Embracing the Pain: Lessons on Grief and Recovery | Audrey Laura White

00:00
their deaths were for me to bring me to this point so that I can talk about the hard things in life. So I can talk about grieving and heartbreak and loss in a way that is straight head on, let's dive in and deal with this rather than deny it. My guest today is Audrey White. She's a grief coach and an advocate for open conversations about grief and loss.

00:27
Audrey's faced and overcome unimaginable loss, but she's really turned this personal grief into a tool for helping others navigate their own life shifts. Audrey shares her journey facing the tragic murder of her brother and the loss of her parents, among many other family members during the pandemic. These events shook her world to its core, leading her on a path to seek understanding, healing, and eventually a mission to guide others experiencing their own loss. This is not an easy story to hear, but I think it's a crucial one.

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It's a tale of loss, of pain, but also of recovery and finding purpose in the face of this loss. Before we jump into today's conversation around grief and empathy, I want to thank my Patreon members, Tracy, Mickey, and Emily, for not only being fantastic friends, but also sponsoring two episodes a month. The Patreon community is one of the easiest ways to directly support the show and its production. So as you probably know, I do all the elements of the Life Shift on my own. So any support that you could offer is greatly appreciated.

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If you're interested in checking it out, please visit patreon.com forward slash the Life Shift Podcast and you'll find all the information there. So without further ado, here's my conversation with Audrey White.

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I'm Matt Gilhooly, and this is the Life Shift, candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever.

01:58
Hello, my friends. Welcome to the LifeShift Podcast. I am here with Audrey today. Hello, Audrey. Hey, Matt. How are you? I am good. We were just discussing kind of like how our mornings have gone so far. And sometimes that good response is my probably trauma based response of like, this is what everyone's expecting me to say today. Thank you. I don't know if you've experienced that. Oh, completely. And yet I think I'm at this point where it's like

02:28
Chaos is gonna happen and it is all good. It is all good. Because we've pretty much survived some of the hard moments and we're still here and we're kicking and we've learned from those moments. And so these little mishaps of maybe not the greatest of sleep or these little gnats that are flying around my office right now, I think we can make it past these. I think we can.

02:53
Well, thank you for wanting to be a part of this journey. We were talking before recording of how this journey is really informed by my own upbringing and the losses that I had and how I responded to those losses and my failure at grieving what someone might deem properly, but also my ability to reflect on those moments and be grateful for what I learned through that process. And so I know that your story

03:23
is a really tough story, but it has brought you to who you are and what you are today and what you're doing for people. And I just am so grateful that you wanted to just be a part of this. So thank you, before we even start. Thank you. It's an honor to be here and to be a part of this community with you and your listeners where we all are going to be touched by grief if we haven't already. In one way, shape or form.

03:53
we're all going to experience it. And I think it's so important to talk about it, to talk about each of our experiences, which are, it's this whole spectrum and of what it is for each of us. And it's all valid, you know, because our grief and our experience is our own. And so this comparative stuff that we get into in this world, it doesn't serve us and it doesn't serve. It, you know, I think we, when we do that,

04:23
invalidate our own experience. And it's so important to go, all right, well, mine isn't like yours or yours or yours, but it's mine and this is how I feel and my feelings are valid. And it's so important to honor that. I agree. You know what someone told me recently on one of these conversations where he was telling me something very tragic that happened in his life. And I did the comparison thing like, oh gosh, I can't imagine. Yours is so much worse than my experience.

04:51
And something he said really stuck with me. And he was like, you know what? We all kind of do that. But if you think about it, all of us are going through the worst moment we've ever experienced at that moment in time. So that's the worst moment. You can't imagine someone else's worst moment. Your worst moment is your worst moment. It can't get any worse for you, right? And so it's hard to make those comparisons. But I like that he said that to me, because it really makes me think, OK, well,

05:19
You're right, that was my worst moment. And that's as much as I can experience right now and handle right now. And so I thought that was really helpful. But to your point, I'm happy that maybe now people seem to be a little bit more comfortable sharing the messy parts of their lives or the hard parts or how they're feeling, like really feeling and not just like.

05:44
what they think everyone else wants them to hear, even though I said good when you asked how I was doing. You know, I think, but I think when people need to be vulnerable, I think I'm seeing more of that now. I don't know if you are as well, but I'm kind of hopeful. I am as well. You know, I think there is this movement. I mean, thank you, Brene Brown, for talking about vulnerability and being brave, right? And really bringing that into the conversation, like everyday conversations that we have.

06:14
bring it into the workplace. And I'm hearing it more and more, even from the CEO of my company, my day job company, let me just put it that way, that it's like, how do you bring your best self to work? And I had another C-level, one of our chief research officers talking about his mom and he teared up in front of everybody. And I'm like, isn't that beautiful? And I've made a point to say thank you for showing your humanity because,

06:42
I think every generation we build upon each other, right? And so there was a time when my parents' generation, it was everything was behind closed doors. Good Lord, you don't air your dirty laundry. And now it's not so much I don't think about airing dirty laundry, it's about here's what I'm struggling with. And in realizing that no matter how the details of our life look, we're all struggling with something, we're all moving towards something. So...

07:11
we're doing the same thing, it just might look different. And I really believe it's that essence of healing ourselves so that we can heal our communities and the world at large. I mean, it just goes to the point that there's so much more we have in common than we have in our differences. And a lot of it is just a human experience. Like, we're going to have all the emotions and all of the emotions are valid and okay at any moment in time.

07:38
And it's how you react with them and around them and acknowledge them in your life that makes you move through them and in an appropriate way that feels right for you and authentic. So I agree. Yeah, and I think it's that also that recognition that for your listeners, like, oh, I'm not alone. And it's this feeling of like, I thought I was the only one.

08:06
I mean, I grew up like that, feeling like I was the only one. And you start realizing like, oh, this isn't normal maybe, or nobody else is really having the same experience. So let's talk about it. Yeah, for sure. Speaking of, I love that segue that you created for us about talking about it, because I love to get into your story. But before you paint the picture of your life leading up to the first significant pivotal shift in your life,

08:35
Maybe you can just kind of tell us who you are right now and what you do without giving away too much in your story, and then we'll have you paint the picture. Well, I'm truly committed to helping people, helping people through their grief, their trauma, their heartbreak, and paving a path to peace. I mean, that's, if I can find peace in my life by the tools that I've learned through the Grief Coach Academy, and through my support system, I know.

09:03
that it's my dedication to help others do the same. And, you know, we talk about grief, sometimes people just say, oh, well, it just takes time. Well, it does take time, but it also takes intention and it takes tools that were not taught. And so I'm really committed to teaching people tools that they can, just practical tools that they can use to help them shift their mind, to shift their life and really find some peace, find joy again and find an excitement for living.

09:33
after some of the hardest moments of their lives. You know, I think that's, it's really helpful. Before we get into your story, it's just like, when I was a kid, no one around me had the tools to help me after my mom died. And no one was helping them. And so it was just like so much of my early, like those years closest to when my mother died, I look back on them and I feel like the people around me were just trying to make me happy.

10:01
They were just trying to buy me things or take me out to eat or take me on vacation or like if he's happy then he's okay. Which then as an individual I absorbed as, oh, I need to prove to everyone that I'm okay and happy. So put on your mask and have a good time for the next couple decades before you figure this out for yourself, that's not the journey that you should be taking.

10:27
So I love that you're helping people in their most vulnerable state saying, hey, look, here's a bunch of tools. Try them. See which one works for you. And try to implement that. The word that you said, though, that I think is so important is that intention word, because you really have to want and be ready and to just dive in. Because it's not easy. It's not. So anyway. Not at all.

10:53
Thank you for what you're doing for the world though. Oh, it is, whoo, I still get chills about it, you know? It's an honor, and it's, I truly believe that my purpose here is to serve, and this is how life has brought me to this point to serve. And the tools are for individuals, they're for therapists, or anybody that's working with people that wanna help people, so.

11:21
other coaches, just to have tools in your toolbox so that we can together, you know, communally help more and more people in this world. Well, maybe you can kind of inform us how you got there because I think your story really plays, I mean, it plays a giant part, I would assume, in what you do now and why you're so passionate about doing it. Absolutely. It's been interesting, you know, the more podcasts I do and the more I really talk about this. One thing that's come up for me is...

11:50
Realizing that even when I was a little kid, like I wanted to talk about the hard things. You know, I came from a family that was very conservative and it was just that time, right? In the 70s where, when I was born in the 60s, but growing up in the 70s where it's like, you didn't talk about your stuff. And I'm like, but dad's an alcoholic and there's all this chaos going into my life. I wanna talk about it.

12:17
And I learned really quickly, as you did with your story, that we don't talk about that here. So I think that was always just a part of who I was in terms of I wanna talk about the hard things. And then you kind of fast forward, and my first experience with knowing that I wanted to work with grief and loss was when my dad died in 2005. I wasn't ready for that loss. My kids were in there, they were crying out there, young and it was in my 30s and just...

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felt like, oh gosh, I just, I'm not ready to lose my parent yet. But in the moment when he was dying, had a brief illness and, you know, my mom's falling apart, my brother's falling apart, all of this is going on. There was something that happened where I had told my mom, I said, mom, death is just birth. And we know how to do birth. And this holding vigil and...

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this is the pains of birth. We're just birthing them to the other side, whatever that may be for you. But it's just the process of the letting go and the becoming of what's next. And so I don't know where those words came from. I, you know, but in that moment when he was passing, I just helped him, you know, hand on his heart, hand on his head.

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And for the first time in my life, I felt I knew why I was with this family. It was like, oh, this is why I'm here. This is why I felt like the outcast or the black sheep or whatever you wanna call it, I'm here because they don't know how to do this and I do. For some reason, it was just innate. And that's what I knew I wanted to work in grief and loss. I just didn't know how to get there. In those growing up experiences where you were kind of shut down,

14:09
Were you ever able to talk about the hard things? Was there someone, was there an outlet in your family at all that you were able to bring those things up or was it always just like? It was totally squashed. Everyone? Yeah, yeah. It's interesting that, I mean, that says a lot, that something that was a fire stayed a fire and stayed in you because I think a lot of us get shut down on things very regularly and then a lot of us just kind of give up.

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in that way. So it's, it's, that's why I asked that question. Cause it seemed like so many times people pour water on our fires and they never come back. But it sounds like yours was just kind of simmering there for, for this moment. Yeah. I truly believe in thank you. I think that's a beautiful way to put it. It really never that never left me. And you know, as the youngest of three kids, my oldest brother was 15 years older. My middle brother who had

15:08
another long story, but seceded from the family, as I like to put it, and he was 11 years older. So I grew up pretty much as an only child. And so there wasn't anybody that I could really talk to. And plus with the trauma that I had gone through, I knew it's like, we don't talk about this. And so I learned really early on to take on that role of, oh, they can't handle it. So I just need to deal with this.

15:38
Right? They've shown me they can't handle it. So it was, it's interesting, but I truly believe that that's why I'm able to do the things that I'm doing now. So when your father was dying, you looked around the room, essentially was like, oh, oh, this is why now is the time. Now is the maybe possible opportunity to.

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to let that fire out a little bit and help. Were you able to? Like, were your family members receptive to this at this point? Yeah, they were. Because before that, we didn't really talk about it. But even still, it was like, I felt like that was the opening, but I didn't know what to do with it. And I didn't personally have all the skills and tools that I needed to really be comfortable to talk to my mom about what she was going through

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partner of 50-some years had passed, or, you know, my brother and I, we had always been really close, even with the age difference, but he was able to see me not as the 12-year-old anymore, you know, in his mind. And so we became a lot closer, which, as we were going through our adult life, we became each other's rock in the world. So in that way, yeah, I mean, I had that eventually. But I didn't have the tools until...

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kind of fast forwarding until I was 2019 when I was dealing with heartbreak and lawsuits and being in debt from an ex who really, you have all these hopes and dreams when you're with someone. And I really believe that with how I grew up and the trauma and the just what I experienced, it kind of grew me to, well, it's my responsibility to just

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love is me sacrificing everything, every last thing of myself, like bleed me dry and then you'll know that I love you. Well, there's people in this world that will take that and they will take everything and they'll take everything and they'll take everything. And so I was really left in a state where I didn't, I was really doubting myself. I had, you know, I was doubting my intuition. I was, I was, my self worth, everything was just...

17:59
I felt like the shell of who I used to be and definitely who I am now. But I had to go through that to reach out and actually find some help. The universe kind of brought me Aurora Winter, who is the founder of the Grief Coach Academy. We were in a class together and I hadn't really, I didn't know her, but she had these books on grief and I went, it was just immediately drawn to her and she went, oh, these are for you.

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And it was just such a beautiful moment. And I immediately, like we had a conversation the next day, I signed up for this going, I don't know how I'm gonna do this, because like I said, I had a lawsuit and debt and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, it doesn't matter because I know that this is the path. If I feel this pull, I have to do this for myself. How did you find the ability in that moment?

18:56
I mean, I'm projecting here, I'm thinking of myself in a moment in which, you know, I've put this, I'm pretending to be you now, I put all this energy into this relationship and I pour my entire soul, I give everything up essentially in this way of like my being and trust in myself and those same things. Was there ever a moment in which you like resented the abilities that you had or like that fire did like, oh, see where you brought me, fire?

19:25
See what you did to me? Because I feel like I've been in situations like that in which I was like, those things that I now rely on have also brought me into this space where I've kind of been burned in a different way. Did you ever have any of that resentment of the way that you felt, but also, it seems like not, because you trusted yourself to go this other direction? Yeah, I mean, I think there was some. I think...

19:54
I think for me, the resentment comes from or the thing I hate the most to hear, you're so strong. Because it's like, I've had to be strong. I've had to be strong. You didn't choose to be. I had to. I didn't choose. Yeah, I had to be. Because I'm still here. We're still here. And it was this really belief that I have to save myself. I can't rely on somebody else.

20:24
And I did that and it didn't work. And so how do I come back to myself? And I didn't like myself at the time. I needed to like myself and then I needed to love myself. Did you not like yourself because you gave, because you looked at yourself or that awareness of like, I just gave up everything for this person. Why did I do that? Yeah. Why did I think that that- Such shame we put on ourselves. Yeah, and that shame.

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is so hard to crawl out of. It is so hard to crawl out of that. And when I met Aurora, and we had the conversation the next day about here's what I'm going through and here's where I'm at, she gave me a sense of hope. You know? And she walked me through a process that we use at the Grief Coach Academy that I use with clients, I use with myself, I use with friends of...

21:20
It was enough to, it's called the peace method, and it was enough to just like take out that one brick to let a little bit of light in to give me a little bit of hope that life could be different. And just that one conversation really changed my life. You know what, the visual that I get is like this closed off version of you where that fire inside is struggling to stay lit, and then you have the crack of the oxygen to let the flame of the candle gets a little bit.

21:49
It's not like lighting up the room, but you can probably take a couple steps with it. That's the visual I get. Yeah. Was it something about her approach? Was it story-based or was it, you know, like, here's not... Forgive me. Here's how I fix you. Or was it more like, here's what I went through and here's the experiences that I went through that you connected with and gave you hope? Yeah. It was definitely her experiences on why she created the Grief Coach Academy.

22:18
I mean, she lost her husband when he was 33. He had a massive heart attack in their bed. They had a four-year-old. And so hearing her story and how she survived and learned how to thrive, and then to give back and help others, I'm like, I want that. I want that from myself. The power of stories, I mean, validating the Life Shift podcast, it's like we share our stories so that we can hopefully.

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like you said, let someone feel that they aren't alone in their circumstance. And so you hearing her story, you're like, it's not the same, but I felt the same. And look at where she is now and look what she's doing. Maybe you added a little trust to that hope and you're like, let's go. And I've, I looking back on my life and, and I think it's really important that we, we have these, this ability to kind of look back and go in these pivotal moments of my life, I've always had.

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And for me, it was mostly women who have just went, I see this in you and I know you can't see it in yourself yet, but I'm going to hold this for you until you can come here and hold it yourself. And so I've always had this stair or this bridge of these amazing, really strong women in different ways appear in my life to go, I'm going to hold this for you. And now for me, I love that analogy and I love

23:47
being able to do that for other people. Because when someone's breaking down and falling apart and the world is falling apart, there's a part of me inside that's like, oh, this is so good. You just don't know it yet. Because you're gonna be able to put yourself back together the way you want. And not the way we were taught or domesticated or how we grew up. You actually get to decide what you put back.

24:17
Oh, it's so impossible in the moment though. You can't, it's like, that's never gonna happen. You know, like it just, there's such dire straits and for someone to be willing to hold part of that heaviness with you or, you know, alongside you or just like hold your hand or, and be like, look, I know, I get it and we're not gonna do it all at once. And it's, you know, there's, we're gonna try little things each time. So, you know, that's, I love that she's kind of.

24:45
changed that trajectory for you? What was she able to, clearly, she was able to kind of help you through the grief of losing yourself. It really wasn't about the relationship, right? It was more about- No, it was about losing myself and why did I allow that? You know, and to some degree, I mean, this is, you know, years later, I'm still kind of like, oh, now I understand. Like, you put the pieces together all the time, right? It's like, oh, the trauma from my childhood and this has, you know.

25:16
It's like, oh, I was totally groomed for this, you know? In a way, it's like the perfect storm. It's kind of amazing to look at it that way. She kind of helped you with the grieving of losing yourself. And I mean, I know that's not even the most, I mean, I can't, I don't know if most is the right word, but there's more significant shifts that are coming. But.

25:44
You know, that seems to be the first time where someone else saw you and saw, like, not the word potential, but like something like, you can do this. Like, you can make it through, you can create your own journey. And that probably gave you a little bit of confidence too, in that fire. Absolutely, absolutely. And like I said, just learning the tools that were never really taught, we're not really taught how to be a human in this world and dealing with our emotions. We're not taught.

26:13
how to deal with the hard emotions. I think especially as women when I was growing up, any kind of anger or intense emotion, it's like, oh, that's not acceptable. Let's tone it down or, you know. Can you shift that to crying, please? I feel like, and it's the opposite for men. It's like, can you shift that to anger because that's more acceptable. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's different for...

26:43
you know, men and women, it's different for, you know, in different cultures, what's acceptable and what isn't. And, but we're not taught tools of how to, how to manage it and how to, you know, we, for the longest time, I really believe my thoughts because I thought that's they were real. They were, they were valid at the time. They were valid, but they're not, you know, I didn't know that I had the power to change it. And so going through the training, it really helped me go.

27:13
shift this. I can shift this. And how empowering is that? And how empowering for someone who is going through their own personal hell right now to go, oh, okay, maybe I can do this. It's just giving some hope to someone. And you know, so that really gave me a base to work from. And little did I know that I would need it.

27:39
or in the entire world would need it when the pandemic hit in 2020. So to kind of continue with the story, as the world was shutting down and we were all in this state of what's happening, we lost our connection with community, we lost how to be in the world the way we knew. And it was this collective grief that we didn't know to label as grief at the time.

28:08
While that was going on, I was also losing family members left and right. I lost eight family members in 2020. And it was preceded by my dog dying like the end of February, which ripped my heart out. And so it's just like, and then it was an uncle or no, it was a cousin and then an uncle, and then my cousin's wife, who I know just died from a broken heart. And it was another cousin. And then it was my aunt. And then 13 days later, it was my mother.

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and six weeks later was her last sister. And we knew, we knew that all the sisters were gonna go. Like all us cousins were like, oh shit, it's gonna happen because they're not gonna wanna stay if they're not there together. Compounding the 2020, like, is it ever gonna end? Are we ever gonna, you know, like what is life anymore? I can imagine losing all that, but then also not seeing a future.

29:08
because you don't know where we're going at this moment. And you couldn't come together to grieve. You couldn't come together to celebrate people's lives. And the caveat to this, and this little bubble that we had with my mom's death, is that even in the middle of COVID, we had an amazing death with her. The hospital just kind of, she ended up getting pneumonia and she couldn't swallow. And the hospital just kind of looked the other way and let my brother and I be in the room with her and they shut the door.

29:37
and let us do our thing, which was amazing and lovely. And so it's in such contrast with what most people were dealing with in terms of death and loss and saying goodbye during COVID. But with my mom, because I, one, wanted to speak the hard things, and two, had these tools, and to finally really talk about grief head on, I...

30:04
I told her, like, once we'd ran all the tests and we knew what was going on, I'm like, mom, you can't eat. You can't even take a sip of water without choking. We're in our final moments. We really only have days together. And are you ready to die? And for her to go, yes. Oh, wow. And she was like, so excited about it. And so I was like, well, all right, let's do this then. Yeah. But there's such...

30:34
beauty and acknowledging what's happening. One, it gave me freedom to go, I'm going to follow her lead and what she needs because I'm going to be around when this is over and I will deal with my own grief. What does my mom need in her final days? And for my mom to say, to embrace the last moments of her life so clearly and so head on, it was such a beautiful thing to see.

31:03
because we were able to talk about so much. I heard stories I had never heard before. We sang and we prayed and we laughed. There was so much laughter. And it was just really beautiful. It's such a different experience than the way most people go about death in our society, which is like deny, deny, deny.

31:32
Oh, and now that it did happen, are you over it yet? It's been a few weeks. Yeah, move on. It's time to... Did you find that your experiences with your father passing combined with your own losing yourself and then finding yourself again, do you feel that all those pieces together prepared you for facing this? Completely. I feels like it was in a confident way.

32:01
let's go. Like this is just another thing we're going to do together. Right. Right. And, and to be able to just, you know, go through this head on and not deny what was happening. We talked, my mom and I, and my brother talked about our father's death, you know, and how different it would have been if, if we would have known that he was dying, that the medical community didn't tell us. We didn't know.

32:31
And we didn't have, and I didn't have the awareness to really push it and ask. Do you think he would have faced it similarly to your mother or do you think it would have been a different experience in that? I think it would have been a very different experience. Yeah. Yeah, I have a very like, it feels very like, I feel like I can relate so much to this experience with your mother. Having my mom died suddenly, so I didn't understand death. I didn't, you know, I went through all the motions with everyone else as this eight-year-old.

33:00
and didn't really understand that, and then totally just took 20 years to really grieve that. But when my grandmother, who became like my best friend, like the closest person ever to me, and like a mother to me, when she was diagnosed with cancer, it was very similar. It was like, okay, we know there's a timeline. And when we got really close to the end, when I could see that things were changing, and she was changing, and her mind was changing, I sat down, like everyone left. We had a...

33:30
we had her last birthday party with her and I sat down on her couch and I was like, I'm not leaving yet because we need to have the conversation that everyone regrets not having because I don't want anything left unsaid. And we spent hours just like telling each other how much we loved each other and thanked each other for all these, you know, like reminiscing and all that. And that a lot, I mean, she died a couple months later. I spent the last 96 hours of her life sitting by her side, but...

33:59
All the things that I wasn't able to do with my mom dying and all the things I was sad about growing up, I felt like, now's my opportunity, let's go. She wasn't like your mom and be like, let's go, you know, but she knew and we knew and I had to force that because I knew what, it's like not doing that. And so I felt so like grateful to watch, like you said, what did you say it was like the birth, it's like a birth. It's birth.

34:29
It was like I watched The Last Breath and I was just like, you know, this is, I call it devastatingly beautiful. Like it was just so beautiful to be there, even though your heart is falling into a million pieces. You know, it's like, wow, like what an honor to be there in that moment. I don't know if you felt similar at the very end, but. Absolutely. It's this exquisitely painful beauty. Yeah. Of being with someone during their last moments.

34:59
in this form and knowing that it's really okay. They're okay. This is just a part of life. And we deny it so much and we fear it so much that when it comes, so many people don't know how to embrace it. And for me to be able to embrace this with my mom and kind of pull my brother along with us on this ride. He's pretty grateful, yeah. I think he was.

35:28
you know, it what it did for me, even after my dad died, I tell everybody I love them. Like, how I usually, you know, even in my day job with my people that I work with, I, okay, I love you. And I'm like, shit, this is work. But it's such a beautiful habit that I have of always wanting the people around me to know that I care about them, because we don't know what the next moment is going to bring.

35:58
We truly don't.

36:03
I never want the people around me to ever doubt what I feel or for them to not have heard it from me directly. Like, I love you, I value you, I appreciate you, thank you so much for being in my life and what you give to me. So I totally make it awkward all the time and it's a beautiful thing. Well, you know, having that experience of having like, it's weird to think about your experience.

36:32
with your mother passing and the things that you were able to do. And I say it's weird because society, like you point out, that's not like how most people kind of approach death. And it's important to point out that you can be multiple things at once. I'm sure you were so sad. I'm also sure there was a part of you that was happy that you had those moments, that you were there for that, you know? And like, you can have all those things at the same time, and that's OK. We don't have to be like...

36:59
broken and fall on the floor, we can walk out and do normal things still being sad or still holding all those pieces together. It's like holding this dichotomy, right? Two opposing opposite beliefs all at the same time and still being able to function and move forward in your life. It's the hardest things we're going to do. And yet it builds this ability in our belief in ourself. Did for me.

37:28
to go, I can do hard things. In fact, that's what I'm built for, for better, for worse. Like you, like we said, it's like, I hate the word. You're so strong. But life built me for this. And then, you know, to kind of continue because I wish I could say that that was, you know. But I mean, I'm sure it taught you something. It put a, for lack of a better term, another notch in your belt of tools

37:58
and skills, which feels weird to say, but there is a process and there is something that works for us. But yeah, I know it's not the pinnacle moment that really shifted everything for you, but it certainly played a large role, it seems, because you were really able to do what sounds just so beautiful for a devastating moment. Absolutely, and again, it was being able to, in that moment, talk about the hard thing.

38:27
and go through the hard things head on and not deny it, not push it away, but just embrace it. And I think when we can embrace the hard things in life, there's a gift there for each of us. When we can truly just turn to the monster in our dreams and go, all right, what do you have for me? Because I'm tired of running. I'm tired of denying. I'm tired of...

38:57
of this because it takes so much energy from us to push something away rather than let's embrace it and what do I need to learn? What are my gifts? What are the gifts that you're here to teach me? And can I still find beauty in this painful moment? Before you jump on, I feel like we're so conditioned or so taught to worry and it's that monster, that worry monster. You know, it's just like...

39:26
everything that could possibly go wrong becomes part of your worry. And it's just like, the things that go wrong, yes, they are terrible. But I think the manifestation of that worry can be even more detrimental than the actual moment. You know, and so, yeah, that's kind of how I relate to that, how I was conditioned to just worry about like anything that could go wrong. But things are gonna go wrong.

39:53
Yeah, it's true. Like this is part of our human experience, right? Like, we're not going to just, we're not here to live. And I think this is the lie that we're taught, right? That we're going to have this beautiful, perfect life, or that's the goal is to have a life and create a life where there isn't any pain or any, you know, any humanness to it. And yet, that's not, I don't believe in that anymore.

40:22
I just believe that we're here to experience what life has to offer us, because it's going to offer us a whole variety of experiences. And are you able to find the beauty in it? I think that's what I was going to say, you know, perfect is not the right word, but I feel like these experiences are what make a full life. Whether we want to say it or not, you know, I tell people all the time that

40:52
If I could go back to 1989 when my mom died, I probably wouldn't change anything. Because I know who I am now. I know what that moment, not that I want that to happen, but I know how different my life would be. In some ways, it maybe wouldn't be as good or as fulfilling or whatever it may be. It's hard, but I think these bumps in the road really shaped who I am and make that fulfilling life for me. Yeah, absolutely.

41:21
move forward in your story. Let's move forward. Oh my gosh. So two days before my mother passed, I found out that the company that I was working for was acquired. And so for the whole next year, in the middle of COVID, our small company was acquired by a large company. And so then you have swaths of people that I've worked with for years gone.

41:51
and you send an email and it's like, I didn't know that person was gone. So again, it's this whole year of loss in some, in a big way of the culture that we had created as this company, as this loss of the people that I had worked with and loved seeing and interacting with, loss of my team. So it was a whole nother year of that. Come 2022, I was like, I...

42:21
I've had enough, like, you know, just, I need a break. And I finally, I went to my doctor and he's like, you know, you need a break. We're gonna put you out for a little while, you know. So I took some medical leave and I'm so grateful, one, that I have the ability to do that and that I had a doctor that was supportive to say, you need to take care of yourself in here and I'm gonna help you and guide you and give you some tools. And...

42:51
And I knew to advocate on my own behalf to go, I'm going to break. And how do I, how do I not do that? You know, I've pushed myself to as far as I need to go. And now it's me. So that's what the beginning of 2022. And so I'm like, all right, taking care of the health stuff that I had ignored, you know, really just taking time to breathe again and learn how to.

43:21
a chance for my nervous system to come back down from all of that. And then I got a Facebook message on the night of March 21st of 2022 from my brother's neighbor. And she said, please call me. And I knew, you know, when you pick up the phone. And I called her and she said, I don't know how to tell you this, but they're both gone.

43:49
And I said, she killed him. My brother's wife murdered my brother and then took her own life.

43:57
It's something you don't ever expect you're going to have to deal with in life. So having that unexpected loss, that tragic loss, that, that traumatic loss, you know, my brother died from gun violence. He died because his wife of 42 years was menaleel and didn't get the help that she needed. And he died because he chose to stay.

44:25
A lot goes into that. And for that moment, for me, it's surreal because all of a sudden, yes, there's a part of me who is on the floor crying and screaming. And there's another part going, is this my life now? Is this, what do I do? When does it end? How do I just get through this? I'm telling my children that their uncle is dead.

44:54
I have to call my daughter who's on the East Coast, right? And all of a sudden, you know, I'm on a phone call with the sheriff. Like, what world did I just enter? That was probably the most pivotal experience of my life, of losing my brother. And his picture's here, so. And you'd think, like, if we look on paper, you've experienced so much loss.

45:24
that if we look on paper, we're like, oh, well, just here's another one. I feel like so many people be like, well, she knows how to do that, she went through that. But the circumstances brought you to your knees, essentially, right? Oh gosh. You're like, I don't know anything now at this point. Yeah, because you're not prepared for this. No, no one should ever be prepared for that. I don't think that's. Exactly.

45:51
I don't think that's something that society needs to teach us to be prepared for. I think that stuff needs to be eradicated in its own way. Right. But, yeah, I can imagine the... Because I heard in what you said that I don't know if you attached anything to this. I have a friend who's experienced something similar to this, who attached something to this, in which you said, my brother died because he chose to stay.

46:21
And there's a, was there a piece of you that had this like another emotion of like anger or feeling towards the fact that he stayed? There's, there's so much wrapped into this. Right. Yeah. Because I, you know, this was a, this was a planned event by my sister-in-law. And so I had to deal with lawyers. I had to deal with, I was thrown into this.

46:48
They lived in Kansas, I lived in California. And so I was flying out to be there to handle everything. He was the only one left in the family. And I knew like it was a very conscious thing to go. If I walk into that community that knew both of them, that didn't understand what was going on. If I walked in there holding this anger toward my sister-in-law.

47:20
One, it wouldn't be how my brother would handle things. So I wouldn't honor him. And I'm going into this community who's grieving. So it was a very conscious decision to go, okay, and what I know about anger and what my own personal belief is, if I'm directing any negativity or anger at someone else, the only person that's gonna hurt is me. It's not gonna hurt her. She's dead. And even if she wasn't, it wouldn't hurt her.

47:49
it's only going to destroy my life. Right. And my thought process in that moment was...

47:56
she's already taken everything from me. I'm not gonna give her my life. I refuse to give her my life. So it really created this space for me to walk into that community and hold, one, tell the truth about what happened, but do so in a loving way that I knew would honor how my brother lived his life. But I really had a hard time with this whole thing of

48:25
Why didn't you leave? Why did you sacrifice your life? So angry at my brother. And that's where really the tools that I learned saved my life and saved my sanity. Because it's not the moment. But those are valid feelings. It's not, you know, and I think we sometimes pull on this shame, like, oh, this person has died. I cannot be angry with decisions because they're dead, you know, and it's

48:54
Oh no. Your feelings were so valid. Yeah. And so I've had to work through a lot of anger on this, a lot of anger toward my sister-in-law for doing the things that she did, not just the murder and suicide, but also the legal mess that she had kind of put in motion before all of this. I had all of that to deal with. And I had... The surprising thing was...

49:23
so much anger at my brother. And, you know, because of the tools that I know, through the group Coach Academy that we teach others, I use for myself, it was this thought, you know, we have the moment that happens, and that's painful. And then the suffering, and you alluded to this earlier, the suffering comes about from our thoughts, because we live

49:53
Every time we relive it over, we're traumatizing ourselves. We're bringing what happened in the past forward and we're recreating it. Our bodies don't know the difference between is it happening now or did it happen then? If I'm thinking about it, I'm feeling it, so my body's gonna react as if it's happening now. And I really had to work through the anger that I had. How did...

50:20
Because I mean, you've listed so many losses and so many big shifting pieces, even down to when you were a child and were like, let's talk about the fact that this chaos is happening. No, and then your father dying and you finding that new little crack and all these other losses. How did this one change you? Because it sounds like you were building so much of.

50:48
your capabilities and finding yourself in all these moments, how did this one change you? This one, there was a moment because I was still struggling with self-worth. It really was, and belief in myself and my own worthiness and my own self-love. I don't know exactly when this happened, but I remember the words in my head of...

51:18
Audrey, get over this shit. You have things to do. It was very clear of like, you're done with that now. Like you don't have time to waste on this pity party that you're having for yourself. Might be valid, but you don't have time to waste. Done. Over it, done. And I have things to do. Because I had a community that was in crisis and in pain who were coming together in such a beautiful, loving way for me.

51:49
that I needed to show back up for myself and for them. Like, if I'm here to heal, which I, and serve, which I truly believe, then how do I show up and heal and serve and honor my feelings, but also honor theirs? And, you know, it was a very different thing. It was all, it really truly was this shift of like, stop thinking that you're not enough.

52:18
Audrey, stop thinking that you need one more degree or one more certification or one more whatever to validate. I've been there. Who you are in this world. Life has given you enough.

52:35
And we all have that. We all have our stories and we all have our strength. And someone listening to this is going to realize that, Oh, life brought me here. This wasn't done to me, but it brought me here. And what, what are the strengths? What are the, the experiences that we've had, right? That bring us to these moments of like, now I get to choose what I'm going to do with this.

53:06
And I think that's a really important distinction because we think so many times, and I was there in many parts of my life, and I'm sure some of your listeners are there now of going, what do you mean I have a choice? I don't have a choice in this. You don't have a choice in what we experience, but we truly do have a choice in how we attach meaning to it, how we choose to move through it. Are we gonna choose to move through it with love?

53:36
or pain, it's fear and love, right? And I just don't wanna live my life like that. I did for a long time. It doesn't work for me. And it doesn't serve their memories. It doesn't serve the world at large. It doesn't serve me and my children. So it really is this sense of, it has given me this drive to go.

54:05
their deaths were for me to bring me to this point so that I can talk about the hard things in life. So I can talk about grieving and heartbreak and loss in a way that is straight head on, let's dive in and deal with this rather than deny it. Yeah, I mean, I think also this ability to find

54:33
the self-compassion and the self-love that maybe you were lacking a little bit of, by finding that, it seems like you would be even better prepared and helpful to those that you're aiming to help through their own grief journey. Because I think when we're not fully in love with what we are and what we offer, it's not as genuine or it's not as helpful to the other people because, you know, we're humans, we can see through some things, you know, and we can see that...

55:02
That's something. So do you find that this self-compassion and self-love has helped you help other people more effectively? Oh, absolutely. Because I think until we can heal ourselves, we can't really help another, right? Well, we could if we used a book or we had like a checklist. Maybe, but even that is just so surface, right? Like whatever, you're just, he's abandoned. I'm sure you hear from people that are

55:32
in their grief journey wherever they are. And they're just like, tell me how to do it. And it's like, well, I mean, I don't know if I can tell you exactly how you should do it because everyone's experience is different, but here's what worked for me or here's what worked for so-and-so. Is that what you guys kind of do? Absolutely, absolutely. Because everybody's experience is different and valid and no one grieves in the same way. You've got some people who

56:03
you know, just want to crawl in a hole. Some people who turn to drugs and alcohol or other destructive behaviors because they're just trying to get through their day. Other people who disconnect from the world. And I think I've done all of that, you know, trying to get through all the things that I've had. And what truly has helped me is having someone there as a guide and having this community of

56:30
people who have gone through the Grief Coach Academy in my cohort and everybody else and having Aurora there to go, this is, let me walk with you. Like I can't take this on, no one can take on your own healing, but I can walk with you through it. And I can hold the hope for you because if I can get through what I've gotten through, I know you can get through what you have. And I'm here to help you love yourself. I'm here to help you.

56:59
you know, really look at what kind of life do you want to create and what's going to best serve you.

57:09
I like that. It's, you know, I think it's very important. I, you know, the more I do the show and the more that I share portions of my story and my grief journey, both losing my mother and then my grief journey after losing my grandmother, a lot of people will come to me when something in their life happens. And I'm just like, what I've learned now is that I can't tell you how to do this. But what I do tell people, because there's nothing right to say at that moment, really. But I tell them.

57:38
what works for me is to acknowledge however you're feeling at any moment in time and realize that that's okay. That you can both be sad, but also find something funny on TV, and you shouldn't take shame because you laughed so soon after so-and-so died. And just to acknowledge those feelings and be okay with them for however long they need to be there. And that acknowledgement for me has helped me move through them, right? Because...

58:05
I detach the shame, I detach those pieces. And so people come to me, I'm like, I don't have the rules for you, but I will be here. I'm here if you need me. But there's one piece of advice is just be okay with however you're feeling at any moment in time, because you're human and there's no telling what's gonna bubble up or if that fire's gonna be out or on or whatever it may be and all of it's valid. It's all valid and it's so important to, you know.

58:35
acknowledge where we're at and accept it, but also to express all of our emotions. And this is part of the peace method that I use and we teach and can really help others, is that idea of really expressing our emotions. Like when I was going through dealing with that thought about my brother, it was like I needed to fully feel and express everything and all the

59:04
get to like accepting it until I had expressed it all. Can't push it down. And like empty it out, empty it out, empty it out. And you know what? It's gonna come around again. Oh God, I thought I did this already. And it's like, all right, there's another level that I need to dig out and express and get out so that I can accept things. And maybe there's a greater truth. And what I got to is

59:32
You know, he would have willingly sacrificed his life for anybody. He willingly sacrificed his entire life, living with a woman who had mental illness, who he knew from day one.

59:48
he chose to stay. And as much as it's painful for me, and I may not have chosen the same path, I can accept the fact that he lived his life in his integrity and in his values. And that acceptance and that knowing that even to the moment that he died, he was choosing that. And one thing

01:00:17
that was so incredibly painful, but I'm so blessed now that I got to see this is she killed him a few days before her birthday. When I got to Kansas and I'm going through their house, I found the birthday card that he had written to her that he was to give her in three days. And it still said, when I look at you, I see the woman that I fell in love with. He chose to stay.

01:00:47
even though it was incredibly hard and he lost so much of his own life due to really focusing on her and what she needed and making her life okay. But that's who he was as a person. It's not my job to deny that or not accept that.

01:01:16
self-awareness and experience and the things that you've gone through that have kind of taught you those things. I, you know, I like to kind of wrap up these conversations with a question that I kind of ask everyone and I'm wondering if knowing what you know now about your own journey and the things that you've experienced, if you could go back to the little version of you that was told to kind of keep quiet, we're not talking about the hard things. Is there anything that you'd want to say to her about this journey?

01:01:47
Don't let go of your fire because it's gonna serve you. And I know it's hard right now, but I've got your back. So you're not alone. It feels like you're alone, but you're not. I think you might've heard it because you kept that fire. You kept it burning. I think that little girl heard someone telling her like, this is gonna serve you. Don't let go of it because so many of us, like I said earlier,

01:02:14
What to let that water that everyone threw on it just let it burn out and we move on to something else. So that little girl kept it going and it's really served you well. And I just appreciate you sharing this story. If people wanna learn more about like what you offer in this experience through who you are, just wanna connect with you and tell you their story or tell you something about your story. What's the best way to get into your orbit? Going to my website, which is...

01:02:43
www. or www. Either way gets to me. I'm also on Instagram at Grief Coach Academy or Audrey Laura White. You can find me on LinkedIn, kind of pretty much. Everywhere. All the social platforms. What's your MySpace? Yeah, no. But I...

01:03:13
But they can also, when they're on my website, we have five free videos that they can sign up for to receive that gives them a taste of what we do at the Group Coach Academy. That I can go through the peace method here, but what's gonna be most effective is for people to go, well, what is that? And how do I find peace in my life? Go to my website and download some videos. Go to my website and book a call with me.

01:03:40
or come on Wednesday nights and let's have a conversation about what's alive in you and what is the most present thing that you're dealing with so that we can be there together. Community is so important when you're grieving and so important as we're going through the hardships in life to know that you're not alone and we've got you.

01:04:07
Well, thank you for sharing your story. And I hope that if you're listening and you're in that space or you know someone that is, that you will send this episode to them and connect them with the Grief Coach Academy and all the things that you're doing. I think it's so wonderful. And you're kind of using that light that that little girl had and kind of just helping others light their own candles in a way so that they can serve themselves. So thank you for being a part of this.

01:04:35
Thank you so much. This has been truly a blessing to be here this morning. I so appreciate you. Well, thank you. If you are listening and you're enjoying these episodes, if you would share it with a friend or do a review, five-star rating, whatever floats your boat, I would love that. And I will be back next week with a brand new episode of the Life Shift Podcast. Thanks again, Audrey.