Ep8 - Navigating Grief Without Guilt with Rhiannon Spurgeon

Episode 8 - Navigating Grief Without Guilt with Rhiannon Spurgeon

Episode Summary:
In this deeply insightful episode, Sarah talks with Rhiannon Spurgeon about the complex nature of grief, trauma, and finding peace through self-love and inner work. They explore how societal expectations and childhood environments shape our experiences of loss in adulthood.

Guest Bio:
Rhiannon Spurgeon is a trauma-informed coach, hypnotherapist, and bestselling author of "Grief Without Guilt." She helps people manage grief, trauma, addictions, and unhealthy behaviors by guiding them to look inward and heal their pain.

Topics Discussed:
- Rhiannon's journey after losing her partner Oliver [3:31]
- The myth of the "5 stages of grief" model [29:56]
- How trauma and grief are interconnected [37:54] 
- The lasting impact of childhood environments [44:22]
- Doing the inner work to improve relationships [51:38]

Key Quotes:

"It was like a f***ing pinball machine. And you're experiencing one set of emotions...and the next minute a song comes on and you're completely poleaxed in floods of tears." [33:21]

"If the relationship you have with yourself is happy and nurturing and loving, the relationship you have with everybody and everything else around you will be more positive." [50:44]

"Learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all." [53:19]

Timestamps:
[3:31] Rhiannon's story after losing her partner
[29:56] Debunking the 5 stages of grief myth 
[37:54] How grief and trauma interconnect
[44:22] Childhood impacts on adulthood 
[51:38] Doing inner work for better relationships

Connect With Rhiannon:

Book: "Grief Without Guilt" in all major bookstores or get a signed copy here
Website: rhiannonspurgeon.com
LinkedIn: Rhiannon Spurgeon
Instagram: @griefwithoutguilt

Connect With Sarah

Website: www.sarahatkinsdesign.com

Follow on Instagram

Connect on LinkedIn

Join the Facebook Community - The Energetics of Being

Transcript

0:03

Welcome to the Energetics of Being Podcast, a podcast that delves into the fascinating world of human design and unravels the layers of conditioning beliefs and expectations that can influence who we become and how we show up in our lives. I'm your host, Sarah Atkins, and I'm really excited to share this journey with you. This podcast is for you if you're tired of feeling stuck, held back, or disconnected from your true self. My intention for this podcast is that we're going to shine a light on the patterns and behaviors that can prevent us from fully expressing our authentic self. Together we'll uncover the tools, insights, and practices that can empower you to release the limitations that no longer serve you. We are gonna tap into the power of energy, intuition, and self-awareness to unlock your true potential so that you can live a life that aligns with your authentic self. Join me each week as we engage in thought-provoking conversations with experts, practitioners, and individuals who have experienced their own profound transformations. We'll explore topics such as human design, gene keys, astrology, holistic approaches, coaching, neuroscience, and psychology. We're gonna draw from a rich tapestry of wisdom to help you navigate your own personal journey of self-discovery. So whether you are new to human design or have been on a path of self-discovery for years, this podcast is for you. This is your invitation to step into your power, embrace your uniqueness, and create a life that resonates with your soul's deepest desires. So if you're ready to dive in, let's go.

Sarah: 1:45

Hello, and welcome to the energetics of being and in this episode, I'm so excited to be joined by the amazing Rhiannon Spurgeon. Who is a trauma informed coach, hypnotherapist, and amongst many other things, she helps people manage grief, decondition from their traumatic experiences, addictions, behaviours. Basically all of the stuff that comes with a lot of emotional baggage and what Rhiannon does is helps you to look beyond that and navigate your way through it. She's also, I forgot to mention that she is a bestselling author as well of a book called Grief Without Guilt. Hi Rhiannon.

Rhiannon: 2:31

Hi, Sarah.

Sarah: 2:32

Thank you so much for coming. I'm so excited to share you with everybody because you've been in my world for about three years now properly. We got to know each other.

Rhiannon: 2:43

Yeah, it was in lockdown.

Sarah: 2:45

It was. That wonderful time where we had so much time on our hands.

Rhiannon: 2:53

It's, it's funny though, looking back on it, because there, there were so many things that were, you know, awful, rubbish, boring, frustrating, and everything else, but one of, I think, the great bright sides in my life that came out of it was the people that I met, who, you know, in online groups, like the business course that we were on together, who I might not otherwise have crossed paths with. I'm very much a find the silver lining, no matter how dark, big, oppressive, the cloud may be. And yeah, for me, my silver linings have definitely been the people that I've met along the way from the courses I signed up to that, you know, in any other year, I probably wouldn't have signed up to. There was something about the, the general sort of environment, climate, whatever that was going on, where we did, we just sort of went, okay, I have to, I have to pivot, you know, and I felt like the whole cast of friends trying to get that stupid sofa. Every business guru was going on about how, you know, pivot, it's so important to pivot. But, you know, none of us knew how long it was going to go on for. And we were all just trying to figure out how, how to do what we do in this new world. Yeah. With a few more years of hindsight since, some of it I've used, some of it I haven't, but I'm, I'm really glad that I did make those decisions at the time. Because of meeting people like you!

Sarah: 4:31

Oh, that's so nice. And I have to say for anybody that's listening if you ever get Rhiannon and I in a room together, good luck trying to get edgeways because we can literally speak for hours until the early hours of the morning, which has happened. So I'm going to do, I'm going to try and do my best to keep, keep a lid on it and try and keep myself contained to time. I think it's really interesting what you were saying, though, because I completely agree with you around the connections that we made during that collective, traumatic period of time, really. And actually out of that time where I was reaching for connection, actually, they've turned out to be some of my probably best business friendships. Like I would say in terms of finding that connection, finding people, like you say, that I wouldn't necessarily have connected with otherwise. And. So there's not just Rhiannon, but a few other people, Natalia, who I've also interviewed for this podcast is how I met Natalia on this business program. And actually that you've been in my world and been with me just in that three years, doesn't sound like very long, but in that whole time, my business, my life has completely changed and transitioned, and I've seen your business transition as well. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your journey in the last three years?

Rhiannon: 6:04

Well as just, just before we headed into lockdown, I had sent out the first draft of my book and I'd had this grand plan, you know, the best laid plans of of people and mice. And I sent out my first draft. So I had three people who read through it. And I planned, right, I'm going to get my editing done, and then I'll send it off to the publishers in the Easter holidays, and it'll come out in the summer. And of course all that just absolutely went to pot, because school closed a week before the Easter holidays were due to start, and as ever, stuff had happened at work, and things got pushed back. So. That sort of lockdown period, I had no concept of how much processing I was doing in the background myself. I was very much looking for, you know, where are the opportunities, for the glorious pivot, how can I turn what I have? into a business so that I can help more people and also so that I can support my family. And in the midst of that, of course, the joy of homeschool yeah, we all love homeschool so much. And then, you know, when that summer was over and she went back to school, I, I had a, a, a mument of hesitation where I thought, well, actually maybe this book I've written has done its job because you know, it was more therapeutic for me than I could possibly have predicted. And then somebody who I'd met on our joint business course messaged messaged me out of the blue and said, Oh, hi am I right in thinking that your book is basically about like really awkward relationships? and grief because I've got this friend and, you know, she, she was kind of the other woman and, but she's really devastated. And I thought, okay, this is my sign that actually I need to do this because I didn't write the book to help myself. I wrote the book so that nobody else would ever need to feel as alone in their situation as I had. You know, I was, I was 34. I had a 10 day old baby. When, when Oliver died. We weren't married at the time when he died, we weren't even speaking because I had to give him an ultimatum about his drinking, and he hadn't chosen us. So, I had that whole of dilemma of can I call myself a widow? I feel like a widow, actually, a chunk of his family acknowledged me as his widow. But how do I explain our situation to other people? And, you know, in my, in my whole family, the only other widow around was my great aunt. And, I mean, I adored her. But, our experiences of the relationship before being widowed, so different. She'd married someone who I think was, her best friend at school and they've had all of these glorious years together where Oliver and I had had a very Modern, kind of, on again off again Neither of us were looking for this fairy tale, they met, they swept each other off their feet. They, got married and ran off into the sunset type of thing because both of us had a lot of our own stuff.

Sarah: 9:43

Yeah.

Rhiannon: 9:44

But what we had was the best that either of us could do. So from the outside, It probably didn't look like a hell of a lot, but on the inside, it was, it was a very big, deep, meaningful thing that also, with it came lots of heartbreak even before he died. So I had found myself in this position where I was meeting people for the first time in baby groups and, introducing myself and Not really knowing how to introduce our situation, because as soon as I said I was a single parent, any other single parent in the room would immediately assume that I'd been abandoned or I'd had to run away from a narcissist or, you know, whatever. So there, there was always this sort of preconceived notion of what my backstory might be. So I found it very difficult to actually talk about how I felt about things. And it wasn't until my daughter had started school and I found out that one of the kids that she was in reception with had recently lost her mum, that I could talk to someone who was even in my age range and he, Ben is definitely younger than me, I'm not quite sure by how much, but we had this amazing conversation one evening while the girls were playing in another room. And I let go a bit of my you know, it wasn't perfect. And then he started to talk about how his situation hadn't been perfect either. And this connection and feeling of being heard, understood, not judged, just accepted. It wasn't great, then it was terrible, and you're trying to recover from this experience and there's, there's no one out there that you can look at and go, it's okay, I can see that they found a way through this, and they've been through something similar. So, the book for me was very much about, just being brave, no one out there was going to be the, the flag bearer for, Hey, I had a kind of screwed up, complicated relationship and, we were both alcoholics and I got better and he didn't and I have to deal with that the rest of my life. Oh yeah. And by the way, the last thing I said to him wasn't a very nice thing and I have to live with that for the rest of my life as well. And somehow in the process of writing it. I got masses and masses of clarity and opportunities to Release the emotions. Yeah. That I've been holding. So when I picked the book up again sort of September, October of 2020 to do the edits, I was reading it with a different perspective because I've been removed from it for the best part of six months. And I, I was, I was even saying, Oh, Ooh, I was a little bit angry there, wasn't I? Tweak that bit. Ooh! I was obviously a bit annoyed that day. Tweak that bit. And it It helped me see how much I had moved forward on that journey in that actually relatively short space of time. So anyway, I put the book out two years ago this weekend. Is it? How serendipitous timing for this episode. Crazy serendipitous. Yeah, it was the 1st of July but I was surprised by this huge delivery of boxes. And then, you go through the process of writing and I, I've also done audiobooks, so I'd also, sat in a studio for hour upon hour with a very nice sound engineer doing all of that, but somehow having, having this thing in your hand that has your name on it, and it's a real thing, and you can touch the cover, it's like, wow, I really did this, I really made a book. And then. Obviously it was a case of, so what, what next, what are you going to do with it? And I was always very reluctant to call myself the coach without actually having proper training, because I knew a lot of people who did call themselves coaches without having proper training. And I was conscious there's, there's a, there's a lot of, stuff, chatter in and about the industry, which isn't particularly positive where I know from my own experience, coaching can be life changing. So I wanted to make sure that anybody who came to me for help was actually going to get helped.

Sarah: 14:41

Yeah.

Rhiannon: 14:42

So through my friendship with you I met the lovely Helen Johnson and I did my level one coaching with her last year. And this year I've been building on that with Caroline Strawson doing somatic trauma informed coaching certification positive psychology and the trauma informed hypnotherapy. And I, I love the fact that enables me to help a wide range of people. So for the past few years, I, I work in a an enterprise hub. So I've been helping small businesses, be they largely women, but not entirely women, be they women who'd already started a business and then done the first few steps and then become paralyzed by what do I do next? Why is this not working? Talking through those kinds of things, helping with basic time management, planning strategy. I now also have Client in America, who I'm very much working with on the guilt that she is crippled by in her grief at the loss of her husband. And then I've got other people who come to me for, career advice. I've got a friend locally who just celebrated her one year self employed. Cheering her on from the sidelines, because when she was having a really hard time with her employer, we sat down and I went through with her, well, what are your other options? How about doing this? What do you really enjoy? And she's, she's changed her life from being almost on call 24 seven to an employer who didn't make her feel appreciated and valued to doing the stuff that she actually loves in the hours that suit her. She's much happier and I think she's earning more money as well. And it's knowing that you've played a part in somebody making a positive change is, it's so, so reaffirming, so valuable.

Sarah: 16:52

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Because actually just hearing what you were saying there, I always talk about human design, that it's not about putting people inside a box. And there are so many labels in this world. And you're right. When you were talking about the word widow, you immediately think, well, I immediately think of my grandmother.

Rhiannon: 17:14

Yeah.

Sarah: 17:14

And not a young person. And equally, like, just, even talking about your situation, the single parent thing, people make assumptions, we automatically, we're obsessed in society with putting people into these boxes. But equally, I would say the same thing about grief. Because grief isn't a one size fits all. And it's not always, people don't always experience grief from the loss of a person per se, do they?

Rhiannon: 17:47

Oh, absolutely. Grief, grief is a strange and tricky beast. So if if you're talking about the loss of a person, everybody around that person who has died will have. their own different experience of the grief for that one person. So for some people, it does seem to literally be, I miss that person. I'm sad about the fact that I missed that person. And they're working through that for other people. It's so I took my own experience. I, I grieved for the guy I fell in love with.

Sarah: 18:28

Yeah.

Rhiannon: 18:30

I, I grieved for the guy who, who died, who was, still occasionally had flashes of the guy I'd fallen in love with, but was not quite the same person by that stage. But it's also all of the grief for the, the life that you thought you'd have.

Sarah: 18:47

Yeah.

Rhiannon: 18:48

The experiences that you thought you would share that you no longer will. And, and with that bit, one of the weird things is that when, when you're grieving the life that you think you could have had. Generally speaking, you're going to automatically amplify the stuff that you could have had, where actually, if that person had lived you probably wouldn't have gone on all of those trips that you're like, oh, we could have done this together, but you probably wouldn't have done because, you'd have been busy parenting and trying to run a house and keep up with the bills and all of that, but you, you can't help romanticize it. Never ever underestimate how painful losing a pet is. I lost George back in February. She'd been my shadow for the last nine years of her life. And, she'd seen me through so much. She'd seen me through highs, through lows. And, and the void that was left, when, when she went was hard. It. It's the, it's the constant questioning yourself, which is part of the grief process of could I have kept her going a bit longer? Should I have taken to the vet a couple of weeks earlier? Should, should I have seen the signs? Have I, have I made her suffer more than I should have done because I wasn't ready to let go of her? And, there's people who will grieve things that do you remember when Take That split up?

Sarah: 20:28

Yeah.

Rhiannon: 20:29

It was all over the world. People going through this huge emotional experience over a group breaking up. Princess Diana bless her, she was a real person, she had real emotions, she had a real life. For most of the rest of us, we just saw Hello! magazine, and, the odd interview and stuff like that. When she died, this huge collective outpouring, Yes, it was extraordinarily tragic that she was finally starting to do things with her life that mattered to her, and she was taking a stand on things, and she was so young, and so beautiful, and the way that she died was just so

Sarah: 21:21

It was tragic, really, wasn't it?

Rhiannon: 21:23

Just so tragic. The people who were in Hyde Park with me on the day of her funeral, yes, the experience of what had happened to her had impacted us all. But I feel like that day, well, that week, that fortnight, it, it gave everybody permission to give into the feelings of grief for everything else that they had been swallowing. Suddenly, it was It was okay to just burst into tears on the train. It was okay to zone out at work because, you were so sad and so stunned by what had happened. And, for the average person, If, if you've lost somebody who's close to you, but they're not your spouse, your parent, your child, you don't automatically get two weeks off work to go and get over the shock.

Sarah: 22:28

No.

Rhiannon: 22:29

You're expected to just keep going and keep showing up like you're okay. And that, that can be really difficult because, there you are. A piece of your world has just fallen apart. And No one else around you is sharing that experience because they don't know, or don't understand how close you were to that person. And then there could be someone else who you would expect to have a much bigger reaction and they seem totally fine.

Sarah: 23:04

So it's weird, isn't it? As you're saying that, and I know that you all know this, but I lost my mum last year. It was May the 6th, 2022. And we hadn't, for anybody that knows me personally, we hadn't had the best relationship. Oddly enough, it's mostly down to her alcoholism. So there's a bit of a theme, but that was accidental. And it's interesting what you were saying about this sort of grief process, because I definitely grieved the mum. But I've had these stages throughout my life, I think. Like when I became a mum myself, I grieved. The fact that I didn't have the supportive mum that would come and stay and look after the kids and things that I just didn't have that. We didn't have that relationship. She, by that time, by the time I had children, she wasn't physically able because she had lots of ongoing health issues because of, a prolonged amount of time from smoking and drinking. So I grieved, I almost did, and I guess maybe that's what it is. Maybe I grieved some of those parts that I knew I was never going to have years ago. Like my eldest son turns 13 this year. So I went through that part of the grieving process 13 years ago when I realised that it was never going to happen. So I grieved what? That fantasy, you know, that I was never going to get. And it's interesting because both myself and my brother, just to reiterate what you're saying, is we have had a very, very different experience on grieving her passing. He's not a parent. He's he's single, footloose and fancy free He's only a couple of years younger than me, but he had a very different relationship with my mum. And it's interesting because I think he grieves the person that she was for him. Whereas what I do feel, I actually genuinely feel at peace. Which is really interesting for me. There was almost a sense of relief because we did heal our relationship in the last nine months before she passed. I was very grateful to have been able to do that, but that was part of my own journey and we healed many, many parts of our own relationship. I was able to understand her situation is interesting with the trauma piece, because actually her relationship with alcohol was actually, and a lot of her long term. health conditions, I believe were as a result of suppressed and unresolved trauma from her own life. And I guess it's a perfect example and a kind of good segue into what you do with the trauma informed stuff, because So often people don't realise the impact that trauma and grief can have on you, not just like psychologically, but also physically in your body. If you don't process it and if you don't delve into those shadows as uncomfortable and as awful as it might feel. Sometimes, It's actually a positive thing to let that emotion go to actually go through and process it. One of the things that I did with my mum is that we actually, I sat down with her. We spent a weekend together and we, I asked her questions and for the first time ever, it wasn't the first time I'd asked her, but it was the first time ever she was willing to go there and actually answer some questions. Her story is for another. Day, but I mean, her backstory is like a film script. You couldn't write a better script if I'm honest, but it made so much sense to me. I could understand why she couldn't be the mum that I wanted. She was the best mum that she had the ability to be. And for me, that was a huge release of pressure and expectation, I suppose, from that role. Cause we have this idea, going back to the labels, like I have this idea of what the perfect mum should be. I am not it, by the way.

Rhiannon: 27:25

You're pretty amazing.

Sarah: 27:27

So are you. But, my mum didn't fit that mould either. And actually, when I did a lot of work with Natalia and sort of other sort of people, personal inner stuff for myself. I had hypnotherapy funnily enough, exploring my stuff. I was able to move. It was almost like a process and a relief so that when it actually came to her passing, I'm not saying I didn't feel it. I absolutely did. But I think my feelings were different because I processed my grief differently. Does that make sense?

Rhiannon: 28:02

Oh, absolutely. And I think the, the experience you would have had when she died, If you hadn't done all of that work, those nine months leading up to it, your response to her passing would have been very, very different because there's Even if you have warning that somebody is nearing the end, generally there's things left unsaid. There's stuff that you said that you wish you hadn't, there's stuff that you wish you'd said but you hadn't had a chance to, there's questions that you have left unasked, where because you had put all that work in, the, the room for regrets. when she passed, was so diminished. And I'm, I'm so grateful for, for you, for your kids that, that you had gone through that process because your ability to cope with Everything that was happening in that final year of her life and the way that you've, continued moving forward in the year and a bit since, that's, that's as a result of the work you've done.

Sarah: 29:24

Yeah. It's interesting though, isn't it? Cause if one more person told me about the seven stages of grief and like, which stage am I in? I may have punched them in the face. Cause it's not, there is, it's not as simple as that. Grief and trauma is a very complex thing.

Rhiannon: 29:43

It is. And I, I got very pissed off with the flow chart. I'm trying so hard not to swear because it's a podcast, but

Sarah: 29:51

Oh, it's fine, don't worry.

Rhiannon: 29:56

I, I just, oh my god, it, it boggled my mind. And, when, when you're in the early stages of grief anyway, you're, you're living in a fog. You know, there's a start part where shock is your best friend.

Sarah: 30:11

Yeah.

Rhiannon: 30:12

Because if, if you can manage to keep the shock going until you've got through the funeral You, you can just glide a bit through that first bit, because the shock is like a, it's like a puffer jacket, that just takes some of the edge off stuff. And then you, you come through that, and generally speaking, in that run up between the, the death happening and the funeral, There's, there's lots of stuff that needs to be done, there's decisions that have to be made, there's people phoning, there's people you feel you have to respond to, so you're really, really, really busy for all of the time that you're awake. Even when you're lying in bed, crying and wanting to go to sleep. You still have this stuff going on in your head of have I picked the right music, have I asked, oh, have I remembered to tell that person it's happening. There's all of this stuff that kind of exists almost to fill some of the gaps. And then when the funeral is done, for a lot of other people, it's like, that's their closure. And they've, they've done that, they've been there to support you through the first week or so, and then it will almost never occur to them to mention it again, because it's, it's done once the funeral's happened. So you have more space in your day to feel your feelings and, and overthink and all that kind of stuff. And, so yeah, I totally did the, am I in denial, am I in an anger phase, or am I just surrounded by dickheads, you know, all, all, all of those things. And then, I, I went, eventually, it was while I was writing the book, that I went and looked it up, and it's like, hang on a minute. This is mental. So the Kubler Ross stages of grief, it was, it was developed for people who were being told they were terminally ill. So, it literally, it was developed to help people accept their own death. And somehow, Because, it, it fitted as, almost into a diagram, it's just been widely accepted that that's what grief looks like. Where, in my experience, there was no flowchart going on, it was like a fucking pinball machine. And you're, you're experiencing one set of emotions, and at the point where you go, okay, right. Breathe. Right now I'm just really angry and I really shouldn't be driving the car because all I want to do is run something over And then the next minute a song comes on the radio and you're completely poleaxed and in floods of tears because it feels like the person who you've lost is talking to you through the radio.

Sarah: 33:21

Yeah.

Rhiannon: 33:22

And they're reaching out to say everything's okay, just chillax, you're doing a good job. So you've pulled over to have a little bit of a cry and then you see an ice cream van and then you're like, oh wow, I really quite fancy an ice cream. And then you're having the ice cream and you're enjoying it. And then you're like, Oh my god, I'm a terrible person because I'm not eating my ice cream and I should be in a state of permanent devastation. I mean, it's, it's so hard. Because you're, you're having to operate in life as, your role within your family working, looking after your basic needs, remembering to shower, and put clean clothes on, and brush your hair, and eat properly. And all of these things are, your day to day, you have to tick all these boxes. your brain and your emotions, everything is a bit fractured because there is a bit of your brain and a bit of your emotional self, a bit of your spirit that is stuck in the grief fog all the time. And sometimes it's, 80 percent of you, sometimes it's 20 percent of you. Some days you can wake up in the morning and think, okay, today's going to be a good day today. Today's going to be fine. I'm going to achieve stuff. And you might be fine for the first hour, two hours, three hours of the day, and then something will trigger you. And it can be, I don't know, for some people it's yellow butterflies or dragonflies. Robins, you know, that's it. Yours is Robins. In my family it's a lot about dragonflies. Something happens, or it's a song, or someone says something, or something's on the TV. I've always had a problem with Ewan McGregor because, love Ewan McGregor, he reminds me so much of Oliver. That if, if he comes across. My vision at the wrong time. Bang. I'm right there.

Sarah: 35:37

Yeah.

Rhiannon: 35:37

It doesn't have a timeline. I think one of, one of the most commonly asked questions that I see in grief groups on Facebook is around, is it too early for me to start dating? I've met someone and I like them, but I don't know how to tell my family because I feel like they'll think it's too soon. Or, am I abnormal that it's been six years and I'm not interested yet? And it, you can't, you can't say in a year's time it's all going to be fine. You know, old school, like, back in, Gone with the Wind, classic example. Each time one of Scarlet's husbands dies, she's supposed to go into mourning for I think it was a year, but there, there was sort of a defined code of, you had to wear this amount of black for this amount of time, and then you could go down to this amount of black and da da da da, and at the point where I think it was your year was up, you were over it. And that was the, the societal regimen of this is how grief is managed, where my experience is that, as you said earlier, it's, it's just very different. It's, it's the, the relationship you're grieving, the person that you are, where you're at in your self development journey, that there are some people who I think, believe that they're stuck in grief for somebody who died two years ago, but actually the grief from that has simply triggered stuff that's way back. And it's just, it's brought up for them all of the stuff that, happened to them in childhood, or even is you know, being carried through generations.

Sarah: 37:30

Yeah.

Rhiannon: 37:31

Because they've been given permission to be inward looking, sad, whatever, because this person has died, that's when they start looking at everything else.

Sarah: 37:45

I guess that's where that's kind of perfect, but grief and trauma tend to go hand in hand, don't they? I think.

Rhiannon: 37:54

Yeah.

Sarah: 37:55

In some ways. I think when we talk about trauma as well, there's lots of stuff out in in the ether as it were on trauma, but trauma doesn't necessarily have to be like one massive cataclysmic event. It could be something seemingly small, like an argument. It's interesting. Cause I had a. Around the same time that my mum passed away, I had a really interesting situation with a contract. I lost the contract, but it got taken away very suddenly. And the whole situation surrounding it actually was fine. I dealt with that quite well, but what it did was it triggered some traumatic responses and memories from experiences that I'd had, like. a decade ago in previous employment and things like that. And it's weird because I think everybody thought I was really upset about this thing. And yes, it was disappointing. Yes. It made me angry because the way that it was done was not in my view, particularly ethical. However, what was more like stressful for me was how much it brought up from a past experiences and all of these things. And actually. How that then impacted me and my ability to take my business forward, really And I know obviously there's a certain amount of compassion there because I was trying to deal with grieving for my mum as well. Yeah. But it really made me shrink into myself. I didn't want to put myself out there. I didn't want to be visible. I didn't want to open myself up to criticism, judgment. And I realised that I've. I felt very fragile, I suppose in terms of, I know I am probably one of the strongest, most resilient people that you will ever meet. It kind of freaks people out, but I, at that stage, with all of this other stuff coming in, I genuinely felt quite fragile and The only person that really knew what was going on was my husband and that impacted how he was treating me. Not in a bad, like he wasn't treating me in a bad way in any way, shape or form. That's what I mean, but he almost had this like protection. I'm going to try and take everything on and try not to let anything impact Sarah whatsoever. But then that had a detrimental effect on him. So it's, it's so bonkers, like how things can impact and how. I was trying to retreat to kind of protect myself, but then that was having an impact on the relationship with my husband, my kids, and the knock on effect that that then has, we, we've got to take responsibility for our own shit, basically.

Rhiannon: 40:51

The ripple effect, positive and negative, of everything that we say and do and put out in the world is huge. So, I As you know, I adore your husband. I think he's wonderful. Because it's, to me anyway, I think it's fantastic and so heartwarming to meet a man who cannot tell you enough how crazy he is about his wife. You know, he's lovely. You two are such a great couple. Yeah. The, the knock ons, the ripples, you know, I was talking to a good friend over the weekend who has recently gone into therapy and she must have said five or six times, oh that's, you know, it's really, I really recommend it. It's like, yeah, okay then, you know, I've actually done quite a lot of therapy. That's why I am the way I am now. And she said, you know, she'd gone in expecting that the stuff that she needed to go and talk about was about her dad. But that actually it was about her mum, and I, I was trying very hard to keep my face passive, but to me it was so obvious, so obvious that her mother was the problem. But yeah, it's through having therapy that she can now see that her mother's issues, have created the issues that she and her siblings ended up with. But it's, there's, there's always a nature versus nurture argument. And yes, I think. Some of us are born with a predisposition to whether it's an addictive personality, depression, whatever, because particularly genetics passed down from mother to daughter and, you know, your mitochondrial DNA, there's, there's, there's types of trauma that, affect your cells. So there, there is a sort of a lasting physical impact, you know, even down to that, but the, the nurture element is huge. So if, if you've been raised in an environment where certain messages are constantly reinforced as a child, we, we are extremely self centered. Everything that happens around us, we take on very personally. Because we don't have the ability to distinguish. I look at friends who I've, grown up with, and the ones whose parents got divorced at different ages, and the ones whose parents got divorced quite sensibly and amicably, versus the ones who were very acrimonious. And, looking at the relationships that my friends have now, and, the linkages. Between what they grew up with, what they saw as normal which of course always makes me paranoid that Because my daughter's not growing up with watching me model what a relationship should be like, that I'm somehow damaging her. But I can't see the point in having a relationship unless I really want to be with somebody. And I'm yet to meet someone who makes me go, Yes, I so want to give up my ability to ever have time to myself to be with you.

Sarah: 44:22

I love it.

Rhiannon: 44:27

Because, I enjoy my own company, and I'm an introvert. Yeah, that, that sort of, that, that knock on impact and the messaging we have as, as kids, to bring in this human design thing, when you did my chart and took me through it the first time, and there were bits that I'd listened to and bits that I went off and read again. One of the things that has always stuck with me as being just hilariously accurate was the one about, I was basically born with a fear of not knowing enough.

Sarah: 44:59

Yeah.

Rhiannon: 45:00

And when, when you add that to my mother's experience, so my mother from, you know, a different generation, she didn't get to go to university because her school went bust. So she went to secretarial college and, she had an amazing career, but she always felt that she'd been held back by the fact that she didn't have a degree. And she very much felt the glass ceiling numerous times during her career. So as a teenager, we must have had the conversation so many times where she'd say to me, You have to go to university. You have to go and get the certificates so that, people will take you seriously. Incidentally, I went to university when I was 21. And one of my best friends in my first year was. About the same age as my mum, if not older, and she'd worked in a factory line for her entire life. Raised four kids to be top flight professionals, and then they turned around to her and said, Now it's your turn, mum. So I went home after being at uni for, I don't know, a month or something. And I said to my mum, By the way, that whole thing that you've been living with your whole life about not having a degree, You should just go.

Sarah: 46:14

Yeah.

Rhiannon: 46:15

And I told her about Margaret, and mum did go, and she came out with a double first.

Sarah: 46:20

Of course she did.

Rhiannon: 46:21

Of course she did. Of course she did. So, you know, the message that she'd been given was that she needed the certificate and that she'd missed her chance. But actually it's, it's not that. You don't want to be too sweeping and say it's never too late, but the opportunities are, are there if you go and look for them, for so many of those things. I, yeah, my, my whole, I need the certificates, I don't know enough. I, I listened to myself talking to my friends and I'm like, man, it's that thing again. It's that thing again. It's in my human design. It's like it's highlighted on my chart.

Sarah: 46:56

It's annoying because we have the same thing. It's gate 48, which is that shadow aspect of inadequacy. It's lingering like a little devil on the shoulder. Are you qualified enough? Do you have a certificate for that? Yeah. Who are you? Who do you think you are? Yeah, it's really annoying. But, like anything, now that you know that that's there, you're noticing it and you can squash it down and go, Do you know what? Thanks for that. It's not true. I've, I've got this. I can do all of this. Our brain is a bonkers thing, really.

Rhiannon: 47:35

It, it is. And it's the Julia Roberts thing over and over and over again. You know, that classic line from Pretty Woman, the bad stuff is easier to believe. And, you know, I, I love that movie. I've watched it so many times.

Sarah: 47:47

My favourite bit is Cinder-fucking-rella. It's true though, isn't it? We are brought up just in society to believe that we're supposed to be pretty little princesses and that we, we can't really have the dream because that's, that's for the fairy tale princess. That's not for everybody. That's not for, you know, you can't get back in your box, get back into your, you know, scullery or whatever it's called in those days.

Rhiannon: 48:21

But also it's the concept of what the dream is. The concept of what the dream is that's rammed down our throats the whole time by, you know, clever marketeers using social media and everything else is that, we have Loads of money, wear designer shoes, and, you know, go to the spa with our girlfriends a lot, drink champagne, blah, blah, blah. Actually you know, my, my experience is a few years back of being an AA in London. I was regularly interacting with, women who had titles and, you know, wore furs to meetings and all that kind of stuff. Did any of that stuff make them happy? No, it didn't. You know, some of the most desperately unhappy, insecure people I've ever known in my entire life were also the ones with the most wealth and privilege. So the, the dream that we're sold that we're supposed to have, it's all bollocks. I love that that little story that goes around on, on Facebook occasionally about the, the fisherman and he's, somewhere like Mexico and he goes out in his little fishing boat and catches some fish and comes back and sells his handful of fish and has his dinner and then sits back on the sits back on the sand and some hotshot businessman says to him, Oh, What you need to be doing is hiring a team of other fishermen and taking on more boats. Because then you could, you could go and catch a lot more fish and then you could earn a lot more money and da da da da. And then eventually you could just retire and sit on the beach. And the fisherman looks at him and goes, Hello.

Sarah: 50:07

Brilliant.

Rhiannon: 50:08

Because he's already actually living the dream. It's just that he doesn't need all the trappings that capitalism in, Gordon Gekko told us that we needed to be happy. I think there's, there's an awful lot to be said for your happily ever after is the relationship you have with yourself. Yeah. If the relationship you have with yourself is. is happy and nurturing and loving, the relationship you have with everybody and everything else around you will be more positive.

Sarah: 50:44

Oh, I love that, Rhiannon, and that's so, so true because like we said earlier, In order to improve the relationship with my mum it wasn't about the work that I did with her, it all had to start with me. It took me a really long time to understand that. I tried really hard and I have tried in the past to fix everybody else around me. It doesn't work. And from a human design point of view, if anybody is out of alignment with their emotional solar plexus, that is one of the behaviours that demonstrates that that's, you're out of alignment with that because we start trying to fix everything and everybody. And actually what we need to do is go inwards and identify what work needs to be done on ourselves. What is the inner work that needs to be done?

Rhiannon: 51:38

Absolutely. And and be fearless about doing it. I look back on my, my step four, step five. And at the time, I remember being absolutely petrified. And an awful lot of the people who were, a similar stage in the process as me, put it off, put it off. Or, or they did something that was very surface level, just so they could tick off the list that they'd done it. My sponsor was, and still is one of the most detail orientated people are you could possibly hope to be. And she was so incredibly generous with her time and her experience and her attention in going through all of this stuff. The overall lesson that, it gave me was about. reframing. So, the monsters under the bed is is actually taking away the torch that creates the big shadow and, and resizing things and learning to face things head on and just deal with them in the moment so that they don't stack up on you. And that was really, I think, where I started to learn about My ability to look at myself in the mirror and, and smile at myself.

Sarah: 53:02

Yeah.

Rhiannon: 53:03

if I hadn't had that as a starting point I, I don't know what would have triggered that change. But, yeah, let, you know, it's Whitney Houston, or was it written by Cole Porter? Learning to love yourself, it is the greatest. love of all.

Sarah: 53:18

Yeah.

Rhiannon: 53:19

That's, that's probably our time up, isn't it?

Sarah: 53:21

It is. I think we've done really well. That's brilliant. Thanks for that, Rhiannon. If people want to find you first of all, where do they buy your book?

Rhiannon: 53:31

So my book is available on all good online bookshops. It is also available in the Audible version on quite a few of the different sites. And obviously definitely on Audible. And it's also in ebook format. If you prefer reading it that way.

Sarah: 53:48

Amazing. And where do they find you? Or how can they work with you? If people want to find that out?

Rhiannon: 53:57

If you would like to come work with me, you can look me up at Rhiannon Spurgeon. com. I'm also on LinkedIn and I occasionally pop up on Instagram at, at grief without guilt. And I must get better at that. I find when, when I'm feeling happy, I, I feel like I shouldn't post on a grief channel about being happy, but then actually maybe I should to show you that actually you can go through tremendous grief and trauma and come out the other side and, and be a happy little unicorn that, farts rainbows.

Sarah: 54:31

Awesome. That's what we're all striving for, isn't it?

Rhiannon: 54:34

We're all striving for that.

Sarah: 54:37

Awesome. We'll pop all those details down in the show notes. Thank you so much for your time, Rhiannon. I really appreciate it. And well done for keeping to time.

Rhiannon: 54:46

Thank you so much for having me.

Sarah Atkins: 54:49

Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Energetics of Being. I hope you found our exploration today, both insightful and inspiring, and if you resonated with what you heard today, I invite you to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast on your preferred platform, whatever that might be. Your feedback is really invaluable and it helps us to reach even more listeners on their own journey of self-discovery. And remember, the conversation doesn't have to end here. You can connect with me on social media. I'm on Instagram under the handle sarah m atkins. Or you can find me on Facebook just as Sarah Atkins. You could even come and join my Facebook group, The Energetics of Being where you can share your thoughts, questions, or your own personal experiences. I would really love to hear from you and continue our conversation there. I am on a personal mission to bring you thought provoking conversations and practical insights to help you break free from the conditioning that holds you back, allowing your true self to shine brilliantly. And as we close out this episode, take a moment to reflect on what you've learned today. How can you apply these insights to your own life? What steps can you take to further align with your own authentic self? Thank you again for listening. I really do appreciate you choosing to spend some time with me. And until next time, remember that you are a unique once in a lifetime expression of the universe. Embrace your individuality, trust your inner wisdom, and keep shining your light brightly. Take care, and we'll catch you in the next episode of The Energetics of being. Stay curious, stay authentic, and stay true to you.