Ep. 91 In Conversation: A Psychologist's Approach to Healing Generational Trauma

Finally, I’ve got a doctor in the house! Get ready for this frank yet refreshing discussion I enjoyed with Dr. Natasha Trujillo about many of the tough and unspoken truths about grief that I’ve been waiting to explore with the right psychologist on my podcast!

In this educational episode, learn from Dr.Trujillo as she delves into the profound complexities of grief and loss, exploring how multiple losses—both death-related and other types of loss - are a universal part of our human experience and should not be ignored! With a unique blend of academic insight, and personal and professional wisdom, she shares how embracing our vulnerability can foster deeper connections with others and contribute to a more healed and meaningful life.

In her new book And She Was Never the Same Again, Dr. Trujillo rejects the pathologization and over-medication of grief and challenges the more conventional notions we have about loss and grief, advocating for a natural and personalized approach that while deeply personal, is universal to us all.

Her approach to therapy based on lived experience and rigorous study, offers her patients and in this episode, my audience, a unique and transformative perspective on understanding and navigating grief to help us heal from both generational trauma and personal grief experiences to help us live to a more meaningful and holistically healed life.

Connect with Dr. Trujillo:
www.npttherapy.com
www.andshewasneverthesameagain.com

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.
• 0:21 Introduction and episode topics.
• 1:35 Introduction to episode topics.
• 5:44 Dr. Trujillo's Book and Personal Experiences.
• 21:04 Impact of Grief and Trauma on Identity and Relationships.
• 40:34 Rebuilding Your Life After Loss of Identity.
• 1:00:12 Closing.
• 1:01:39 Key Takeaways.
• 1:09:31 Final Thoughts and Resources.

Transcript

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  0:00  
Welcome to another episode of Grief Talk. Everything you want to know about grief and more. I'm your host. Vonne Solis. 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  0:21  
Today's guest is Dr Natasha Trujillo. She is a licensed psychologist currently practicing in Denver, Colorado. With a firm grasp on the complexities of grief and loss, both in her academic studies and personal experiences, in her new book, "And She Was Never the Same Again", she challenges the idea of a right way to grieve, advocating against the pathologization and overmedication of grief. Drawing from her experiences, Dr Trujillo emphasizes that grief is a deeply personal and natural process that should be embraced rather than suppressed. Having integrated these principles into both her professional and personal life, she is a testament to the transformative power of understanding and navigating grief that resonates deeply with her clients. Specializing in grief, loss, trauma and life transitions and a myriad of other issues, Dr Trujillo uses a holistic approach to healing and is a beacon of hope and resilience in the field of mental health. 

Okay, so welcome to the show, Tasha. As you know, because of our emails, I'm so excited to have you here and be with my audience today. So right up front, I want to say thank you so much for being here to share both your professional and personal wisdom with our audience, and I'm so happy that you're here.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  1:42  
Oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much for having me, and I, I'm equally as excited. So glad to get into things.

Vonne Solis  1:48  
Yeah, absolutely. So audience, we want to get right down to it and talk about certain things. And so, Tasha, I am so so so grateful that you are here to share some of this stuff, and I'll tell you why. Because, number one, you share your vulnerability. We're going to be talking about your your book, "And She Was Never the Same Again", which is how we connected. But in your role as a clinical psychologist, to be vulnerable, to allow yourself to share your personal experience, to go that deep. Also to have the background, both academic and and in your practice, I would imagine that these principles you live by apply for your clients, which helps them understand grief and trauma in a completely different way than textbook. 

And I know for a fact, as a bereaved mother, many bereaved parents, and I'm sure this applies to a lot of suicide loss survivors. I am both right? We stay away from therapy for our trauma and things  you know, like related to grief that we don't understand our grief. I'm in this 19 years Tasha. I have yet, yet to go for trauma counselling. Can't, because nobody understands it, that, you know, it's either an area thing where I live, and there's not enough specialists. And I follow the work of Bessel van der Kolk and the NICABM work that specializes in trauma, and that greatly helped me to have an awareness of my own personal trauma. But I didn't even know I had PTSD until 2014, nine years after the death of my daughter. It's shocking.

So part of why I'm so excited to have you on the show is to help people become aware of that piece of the trauma in grief and other you know, you share them. I'm just good. I look at it that way. You may have a different explanation for it, but I want to talk about that piece. Audience, we're also going to be talking about how we change in grief. We're going to talk about managing loss of identity. And again, we're going to have to stay a little bit high level, where I'm hoping to get to all these things. The lack of acceptance and avoidance in grief. Generational trauma and the lingering effects of grief, and that's pretty much going to round it out. We will end with your key takeaways, audience, so you need to stick around for the whole show to get those key takeaways that Tasha is going to share. And your resources, of course, all of which are very crucial. 

So let's get started. So Tasha, Dr Trujillo, you wrote "And She Was Never the Same Again" published 2024. As said, I went out and bought your book as soon as your publicist contacted me. I read it, and I got to through chapter one. Called my sister. I was away at the time. I called my sister, and I said, I just got this great book. And we went on to have a discussion about childhood trauma. 

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  4:52  
Oh, wow.

Vonne Solis  4:54  
Yes. And so you talk a lot about it's so important to connect and understand what the other people are going through, related to the same experience that's going on, and these different viewpoints. And with years later, as adults, we always remember our trauma, right? So bits and pieces of things might get a little bit weird in there, and I know that there, I've actually just read not long ago that trauma experiences do not form as memories, like true memories in our mind. They're fragmented, and it's parked in some other place and way, and it's so new that this understanding of it, that I just they haven't done enough on it to help me really understand. But we're not looking back at our trauma the same day we would remember a great picnic, you know, by the lake. And so it does a number on our brains. 

And so the reason I'm saying that is because when you reconnected, I'm gonna let you tell your story with your family members to say, what were you doing? What were you thinking? What was happening for you? A lot, if I'm not mistaken, of your family members could easily go back to that event and really hadn't dealt with it. Would that be fair to say? And so this formed a huge basis, foundation of your book to help people in generational trauma. 

My sister, when I talked to her, and our major trauma was a parent, my mom, our mom, who tried to end her life five times by the time I was 10 and my sister was 14. So it left us with very different experiences. Very different, you know, perspectives. very different memories, quote, unquote, memories. And I believe our awareness of what each other was going through, right? Can help to repair these relationships as adults. And our two brothers, well, we haven't discussed it with them. So let's get right to it. And she was never the same again. What that means to you in the broad, sweeping sense and whatever you want to share about adding to what I just commented on.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  7:02  
The title was one of the first things that I knew when I really committed and decided to write the book. It came to me through both personal experience and what I believe to be true about grief, right? Which is when we lose something incredibly significant to us, we are never the same person again. We can't go back to a previous version of ourselves. We often don't just move on and forget about it. It lingers forever. And so I think that's a really important thing to educate people on, because I so often hear people talk about, well, I'm still I'm still feeling this, and I'm not over it, and other people think I should be over it, and why does it still affect me? And there's so much judgment and there's so much negative self-talk and negative self-evaluation. So that was part of it, is just helping people recognize and understand, hey, this doesn't end. It changes shape. It looks different over time, but it is always there.

And then on the personal piece, I was grieving two very significant losses very close together, and I was kind of conceptualizing and thinking about how people were talking about me. And so I knew conversations behind my back were happening, right? And I I just not that I was hearing them. But I, in my head, I just had this echo, or this, this sentiment that I assumed people are saying, she is just not the same, right? She's never going to be the same again. And so it was kind of that combination of things that we land on the, on the the title. And to your point, yes. It was incredible to sit down with some of my family and to ask really hard questions and encourage them to, you know, pour out their hearts and souls and relive some of their worst experiences of their lives with me, but also some of the best experiences of their lives with me. Which oftentimes, you know, when you have grief, but it's connect like the death of a loved one. There might be so much grief around the loss itself, but it might also be challenging to get into those positive memories, because it again reminds you of what you no longer have. So sometimes people will stray away from even the positive memories. So it was very, very cool to see them be that vulnerable and have hard conversations with me and really just to have their permission to put this work together.

Vonne Solis  9:24  
Geez, I wish you were my therapist. I'm in Canada though. Oh, geez. No, because as you're talking, so three things I just want to jump on for the audience. So I'm going to say, from my experience in as a bereaved mom for 19 years, and who've I talked to and what I've been around, the what you just said, that grief, it lasts forever. It changes, but it lasts forever, lingers all that. Very rare to hear that. And I think the the push is still on like you said, Get over it. Get over it, which we start hearing very early in our grief. And that impacts us and traumatize, it can traumatize us in other ways, because you're just, okay to your second point, we are changed. And I don't think enough people understand that. In some cases, we lose our complete identity. And I did. I had been a mother of two. My kids were nine and a half years apart, one daughter, one son. When I no longer had my daughter, she was my bud, you know, she was my everything. And when she took her life at 22 I did not know who I was anymore, because being a mom while I did other things, it was such a foundational piece. It was my purpose on this planet, and that was gone. And I was too traumatized and really uneducated and didn't have the help and the support and the therapy where I needed it to help my son, who was 13. And so he thinks, well, like he's not good enough. And parents out there who have lost children? I know you're relating to this, because it's very common for surviving children to think they should have died. Because wow. You know mom loved and you know maybe dad loved this child, my sister or my brother, way more than me. Look at what that's doing to them. Our pain does, you know, signify in our suffering more to the point how much we loved that person who has died, and it's just awful for surviving children. So we need more work in that area, certainly in Canada. And then the third point I wanted to say is so critical Tasha, how we are perceived. And people want us to be who we were for their own comfortability in the relationship, particularly siblings, spouses, okay?kay? 

Again, I'm I'm going to talk about the hardcore grief from bereaved, you know, bereaved parent. As a bereaved parent losing a child, which is probably I hear over and over and over again, still the same today, it's the worst thing a parent could ever imagine. And I just say, Okay, maybe? Like, there could be worse things, I don't know, but so far, for me, it was the worst. And when other people, and especially spouses and that, want you to be who you were that maybe weren't impacted the same? My husband is the father of my son, but was not the biological father of my daughter, and I didn't even meet him till she was seven, so he didn't have that same blood connection to her. And I'm, I'm putting that in there, he understands this that's in my work is because we also don't have enough work in step, you know, relationship grief. Like step parents, so it is different. And so what we have as a core with with him and me and our son, is undeniable, but that missing piece, my son feels it. I'm not saying my husband doesn't feel it. What I'm saying as a couple, we felt it differently. And you know, it's been a long, hard journey to get through all of those pieces, which we're not here to talk about today. But, I am just saying we need work and awareness in this area that that so he wanted me back from my perspective the way I was when he married me, right? I'm not that person. I'm not that person. So everything changes. 

So but on a broader level, if you want to speak to that just for a moment, about how everything changes for us in grief. And this perception we have of, I didn't feel it for any of anybody else. I just want to say. As the one that was really mostly deeply impacted and traumatized? I didn't want anyone else to be anything. I was too busy just trying to survive. So I really wasn't, you know, getting into their business in the early years. Later years, I sure was. I sure was. And I wanted people to, You should be feeling what I'm feeling! You know, and blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. So if you want to talk about that a little bit, and what can we do to educate ourselves and be aware and even, you know, kind of help each other try not to get in each other's grief and be who, who, you know other people want us to be?

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  14:23  
Well, yeah, it's really interesting, right? Because there's a lot of competing needs. And each person who is part of the a surviving group of whatever the loss is. Whether it's a person or it could be the loss of a job, the loss of a career. It could be retirement, it could be, right, both death and non-death losses, but each person might have a different and unique dyadic relationship with whatever that loss is. And you're right, so often, especially initially after grief, you are just trying to survive. And so it's incredibly challenging because you don't even know what you need. So it's very hard. The perspective take and to figure out, okay, where are these other people at? Where am I at? What are my needs? What are their needs? And how do we make all of this work together? So it is incredibly complex and frustrating and complicated. 

And to answer your question, I think one of the biggest things people can do is talk more about it. You're right. There is so much tiptoeing around things. Using kid gloves. Pressure that people feel to say the right thing, and sometimes that's why they just want you to be okay and be back to your former self, because they're like, I don't, I don't know, I don't know how to help you. I don't know what to say. And so that can then make you, as the griever, as the bereaved, feel very socially constrained, right? Like even if you want to talk and what I mean by social constraint is, yeah, there's people there that you could talk to, but you don't perceive that sense of safety that you need to be brave and to have those hard conversations. So the constraint can just be so overpowering, which then again complicates your own grief because what are you saying to yourself? I should get over this. Why am I still struggling with this? Why do I feel so abnormal? So it just makes things incredibly complicated. And when all of that is happening internally, meanwhile, you have all this external change going on as well, right? You mentioned everything changing. With really significant losses, you can wake up and your house can look exactly the same, right? Things are exactly as they were before your loss, but everything can be so different.

I remember when, when my grandma died, we were watching the Broncos, Denver Broncos, which I'm wearing today. How funny is that? But it was up on the TV, and, you know, we were kind of waiting to get that phone call and figure out what was going on. And I just remember thinking, why is why is the NFL even playing today, right? Why are these things so quote, unquote, normal? But nothing was normal for me. So even my experience of the game, a sport that I love, and it just all was so different. Eating was different. I felt like my clothes were different. I, it looked the same, but everything changed. And I think that's a very common experience, but it makes people feel crazy. And then there's that social constraint so they don't feel like they can talk about it. So that would be my my very first suggestion is that we just need to have more of these conversations and that requires vulnerability on the the person who is bereaved. But then that also requires, I think, lowering the expectations for the supporters in that you don't have to say the right thing. It's okay. You're not, you're not going to say just one thing that's going to make all their pain go away so stop trying to come up with this perfect response. Just be with them. Be alongside them in their grief. 

Vonne Solis  16:45  
Yeah, you're saying something. I want to jump on the point of safety. I also just want to shout, give a shout out here, Tasha, to the fact that your grandma, when she passed, she was a major, major influence in your life, right? And I can't, I'm sorry. I can't remember if this was your maternal grandma or your paternal? Your maternal grandma and you loved her dearly. And I remember reading in the chapter about her that she was in the hospital across the street from your condo, right? And it was Covid. So you talk all about that in your book, and you've gone through that experience of having a very, would you say the loss of your grandma was traumatic for you, or just just very, very painful?

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  18:41  
I would say, that's a great question, honestly. Um, very, very painful, no doubt. Traumatic? When I think trauma, I think are their intrusive thoughts, right? Is there avoidance of certain things, right? So I kind of go to the criteria of what I would be looking for if I were working with someone who has trauma. And I definitely have intrusive thoughts. I definitely have a lot of anger. But the intrusive thoughts mostly come up in situations where, you know, Am I being asked to talk about that or think back on that? It doesn't necessarily come out of nowhere anymore. So I think there were some traumatic pieces, most certainly, but at this point it just, it's just so painful, right?

Vonne Solis  19:27  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  19:28  
Completely out of control.

Vonne Solis  19:29  
Yeah. So I will just say, so reading your book, and then I'm gonna get to the safety piece, really made me understand I was aware, but not, you know, like when you're so consumed by one loss. It's like I lost both my parents. Like my dad, in a year and a half after my daughter Janaya, and then my mom, five years in a shocking, shocking sudden death. Heart stuff. And then her biological father died a year later, and her best friend had died. I didn't find out that out for three years. Anyway, there was a bunch of stuff going on, and I didn't even process them. I couldn't process them. So that's just a piece about the trauma and very intrusive, there's a whole bunch of things and we're not going to get into defining trauma today, folks. But you can certainly look up on the DSM what trauma is, and see and I really recommend people do that and go through that list. The DSM V and find out because that's how I kind of went in 2007. My loss happened in 2005. By 2007, I'm going this doesn't feel right. And I started exploring PTSD. And I knew I had it, but it wasn't officially diagnosed for another seven years. But even if we think we have it, we can be aware. And then it wasn't until I read Dr Bessel van der Kolk's book "Your Body Keeps the Score" in 2018 that I understood how significantly the changes in the brain are. Significant. And then I didn't blame myself anymore for acting a certain way or making certain decisions or choices that were kind of crazy and didn't make sense, okay? And so it all started, that was my turning point for me, when I understood PTSD. Just just saying, for those of you out there who may need that. 

But I also wanted to shout out to how a relationship doesn't have to be like a child, a loss. Like in your case, your grandma? And I realized, wow, I can hardly wait to be a grandma should I be one, one day. Because I would love to have the relationship you had to your grandma with my grandchild. Oh, my goodness. And you know, and it may or may not happen in my life. But the point I'm making is that that relationship really opened my eyes up to how important any relationship is, and grief is equal across the board. You know, whoever you loved, whoever you lost, and it's impacting you in that way? You don't have to think of yourself audience as, Well, yeah, but it wasn't as bad as. And I did that for, oh, several years, looking at the losses of other adult children and parents who had lost more than one child. And I tried to minimize, you know, my loss as part of this expectation to get over it and be like someone, like going back to our earlier points, like someone I really wasn't. And I was so confused by that for so many years. I just, you know, and anyway, it took years to understand that's just devaluing my experience. So I stopped doing that. Do you want to speak quickly about that? And then we'll just talk very briefly about the safety piece because the conversation is really, really important. I had to learn that on my own, but eventually understand I didn't feel safe actually with many people in my, well, my family. So the people you expect to feel safe with you're not necessarily safe with because they don't understand They could be the the ones that want you to change back to who you were the most. And therefore, then, and you know, to your point, they don't understand. 

So I ended up, could you just, just listen? This is how I'm feeling. And when I would explain what I was just feeling, or an outburst. You know, I want to throw a glass across the room. You know, I have tremendous control, so I didn't, I've never done it. But there are moments I do, I'm much better now, react. Something, triggers, okay? Frustrations and it doesn't make the other person feel safe. They never know if you're gonna throw a glass at them, and you know, whatever. I'm using that as an example. So being really and I'm just this, I'm the lay person saying this, and ask you to comment on it. So just going, You know what? You don't need to fix me. I just need you to understand this is what I'm feeling. And even if I don't know what I'm feeling, I'm feeling something's not right. So bear with me here. And that has really changed my relationships specifically.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  23:59  
Yes, absolutely. And when I'm working with people, and we can't control anybody else's behaviors or reactions at the end of the day, so I always give people that caveat. But I think one of the biggest things that we can do is when you do feel like you have people you could talk to, and you felt just nervous or again, that constraint, rather than willing to take that risk, sometimes the work that I will do with people in therapy, is get them to that point where it's point where it's like, Okay, let's try this. And I usually encourage them to ask for what they need, right? So sometimes, to set the stage. I've noticed that I do this with my my mom a lot, because she can be quite an anxious soul sometimes, and I love her to pieces. But anytime I'm in distress, she just wants to fix it. So she wants to come up with a solution. She wants to take my emotions, right? She wants to make me feel better, which, thank you, mom. Love that about you, and sometimes I don't need your opinions. So there are definitely times with her where I will say, hey, I want to talk with you about this, and this is what I need. I really just want you to listen, or I already kind of have a solution. So I'm not looking for suggestions. Or sometimes I'll say, like, hey, I really need your feedback right now. That doesn't mean she always listens, but me, at least being able to be assertive, into to say my piece and kind of set the stage does help. And so that's something I very much encourage other people to do, too. I'm not looking for you to fix it. I know this isn't going to get better. I just I want you to be alongside me. It's this idea of being rather than doing. And I think sometimes, as supporters or as loved ones who are watching others breathe, we want to do something to make it better. And oftentimes the solution is, if you just simply be with that person, you are doing something that is really effective. You're not going to make it go away, right? They're not going to bring a dish that makes your pain go away. They're not going to say something that makes your daughter come back, right? None of those things are going to take place. So sometimes it's like, can I just, can I just be with you in this moment so that I'm not by myself?

Vonne Solis  26:00  
That's fabulous advice. So I just want to follow up quickly on that. So don't you think, though, this cultural, certainly in Western culture, I'm just going to limit it to North America. You know, I've talked to people in the UK. Yeah, it's the same as North America in terms of get over the grief and not really understanding well it well, and not really having enough supports, and not enough support for trauma and grief and all that stuff. So I'm going to wager that pretty much Western culture, we have this problem. Everything you talk, you address in your book, and we're going to talk about in your key takeaways, this idea of connection, talking. So just the piece of finding your people you feel safe with. You know, there's still some things I just won't talk with anyone about, so I write them to my daughter in a letter every year. So journalling. So I just saw, just wanted you to comment on that. We need to feel safe, to communicate. We need to trust the person we're sharing our vulnerabilities with, right? And so it may not be someone in your family. It may not be your spouse, it may or partner, it may not be who you think it is. 

So in that and I also found fabulous support online at the time, remembering, in 2005 we didn't have the kinds of online presence, you know, kind of online presence we have today. So, but I still went to a suicide support board. It was a chat board at that time. And I went to a prayer board, and I went to a another board. I can't remember, but anyway, that's where I poured my heart and soul out as I made connections with other people who were either a bereaved mom or suicide loss survivor. And there were three main connections, all different there, and we helped each other survive our first three years. And to this day, 19 years later, I had one of that core group who just said to me a few months well, at our anniversary date in July, that how much she loved me. She lost her brother the same day I lost my daughter and that I had saved her life. And right back at you kid! But you know, another person played that role for me. 

The reason I'm talking about this is because we just don't know the impact, even when it's a virtual connection. An online connection, but something deeply experienced that you never, ever, ever, ever forget their presence in your life, even though you've never even met them in person. And that has happened to me, and that's who saved me in my early years. It was not my family, because I was still so angry at them, okay? And then, and then, that stuff is very hard to repair, so it's taken me a really long time. I'm just throwing this piece in from my experience as a bereaved mom for 19 years now. I had to learn not to expect things. What you're speaking to, but I'm the living proof of that, and then decide what kind of relationship I wanted with each of the people I had expectations from that were never going to give it to me. They were not going to be my safe people in the way I'm talking about vulnerability here and you are and decide how to how to manage that relationship. Did I even want the relationship still? And then, if yes, I'm committed to it, then how am I going to let that expectation go and find, more importantly, find that safety and support somewhere else, even 19 years later, Tasha.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  29:33  
Yeah, absolutely. And this is what this goes back to what we were just saying about some of the nuance of how everything changes. The primary loss, right was, was the death of your daughter. However, there's all this other loss that then starts to take place. Other relationships change. Or trust in yourself or in other people change. Your perceptions of who certain people in your life are or were or what they are capable of, or maybe what they're not capable of. All of those things can change. And so there continues to be new grief processes that start because there is more loss that comes with whatever the primary loss is.

Vonne Solis  30:14  
Yeah, so I'm going to just ask you if, ask for what you want works for the people who are closest to us can't give us really everything we want from them. They're maybe not our safety spots. Still ask for what you want, even if it's just, could you just listen for a minute to me? You know, like that. Do you agree with that? Is that what we should do?

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  30:36  
I always, yes. I always encourage people to try to get your needs met, right? And no one can read your mind. No one knows exactly what you need, especially with people who you have a lot of contact with and have to communicate with, that is all you can do is kind of say, Hey, here's where I'm at. Here's what I need. Now you can't control anything that happens after that, right? You can only control your response. What you say, what you don't say, how you show up, how much effort you put into relationships. But I never think, in most cases, unless your physical safety is at risk, I don't think it's a bad thing to simply state what you need. And then you're collecting data. Because if someone is able to meet you where you are and truly listen? Okay Okay. Maybe I could come back to this person. Maybe this person is someone in my circle, versus someone who you maybe asked a few times and you are not met with that. Perhaps you're met with something more detrimental to you. You kind of know. You can take that data and that's going to help you refine decisions and make choices to help you again, figure out not how to move on with your life, but how to move forward. 

Vonne Solis  31:46  
Yeah. Oh, I'm a big, big we don't move on. We only move forward. And you'll hear that in the bereaved parent community. No one says move on. That's wonderful. I also just want to quickly, quickly, just say to the audience and to you, Tasha, the more I let go of my expectation for things to be what they were never going to be, the more I allowed my relationships to evolve in new ways, and life just completely opened up. And all the pressure left, and I accept the differences, and that's just it. I accept the differences. It was a hard understanding that I was the most impacted in the family. But I guess that's fair to say. It was hard because it felt really lonely, really isolating for me. So then it's just okay. Well, then you get your support, like I said, elsewhere. And you know, and there's no shortage of places where you can go to get help for bereaved bereavement from suicide, bereaved parents. I don't know, probably all kinds of bereavement. I know there's tons in the in the States, and you know, so most of my people came from the States.

I just want to ask a little bit here, Tasha about changing, a change in identity. So this actually plays into what we're talking about. So part of the reason we find it so difficult to communicate we've already touched on this a bit, is because you've changed. But for those of us that have actually dealt with the loss of identity, and I always say our identity is changed by the very fact that a person has died, so there's a change in the family. There's change in dynamics every everywhere you look. But it but for those of us that may be struggling with, you know, a loss of identity in other ways that maybe you can explain sort of briefly. I know we can only do surface stuff here, just to educate people. What they might want to look for in if they don't understand why they feel so different. Is there anything you want to speak about, or can speak about loss of identity?

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  33:46  
Yeah, I'll start with just a few examples. Some people are kind of like identity, right? What do you mean? 

Vonne Solis  33:48  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  33:48  
So a few examples I'll just pull from the book. One that I remember so clearly is when I was 10, that was the first major death loss I went through. My great grandma died. And I remember my grandma, so it was my grandma's mother, and I remember my grandma talking to me about being an orphan. And I didn't, of course, I didn't realize that at the time, but she was like, I'm an orphan now. I remember being like, wait, what? And that was an identity moment, right? She was redefining, hey, I'm no longer a daughter. I don't have my parents to take care of or to rely on in these ways anymore. 

Vonne Solis  34:31  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  34:31  
That's one example. I wrote a whole chapter on identity for me. 

Vonne Solis  34:36  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  34:36  
In terms of being an athlete, I grew up being an athlete. I was a very active basketball player for many years. And I remember when I retired from sport, nobody knew how to speak to me, because for basically my entire life, people had said, Hey, how's school? How's basketball? That was it. And when I retired, you could almost see people walk back. They'd start like, how's basket? And they'd be like, Oh my gosh, we don't know what else to ask her about. I didn't know what else they could ask me about either. I mean, school, sure, but I didn't really know who else I was outside of that, either. So that was another piece where it's like, oh my gosh, you have to completely redefine things. 

And then the third example that I'll throw out would be, I spoke in the book quite a bit about my grandma's we've been talking quite a bit about my grandma so far. So my Grandma Pryde we were, I just kind of laid out the identity changes that she went through throughout her life. 

Vonne Solis  35:36  
Oh, yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  35:37  
Right. The the difference that is it she was a nurse, and so when she was no longer able to work, what it was like to lose that identity. That transition from being a parent to being a grandparent. And then a grandparent who was very strongly needed and very involved. But then when I started driving, I could take my brother and I to school. I could take myself to practice. So losing right some of that grandmotherness, because she wasn't needed in the same way. So those are just some examples. We can, we could talk for hours.

Vonne Solis  36:07  
No, that's good. That explains identity and in the more traumatic sense of loss, you know, like, for me, I don't have a daughter anymore. Like, I just don't, and I identified. So I didn't like daughter cards. I still don't like, I've said this on the podcast before. I still don't, I'm not comfortable. I respect it, but I don't like mom and daughter nail salon appointments. You know, can't help it. But so when it happens, and it happens. You know, when I happen to go get my manicure, it happens that there's moms and daughters having a fabulous time and giggling and all that together, and I'm not even sure I know how I feel about it still. 

So I just wanted to also say I remember you talking about your grandma getting crippling arthritis and her decline. So folks, it's all in Tasha's book as well, if you want to read about that because you invite us in every single chapter of your book to think about some aspect of all of what we're talking about today. And it's, you made it so easy for us to just think about our own stories and our own experiences, while at the same time appreciating your family stories and experiences. So what you're talking about, you know, and explaining millions of people go through, and we're not really trained in our personalities, you know, kind of, you know, impact this or influence this, is we're not really trained how to deal with our changes. Our big life changes, either through just natural changes or events. So would you say that loss of identity is just something that has changed in your personal life? In the personal way you perceive yourself, it's no longer that way anymore. Would you consider that's related to a loss of identity?

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  37:53  
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that plays a role in, again, some of these secondary losses. You know you have the primary loss, if I use myself as an example, I retired from sports. So I lost, I think, that image of being a basketball player. But what else did I lose? I lost relationships. 

Vonne Solis  38:13  
Oh, yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  38:14  
Not necessarily all of them, but they definitely changed. I wasn't seeing the same people every single day anymore. I even struggled with, can I still call myself an athlete at all? Even though, you know, I was still working out, but I wasn't going to practice anymore. I was just going to work out.

Vonne Solis  38:31  
Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  38:33  
It's very different. I'm going to work out versus I'm going to practice. It's like, okay, I'm going to work out, but for like, what am I training for? Where's the competition? What am I doing? 

Vonne Solis  38:43  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  38:43  
I just think loss of identity is such an understated thing. In fact, I was just approached by a journalist a couple weeks ago who was writing an article for retirement and was actually talking about Biden and some of the grief and loss that he was going through, taking the steps that he did, to drop out of the of the ticket here in the US.

Vonne Solis  39:06  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  39:06  
For the next presidential election. And so they wanted to talk to me about, oh, he's probably grieving, right? And I was like, I mean, yeah, absolutely. Retirement, job loss. You pour so much of your identity into what you do, and you don't do that thing anymore. It could be again, being the president of a country. It could be being a mother. It could be being an athlete. So when you're not pouring that same effort in? It's like, can I call myself that? And what does that mean? And oh, if I can't call myself that, then what do I call myself? 

Vonne Solis  39:41  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  39:42  
This is just so complex, and we need to talk about these things, because how do we make we're humans. We want to make sense of them, and how the hell they make sense of some of this stuff.

Vonne Solis  39:51  
You know, I'm thinking as you're talking, we need therapy to go through it. Because I was going to ask you. I was going to ask you, Tasha, what do we? Dr Tasha, what do we do? It's too complex. You need therapy. No, you but you re-enter for those that don't have an opportunity to go to it. Because I've been sitting here thinking, Hmm, I'd kind of like to go to therapy on my own. I spent years on relationship therapy. No, it didn't work. So I kind of think, what could I do? What could I do? You know, I have, like, insurance. I should use it, right? And I thought, well, what would I talk to them about? But you know, you're giving me some ideas here. I could talk about how I feel like I'm in a forever Gap Year rebuilding myself. 

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  40:33  
Yeah.

Vonne Solis  40:34  
That's what it feels like. I'm 67 and I'm I'm like, What do I want to do with the rest of my life? I'm still literally trying to figure it out. And I think I'm figuring it out just in as I don't even know. See, I'm so confused by it myself, I don't even know, but I just know I'm still figuring out what I want to do. And so I just want to throw a little piece in here. Is that, I think I'm going to ask you, this. Is rebuilding a new identity important, and if so, do, we need to have a vision for our future to do it?

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  41:07  
Oh my gosh, that is a wonderful question. So when I think about in my private practice, I work with a lot of athletes, right? Primarily College Pro and Olympic athletes, some current, some former. But because I specialize in grief and loss, I end up working with a lot of athletes who are in that retirement phase. Even them deciding if they're going to or they just have, or maybe it's been years and they haven't fully moved through some of these things. I bring that up because when we are working together, it is so crucial to help them understand there are parts of the view of that athlete identity that you're always going to have. 

Vonne Solis  41:46  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  41:47  
You carry those things with you, but there are other things that now that you are have gone through this loss, you have to integrate into your life. And again, hence, you're never going to be the same again. But you don't lose everything, but you do gain new things. And so I think helping people understand and look at the balance of gains and losses, or maybe the imbalance of gains and losses, could be a better way to put it. Nothing is all good, nothing is all bad. There's always a little bit of both. And I think that can be very critical in helping people understand what their identity was and how it shifted, and hey, where do I want it to go?

I don't think you necessarily need to have a concrete vision of what you want your future to look like when it comes to this. Because I think as you know, as we experience significant life events and as we experience grief, we come to know that sometimes making plans and feeling like we have it all figured out. We have this vision is quite a foolish thought, because anything can change at any given time. And so I will encourage Well, you don't need to make you don't need to know exactly what you need or where you want to be in a year. All you have to do is get through today and that stuff will work itself out. And I'm not saying don't have any goals or don't have any aspirations, but again, taking off some of the pressure and expectation to have a concrete plan...

Vonne Solis  43:13  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  43:14  
 in this life. Life happens, and it will continue to happen. 

Vonne Solis  43:17  
Yeah. Actually, while you were saying that, it just it was like a light bulb moment for me, and I was going, that's probably going, that's probably why I don't envision. So I came from a spiritual, metaphysical practice in when I was 25. So 42 years later. And a big part of that, okay, and also a big part of business building. En entrepreneurship and all of that? You get into any kind of, you know, you know, mastermind, or, you know, business leadership, you know, it's goal setting, goal setting, what do you want to do? And you have this vision, and you've got, you set the goals, and you try and get it, get it, get it. But as you were talking, as, you know, thinking, wow! Coming from that, you know, I came from an era in the 80's, vision boards and all of that. And, yeah, anyway. And, but it was always being able to see your future. See it, envision it, plan it, create it. Okay, it kind of like that. So what you just said about not trusting anymore that it could be there? That's probably why don't do it. Because deep inside me, I understand anything can happen at any time. So thank you. I'm going to ponder that. You didn't even know you were giving me therapy, but you were!

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  44:30  
The last piece that I tack on to that is the importance of flexibility and adaptability. Because again, I'm not suggesting don't have any goals and don't create some sort of vision or aspiration for yourself, but also cut yourself some slack and know, okay, here's what I want, but I can't control every aspect of this process. 

Vonne Solis  44:49  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  44:49  
Because something might happen that changes the course. And so I really like this idea. This is a sports psych reference, of course, a relation to my work. But I really love this idea of, are you going pivot, or are you going to persist? So you might have this goal, and something happens. You come to a crossroads, and it's like, okay, I have two options. Do I want to persist through this? Is it worth it? Can I do it, or do I need to pivot and completely change course? And sometimes that is the philosophy that I use with athletes who are like, okay, am I, am I ready to retire? Am I not? That's what we're talking about. Are we, are we persisting? Are we pivoting? What do we need?

Vonne Solis  45:27  
I love that. Pivot or persist. I love that because it gives us the permission to just alter, you know, pivot? Alter? Which is actually what I'm doing. And the more I'm altering and and how I do it for myself, audience is, when something makes and I am so in tune with my body and my mind right? That if something make I know I'm off balance. Something's like just not right, and I'm not enjoying myself anymore, where I have the flexibility to change that? I am changing it. I am pivoting. I'm not quitting. I'm pivoting. And that's actually, I'll be quite honest, I'm doing that in my work right now. I no longer work full-time. Are you kidding? And hey...

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  46:07  
Yeah, yeah.

Vonne Solis  46:08  
I pivoted.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  46:08  
If you have any listeners who are perfectionists or incredibly high achievers, sometimes this is a really hard idea to wrap your head around. It definitely was for me when I first started kind of embracing this, because the idea of pivoting means failure. 

Vonne Solis  46:25  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  46:25  
I set this goal, and I didn't reach this goal the way that I wanted to, so everything else is failure. And so again, I encourage people to kind of take a step back from the perfectionism and look at things a bit more flexibly, because you're not necessarily failing, if you have to...

Vonne Solis  46:43  
pivot

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  46:43  
change course, right?right? 

Vonne Solis  46:44  
I love that. 

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  46:46  
We make decisions based on all the information that we have at any given moment. So I could make the best decision today and then tomorrow, something could happen that could change everything. So then I take in that data, and if I need to pivot? I pivot.

Vonne Solis  46:59  
I love it. I love it. I love it. So you can think of it this way. I, this is the best decision I can make today or right now. And if something happens that's better? Because I believe any change we make that is in, you know, aligned with our heart and we feel better in our mind. It's, it's a whoof, which feels better, right? My mom and I used to play a game. Five seconds, yes or no? You want to do this. Is it, how important? Yes or no? And you had to answer. You had to answer. And you know, and if you said one or the other, and it felt, no, I'm not really telling the truth, you get to do it again when you're ready. But that, we played that together for years when we were faced with really tough decisions, and it's about, did you really want it? Do you really need it? You know, etc, things like that. So that was kind of fun, too. But right now, in the course of my own life, I feel very, very free and and I am definitely pivoting, not persisting. Because persisting, it can be very painful. And there are all sorts of possibilities for those of us that are perfectionists and not athletes, but perfectionist in every other way, which I also was too and loyal to something. You take something on. I gotta see it through to the end you know? Ahh, no you don't. You know, and so thank you for that, because I love it. Love pivot or persist. And do not think of yourself as a failure, because the pivoting should be able to remove that sense of failure from us when there are other options, correct?

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  48:34  
Absolutely, and even if we do, quote, unquote, fail or make a mistake or have some sort of setback, it's, you're also able to have this growth mindset, right? Again, how do I move forward? Not move on, but how do I move forward? Growth mindset's a whole other discussion that we could have. 

Vonne Solis  48:52  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  48:52  
But someone with a strong and solid growth mindset will look at a setback or a failure and say, Okay, there's opportunity here. What didn't work, and how did I or how can I change, adapt?

Vonne Solis  49:04  
Yes, oh, absolutely. And I've said this before, also on my podcast. I learned in my grief, when I became aware, it took a few years to understand this part of my personality, but that I am solution-oriented. So I've refined that in the last few years, and that has helped with anxiety and just feeling stressed by the world and which, by the way, we're not talking about it. But I'm going to throw this out there for those of us that, all of us really that put a mask on and have to tuck the grief away. Tuck the suffering away. Tuck the trauma way, because you got to go to your job or do whatever. Even be that way sometimes for loved ones. You know, it's it's great to be able to take it off and really look at who we are and just be okay with our decisions and we're not failures. All I'm going to say is like we're just certainly not fail and, you know, reduce the load a little bit. You don't have to be perfect in anything. But hey, it took me years to get there. So I get it, wherever anybody is with that.

Moving very quickly to generational trauma, and then your key takeaways. Now, I understand this is huge. So what we're doing is just giving a nod to people who, you know, want to consider that they may have been impacted by generational trauma. And from your position, your perspective, I should say professionally, I don't know if this has been around for a long time. Understanding generational trauma, but I certainly know in the last few years, we're hearing it like more pop-culturally, if you will. Do you want to speak to that just a little bit? Because it goes to, we've already talked about really communicating. We've talked about lack of acceptance, and, you know, this avoidance and it comes through communication. We're going to talk about that in your key takeaways. But what should we be on the lookout for, Tasha, in terms of being impacted by generational trauma? 

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  51:05  
Yes. So I'll lay this out a little bit why I chose to include this in the book. So the book is called And She Was Never the Same Again, A Multigenerational Memoir. And I've never heard of a multigenerational memoir before.

Vonne Solis  51:20  
Me either. That was a very unique read. I've never read anything like that.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  51:26  
So that's just my story. And part of again, when I was putting this book together, I recognized that, yes, I was grieving and I was really struggling. And I was looking at some of the people who were closest to me, and I was seeing them struggle, and there were things that I didn't fully understand. And so it was like, okay, so what happened to that person?  Or what happened to these, these people, or this community that, even if I wasn't around for it, is impacting me now, right? Something happened to them. And so what that looked like is the fourth chapter of my book. So I laid out in 1965 my great uncle died in a car accident when he was 18. So that was well well before I was born. Even before my dad was born. But my grandpa, my great uncle's brother, was 16, and that event fundamentally changed the rest of his life. It was sudden. Itt was dramatic. It's, neither of his parents were really able to take care of themselves for months. So my grandpa lost his only sibling and had to grow up incredibly fast. 

My dad was born four years later, but my grandpa and his parents never dealt with the grief. They worked. They became angry. They became withdrawn. They never talked about it. And so that created, that changed my grandpa and who he became, and so the way he parented. And so I look at that, that's what the chapter lays out. Is that was kind of the crux of things that happened. And then how does my great grandpa and my grandpa and my dad and my brother and me...

Vonne Solis  53:12  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  53:13  
how is all of that affected? And so I make the key point that oftentimes things that happen to the people we love and care about the most do impact us, even if we aren't aware, because of the impact it's had on them. And so that's what I mean, and that's what I refer to in this idea of intergenerational trauma.

Vonne Solis  53:30  
Yeah, so you're right. It's so this is a huge, huge, huge topic. So what I want to just point out is, I think that is a rarity, your book for the multigenerational stories, experience, perspectives. And where you do go and interview, literally interview, your extended family to find out what was going on for them at a precise moment, or moments in a threatening, traumatic event. Such as I said, you open up with the near death at your mom in chapter one. Your own near death as a little one, and you were heli lifted, helicopter lifted out of there. So folks, it's an interesting read and what was going on? And I remember you said Grandma was on the helicopter with you, and that, no doubt, formed a special, special bond between you. Your mom wasn't even able to go with you in that helicopter. And I was just and I was like, wow. So it invites you to go, Okay, this isn't what Natasha experienced writing in her book. It is, But geez, we went through this and that it really impacted me. Because I don't believe there's that many families that have escaped perfect like, like, some kind of trauma or some disaster. So you're, the key is in how far back do we have to go where there was a significant event that altered the course of each of our parents or grandparents, right? And trickled down to us. And I, that's why I say, I think, I don't think anyone escapes that. What do you think?

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  55:05  
Yes, yes, absolutely. And that's part of why I felt this book was really important to write, because you might not be able to relate to my exact story, or my family's exact stories. 

Vonne Solis  55:14  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  55:14  
But it's gonna get you thinking. It's gonna get you looking at your life. It's gonna get you thinking about your parents. I think, in particular for parent child dynamics, that's been so important for me because you're right. My mom did she almost died two weeks after she had me. And then I almost died when I was two and a half. And my parents were... 

Vonne Solis  55:31  
Yeah. 

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  55:32  
My parents were married at 18, had me at 20.

Vonne Solis  55:34  
Yeah. 

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  55:36  
And so 20 when she almost died, and then 22 ish when I almost died. Oh, my goodness. So when I was a teenager and I was frustrated because they were like, are you okay? Where's your inhaler? And they're just on me. Yeah, they've had some significant traumatic experiences. 

Vonne Solis  55:57  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  55:58  
I have tuned both of them into me and my health in a way that I did not get, and I didn't get it then, and it took, it took a PhD in psychology and years of talking with them and being open to really get to this place where it's like, okay, yes. So I was so frustrated, but here's the dynamic playing out, and it made it easier to cope for me. I don't get nearly as frustrated with them even now, because I get it, but I don't get it. I don't get it in the sense that I wasn't there, but I can conceptualize, wow. I understand why you worry. And I gotta give you that. I gotta back off.

Vonne Solis  56:34  
And so I'm gonna say, going right back to your grandparents and losing your grandpa's brother that that died, so he would have been your great uncle. But right there, and I'm just going to say this flat out. Any parent who has lost a child, their greatest fear is they could lose another one, right? It's the greatest fear. So I just want to say about you know, we're not talking about it, but just to you and your potential and all of this, you know? That could have even been wrapped up, go, go, go. Keep going. Keep going. Because we don't, you know, deep down, I always go, what is the real thing driving this? So, for example, I would always start celebrating my daughter's birthday six months before her birthday inn my head. Ohh, she's turning, you know. And when you look back at it, I kind of realized maybe you're doing that because at some really innate level you knew you were going to lose her or something? I do not do that with my son, who's 32. I just do not. I wait 'til the day of his birthday because, but I still worry about him. 

And so I just want to say because I know he's not going to watch this episode, just a couple weeks ago, maybe two, three? He let me do a phone tracker. You know, when you share your phone, share your location? And it was for another reason, but he's like, he was going camping in the woods and stuff, and he was going to do part of that alone and meet up with his family and friends. And I was like, I was really worried. I'll really worry about you. And anyway, I have anxiety about it. But the fact that he allowed and so then I said to him, Okay, after he got through that part of the trip, I said to him, Okay, well, you can turn off your sharing location. And he's like, No, it's okay. Sigh. I'm like, just, oh my god. So what I'm gonna say about we can push our kids or we can overprotect our surviving children when we come through something traumatic related to them. So a fear of nearly losing you? I'm just going to say this to you, and I might edit it out. But I'm just saying so your mom, because I know when you talked all about potential, potential, pushy, pushy  and whatever, whatever, whatever? I guarantee there's so much love. And she never, ever, probably ever got over the trauma of the worry of that you were gonna die. 

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  58:44  
Yeah, absolutely. 

Vonne Solis  58:45  
You know?

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  58:46  
II think that's so important, and maybe you should include that honestly.

Vonne Solis  58:49  
Okay I'll include it, if you let me, yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  58:51  
Yep. Because I think that is just so key because now, you know, I'll cough, and she's immediately like, Oh my gosh. Are you...

Vonne Solis  59:00  
You okay?

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  58:59  
 Oh yeah do we need to? And I've had to work with her where it's like, okay, I know my body pretty well now, and not every cough means it's a catastrophic event, right? That you're right. That shows some prone traumatic responses, and I need to be more compassionate and understanding that she will never be the same again. That's never going to go away from her. 

Vonne Solis  59:22  
You know and...

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  59:23  
When you ask me thank you for loving me and caring about me that much.

Vonne Solis  59:28  
I know, but it can be suffocating, and it's like, aghh. So I don't let my son know how anxious I have been about him. Okay? And, and, I mean, I'm talking like text and I don't hear back in a couple hours, like, Is he okay? Has something happened? And anyway, so I'm very, very pleased to say we now have medical information alert on our phone. So anything happens? Ah, we do, but this is serious for people. Audience, if you're if you're in the same situation. Because there's Tasha, there's a fine line between the parent who's now anxious. So you're the gen you're a result of generational trauma as well, alright? Because the the just the fact of near losing you will have changed your mom and your dad and this worry, even if she doesn't even tell you all about it. The fussing and all of that over you. We're all different in how we do it. But the bottom line, the root of it's fear. And so I don't know how you handle it as the adult child, and if you find out, let me know, and I'll tell my son, because it's not fair to you. It's really not fair for you guys to sit there and try and manage your lives considering, you know, in consideration of our anxieties. I don't think it is.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  59:40  
And and when we more fully understand what our parents have been through, whether it's fair or not, it makes it easier to cope. And my mom and I have a phenomenal relationship, right? So I can tell her, Hey, like, no.

Vonne Solis  1:01:01  
I know. 

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  1:01:02  
You can be you can freak out. Go tell dad.

Vonne Solis  1:01:06  
 Oh, I love it.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  1:01:08  
Right? Like, I don't want to hear it. I can't. That's not, I just can't. And she's very good about trying to be like, Okay, you're right, you know. And she's very self-aware, and she will acknowledge it.

Vonne Solis  1:01:16  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  1:01:17  
Again, our community, and that's a huge piece and takeaway from the book is like, I just want people to communicate more. And the fact that she and I can do that? I mean it isn't all roses and butterflies all the time. Sometimes that leads to some arguments and some not great moments, but...

Vonne Solis  1:01:33  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  1:01:33  
for the most part, I get it. She gets it. We can understand each other's perspectives and still have our own things that we need to actively keep quiet.

Vonne Solis  1:01:39  
Yeah, I get it too. So there's responsibility on both parts speaking from the parent part. You're representing the adult child. And I will just say that our son has, he bought a place three years ago, and he now has a timeout room for us if we have conflict. We joke about it. It was the previous owner's nursery, and he said, I'm leaving that room for you guys. Time out if you get into any conflict, which forced my husband and I to be very cognizant of any kind of banter we might be free to do as empty-nesters, which I'm also going to say is much, much improved. We are aware. We can't do that, and one of us has to go the timeout room if it gets out of hand. It's really kind of fun.

That's a goal for my next house.

Yeah. So listen, Tasha, we're at the top of the hour, and we're just going to turn to your key takeaways now to round this episode out. So number one is make the untalkable talkable. We've already talked a bit about this. Are there any last thoughts you have about this? Again, just to remind the audience how important that is for you.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  1:02:45  
The only other thing I would add, we've talked about it a lot, which is good.

Vonne Solis  1:02:50  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  1:02:50  
The only other thing I would add is you do there is risk inherent in it. So what I'm proposing there is not easy. It is much easier said than done. And so what I'm encouraging people to do and to understand and accept is you're going to be anxious. It's going to be a little scary. Lean into it anyway.

Vonne Solis  1:03:10  
Lean into it anyway. Okay. Second is, there's strength in vulnerability.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  1:03:16  
Yes. I am still shocked that I wrote this book. I am someone who is very reserved, quite private, and part of the reason why I started to write is because I did not feel comfortable, right? We talked about safety today. I didn't feel safe or comfortable. I have great people in my life. I have a ton of really incredibly supportive people. I don't want to talk to any of them about what was going on for me. And so I started to write. Now that the book is out, and there's a lot that is out to I'm sure not everyone will love it, right? And I'll get some some negative feedback at some point. But one thing that is consistently said is other people are more willing to talk to me about their stuff because of my vulnerability, and we see the strength in that. And Bren you know, Brene Brown, she talks about that all the time. And so that's just, it's been incredible. And what my biggest goal for the book was to have someone read it and come up to me and say, I read your book, and start talking to me about their own stuff. And that's exactly what you did today, too, right? Like, here's what I connected with, and here's my stories, and that is exactly what I want for people. And there is strength in being able to do that.

Vonne Solis  1:04:29  
No, I loved it. I loved it, I loved it, I loved it. And I also didn't put it down. Like it wasn't something that, Oh I'll  stop and get back to it. I could, I could, I wanted to read the next chapter, you know? So I read it over maybe a week or so, ten days, I don't know. Because I wanted to absorb also what you were saying. And you're an excellent writer, and the stories were really interesting. And I really loved your uncle's story too. You even talk, yeah, so for the audience, you know? Tasha, you even talk about your uncle coming out in and and in the 80s. Amidst AIDS. In Palm Springs he lived. Right? Living with a partner. Couldn't get married. But more importantly, your cultural background. Against your cultural background. So that is also fabulous for those of you in the audience that may be, you know, struggling with that as well. So it's so beautiful because there's, like I said, there's so much in it that you can't not feel impacted by something there that's similar to, you know, to what we go through. Which just goes to show families go through everything. Everything. Okay? You touched everything. Last one is that, you know, and we've touched a little bit on this, but grief never goes away, but does change. And I think that it is worth reiterating, because we aren't supposed to get over our grief, right Tasha?

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  1:06:06  
Yes, yes. People have asked me a lot about stages of grief, and you know, I thought I was over it, or I thought I was doing better, and that is also something I really like to educate people on. That is going to happen. It is going to be very choppy, very up and down. But that is normal. You're not crazy. That is part of the process. I mean, the more people can fully understand that and embrace that, the less judgment and negative self-evaluation they're going to have on themselves, and the more they truly can figure out what's going to work for them to help them move forward.

Vonne Solis  1:06:42  
You know, we're going to turn to your resources, but I have one last thing I just want to ask you about. So I think it was last year the DSM added prolonged grief disorder, okay? And defined it as grief that lasts longer than one year and may have impacted you in a way that disturbs, disrupts your life and and there's a few other things, you know, memories and all this of one year we get one year. So I'm not knocking the DSM. I'm not knocking the psychiatry world. I'm not knocking any of that. What I'm a what I'm asking you, and I right away said, Oh, I guess I got that one too. Prolonged grief disorder. I thought one year was a bit kind of short. But right there, you see it kind of is in juxtaposition with what you're saying and what I just said, because my goal has always been framed in being the healthiest I can be holistically. You know, before I die, myself. Transition myself, and I've never really framed it in I'm gonna get over my grief because that just just feels so wrong to me. But what you're just saying now, even even from your professional perspective, as you are a psychologist. Yeah, yeah, how does that sit with you that there's an actual prolonged grief disorder for, you know, all of the you know, conditions if you meet it past one year?

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  1:08:03  
Yes, it does not sit well with me for the most part. I understand and I respect that as a field we are trying to come up with clusters of symptoms to have communication and language to discuss and be on the same page and help understand what is debilitating and what impacts the functioning of our clients. But I do not think we can pathologize grief. Again, we can look at how grief is impacting functioning, and I think that we should. And oftentimes, people do come to therapy for grief because they're like, I I can't fill the blank. I can't go to work, I can't whatever. So I understand and I respect that, but I really struggle with this idea of pathologizing and or medicating grief, because, again, it makes it so much harder for us just to move through it, because now you're told there's something fundamentally wrong.

Vonne Solis  1:08:57  
I know. So that is pathologizing it?

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  1:09:01  
Yes.

Vonne Solis  1:09:02  
So we're not going to talk anymore about it. And great respect, you know, again, to the mental health community and psychiatry and all that, because maybe this is a way that people can get off work, for example. Have insurance for a disability. A disorder is a disability, if you will, do you think? Is a disorder a disability, or can be a disability?

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  1:09:22  
Mental health, yeah, can definitely factor into disability. Yeah.

Vonne Solis  1:09:26  
AnyAny last words for the audience? I think we covered in the key takeaways. But you know, did I miss anything? 

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  1:09:31  
No, I don't think so. It's been very interesting, because I get a lot of questions about who is this book for, right? What who's your target population? And my answer is everyone, because no one is immune. 

Vonne Solis  1:09:44  
Yeah.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  1:09:44  
To grief and to losing something, and that's not a great answer from a publicity standpoint, right? PR and marketing standpoint. But I definitely do, do believe that. So no, I just, I really appreciate you highlighting so many of the different types of losses. And and connecting with it and telling some of your own story and allowing me to tell some of mine.

Vonne Solis  1:10:04  
Thank you. Now, your resources. Your website is N. N for Natasha, P T therapy.com. npttherapy.com.therapy.com. You You are located in Denver, yeah? Are you taking new clients? Do you work strictly with just clients individually, or what are your resources Natasha, for those who might want to work with you or contact you?

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  1:10:27  
Yeah, great question. So I'm located in Denver, Colorado, but I am licensed in around 40 ish states throughout the US. So I work primarily remote with people all over. I do work mostly with athletes, either career or former, but it need not be an athlete, especially because I appreciate and love grief work so much. So you don't have to be an athlete or have that athlete background, but that is primarily who I work with. A lot of individual work. I also work with teams. I work with organizations. So for example, I've been called in to work for a sport nutrition company after the death of one of their employees, and kind of talked with some of their employees, got together, did a little bit of, you know, support group sort of things. Done, some group interventions, team interventions, coaching interventions. So there's a there's and then, of course, education consultation, right? Educate, talk to people about some of this stuff too. So there's a few different ways people can work with me. 

Vonne Solis  1:11:29  
That's awesome. So audience, check out npttherapy.com to find out how Tasha may work with you. And if you're interested, and your book is available there. It's also available on Amazon, which is where I got it, but the website will tell you all the available places to purchase your book, right?

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  1:11:50  
Yes, yes, and it's officially audiobook now too, so people can get that through Amazon, Audible and Apple.

Vonne Solis  1:12:00  
Okay,Okay wonderful. So thanks again for connecting and helping our audience out today.

Dr. Tasha Trujillo  1:12:04  
Thank you so much.