I want to talk about surviving the holidays I remember my first year after Aria died. I looked around and everyone was so excited for the Christmas season. There is such a feeling of joy, excitement and happiness. When you are grieving, it seems like all that excitement is too much to handle. And I longed for my old self who could laugh and not have a care during the holiday season.

Today I’m chatting with Melissa Dgueleocki, a life coach, a bereaved mother, and podcaster, like she says so many other things as well. But Melissa shares the lessons she’s learned from her daughter Leyden so openly, and helps other people find those lessons within themselves as well.

Today’s topic is surrounding grief and the common saying there is no wrong way to grieve. Everyone says that over and over. And I'd like to say that we all get to choose how we want to grieve.

Today’s guest is with Krista St. Germain a grief coach, who works specifically with widows as she is a widow herself, but this conversation seriously fires me up. I love everything Krista shares, and I love the work that she’s doing.

Bring to mind, a thought you think of all the time. We tend to reach for the same thoughts over and over, it’s a habit. It’s easier to think this thought because it’s normal and comfortable to us. I like to imagine someone walking through the snow, and making a trail in a circle. The more they walk on that circle in the snow, the more compact the snow gets, the easier it is to walk there. Then to go start a new path in the snow feels really difficult and not as easy as just staying on the packed down trail. That’s kind of how our thoughts are in our brains. The more and more we think them, the deeper ingrained they get in our brains. Many times, we don’t even know what we are thinking, and how our thoughts are making us feel. So, in this episode, I want to bring awareness to your thoughts, so that you can begin to notice how it’s making you feel.

Finding a way to acknowledge the grief that is stored in our bodies can be difficult. Monique beautifully talks about how our bodies are doing what they are supposed to do when we are grieving. How we can support our bodies and minds through this grieving process, and find a way to learn to live with the grief in our lives

I felt fragile. I ran from conflict. If a relationship became strained or broken, I just left it instead of trying to fix it. I didn’t want to talk about the hard things. Probably like many of you, I didn’t think it was possible to live if something were to happen to anyone I loved. I had never experienced a loss of anyone close to me yet. I had not experienced deep grief over the death of someone I loved.

Amanda shares about her daughter Juniper on her Instagram, and in pregnancy began sharing about pregnancy after loss. We recorded this episode just a couple days before Amanda's second daughter Coral was born. Now Amanda shares what parenting after loss has been like for her. Lets welcome Amanda as she shares real truths about life after your child dies.