Episode 21: Ashmeeta Madhav, Grief Support
In this episode of the Queer Divorce Club podcast featuring Ashmeeta Madhav, resilience and grief support advocate, and founder of Growth StoryHub. Ashmeeta shares her journey of navigating divorce at a young age, remarriage, and the profound loss of her second husband to a terminal illness, all while raising young children. Through her own experience, Ashmeeta recognized the need for support in processing grief, especially in the context of divorce, where it often goes unaddressed. She offers insights into the multifaceted emotions of grief, strategies for self-compassion, and navigating the process of rebuilding amidst loss. Ashmeeta empowers listeners to honor their intuition, set boundaries, and extend themselves the compassion they deserve during times of grief.
Music in this episode is from Bungalow Heaven. You can find more music from Bungalow Heaven and singer/songwriter Gretchen DeVault at gretchendevault.com.
Ashmeeta Madhav
Ashmeeta Madhav, resilience/grief support advocate and the founder of Growth StoryHub, empowers individuals who have experienced sudden or terminal loss and feel stuck, overwhelmed, and vulnerable. Through personal experiences with miscarriage, rejection, and death, she discovered ways to pick herself up and live again. Her latest book, "What's Your Story, # Way to create a reality with your thinking," shares her realizations, tips, tools, and techniques. Her commitment to education showcases her dedication to making a positive impact on the world.
You can find Ashmeeta online at storyyoutellyourself.com, on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Show Transcript
Hey, hey, Queer Divorce Club. Welcome back. This is Tera. And today I'm excited to bring you a new episode of the podcast featuring Ashmeeta Madhav. Ashmeeta is a resilience and grief support advocate and founder of Growth Story Hub, a group that provides access to support and resources when dealing with trauma, loss, and grief.
Ashmeeta was divorced young and then remarried. After losing her second husband from a terminal illness with young kids in tow, Ashmeeta set out on a journey to heal and feel through her grief. After her own journey, she realized that more people needed support with grief, no matter how they were experiencing it.
Grief can come in many forms, and huge life changes and losses through divorce is one area where grief can be prevalent with very little support for those who experience it. Ashmeeta walked me through the various emotions we can have in grief. How to support yourself through grief, and how to rebuild while grieving.
Ashmeeta has wonderful advice on how to set boundaries for yourself, listen to your inner [00:01:00] knowing, and support yourself with compassion and understanding while you're grieving. There is no right way to grieve, but one thing Ashmeeta knows for sure is that you have to believe your own intuition and give yourself the utmost compassion during the hardest times.
She says that compassion for yourself really starts and ends with you. I'm looking forward to sharing our talk with you, so let's get started.
Hi, Ashmeeta! Welcome to Queer Divorce Club! Hi, how are you? Thank you very much. I'm so happy to have you here. Most of our topics have been focused on specifically on divorce or being queer. But something that's a huge, profound piece of divorce that [00:02:00] I didn't realize before I got divorced is the idea that, that you have to go through a grief process following that following the relationship.
And it's something that a lot of people in the Queer Divorce Club have brought up, friends who've gotten divorced, and they don't understand the heaviness of that grief. Whether they choose divorce or not, it becomes a really big struggle or a big shift in how they live their life or connect with others.
And so I really think it's really important to talk about. So I'm very thankful that you're here today with us. I appreciate it. Yes. Thank you very much. To get us started, can you give us an idea of what you do to what work you do around with grief? Yes. So I am the founder of an organization called Growth Story Hub.
We provide a safe place supportive place for individuals to kind of navigate the complexities of grief. We have things like discussion groups blogs that I write and also an initiative that's [00:03:00] it's actually a challenge that we have out called the Grieve and Grow Challenge. So all of the information is on my website about that challenge.
And the group basically is more just to help people who are dealing with grief to come to a place where they could probably find some resources, some support and that kind of stuff. So that's why way of giving back after all of the various different losses that I've experienced and the grief that was associated with it.
What brought you to focusing on grief and your interest in grief? Well, I I think my last major experience that I had with loss was the, when my husband passed away four years back after struggling with pancreatic cancer and just the grief of watching that disease, that illness, that cancer, [00:04:00] what it did to his body and what it did to our family.
That grief was happening realistically at the same time while we were dealing with this whole cancer situation. And then when, after he passed all of the logistics and the reality that knocked us all we have three kids. So each one of us in our own way, grieving and trying to work through this thing that happened to us and shook our world.
So that's kind of like what brought me into the whole grief thing. Cause I was, you know, watching my kids, hearing of a lot of other people who are going through grief and just knowing what a lonely, stuck place it can be. I wanted to just put out my, what I've gained from my experience and the things that I'm doing to help myself.
You never know if you could help someone else just by sharing. That's basically how it started. Sure, absolutely. And it sounds like [00:05:00] you very much understand the idea that grief doesn't, you don't just get to stop your life to grieve, you have to do it at the same time sometimes as doing other things, as taking care of kids, as moving through all these other parts of life.
And that's a huge, a huge part of why the grief process can be so difficult, right? We can't just sit with it. At any given moment, we have so many other life factors and so many other things that get in the way of that. Exactly. Yes, that is 100 percent true. When my mom had passed away back in 2008 I was still a new mom myself, still had two little, both my older kids were still young, studying elementary school by myself in a new country.
All the dynamics that go with that, just learning to live in a new country and things like that. But then at the same time dealing with the grief I found myself living a double life because grief is just that kind of a thing that once you've experienced it, you could actually be in a [00:06:00] space to support or even just understand and empathize.
not fix. There's nothing to fix here. Just be able to understand and empathize with another human being. But until, not until you experience that level of grief in you is my opinion. It's my opinion. Yeah. Well, it sounds like you have a lot of experience to put behind that. I hear you saying like, you can't fix it.
You can't just flip a switch on it. You have to, you know, why can't you just fix grief? Like what is, what is it? It is, it is a reality that one is put into. based on an experience. And I mean, you know, death isn't, you don't only experience grief because of death. You can experience grief when you have a miscarriage.
You can experience a certain level, you know, a degree of grief when like with divorce, rejection, social alienation, you know, all of that kind of stuff. As human beings, we want to feel like we [00:07:00] add value or we welcome or we belong somewhere. And with grief, what happens is You find yourself in a lonely place and because you find yourself in this lonely place with all of these emotions that are not so easily accepted out in society, maybe for various reasons.
Maybe people don't know how to react to you. Maybe it's just too much. So they, you know, And the messages that on the receiving side, the person was actually grieving, the messages that you subtly get are like, okay, this person doesn't care about me or, you know, all of those negative messages. And I found myself in that place as well.
And as time has gone, I've just realized that this is a journey and it is my journey. So I have got to be kind to myself with whatever comes up with for [00:08:00] me. And this is different for each human being based on the level of loss and the intensity and that kind of stuff. It definitely is a unique journey that whatever comes up for me, I need, I'm going to embrace it.
It's going to be hard, but I'm going to embrace it and work with it and take it one step at a time. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking forward to talk with you more about that. And I'm interested as you're talking about that loneliness. I think that's something that a lot of people who are going through divorce are feeling is that intense loneliness.
Do you think there's something unique specifically about the grief in divorce and why grief is so profound in divorce? Why do you think that is? It's, it's kind of like this, you, you get married or you commit yourself to another human being. And with that comes this, all these hopes and dreams and expectations and that relationship that, because at the end of the day, [00:09:00] it's these feelings are something that I am feeling towards the next person.
And then I commit to this relationship. And with that comes this beautiful. thing that two people create, right? And then when that suddenly just. goes away. It's almost like what I felt. I mean, I felt it before when I had I was married before and I had that happen to me where I was just totally rejected.
And so yeah, kind of a divorce too. I felt really like I felt vulnerable. I felt used. I felt let down. All of those emotions came up for me and I had nowhere to send them because somebody did this to me. I didn't do this. I didn't decide this, right? So for instance, like when my husband, okay, my husband passed away, [00:10:00] we had this beautiful marriage that we worked at and, you know, built for 23 years and suddenly he's gone.
Who am I? Is what I struggled with a lot. So that feeling of loneliness and feeling of that connection and that emotional investment that we had both put into that relationship. It's like, okay. it's gone. What was, what was it worth? What, you know, it really makes you feel very alone and disillusioned.
Kind of just sitting with that and practicing a lot of self love. Yeah. Is what has helped. Yeah. Can you explain a little bit in that, like, I heard you talk about lots of different emotions and of course we see as we go through divorce or any type of big life change, we see all these different emotions.
How is grief one of the emotions? Is grief a process? What is grief specifically in that? Well, grief is basically the, my opinion of the whole, and my understanding of [00:11:00] what I feel like it is, it is basically a symptom or like sort of a reaction, my, my mind and my body and my whole being reacting to an experience that has changed my life.
So if I look at it that way, then like with any illness, when you have symptoms, you deal with the symptoms. We can't, I mean, the root cause is my husband is dead. I have to deal with, that is the reality. It's nothing that I'm going to be able to, and even in the case of a divorce, right? It's when people decide they want to go, one person decides to go a separate way.
The other person feels like, okay, I really don't want this. I think we can still work at it or whatever it is in that, in that scenario. One person is going to be left with all of this baggage that, you know, there's still very been that glimmer of hope. And [00:12:00] yeah, yeah, I think even like you are answering the question.
I think it sounds like. You're saying that grief is kind of the, the overarching shift that you're making and all the stuff that goes underneath that and everything that gets carried along with that, the loss and the hope and all of that. And I also heard you say that, you know, there's this grief if somebody chose to divorce and you didn't have the If you were the one that didn't choose it, but are going through the divorce.
But I think there's also this grief on the other side, where if you're the one that chose it, you're grieving what you hoped you could have had in that relationship. A lot of times, right, you're grieving what you hoped or what you thought your life was going to be. And so there's this huge loss. There's this huge loss in what you thought it was going to be, you know, and that's similar to like, if somebody has, has passed away or if somebody is sick or if you lose a dog, you know, that grief, it's like, again, your life is changing, you're [00:13:00] shifting.
And whether you choose the divorce or not, you're, You're grieving what it could have been, what you wanted it to be, what you thought it was going to be.
Can you explain, I think everybody's heard of the stages of grief. If you haven't, Google stages of grief and you can find that there's five, it's everywhere. I feel like my entire life people have been like, you're just in denial. You're just in the anger part, you know, all of that. So could you give us just a quick, like, glimpse of what are the five stages of grief and how do you know which one you're in and why is it important to know?
Okay. So from, you know, the five stages of grief, I guess, as you said, we can Google it, and we'll see. It is, you know, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and then acceptance, finally. I really think that you know, it's really a cool way of having some sort of framework towards understanding all of these complex emotions that we go through when we have challenging situations, like.
loss. [00:14:00] And, you know, they kind of validate our feelings and make us just give us a framework to work with. Recognizing that these challenges can, you know, by self reflection and seeking support it can really help. And in each of these different stages, it is beneficial to sort of like acknowledge.
So denial, you know, it's beneficial when you find that, you know, I can't come to grips with this. thing that has happened, just acknowledging and embracing reality is where the whole sort of denial, you can counter that by accepting. And then anger is also comes from a place of I'm disappointed. I'm maybe even afraid to some point.
Like if you really peel back the [00:15:00] onion, the core, you know and then basically just trying to bargaining, depression, all of those things, all of those you know, different parts of grief. I don't think they happen in a specific order. I noticed. When I was grieving when my mom passed away my very first experience with death because we had spoken about these kinds of things in our family as I was a young kid and things like that.
I mean, I knew it was going to happen one day, but of course, when it did happen, I still did go through these feelings. I didn't find myself bargaining so much. I didn't find myself having too much of a, like a depression, but I did have denial and anger. And then at some point later down the line, when I started just getting more familiar with death and doing more research and spiritual growth and all that kind of stuff came to a [00:16:00] point of acceptance where, you know, I'm, yes, we all say is life and death part of the circle of life.
We know that, but when we are exposed to that death, when somebody, when that loss happens, we're just thrown off our feet. It's like the ground has been pulled out from under us and we've totally lost. So this is a nice framework. It's a really nice framework to use, but it doesn't go in that order and it doesn't, you don't have to necessarily feel all of it.
That's my experience. Yeah, so it's not a ladder. You're just walking up as you go through the process. Dang. It would be really nice if it was, right? You could just move from one to the other, push it along real fast. See if you can get through. You can't just do that. No, but you know, think of, think of the other side of it.
Like, you know, not, not, I mean if I only go through a few of those things and not everything, [00:17:00] but I think what needs With grief, I think everybody actually goes through and I'm generalizing here, but once you experience a level of loss, you automatically start becoming aware of yourself and your feelings and what comes with different things that come up for you.
I don't know. I'm still exploring that idea in my mind, but I have noticed that I have become so much more aware of me. And how I react in different situations and how this grief has changed me so much. Yeah, so if you start, you know, reacting with it or connecting with the grief inside you, you can become a little bit more aware of your own feelings and how you're connecting to other things and, and that sort of stuff.
Yeah. Yes. And how you're showing up. for yourself and for the people around you, even though you still have this grief inside of you. Right, right. So it's a practice of, of listening to your body, listening to what's happening, [00:18:00] the same as every other emotion we're feeling, but it's just intense. It's just, yeah, and that's why I feel that, you know, solitude and being alone, it's actually not a bad thing.
You know, we say we're alone, but are we really alone? Even when you're physically alone, you're still with someone. You're with yourself. So you might be physically alone, but you're never going to be alone, alone, ever. Yeah. How do you convince yourself that you're not alone when you're just by yourself? Is that a thing?
Is that a possible?
No one's ever asked me that question. And I haven't really given that too much a thought, but I enjoy my solitude. I enjoy my lonely time, my time alone. There was a time where I was actually, I would feel like, Oh, I'm alone. There's nobody with me. Who do I rely on if I need to get this done? Or if I, and if I think about it, it's all the [00:19:00] logistics that I'm trying to find you.
help or whatever it is to get an action done, right? Which is something that is doable. And, you know, just by reaching out to people, you'll find someone who can help you, but being alone with myself, how do I convince myself that it's okay to be alone by myself and to be happy with being alone? It's just the more you are with yourself alone and you do all of that introspecting, journaling in whichever form that you can, retrospect, you know, just Going within and talking to yourself.
A lot of the self talk, it just automatically starts feeling comfortable. And once you start feeling comfortable with yourself, being just you and yourself, I mean, when you go out on a walk, if you don't necessarily have company, if you go out on a hike or you go out for a walk in nature a lot of times people are doing it alone or they'll have their headphones on and they'll be listening to something or whatever it is, but sometimes not even [00:20:00] listening to anything and just authentically being alone.
It's, it's not scary at all, really. It sounds scary, but it really isn't. It's, it's amazing what comes up and then just going with that. Yeah, so to take the leap of being by yourselves and feeling the safety of the, of being by yourself and talking, it takes time, right? Like you were saying, the journaling, the walking, the practice, yeah, just like anything.
Yes, it does take time, but I really, really do feel one thing I've learned through this whole journey, especially after the death of my husband in this last four years, which has really changed me a lot and helped me in so many ways because I've had to rediscover myself is. investing in myself, parenting myself, setting boundaries, being intentional about where I go, what I do, how much time I spend, wherever it is that I spend.
I see that as me investing in myself and getting to know myself. [00:21:00] We do that. We do that when we get into a relationship, right? With another person, we, we give our best. We go all out when we parent, when we are nurturing our children, our infants, our young children. It's just a natural thing that we do for them because we want the best for them.
Yeah. So how about when you're in that situation where you're struggling and you're alone and you know the world out there is not able to be there for you the way you need them to be there for you. How about starting with yourself and doing it for yourself and then slowly teaching the people around you or letting them know what you need and don't need and that's where the boundary work comes in.
Yeah. Yeah. That's what I think. Yeah. It sounds like you're so peaceful in that space. Like it feels so comforting and I know I've been on that practice too of like trying to parent myself and connect with myself and learning self compassion and all those things that it takes. And whenever it does work, it does feel so good, but it is so scary.
You're right. It's so interesting how we can support [00:22:00] everybody else and nurture our kids and our parents and our friends and all of these things, but it's so hard to do for ourselves. So frustrating. So frustrating. It's frustrating. You are so right. I struggled with that for a while, and I still do sometimes, you know because I'm trying to show up for everyone else and try to be there for the kids and trying to fill shoes that I don't know where I necessarily need to be filling shoes, those shoes, you know.
So it adds a lot of stress. Into my life and I, okay, you know, I think I need to priorit, you know, put things into perspective. Be who I am. I want to know who am I and what am I capable of. So that's where, that's why spending that time and with yourself helps you to get understand what are my values?
What am I here for? What do I think I'm here for? Lemme discover. I really see this as I [00:23:00] come to see this as this. journey that is just so rewarding in so many ways, even though it has so many challenges, but It's like, you know, watching a lot of the rings and you see how things evolve and people change and characters change.
And especially that, you know, the way that ring can, if you allow it to, it can take over. So that's where that whole embracing and empowering yourself comes in. So it's about you and something that I use to help myself, keep myself on perspective, in perspective and on track to keep in my lane kind of thing is I remind myself continually that it all starts and ends with me.
It all starts and ends with me and how I have choices then. So how am I going to try to do that? It all starts and [00:24:00] ends with me. How many times a day did you have to say that to yourself at first? I had a lot of self, you know, I found these few little things that I say to myself continuously and sometimes I'd be saying it to myself almost, initially I would be saying it to myself every day, almost every hour.
It was some juice. It just depends on what would come up for me and how uncomfortable or anxious I was feeling in any situation or place that I was in or whatever was going on around me at that very given moment. Things like just saying to myself you're safe, all is well. A lot of times when we're anxious it's that mind, especially when it's, you know, the experience is really traumatic, your mind automatically goes into that fight or flight mode.
Where, and your nervous system is all fired up. So, when I read that somewhere, I thought, you know, I need to calm this nervous system down. How do I [00:25:00] do that? And I started experimenting with various different things. One thing that works for me is just tapping my heart and reminding my, repeatedly saying to myself, all is well, you're safe.
So that self talk again, you know sometimes I can't be sitting in public and tapping my heart, somebody will think I'm crazy. So I'm sitting there and repeating it in my mind. You know, maybe I'll close my eyes. All is fine. Incorporate some deep breathing with that. And then, yes, remind myself continually.
Yeah, it's really reassuring that you were like, it's a lot and sometimes it's like every few minutes and sometimes it's less. And I think that I know I personally can get into this space where it's like, I feel like I'm having to do it too many times during the day. And if I haven't, if I'm doing it too many times and I'm giving myself a hard time for it, and then I'm like, this is a process, you know, it's this whole cycle of like, just, it's okay, you're okay, it's natural, but it's really difficult to get to that [00:26:00] spot.
You know, you said something very interesting there and that you beat up on yourself about not being able to do it. And that in itself is us being so hard on ourselves. Think about this. When a child is learning to ride a bicycle, right? We are so supportive and they will fall and they want to give up and they want to do all of that stuff because it becomes hard.
It's like, I can't do this, all of that, right? Us as parents, or as a person who's that motivational, you know, we motivate them, we inspire them, we support them. We, you got this, keep going, you can do this, right? Why is it that we, when it comes to ourselves, Where, oh, you know, for my, in my case, I was like, so diligent with my meditation practice for a long time.
And then suddenly something happened, which shifted all of that. And I wasn't able to do it at the time, and I wasn't able to keep that going. [00:27:00] And with, as time went on, I slowly started losing it. And I'm mad with myself now because I'm not able to do that. And I know that benefits me so much and I really enjoy it.
And I've realized, you know what? I need to be realistic. Things change. Things are constantly evolving. That's the nature of change and the dynamics of change. So, how about I just give myself a little bit of empathy here. I'm not, you know, trying, I'm not making, I know I'm not making excuses for myself.
Reality has changed a little. Dynamics have changed. But I know I want to do this. I'm going to take baby steps and start doing it again. I'm Yeah. You deserve just as much support and motivation as that kid on the bike. Yes. It's really true. It's really true. So let's not put ourselves down when we feel like I know I need to be doing this but I'm not doing it.
just the fact that you're aware that there's something that you're doing for yourself. And maybe you [00:28:00] might need to do a lot of it at one time because that's what you need then. Later down the line, you may not need to do this so much of it. You may need to still do it, but not so much of it. And we don't need to beat up on ourselves about it.
Yeah. Ooh. That's so and so lovely. It's lovely to reach that space heading in the right direction. I'd like to talk a little bit, even this is so good. Just even that part I feel like is, you know, a reminder of common humanity that all of us go through the same types of processes when we're in this immense grief space.
Like we give ourself shame, we give ourself a hard time, we need extra support and all of that. It's absolutely okay. And that's such a good reminder. And I think one of the things with divorce that, and I think with any type of grief, but specifically with divorce, your life is completely changing after that divorce, right?
Like maybe you were married for 20 years, maybe you're only married for two years, no matter what, you were building this specific life and now it's completely changing. So you have to completely reframe [00:29:00] how you're looking at what you want. You have to take control of what you want. You have to be in this space where you have freaking no clue what you want, right?
Like there's all of these things that are on the other side of like completely shifting your life and it's really could be traumatic, you know, small T or big T depending on what you're going through. How was it possible to do that at the same time? Like what things do you need to do to both grieve and rebuild at the same time?
The one important thing is, you know, honoring the past. but also at the same time. So you're doing this like simultaneously honoring the past, whenever things about the past come up, but creating a new reality for yourself. And the way to kind of do that is to, like we were talking earlier, prioritizing self care, kindness towards yourself allowing yourself to feel, to give [00:30:00] the, you know, giving yourself the permission to experience those range emotions that come up.
When they come up, not to push them down or subdue them. So as those emotions come up to kinda be with them and understand them, it is actually a very important part of the grieving process, acknowledging them and just giving yourself that permission to experience that emotion. Sometimes you don't even understand the emotion.
I need to cry right now. And I remember that after my husband passed away and when some of the, you know, the logistics of what happens after a person passes away, all of that stuff, especially when I find myself alone, it's just like, I'm just crying. And I'm like, why am I crying? Nothing happened.
Nothing physically happened to me. But this emotion is so intense. It's like the soda pop bottle, you know, when you shake it and that well, it needs to come out. You can't keep it in and actually letting it out is so [00:31:00] healthy. Yes, let's be responsible about where we do it, how we do it all of that kind of stuff.
But being able to do, to let that out is really healing. It's your body's way of saying, your body's helping you. It seems weird, but it really, our bodies are helping us. They protect us. They help us. So allowing yourself to feel, seeking support, there may you know, there's, there's lots of support groups and all of that kind of stuff out there.
Specifically in the sense of grief after the loss, like death, there's things like some funeral homes have social workers you know, They, for me, that was almost a life changer. That was so precious. I really appreciated that. My husband was in hospice, so we had the service of hospice after he passed away.
Hospice has a beautiful group that they, a group setting where they offer to, you know, [00:32:00] surviving People who survive, what are the words there? But yeah, they had this grief support group. And then there's another organization called grief share. Which is like a six to eight week program mostly run by volunteers and things like that.
But a safe place that you could go to you working through a workbook and understanding things. So there's a lot of logic put behind it, but then your emotions are also in there as well. And I just love the way that thing is, it's structured. So that is also. Another form of, so looking for that community, that support group, somewhere where you can kind of feel safe and be able to get that support.
And then practicing self compassion treating yourself with kindness being your own best friend, I feel is really important. Boundary work, definitely, as I, you know, mentioned earlier as well, setting those new boundaries [00:33:00] with this new life that you're creating, because you're dealing with these emotions of something that would have been, and at the same time, you're creating something new.
So you're constantly find yourself going back and forth, back and forth. So setting those boundaries is definitely something that helps to keep you safe.
And engaging in self-care in the form of taking care of yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, on a daily basis, asking yourself that question, have I done something to take care of myself on a physical front? That means exercise. Exercise is a nice way of releasing those hormones that help with stress.
And it's, it's a nice form of a physical form of release. And then mentally. You know, what am I doing on that front? How am I working with my thoughts? How am I allowing these thoughts to [00:34:00] change me or control me? So, kind of, you know, getting into that on the mental front and emotionally as well.
How am I feeling? What am I doing with these feelings? What are they doing to me? What am I allowing them to do to me? That kind of stuff. So yeah. Yeah, that's such a good list. So I'm going to reiterate, so allow yourself to feel, seek support, things like the Queer Divorce Club, all those different types of grief groups you talked about.
I think one of the things I was thinking of as you were saying it is that, We have to remind ourselves that grief we're going through in a relationship transition is just as valid as the grief somebody's going through if somebody passed away. And those support groups are, you know, there might be some specifically for people who have lost people in different ways and hospice, like you're saying, but there's also general grief groups that will allow you that space to get the support that you need in those.
Yeah. Practice self compassion, set [00:35:00] boundaries and engage in self care. So Yes. Such a good list. But also to remember that this is a journey. This is a journey. It's a unique journey for each person and, you know, to keep that connection and just keep that connection. Keep that in mind as you're doing all of this, because like we said earlier, don't be too hard on yourself.
Give yourself that compassion and that empathy. Yeah, yeah. One of the things about boundaries that I'm thinking about is that when you're going through a divorce, there seems to be an opinion from everybody around you. There's also seems to be like opinions of what you should do and shouldn't do and who you should ask for help.
You're probably also giving yourself some of those opinions as you're trying to figure it out. And I would like to hear a little bit of what you might have to say about like how to set those boundaries or how to ask for what you need. But also in the case of like if somebody's saying we maybe we should go through a list of like what not to say to people.
And then like how do you ask or respond to that? Like what not to say? Like, that was [00:36:00] hurtful, that was not, you know, whatever. So maybe start with, like, what shouldn't you say to somebody who's going through a divorce? Firstly, I think the, you know, this has been a good rule of thumb that has helped me.
So it doesn't matter what anybody says what statements they say. I think I have started practicing this in my mind whenever anybody says anything to me. And I've had people say, Quite a few interesting things to me. Like for instance just after my husband had passed away, Oh, you need to be strong for your, your, your, your children.
I was like thinking to myself obviously you politely say yes. And, but in my mind, I'm like sure I need to be strong. Okay. Fine. I, you know, that, I guess. The way I see it is, if you look at it from two points of view, right, from my point of view as the receiver and the point of view of the person who's giving, [00:37:00] the person who is giving, especially if they have not experienced this level of a divorce or a miscarriage or the loss of a parent or spouse or child or whatever it is, right?
If you have not experienced that, can only speculate what it feels like, right? So, your, whatever you say to anybody that you encounter who's experiencing this, is coming from a space of more from the head and logically, okay, this is what you need to do because this happened to you. Okay, I am on the receiving side.
I've just had this experience. I'm not interested in logic right now. I need to know what do I need, you know? So yes, so from the other person's point of view, that's what they're thinking, right? They've never experienced this. I've experienced this and I'm like, yes, you're saying I should be strong. I don't even know what that means.
How am [00:38:00] I supposed to be strong? Have you, do you have some tools and tips for me here? Tell me how to be strong and I'm, I will happily do it because I'm walking on a road that I have not walked on before. I don't know where to go with this. I don't know what to do with this. All I know is I have these intense emotions inside of me.
Oh, I like that so much. And you're like putting it on them and being like, you're telling me to be strong. How am I supposed to be strong? Do you have tips for that? Do you have tips for how to do that? Exactly. So. reframing my mind, okay? Because at the end of the day, we can't go around fixing the world, right?
It's an, it's an impossible task to do, but we can do it in a smaller scale, the people that we have around us. So keeping that communication open and authentic and saying, you know, you said this, I mean, depending on the level of You know, the relationship, like whether you could actually, communication, whether you could actually say this to the [00:39:00] person like somebody saying, like, you know, I'm here for you
here. I'm like, okay, I'm here for you. But then that person is like, let me know if you need anything. I'm here for you, but let me know if you need anything. I've had that come to me a lot or I'm gonna, you know, we know that you're dealing with all of this. We're going to give you space. And I found myself I appreciate the space because I'm still dealing with this and I'm confused myself and I'm not sure what to do with this.
But as time goes by, the people who are giving me space, that space physically, that actually becomes physical space. Now there is no connection between me and the people that I felt so connected to who were giving me space. Yeah. Right. So then I, it's like, okay. It feels awkward now. I, I, I don't want to go there anymore.
So I have to find a new space where I can do this. [00:40:00] Yeah, what are some ways you can combat that in that way? Like, could you say something like, I don't need space. What I need is for you to check in with me every day and just say, I love you. I'm thinking about you. And not ask me of things. Like, what is that?
Yes, it would look, look something like that. Yes. And that is the way the whole communication comes in, you know. But then also, and that is also evolving and forever changing. I may need the space in the very immediate days of divorce or grief, you know, any sort of grief that I'm dealing with, but over time it would be, you know, maybe give me some space for a week or so.
Check, but please do check in on me because I really do appreciate that you check on me. It makes me feel like somebody cares. When nobody checks in on you or nobody calls you and sometimes it's not even calling you to say, Hey, how are you doing with your grief? What's going on? Let's go through this checklist.
No, nobody. Don't need to fix anything. Just give me a [00:41:00] call. Check in on me. Just have a conversation. If something comes up, Let's just let the person vent, don't try to fix anything and just authentically just be there. I'm listening. I don't, I'm not judging you. I'm not going to criticize you. I don't have, I don't, I can't even fathom what you're feeling because I haven't experienced this.
Like my husband had said this to me once when my mom passed away, he, you know, it had came to a point where he was like, you know, I have been trying so many different things. In my power and our community, we had really good communication to help you and be there for you, but I don't, I'm lost now, I don't know how else to help you.
And initially I felt a little disappointed, I was like, but you're, you're my person, you're the person who's supposed to be there for me. And as I did more soul searching and more introspection and things like that, I realized that, you know, he was just being honest. [00:42:00] That, and I could see his effort, I could see he was trying and that is what pushed me and I appreciated that eventually that is what pushed me onto a path of, okay, I got to start finding ways to help myself and not let what's going on with me affect the reality of having these young kids, having a husband, a family and all of that stuff.
And that's where the whole jail life came in, but anyway, getting back to the topic. So, you know, maybe just reminding. In, in those conversations saying to be a person, especially when you're trying to support somebody saying things like, you know acknowledging their little wins, like, you know, I can see this is difficult, but I still see you showing up.
I still see you putting a smile on your face, even though you're hiding all of that pain behind you. That acknowledgement means so much to us, leaving even in divorce. I mean and, and, and like even miscarriage, I remember when I had a miscarriage, I just wanted to hide away. I, I judged myself. I was like, [00:43:00] what's wrong with me?
Why can't I. Why did this happen to me? I, you know, I'm never going to be a mother and I don't mind can play the craziest tricks on you. Yeah, it's super real. So, yeah, it's that support system and the people around you that help you to help yourself. Initially. And so. Yeah. And it sounds like you're saying like, it's okay through all of that.
If somebody isn't helping you in the right way to ask for how you want to be helped and also to say like, I don't know how you, how I want you to help me, but I just need you to check on me right now. And that might change in a couple of weeks and then I'll ask for something else and you have to be brave in that.
And that's part of like you accepting the self help, right? It's part of you accepting that you are. Empower of moving through that grief and even though you're feeling hard and in some moments, you just want to crawl in the dark and hide some moments. You want to be out and playing all of that's okay.
And you can be in control of that and ask for, [00:44:00] I mean, you're not in control of the emotion necessarily, but you can guide yourself through it. You can support yourself through it. And that's all okay to do, even if you're going through a divorce and nobody wanted you to get divorced or it's, you know, there's all this other shame around it.
Yes. That associates it with divorce. Yes. I, I know that. was a reality for me as well at one point when I was way back in my twenties. And I did feel like, Oh, I don't think I'll ever find anybody to spend the rest of my life with. I don't think I'll find anybody to love me. You know, I had those thoughts going through me and through my mind and I thought I felt like any the sore thumb, the one person sticking out there, you know, when, with all the other couples and the people that I knew and then the people that I was with, you know, it's like, okay, everybody's getting married or everybody my age is either getting married, settling down, having kids, whatever it is.
And here I am just experiencing this whole rejection and is there anything ever going to be for me? You know, [00:45:00] so all of that, that came brief, that came with that really did make me feel lonely and alienated in so many ways. But it also, I always like to pull that. glimmer of hope or that silver lining out of any cloud that is over me.
And it also pushed me, that experience pushed me into a space of self discovery. It pushed me into a space of where I started trying to find ways to help myself. Yeah. Yeah. Silver linings. Are so good. It's hard to find them throughout this, but they are always there. Right? Like always a yeah. And I feel like the one of the things that I've learned through divorce and talking to everybody on this on the podcast is that growth is necessary to get through the rebuilding part.
After divorce, because no matter what, like, even if it's just, you just were married for a year, not just you were married for a year and [00:46:00] you're changing, you have to, at the very least grow into what you want this new space to be. Right. So there's a time there's incremental amounts and large amounts, but growth has to be what you need to move forward.
Yes. And you know, something interesting that kind of came up for me as well, which I, I dabble with a lot in my mind. And especially when I get all these crazy thoughts is
My attachment to what could have been when I start detaching myself from what I don't have control over, I feel like I have so much more control. I don't know if that even makes sense in a strange way. I forget about, I stopped spending too much time and too much thought and energy on, Oh, if only I did this, then this would have happened if only I, you know, that kind of stuff, and I stopped.[00:47:00]
Embracing more of, okay, this happened to me. It hurts. I don't like it, but this is my reality and I want life to be beautiful. So what am I going to do to make it beautiful? And I'm not, every time this. Baggage comes back to haunt me? Okay, bye bye. Let me put you back in your place where you belong. This is Nina.
Yeah, I like that idea of, that's so good. I have my partner and I have we call our baggage, we've named our baggage Ned. So when he's coming, when Ned's coming in with this huge suitcase of crap from our past, just want to kick him out of there, but it's not always easy to do that. It's like, It's so hard, but it is also, like you were saying, it's profound to name it as the baggage that's coming along.
It's not the reality. It's not what you're here with. And yeah, it's really amazing. To think about this thoughts, this is another thing that I play games with my mind. Thoughts are I mean, where do your thoughts [00:48:00] come from? Sometimes I find these craziest things in my head and I'm like, did I intentionally think that?
Where did this come from? Why am I thinking this in the first place? So, I play this game with myself now. Whenever I get these thoughts, I'm like, ah. So the thoughts are, to me now, thoughts are visitors. Okay? It's a guest. This is a guest that has entered my mind. What am I going to do with this guest? I am going to politely say, thank you for visiting.
But we're good here. you know and not entertain that thought, not give it any, any, any momentum or not give it any importance and just let it flow away like a wave. Bye bye.
Let's go through these thoughts now. Think of our thoughts as a guess. Yes. So you're right. I feel like It's, it's interesting when I started to, I feel like I never started to learn how emotions and thoughts worked until after I got divorced and started this healing process and so that's been super interesting.
But you're right, it's [00:49:00] like more and more thoughts are just reactive and in this moment and your body knows and so it's important to, like you said, I love that, like, invite them for a second and be like, thanks for coming. Appreciate you, but you don't need to be here anymore. It's really good. Really good.
Mm hmm. Yeah. Ashmeeta, thank you so much for being here today. Everything that you've shared is so lovely and So good. And I feel like it will be so profound for our listeners to hear what you're saying about grief and how it can connect to this loss of in relationship and love and connection that you're having.
And so I really appreciate that. Thank you so very much. For our listeners, if you want to find Ashmeeta's stuff, I'll put it out in the show notes, but her website is story you tell yourself. com. You can find her on social media at gross story hub on Instagram and Facebook and herself on Twitter and LinkedIn as well.
And I'll put all those, all those links out there. Thank you so very much for being here today. It has been my pleasure. I've really enjoyed this conversation with you.
Thank you for joining us for the [00:50:00] Queer Divorce Club podcast. We hope that our discussions have provided you with valuable insights and support throughout your journey. If you're a member of the LGBTQIA plus community and find yourself contemplating divorce, currently going through the process or in the process of rebuilding your life after divorce, we invite you to join the Queer Divorce Club.
Connect with others who have similar experiences and find a sense of community by visiting QueerDivorceClub. com. There you can join support groups tailored to your needs and connect with individuals who understand the unique challenges you may be facing. Before we wrap up, we'd like to ask for your support.
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We're here to provide you with the tools, knowledge, and support you need to live a healthy and vibrant life, both during and beyond your divorce. And as always, [00:51:00] remember that each day you are doing your best for yourself and your family, and that's nothing short of amazing. Thank you to Bungalow Heaven for providing the music for this podcast.