --> 00:33:37 yeah and that that's your place in the world right now it's it's your handle
00:33:37 --> 00:33:39 if people look for you it's afterglow,
00:33:40 --> 00:33:44 and yeah and we'll obviously the afterglow space the afterglow space yeah we'll
00:33:44 --> 00:33:48 we'll have you share that again toward the end just so and we'll obviously have
00:33:48 --> 00:33:50 all of your contact info in our show notes
00:33:50 --> 00:33:55 so people can reach out to you and find you and and get a chance to peek at your content.
00:33:56 --> 00:34:04 Tell us about Afterglow and how it started and what you're doing in the world.
00:34:04 --> 00:34:09 Because you and I, before we hit record, we were talking about our mutual friend,
00:34:10 --> 00:34:17 Raish McCarney, who out in California, who is also involved in the grief space,
00:34:17 --> 00:34:19 also lost her husband to suicide.
00:34:19 --> 00:34:23 And there's all this great intersectionality because when you're in this space,
00:34:23 --> 00:34:27 which is a very large space, you actually do realize how small it is.
00:34:27 --> 00:34:31 And you get to meet all sorts of incredible people. And so you and I both know
00:34:31 --> 00:34:34 her well. So tell us about Afterglow.
00:34:35 --> 00:34:39 Yes, so I work mainly one-to-one with clients at the moment.
00:34:39 --> 00:34:43 And as I said, it's a very sort of holistic approach.
00:34:43 --> 00:34:48 We do a lot of, you know, processing emotions in the body, feeling where they
00:34:48 --> 00:34:53 sit in the body and use some sort of somatic tools, breath work, ground techniques.
00:34:53 --> 00:34:58 Because the goal is, you know, grief just makes us feel so unsafe in our own
00:34:58 --> 00:35:04 bodies and in the world. And the goal is to try and find some safety and then rebuild from there.
00:35:05 --> 00:35:10 And that's sort of, you know, slowly, very slowly reconnecting with the things. Oh, lost an airbag.
00:35:11 --> 00:35:13 Slowly reconnecting with the
00:35:13 --> 00:35:18 things make us feel a bit of light again and reconnecting with ourselves.
00:35:19 --> 00:35:25 And yeah, just sort of building a life around our grief and honoring the people that we've lost.
00:35:27 --> 00:35:32 I love that you said building a life around our grief because rather than saying
00:35:32 --> 00:35:41 work through or finish or somehow complete grief. Because you and I both know that's not a thing.
00:35:42 --> 00:35:46 We're always going to be grieving our people for the rest of our lives.
00:35:46 --> 00:35:51 And it's a way of, it's a new mindset of understanding that we have to be able
00:35:51 --> 00:35:56 to learn how to integrate the grief into our life and build our life around it.
00:35:56 --> 00:35:58 And I just love how you put that. It was pretty perfect.
00:36:00 --> 00:36:04 Thank you. So tell me about the name Afterglow.
00:36:05 --> 00:36:06 Where did that come from?
00:36:07 --> 00:36:14 I really love sunsets. Yeah, I sort of did want to have it sort of something
00:36:14 --> 00:36:16 around that sort of sunset feeling.
00:36:16 --> 00:36:22 You know, like when the sun goes down and then that's when the sky goes amazing
00:36:22 --> 00:36:27 with all those pinks and corals and oranges and those sort of colors.
00:36:27 --> 00:36:30 And I just think there's something really special about that time of day.
00:36:32 --> 00:36:36 Yeah, the golden hour is what, have you heard that expression,
00:36:36 --> 00:36:39 golden hour? Yes, yeah. I love that time of day.
00:36:39 --> 00:36:42 So who typically comes to you for help?
00:36:43 --> 00:36:47 People dealing with recent loss or 20 years out or all of the above?
00:36:47 --> 00:36:52 Yeah, all of the above, really. But I'd say mainly it's sort of people who,
00:36:52 --> 00:36:55 you know, if you're sort of in that really acute early grief,
00:36:56 --> 00:37:00 it's probably not the right place for you because it is very forward-facing.
00:37:01 --> 00:37:06 You know, And that counselling and other therapy does have its place in those earlier days.
00:37:07 --> 00:37:12 But this is when you are sort of staging your life where you are thinking about,
00:37:12 --> 00:37:18 you know, what life looks like now without your person in it. Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:19 --> 00:37:22 So there's something that we ask a lot of people on this pod,
00:37:23 --> 00:37:27 because I think it's really at the heart of why we created the survivors.
00:37:27 --> 00:37:31 You know, we're all surviving something. That's kind of become our unofficial tagline these days.
00:37:32 --> 00:37:37 But when you look at the Rachel who existed before all of these losses,
00:37:37 --> 00:37:40 which we talked about, and then you look at who you are right here and now sitting
00:37:40 --> 00:37:44 in this conversation, who are you now?
00:37:44 --> 00:37:48 Who have you become now as a result of all of it?
00:37:49 --> 00:37:55 Wow. Yeah, I mean, I'll give you a good example, and this isn't before I lost
00:37:55 --> 00:37:58 my dad, because I don't think you can compare yourself to a teenager.
00:37:58 --> 00:38:04 But I'll give you a good example is I remember being sort of in my early 30s
00:38:04 --> 00:38:07 before my mum died, and my boss
00:38:07 --> 00:38:12 in my corporate job sent me on an assertiveness course, because I used.
00:38:14 --> 00:38:19 To work in sales, because I wasn't very confident about speaking up in meetings
00:38:19 --> 00:38:21 and yeah I just didn't have a lot of confidence,
00:38:22 --> 00:38:26 and then yeah it just might sound like a weird thing that going through a lot
00:38:26 --> 00:38:30 of grief gives you more confidence but I don't know it's made me feel a lot
00:38:30 --> 00:38:34 sort of wiser and more compassionate and,
00:38:35 --> 00:38:41 maybe it's because I don't quite care so much about you know about little things and.
00:38:43 --> 00:38:46 Yeah not what people think of me I do care what people think of me a little
00:38:46 --> 00:38:49 bit but I don't get consumed by that kind of thing I wouldn't stand up in a
00:38:49 --> 00:38:53 room of people and shrink because I was scared of what anyone thought of me
00:38:53 --> 00:38:55 and I didn't know if I had anything to say,
00:38:57 --> 00:39:03 well it's interesting too though first of all I love all that for you that you that you,
00:39:04 --> 00:39:10 Being on the other side of your losses has made you realize,
00:39:10 --> 00:39:12 okay, these are my priorities.
00:39:12 --> 00:39:15 This is what's important. This is what I'm going to invest my time and my energy
00:39:15 --> 00:39:16 in. And these other things are,
00:39:17 --> 00:39:20 not really as important. And I feel like there's a lot of freedom in that.
00:39:20 --> 00:39:25 And I do feel like there's a lot of empowerment in that. I can totally relate
00:39:25 --> 00:39:30 with how you're feeling or how that state of mind has changed.
00:39:30 --> 00:39:34 Because I feel like in a lot of ways it has for me too. And I think it's,
00:39:34 --> 00:39:37 for me, I think it's honestly because I feel like I'm in such alignment with,
00:39:38 --> 00:39:41 the work I'm supposed to be doing. Like, neither one of us ever thought we would
00:39:41 --> 00:39:43 be doing what we're doing, ever. Yeah, absolutely.
00:39:45 --> 00:39:51 And it's all come from these really hard, awful, traumatic losses.
00:39:51 --> 00:39:57 And yet we're both in this space feeling like we belong here and that's empowering
00:39:58 --> 00:40:00 and feeling, I think, like we're making,
00:40:00 --> 00:40:04 a difference and it doesn't necessarily have to be this, we would love it to
00:40:04 --> 00:40:09 be this big global difference and love to have an impact on everybody who's ever grieved.
00:40:09 --> 00:40:15 But the reality is that, you know, we try to impact people in whatever big or
00:40:15 --> 00:40:18 small ways that we can, and when we're doing it, it's empowering.
00:40:19 --> 00:40:22 Yeah, even if it's just one person, and I think, yeah, I think that's the word,
00:40:23 --> 00:40:27 I was searching for then, like, empowering, and being more empowered, and,
00:40:28 --> 00:40:33 that's, you know, there would be much nicer ways to learn that about ourselves
00:40:33 --> 00:40:34 and to get to this stage, wouldn't there?
00:40:34 --> 00:40:38 Yeah, yeah, but I'm grateful I learned it.
00:40:39 --> 00:40:41 Yeah, me too. Yeah, for sure.
00:40:42 --> 00:40:48 So one thing that we try to be really, really careful about on the podcast is
00:40:48 --> 00:40:54 not to kind of wrap up trauma in a nice, neat little package because it is a
00:40:54 --> 00:40:57 messy and disgusting and awful thing.
00:40:57 --> 00:41:02 There's no way to wrap it up or package it differently. But there's a tendency
00:41:02 --> 00:41:05 to tell all these stories, you know, something horrible happened,
00:41:05 --> 00:41:07 but look at the amazing thing that came out of it.
00:41:08 --> 00:41:13 And sometimes we don't need to find why it happened figure out why it happened
00:41:13 --> 00:41:18 we don't know why it happened sometimes surviving it is just enough yeah so yeah,
00:41:19 --> 00:41:24 when you when i say the word hope to you now today,
00:41:24 --> 00:41:26 what does that mean to you.
00:41:28 --> 00:41:31 I think hope is the most important thing i've ever had I,
00:41:32 --> 00:41:37 love that yeah yeah and I remember when because of,
00:41:37 --> 00:41:43 I think it was because of seeing my mum lose my dad really young and then you
00:41:43 --> 00:41:47 know she got remarried and she had a happy life again and the first thing I
00:41:47 --> 00:41:52 thought about when when when the police knocked at that on the door was,
00:41:52 --> 00:41:55 my mum lost my dad and she was okay and that was the first thing I thought,
00:41:57 --> 00:42:00 But, you know, it's almost as if she was still guiding me from somewhere.
00:42:00 --> 00:42:04 But I think, yeah, that little tiny bit of hope and I just clung on to that
00:42:04 --> 00:42:08 with everything I could. And some days you can't find it.
00:42:09 --> 00:42:12 But I think you've just got to know somewhere that you're going to be okay.
00:42:12 --> 00:42:14 And even if you have to find other people who can show you that,
00:42:15 --> 00:42:17 borrow a bit of their hope for a little bit.
00:42:17 --> 00:42:20 Yeah. No, there's so much truth to that.
00:42:21 --> 00:42:26 So after everything that you've been through all the losses that you've experienced and kind of the,
00:42:27 --> 00:42:33 rebirth into this new version of yourself what are you surviving now we ask
00:42:33 --> 00:42:37 everybody that that's because we're all surviving something now what are you
00:42:37 --> 00:42:41 surviving would you say well that's a.
00:42:44 --> 00:42:47 I think it's just sort of, yeah.
00:42:50 --> 00:42:56 Surviving the sort of juggle, I suppose, the life of having a young son,
00:42:56 --> 00:42:58 of having my own business, of.
00:43:00 --> 00:43:06 Yeah, and one thing I am also surviving is, you know, always having that sort
00:43:06 --> 00:43:09 of fear in the back of your mind of something going wrong again.
00:43:10 --> 00:43:14 Yeah. You know, I'm building a really happy life. Well, I've got a really happy life.
00:43:15 --> 00:43:19 But there is always that this could all go wrong again, always in the back of
00:43:19 --> 00:43:24 your mind. And, you know, that's something you do when you've had trauma and
00:43:24 --> 00:43:26 a lot of loss. You just have to learn to live with it.
00:43:28 --> 00:43:32 Yeah. learn how to stop the spiral when it comes because you're never going
00:43:32 --> 00:43:36 to stop a thought because yeah your body's got evidence that the worst can happen
00:43:36 --> 00:43:38 and yeah that's always there,
00:43:39 --> 00:43:44 how do you stop it how do you stop it when it comes i just acknowledge it,
00:43:45 --> 00:43:49 acknowledge it you know don't try and fight it say this is normal it's normal
00:43:49 --> 00:43:54 to feel this way maybe do some ground and go for a walk take some breaths just
00:43:54 --> 00:43:56 remind myself that now at this moments everything's okay,
00:43:57 --> 00:44:01 because we we all never know what's around the corner do we no we can't see
00:44:01 --> 00:44:07 around corners unfortunately or fortunately i probably probably wouldn't want to actually,
00:44:08 --> 00:44:14 and it's funny because losing a parent so young i mean i was 10 when i lost
00:44:14 --> 00:44:18 my father i've honestly for 48 years been waiting for the other shoe to drop and,
00:44:19 --> 00:44:24 you know okay i've lost one parent i have one in reserve and the same thing could happen again.
00:44:25 --> 00:44:30 And I know what that feels like. And I have done all of the same things that you've done.
00:44:30 --> 00:44:37 And it's just really validating to hear that we're both doing so many of the
00:44:37 --> 00:44:43 same things and that they're working and not everything works every time for sure.
00:44:43 --> 00:44:48 But there's strength in numbers and it's nice when you find community and you
00:44:48 --> 00:44:51 know that that community is...
00:44:52 --> 00:44:58 Is experiencing things in similar ways that you are that's yeah you know it's
00:44:58 --> 00:45:02 it's just that kind of alignment that i think makes us feel like we can keep
00:45:02 --> 00:45:06 moving forward that's where the hope comes from as far as health concerns,
00:45:06 --> 00:45:11 yeah yeah and then there's something about you know knowing that everything
00:45:11 --> 00:45:15 could just change in an instant that maybe makes you have to live a little bit
00:45:15 --> 00:45:18 better in the meantime enjoy enjoy what you do have,
00:45:19 --> 00:45:24 but yeah it's all it's all so nuanced isn't it and complicated and holding so much at once yeah,
00:45:25 --> 00:45:31 it's all those things it is all those things rachel hart phillips i am so grateful
00:45:31 --> 00:45:35 that we had this conversation today and that we got to finally meet in well
00:45:35 --> 00:45:38 semi in person this is as good person as we can get at the moment but,
00:45:39 --> 00:45:43 you know i know that there are people listening who are living inside the the
00:45:43 --> 00:45:45 thickness of grief and heaviness.
00:45:45 --> 00:45:49 And sometimes you just need to hear it from somebody who has lived through something
00:45:49 --> 00:45:56 like it before. And you hear firsthand that you can live alongside something unimaginable.
00:45:57 --> 00:46:00 It's not the same life. You and I know it's not the same life,
00:46:00 --> 00:46:04 but you just said it yourself, you have a happy life now.
00:46:04 --> 00:46:09 And it doesn't mean that the sadness doesn't creep in and isn't part of it,
00:46:09 --> 00:46:16 but you're living a life where that joy and grief and pain can coexist and.
00:46:17 --> 00:46:21 And they don't overtake you so yeah,
00:46:21 --> 00:46:29 before we hop off tell everybody who's listening where can they find more about
00:46:29 --> 00:46:34 you and about afterglow grief coaching what are your websites and resources,
00:46:35 --> 00:46:35 where can people find you,
00:46:36 --> 00:46:42 yeah so everything is pretty much at the afterglow space so websites afterglowspace.com.
00:46:43 --> 00:46:50 And yeah facebook instagram and tiktok is all at the afterglow at the afterglow space.
00:46:51 --> 00:46:58 Well, everybody, trust me when I tell you that Rachel's content is worth your follow for sure.
00:46:58 --> 00:47:02 You're putting some beautiful content out in the world that is just,
00:47:02 --> 00:47:04 it's helping people who are receiving it.
00:47:04 --> 00:47:09 And I think that that's such a powerful position to be in and it's such a beautiful
00:47:09 --> 00:47:13 way to be of service. And I love that you're doing everything that you're doing.
00:47:13 --> 00:47:18 We will, of course, put all of Rachel's contact info in the show notes,
00:47:18 --> 00:47:23 as always. And if something, if you're listening to this conversation and something's
00:47:23 --> 00:47:26 coming up for you today, don't carry it alone.
00:47:27 --> 00:47:32 You can reach out. We obviously here in the United States have the 988 Crisis
00:47:32 --> 00:47:36 and Suicide Lifeline. There are organizations like the Trevor Project and Crisis
00:47:36 --> 00:47:39 Text Line. And Rachel is in the UK.
00:47:40 --> 00:47:45 You can reach out to her. she's only five hours ahead so just keep track of
00:47:45 --> 00:47:49 the time difference and you can reach out to her she's incredibly responsive,
00:47:49 --> 00:47:52 and just absolutely lovely in every way so,
00:47:53 --> 00:47:56 thank you for being here we appreciate you so much thank you so much,
00:47:56 --> 00:48:01 thank you so much for having me lisa it's so lovely no it's a pleasure so friends
00:48:01 --> 00:48:04 we'll be back next week because we are all surviving something and i guarantee
00:48:04 --> 00:48:07 we're going to be surviving something next week too so we'll see you in a week
00:48:08 --> 00:48:10 until then, keep surviving.
00:48:11 --> 00:48:14 Thanks so much for listening and for being part of the Survivors community.
00:48:15 --> 00:48:19 No matter where you are in your story, you're not alone, and you're definitely
00:48:19 --> 00:48:23 not broken. Healing takes time, and it looks different for everyone.
00:48:23 --> 00:48:28 The fact that you're still here and still trying means you're already doing the hard work.
00:48:28 --> 00:48:32 If something in today's conversation resonated with you, please share it with
00:48:32 --> 00:48:34 someone who might need to hear it too.
00:48:34 --> 00:48:39 That's how we keep these conversations going and remind each other that there's always hope.
00:48:40 --> 00:48:42 And if you or someone you know is struggling, please remember,
00:48:42 --> 00:48:44 help is always out there.
00:48:44 --> 00:48:48 You can call or text 988 anytime to reach a trained crisis counselor like me.
00:48:49 --> 00:48:52 And for more mental health resources, tools, treatment options,
00:48:52 --> 00:48:56 and content to support your mental health, visit thehelphub.co.
00:48:57 --> 00:49:00 We're so grateful you're part of the Survivors family, and we'll be back next
00:49:00 --> 00:49:04 week with another honest conversation about life after the hardest things.
00:49:04 --> 00:49:08 Until then, take care of yourself and your people and keep surviving.