• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Nathalie Himmelrich

Inspiring Hope | Finding healthy ways of Grieving | Writer

  • Books
    • NEW BOOK! Bridging The Grief Gap
    • Shop
      • My Account
    • Amazon shop
  • About Me
    • Media Links
    • Work with Me
      • Counselling and Coaching
  • Resources
    • Courses
      • May We All Heal 2022 – A New Beginning
    • Donate
    • Grievers Support
    • Supporters Resources
    • Grieving Parents Support Network
    • Grief Quotes (Downloads)
    • Free Downloads
  • Blog
  • Podcast
    • Listen Here
    • Show Notes
  • English

grieving parents

Nathalie with Kelsey Chittick on Looking at Death Differently | Episode 10

August 29, 2022 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Kelsey Chittick

Today I speak with Kelsey about the loss of Nate, her husband, and the journey Kelsey took as part of dealing with his loss. She believes that: ‘The bigger the grief, the luckier you were.’ Kelsey shares so many different nuggets of wisdom that I found it hard to choose one to share with you below. Her way of looking at death and loss is different too many and honestly is refreshing. It will invite you to open your thinking and feeling about grief and trauma in a way you might never have thought to be possible. 

Here is just one of Kelsey’s nuggets of wisdom:

If you can take the bad out of dying, whether it is suicide or sudden loss or sickness. If you can trust on some level, there’s something bigger going on here. Just like when you’re having that child and you are birthing it, you’re in so much pain you think you’re dying. But there’s something bigger going on here… It gives you a little space to go: Maybe there’s a different way to walk through this.

Kelsey Chittick

Table of Contents

  • About this week’s guest 
  • Topics discussed in this episode
  • Resources mentioned in this episode
  • Links
  • Support this Podcast

About this week’s guest 

Kelsey Chittick is a writer, comedian, and inspirational speaker. Over the past 14 years, she has performed stand-up comedy all over Los Angeles and speaks at events around the country.  She is the author of the best seller Second Half – Surviving Loss and Finding Magic in the Missing, a book about the sudden death of her husband in 2017.

She is the host of Mom’s Don’t Have Time to Grieve Podcast and was the co-creator of KeepON, an inspiring and humorous podcast that explored how our greatest obstacles turn out to be our greatest gifts. 

Growing up in Florida, Kelsey was an accomplished student and athlete—an NCAA Championship individual qualifier and captain of the UNC women’s swimming team. She was married to Super Bowl champion Nate Hobgood-Chittick. 

Instagram:

@kelseydchittick
@momsdonthavetimetogrieve

Topics discussed in this episode

  • Kelsey’s husband Nate’s death from an enlarged heart and CTE (Chronic traumatic encephalopathy)
  • Dealing with the early stage and the physical experience of grief 
  • Grief happening versus deciding when to grieve
  • Death being the greatest teacher
  • Grief growing up with us
  • Living the best life in honor of them

Resources mentioned in this episode

  • Kelsey’s book Second Half – Surviving Loss and Finding Magic in the Missing

Links

–> For more information, please visit Nathalie’s website. 

–> Subscribe to the newsletter to receive updates on future episodes here.

–> Join the podcast’s Instagram page.

Thanks for listening to HOW TO DEAL WITH GRIEF AND TRAUMA. If you’d like to be updated on future episodes, please subscribe to my newsletter on Nathalie Himmelrich.com

If you need grief support, please contact me for a FREE 30 min discovery session.

HOW TO DEAL WITH GRIEF AND TRAUMA is produced and edited by me, Nathalie Himmelrich. 

Support this Podcast

To support this podcast, please rate, review, subscribe to, or follow the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.

Filed Under: podcast, emotions/feelings, grief support, grief/loss, grieving parents, partner loss, spirituality Tagged With: CTE, dealing with grief, dealing with loss, death, loss, loss of partner, nate hobgood chittick, raising children after loss, super bowl champion

Nathalie with Pinky on Creating a Legacy After the Loss of Her Son | Episode 9

August 22, 2022 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Nathalie with Pinky on Creating a Legacy After the Loss of Her Son | Episode 9

Today I speak with Pinky who lost her son due to inflammation that affected his heart when he was just a few months old. The birth and the loss of Leonardo both happened during the Covid pandemic and both Pinky and her husband understandably felt extremely isolated in their grief. Pinky dealt with her grief by joining a grief support group and seeing a therapist. Someone she had met through a group on Facebook gave her the book Surviving My First Year of Child Loss as a support resource.

Here is what Pinky shares about how reading the book affected her:

I felt like I was not alone in this journey. My feelings and my behaviours…, sometimes I thought I was crazy, but after reading the book I understood that it was pretty common, I was not crazy. I learned some very helpful coping mechanisms from parents in the book. I couldn’t find any similar resources in my native language Vietnamese.

Pinky

Table of Contents

    • About this week’s guest
    • Topics discussed in this episode
    • Resources mentioned in this episode
    • Links
  • Support this Podcast

About this week’s guest

Huong Lan ‘Pinky’ Vu is a communications professional who has lived and worked in Vietnam, Singapore, and the US. After the passing of her first son, Leonardo Vu Massa, in October 2020, she and her husband founded the Leonardo’s Smile Fund to support orphans in the SOS Children’s Villages Vietnam. She and her sister also translated the book Surviving My First Year of Child Loss: Personal Stories From Grieving Parents into Vietnamese with the hope to help bereaved parents in Vietnam have access to this helpful resource.

Topics discussed in this episode

  • The sudden loss of her son Leonardo during the Pandemic
  • Guilt and doubt, self-blame
  • The power of peer support
  • Reading Nathalie’s book Surviving My First Year of Child Loss: Personal Stories From Grieving Parents helped Pinky understand her grieving experience
  • The project of translating the book into Vietnamese
  • The difference in grieving between men and women

Resources mentioned in this episode

  • Nathalie’s book Surviving My First Year of Child Loss: Personal Stories From Grieving Parents
  • Order the Vietnamese book
  • Child Bereavement Support (Singapore) and the Facebook Page
  • Leonardo’s Smile blog

Links

–> For more information, please visit Nathalie’s website.

–> Subscribe to the newsletter to receive updates on future episodes here.

–> Join the podcast’s Instagram page.

Thanks for listening to HOW TO DEAL WITH GRIEF AND TRAUMA. If you’d like to be updated on future episodes, please subscribe to my newsletter on Nathalie Himmelrich.com

If you need grief support, please contact me for a FREE 30 min discovery session.

HOW TO DEAL WITH GRIEF AND TRAUMA is produced and edited by me, Nathalie Himmelrich.

Support this Podcast

To support this podcast, please rate, review, subscribe to, or follow the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.

Remember to keep breathing, I promise, it will get easier.

Filed Under: podcast, child loss, grief support, grief/loss, grieving parents, pandemie Tagged With: child loss, grief and loss, grieving, grieving a child, grieving parents, relationship, Surviving the first year after child loss

Nathalie with Ian Weedon on the Loss of Half of the Family | Episode 8

August 15, 2022 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Ian Weedon
Ian Weedon

Today I speak with Ian Weedon who has lost half of his family in the past few years. Listen to Ian telling us how he deals with loss and trauma in his later stage of life. Together, we also explore how the loved one’s presence can be felt in very different ways, not always the way we want or expect it. Ian’s life story shows the reality of living a life after loss.

 Ian says:

Of course, my life is very different. I only have the responsibility to my daughter now I don’t have the responsibility to the other half of the family. I miss them greatly. My life is not as good without them, that’s for sure. In spite of all the work that Anne’s position entailed, I miss that. I have a lot more freedom now. But I prefer it as it was.

Ian Weedon

Table of Contents

  • About this week’s guest 
  • Topics discussed in this episode
  • Links
  • Support this Podcast

About this week’s guest 

Originally from South Africa, Ian has been living in Switzerland for the past 36 years. He and his late wife Anne had two amazing children. Sadly, their son Derrick was killed in a motor accident in 2013 when he was just 34. Derrick had been married for just a year before his death and subsequently, his wife sued Ian’s daughter for money. The family endured four years of hardship on top of the grief.

Ian’s wife Anne suffered from MS (multiple sclerosis) for 40 years, starting soon after they were married. Despite all the challenges, they had a wonderful life together. Anne was wheelchair-bound for eighteen years. She was first partly and for the last few years entirely dependent on Ian. Anne died in 2018. 

Ian misses both Anne and Derrick and especially their smiles and touches. Ian feels extremely lucky to still have his wonderful loving daughter.

Topics discussed in this episode

  • Derrick’s traumatic loss through a car accident
  • Breaking the news to his wife and daughter
  • Anne’s life with MS and her subsequent death
  • Adjusting to life without half of his family
  • The presence of the lost loved one

Links

–> For more information, please visit Nathalie’s website. 

–> Subscribe to the newsletter to receive updates on future episodes here.

–> Join the podcast’s Instagram page.

Thanks for listening to HOW TO DEAL WITH GRIEF AND TRAUMA. If you’d like to be updated on future episodes, please subscribe to my newsletter on Nathalie Himmelrich.com

If you need grief support, please contact me for a FREE 30 min discovery session.

HOW TO DEAL WITH GRIEF AND TRAUMA is produced and edited by me, Nathalie Himmelrich. 

Support this Podcast

To support this podcast, please rate, review, subscribe to, or follow the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.

Remember to keep breathing, I promise, it will get easier.

Filed Under: podcast, child loss, grief support, grief/loss, grieving parents, partner loss, trauma Tagged With: child loss, grief, grief and loss, grief support, grieving a child, grieving parents, loss of partner, loss of wife, Multiple sclerosis, relationship

Nathalie with Amy Watson on Stillbirth, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy After Loss | Episode 7

August 8, 2022 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Amy Watson on Stillbirth, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy After Loss

Today I speak with Amy Watson who has experienced a stillbirth and a miscarriage. She talks about pregnancy after loss, how she struggled but also how she supported herself through the different losses. The interesting part of her story is how differently she experienced her two losses and how she managed those differences. 

Amy says:

‘I call it Radical Self-Compassion, which means you love every part of you, including the grief, including the trauma, including the mess that it at all is, because that’s the reality of being a human. We go through these hard things and even if we don’t realise it, we all have these ideas of what it’s supposed to look like and how we’re supposed to be. I mean, that kind of covers at all? It’s like an umbrella: if you’re just really kind yourself. Because sometimes we think, well, if I just love myself when I want to lay in bed, I’ll just lay in bed forever, right? I’ll never get any better. But the opposite is true because if you’re kind and you just give yourself the space to maybe sleep in a little bit, you’re probably going to process through. And end up being able to get going if you want to. Or maybe you lay in bed, and you don’t make it mean anything about you.’

Table of Contents

  • About this week’s guest 
    • Visit Amy here:
  • Topics discussed in this episode
  • Resources mentioned in this episode
  • Links
  • Support this Podcast

About this week’s guest 

Amy Watson is a certified life and grief coach. She takes her own experiences with stillbirth, miscarriage, and pregnancy after loss and combines them with proven techniques to help moms find themselves again after loss. She shares everything she knows to help you feel more peaceful, confident, and hopeful on her podcast, Smooth Stones. Amy wants all loss parents to know that by making friends with grief, tapping into their own inner voice, and learning to truly love themselves again they will be able to have not just a life to be endured, but one that is full and beautiful. Amy is a sought-after podcast guest, and she loves sharing her story, her babies, and hope everywhere she goes.

Visit Amy here:

  • Website
  • Instagram
  • Podcast Smooth Stones

Topics discussed in this episode

  • Lauren’s stillbirth
  • Explaining death to Lauren’s siblings
  • Pregnancy after loss and when you know it’s the right time
  • Whom to have on your support team for pregnancy after loss
  • Firefighter and builders – read more in the book Grieving Parents: Surviving Loss as a Couple by Nathalie Himmelrich
  • River’s miscarriage, complicated D&C with physical trauma
  • Difference between grieving Lauren and River
  • Grieving and faith
  • Radical self-compassion

Resources mentioned in this episode

  • Pregnancy After Loss eBook
  • Amy’s Instagram @amy.smoothstonescoaching

Links

–> For more information, please visit Nathalie’s website. 

–> Subscribe to the newsletter to receive updates on future episodes here.

–> Join the podcast’s Instagram page.

Thanks for listening to HOW TO DEAL WITH GRIEF AND TRAUMA. If you’d like to be updated on future episodes, please subscribe to my newsletter on Nathalie Himmelrich.com

If you need grief support, please contact me for a FREE 30 min discovery session.

HOW TO DEAL WITH GRIEF AND TRAUMA is produced and edited by me, Nathalie Himmelrich. 

Support this Podcast

To support this podcast, please rate, review, subscribe to, or follow the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.

Remember to keep breathing, I promise, it will get easier.

Filed Under: podcast, child loss, coaching, grief support, grief/loss, grieving parents, trauma Tagged With: child loss, grief support, grieving, grieving a child, grieving parents, miscarriage, pregnancy after loss, stillbirth

Healthy Versus Unhealthy Coping Strategies for Grief

August 3, 2022 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

All of my clients want to know how to deal with their grief and the aim is often and understandably to stop the intense pain.

coping strategies for grief

Healthy grieving strategies

If you have been reading up on it, you have found lists with healthy grief coping strategies, such as, for example:

  • Sharing your feelings: Talking to friends about how you feel can help ease the burden of loss. Let friends know that you don’t expect advice or answers and simply wish to share your emotions or reminisce about the person you’ve lost.
  • Keeping a journal: Writing your feelings and thoughts in a journal not only helps you process grief but also keeps a record of your progression through the grieving process. You can look back on how your view of the loss has changed over time, which can help you see that your bereavement is an ongoing process.
  • Getting creative: Making art, crafting, and playing music are all ways to express your creativity and process overwhelming emotions.
  • Setting aside time to grieve: Scheduling grief might seem counterintuitive, but putting specific time on your daily calendar to grieve can help you fully process intense emotions. Give yourself permission to cry, scream or otherwise display strong feelings during that time, and find a place where you feel free to let yourself grieve without fear of judgment.
  • Avoid making big changes in your life: A major loss causes a lot of upheaval in your life, so it’s best to keep everything else as normal as possible. Hold off on changing jobs, moving, or making other big life decisions until you have worked through the grief process for a while.
  • Exercising regularly: Add physical activity to your schedule to help you release energy as a form of grief expression. You can use a quiet walk or run to calm your body and emotions or punch and kick at a punching bag to work out anger and frustration about your loss.
  • Participating in social activities: Being home alone can leave you immersed in your grief, so make a point to go out to lunch with friends or join a social group.
  • Taking refuge in your religious practices: If you are a regular churchgoer, attending services may help you deal with grief. Private prayer, meditation, and listening to religious music are other ways to cope with the spiritual aspects of grieving.
  • Reminiscing in a healthy way: Your good memories of the person who has passed on can be a comfort during grief. Spend some time looking through old pictures, reading messages from the person who died, or watching videos taken during your loved one’s life. You might also find it helpful to talk aloud or write messages to the person who has died, expressing your feelings directly to that person and maintaining a connection that transcends death.
  • Memorialize your loved one: If the person you are grieving had an affinity for a specific cause or charity, consider volunteering or donating in that person’s memory.
  • Spending time with pets: Animal companions provide unconditional love and comfort that could help you cope with grief. If you don’t have pets of your own, consider volunteering at a local animal shelter to walk dogs or socialize kittens so they are ready for adoption.
  • Joining a grief support group: Being around others who have also recently experienced a major loss can help you share the burden of grief. If your loved one died of a specific illness, such as cancer or heart disease, there might be a local support group for people who have lost someone to that specific disease.

(Source: Three Oaks Hospice)

But at the beginning, in the raw grief period, even little things might be too much to handle.

Unhealthy coping mechanisms for grief

This is also when people often describe using other coping strategies.

Unhealthy coping mechanisms may include: 

  • Denial: refusing to acknowledge your loss or grief.
  • Risk-taking behaviour: this could include acting without thought of consequences and acting out through unhealthy relationships.
  • Substance abuse: turning to alcohol or drugs to numb your feelings.
  • Over or under eating: using food as a tool to numb or distract.
  • Obsessing/Controlling: since you could not control your loss, you may seek to control what you can. 

There can be many factors, including low self-esteem, or a history of untreated anxiety and depression that can lead to unhealthy coping mechanisms. There may be a sense of emptiness or lack of safety that makes their loss feel intolerable and this inability to tolerate the emotions leads to those unhealthy behaviours. 

Intense emotions – how to deal with them?

Tolerating intense emotions requires practice, patience, and support. This is where an experienced therapist can support you in working through those intense emotions. By guiding you to understand the grieving process and dealing with obstacles and grief triggers you can experience a resilient way and the belief that you can deal with your grief.

Listen to Kellie Sipos on the How to Deal With Grief and Trauma Podcast on how she dealt with her drug abuse following the loss of her daughter.

Photo by Salman Hossain Saif on Unsplash

Filed Under: grief/loss, child loss, coaching, communication, counselling, depression, emotions/feelings, grief support, grieving parents, health, mental health, trauma Tagged With: health, health grieving mechanism, healthy grieving strategies, unhealthy, unhealthy grieving mechanism, unhealthy grieving strategies

Nathalie with Kellie Sipos on Drug Abuse and Multiple Losses | Episode 6

August 1, 2022 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Today I speak with Kellie Sipos who I met as part of being a guest on her podcast, My Child Left Home for Heaven. Kellie has experienced multiple losses within her own family which started with her father’s suicide, followed by the sudden unexpected loss of her sister. In 2018 she lost her daughter Emilie through an accidental drug overdose after which Kellie candidly shares how she herself abused drugs to manage her own grief. Just a few months ago, her mother, who she cared for the last few months of her life, died too. 

‘Emilie’s grief was so on the top of my heart every single day until I lost my mom. Now it’s like the grief of my mom is shadowing over top of the grief of Emilie, and I feel really guilty. I feel like I’m not grieving her appropriately. And then I realized: No, I’m just healing. I’m starting to move on from some of that. And yes, the grief with my mom is newer but that in time will be the same way. I think maybe having to go through it again somehow helped me get over that big hurdle of Emilie.’

Kellie Sipos

Table of Contents

  • About this week’s guest 
  • Topics discussed in this episode
  • Resources mentioned in this episode
  • Links

About this week’s guest 

Kellie Sipos is the mother of 4 daughters who tragically lost her oldest, Emilie to an accidental drug overdose on July 22, 2018.  Since this time Kellie has tried to stay focused on making a difference in this world. Working with children and young adults with Special Needs as a therapeutic riding instructor and an equine specialist. Mental health has always been her focus but since the loss of her child she is on a new mission, starting her podcast My Child Left Home for Heaven. Being an avid podcast listener she quickly found there were not a lot of podcasts on child loss from the Moms perspective. Kellie is also the state administrator for Drug Overdose Awareness and Moms Against Drugs as well as sharing her daughter’s story in the public school system to help bring awareness to the dangers of drug use. Keeping busy, speaking out and transparency in her grief have helped her to keep the joy in her life after child loss.

Topics discussed in this episode

  • The recent loss of her mother
  • Emilie, her drug addiction leading to her accidental drug overdose which killed her
  • Kellie’s granddaughter being taken away by her father after Emilie’s death
  • Drug addiction and abuse within the family and in the process of dealing with grief
  • PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) following the traumatic loss of Emilie
  • Suicide of her father, the sudden death of her sister
  • Post loss guilt and regrets
  • Compassion fatigue for therapists

Resources mentioned in this episode

  • Grieving Parents: Surviving Loss as a Couple by Nathalie Himmelrich
  • Shattered by Gary Roe 

Links

–> For more information, please visit Nathalie’s website. 

–> Subscribe to the newsletter to receive updates on future episodes here.

–> Join the podcast’s Instagram page.

Thanks for listening to HOW TO DEAL WITH GRIEF AND TRAUMA. If you’d like to be updated on future episodes, please subscribe to my newsletter on Nathalie Himmelrich.com

If you need grief support, please contact me for a FREE 30 min discovery session.

HOW TO DEAL WITH GRIEF AND TRAUMA is produced and edited by me, Nathalie Himmelrich. 

Filed Under: podcast, child loss, emotions/feelings, grief support, grief/loss, grieving parents, health, loss of parent, parenting, trauma Tagged With: child loss, drug abuse, drug overdose, grief, grief and loss, grief support, grieving a child, grieving a parent, grieving parents, relationship, suicide

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to page 5
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 13
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Cart

Subscribe for updates
    Built with ConvertKit
    Nathalie Himmelrich

    I accompany people therapeutically as a holistic counsellor and coach.

    I walk alongside people dealing with the challenges presented by life and death.

    I’m also a writer and published author of multiple grief resource books and the founder of the Grieving Parents Support Network.

    Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Affiliate Disclosure

    Copyright © 2012 - 2022 Nathalie Himmelrich | All Rights Reserved

    We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However you may visit Cookie Settings to provide a controlled consent.
    Cookie settingsACCEPT
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
    CookieDurationDescription
    cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
    cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
    cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
    cookielawinfo-checkbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
    cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
    viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
    Functional
    Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
    Performance
    Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
    Analytics
    Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
    Advertisement
    Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
    Others
    Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
    Save & Accept