Julie Ryan - Navigating Holiday Triggers

Hello and welcome listeners to the Let's Talk About Grief Podcast. If you've followed or listened to previous episodes, you'll know I like to offer hope by sharing my guest stories with you. You get to hear how they have navigated their own grief, which can be both helpful and healing, knowing you too can move forward after a loss. If this is your first time and you don't know me, I'm Ante Dute, your host and author of Briefs of This.

And this is part of my mission, to help, Demysti Fiedley. Hello and welcome listeners to another episode in the Let's Talk About Grief Podcast. I'm your host, Ann Devert, an author of Griefs of This, Finding Your Pathway to Peace. And today with my guest, Julie Ryan, we're going to be sharing some ways that you may be able to navigate the holiday season that we're both very aware of, can be triggering, and can make you want to hide under the bedclothes until the spring.

We've both experienced loss and can share if that may be helpful as we carry on our conversation. But before I go down any more rabbit holes, let me introduce our guest, Julie Ryan. Welcome Julie. Thanks, Miss Ian.

I'm so delighted to be with you. I am absolutely thrilled because I don't know when we were planning this and you said November the 17th. That's when I can do it. I went, OK, Friday's are usually a good day for me.

We booked it. And then it was, as I'm preparing, I recognize that it's 12 years to this day that my dad died and it took me. Because of him, I blame him. And I tell him off frequently that I went on this journey into Griefland.

I mean, it's so interesting when you look back to see how your lives evolve, isn't it, Julie? It is. And this day, too. And I didn't think of it when we were planning that with this, but we were talking about it before we started recording.

Today is the 13th anniversary of my little sister's unexpected death. And we buried her on her 50th birthday. It was heart-wrenching, just awful. And so I think it's no coincidence, no coincidences in life every end.

You know that. That I think your dad and my little sister, Joan, we're up in heaven going, OK, ladies, do another 17th on the day that we're recording. Just in case you forget me, daughter, I'm still very much present in your life. Here we go.

Yes, I'm sure that the two of them, his name was art. So thank you for processing your sister because I always like to presence them into our conversations. So because of the day being so close to Thanksgiving and then Christmas, we can both speak to the difficulties we have faced. But what might be some of the triggers that our listeners may come up against?

Well, I think there are many. I think all the memories of childhood and adulthood when we were with our loved ones, when they were still around. And I find that I use a lot of Christmas decorations, especially. And I do have some Thanksgiving decorations as well, that were my mothers and my grandmothers and my sisters.

And I cherish having them. So I'll bring them out this time of year. And it sometimes will evoke some tears in my eyes. I mean, I'll get, we'd be just even talking about it as far as.

And then I think, OK, not only are they here with us in spirit and we can communicate with them and I can talk about an easy way to do that, if you want to. But we have all of these memories in the form of, for me, Christmas or minutes or pictures from Christmas's past and also Thanksgiving where we were together. And we just create new memories. Those memories don't go away, but we add to those memories.

And we can toast our loved ones that aren't with us in physical bodies anymore. We can say, hey, you know, happy Thanksgiving, mom or happy Christmas, Susie or whoever that you want. And I think that that is really a wonderful thing to do because it lets everybody remember our loved one and know that they're with us in spirit. Oh, I think that's beautiful.

Did you find, Julie, you say that you were able to decorate the house with ornaments from grandma from mom and your sisters ornaments? Did you find that you were able to do that that year? Or was that a bit of a process before you actually got to do that? No, I did it that year, especially when my sister died.

And this was so interesting. She died very unexpectedly and was in ICU for several days on a ventilator, never regained consciousness. But I could communicate with her telepathically because I am a medical intuitive and psychic medium who learned how to do, I'm a business woman who learned how to do, I'm a buffet of psychicness. So I was communicating with her telepathically while she was in ICU and unconscious.

But after she died within, oh, probably half an hour or so, my brother-in-law came out and we were waiting for the funeral home to come get her body. And he said, your sister has always wanted at her funeral. She told me for 15 years, she wants everybody to get a Christmas ornament. And I said, what?

And I said, yeah, she wants everybody at her funeral to have a Christmas ornament to remember her by. And now this is, she died on the 17th of November. Her 50th birthday was on the 19th of November, so two days later. And he said, we're going to do the visitation.

We're going to have a wake on the 19th. Can you make that happen? Well, I was out of town. Yeah, I mean, I didn't live there.

I hadn't lived there for decades. And I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to make this happen. So within less than 48 hours in, I assembled with help, 350 Christmas ornaments. They were pink balls.

And they had her initials, calligraphy, you know, her monogram, and white paint on these pastel pink Christmas balls. And they all had a pink satin ribbon on them. And then my goddaughter, thank you, God, was a party planner at the time who lived three hours south of where I was in Columbus, Ohio. I said, maybe at the funeral home at 9 a.m.

with two pre-lit Christmas trees and all these Christmas ornaments. So I paid more to FedEx in all those Christmas ornaments overnight than I did for the ornaments themselves. So it was such a beautiful thing that everybody got an ornament. And the other thing that I did too, that the funeral home was it was a mob scene.

There were hundreds of people there because my family's lived in that town for five generations. I had six great big huge birthday sheetcakes, birthday cakes. And I had all her girlfriends as hostess and everybody that came to that funeral home got a Christmas ornament and they got a piece of birthday cake. Oh, you did the two together.

I did the two together. So I came home a couple of days later after the funeral with my husband and my son and I had a little tree and an urn in the corner of my Christmas. And you better believe I took my fill of those pink ornaments with her monogram on them. And I decorated that when I got home.

And so for Thanksgiving, it was already decorated with all of her ornaments and still 13 years later, there's still all on that tree in my kitchen that's lit up. Oh my goodness. I have a tradition every year. Yeah.

What a beautiful memory. And you were able to do that. Well, what about your grief? How did you work with that, Julie?

Well, interestingly enough, and I think it all works out the way it's supposed to. I had 17 people coming within less than 48 hours of when we got home for Thanksgiving. And they were all coming in from all over the country. And so I didn't just have to feed them on Thanksgiving.

They were all staying at our house and at local hotels was my husband's family. So I had to feed them for multiple days. So I'm on the phone on the way home in the car, you know, organizing meals and doing stuff like that. So I was really busy.

And I think it helped a lot that I had all that activity happening when I first got home because it was such a shock that she had died and such an excruciating a few days. So then once that all cleared and I was decorating for Christmas, I cried a lot. You know, it was the opportunity for me really to have a moment to grieve. And I felt like the things that I had that were family memories and also as I was decorating for the holidays, it helped me grieve because I find, and I don't know if you have to, and that sometimes we just need something to be the catalyst to let us release those tears.

And then they just come in buckets and waves and all of that. I will tell people that tell me that they can't grieve. They'll say, I don't have any tears. And I know it's all stuck.

I'll say, watch terms of endearment or a sad movie. And you're going to cry at the movie. And it's like it loosens up those tear ducts. And then it just flows.

And it's a good way that can be a catalyst to help us begin the grieving process. So that is one way, if you find that you're unable to grieve, watch a sad movie and really get into it. And I think so many people are afraid of those emotions because they're big. We spent our lives controlling them and manageable.

And all of a sudden, it's almost as if the God has been let down and the floodgates have sort of opened up. But you're not going to drown if you allow yourself to be and sit with the emotion. It will pass, won't it? It will.

And what I teach too, and this works very well for me and I have many clients and people that listen to my show that tell me that this works well for them when they're grieving. I always say, picture the ocean, picture waves of the ocean. Everything in life has three stages, column disruption repair. You know, you think about the seasons.

It's called in the summertime. You have disruption in the fall and the winter and then you have repair in the spring. Well, waves of the ocean are the same way. The ocean is calm.

And then you have a wave that will come crashing. And that's the disruption. And certainly, if there's a hurricane or there's snarky weather, you can be injured. I mean, it can hurt if you get in the waves and you get knocked over from a powerful wave.

But always remember that it's kind of received and it's going to go back and the ocean is going to be calm. So when you feel those waves of grief, and that's what it feels like, I think, is a wave of grief that sometimes just comes over us for no reason. You know, we'll hear a song or we'll see something or something will trigger a memory and then we'll just find ourselves boo-hoo in about it. Picture the ocean.

Let the wave come in. Let it come to shore. Let it wash over you. And know it's going to recede.

And then another wave is going to come later. Expect them. They're going to come. Let them flow.

Picture them flowing back out. And then over time, those waves become less frequent and less powerful in the grief lessons with time. So what I'm hearing you say, I love that analogy, the ocean. Just as you're talking about it, I could almost feel my body calming down.

And that is the purpose in a way. Is it not to have our bodies calm down because when an event such as a sudden death has happened, you're in that state of shock. And then slowly the body believes that you can handle a little bit more. I kind of liken the shock to a blanket protecting you and slowly that warm blanket drops so that you are then faced with the enormity of what's happened.

And that to me is when people possibly can get into problems because all of a sudden they're feeling it all whereas before they've been numbed. So if they can just remember to pick to the ocean, that'll bring the stress levels that will bring all the cortisol that'll bring you back into feeling grounded because the brain doesn't know the difference between danger or a calming moment. And if you're all of a sudden visualizing the ocean, you are then naturally going to the danger signals are going to go, okay, we're thinking of an ocean, we can't be planning our escape. We don't need to run anywhere.

So it's going to bring you back into that calmness. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think you've had a really important point in too is that when we're in fight or flight and every time we have an emotion that feels bad, you can always based in fear, whether that be grief, anger, boredom, jealousy, whatever, actual fear.

It's always based in fear. And to your point, the body doesn't know the difference between a real fear and a fake fear. The other thing that happens when we're in fight or flight is we lose clarity. Because the blood drains from our brain goes to our heart and extremities so we can run away from that grief as if it was a, you know, some kind of tiger that was chasing us.

And it's not, but the body doesn't know any differently. So when you picture the waves of the ocean, what happens is it can keep you out of that fight or flight physiological response. I have another technique that I teach that I'd love to share with everybody. If I may, I call it the two minute rule.

And here's how it goes. Every thought that comes into our head is neutral. We assign it a meaning. So when we have a thought of, oh, my sister, like for me, oh, my sister's not going to be able to do it.

Oh, my sister's not going to be able to be with us for Thanksgiving. So Thanksgiving is ruined. And then we're on this wavelength, kind of this radio channel of more of those thoughts. Well, if my sister's not going to be there, then Thanksgiving is ruined.

Then we don't need to bother being with family and we don't need to do all that work and, you know, that planning and everything for Thanksgiving. And we got all this black hole of thoughts that makes us feel worse. Well, that's not rational. That's based in an irrational fear that's false.

Whereas if we can ask when we have that thought, if my sister's not with me for Thanksgiving, is that going to kill me in the next two minutes? It's a yes or no answer with this game. Is it whatever the situation is? My turkey's burned.

I've got, you know, I'm going to be late for this meeting. Whatever. Okay, is this going to kill me in the next two minutes? It's a yes or no answer.

99.99% of the time, it's going to be an irrational fear that we're stressing over and we're using our imagination to envision things we don't want to happen. So when you ask that question, what is it to curiosity snaps you to a different channel? It immediately raises your vibrational level because curiosity is interesting. It's fun.

You want to know more. Absolutely. And the beauty with the two minute rules, you can use it unlimited times in a day and you can use it in any situation. It's free and it's convenient.

It works anywhere your brain is your brain is usually with you wherever you are. So you just ask yourself, whenever you have a thought that feels bad. Is this going to kill me in the next two minutes? Yes or no, that will keep you out of fight or flight.

Now, if the answer is yes, this could kill me in the next two minutes. Get out of the road, but for the truck runs you over. That's a rational fear. But the two minute role is just magical.

Oh, I like that. That certainly makes sense because in the grief itself, your brain is attempting to make sense of what you're experiencing and what has happened. So you tell yourself stories, which is the fear, isn't it? It kind of doesn't like unfinished business.

So it's going to make those stories up, which is going to provoke the stress and anxiety within you. So stop, visualize the ocean and then ask yourself, when you have clarity, your brain is back online. Is this going to kill me? Oh, what a brilliant suggestion for even before you have clarity when you're in panic mode.

Oh, yes, if you do it, as it snaps you out of that, just make it a habit. It snaps you out of that fight or flight. It gives you perspective. It gives you clarity.

And I always say we're being led all day by our deceased loved ones, spirits and by our angels and saints and God and the whole universe, you know, not necessarily in that order. But what happens is when we're in grief or we're in a, some kind of an emotional state that feels badly and we're out of alignment with our spirit. It's a low vibration. And I always say spirit done communicate on the I feel crappy channels because the vibration is too low.

So when you ask, is this going to kill me in the next few minutes, it immediately raises your vibration. Then spirit can give you guidance. You can have guidance come in of, well, if I'm late for this meeting, okay, I don't have to panic. I just have to text somebody or call somebody.

Hey, I'm stuck in traffic. And we, and we're going to laugh a lot when we use the two minute role because we'll have a thought that will come in and, and I don't even think about it now I just go to the two minute rule. It's such a habit with me, but I'll say to myself, Oh, for God's sake, girl, quit being such a drama queen. And you're going to laugh a lot.

So it works great. But being a drama queen, going back to those thoughts. When somebody has died. I don't know if it's a society belief, but it's something within us.

We feel we need to be sad, or we can't feel joy. Where does that sort of fit in it? Because the way you're explaining it, that is not a truth is it that is something that we impose on ourselves. Yeah, what's learned is a learned behavior, absolutely from families and from society.

And I think the key here is to know that our loved ones are not blind. They just changed. They've changed their structure, their spirit without a body. And spirit without a body vibrates faster, you know, everything's energy and spirit without a body vibrates at a higher frequency at a faster frequency because it doesn't have the density of the body to slow it down.

So knowing that we can communicate with spirit at any time, any spirit, whether we knew them or not is irrelevant. Any spirit that's attached to a body, they don't have to be somebody that's passed. So all you have to do is just say, Hey, mom. And then that our heads are big satellite dishes in and they receive and transmit frequencies.

Every spirit has a frequency they keep throughout all of their lifetimes. So you want to talk to your mom or your dad, let's talk about your dad today's anniversary of his passing. Hey, dad, that tunes your satellite dish head immediately to his frequency. It's like you're changing the dial to the dad channel.

Okay, then. The static and that's right. Raising a vibration so that they can come in clear is that that's right. And then you it's as if we're opening a two way radio communication and you say something to him either in your mind or allowed.

And he's going to answer you and it's going to come in as fast as you can snap your fingers or before. If you think about it for more than a second, the thought that comes into your head, that's your brain talking to you. The more you do this, the more validation you get, the more validation you get, the more you trust it, then it just becomes second nature. We all come in with the ability to communicate with spirit.

Every one of us, every human ever born. Little children do this all the time. Yes. And it's their unlimited stories about some three year old who sees his grandfather in his bedroom at night.

And he tells his mom, the granddaughter, things about his grandfather that he, there's no way he could know. He never met him. This child can't read yet. There's no way he could know all children communicate with spirit until the age of about it's been my experience and about seven or so because they've had their grown ups in their lives say, Oh honey, that's just your imagination.

That's not real when it is. So all we have to do is just think of them. And when people are grieving, I find an easy way to communicate with your deceased loved ones is ask them to meet you in your dreams. Before you go to sleep at night, just say, Hey dad, can you meet me?

Even if you want to meet him in a specific place? That's good. Can you meet me at the lake? You know, down at our cabin.

Can you meet me in Tahiti? Can you meet me in wherever? That's what I was a favorite place. All yours.

Right. And it's easier for spirit. I have found over the years and to communicate with us oftentimes when we're in our sleep, because all of us are bodies and our spirit resets to a high vibrational level when we sleep at night. It's like we go back to the factory pre-setting.

And so back to spirit communicates on the high vibe channels. Well, we're back to the high vibe channel when we're asleep and then spirit can communicate easier with us. Whereas during the day when we're in grief, it's hard for them to reach us. It works great.

So that would be a great idea is to perhaps write in a dream journal, your loved ones name. Please come to me in my dream or as you say, meet me in this specific place. I just, as you were talking, I quickly spoke to dad and he asked me, why are you not painting? Why did you let your art go?

For you? Yeah. So what's your answer? My answer is because it made me cry.

Oh, I remember my husband bought me a fabulous box of paints. My dad was an artist. I've got his artwork all around. And I was mixing this color and it was really lovely and I ran out of it and it was getting dirtier and muddier.

And it was like, why didn't I pay attention to my dad? Why didn't I listen to him more? He could have taught me, you know, how to mix these colors. So anyway, I'll have to pick those back up again.

Well, I think there's a really good point in because you can talk to him now. He can still teach you now. He can. Yes, okay.

Yeah. I mean, it's not only me and my dreams. You were just talking to him. Just say, Hey, dad, what colors do I need to mix?

Show me in which and what quantities do I need to combine the blue and the yellow to get aqua or whatever. And I think that's the thing in that's so fabulous about being able to communicate with spirit is any information that you want. All you have to do is ask. You can ask a loved one who's deceased.

You can ask a saint. You can ask just the universe. Hey, what, what combination do I need of blue and yellow and green and whatever else to get this aqua color that I'm trying to make? And they've got the color you're seeing in your brain.

They can see it. Yeah. So that's one of the best ways to do it. And, and you think about, Oh my gosh, we have access to any information that we want.

Anytime we want it, we just forget that we have that opportunity. And that's why they say, start looking externally for the answers. We've got them internally. And that would be a validation of what you're just saying.

Okay, I'm going to try that. Listen, and I'll certainly stay tuned for more updates. I have another suggestion too, if I may. Please.

Yeah. Perdina Finn is a friend of mine and she's been on my Ask Julie Ryan show. And she's a historian and an amazing writer about primarily history of women healers and women that were telepathic and, you know, and were the ones that really made the magic in the world. And she, every morning before she gets out of bed, she had her husband laid bed and they do their morning prayers and then she assigns tasks to her to see his loved ones.

She'll say, Okay, mom, I need you to find me this kind of plant dad. I need you to help my son because he's going in for an interview with this job and, you know, please be with him and give him. She gives them tasks, a whole bunch of them. And then, and she said, every one of them comes to pass.

She said they're all eager, including her guardian angel and saints and people that she didn't know. She said they're all eager to help. They just need us to make requests and be specific if we can. And she said, it is amazing how well that works.

So, another wonderful tip. I know we tend to think the common thing is, Oh, just get your angels to find you the perfect parking spot so that you can zip in and out the store that you want to be going out. I like that assigning them. So it's almost as if you're connecting with them and you're continuing those threads.

They're, they may not physically be there but energetically you're still very much connected. And I find that brings me knowing that a lot more comfort. So this is something if you are grieving right now listeners that you can practice. And you don't have to be sad because your loved one isn't in your life, but perhaps celebrate as Julie said with something that you know is meaningful for them.

And I know you go into the stores, it's absolutely cluttered with Christmas thing, even though it's Thanksgiving for you coming up in the States. And Christmas music will start to play if it's not already. And that can be very triggering. That can be one of those triggers, can't it?

How can we navigate those when we're out shopping for groceries? Two minute roll baby. You're in a store. And those Christmas carols are playing and there's a store the other day and they have 40 foot tall inflatable Santa's and Christmas stories and stuff like that.

My husband loves that stuff. I sent him a video. I said, honey, here's what Christmas in heaven's gonna look like for you because I won't let him in my yard. So anyways, I think that's the reason I like to Julie.

Yeah, I mean, I love Christmas decorations, but I'll what plastic and flatable about something a little more classic. So you're in the store and you're hearing Christmas music and you're feeling like, oh, my mom or my child or my whoever isn't going to be with me. This is going to be the hardest Christmas ever. And you're hearing those Christmas carols and it just triggers you.

You ask yourself, okay, I'm hearing Christmas music is that going to kill me in the next two minutes. You're inside the grocery store. No, it's not. All right.

And so you stay out of that fight or flight and then you can get guidance and maybe the song comes on that was your mom's favorite song. And you can think, okay, mom, thanks. No coincidences in life. Mom's making that song play for you.

It's all about our perspective. And if we can stay out of the fight or flight with the two minute roll, again, you can use it in any situation, any time, any place. Unlimited times a day, it's free and it's convenient. Two minute roll works in every situation.

So whenever you're out shopping and you hear a favorite song rather than go into that emotion, the two minute roll. Is there a danger of what they term spiritually bypassing your emotions by doing that? Is there a time where you really need to sit and have a darn good cry? Well, absolutely.

No, I think that's absolutely necessary in therapeutic, but it may not be in the, you know, in the middle of the grocery store. Yeah. So I think that that, yes, when we can do that and we can have the opportunity to grieve and pay attention to those waves of the ocean and it's going to come in and you're going to walk around for a long time, perhaps feeling like, oh, my gosh, the world is happening outside, but inside, I kind of feel like I'm walking around inside a barrel or something. That's all to be expected.

Certainly there are phases of grief. There's no right way or wrong way to grieve. Somebody's going to grieve for one person may grieve very quickly. Somebody else may take years to grieve the loss of a loved one.

But the thing that's most important is know that your loved ones, they are in spirit and ask them to send you a sign. Spirit communicates in symbols and signs and music and phrases and you may see a license plate. You may see numbers that are all the same on a clock, like 111 or 444 or something like that. I see hawks a lot.

Hawks are divine messengers. And I'll see a hawk and then I'll say, the hawk, you got a message for me? Kind of like a carrier pigeon. Hey, you got a message for me?

That kind of thing. So be open to how your loved ones are going to communicate with you to let you know that they're with you. And if you're in deep grief, try the talking to them before you go to sleep at night. You don't even have to write anything down.

Just say, hey dad, come visit me in my dreams. Yeah, as simple as that. Because I've heard so many people. They've heard that somebody else has had a signed Ladybirds, monocbertephies, cardinals, blue jays, rainbows.

There's a whole slew of things. My daughter and I get little orbs on pictures. Yeah. Yeah.

And if you blow those up and sometimes you can see faces in them. Can you really? Yeah, it's really fun. I had and I have thousands of stories of working with clients and we're talking with their deceased loved ones.

And I had two that come to mind. One just happened recently. And I think this is a great illustration of be open to how it's going to happen and when they may give you something that hasn't happened yet. I was talking with a client and her deceased husband and she lives in Boston and she said, does he have a sign that he can send to me?

And she said, and when I got was yellow for the peacock and she said peacock, I live in Boston. I live in Boston. I live in Peacock's here. Whatever.

I said, just be open. You might see a pin. You might see a picture of a peacock. You might see a peacock on a movie, whatever.

As soon as she got off the phone with me and she turned on her computer and went pulled up her Facebook page and there was a picture of this huge full color peacock. So that's her husband going honey, I'm with you. My other one just happened last week. A graduate of my class, her mom had passed a few days before.

And so my gal Angie was fixing dinner for her family and she was in the kitchen and she watched a spoon fly across the room. And her brother was there and they both liked it. She was like, Oh my goodness, what is this? And she said to her mom out loud, mom, isn't that a little dramatic to make this food fly across her yet?

And then she said, I figured out my oven was on fire. Oh, and so she says, so we we put out the fire and then I said to mom, thanks mom. I know why you needed to do something dramatic to get my attention. Oh my goodness.

That's one of the wilder ones I've heard of. Yeah, for sure. I know when mom shortly, well, the day of a funeral, we're all sitting in the living space and the lights start flickering and these lights have never done that. And without even considering it, I just turned and I went, Oh, hi mom, welcome.

You know, we're all here. Glad you could come. And it was just one of those moments. And then another time when we're talking about that is just to create an awareness.

I was doing my book signing and I had a big event and I was chatting about it and I had a great big six foot picture of my book. And somebody taller than I had secured it. And all of a sudden, it started to roll up. And without thinking, I just went, I guess my dad's present.

So I suppose it's not allowing your brain to assign a meaning to any of those, but just allow what needs to come out of your mouth. Well, and those are two really good examples, I believe in of when the lights were flickering. The first on your head was, Oh, mom's here. And when your sign started growing up again, the first thing in your head was, Oh, my dad's rolling up the side.

My dad's here. So it is, I'm telling you, as fast as you can snap your fingers or before that first thought that comes into our head is always divine guidance. It's always intuitive information. And then what most of us do is we discount it.

We say, Oh, there must be a short in the wire or there must be a power surge or there must be something instead of what your first thought was, Oh, mom's here. And that's exactly true. You're exactly on target. So go with it.

Listen, as if that is something that you're experiencing. I know we're almost out of time. We've spoke about how to help our listeners navigate the holidays, the two minute rule, the ocean, some of the triggers, our senses are the ones that smells will bring up familiar memories, hearing the music. But as you said, you can assign a different meaning to it just by asking that in that two minute rule is just going to kill me.

And then perhaps when you get back to the safety of your home, put on that music, recreate that smell, whatever it was that triggered that memory and just have a good, ugly cry, I guess, to help you release it so that it doesn't get stored in your body. Is there anything else we haven't covered, Julie? Because I've got another question I want to ask you. Well, I think that we're all here to create.

And part of what we're here to create the bottom line is create a life of joy. And our loved ones, when we talk with them, they don't want us to be sad. They're around us all the time. I took to tens of thousands of spirits over the years, communicated with them and gotten validation for stuff that they tell us.

And the one thing the one common denominator and is they want us to be happy. They want us to ask them for help. They're here to assist us. And the thing that they love is they can be everywhere all at the same time and spirit form.

So when we're focused on, oh, my dad's not going to be with us for Christmas. It's going to be so awful. And well, your dad's in heaven, you know, and around you saying, what do you mean not with you? I'm with you way more now than I was when I was alive.

I'm going to be there every step of the way. I'm going to be there when you wake up on Christmas morning with you. I'm going to be there as you're cooking breakfast, as you're doing everything else. And all spirits are pure love and pure joy.

And that's what they want to share with us. So ask them for things like you said, and know that they're around you and know they can hear you. And they don't read our minds, but we can ask them for things. They see that as an invasion of our privacy and our free will.

Okay. Okay. But when you ask it, when you ask, you know, the old asking you shall receive, see can you shall find one other concept. Yeah.

Yes. Exactly. So it sounds that the grief is there for a reason. Because there's so many thoughts on that.

Why? I know it's an attachment, but why do we feel that loss so deeply? Is it a soul that needs to heal? Because our mind can easily have us move along.

It's a heart is it our soul. What are your thoughts? Well, the first one that came into my mind is we're here to have the human experience. We're here to experience all those emotions and then create out of them.

When we know what we don't want it helps us create what we do want. We want to create. And then it never ends because what happens? We create during our lives all day long.

You know, you create getting out of bed. You create what are you going to wear? What are you going to have for breakfast? We're creating all day long.

And then we create lots of things in our lives. And then when we're done, we die. We go to heaven. What do we do?

We create whatever it is we want to explore and experience in the next life. So it never ends. So we're here to create. And if we didn't have the contrast, we wouldn't know what to create.

You know, which don't want to help you create what you do with. That's number one. The other thing too is all emotions that feel better all based in fear. And the fear is when we have when we lose a loved one is I'm never going to see them again.

I'm never going to be able to talk to them again. I'm never going to be able to share memories and share new adventures and things like that. And that's just not right. It's something we've been taught that's just not true because we can communicate with them telepathically all day every day is what fun is we want.

We can create new memories because they're with us. We can ask their opinion and get answers. I mean, all of that. It's just different.

It's a different form in which we're creating, but nevertheless we're still creating. You're creating it. So for anybody that is grieving and they feel that they cannot be happy, those would probably be the learned behaviors, but also their thoughts of being judged by others. And I think this is why it's so important as you mentioned, everybody agrees differently whether somebody's crying or not, not to judge them, just to allow just to comfort them, however you feel drawn to do it.

But I always caution about the judgments to yourself and to others. Well, nobody can control anybody else's thoughts. Yeah. And nobody can control our thoughts.

We're the only ones that can control that. We're the CEO of our bodies and our brains. Right? We have people that help us, but nobody can control what we think are with somebody else's things.

So just come from a place of compassion for somebody who's grieving. And to your point with judging, say, well, she hasn't grieved the loss of her father yet because she walks around smiling all the time. You don't know what she's doing when she's home. That's true.

Yeah. And maybe she chooses to live a life of joy and she's talking to her dad and it's working out great. There's a gal that I'm interviewing actually this afternoon on my show who's done research that shows the best way to heal grief with a loss of a loved one is to communicate with them telepathically. There's been university based research done on that.

It's the way that provides the most comfort. If anybody can do it, you don't have to go to a medium. You just ask your loved one a question. And it's our first thought that comes into your head.

And so we all can do that. And straight, yeah. Oh, I love that. So to heal your grief, just talk to your loved ones.

Talk to your loved ones. Absolutely. Now you have an amazing book because a lot of people will perhaps still have it in their heads. Well, they died alone.

They suffered. And in your book, you have amazing. Well, I'll let you share. Yes, absolutely.

Angelica attendance. What really happens as we transition from this life into the next. And we have illustrations. I think that's what you were referring to.

We have illustrations in the book. Everybody surrounded by angels and the spirits of deceased loved ones and pets as we're transitioning. Everybody, 100% of us. Everybody's spirits pure love.

And university based research has corroborated and validated this. And it shows that 90% of people at the end of their lives and see the spirits of deceased loved ones and pets. So in my book, I described what happens. First time I saw it was with my own mother when she was dying in 2002.

And I have many, many other stories in the book about families with whom I've worked and I'm describing their grandmother. And I'm describing a story about what their family member needs in order to go ahead and transition. And it's really comforting and joyful. And it really helps people that grieve.

Many, many churches and hospice organizations give my book out. I give away thousands of copies of it a year. So anybody that would like a free copy of this, just go to julieriongift.com J-L-A-E-R-Y-M gift.com. And we will send you just say, Hey, I heard John Ann's show and we'll send you a free digital and audio book version of Angelica attendance.

And share it with your family members and your friends who have lost a loved one too. Certainly you're welcome to buy the paper back if you want. But feel free to share the link as well. Because it brings so much comfort to people that there's, I find that there's a lot of information out there about grieve and the afterlife in their death experiences, but not so much information available and about what's happening when somebody's dying.

And that's something that we're all afraid of. I was going to say that's probably the biggest. And even when we are a caregiver of somebody who's dying, we always want to put on that brave, stoic face, like Mr Happy Bunny and hope. There's always hope.

And said, what I've been doing is recommending recommended to my clients is that they have that open and honest conversation with a person. How are you feeling? Are you scared? Is it fearful?

What's going on for you so that you can share and open up what's coming up for you? And to me, that is a way of creating intimacy and not having any of those I wished I had of conversations. Absolutely. And ask them, are you seeing any deceased relatives or friends?

Are you seeing angels? Are you seeing pets? Because a lot of the time the dying person is reluctant to share that because they don't want the family to think they're nuts. And furthermore, for the family, be open.

When your grandmother says she's seeing her mother who's been dead for 100 years, then no, she is seeing her grandmother. That is not, she's not hallucinating. That is not the morphine talking. And how you tell the difference between hallucinations and visions.

Again, 90% of people see there to see loved ones and visions and dreams at the end of life. How you tell the difference is it's comforting for them. Whereas if it's a hallucination, they're going to be agitated. It's going to be scary for them.

Whereas when they're seeing their mother or in one case, there was a man who was in his 90s. He was dying. His mother died when he was five, but he could smell her perfume in the room. And he found that so comforting.

And that's what the research shows. So be open as a family to know, okay, grandma's got one foot in the spirit world. She's got one foot in the human world. How wonderful that she's able to combine the two.

And the other really important thing to remember is nobody ever dies alone ever. We're surrounded by angels in the spirits of deceased loved ones and pets, multitudes of them. Yeah. What a comforting thought.

I've got chills all around me. It's wonderful. Julie, thank you so very much for being our guest on this, how to navigate the holidays and why we find them. So triggering.

I do hope listeners you found some comfort and solace in what we've been sharing. And give it a week go. Talk to your loved one. And remember, it's that very first thing that pops into your head.

Share it with me. I'd love to hear what's come up for you. You know how to find the Anid Understanding Grief.com. Julie will make sure we put your link to your gift.

Thank you so much for your generous offer in the show notes so people can go there and pop on and find it. So once again, happy Thanksgiving, many blessings and I'm so grateful that you honored us again on the show. It's been wonderful, Julie. Thank you.

My honor. Thanks for having me. Bye bye listeners. Well, listeners, that indeed is a wrap.

Be sure to follow us by clicking on the link and you'll be the first to know when a new episode drops. And if you are feeling inspired, please leave a ring. And if you are indeed grieving, please know you don't have to feel alone in your grief. But reach out.

As a coach, I'm more than happy to chat with you on how coaching can both support you in your chaos and pain. Without forcing you to endure your grief-stricken world, you can contact me at Anid UnderstandingGrief.com. Or you can visit my website at UnderstandingGrief. I'm Anne.

Bye bye for now.