Today’s episode is one I’m both excited and totally terrified to share with you. 

It’s me, alone on the microphone, opening up about the hardest and most unthinkable thing I’ve ever dealt with. 

In this very-close-to-my-heart episode, I’m sharing: 

• A traumatic, tragic loss I’ve experienced in my life recently and my current thoughts & feelings
• The perspective I’ve gained from hardship and how we can challenge ourselves to live our best lives
• A before-and-after glimpse into how a family trip to Ireland deepened my healing
• 3 things grief has taught me that apply to career & business
• A powerful & moving excerpt from my journal and the message in my heart about grief

In case you’d like to read the words from my journal, here they are in written format. 

Per Jess Lively’s “writing to your intuition” exercise, I asked myself the following question: 

Why do I feel this is the episode I need to share? 

Here was my unedited, un-analyzed gut reaction (I arrived here by just writing without thinking too much):

“Your life is not the shiny perfect image that people might see. You are not perfectly courageous and composed. There is so much suffering, and you are afraid. You do not know how the events of the past year will manifest in terms of your family. 

Questions weigh heavier on your heart than your mind allows you to truly explore. It is too traumatic to completely comprehend. As such, everything (including career) is impacted. There are positives and negatives to this. The negatives are perhaps more obvious — there is stress, bad dreams, unexplained and unexpected tear-filled moments, your anger flairs up in a way that feels out of control. This is all related to the unprocessed mountain of emotion that sits in your heart like a knot. 

Importantly, do not rush to untie this knot. You cannot untie this knot without the right tools. You do not have all of those tools today, nor do you have all of the puzzle pieces to know how. Instead, this is a project that will be unraveled piece by piece, over time, and there is nothing you can do to speed this process except try to be open to your truth.

You know exactly what I mean: it’s that back-and-forth you have in your own mind about whether it is safe to hear your heart’s voice. Sometimes that voice will tell you scary things, or sad things that make you cry. I am here to say IT IS SAFE.

More than just safe, it is everything to hear your heart’s voice. Do not be afraid. Or rather, be afraid, but listen anyway. Cry when it hurts. Show yourself and show up. The only thing you have to do is be open and be light. Do not try to be more than exactly what you are, right now.”

SHOW NOTES:

• Jess Lively: Things I’m Afraid to Tell You concept
• Courage & Clarity Episode 14 with Chase Reeves 
• Courage episode with Cassandra Bodzak
• Jess Lively: intuition writing exercise