Finding Your Light Through Grief ✨ Let’s Share Abundantly

Hello, Cadre family. It's Friday. We have made it. We have arrived. My name is Jean Mitchells. I'm popping in on a Friday afternoon simply to say hello and do a quick check in. So I'm going to hold out for a second, second or two as we let people join in. High speak, wonder. Hello, Rick. Every Friday. Happy Friday. Wherever you're at, whatever you're feeling today, it is exactly what you need in this moment. It's okay to not be okay. It's okay to be amazing. Whatever you're feeling is perfectly yours.

Feeling annoyed that there's a helicopter flying over right now. I never have a helicopter fly over. How am I? It's Friday. I'm well. I have two guests for you to meet today. So the first guest is none other than Major. Major. Major. He's rebelling. He's like, not wanting to say hello. He's also a little annoyed at me because of our second special guest. Our second special guest is the named Sparkles. And I want to introduce you to Sparkles. Hello. Hello. Sparkles is my dinosaur one at the state fair.

And I have kept her around because she makes me happy right now. She brings me joy. So between Major and Sparkles, I feel a lot of animal love and joy. And here's why I'm introducing you to Sparkles today, but also why I'm popping in. So I wanted to join in here on Friday to share kind of this topic. Finding your light through grief. Now, I'm going through a grief coaching certification and I'm learning so much about it. I know Major does feel upstage. She's a little annoyed. He also is up all night sick.

So I think he's just having his own timeout. But currently I'm in a certification around grief and I wanted to go do a deep dive on grief to really, truly understand a little more about what it means. And we often think of grief in terms of somebody's passed away, but that's not always the only type of grief that we feel. And I've learned and remembered that we've been experiencing feelings of grief, feelings of sadness, feelings of loss since we were really young. It could be that maybe your family moved a lot when you were a kid, and so you are grieving the loss of friendships, favorite teachers that you had, relationships.

You could be grieving the loss of a friendship that just didn't support one another anymore in the way that it did when you first got together. You could be grieving the loss of a pet, an animal. You could be grieving and feeling the loss, the void of work that you love. So maybe, maybe an environment that you worked in became a little toxic and you needed to let it go because it didn't support you anymore. But today, on this particular day, my intention is finding the light through grief of loss of an individual.

So at 1:07pm today, two years ago, I lost my mom. And I have been doing things all day long to maybe avoid it a little bit. I taught a spin class. I worked at the studio. I got coffee with a friend who is going through a major transition away from some work that they love. And then at exactly that moment in time, I burst out loud, vocally and said, this is the moment my mom took her last breath. And I didn't cry today. Now I've cried a lot. And that's okay. Crying is great. It's a great expression of emotion.

And that's exactly what it's about, right? It's about feeling and feeling it all. So through this grieving process with my mom, exactly two years ago today, my dad, three, three years ago in September, I've allowed myself permission to feel whatever I feel and go with it and be in it. But today, thank you. Thank you for your kind words. Yeah, every year it feels different. But today I wanted to honor my mom specifically with an abundance of sharing. Now, I was in my training class last night on grief, and there's an author that came out here and I'm going to post in the Cadresphere a copy of his book.

And I haven't read it yet, but listening to him tell his story was amazing. And he's a father who lost both of his children in a car accident with a drunk driver who was driving high and driving too fast. And he was talking about how his family grew up atheist, and this isn't about religion, but his wife happens to be Jewish. And what happened is three days after the death of both of their children who were teenagers, they had a community of people come together and shared stories about these children.

And in my head, I paused and I was like, oh, man. Like, I just wanted to be quiet. I wanted to not listen to anything. I wanted to just be by myself. But as I listened to the story of how he shared how this group of people works through grief and the loss and death, I became very curious. And then I became abundantly happy. Because what I love about this and why today's focus is on abundance, sharing their stories is because. Exactly, Kathy. It's about healing. And we're all going to heal different ways.

We all have different ways to do this. But what I found is the more I've shared stories about my mom and dad in the last year to people that maybe didn't know them so well, or why I am who I am today because of their investment in me with love and generosity and kindness and laughter and hard stuff. It just felt light. So today, my invitation to you is, whether you're listening live or you're listening on repeat, my invitation is, type the name, if you're willing, of someone important to you that you've lost.

So let's abundantly share their names. And then my second invitation, sorry, sparkles, is a little unstable. My second invitation is share a word or a phrase that represents their memory or their impact on you. So I had luxury a couple weeks ago of being in California and I went to dinner with one of my nephews. And because they lived in California, they didn't get to experience my mom and dad the same way I did. My nephews as they were growing up because they just come here very often for a variety of reasons.

So I was like, oh, well, yeah, I'll tell you stories about grandma, grandpa, my mom and dad. And I'll be like, my favorite thing about grandma was her laugh. Like, she would laugh so loud that it would resonate down the hallways. And when I was coming to visit her in her long term care and her last few years, if somebody was in her story or in her room and she was telling a story, they said a silly joke, you could hear her laugh down the halls. And so I would start laughing because I could hear her laugh.

And she would just had a laughter that was just pure joy. Her name was Carol and her middle name was Jean. And she was always so proud of that. And so I get to be reminded of my mom all the time just because of my name. But her laugh, I loved her laugh. And I was recently sharing a story. A friend of mine, their partner started knitting and they were telling me how surprised they were by that. And I shared my story. I was like, oh yeah, that's a lost art. My poor mom, she was so great at knitting and crocheting that she would try so hard to teach me how to do this.

And the farthest I got was cross stitch. But I couldn't understand the purpose of cross stitch because after I made a few of them, I was like, what do you do with it? Just hang it in a mirror on a wall, like, how many of these can you have? So I started making Christmas cards that were cross stitch. Cards one year. And then after that I was like, well, I can't do this anymore because I've given everybody a card. But my poor mom, she would always try, but she would make these beautiful things. So when I was cleaning out her space, I found so much yarn.

And I found people that loved to knit. And there was one lady in particular that loved to knit scarves for homeless people. So I gave her all of the yarn. Like it's egregious how much yarn there was. And this lady would send me photos of all of these scarves that she would make, and she would hand them out to homeless people during the winter because we live in Minnesota and it's cold. And I just was like, that's amazing. And my dad, I could go on for days about my dad, but he, like, stories that I would share with my nephew would be like, this one.

And I'll leave this one story with you guys. So when I was growing up, I'm super athletic. I love sports. I picked up on them quickly. And at a young age I made varsity teams. And I was a nominally in my high school, in today's world, probably I'd be average, right? But in that space, I was a little above average. And I started lettering and I had a lot of them, but I didn't want a letter jacket because it just felt so pretentious to me. That's not who I am. I loved seeing them on other people, but I was like, I don't want that because I would have a lot of stripes and it just was embarrassing and beautiful at the same time, but.

And now I just spit all over. You guys probably saw that. But here's what my dad did since he would. I couldn't get a letter jacket. He had an office in our home, and he had a home office and he bought shelves one day and I was gone at some like, leadership camp or who knows what. He like, dropped me off. I cried because I didn't want him to drop me off. But then he'd pick me up and I'd tell him all these great stories. So it was a love hate relationship with leaving my dad and doing something scary and new.

So I was gone one weekend and I come home and he had taken. And he put shelves up in his entire office. And I had like, I don't know, some really high number of trophies for like batting averages and playing volleyball and basketball. And I had like lettered, I don't know, 20 sometimes. It was a lot. And he literally put all of my certificates for everything Everything in a frame. I don't even know how many frames. I hope he bought them at the Dollar store. He put every certificate in a frame. He had every trophy up, and he put every little letter that I wouldn't put on a letter jacket on these shelves, in his walls, in his office, and I would not let anybody go into his office.

But he was so proud. And so, like, these are things that my nephew just didn't know. And it's like, there's so much beauty when we can think about not just the gravity or the weight of the loss of these beautiful people who have impacted us so much. Whoever it is, it doesn't even have to be a parent. It could be a friend. It could be a mentor, somebody that just we valued in our lives. But when I think about sharing the stories of how I experienced them, I feel lighter. And, yeah, I'm still Sad.

It's literally 730 days since I talked to my mom the last time. And if you looked at my voicemails, I have 20 voicemails from either my mom or my dad that on the days that I feel that I just miss them and I want to hear their voice, I literally replay voicemails from them. And I've backed them up on Dropbox in case something happens to my phone and my voicemail inbox will fill up because it gets too full with, like, four additional voicemails. I don't care, because in any given day, I want to just hear their voice.

So my invitation to you is to celebrate them for find an abundance of stories that bring you joy, and it doesn't diminish the fact that that loss is there. But, gosh, doesn't it feel good to laugh and to celebrate them and feel like they're here with you? So that's my share for you today. On a day where I could feel a lot of sadness. And I trust me, the sadness comes and goes. But today I'm just celebrating fun memories of my mom and saying her name, Carol Jean, and putting her name into the universe and just remembering her laugh and her kindness and the stories of times when I was embarrassed.

Like, she made me a lot of clothes because she was so great at sewing and I was so embarrassed in high school to wear them. And today, I'd give anything to have her make me clothes. So speak wonder. Your words of magic for your late husband, Roger. Words to characterize. Curious, quiet, hard worker. I am sending so much love to Roger, and I'm sending so much love to you today. A form of gratitude being thankful in all things. Yes, Rick. So speak wonder. Thank you for sharing about Roger. I cherish him.

I cherish you and that memory and that curiosity. So if you're listening live, you're listening on replay. My invitation to you is to abundantly share their stories. Go to coffee with a friend. Share them to your own version of Sparkles or Major or your bestie or a random stranger, or a nephew or niece. Share their stories. Share the Share what brought them joy. Share what about them you loved and own that. You're welcome. I hope you have the best day. A great day. If you're not having a great day, that's okay too.

Just be present in this moment and feel what you need to feel and allow yourself to breathe. Sending you all love and I hope that today brings you a little joy.