Ep. 67 How to Grieve Healthy! Strategies for Adults & Children!

In this episode, my guest Jessica Frasier (LCP) offers practical strategies to help adults and their children grieve healthy to cope after any loss. After losing two loved ones to suicide and a brother to drunk driving, Jessica understands the harmful patterns that unresolved grief creates. Her early experience of unhealthy grieving led her to the work she does today as the founder of Hope Again Counseling located in Friendswood, Texas.

As a Licensed Professional Counselor, Certified Integrative Mental Health Professional, and Advanced Grief Recovery Method Specialist, Jessica counsels bereaved adults and bereaved children. She has also provided counseling services in schools, private practice, trauma and grief centers and educates businesses about mental health and grief in the workplace.

This was an enlightening and invigorating conversation that contributes greatly to our awareness of and about loss, grief, recovery and healing.

TIMESTAMP:
Welcome (0:00)
Loss, grief, and healing with Jessica Frasier. (0:22
Grieving, hope, and healing after suicide loss. (4:33)
Grief, hope, and seeking help. (9:58)
Grief, guilt, and connection. (15:10)
Emotional literacy and healing in Western culture. (20:00)
Emotional pain, grief, and healing through community support. (24:03)
Unhealthy grieving and the need for connection and listening. (28:48)
Grief, trauma, and healing through storytelling and support. (33:48)
Grief and healing for children and adults. (39:36)
Supporting children through grief and loss. (44:36)
Grief, stigma, and honesty. (49:19)
Disenfranchised grief and loss. (54:33)
Grief, loss, and healing after tragedy. (1:00:15)

Connect with Jessica:

Website
www.hopeagaincounseling.com
Email
hopeagaincc@gmail.com
Facebook
www.facebook.com/hopeagaincounseling
Instagram
www.instagram.com/hope.again.counseling

Mentions:

Dougy Center
https://www.dougy.org/

National Alliance for Children’s Grief
https://nacg.org/

Connect with Vonne
https://vonnesolis.com/ 

Subscribe to the podcast! Share your favourite episodes! Connect with Vonne on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome
• 0:22 Loss, grief, and healing with Jessica Frasier.
• 4:33 Grieving, hope, and healing after suicide loss.
• 9:58 Grief, hope, and seeking help.
• 15:10 Grief, guilt, and connection.
• 20:00 Emotional literacy and healing in Western culture.
• 24:03 Emotional pain, grief, and healing through community support.
• 28:48 Unhealthy grieving and the need for connection and listening.
• 33:48 Grief, trauma, and healing through storytelling and support.
• 39:36 Grief and healing for children and adults.
• 44:36 Supporting children through grief and loss.
• 49:19 Grief, stigma, and honesty.
• 54:33 Disenfranchised grief and loss.
• 1:00:15 Grief, loss, and healing after tragedy.

Transcript

Jessica Frasier  0:00  
Welcome to another episode of Grief Talk. Everything you want to know about grief and more. I'm your host, Vonne Solis. As an author, mentor and bereaved mom since 2005, through guest interviews and coaching, here's where you'll always get great content that is inspiring and practical to help you heal after loss.

Vonne Solis  0:22  
Today's guest is Jessica Fraser. Jessica is a licensed professional counselor, certified integrative mental health professional, and an advanced Grief Recovery method specialist. Jessica works with children and adults and has provided counselling services in schools, private practice trauma and grief centers. So welcome to the show. Jessica. As I have mentioned to you, I am so excited that you are part of my Grief Talk podcast community. So thank you for being here.

Jessica Frasier  0:52  
Oh, thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.

Vonne Solis  0:55  
We're going to open up with Jessica's experience with loss. She has considerable experience with loss in terms of suicide. Also losing a brother to drunk driving. We're going to be talking about what the grief is like when you have a stigma, disenfranchised grief. We're going to be talking about bereaved children that's sure to be a wonderful, invigorating and inspiring and educational conversation. So I do hope you stay tuned in. So Jessica, turning to you. If you want to just set the context for your experience in loss. You state that your losses were what guided you to work in the areas you now work in. So over to you.

Jessica Frasier  1:38  
Okay. So lots of times people will ask you, why do you do what you do? And I think anytime you ask a therapist, why do you do what you do? They're all, I'm going to venture to say all. That might be a little bit of an overshot. But we all have a story, right? And we've all experienced some hardship or journey through something. And most of us have overcome it. Either in a healthy way or an unhealthy way. But most of us have overcome it or are continuing to navigate that and we want to help other people do that.

Jessica Frasier  2:11  
And so I am not unique in that. I have a story too, and mine is full of loss from a very, very young age. In fact, from birth, really. My biological dad was never a part of my life. And so he, when I was four months old, we left him and I never saw him again. And so I always knew about him and knew his name. And I have a half-brother somewhere out there in Michigan. But so from very from birth, I was experiencing loss of some sort. And throughout throughout the course of my life, I've experienced many, many losses from pet loss to moving to witnessing domestic violence, to then suicides. Two different suicides. When I was 13 years old, my stepdad died by suicide. And then when I was 22 years old, my boyfriend died by suicide. 

Jessica Frasier  3:03  
And so even though I have a story, a history of loss, those were the two that I contribute to why I do what I do because there's so much stigma attached to those losses. And in 2001 with the first one and there was really a lot of stigma there. Then in 2009, we had started as a country getting better about talking about suicide and acknowledging the magnitude of it. But it was still something that I felt very passionate about. Getting out there and becoming an advocate for. And then like you had mentioned, my brother died in 2015, from a drunk driving accident, and he was the drunk driver. And so lots and lots of different losses. And that's why I do what I do. 

Jessica Frasier  3:48  
Because some of those I did not deal with in a healthy way. In fact, many of them probably right. But as I've grown and evolved and done different support groups and reached out, I've experienced grief in really unhealthy ways. And then I've also experienced what it feels like to grieve in a healthy way. And after I did that, I remember very clearly sitting in a grief group, a support group for survivors of suicide loss when I was weeks after my boyfriend had died. And I was consoling people who had been bereaved three years or longer, more than I was getting support. And it was at that moment where I thought oh, this is what I need to do.

Vonne Solis  4:33  
Just stepping in real quick there. I was the same. What I want to just point out here. So your stepdad died in 2001. Your boyfriend in 2009. My daughter was in 2005 right in the middle. And I can guarantee you today with the suicide survivors, what they're experiencing, it is exactly the same as back then. 

Vonne Solis  4:54  
I do want to talk a little bit about unhealthy versus healthy grieving. That's something you and I really connected on. I remember we were talking about, there may not be a right way to grieve. But there certainly is a wrong way to grieve. And I want to dive into that just a little bit. So I think that if you're in the therapeutic world, and you're advocating and you are grieving in a healthy way, that's what you tend to sort of focus on and bring people through that process. But I believe there are millions out there, millions that are in an unhealthy grieving way. But in terms of the work you're doing, let's talk about that. The type of counselling you're doing. I love that you recognized, I'm sitting in a support group, and I'm, I want to be healthy. I don't want to be stuck here. And that's the point I wanted to jump on is I found the same thing. Without any disrespect to support groups, I found there a lot of people stuck in their stories. So in the work you do, you're obviously focused on recovery healing. So with that, why did you call your practice Hope Again? And how does your work encompass helping people find hope?

Jessica Frasier  6:15  
So before I answer that, let me say, when I was bereaved by suicide, the second time, and I was seeking help people asked me, Are you going to go see a counselor? Are you going to go to a therapist? And my answer was an immediate no. And so as a therapist, I want to acknowledge that. Because I, I said, I cannot go talk to somebody who does not know what this experience is like. I can't. I cannot go look in the yellow pages, which they were still kind of a thing, then. But go look and say, call therapists and say, has somebody you love died by suicide? Because if not, I can't see you. You don't get it. And so I was very adamant about that. I was, that's why I went to support groups, specifically for survivors of suicide loss. 

Jessica Frasier  7:01  
Now, in hindsight, after knowing what I know about therapy, I'm not as adamant about that. But I do feel like you have to have some relatability to the people that you're going to for help. Otherwise, there might be some perceived judgement, or there's a lack of understanding. And if you don't feel connection, a connection with the person that you're seeking help from, you are not going to gain as much ground as if you were talking to somebody who has maybe not the same experience, but like situations. And so I don't think that you have to be a parent to counsel a parent. I don't think that you have to have experienced a certain type of loss to mimic that. But I do think we have to be relatable. And we have to find people that we feel safe and comfortable with. So I wanted to speak on that before I answered your question.

Vonne Solis  7:54  
Just to speak quickly to your point that you don't have to have the same experience. I agree wholeheartedly. I've modified what I have learned in therapy and trauma stuff to my world. And so you can gain tools and information from anybody who's really good at their job. Do you run into people who aren't comfortable with the word hope and healing?

Jessica Frasier  8:19  
Hmm, I haven't. In fact, I have found. I've had clients call me out and say, well, that's not a very helpful statement, Jessica. And so I appreciate that. Because you can't heal without hope. It's impossible. Like hope is the belief that what you desire to come true will come true, right? And so I appreciate you asking me about my name because it was one of those moments where I just wrote down, like, what do I want my therapy practice to be? And I wrote down all of the words I could think about. And there was, you know, the counselling word, hope, trust, healing. I don't even remember what all the words were, but it was like a brain dump. And I went through and just circled the words that really stood out to me as what do I want for my clients. 

Jessica Frasier  9:12  
And most of the time, I have found when people seek out therapy it's out of desperation. And I hate that, because I wish we would all just go as a normal checkup. Like a normal medical checkup. Just go see your therapist too before things become desperate. But when we get to that place of desperation, we've almost lost hope. Like there's, marriage. Marriages. They don't go into counselling until divorce is on the table, right? Or I can't get out of bed anymore and so I want, need to go to therapy whatever the reason may be. And so my goal, my hope is that I can come give you some hope. You can come see me and I can fill you with hope until you have enough of your own to continue that healing journey.

Vonne Solis  9:58  
Yeah, and what you're saying is so important. But the compassion, the empathy, the gentleness. The understanding that it takes time to find that little bit of hope? But we're here to help you do that. Because that was missing for me. Is I was looking in, you know, for something that would give me hope I could survive. So I was really scared about dying, okay? I was really scared that I couldn't find my way out of the darkness. The blackness. Despite being married and having my surviving son. And I know a lot of people feel really guilty that they don't want to live again, when they have people to live for who are like surviving. So it's finding little tiny things from my perspective. And I want to ask you, where do people find hope? For me, it was grabbing the tiniest little thing as I could grab onto it and just, that's what I focused on. I had no idea about my capabilities and my potential. And I was working hard, but for minimum wage. But I was educated, you know, and had been doing professional work. I couldn't see that in my life anymore because I had completely lost perspective. So, so I focused on when I finally did go to therapy, well let let me fix my relationship. And so totally for years and years and years, didn't even touch the grief. And I'll be honest, I've never gone to a therapist for my grief. Ever. Because I get help from the Divine. And so that's kind of where I, where I kind of sort of turned because that was my my foundation. So when you, you know, have someone coming to that, that feels completely lost, how do you work to offer them some hope?

Jessica Frasier  11:58  
My tagline for my business is Hope Again Counseling and it's where the light at the end of the tunnel gets brighter each day. And so, and done person made a joke once, and they were like, Well, I hope that's not because the train is coming. That's not the visual I want to go, you know? Not a visual.

Vonne Solis  12:19  
Oh, that's funny. 

Jessica Frasier  12:20  
When people call me in their midst of their raw emotional pain, I get excited for them. And I and I convey that to them. And I tell them, I am so glad that you're calling and I am so excited for you because it's not going to be like this forever. 

Vonne Solis  12:39  
Yeah. Just the fact that they have called you is a sign of hope.

Jessica Frasier  12:43  
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm gonna walk this journey with you. And it's not going to be this intense. And I always acknowledge on that very first conversation, it is always going to be sad. There's always going to be sadness. Always going to be painful, but it doesn't have to be this intense. 

Vonne Solis  12:58  
That is key what you're saying, Jessica. Because acknowledging that, and I am 100% with you. And it sneaks up on you, the more years you're in this, right? It sneaks up on you and it. But you're right it's not as intense. It's not as long lasting for most people. Certainly not for me and anybody I've ever talked to they agree with this. But you can't expect that to not be part of our our basic makeup now. Right?

Jessica Frasier  13:31  
Yeah, and I love giving that I don't know, hope. Future planning for people. I've had people respond with, I've told people you're my favourite type of client and they've responded with, well, I'm not my favorite type of person right now. I don't know how I feel about that. And I'm like, That's okay. I'm gonna be there for you through this because this, gosh, it's such a beautiful journey. Walking people through their journey of grief truly is the most rewarding thing I've ever done. 

Jessica Frasier  13:57  
And I wanted to speak on hope just for a second. My pastodr did a series at church back in May during Mental Health Awareness Month. And one of the quotes that he said that stands out to me all the time is we should hope in the supernatural and trust in the natural. And so we are given both. We are given that hope. So if you are a believer to hope in God but then to also trust in the people that he's put on this planet for you. And it's okay to seek help. And sometimes people come to me almost ashamed for seeking help because of their religious beliefs. And, and I love that that was put out there in the atmosphere because you don't have to be, we can get help from whomever is available to help you.

Vonne Solis  14:39  
Yeah, just generalizing here of course in religious beliefs. What would it be like that God has given you this experience and you're strong enough to take it. Like I don't know, what what is rooted, what's that not asking for help or feeling shameful about it? What is that?

Jessica Frasier  14:55  
Like it's supposed to be me and Jesus. I'm supposed to be able to just pray my, pray it away. I'm supposed to ask God to heal me. I'm Superman. I'm supposed to be better. I'm not like this shoulds and supposed to's right? They all imply judgement. And so I don't think any of that is based in biblical standing. But we have this guilt. We have this feeling like I'm not because I am blank, I'm not supposed to struggle.

Vonne Solis  15:22  
Yeah, I hope anybody currently, or down the road watching this or listening to this isn't struggling with, I deserve what has happened to me. I actually don't think I ever went down that path, like I deserve this. But I certainly felt responsible for my daughter choosing to die by suicide. And that's taken years and years and years and years for me to let go of. But you also said something really important. So there's a lot you there's a lot you packed into with this in terms of shame, guilt, religious beliefs, any other kinds of beliefs, you know. Isolation, you know, all of this stuff. It goes on and on and on and on the list. But anyway, something I also just want to ask you a little bit about, is steps. 

Vonne Solis  16:18  
So understanding, we're always living with sadness. You know, there's a part of us, that's always living with sadness. And I wanted to say recently, more recently, I have been questioning so let's say in the last couple, two, three years, that we can mix up depression for sorrow. And so I've been really thinking not, you know, 24/7, but sometimes I just go, Yeah, I've clinically looked at the interpretation of the DSM V for depression. I don't have that. I just have sorrow that I live with that I really try to manage. It doesn't consume me. But when we when I'm going to talk to you a little bit here about steps, I don't mean that literally in steps. But I think a process is what I wanted to talk about. That in your therapy, as you say, you're going to walk the journey with them. I do the exact same thing. So it is the journey and it is step by step, as opposed to a huge outcome. That outcome that you know, a person is trying to attain. You know, get to. Which I spent a few years actually trying to do that. And it was too big to handle. You see what I'm saying? So is that what you mean? Like when in your work do you offer like steps that you take them on? Something structured? Or is it is it more traditional counselling?

Jessica Frasier  17:51  
So you had mentioned earlier the Grief Recovery method and I use a lot, I guide a lot of my work with that to start people on. Because I love that it is evidence based and I love that it does have a structure to it because we know that Grievers are destructible. And the most car accidents happen within a month after a major loss. And so because of that, it helps to have a program. Now we don't always stay there. But I always start there. Because it's the scaffolding approach. Right? We talk about a concept. We understand that there's lots of myths about grief that aren't really helpful. And so we go through this process of really dismantling the myths and misconceptions of grief, and really just accepting wherever you are in that state, and then start to uncover all of your losses. 

Jessica Frasier  18:47  
So almost anybody that comes to see me thinks that they're seeing me for their most recent loss.

Vonne Solis  18:52  
Yeah.

Jessica Frasier  18:53  
And we go there, but not in the beginning. That's not where we start. Because we have a history of losses. Like I said, when we first started, my story is full of loss. And so teaching people that unresolved grief is almost always about undelivered emotional communications. So the things that we never said. And not the facts, the feelings. And so really helping people understand what do we do to avoid our emotions? And why do we do that? They're coping skills. They are. They're not healthy, but we do them because they work. And so why do we do that? And why were we taught to do that? People didn't teach us to do it out of malice. Nobody said I'm going to screw you up so you're in therapy in your 30s or 40s, or 50s, or whatever, right? But they just taught us what they knew. And so people teach us that positive feelings are meant to be shared with people and negative, my finger quotes right? Less pleasant feelings are meant to be hidden away. And we're not meant to do that in front of other people. And so we learn really unhealthy ways to deal with that.

Vonne Solis  20:05  
I agree with you. I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is more of a western cultural thing. Because there's many, many cultures, I've done a blog post and a podcast episode on death celebrated around the world. Well celebrated and mourned as a community. Even a small community. The chances of you healing from that. I'm not saying wiping out the sadness and missing the person. None of that. But I am just saying, acknowledging that, I think is huge, a huge component of healing. And because it is just like what you said, we're, I just personally think that we were. It was not that we, this is what I think. That it's not that we were not like, like being emotionally literate was just kept from us. We've just never had it in our Western culture. Ever. And there's a little bit of it going on today. 

Vonne Solis  20:07  
I was in the workplace like 10 years ago, and they were starting in, it was actually government, but they were starting to talk about programs for emotional literacy. And people were very like, Huh? You know? And emotional IQ. And it kind of went away. And I retired and left and you know, all that stuff, but, and and so I realized recently, like, my own work is all emotional based. But how much emotionally based therapy is really available to your knowledge? Like is it is there is there a lot of it out there, and I just don't know, because I'm in a different country?

Jessica Frasier  21:42  
I guess it just depends. So like, personally, I'm a very intellectual person. But I acknowledge that we need to experience our feelings and we don't know how to do that. And so I help people elicit that, right? That that emotional experience. And we try to take the intellect out of it as much as possible, because we talk ourselves out of our feelings if we let ourselves. 

Jessica Frasier  22:03  
But it can be, let me just say, I'll be really candid. So when I was in therapy, and I did some sessions just by myself, and mostly relationship okay? But sometimes I would have what the therapist called a hot thought. And this was like, the moment like I am literally my most vulnerable, and gonna break down. It wasn't even revisiting trauma by the way. And I live with PTSD So that's saying something. And even though I loved this therapist, and felt very connected to this therapist, being that raw? Ooh, it is uncomfortable, because for me, someone and I'm speaking for the audience here, because I'll bet you lots of you feel this way. You're gonna lose control. Because our emotions make us vulnerable to what we don't know is going to happen, right? 

Jessica Frasier  23:00  
And so aren't we kind of always programmed to be in control. You know, kept together because that's the kind of society we live in, in the West. And it represents that you can, you know, be successful. You can get that job. Who's gonna hire a wreck of a person who's in grief you know? Nobody. I had when I actually had to apply for jobs four years after my, five years after my daughter died. Nope four. I had to hide those years about why I wasn't out in the workforce. And because it was, I thought I'd never get a job. No one would ever hire me. And in fact, the guy that did give me my first start back in the workforce had Googled me and embraced all the work I was doing under my then alternative healing website and stuff. And that was the reason he hired me. He didn't tell me that at first. He told me that like a couple of months later. So I advocate for authenticity and being real. But you still have to do that within the confines of basically where you're living. What you're needing from society, right? What you're needing from family. But I think that has hurt us the most culturally, is to be so emotionally unsupportive of one another, and literate about ourselves.

Jessica Frasier  24:26  
You know, it's scary. Whenever we haven't let ourselves be that raw and there's a fear that maybe I get stuck in that pain, and I never get out of it again. So I don't want to experience that. There's so much fear around it. And I always teach people you have to find your safe people. The people that are going to let you be emotionally real and they're not going to try to judge you. Analyze you. Fix you. They're just going to be there with you in that moment. So in my office, there's tissue and I tell people on their very first visit, I have a tissue  box. It's right there. I'm never going to offer you any. You know where it is if you ever need it. Because what's the first thing you do when somebody offers you a tissue?

Vonne Solis  25:08  
Take it?

Jessica Frasier  25:09  
You sniffle and like, Oh, I'm sorry. Right? And you stop. You stop that flow of feeling.

Vonne Solis  25:13  
We apologize for crying. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Oh, yeah. Oh, my.

Jessica Frasier  25:20  
And then you stop letting those emotions out. And if we know unresolved grief is undelivered emotional communication then we have to get that out of our bodies. Our bodies aren't meant to hold on to that for so long. And so everybody knows I've got tissues. I'm never gonna give you one. But they're there for you if you need them. 

Vonne Solis  25:38  
Yeah, but you just said something so important. So unresolved grief has to be released. 

Jessica Frasier  25:38  
Yeah. 

Vonne Solis  25:46  
And I just want to touch on this one or two things. People who aren't going to therapy. Because a lot of people also don't have money for therapy, you know? That's one issue. I read coaching has overcome therapy not long ago. Like it's a multibillion dollar industry. What would you suggest to people to number one, be aware that they're dealing with unresolved grief? I mean, that's just basically feeling pain. But I think a lot of people are disconnected from their emotional pain. And what are a couple ways that you would recommend a client to release unresolved grief?

Jessica Frasier  26:21  
Definitely, we have to notice when we're avoiding our emotions. What are what are we doing when we have a feeling and we don't like it so we do something else. So when we start mindlessly scrolling on our phone, is it because we were trying, we were avoiding something that came up? When we go eat a dozen cookies, is it, are we doing it because something came up and we need some comfort and we don't know how to deal with that? And so I think the very first thing you have to do is identify when you're avoiding things. And that might be hard to do on your own. And you might have to have some people in your life that can call you out on that and say, Hey, what are you doing right now? And I think we can find those people. Sometimes we have to train people to be our safe people, but they're definitely around. 

Jessica Frasier  27:05  
For example, I tell people all the time, and I've said this in other places, but my husband was not a safe person for me for a while because he loves me and he was trying to fix my problems, right? And so I would come home frustrated from work and talk about my day, and he would come up with solutions. And how can I fix this? And what do you want me to do for you? Like, loving me, loving me in his way. And so I stopped talking about my day. Until I learned that I could tell him, Hey, I need to tell you about my day, but I don't care what you think. And so that gave him permission to just sit and be present. Just sit there and be there and hear me and not try to fix anything. And then I could share my day. Feel whatever feeling I was having. And then be done with it. And so that, to me is a beautiful saying and it may sound rude, I don't think it is it's just honest, right? Don't tell me what you think. I don't care. Don't try to fix this. I don't need you to. And once you've trained people to do that for you, then they are your safe people. Where they can just sit there and be present and that's what we that's what we need. Healing happens in community. When babies are born they cry for a few reasons. Because they need a diaper change. Because they need to be fed or because they need physical touch. They need to be comforted. And that doesn't go away the older that we get. Healing happens in community and we need people. And sometimes we have to teach people how to do that for us.

Vonne Solis  28:29  
This is a beautiful segue into so you've said a couple of things I want to touch on. So the reason I was in relationship therapy is basically for that. And we're going to touch and we might as well go into it right now. When we expect and I think this is part of unhealthy grieving, but I want to talk to you and I want to tie the two in together. So unhealthy grieving. You actually say that yourself, that you Well, I guess you told me that and maybe you're more open about it elsewhere, that you practiced unhealthy grieving for a while and then realize you wanted to grieve, you know, the health in a healthier way. The thing about the relationships. Any kind of relationship. Spousal. Relationship with adult children, siblings, parents, whatever it is, friends. When we are not dealing with unresolved emotional pain, and emotions, just anger, whatever. Stuff, stuff, stuff it in. We're in pain. We're really frustrated. We're disconnected from our relationships, and we don't know what to do with our emotions. So we're turning to things that are unhealthy for us to distract ourselves. 

Vonne Solis  29:42  
It as you mentioned, it could be eating, it could be devices, it could be just going out could be partying. I don't know it could be it could be overworking. Whatever it is it's taking us away from what we truly need, which I believe is connection. And what you said, so I'm tying that, those thoughts into what you were honest about with what you needed from your husband. I just need to spew out what I need to spew. I just need you to sit there and listen. And I'm going away with that from this episode. Going to try that because that was a huge problem in my relationship. And my husband was the stepdad of my daughter. So already there's a disconnect, because you haven't lost what I lost. And so this is tying into when we expect others to grieve the way we want them to. The same way we're grieving. Because then they're going to get us. Then they're going to understand us. But that is unhealthy, isn't it Jess? So I wanted you to speak just a little bit on this disconnect when we're grieving unhealthily. And what it is, besides connection or is it all about connection and listening that we really just need for the healthiest type of grieving? 

Jessica Frasier  31:05  
Yeah. So you said at the very beginning, and I don't say it very often, because many people would not like the phrase. There's not a right way to grieve but there is a wrong way to grieve. And I'll tell you, the wrong way to grieve is by ignoring your grief, right? 

Vonne Solis  31:21  
Yeah, yeah. 

Jessica Frasier  31:22  
Simply put, when you ignore it. When we pretend like it's not real. When we pretend like it's not affecting our day to day life, eventually it'll come back to bite you in the butt. And that's what happened with me. So when my stepdad killed himself, I was 13 years old, about to turn 14. And suicide was not a word we used in everyday language. We don't talk about it. And so I remember my mom was really mad that it said suicide on the death certificate. So mad that like, we didn't say that word again. And it took years. So we didn't talk about it. 

Jessica Frasier  32:01  
And I was removed from my mom. I lived with my grandparents for a while. My mom and my brother lived with her friend. And that was my choice. And I talked to her once about this recently. And she said, Well, I can see why you think we didn't talk about it, because you weren't in the same house with us. But I talked about it all the time. So that's different. Because her experience was very different than mine and I had some judgment about that for years. 

Jessica Frasier  32:22  
But I didn't talk about him. And we didn't use the word suicide because nobody knew how to respond to that. And so it wasn't until two years later that I had a full blown panic attack in ninth grade. And I remember it, to this day very clearly what happened and I lost complete control of my body. And now I have so much empathy for people who struggle with panic attacks, which maybe is why I experienced that so I can relate to them. But that was the point that I realized, and it was on the two year anniversary of his death. So I went home. Realized it was the two year anniversary of his death. Had never experienced a panic attack in my life. And that was the first time where my body said, I've had enough. I can't hold on to this energy anymore. I'm forcing it out.  And so our bodies hold on to energy for as long as possible. And eventually it comes out.

Jessica Frasier  33:13  
I had a woman once who came to me and her mother had died. And she said I can't let this turn into cancer. I can't let this consume me. And I told her you get it! You get it and you're gonna, you're gonna get through this. And so like I, when my dog died. My precious precious dog. I love him so much. He lived 15 years with me. And I started I had to get a night guard. Because my body, I thought I was dealing with it intellectually during the day I was.

Vonne Solis  33:38  
Yeah.

Jessica Frasier  33:38  
My body was telling me you're not dealing with it and forced that energy out at night with me clenching my jaw. I've never had a problem with that in my entire life. But after, he died I had to get a night guard.

Vonne Solis  33:48  
Where you grinding your teeth or what were you doing? 

Jessica Frasier  33:50  
I was clenching my jaw. 

Vonne Solis  33:51  
Oh, clenching your jaw. Oh, yeah. 

Jessica Frasier  33:54  
So my body was forcing that energy out right? Like, if you're not gonna deal with it during the day, Jessica, I'm gonna deal with it at night. 

Vonne Solis  33:59  
Yeah. 

Jessica Frasier  33:59  
So I think it's really important to know that we think we're dealing with it. We think we're hiding it. We think we are whatever. But your body can't hold on to that for so long for, forever. And it comes out. Ucers, night clenching. Literal cancer. 

Vonne Solis  34:17  
Yeah. 

Jessica Frasier  34:18  
Yeah, sickness. And then to your, to your point about disconnection. So when we are ignoring our grief, we are not being honest with ourselves. And we are not being honest with the people around us. And even if we're not doing it intentionally, which I don't think many of us are, it gets unintentional, because we don't know how to deal with it. But because of that, that immediately causes a disconnect. And we start dealing with our grief in ways that are tangible. That make sense to us. So chocolate, shopping. Three mile runs instead of a mile run or whatever it is. And so that we become more and more disconnected from the people in our life because we're trying to numb or make this uncomfortable feeling go away and we don't know how. And so I think that disconnect naturally happens.

Vonne Solis  35:09  
Yeah, I have two things I want to really quickly say about that, possibly three. So first to your point is about the body holding the pain for so long, and then the energy needs to be released. I've done a lot of work in this myself. I was very cognizant of it in my earliest grief. And so noticing where you're tight, where you have stomach pains. For years, I had stomach pains, chest pains, felt like my lungs were glass. It was diagnosed as stress. It really was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. To the point sometimes I couldn't breathe. I had to sit down. It was awful. But I didn't know, I didn't know what it was. Doctors thought it was just stress. So a lot of it is just noticing, you know what's going on with your body. Being so aware. 

Vonne Solis  36:00  
So when we're talking about unresolved grief, and you said back a while ago, people that come to you, you gotta go right back to your first losses. Because how can we possibly expect to be supported in our various grief within our closest relationships and even beyond, if there is so much, you know, repressed and suppressed grief and pain from stuff decades ago,? And that might be the real, initial reason, people are already disconnected. And then adding loss and trauma on top of that, you can see what a can of worms, it is audience. It's horrible. And it really does require introspection, support, help, and all kinds of, I think, healing modalities because there's a lot of stuff in there to unpack. 

Vonne Solis  36:58  
And I also just want to really quickly acknowledge that in terms of us expecting people to be there for us. To understand us in our grief. Impossible if they don't understand their own, which is just building on what I just said. But where then besides therapy, where Jessica, and just like based on your own experience, where you decided, I want to grieve healthily, and possibly even heal. Where did that come from within you? Because you did come from a heck of a lot of loss and trauma.

Jessica Frasier  37:32  
When, gosh, I feel like this is such an easy answer. Nobody's asked me that before. But for me, it needs the answer for me. When my boyfriend died by suicide, just eight years after my stepdad, my immediate thought was, I cannot do this the way I did it before. That was so simple for me. I was like, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to hurt like that. I'm not going to suffer. I'm not going to let my body have that panic attack again. I'm going to do things differently. 

Jessica Frasier  38:01  
And so first loss? Got zero help. Ignored it. Pretended like it didn't happen. Didn't tell really hardly anybody about it. And we moved. So that was easy not to tell people about it. And then this loss, I immediately sought out a support group at one of those online forums you were talking about? I found one. And I immediately started utilizing the back and forth telling my story. I spoke with his family in depth, like all the time and we were very intentional. We spent holidays together. We talked about him and we shared memories. Totally different than the way I did it the first time. 

Vonne Solis  38:40  
Yeah.

Jessica Frasier  38:41  
And it was 100% intentional. 

Vonne Solis  38:44  
Yeah. I love that. So you said a couple of things. Stories, and speaking often about your lost one. And that has basically I think, been the nuts and bolts of my healing journey. That and of course the angels divine. I'm also you know, I'm very faith-based, and but have had a spiritual metaphysical practice for 23 years when my daughter died. So I leaned on that. And obviously, that has helped me personally. 

Vonne Solis  39:20  
So getting that energy out. Getting that pain out audience. Another way to do that is sharing your story. Talking about your loved one who's gone in a supportive group community. A trusted friend. I do know that support doesn't always come where you want it. But it is our job to find it. You know. I really think it's our job to find it for ourselves. Nobody's going to pick us up and take us and plop us in a support group or any other kind of healing setting. We have to do that for ourselves and be brave and courageous enough to say, I do want something different than this suffering. Really, that's the short of it. In my view, what do you think?

Jessica Frasier  40:11  
You know what? I say this all the time. People show up in amazing ways during the trauma. And if we let them, they can be a source of so much support and healing for us, even if that's not what they are for you normally. And so I can think back on people who I expected to be there for me and they weren't and it broke my heart. But then if I think about it, there was some people that I don't even talk to you today. Like I don't, we didn't have that type of relationship at the time. But when the major trauma happened? They were there in a way that I would have never asked for expected or even thought that they couldn't be. But because I allowed it to happen, it was healing. And so sometimes we, I think this is a cultural thing, too, is we say, we don't need help. I can do it by myself. I, you know, whatever that is, but if we let it happen, people will surprise you.

Vonne Solis  41:06  
Yes, I 100% agree. And that has been my journey as well. And it's wonderful. All we need to do is be willing, and let the doors open. And you know, I will just say, you kind of have to also recognize opportunities. But the minute you become willing is the minute you open up the healing. It starts the healing from my, my experience and what I teach. The minute you go, I want something different than this, you're, yeah. Yeah, it's really beautiful. 

Vonne Solis  41:40  
I wanted to really talk briefly, not to do it disservice. But you do work with bereaved children. I love that you do that, by the way. Do you think there's adequate support for bereaved children in the States? And what is your experience like working with grief kids?

Jessica Frasier  41:58  
So kids do not grieve the same way adults do. And there's, sometimes we place these expectations, especially the kids' loved ones. Kind of how we were talking about earlier where we have expectations about how others should grieve. And if you you are not grieving the way I am, then you didn't love my person as much as I did. Or you didn't, you're not hurting as much as I am or whatever it is. And if we take away our expectations about what grief looks like. What it should be, then we let whatever happens happens. 

Jessica Frasier  42:30  
And I've found that children tend to do grief first, right? Where depending on their age, they get really, really sad. And they if you let them be, they tend to do it in a really healthy way. If you just let them grieve without adult interference, they do what they need to do. They get out the energies. They say what they need to say. And then they go back and play. And they go back and hang out with their friend. And when something happens that reminds them of their loved one, if you stay out of their way. Let them feel their feelings? Validate them if you want to, they they really do it beautifully. The older that they get, the less willing they are to be honest with their feelings. 

Jessica Frasier  43:08  
So there's research that says by the time somebody is 15 years old, they've heard over 23,000 times some version of don't feel bad. Don't feel your feelings. So don't feel bad, here's a cookies. Don't feel bad, there's plenty of fish in the sea. Don't feel bad, we'll get a new goldfish tomorrow. Don't feel bad grandmas in heaven. Don't feel bad, whatever. Right? So by the time they're 15 years old, and you ask them what's wrong, and they say nothing, of course, they're gonna lie to you. Because they've been told their entire life not to feel their feelings. If we just step back and say, feel them. Feel your feelings, whatever they are Your feelings are not my feelings and that does not mean that they're wrong. That just means that we're feeling different things in this moment, and that's okay. 

Jessica Frasier  43:51  
And so really letting kids be, however they need to be without trying to fix it is the best thing anybody can do for their children. And me working with kids, I love it. It's beautiful. Because not every time they come to me, are we crying. And not every time are we talking about their loss, right? Because that's a piece of the story. That's not the entire story. And so it's, gosh, it's such a unique process with kids, because it's really wherever they are, whenever they are. And sometimes if the loss happened when they're eight, they don't want to talk about it. But then when they're 15, or when they hit puberty or whatever, and something happens and it triggers all of these emotions and things then they're ready to talk about it. And I think if we just let kids be kids, you're going to do them a world of service.

Vonne Solis  44:37  
Is one of the key things just to finish this. This is a huge topic. We're just basically giving a nod to it. Recognizing children are bereaved people. We can't protect them from their feelings. I did it wrong. I am going to say. I did it wrong. Did the best I could but I was so messed up myself you know, we, I think my husband just kind of wanted to keep things normal for our son. And you'll hear that just keep it normal. Keep it normal. But what one thing you said many times in that statement, and I did write down 23 times 23,000 times they've heard don't feel bad by the age of 15? Whoa. What you've said is that they will either talk, not talk, let them be, but it's to allow them to express what they need to say. Don't shut them up in other words, right?

Jessica Frasier  45:37  
Right. Without judgement. Without telling them are wrong. Without saying why do you feel that way? What? Because your your perspective, your experience does not matter in that moment. It's not about you. It's about the kid. 

Vonne Solis  45:48  
Yeah. So we don't ask. I no longer have young children. But so, if the child is saying, I'm really mad that you know, my brother Timmy died. What do you say?

Jessica Frasier  45:59  
Oh, gosh, tell me more about that. Tell me more. And I send validate if you want, because if you said of course, you're mad, right? Then if twenty minutes from now, he's sad, but you just told me I'm supposed to be mad. It's okay, that I'm mad. And now I'm not supposed to be sad.

Vonne Solis  46:15  
So this is really key. So tell me more is different from asking, Why do you feel that way? They probably don't know why, number one. So tell me more. Tell me more. Anything else a parent should say? Or is that going to do it? Let them get it out? And then they'll run off and play and then you just go okay, that was, that was interesting, right?

Jessica Frasier  46:36  
Yeah. Cuz no judgement. Because then they'll come back when they're sad. And then they'll come back when they're confused. And then they'll come back when whatever the feelings change as they evolve, and we understand more. And so yeah, if we just let them think right. Feel what they need to feel.

Vonne Solis  46:52  
That is golden, golden advice. Where I went wrong, is our son, who is my my son with my husband, when he was 13, in the first months, so I'm thinking that they might need to get this out immediately after the loss. And he started saying, within a couple months, no one's listening to me, no one's listening to me. And then he shut up. And 18 years laters still quiet. And so yeah, I'm not, I'm gonna say, I believe I blew that. I could have done that differently. But I didn't have the guidance. There was nothing available for him because his sister had died by suicide and there was, he was too young to go to a suicide support group. And there was no support and Children's Hospital or anything, because the support there for children was only if a sibling had died in you know, a hospital related death. So there you go.

Jessica Frasier  47:58  
So sad. And you had mentioned the first time we had talked and I thought, hmm. Because you had said, you wished there was more support. That you didn't think that there was support. And that got me thinking, well, maybe I just think there's a lot of support because that's the world that I live in. And that's the yeah, my my profession. But for your listeners, depending on where they're located, there is quite a bit of support for children. It just depends on what the law says. So like in Portland, Oregon, there's the Dougie Center, and they are amazing with kids and their nation. They're known nationwide. Close to me, there's a place called Bose place, and they only do like siblings and parent losses. And then in Fort Worth, where I used to live, there was a place called The Warm Place, and it's for children. And so there are and there's the National Alliance for Grieving Children, and that has a world of resources for anybody that's working with grieving children. If you have your own personal grieving children, that's a great resource. So there are options out there. It's sad to me to think that people don't know about them, because that means that we're not talking about it enought. There's National Children's bereavement day in October, October 10th I think it is. And so what else can we be doing? This is just me thinking out loud. What else can we be doing to let people know that there is support. There is resources. We just have to connect you to them. 

Vonne Solis  49:19  
In all fairness, let me say two things. I'm in Canada. The death of the sibling was suicide. And so hands down, guaranteed, no support for my son. None. None, none. Not even in the school system. And we tried, oh my god. And part of it was that trying to even arrange a counsellor through the school that went on and off and it never worked out. You know, it just never worked out. And then by then, my son was so mixed up about what he needed. How did he know? And he didn't want to be seen as different. So he basically hid the loss from everybody and we eventually did make the teachers aware that his, his sister had died by suicide. But when we had informed the principal at the beginning of the school year, and I am going back 18 years, okay? But the principal never shared that with the teachers. Only that he had suffered a loss. So the teachers just thought he lost, like his grandma or something.  So when his health started failing, and there were signs, going from pretty much top notch student to no, something's wrong He's angry. He's, he's, you know, not not acting out, you know, unusually. Just they noticed differences. We went and told them, and they were shocked that they hadn't been informed.

Vonne Solis  50:42  
So in all fairness, I'm not in that world today. But that was our experience. And for anybody else who that is your experience, those kids grow up into adults, well hopefully, and those are lingering. That's unresolved grief. So I love love, love, it's never too late. I love love, love that you have spoken about this. And just tell me more. I love that. 

Vonne Solis  51:10  
Okay, one more thing I want to just quickly discuss with you, as we get to the top of the hour here, Jessica. And this is just about how we can think about stigma and disenfranchised grief. Grief that's not honoured, recognized, people are afraid of. A lot of us come from that. And it does, you know, tend to make us silent. It does make us feel ashamed and different. And, oh, we must have been bad parents or our kid must have come from a bad family or whatever you know, whatever we think is is shameful. And we can't be most of all honest. What are your thoughts on how people who are dealing with stigma and disenfranchised feelings of grief, what can they do for themselves to honour their experience?

Jessica Frasier  52:02  
People experience disenfranchised grief. And this is basically grief that other people don't view as worthy of grief, right? And, gosh, it's awful, because there's so much judgement there. But there's two things that I think about this that are really important is your honest first. And so when somebody says how are you doing? You tell the truth. And you do not say I'm fine. I don't remember where I got this from. This is not mine. But somebody once upon a time said find stands for feelings inside not expressed.

Vonne Solis  52:32  
Oh, I love that.

Jessica Frasier  52:36  
Sure. Cop out answer. You're not allowed to say it. So when people say how are you doing? You say either the truth of I'm doing great. Thank you for asking. Or you say you know what? I'm having a really hard day. Thank you for asking. And if it's somebody you trust, you give a little bit more. But that's, that's how you start start breaking this cycle of keeping that energy in your body. You tell the truth. You tell the emotional truth. If you don't feel safe to tell the facts don't tell the facts. It doesn't matter. Grief is an emotional experience, not an intellectual one. So if you don't want to say why you're feeling the way you're feeling, that's okay. But be honest about your feelings. And when some people say, Oh my gosh, tell me more what's going on? You can say thank you so much for asking. I'm not ready to talk about it. But thank you for hearing me, right? Just being honest with your feelings. Step one. And then if you are honest with the fact, for example, when my boyfriend died, and I told somebody once. I remember she was a teacher. I said, my boyfriend killed himself two weeks ago. And she said, Oh, well, at least you weren't married.

Vonne Solis  53:41  
Yeah.

Jessica Frasier  53:42  
Oh. Or I had told somebody once that that was my second suicide. And the person said, wow, wow! What's wrong with you? Ttrying to make a joke out of it, right? Like lightening, the situation. And there's lots. Many, many, many more examples. But my advice today would be to tell people to call them out on it. And in however you feel comfortable to do it. My response now is thank you. That's not helpful. Please don't say that again. Right? That's kind and direct. And you're teaching somebody in that moment, that hurts me, and I was being honest with you about something. And so and that saying that in just very few short words. Please don't say that, again. That wasn't helpul or that hurts me or whatever it is that you want to say. 

Jessica Frasier  54:26  
And so those are the two things that I would say for anybody. Be honest about your feelings. You don't have to be honest about the facts. It doesn't matter. It really doesn't. 

Vonne Solis  54:35  
Yeah.

Jessica Frasier  54:35  
Your feelings are what's important to be expressed and honoured, and really honour them. And when people say dumb things which they will, especially when it's disenfranchised grief. So incarceration, that's another one. Well, they deserve it. That's why they're in jail. They did something bad, right? Well, that dismisses your feelings and your person is still a person and your relationship is still valid, no matter what they did. And so we can teach people that.

Vonne Solis  55:02  
That is a, almost an episode on its own you know, to discuss because it kind of goes with the stuffing the emotions, and we stuff our experiences because people don't want to hear about them. And so one of the ways from my experience, and my perspective to handle this is, if you're still not brave enough, I pick and choose who I honestly tell like people, how I'm feeling. But even I have to struggle sometimes with that, depending on the setting I'm in. I just going oh, God. And so I've learned to just honour them for myself, and except that not every situation is going to allow me to be honest. 

Vonne Solis  55:50  
So I'm in a situation in my life, I can basically control and manage my schedule. And I'm not having anymore to go to a job. You know, but like, say, when you gotta show up for the job, and you're certainly newly bereaved. Holy smoly. In whatever way, you're bereaved, having to show up for whatever is an obligation, you know? And the mask goes on, and the feelings get stuffed. And it's not that you forget the experience, but you absolutely have to put it away somewhere. And when you reach a point in your life, where all of that becomes a choice. You're not necessarily haven't shopped for anything, unless you've scheduled it in, then that's where you start to get to be a little more discerning about what you're doing. Who you're hanging out with. What kind of things you know, are making you feel content, even happy dare I say? 

Vonne Solis  56:46  
Grief is also very much experienced based on the relationship we have to the person we've lost. So some deaths, we may not feel a lot of grief at all. And in my case, I really didn't feel a lot of grief with my mom's passing. My dad's passing. A whole bunch of other deaths that have happened. Even my daughter's biological dad passing. A lot of them just kind of went over my head because her death really rocked me. So I don't know how it would have been for me if I'd lost my mom and dad first and you know, and never lost her. 

Vonne Solis  57:24  
I just wanted you to speak a little bit to that. And then uh, before we turn to your resources, if you could just share a little bit, again, a little bit on the disenfranchised grief thing. Your brother, I want to honour him here. He died as a drunk driver. Fortunately, nobody else was killed. Unfortunately, he did die. But just how that maybe has impacted you because it happened years later. So now you're like, I'm going to grieve healthily. So how have you grieved healthily your brother's death? In whichever order, you want to talk about that.

Jessica Frasier  58:05  
The Grief Recovery method says all grief is experienced at 100%. Right? So when the loss is experienced, it is 100%. That is your grief. You are grieving that loss. So whether it is your dog, whether it is your grandma, whether it is your child, in that moment that grief is valid, important, yours. The type of relationship may dictate the intensity of the loss. It does not make one loss greater than the other. More important than the other. It just changes the way we experience it. 

Vonne Solis  58:44  
Okay.

Jessica Frasier  58:45  
Lots of times people will say, Well, I didn't live in Haiti when there was a hurricane, so I have nothing to be upset about, or whatever it is, right? That's just an example. 

Vonne Solis  58:52  
Yeah.

Jessica Frasier  58:53  
And that one came to mind. But it's perspective. And their experience has nothing to do with your experience. Your experience with your loss is yours. And it's appropriate and valid, no matter how you're experiencing it. And so I've experienced multiple losses that other people have experienced. So when my stepdad died, I lost my stepdad. My mom lost her husband. 

Vonne Solis  59:18  
Yeah.

Jessica Frasier  59:18  
Right? Two different losses. And my experience with his death was intensely different than her experience. When my brother died, I lost my brother whom I did not live with. I lived five hours away from. We had, you know, a distant relationship. My mom lost her son who lived in her home who was still very much a part of her day to day life. And so my grief was not less than her grief. 

Vonne Solis  59:49  
Yes.

Jessica Frasier  59:50  
It was different. 

Vonne Solis  59:51  
Okay.

Jessica Frasier  59:51  
And my experience was different than her experience. And we can talk about my brother and we can talk about our experiences, but they are not the same, and neither one of us are right or wrong. And so as long as we understand that there, there doesn't need to be judgment in grief. That whatever you're experiencing is yours, and it's valid and appropriate, no matter where you are with it. I think that's really important to understand because when we take the judgment out of it, then we can just love people, however they are, wherever they are.

Vonne Solis  1:00:23  
You're saying something so important, because I felt it in my first few years as a bereaved mother. And it wasn't that, again, it's the education piece. It's not having the materials. The support. The, you know, the, the therapy available. You know, like, and so you're you're muddling through this. Not really knowing what to make of your experience. Not understanding it yourself, is our natural tendency, then, to go, Well, you should be feeling what I'm feeling. Is that where that comes from? Because I did it. And I was angry that people weren't in as much pain as me.

Jessica Frasier  1:01:09  
Mmm. I remember thinking when my boyfriend died, I wouldn't be so mad that the sun kept coming up. Like, why is it another day? And how are these people, don't they know what happened to me? How are they still getting up and going to work? How is the world still moving forward? Right? So there was definitely that feeling of, don't people know what happened?

Vonne Solis  1:01:30  
Yeah, but for me, it was within my family, and I honestly don't think I'm alone in that. And here's the other thing. You see my family, I love you all, but, they wanted me to be the person they had known. And I lost myself. And I've never been that person again. So de facto, it changed all my relationships. But because it hadn't changed them, my daughter's death hadn't changed them to the same intensity. Right? They're still who they were. Sad, for sure. But I became a completely different person. 

Vonne Solis  1:02:09  
And I want to just give a nod to that, because that does happen. And then as a result of that, and being so frustrated, because I'm not that person anymore. And I and with lack of communication, and all the other stuff we've talked about today, taking that on and expecting myself to be someone. Not the same person, but someone I can't be right? And even trying to figure out who that is. I'm still trying to figure that out 18 years later. Who do I really want to be? How has this affected me? You know, and that causes a lot of problems. And I'm going to claim here probably quite accurately, it happens to millions of people. I think it's largely responsible for divorces, and fragmented families and so on, unless they can find a way back to each other and do what you just said. Recognize and respect each of us having what you said that I haven't heard before and I'm going to remember, this. Is a 100% grief experience. It's just different. And it's, it's different for you. It's different for me, and we're going to express and go through and change however, as a result of that. And clearly as a bereaved mother, I'm just going to ask you quickly, has your relationship changed with your mom since you lost your brother?

Jessica Frasier  1:03:36  
I still have a good relationship with her. After he died, she got married and she was single. And that changed my relationship with her. Because she was single for, after my stepdad died by suicide, she never dated again. And so it wasn't until my, I guess, oh my gosh, almost 30, where she got married. And I had been just, it was just me and my mom and my brother for a long time. And so that changed my relationship more than the death of my brother. But I think that comes from she was a single mom for most of my life. And so we were able to be more honest with each other throughout our life, because there wasn't anybody else. And so, 

Vonne Solis  1:04:16  
yeah

Jessica Frasier  1:04:17  
there's definitely been times where I have called her distraught about the type of sister I was to my brother, and she just would sit and listen, you know, and, and hear me and love me the way only a mom can.

Vonne Solis  1:04:31  
Tell me more. 

Vonne Solis  1:04:34  
Anyway, Jessica, thank you so much for being here. We've just touched the surface on a bunch of different topics. Do you want to just let people know where they can contact you?

Jessica Frasier  1:04:44  
So you can go to hopeagaincounseling.com and that's counseling with one L. And you can sign up for a newsletter. I try to do a monthly newsletter. I'll be honest, it doesn't happen every month, but I always try to include a relevant message and then end it with a message of hope. Please do sign up for that if you're interested. So I'm in Texas, but I can see people. I, I love talking about grief, I love it. And I love training people about grief. So if your business wants to learn about it, I love doing that. But then I also do four week programs for helping children with loss. So teaching adults how to help children. That takes four weeks. And if you've decided you want to do your own walkthrough journey, we can do an eight week journey together either one on one or if you wanted to do an online group format, we could make it happen. But just know that those are options that we can do. If you are not in my area, we can do those things online. And you can learn more about that at hopeagain.counseling.com.

Vonne Solis  1:05:49  
People will have access to your contact information on your website? 

Jessica Frasier  1:05:52  
Jessica@hopeagaincounseling.com.

Vonne Solis  1:05:53  
I'm going to have those links. So thank you so much, Jessica, for sharing your story. Your professional advice, wisdom experience. Really appreciate it. I'm sure it will help people for sure. So thank you.

Jessica Frasier  1:06:09  
Thank you Vonne for having me.

Vonne Solis  1:06:10  
Yeah. It was a pleasure. Okay.