49: Getting in Tune With Your Emotion

Looking inside ourselves and beginning to feel our emotions is one of the most difficult things we can do.

We are driven by our emotions. Everything we do is because we feel a certain emotion. As a society we have been taught that emotions are fluffy, emotions are bad, emotions are a sign of weakness. But I believe that emotions are a gift that we have been given to process and release the energy of our experiences from our bodies.

Our emotions also help us act, not act, respond, and do things in the world. Truly, our emotions are a blessing.

-How I started becoming aware of my emotions

-Ways to think of emotions that make them easier to process

-Letting go of judgment

-Exercise to feel the emotion on demand

If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community

48: Generational Trauma

I’ve been meaning to do an episode on generational trauma for a while, and I wanted to do it now, with all the discussion around racism and systemic racism. I believe the more we can listen and understand, the more compassion we can have for each other. This is just a small piece of what I’m learning and understand. I’m focusing this mainly on grief, but this understanding of generational trauma helps to show how we are affected by the events that happened in our past.

-What is generational trauma?

-Description of an IG photo by Ayan Mukherjee (Here’s the link to check it out https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwmp1nRA7Ow/)

-How I began to learn the mother affects her children

-My story with my children

-Is it still selfish to care for yourself?

To join Life After Child Loss 6 week group coaching program go to

www.lifeafterchildlosscoaching.com 

If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community

47: An Honest Conversation With a Grieving Mother

In this episode, Marcy Larson, another grieving mother comes to share her story of loss, and how she’s learning to navigate grief. This is a lifelong journey we all face, and it’s a process. Marcy is so open and vulnerable with how her grief is a part of her every day, and how Andy is still a very big part of her life.

-Marcy’s Story as Andy’s Mom

-How grief changes you

-Who am I after loss, and how do we come to terms with that

-Marcy’s take on finding life after loss

-A favorite memory of Andy

You can follow along with Marcy’s journey here:

Website: www.andysmom.com

Facebook: Always Andy’s Mom

Instagram: Always Andy’s Mom

Her Recommended Book : Rare Bird by Anna Whiston-Donaldson

If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community

Some links may contain affiliate links in which I receive a small commission if you decide to purchase something, this helps support the grief work I'm doing.

46: How I Became A Grief Coach

Because it’s May, and Aria died in May- I want to share my story again and a little bit about my journey to become a grief coach.

-Very quick version of a very long story

-My journey through grief and wanting to help others

-As a grief coach, what’s important for me to do

When my daughter Aria died suddenly 4 years ago, I wondered if my life was over. My heart was shattered into a million pieces. How was I supposed to go on without such an important person in my life? How can I breathe when I'm literally suffocating and drowning? It was difficult to describe my pain; it was an endless feeling of hopelessness.

I carried sharp, intense grief for years. I felt as if I failed my daughter as her mother, and was terrified it would affect my other children as well. Everything felt so bleak and empty. What was the point and purpose of life?

It's difficult to describe this pain to someone who doesn't understand the depth and duration of child loss. There is something about this connection among us as grieving mothers, that we can speak without words.

If you are a grieving mother, and looking for connection, hope, and ways to move forward after the death of a child, join me in 3 days of grief support. In this space, you will find support, encouragement, and deep knowing amongst other grieving mothers.

Join to save your spot, go to www.reliefingriefsupportgroup.com. Again, in these 3 days, we are going to be walking through How everyone grieves differently, Emotions and stages of grief, and noticing thoughts patterns and emotions that come up for you in your grief journey. To join go to www.reliefingriefsupportgroup.com

If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community

45: Triggers and Anniversaries

It’s still crazy how suddenly your life can be flipped upside down and everything changed in an instant. Today I want to talk about triggers, death dates, and how to navigate them. Everyone will navigate them differently, but I want to offer some things that have helped me so that these days are not all bad.

There’s a quote I heard, never waste a trigger. I love this quote. Because we are triggered, we want to avoid things. We want to run away from it, and never look, or see something. Whatever our trigger is. But when you can notice your triggers, these triggers are just things that present to you, that can show you what you can work on if you want to work on it. I believe fully that triggers can be healed. That you can work through them and instead of being a trigger, they only bring up a memory instead.

-Different ways of coming to anniversary days

-Noticing the thoughts you are thinking surrounding the day

-Noticing the triggers and working with them

-What we have done for Aria’s death date

Links to any resources: When my daughter Aria died suddenly 4 years ago, I wondered if my life was over. My heart felt shattered into a million pieces. How was I supposed to go on without such an important person in my life? How can I breathe when I'm literally suffocating and drowning? It was difficult to describe my pain; it was an endless feeling of hopelessness.

I carried sharp, intense grief for years. I felt as if I failed my daughter as her mother, and was terrified it would affect my other children as well. Everything felt so bleak and empty. What was the point and the purpose of life?

It's difficult to describe this pain to someone who doesn't understand the depth and duration of child loss. There is something about this connection among us as grieving mothers, that we can speak without words.

If you are a grieving mother, and looking for connection, hope, and ways to move forward after the death of a child, join me in 3 days of grief support. In this space, you will find support, encouragement, and deep knowing amongst other grieving mothers.

Join to save your spot, go to www.reliefingriefsupportgroup.com. Again, in these 3 days, we are going to be walking through How everyone grieves differently, Emotions and stages of grief, and noticing thoughts patterns and emotions that come up for you in your grief journey. To join go to 

www.reliefingriefsupportgroup.com

If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community

44: Caring For the Child Within

We all come to grief with our own stories and experiences. As children, we may have had experiences that were painful and intense. These experiences may have taught us, that we need to put up a front, that in order to be cared for we need to be helpless, that in order to receive the love we need to be complicit, in order to not get hurt, we have to criticize others.

The little child within has reasons for doing that. It’s the way we can protect ourselves. This way of blocking painful or difficult emotions is the way as a child you felt you needed to protect yourself when you didn’t quite know any different.

-Importance of emotions and caring for ourselves and your inner child

-Getting super curious about your triggers and how that will help you be able to work through them

-ideas of things you can do to begin caring for your inner child

Links to any resources:

When my daughter Aria died suddenly 4 years ago, I wondered if my life was over. My heart felt shattered into a million pieces. How was I supposed to go on without such an important person in my life? How can I breathe when I'm literally suffocating and drowning? It was difficult to describe my pain; it was an endless feeling of hopelessness.

I carried sharp, intense grief for years. I felt as if I failed my daughter as her mother, and was terrified it would affect my other children as well. Everything felt so bleak and empty. What was the point and the purpose of life?

It's difficult to describe this pain to someone who doesn't understand the depth and duration of child loss. There is something about this connection among us as grieving mothers, that we can speak without words.

If you are a grieving mother, and looking for connection, hope, and ways to move forward after the death of a child, join me in 3 days of grief support. In this space, you will find support, encouragement, and deep knowing amongst other grieving mothers.

Join to save your spot, go to www.reliefingriefsupportgroup.com. Again, in these 3 days, we are going to be walking through How everyone grieves differently, Emotions and stages of grief, and noticing thoughts patterns and emotions that come up for you in your grief journey. To join go to www.reliefingriefsupportgroup.com

If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community

43: What Does It Mean to be a Mother?

Mother's day is right around the corner. I want to hold space for you if you are a grieving mother with no other children, a grieving mother with other children, a grieving mother who lost her child before they were born. Wherever you are in your grief, this day can be hard.

Today I wanted to ask the question what does it mean to be a mother? What does motherhood look like for you after child loss? What kind of mother do you want to be to your child who is gone, and your children who are here if you have other children?

-Loving someone opens us up to the possibility of pain

-Living is a choice we each have to make in our own lives

-Coming from a place of love

-Noticing the thoughts that might be circulating in your head

If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community

42: Are You Going Backwards in Grief?

You ever feel like you have finally climbed out of the hole of grief, things are going well, and then bam. You are back at the bottom again?

-Megan's story when she felt like she was going backward

-What does going backward mean to you?

-What thoughts are you thinking about going backward and how do those make you feel?

-Grief work is always peeling back layers

-You never go backward in grief, you are always walking forward with grief.

 If you are a grieving mother and looking for others who know the pain of child loss, come join my free Grieving Moms Community Facebook group: www.meganhillukka.com/community