437. Three Steps for the Grieving

Blake called us to share some of the tools she learned for grieving after she lost her mom. 

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

My name is Blake, and it’s going to be OK. I’m recording this the day after the US presidential election, and all I will say is that I do not feel good. But also three years ago, I lost my mom to cancer.

I was 25 years old, and I had literally none of the tools that I needed to move forward in my life with this grief, this horrible, horrible, intense grief.

And today, the day after the US presidential election, I am remembering the tools that I’ve learned over the last three years to move forward in the grief of losing my mom. And I think those might help somebody else.

In my grief of losing my mom, I learned there are three things that really help me when I’m feeling really sad or I’m remembering that I’m going to live the rest of my life without my mom and I’m overwhelmed and I just don’t know how I can go on.

I call upon like three tools and those are, I spend time outside, I spend time with people that I love, and I appreciate small things. And a lot of those go hand in hand.

The other day, I was feeling really stressed out about the election and I was really missing my mom. She always gave me, I used to work in politics and she always gave me really good pep talks before an election day.

And I was really missing her pep talks and I went through my voicemail to try to find a voicemail from her. And I couldn’t find one and I was like starting to spiral a little bit. And I just went for a walk and I didn’t take any headphones with me.

I didn’t listen to anything. I put my phone away. And I live in New England where a few weeks ago, the leaves were just like so beautiful.

And I remembered that like, no matter what happens, at least for the time being, I can go on a walk down my street with these beautiful trees and their leaves and the leaves that have already fallen crunching beneath my feet and just appreciate like

the sound of my shoe, like walking over a leaf or remembering that like, I can lean down and pick up a bunch of leaves and just throw them over my head, which I did, like a child. And I think those are the kinds of things that remind me that it’s

going to be OK. And so, I’m today really grateful for the life that I have had to live that have almost prepared me to deal with things that feel really hard.

So, I don’t know that everything’s going to be OK, like Nora says, but something is going to be OK. It’s going to be OK.

I’m Nora McInerny. This is It’s Going To Be OK. We love hearing your OK things.

You can email them to us, Igtbo at feelingsand.co. You can call and leave a voicemail. We got a new number, 502-388-OKAY.

Feelings and Co. is a bunch of people who love feelings, including Claire McInerny, Marcel Malekebu, Grace Barry, and Amanda Romani mixed this episode. And our theme music is By Secret Audio.