Nathalie Himmelrich

Inspiring Hope | Finding healthy ways of Grieving | Writer

grieving parents

Nathalie with Joy Bornstein on Using Art to Cope with Loss and Trauma | Episode 19

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Joy Bornstein

Today on the podcast I’m speaking with Joy, who I’ve known since 2015 as part of the May We All Heal community. This community was born out of a group of women from the Grieving Parents Support Network. They came together year after year during the month of May to focus on dealing with their grief using creativity. 

Joy has used a unique approach with her artwork, which can be seen on her Instagram channel. 

Joy describes how she moved from feeling ashamed for disassociating from her pain, which was her coping mechanism to understanding and appreciating it as her survival strategy at the time. 

Joy says:

You deal with it when you can. That is how you are surviving. That is how your brain is keeping you safe in a situation that is not safe so now it’s like ‘oh yeah just disassociating, it’s okay, I’ll deal with it later.’ I mean it doesn’t mean it’s easy to deal with but just knowing that yeah that’s an ok thing to do for my brain to survive.

About this week’s guest 

Joy Bornstein uses art as a way to process everyday emotions and the long-term scars left by trauma. She is the mother of 3 living children, the mother of a stillborn son, Bennet, and a former victim of domestic abuse. Joy uses colour, line, and shape to explore emotions in a way that can’t be expressed in words in an attempt to turn pain into beauty.

Joy’s Instagram: @fire_fly_joy

Topics discussed in this episode

  • Stillbirth and physical trauma
  • Shame around the coping strategy of disassociating 
  • Dissolving a marriage, domestic abuse, divorce, custody battles, and dealing with the children’s trauma
  • May We All Heal – using art to cope with loss and trauma 

Resources mentioned in this episode

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. 

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Nathalie with Amie Lands on Child Loss, Cancer, and Life’s Trauma | Episode 15

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Amie Lands Podcast
Amie Lands

Today I speak with Amie where she shares how her life started with the loss of connection to her father due to mental illness and the challenging relationship with her alcoholic mother.

Amie then became pregnant for the first time, but her daughter Ruthie died after 33 days.
At 36 years, Amie was diagnosed with neck cancer which was successfully treated. She then shares how they moved across the States and their truck caught fire with many of their belongings including Ruthie’s memories gone.

Dealing with all those extreme situations, Amie learned and practiced one thing:

I live in this moment. I try not to think too much ahead of what’s to come next or what so many call future tripping. I don’t put myself in what could happen and so I really truly live today. I have a calendar and plan ahead, but I really just try and be in this moment.

Amie Lands

About this week’s guest

Amie Lands is the author of Navigating the Unknown, Our Only Time, Perfectly Imperfect Family, and the Tending to Your Heart series. She is a cancer survivor, founder of The Ruthie Lou Foundation, and a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist®. Since her daughter’s brief life, Amie’s passion is offering hope and providing support to bereaved families. Amie lives in South Carolina, United States with her husband and their two sons.

Amie’s website: www.amielandsauthor.com

Instagram: @amielandsauthor

Topics discussed in this episode

  • Early loss of her father through mental illness
  • Early child loss and pregnancy after loss
  • A neck cancer diagnosis at the age of 36
  • Moving across the States and a fire that destroyed many personal belongings
  • How to love somebody that isn’t part of your life
  • Learning to ask for help

Resources mentioned in this episode

  • The Me You Can’t See (show on mental illness, Apple TV)

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.

SPECIAL Podcast Episode: Nathalie with Chris on Grief Eleven Years Later | Episode 12

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Nathalie with Chris on Grief Eleven Years Later | Episode 12

Today I speak with my ex-husband and the father of our children. We reflect on eleven years since the death of our younger twin daughter A’Mya. In doing this we are spending time speaking about her, honoring her place in our lives, and, as I’d like to see it: spending time parenting her.

Our conversation was moving and opened my eyes to parts of Chris’ grief that I wasn’t aware of.

Chris says the following about his personal experience of grief:

It is a constant thing; it never goes away. It often pops up in little moments, sometimes catches you unexpectedly and all of a sudden, it’s like: Oh, I wasn’t thinking about these things and here it is. And I think that will happen all my life. You know, there’s going to be all sorts of key moments in Ananda Mae’s life where I’ll be wondering what would have been like two of them, what would A’Mya have been like. How would she have been? I think that’s natural.

Chris Young

I, Nathalie cannot say this often enough:

I think that is so important for people to understand that this is not something that goes away. It’s just like my mother she will always be my mother and there are key moments that I miss her more and then key moments where it is less present. But this is not going to go away because she’s dead. Part of her not being here present physically is a topic, the same way as for me, for you, for Ananda Mae, it’s a topic that her sister is not growing up with her.

Nathalie Himmelrich

About this week’s guest

Chris and Nathalie are the parents of Ananda Mae and A’Mya, twin girls who do not grow up with each other. As their parents, they do their best at raising one here on earth and the other in the beyond, wherever that is.

Topics discussed in this episode

  • What we both remember from our story of loss and trauma
  • Individual differences in grieving and dealing with grief
  • Ongoing grief, what that looks like eleven years later
  • Parenting the non-physical child
  • Sibling’s grief

Resources mentioned in this episode

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.

Nathalie with Callie Hawkins on Creating a Legacy | Episode 11

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Callie Hawkins

Today I speak with Callie about the loss of her first son Coley and how she created a legacy by creating an exhibition at Present Lincoln’s Cottage in Washington, DC. Listen to Callie describing how she learned to intentionally grieve. One thing to definitely look out for in this episode is how she experiences grief loving her back. 

Callie says:

‘One thing I wish I had known was that it is still possible to have a relationship with your loved one who has died. It’s certainly not a relationship that you anticipate. It’s not the relationship that you even necessarily wanted or had dreamed of or could have imagined. It is beautiful all at the same time.’

About this week’s guest 

Callie Hawkins is a grief activist and bereaved mother whose son, Coley, died of unexplained stillbirth in February 2018 — one day after his due date. In her professional role as Director of Programming at President Lincoln’s Cottage — a historic site and museum in Washington, DC where President Abraham Lincoln and his family moved after the death of their son, Willie — Hawkins curated Reflections on Grief and Child Loss, an exhibit that connects the Lincoln family’s experience with the deaths of their children with modern families who have lost children across age and experience. Callie, her husband Jason and their living son, Fletcher, live with a deep and abiding love for Coley in the greater Washington, DC area.  

Topics discussed in this episode

  • Callie’s son Coley dying from stillbirth
  • Guilt and shame
  • Coley’s legacy
  • Grief loving me back
  • Intentional grieving
  • Exhibition at Lincoln’s Cottage

Resources mentioned in this episode

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.

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

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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

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

Resources mentioned in this episode

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.

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

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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

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.

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    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.

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