edited Episode #74 Is It Time To Ask For Help? with Kim Fuller
Michelle Fox: [00:00:00] The countdown is on, my friend. This is the second to last episode of Nourish with Michelle Fox for this season. I wanted to begin this episode by inviting you into my community, specifically my community email. This is the place where we can stay in touch. I currently have been sending weekly emails to let people know about the podcast, but now moving forward
this is gonna be a great way for you to stay updated on future events, particularly our retreats. If you missed the registration for our Costa Rica retreat, February 28th. No worries. We have the wait list open. So head to michellefox.com/retreat, and that way you will be 1 of the first to know when the doors open for our retreat in September.
I've got my little notes here. Let's see. We've got a retreat coming up September [00:01:00] 25th through 29th. Gotta stay tuned for location. All I can promise you there is it will be on a beach, and it will be amazing.
And then, of course, our Nourish the Soul annual retreat that will be next year 2025, if you can believe that. And that will be March 5th through March 9th. So again, michellefox.com/retreat, and you can get on the waitlist there, and then that will get you on our community email list. But if you're like, I'm good. I don't need a retreat, but I do wanna stay in touch.
Then you can head over to michellefox.com/community, and that way you can just hit the easy button and sign up and join us. I would love to stay in community with you. So michellefox.com/community, and we'll stay connected. Okay. So this episode is with my friend, Kim Fuller.
This conversation literally felt [00:02:00] like free therapy, and so my hope is that you get a bit of free therapy in this conversation as well. I I even said in this episode, which you'll hear, I thought it was a bit selfish because Kim is just so amazing. Anytime she's in a room or on a Zoom. I immediately just feel so at peace and so centered and so present in my body. And so I truly hope that this conversation is the gift that you've been looking for as well.
Alright. Let's listen in. Welcome to Nourish with Michelle Fox, your guide to a vibrant life If consistency has been a challenge for you and you occasionally forget self-care, you, my friend are in the right place. Tune in for weekly inspiration to nourish your mind. I know your plate's full and I want to help you support a life and a body that you adore. [00:03:00] Let's dig in.
Michelle Fox: You are going to love this conversation. I have been waiting for months to interview this woman and to have her on our show because as you will see very shortly, Kim Fuller is one of those women who just gets it. So yes, she is a licensed therapist. Yes, she is an amazing coach, but also yes, she's an incredible friend and a really wonderful listener.
And so I just want to read you a little bit about her and then we are gonna jump right in. So in a world that often rushes past our pain, Kim stands as a beacon of understanding for those who have lost a loved one. Having walked the difficult path of grief herself, she intimately comprehends the struggles,
the heartache and the questions that can consume us. But beyond the pain, Kim believes [00:04:00] in the transformative power of hope. She knows that grief doesn't have to be the end of your story. It can be the beginning of a new, meaningful chapter. With her own lived experience of being widowed with an infant, Kim empowers women to find healing, strength, and peace
in the aftermath of loss. Her journey from grief to a fuller purpose driven life is an inspiration to all who have experienced loss and seek a path to rediscovery. Kim Fuller is a licensed marriage and family therapist and life coach on a mission to bring light to the shadows of grief and guide you towards a life filled with hope, confidence, and new awareness. So let's get this conversation going. Kim, welcome to the show. Hi,
Kim Fuller: Michelle. Nice to see you. Thanks so much for having me.
Michelle Fox: My [00:05:00] pleasure and so for listeners who may not know you and I met through Sistabiz global network. A network that has been so instrumental in helping me to build my business and The main reason I bring that up is just to say thank you in front of my listeners to say thank you, Kim, because you have led a lot of our black girl therapy sessions that have just been an amazing space to show up as us, no code switching necessary, no walls up.
And you've just always been so patient, just listening and guiding over the past few years for me. And so I can only imagine the healing work you've done for others. So thank
Kim Fuller: you. Oh, you're welcome. It has been a pleasure to serve, you know, Sister Biz in that way. So I'm honored.
Michelle Fox: So, I have this working title that I'm looking at of how to say goodbye.[00:06:00]
I have so many questions and you can see I'm on the edge of my chair, but before we do that, I would love to ask, would you be willing to play a rapid fire game with me?
Kim Fuller: Okay, yes. I love games, so it's cool.
Michelle Fox: Oh, good, good, good. So I was going to say, I promise it won't be too tough. This is always fun. So two choices here.
When you look at where you most like to travel, would you choose the mountains? Or the beach. Beach. That was quick. And there you go. You can be one of my soul sisters. Okay. Great. Number two. Would you be willing to share a role model of yours, whether you know him or her, or they are celebrity?
Kim Fuller: absolutely.
I would say one of my favorite role models would be my mother. She is, dynamic, educated, intelligent, fun, social, outgoing. [00:07:00] She is a, she's very much into community service and giving back to others. She's just amazing. And I really adore her, appreciate her, and, I look up to her.
Michelle Fox: Hmm, what an absolute gift.
And this may or may not transition into the same person with the same memory. But last but not least, will you share with us a story from your childhood in the kitchen?
Kim Fuller: Oh, well, my mother, was very, much a, the cook in the house and her thing was we, she made almost all of our meals. Like we didn't get to grow up with like cold cereal, we had to beg for that.
she liked to have a hot breakfast, hot lunch, hot dinner, etc. And so she used to encourage, me and my sisters to help in the kitchen. And so she used to like to also cook things from scratch. So there's two things that she used to, she still teases me about. The first one is she asked me to go into the fridge one time and get her the lettuce.[00:08:00]
And I opened the fridge and I looked in and I probably, I don't know, six, seven, eight. And I said, sorry, mom, there's no lettuce. And she was like, huh? And she knows she had just gone to the store recently. And then she looks in and she pulls out, you know, some chopped lettuce and she goes, Kim, here's the lettuce.
I go, mom, that's not lettuce. That's salad. So I had to connect to the dots, right? Oh, that's super cute. And then the second one that I think of is that she used to like to make, we used to have plum trees used to line our streets. So she used to take the plums and make plum jelly. We also had apricots in our backyard.
So she used to take the, yeah, she used to take the apricots and make apricot jelly. So we always had like fresh homemade jelly, right? And so one time she said, I said, mom, we're out of jelly. And she was like, once again, like what's happening with Kim, she looks in there and she pulls out a, you know, a commercial jar, you know, I dunno, Welch's, Smucker's, whatever.
She goes, jelly. And I go, Oh no, no, no. I meant [00:09:00] the real jelly. And so that was some of the kind of experiences I had as a child where my mom liked to create from scratch and give us lots of like homemade, fresh kind of meals.
Michelle Fox: What a gift. Oh my goodness. And may I ask, is your mom still. Yes, with us.
Okay. Awesome. Awesome. And why I asked that is because as I was preparing for this time with you today, and I knew that we'd be talking about grief, the beauty of it, the journey of it and everything in between. I started to think of some of the really and I'm going to be talking about the big things, but also the small ways and ways that we can heal.
And so for me, I did lose my father in 2015, and that was just, it's, a whole thing. And I, I know that [00:10:00] I'm not alone. A lot of us have lost parents in this age group. I've also lost a eight year old nephew and that's been traumatic for our family, you know, across the ways. Anytime you lose a child that has a, a special significant grief. The grief that I went through with my divorce from my first husband, like that still has ripple effects as my daughter's now 16 years old and the divorce was, I think,
maybe 10, 11 years ago. During that divorce, I lost my dog, Maya, who was my best friend in the world. And so there was a grief there. And then also looking at my journey from moving from corporate into entrepreneur It's always a tongue, tongue twister, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial pursuits, I will say it has been a grief from, you know, being in the office with a group of people to doing my own thing, and of course, creating my own community.
And so even as I'm listing all of these things, and I'll stop there. [00:11:00] On paper, it can sound hard, heavy, rough, but also there have been some really beautiful ripple effects through all of those experiences as well. And so I would love just to start off with a question to you. When your clients come to you and you can just feel that heaviness, I know you are an intuitive as well.
Like what are maybe some of the first things you either ask about or dig into to kind of help them to unpack some of that grief. Oh,
Kim Fuller: yes. Well, one of the biggest challenges I think that we run into with grief is that there aren't always spaces to talk about the person we lost, the item we lost, the experience we lost in a way that other people aren't, you know, eager to share their own stories.
Because it's fascinating as you were talking, I was thinking about my own experiences of grief. And if we were just, you know, friends sitting on a couch, I'd be like, Oh yeah, and I have lost this too. But in a coaching environment, the person who's, sharing [00:12:00] gets this open space to just explore. And so one of the things I do is I allow them that open space to explore the ups, the downs, whatever they've experienced.
So I usually just want to hear whatever it is they're willing to talk about first. Of course, I want to walk them through a process, but they need to kind of lead with what is, like, top of mind and know that they're not going to be interrupted or even, one upped. You know, I got one better than you, like, I lost somebody more intense than you, or mine several captains at a time, instead of having to deal with that part.
Michelle Fox: And I so love that you brought that up because I can think of certain friendships when I did lose my dad. I was one of the first in my friendship circles to lose a parent. And I noticed two things. Either one, a friend was in there and like, I'm here for you, whatever you need, like almost kind of smothering me.
And then also the friend who just totally disappeared. Because I didn't know what to say. And [00:13:00] so just real quick, would you be willing to offer, I mean, one, you just offered up that being a good listener is yes, probably step one, like that's huge.
But friend to friend, like what are some things that we can say and be more mindful of when somebody is going through a grief process that we ourselves don't understand?
Kim Fuller: Right? I think that I liken it to any other kind of injury. Right? So In the distant past, I was getting in and out of my car and my knee hit the steering column. So my kneecap kind of was injured and I'm an avid exerciser and runner. And so what did I do when that my knee got injured? I took time to ice it, to elevate it, you know, I took care of it, right?
And other people would give ideas about how to take care of that injured part of me. And they just went from their own experience of, of pain, right? Their own experience of injury because we all have them. And so one of [00:14:00] the things that I always think about when I, when people ask me that question is what is your experience of pain or injury that helped you as you were going through the healing process?
Because just because you can't see it, it's not a physical injury, right? Doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And I think that's the easy part for us to kind of forget that we know what it feels like to be in pain, to hurt, and for some, something to be missing or lost from our lives. And so I think lean into your, your intuitiveness, because there's no wrong, there's no really right way to answer that.
There's no script that I can give because it needs to come from your heart. And so the kinds of things that I think of is like, when I was in, when my knee was injured, I just really wanted people to give me, one compassion, but two, I wanted to be like, Oh, you know what? My knee was injured before. And one of the things that I did was I used to put a pillow under my knee to really help.
When I'd go to bed. That's a suggestion. And so if I were leaning into someone who just lost a [00:15:00] parent, I would say, Oh, you know, last time I had loss, one of the things that I really liked was when somebody offered what they can actually give me versus saying, Oh, you know, anything you need, I found that was never helpful.
But if they say, I'm really good at, you know, organizing schedules, or, I have a car that seats eight people. I can do carpool. I have, you know, the ability to, walk dogs because I can go for long runs, I can walk several, you know, and you give of yourself what could be supportive and, and helpful and loving to that other person.
I think that's really where we need to start like intuitively what can we really give and be clear with the person who's grieving, what you can give don't say anything because that's not true. I'm telling you I've challenged that before and they're like, Oh, you want 2,000 dollars?. Right. Right. Very clear.
Michelle Fox: Yeah.
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And at the same time, in that line of thinking, I also like to ask people when that comes up to not tell me that they understand because nobody can [00:17:00] understand, like, even if you lost your father, you know, the year before, like our experiences are still starkly different just because we're two different humans on this planet.
Kim Fuller: Yes, and everyone has their own relationship whatever, with whatever item, thing, experience, person they lost. So even if you and I both lost our fathers in the same year, we understand the idea that we both have that, that absence in our life, but what that means and that daily experience of it and the past, present and future loss that we experienced, it's going to be very different.
And so, yeah, I think that it's nice to say that I have a lot of compassion for your experience or I have, you know, love for the fact that you were experiencing this. But no, I can't really say I get it because I was there. No.
Michelle Fox: And I love that you lead with compassion. I think you've said that twice now and that just is a heart expanding.
Yes. Yeah. I can't use [00:18:00] that word enough with me. I'm like, I need those constant reminders that yes, because we are in this together and compassion, I think gets us to healing that much quicker, whether it's self compassion or compassion for others. Yes. So on this show, I really like to give tips, tricks, tools for action, actionable steps.
And with that, I wonder if you'd be willing to walk me through a grief that I'm currently walking through and see if other people can see themselves in this picture as well. Okay. Okay. Yay. Also, selfishly, that's, that's a one part of me loving doing this podcast. Cause I'm like, I get free coaching or free therapy.
Kim Fuller: Yes.
Michelle Fox: Thank you for saying yes.
Absolutely. Let me put my pen down so I can really be present with this, which is to say my daughter and my bonus daughter, they are both [00:19:00] 17 and juniors in high school, so next year is going to be all about, you know, looking for colleges and talking about their next steps as far as leaving home.
And for the past two years, I've really been grieving the idea that they don't need me half as much, like not nearly as much as they once needed me. And then two, I've been grieving just that relationship. So like, I still call them babies or kiddos and they've caught me like, you know, I'm not a baby, I'm not a kiddo, but somehow in my brain that mommy bear instinct kicks in and I'm like, you'll always be my baby.
And at the same time, I understand I need to give them that room to move on and room to be their own women. And so I guess. What I'm leaning in here with you is to ask what are some things you might be hearing me say and or are things [00:20:00] that I can do to kind of heal that grief because it hasn't felt like it's getting any easier.
Like the closer we get to them leaving, the more I'm just really, really sad.
Kim Fuller: Yes, I hear you. And that timer, I hear that one, theme song kind of timer ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, you know. Like, like there's some kind of a clock in your head that's going, that's exacerbating this experience of the grieving process, right?
Even before they've left, you already are feeling the sense of loss that you're kind of like anticipating it. We call that anticipatory grief, right? and it's just as, you know, emotional as any other kind of grief. so the first thing I think is one, You are, experiencing a sense of loss that hasn't happened, but what is it that you really feel like you're losing?
Michelle Fox: Hmm. My first thought was the snuggles. Like my daughter in particular, she used to be really [00:21:00] snuggly. And with that said, I don't think she was snuggly past the age of nine or 10. And so even as I'm saying that, I'm kind of laughing at myself. Cause I'm like, yeah, I'm still holding on to something from, you know, seven years ago, but it's still there.
Now she doesn't seem to have the time for snuggles or watching the same movies or television shows. It's like, we do have the time together at dinner, and I absolutely cherish the time we have together in the car. But again, she's going to be driving her own car in a couple months, and so I'm gonna miss out on that.
so yeah, I feel like I just stepped right back into my emotions. I don't know. Did I answer your question directly?
Kim Fuller: Well, what I, what I heard, tell me if I'm right. I heard that you, you've been experiencing losing out on some of the physical aspects of your relationship with your daughter. Yes. And now that she's actually going to be away, physically away, there's, you don't see a opportunity to get that back.
Correct. [00:22:00] So part of our challenge as parents is allowing them to evolve, right? And change. And that with each of those steps of evolution, our connection to them has to modify and change right? So there's other aspects that have evolved, I assume, right? So what can you kind of fill in that part now so that you can kind of begin building it as she actually leaves the nest?
Like, what can you put in, in place now?
Michelle Fox: I'm taking notes as I say this, because that sounds very actionable. What can I do right now? And what I can do is double down on the conversations that we do have, because they are absolutely so much more rich and even nuanced now that she's older and Mm-Hmm. becoming more mature.
And I'm saying she, that's Angel, my daughter, but also with Lucy, my bonus daughter. Same with [00:23:00] her. Like they both are really stepping into their own and we have been able to have a higher level conversation when we do get to finally talk. And so I absolutely cherish those conversations.
Kim Fuller: Mm. Yeah. So the other thing that came up for me was you were sharing that was, I'm currently
in this process of, trying to become a minimalist, right? And having like a capsule wardrobe and making sure the things that I have around me are things that I actually use and need. Ooh! Right? So, it is very interesting process. Because you know what you run into quickly? Is all of those things that have an emotional, like, component to them, right?
Sentimental. And, and then I ask myself questions about this thing that's sentimental. Like, does it really, give me value? Does it fit into the scenario? Is there another way that I can have that? Because usually [00:24:00] sentimental means it's connected to another time period or another person or an event or an experience.
Is there, is this really representing that?
Michelle Fox: Actually, can we pause and say that again? Because that's huge. I have never thought of it again that way. But that's exactly right. The sentimentality. It's from a different time period in your life, but you said that a lot more gracefully. Would you be willing to say that again? It was beautiful.
Kim Fuller: I think that's what I said. yeah, because the, the, the item that we are holding onto is really representing a different time period, right? Or a different event, or a different relationship that we had. And the truth of the matter is, is that experience, the emotional experience, really in that?
And so part of your challenge is in your mind the experience of your daughter being physically and emotionally close to you is caught up in a time when she was younger. And I don't know if that's true.
Michelle Fox: I think it [00:25:00] is. And I think even saying this, there's a little bit of guilt that's sneaking in too. Kind of like I feel guilty that maybe I'm missing out on some of the current beauty and blessings because I'm still trying to hold tight to the little girl that she once was. So yeah, you're giving me something to think about here.
Kim Fuller: My goal and my role is to, heighten awareness about our thoughts.So as a coach, that is my, my goal is to heighten your awareness about your thoughts because the more that you can look at them and observe them and be curious and question or challenge them, the, then you have the opportunity to make changes.
Hmm. If you are just in default, victim, remote, whatever you wanna call it, then you're just stuck in that experience. But if it's a choice to be there, it feels very different because the other thing that I believe is that the whatever our thoughts are [00:26:00] create the results that we have in the world. So, and our thoughts, of course, are comprised of, you know, our beliefs, our expectations, our perceptions,
that are fueled by all different things, right? It's fueled by, our ethnic background, our spiritual background, our gender identity, our financial experience, our economic status, our education, our, traumas, et cetera. All of those are in one little thought. And if you don't know that they're all in one little thought, then you just think that all of your thoughts are facts.
And I find my, even myself knowing this, I find that I have to like fact check because I have this thing about, you know, the idea of people not being around me are going to forget about me. What's that about? Right? So I'm wondering if that plays a role. Just put that in, in, in your, your [00:27:00] thoughts. because that comes from just stories and ideas of when I was younger that, I always thought, Oh, I'm just forgettable.
Now, when I challenge that thought and I run into somebody who I haven't seen for 10 years and I go, hi Kim, there, that whole belief is gone.
Michelle Fox: There's a clean evidence right there. Yes.
Kim Fuller: But if I didn't realize that was one of the beliefs I had, when that person said something to me, I never would have connected the dots of now that belief is no longer true.
I have clear evidence that it's false. So that's why it's important for us to be aware of how we think.
Michelle Fox: I love that framing, including I'm also hearing this idea of being curious, like curious of, Oh, is that real? And curious of, Oh, is, are these thoughts serving me? Yes.
Kim Fuller: It's not popular. Don't get me wrong. And it doesn't always feel good. because it [00:28:00] just, you know, sometimes we lean or believe that we're being comforted by those beliefs,
those items. And are they? No judgment, just curiosity.
Michelle Fox: And even as you're saying that, I'm like, yeah, I guess some of the things I was saying about this loss of this relationship with my girls, there was some kind of victimization in there, and there's, as we all know, there's no power when you're feeling like a victim.
But with your reframing, I feel like even physically, I just, I stood up a little bit straighter. I'm like, yeah, there's a lot more power in me looking at what I currently do have.
Kim Fuller: Yes.
Michelle Fox: So Kim, oftentimes when we talk about grief and I, know that even before I hit the record button, I shared with you, I didn't want to put grief in the title because I think the word grief can either turn people away because people automatically think of sadness or they automatically think of their own sadness.
But I know you talk a lot about the [00:29:00] beauty and the wisdom and the gifts in grief. Would you be willing to highlight Some of the good things, quote unquote, good things that can come out of grief.
Kim Fuller: Yes, and I know that sounds counterintuitive, right? That the loss of something can actually come up, something beautiful can happen with that.
I think in that process, one of the things that comes out is understanding that we have the ability to heal and to evolve and to enjoy life again. That's a gift that you don't know beforehand. Right. The other thing is that you are able to learn and tap into your own inner resources. I think that's a gift.
Right. And I also think the last one is, we learn new ways to appreciate life. The first thing people always say after somebody dies is I, you know, your own sense of mortality starts to become really heightened in your awareness. And so then you, even if it's just for a short amount of time, you start to really appreciate the here and now.
And I think that's a gift [00:30:00] that you otherwise could just go, Hmm, you know, I have forever and they have forever. But I think that is part of. the wonder and the beauty of being aware of the fact that we are limited to the amount of time we have. And here's evidence that, you know, we can die at any time.
So why not enjoy our moments now? And
Michelle Fox: I would even add on when somebody dies, like particularly like, let's just use the example of a celebrity and it's feels unexpected. Like, I feel like there's like almost a palpable kindness, like all of a sudden people want to be kinder to each other and maybe call that friend that's been on their mind for a while.
And I love that element. Like sometimes we just do need these reminders.
Kim Fuller: Yep. I agree. 100%.
Michelle Fox: So I want to take a few steps back and talk about your story, because I know you had [00:31:00] a devastating loss with your husband and you had an infant at the time.
Can you just talk, whatever you're comfortable sharing, just some of the things that you did for your process to heal, but then also to be able to bring that learning and heal others.
Kim Fuller: my story is a little complicated in terms of details, so I'll make it simple. Okay. if ever we want to talk about the details, I'm open to that because I have evolved to be comfortable with that.
but my husband and I, were married, and had a child And he died all in the same year and she was 10 months old when he died and he had suffered from, lymphatic leukemia when he died. And one of the other complications of our lives together was the fact that we were newly married. So we hadn't moved in together.
Yet. And, and he died in December right around Christmas. So just all these [00:32:00] complications, right? emotional and, financial and physical, et cetera. and I was very angry. that was the way in which I, you know, expressed my grief was through anger. I also was very, closed. Like, I didn't really talk much about it, what else did I not do?
I was irritable, I was touchy, I'm a new mom, so I'm emotional, there's all these elements that were happening, and one of the things that I like to share with my, clients and friends or family who ask is that I made a lot of mistakes that I would love for other people not to have to make, right?
One of the mistakes was I didn't really talk about my experience for more than a year. The other is that I also, was kind of like touchy, irritable, mean, kind of, to people. Sure. I was really As a defense mechanism? As a defense mechanism. And it also kept people a little bit away, right? Mm hmm. So I didn't have to be like, in touch [00:33:00] with my emotions.
I also didn't do some of the other things that I learned through grief coaching. And one of them was allowing myself to grieve, right? Another thing that a mistake that I made, so let's stay on my mistakes, I'll just talk about three because I made probably a hundred, was that,I made big life choices in the first few months after his death, like I left a full time job,
with benefits and a salary because I decided that I wanted to be, you know, a life coach, a motivational consultant. I want to be on my own. And that was already in my plan. I just sped it up for reasons connected to the trauma, right? Trying to just break free. With a young toddler at the time, it sounds like.
Yes. Oh my gosh. Oh wow. So, yeah. So once again, those are mistakes that I would like other people not to ever have to make, right? Because we are, we're not really in a very clear state, after some kind of a trauma or tragedy. And we really deserve to have a little bit of [00:34:00] time, if we're allowed it, You know, to go through the process, some of the things that I would do differently or that I kind of like to help other people that I learned through my own coaching, because that's number one was get support.
And that can be in a lot of different forms. Right? Yes. I sought a grief coach after one too many people were like, you're like angry you that was no reason for you to, you know, fly off the handle for that, you know, and my desire was to be a good mom. So when people would say you're angry, I'm like, Ooh, I'm creating, I'm creating
this environment for her to develop an anger? No. so I think talking to someone, whether in a, someone professional. Like we said at the top of the, this interview, yes, your friends and family can give you what you need in certain ways, but a professional is only looking out for what you need. And that, to me, is the difference.
Because people are like, oh, I have friends and family. I'm like, yeah, use them too. Because that would be my second [00:35:00] suggestion. Lean into your friends and family. My third would be give yourself space to grieve. So the benefit early on was that I had a commute. And then my commute was about between, I'm in LA, so everybody, large cities, we already know, when I say I only had to go 15 miles, they go, oh, that was an hour.
So I had, an easy hour each direction. And I used that hour to let it all out. I would scream, I would cry, I would yell at him, I'd yell at the lot, I would just let it out. So by the time I got to work, I'm ready. Then work, of course, has its own stressors and they get compounded. I'm like, you should be here to help me with this.
By the time I get home. So I think, and I knew that I had that time and that's the way I wanted to use that time until I didn't need it anymore. And I encourage my clients to schedule time for them to grieve when they can do it without any witnesses, any judgment, right? Because it's kind of like my knee early on, right?
When I said I had my knee was [00:36:00] injured. I gave it time to heal. I gave it space. I gave it attention. I think another thing that really worked for me, which I didn't know I was in coaching for with my grief counselor for about three years. And it was more than a year before I told her all of the, The circumstances around my husband's death.
Oh, wow. That's how closed off I was. Here, I'm a mental health professional. I've been a therapist for almost 30 years now. And I still struggle because we're human, right? Mm hmm. Hobbler whose kids have no shoes concept, right? Mm hmm. The other thing that I also learned was how to create rituals around my husband, right?
So me and my daughter celebrate his birthday. And that is our thing that we do for him. We always are talking about him. I want her to feel like she knew him. So it's our thing that we do together. and often we will invite his mom, you know, to be part of that. Because she, you know, [00:37:00] she's still grieving just as much. The other thing that I like to do is, also talk about how to manage your own personal self care, because those are the things are going to fall by the wayside, too. Proper hydration, proper nutrition.
Are you getting enough sleep? All of those, you know, elements that we kind of let fall when we're grieving. And then also the other side is how do you have the opportunity to express physically right? Whether that's through yoga or, physical exercise or running or whatever, there needs to be some kind of physical outlet for all of the energy.
Because grieving is just emotion. And sometimes we hold it into our bodies. It's nice when you have an opportunity to kind of let it out and lastly, cause I think this was important too. That we all run into and that is activators. There are a lot of, times in our life, whether [00:38:00] it is, a specific date, a specific song, a person, a location that activates our central nervous system and makes us, throws us right back into early stages of grief.
And if, and there's something we could predict. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, et cetera. And I think learning or figuring out what you can do to prepare yourself for activators is another way to kind of help yourself through the healing process.
Michelle Fox: So what I'm hearing, and let me know if I miss anything, is as we are going through the grief process, we really need to lean into professional help, whether that's a coach or a therapist.
We also need to be okay asking for help from friends and family. We also need to make space for our self care, whether that's screaming in your car, screaming in your closet, going for a [00:39:00] massage, all the ways that. self care is real for you. Yep. We also need to be aware of our activators and have a plan.
And or actually, I don't think I heard you say plan because even as I'm saying that, that doesn't feel real to me because as you said, sometimes these activators can feel like they're coming out of the blue and you just have to feel your way through that. Would you agree? Yes,
Kim Fuller: you have. One of the reasons why we get stuck in that place for so long is because we don't do anything with it.
And if you allow yourself to feel your way through without numbing, right? I don't know if you picked up on the fact that we didn't talk about numbing at all. We didn't talk about taking medicines or alcohol or drugs or anything that would keep us from experiencing the feelings because like everything, it comes and goes.
A lot of people go, Oh my God, I'm sad all the time. That may be true that you experience sadness [00:40:00] often, but think about your day, how much of your day was really sad. Because there might have been a moment in your day where you saw a funny commercial and you laughed. Oop! There might have been a time in the day when, you were frustrated because you couldn't get something done.
There might have been a time in the day where you were just calm and relaxed and kind of like, content. So yes, sadness is there too, but so were all the other feelings. You're just focused on sad, right? Once again, I would challenge that belief. I'm sad all the time. Initially, it is like, if you look at a pie, it's the largest slice of pie.
But even the day of, the day after, there are other feelings that come and go, too. And so I also encourage my clients to be aware of there are other feelings, too. And it's okay. We're very complex. Our brains can handle it.
Michelle Fox: Well, Kim, I want to be mindful of the [00:41:00] time. I know I could talk to you another two or three hours, but in fairness to you, your schedule, your other clients that you are helping.
One, I want to say, thank you so much for sharing you and your wisdom with me. And then two, I know for our listeners, I can say, how can I get more Kim in my life? And so where can we send people?
Kim Fuller: You know, I have a website, kimfullerlifecoach. com. That's the best way to find me.
Michelle Fox: Awesome. We will add that to the show notes.
So there will be an easy button because I have no doubt this has healed some people just by listening to your voice. So that would be great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank
Kim Fuller: you. My pleasure. You're welcome.
Michelle Fox: thanks so much for listening to Nourish. Have you been driving, doing laundry or walking around the neighborhood? Sweet. I've got show notes for you. Hop on over to [00:42:00] michellefox.com/podcast. When you are ready. I will let you know that on the page, you will find resources to support what you just learned on today's show. And then of course you can grab some health supportive freebies as well.
If you enjoyed this episode, I would be honored. If you would leave a review on whichever podcast platform you are listening on. It will help me with my mission to build healthier communities. One person at a time and it will help you because you will be part of that mission.
I'll be back next week and I encourage you to keep showing up for yourself and know that you and your health matter. Big love!
