Healing after dramatic loss and life change is possible.

Transcription:

Healing after dramatic loss and life change is possible. Getting back the life you once had, is not possible. Life changes when there is a loss, it brings change into your life. And very often that change feels like something just so foreign that we just don't want it. We want back the life we had. We want to experience the things we had before the loss. So how do we move on without the thing that we now have no way of getting back? How do we embrace that change? Can we or should we? My name is Carrie verragio, better known as Carrie v. And I am a motivational professional speaker. I'm a coach. I'm an author. I'm a podcast host. I am a mom. I am a wife. I am a daughter, a friend. The last year of my life has brought immeasurable loss to me and to our family added on to losses that began in 2010 when we lost my oldest brother to colon cancer four years later, my dad to heart disease after he had gone through complications of diabetes and losing a kidney and my throat cancer and going through all of the radiation for that. This year brought grief after grief after grief. I myself was diagnosed with the same cancer that took my brother a few years ago. Then I was diagnosed with Lynch syndrome. I was an I contracted COVID while he was in the hospital. I was diagnosed with skin cancer, I was diagnosed with osteopenia, I needed to have my ovaries and my tubes removed because of the lynch syndrome. And my mother died in my arms. 19 days after being diagnosed with colon cancer. And think I could go on. I didn't want to go on Sundays. My mom lived with us the last few years of her life. And I got used to waking up every single day and fixing our breakfast and getting her to her appointments and laughing over funny movies. And doing things with my mom taking her on vacations, taking her shopping just sitting down and having hot chocolate with her. I got used to having my mom in my life, and I missed her. So how did I get out and move forward with my life. After all the dramatic loss and the traumatic change that came into my life last year.

I am going to propose to you five ways and there are more. There are more. These are my top five ways but believe me there are more things like surrounding yourself with beauty. I have candles going all the time I have, I make sure that I have pictures of my loved ones up, I make sure that I spend time with loved ones. Every single day, I make sure that I pick up the phone and call people but these five things I'm going to share with you are my top five ways of overcoming that dramatic loss and change in your life and being able to get up every day and move forward. Number one, acknowledge that you are hurting and give yourself permission to feel everything. A lot of times people will will say and even said to me, isn't it it's time to get over it is time to move on. It's time to skip to the good part. Will skipping any feeling will be disastrous in the long run. Allow yourself to feel every single feeling. We don't need to choose a Pollyanna lifestyle where we smile at everything all the time.

I do believe that happiness and joy are choices that we get to bring into our lives. I also know that pain and grief must be felt in their deepest form. In order to stand up and choose that happiness and joy. grief and sadness are part of life you don't have one without the other we have that balance. Joy is more joyful when we know the pain of grief. So give yourself time and space and grace to feel every single feeling that you are feeling surrounding that pain. Second acknowledged that the loss never goes away. I am never going to stop missing my mom, there will always be a void where she used to be and my dad and my brother, my grandmother, those people have lost in my life that never goes away and it is okay for you to acknowledge that that loss never goes away. We want to remember the loss. We want to remember those we have lost because then we get to remember the good memories we get to remember how things were we get to laugh over funny stories that we remember acknowledged that the loss never goes away. You never have to get over it. People who tell you to get over something. Either have never experience loss, or they've never dealt with their loss, you don't just get over it. You embrace that as part of your new life, you create a new normal. Number three, pray, my faith is strong. And prayer means so much to me. Without that higher power, I don't know how I could move forward. Whatever your belief system is, your religion is clinging to that higher power know that there is someone or something guiding you, for me, that is God guiding me every step of the way in charge of my life, grab hold of that in your own life. So number one, acknowledge that it is okay to feel every feeling number two, that the grief will never go away, that loss never leaves you. And number three, pray. And number four, following on on that. Live your life with passion and purpose, your passion, your purpose didn't go away, when you experienced that loss. It may be different, it may look different, it may feel different, it may seem seem different, but you still matter, you still have purpose. Get up every day with the passion to live in purpose, to change lives, to help others to serve others to do the very best you can and to be the very best you can be every single day. Get up with passion and purpose in your heart. And number five, acknowledge that you are in charge of how your story goes and how your story ends. You get to choose it, you get to choose if you are going to stay in the grief, which which turns into wallowing when you stay in grief too long. When you stay in that loss too long. When you stay in the sadness too long. It turns into wallowing, you get to choose if you're going to do that. Or if you're going to wake up one morning and say, I'm going to take a step forward. Today, I'm going to start creating my new life today. Today I'm going to find a pocket of joy of laughter of strength. That is your choice, you are in control of how your story goes.

Acknowledge the loss, know that it's going to stay, that loss doesn't go away. I'm never going to get my mom, my dad, my brother, my grandmother, I miss them every single day. I am never going to have back the life that I had pre being told that I had cancer or Lynch syndrome. And I get to get up every day with passion and purpose. And know that I get to create my story. I can turn all of those into strengths. I can stand up and I can move forward and so can you so can you dramatic change in your life after a dramatic loss takes time. You get to choose to let go of unforgiveness of bitterness. And you get to embrace this new life of joy and power. And knowing that you have purpose and you get to live life with passion and you get to take what has happened in your life and turn it into a positive it is your choice. You are writing your story. Make sure the story you're writing is the one you want to write.