From Love's Pinnacle to Heartbreak's Abyss: Denise's Journey of Resilience, Healing, and Empowerment

https://www.flowgriefacademy.com/talkWhat does true resilience look like in the face of unimaginable loss? We had the honor of speaking with Denise, whose life journey from youthful romance to profound grief unfolds in a story that is as inspiring as it is heartbreaking. Meeting her husband at the tender age of 16, their spontaneous decision to marry set the stage for a life filled with love, partnership, and unexpected trials. Denise takes us through the heartwarming highs and the devastating lows, including her husband's sudden paralysis and eventual passing, sharing candid reflections on their enduring bond.

Denise's honesty about her struggle with grief offers a raw and real look at the emotional chaos that ensues after losing a loved one. Balancing the need to remain strong for her children with her own internal battles, she faced a journey complicated by memory loss and overwhelming sorrow. It was through her psychologist Teresa that Denise found the tools to begin understanding and managing her grief. Her story underscores the critical role of seeking professional help and the powerful steps she took to ensure that grief would not define her life indefinitely.

From her own healing process emerged a mission to help others transform their grief into a celebration of life. Through an eight-week personalized coaching program, Denise empowers individuals to navigate their own journeys of loss with introspection and guided support. The episode also highlights the inspiring story of Deb, who turned her personal tragedy into a mission to support grieving parents. Denise's dedication to her calling and her husband's enduring pride in her achievements exemplify the extraordinary impact of shared human experiences. Join us for an emotional and uplifting conversation that speaks to the resilience of the human spirit.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Good afternoon and welcome to another episode of A Contagious Smile, where every smile tells a story, even those challenging, difficult ones. Denise is with us today to show you how she turned her life around. She has such a story of inspiration and grief and trauma and when I was learning about Denise, it was like I couldn't wait to hear even though you can learn about somebody but to hear and meet that person and really get to know what your whole story is, above and beyond just what we learned prior to coming on. I can't wait, so I thank you so much for coming on with us today and explaining who you are and what you do, and your inspirational story of triumph and turning everything you went through around. Welcome, Denise. Thanks so much for being with us.

Speaker 2: 0:50

Thank you so much for inviting me on your podcast. It's an absolute pleasure to share my story and hopefully somebody will get some relief from grief.

Speaker 1: 1:02

You know, just knowing that grief, you don't have to grieve for the rest of your life you literally went from a widow to a warrior and you were with your husband, I believe, since you were like 16. Is that correct? Yes, yep.

Speaker 2: 1:21

So he was my one and only Met him at my best friend's 16th birthday party and I really didn't like him at the time. I was like don't go away. So what happened? We just ended up getting married. He didn't even propose to me. I've never been proposed to what. We just ended up getting married. He didn't even propose to me. I've never been proposed to what. We just got married. I was 18, going on 19 when we got married.

Speaker 1: 1:51

So it wasn't as easy. He was like, hey, I'll have the lobster for dinner, by the way, let's just go get hitched.

Speaker 2: 1:57

Basically, we just got married. It was just one of the we. Just there was no. And I remember reflecting after he died I there was no. And I'm reflecting after he died. I mean, I remember having a breakdown moment and thinking I'm never even being proposed to.

Speaker 1: 2:09

Oh, and after all those years, you're never like hey, buddy, wink, wink. Do you think that maybe at some point in time you could like ask me to marry you, just so I know what it felt like?

Speaker 2: 2:18

Oh, we used to have those conversations you didn't even blimmin' propose to me.

Speaker 1: 2:29

And he'd say, well, I didn't need to, did I? Look, we're married and you're like, and that's why I didn't like you when I met you. Yeah, so how did he charm his way to you if you didn't like him when you met him?

Speaker 2: 2:36

well, I used to. I used to hide in cupboards and things when he used to come and visit, because I wasn't there, because I didn't want to see him and you know, 16-year-old little girls are like you know my friends would all be there and I wouldn't be at home and I would just tell him I'm not here, I'm not here, I'm not here, I'm not here. I honestly don't know how he charmed his way in. It was just one of those things. We just started dating and then we started, you know, we didn't stop dating and then we just got married and then we had kids and and our life unfolded that way. You know, we were, we were really best of friends. We did everything together, we, we worked together, we had businesses together. So many times.

Speaker 2: 3:19

And people used to say to me um, how can you see each other 24 hours a day? Because we did, yeah, and I said, it's easy. We just, we just see, we just with each other 24 hours a day. Right, I'm sure we had our ups and downs. I mean no marriages, roses, lollipops and unicorns, that just doesn't exist, no, right. But we grew together. We grew together. Um, we often used to say you know, we're bringing each other up. We're raising each other because he was so young and I was so young and we had our kids young and you know, our life was moving forward.

Speaker 1: 3:59

And then, when he was 55, what happened?

Speaker 2: 4:03

55,. He went to work. Well, he went to work. It was a Monday morning and he went to work. Well, he went to work, it was a Monday morning. And he went to work, pecked me, you know, see ya bye. Pecked me on the cheek. Um, have a good day. And about an hour later I got a call from him to say that he's got terrible backache. He's coming home and, um, can I call the doctor? And I knew something was wrong. Because he wrong? Because he was never going to see a doctor. He was always fine. The doctors didn't know what they were talking about. I'm a man, I can do it, you know that strong persona. And I knew there was something wrong. So I was trying to call the doctor and he called again and he said don't just get me an ambulance, I'm on the side of the road, I can't drive. Called an ambulance, they came, he went into hospital. Now we were living in a rural setting on eight acres of land and the major hospital was eight hours away.

Speaker 1: 5:01

Oh, wow.

Speaker 2: 5:03

Were they life flighting? Yeah, they did. Flying doctor, australian flying doctor flew him down to Brisbane and that's where they discovered that he had a spontaneous bleed on his spine. One in a million, one in a million. It doesn't happen. It only happens if you have an epidural that goes wrong or a lumbar puncture that goes wrong, but your spine doesn't bleed, right, yeah?

Speaker 2: 5:30

Which resulted in him being paralyzed from the waist down. So we were going okay, well, their lives changed, he's going to be paralyzed. And then he moved his big toe and this is a man, that's a fighter. He's a fighter. Yeah, he moved his big toe, and this is a man, that's a fighter. He's a fighter. He was moved out of intensive care into a general ward and two weeks later, I got a call from the Brisbane hospital because I was up eight hours away, because I was traveling and driving up and down to say that he had passed away.

Speaker 1: 6:03

They didn't call and say anything that you needed to get down there, that it was that quick what happened oh, I still, yeah, I still do.

Speaker 2: 6:15

I still to this day don't know. I mean, I had coroner's investigations and all that, but to this day we still, I still don't know exactly what happened, all I go. It was 11 o'clock at night. I was speaking to him at seven that night and 11 o'clock my phone rang. It was the hospital to say that he had passed away what did the doctor say?

Speaker 2: 6:37

they had to see you, they had to talk to you no, no doctor spoke to me, no, it was all over the phone. So you drove down there. Well, there's no point, there's no point in driving down because he was gone right. So you know, I, I just went into a company you can imagine, you can imagine. And then I had to then phone my kids, who were had moved out, and tell them, hey, your dad's just died. How old were your kids at the time? My kids were, um, in the late 20s, early 30s at the time and I had to. You know, one o'clock in the morning I'm telling them. You know, hey, you better get over here, dad's just died. So it was a shock for all of us.

Speaker 1: 7:29

It was a shock for all of us wow, that's your best friend, your soulmate, your, your partner in life. Like that's how you start your day, you end your day that's right that's just like that.

Speaker 2: 7:43

And we were just getting into that stage where the kids had moved out. I was working from home, he was working from home. He would come home if he had an early day. You know, come home and pour me a wine and he'd have a beer and we'd sit by the pool, and so we were just getting into that beautiful part of our life without the kids doing what we want to do, right. It was your time yeah, it was our time yeah right and then out of the blue, he was gone.

Speaker 1: 8:13

Denise, I, like I said before we even started recording, I'm so sorry for your loss. So what happened to Denise? At this point, beside the complete and utter shock, what happened to you? Where did you go in your mind with this? Because I can't imagine. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:33

I basically shut down.

Speaker 1: 8:35

Of course you did.

Speaker 2: 8:36

I completely shut down, but at the same time I wanted to be strong for my children, because they had lost their father.

Speaker 1: 8:46

Right.

Speaker 2: 8:47

Their mum's instinct kicked in. And I'm fine, I'm okay, put the mask on. How was your day, mum? Oh, it was great, you know. But I was really crumbling inside. I was dying. I died.

Speaker 2: 9:01

And we do, we die, we die, there's no two ways about it. And I was losing things, I was losing my memory. You know, I was only 51 at the time and my and my daughter said to me, my younger daughter said to me, she said to me mom, I think you're getting alzheimer's. She said, because you keep repeating yourself, you forgetting things, I really think you're getting alzheimer's. You need to go and see somebody, go and see the doctor. So I did okay, I'll go and see the doctor, but I'm sure I'm okay, I'm sure I'm not repeating myself, you know.

Speaker 2: 9:39

And my doctor said to me, she said to me beautiful lady. She said to me, she said I want you to see, uh, go and speak to somebody. You need to speak to somebody. And I went no, I've never been for therapy or anything. I didn't need therapy. I was never in that headspace where, yeah, my husband was, martin, was my therapy, we had each other. And she said look, I've got a beautiful psychologist. Go and see, go and see her. And I did, and that's where I started unpacking my story. I started talking about it, what happened, sharing, sharing the times that I was in so much pain that I would I actually would squeeze myself between the toilet and the wall you know that little gap, yes, yeah, and just rock in a fetal position, trying to self-comfort.

Speaker 2: 10:28

Trying to self-comfort. Just yeah, absolutely. And Teresa said my psychologist has become a very good friend of mine now she said, yeah, you're grieving, you're grieving. So I went there, I went and saw her every week. I was about six months later and I still wasn't getting any better. I wasn't getting any better. I was like when is this, this, this feeling gonna, this grief gonna leave me? Am I gonna be like this for the rest of my life? And I remember sitting there with a cup of tea and we used to have tea and biscuits and I said to Teresa when am I going to start feeling better? And she said to me Denise, you've just lost your husband. This is going to take between five and seven years. Yeah, and it was in that. That was my defining moment, one of many defining moments, but it was in that moment that I went no way, no damn way. Is this going to take me five to seven years?

Speaker 2: 11:31

right did a quick maths in my, in my, in my head, and I'll be close to 60 when I, when I'm starting to live my life again.

Speaker 1: 11:38

I'm not going to do that your husband wouldn't want you to do that no way, no way, no way.

Speaker 2: 11:47

So, um, that was the beginning of me thinking what else is there? What else can I do? Now, bear in mind this was in 2009, so it wasn't the Facebook groups. It wasn't all of that that that that that I could join um in Australia. We don't have grief showers in the US, you, you know, there's a all of that that that that I could join um. In Australia, we don't have grief share, whereas in the US, you, you know, there's a lot of people go to grief share. So there wasn't even that that I could connect with other widows or other people. Plus, I'm an only child, so I've got no siblings or anybody that I could relate to.

Speaker 1: 12:17

Both my parents have passed away and you don't want to fall and talk to your kids about it.

Speaker 2: 12:21

I don't want to talk to my kids about it, because they've just lost their father.

Speaker 1: 12:26

Right, right. So what did you start doing? How did you make that epiphany moment appear?

Speaker 2: 12:36

That was quite crazy, that actually, when I go back now and I look at it, I think, my goodness, that was really a download or something that just jolted me. I was in my previous life. My previous life I was a bookkeeper to small businesses, so that's what I did. So if you were a small business owner, I'd come to you, do your books, do your QuickBooks, do all of that, do your taxes. That's what I did. And I went to see it, I just carried on.

Speaker 2: 13:06

I just I just carried on doing the bookkeeping. I don't don't ask me how I balanced books and how I balanced things and and and did, did um, bank reconciliations and things like it. You need a brain for that. But I just went into into auto mode and that's what we do, right? We just go into coping mechanism. And it was a particularly bad day this client had. God love her, god love her. She had three kids running around with snotty noses. There was washing on the dining room table that she had to push over I still don't know if it's clean or dirty washing, I have no idea for her to make a space for me to work. There was toys, there was mess and of course you don't tell your clients hey, look, you know, my husband just died. So you know, be kind to me. So you just soldier on, you just carry on working. And it was one of those clients where I would ask for something or ask for a receipt and she'd go. I don't know. I don't know what was this amount for, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 14:06

Oh, no, you know what?

Speaker 2: 14:07

I'm thinking I can't do this anymore. Yeah, driving home, I just thought there's no way, I've got to stop. I've got to stop doing what I'm doing. And when I got home, I had my laptop in my hand and I so vivid, such a vivid memory, because I was very corporate, I had my, my uniform on, I had, you know, very corporate little logo was my bookkeeping business, very corporate. I was laptop in my hand and I walked in the back door and my little dog, lulu, little poodle, came to greet me and I just looked at her, ignored her, just said hello. Lulu took my laptop and threw it. Just threw my laptop, like you, literally just tossed it. I just tossed it, that's it. If I, if I, if it broke, if it, if it, I really didn't care right. And um, my neighbor had visited me a couple of weeks before and she had left a box of wine in the fridge which was her wine. I never touched it, but that particular night I thought I'll just have one glass of wine. Well, I ended up having the whole box.

Speaker 1: 15:18

The whole box. The whole box. Did you throw anything after that?

Speaker 2: 15:28

I woke up in the morning because with every, every glass and every sip, I cried and I cried more and I cried more. And and you know, wine has that habit of doing that if you're sad, it'll bring out the sadness in you. And I woke up in the morning. I don't know how I got. I got into bed. I woke up in the morning on the bed, still fully dressed, thumping headache, and that was my second defining moment. You cannot go on like this, denise.

Speaker 1: 15:59

There has to be a better way so you got up, brushed yourself off, a little confused about you know how you got to work that morning, and is this when you came up with your flow method, yeah, yeah now I'm so interested in this because it's there's so many different avenues out there and not all of them work for everybody, but this one is so intriguing and I can't wait for you to dive in. I love the acronym flow uh, feel, let go, overcome and hold. And could you kind of tell us how this happened, how it transpired, and then tell us about it?

Speaker 2: 16:36

yeah absolutely I. I sat there with my head going, took some headache tablets and I knew I had to heal me.

Speaker 2: 16:53

I was feeling broken and I would grieve for him for the rest of my life, because grief is love. You can't just switch it off. It doesn't happen that way. And I also knew that what I was doing wasn't working and I sat and I thought, okay, I know I'll become a life coach. Now this is back in 2009. Now, right, I'm going to become a life coach to heal me so I could get the tools for me. I was never going to work with anybody. If anything, I would be a business coach.

Speaker 1: 17:25

That makes perfect sense.

Speaker 2: 17:27

Right that's where my head was, where my thinking was and enrolled to be a life coach. It was an intensive program with NLP, with hypnosis, with a whole lot everything. Denise needed it all. Come on, give it to me with a whole lot everything. Because Denise needed it all. Come on, give it to me, give it to me, give it to me. And that's where my journey began and I sat back and I went well, what really helped me? Because I healed really quickly, I healed within months. I healed, I healed myself, I grew, I let go, I started, you know, living again. I started going out, I started going to, you know, I started going out by myself. I started taking myself out for dinner and enjoying my life.

Speaker 1: 18:16

Did you want to go back to your therapist and be like hey, I did this for my own.

Speaker 2: 18:21

Well, yeah, therapist and be like hey, I did this for my own. Well, when I started working in grief, she said to me Denise, be very careful, because grief is very complicated. And I went really, yeah, I think so. But um, yeah, it's um and then reverse engineered it because I then did become a business coach, bookkeeper. I still carried on with what I was doing, obviously, and I remember sitting with the CEO of a fairly large company and we were going through his books and I was coaching him and so on, and out of the blue, he said to me he said, denise, why don't you work with widows? Why don't you work with widows and people that have lost a loved one? Right, he said, you're so compassionate. He said I really you're wasting your talents being here with business.

Speaker 1: 19:15

Right.

Speaker 2: 19:16

And it was like, oh okay. And then the tapping on my shoulder started. Do you know that invisible tapping?

Speaker 2: 19:23

yes, I know it well, I would bump into our friends that hadn't seen me and go what are you doing now? Oh, I'm doing. You know, I'm still working. I've done life coaching and I've got my certificate and blah, blah, blah, blah. But why are you working with businesses, denise? Why don't you help others? Look how well you've healed? And eventually I said okay, god, universe, whoever you are, that's giving me this message. I got it. I work in grief. Because I didn't want to work in grief. It was like, no, don't go down that. No, I'm not. No, definitely not. And that's how my journey started. And then I reverse engineered Okay, how did I heal? And I realized the first thing I did was I had to really feel. I had to give myself permission to feel my emotions. What happens is we think we're feeling our emotions like oh yes, I'm feeling sad. I'm feeling our emotions like, oh yes, I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling overwhelmed, I'm feeling lost, feeling lonely yeah, but we're not feeling. Yeah, angry, yeah, but we're not feeling right because we put up the mask.

Speaker 2: 20:33

We don't want to go there right there was the tools that I had, and and and how I helped myself is I went there. I went down that deep pit of grief, because it's only when we know what we're feeling can we let go of that emotion. We can't let go of it unless we really know well, this is it, this is what, what, what I'm feeling. Then the overcoming starts, starting to reimagine your new life, because it is a new life regardless of who you've lost. You know. Whether you've lost a husband, whether you've lost a child, whether you've lost a parent, it doesn't matter, because there's a new life after that loss right.

Speaker 1: 21:15

I was going to say this really sounds like it would work for anybody who's gone through a loss, not necessarily just a spouse absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 21:23

because you know, um, I've got a beautiful client, um, that's lost her daughter and her daughter died away from home. It was, she was an adopted daughter as well, so her daughter died away at school, so it was reimagining her life as a mother without this adopted daughter. So it's not just for women that have lost a husband, or a husband that's lost a wife, or any, it's our life changes. And that's where I realized very early on is that the conventional way, the therapy way, the five stages of grief wait for time doesn't work Right, because you're not taking action and you don't have the tools to heal yourself when those emotions come up, right? So how do you?

Speaker 1: 22:18

become whole.

Speaker 2: 22:21

So becoming whole is re-imagining your life. It's, it's, it's, you know. The overcoming is learning how to re-imagine your life. The becoming whole is rediscovering who that new person is. Yeah, so you map out your way forward. You, we uncover your limiting beliefs, we uncover what's keeping you stuck, and that's all on it on a deep emotional level. It's not surface work, because what grief does is it puts a magnifying glass over your life right and whatever has come up for you in the past or whatever is is is coming up.

Speaker 2: 23:06

It's 10 times worse because your emotions are raw. You are so much in pain so you created an eight-week program.

Speaker 1: 23:18

Can you kind of give us an overview of this program, because it sounds amazing absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 23:24

So it's. It's, it's a journey into yourself. So over the eight weeks, I work very closely with you so you get the, the online program. It's an online program because I'm in Australia, but I work all over the over the world because everybody grief is grief. It's uniform, this. It doesn't matter where you are. So my mission is to help as many people heal as quickly as possible. So the journey into you is we start off with who are you. You're discovering yourself going within, because I've got one sheet in there which I call or worksheet that I call the pondering questions, and those questions are just that, pondering questions we've never asked ourselves before. Can you give us an example of one Absolutely Pondering Questions we've never asked ourselves before? Can you give us an example of one Absolutely?

Speaker 1: 24:28

What do you enjoy doing. Yeah, those are the things you think about asking yourself.

Speaker 2: 24:36

Another one is what do you see your role?

Speaker 1: 24:37

in life. You're really taking a deep dive.

Speaker 2: 24:42

Yes, and that's in the very first week. Wow, then the very first week, because once, once we get that and then, and then we work one-on-one. I work one-on-one as well, so it's not just the program but we work one-on-one. So at the end of every, every week or every module, we we hop on a zoom call and I help unpack and I coach and I walk you through what you're going through, because I don't believe that anybody can have a program that's going to have those deep questions and and have transformation if you haven't got somebody there pulling you through Right, absolutely, absolutely, yeah. So you know my clients. It's an amazing program. When I wrote it and I put it out there, I remember my first client. I went I hope this works. It was looking many years ago and you know hundreds of people later. Yes, this works really really, really well for everybody because it meets you where you're at in your grief journey.

Speaker 1: 25:53

It's not a cookie cutter approach and that's what a lot of those programs out there are. They're very cookie cutter yeah it's not specifically designed and not everybody learns the same way, not everybody grieves the same way, not everybody loves the same way. So you can't have a cookie cutter approach that's going to work for everyone. That's right.

Speaker 2: 26:12

That's right um grief is really a personal journey.

Speaker 2: 26:18

It's a powerful personal journey it and it's a gift if you can see the gift in your grief and your loss, because grief is the biggest leveling lesson that we can ever have in our life the loss of a loved one, it changes us forever. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. But what I see? A lot of people get stuck in the old. I want him, I want them back. If only they didn't die. All you know. They get stuck in in the past and when they start moving forward and feeling happy again, they feel guilty because they feel like they're leaving the loved one, the person behind.

Speaker 1: 27:06

I lost my grandparents and they basically took care of me and they were amazing and for the longest time I went through this would have been fantastic. I mean, and there's not a day now that goes by I still don't think about them. And I lost them when I was young, younger, and now, you know, I don't go through grief. I celebrate life. I celebrate all that they offered me and gave me through my life and taught me how to be, and I celebrate the fact that I had the time I did with them and it makes such a difference. But I miss them every single day. I mean, there's not a day that goes by. And it's been 30 years, you know 30 or more, oh, but it's yeah, and you, you don't ever stop missing them because you really just love them to that level of unconditional love. So, yeah, this is an amazing program. What does your program? It's an eight-week program. They get time with you. Can I ask what the the cost of this program is?

Speaker 2: 27:59

well, it is. It is a, is a, a high cost. When I say a high cost, it is um. You know, I I really like to get people on on the call so that they see what they're getting um with the program, because it's not a, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a a 500 program, because you're working and you're transforming your life.

Speaker 1: 28:20

Then it's not a high cost, Denise, because you can pay for 10 cookie cutter classes and that's over $500 combined and if it doesn't work, then you wasted that money. But if you're investing in yourself and you're investing in your future, then it's not a high cost. It's an investment within yourself.

Speaker 2: 28:39

Absolutely, and this is why I like to hop on a call with with people to see where they're at in their grief journey, because not everybody is ready to do the dive right. You know, this is not a program where you just follow the, the okay, module one's done tick. Module two's done, tick, it's, it's. It's so much more than that. It's transformation, right. So, um, you know, when I say it's a high cost, I have a lot of people say what? And then they go oh, hang on, like you've just said, I'm investing in me. That's right, it's a no brainer. It's a no brainer right, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 29:23

I a no brainer. Right, Absolutely. I mean, think about all the other money we invest in on things that really don't matter. And then you have the opportunity to bring yourself. You only have this one opportunity to really bring back the happiness within your life and you have. You know, I work with so many women of domestic violence and I tell them I said you have a heart, you have one heart and it has four chambers. And in tell them I said you have a heart, you have one heart and it has four chambers, and in that heart we can fill it with love and happiness and laughter, and and and realize that you are a warrior, you are a thriver and you enjoy every day where you fill it with darkness and depression and sadness and you stay in the past and it just wears you down and you just are unhappy in every aspect of life and it's dark, it's a very dark place to be.

Speaker 1: 30:06

Which would you rather be at? Where would you rather be? And what is that worth to you? Because that right there is a small investment for the rest of your life. Let's look at it like on a 50 year plus. Is it worth? Whatever it is, Absolutely it is. Is it worth it for your children or is it worth it for your grandchildren to see that person? Because they don't want the dark sided person. They want that person that you still have flickering inside. There's still that little light in there and it's flickering and that flicker can start a wildfire. What is that worth? It's, it's immeasurable. It's it's's it. You can't put a price on it and I'm sure that you know, when you think about it and you you talk about that, that you know you cannot. If it works, then it's invaluable.

Speaker 2: 30:49

You can't put a price tag on that yeah, and and you know I talking about that I worked with a client about 10 years ago and out of the blue, she called me, messaged me and she said I just wanted to touch base with you and just say hi and see how you're going. And I went, oh my goodness, after 10 years of her graduating and changing her life, her husband had committed suicide and there was a whole lot of other stuff involved. And I said can we talk? So we hopped on a quick call.

Speaker 2: 31:24

Even though I'm in Australia you know it's like let's hop on a quick call Because that's me, I'm available If I've got the time and I'm doing nothing I'd rather speak to you and help you through than sit and watch Netflix or something. Right, it's my calling, it's what I do, it's my passion. Yes, and we hopped on the call and she was telling me that her parents had passed away in the meantime and she had to wind up their estate and etc. Etc. And we were chatting away and she said to me you know, Denise, I didn't realize at the time of doing the flow program that the benefits that I would still have 10 years later.

Speaker 2: 32:01

Wow, what a testimony she said, and it sort of floored me, it was like, yeah, well, of course I know that, because that's what I'm teaching, that's what I'm you know. It's like, yeah, really I know that. But for her to say, to acknowledge that she said, when I lost, when my, when my father died, I didn't, I didn't have that deep grief, I knew that I would be okay, I was able to be there for my brothers, I was able to be there for my kids. When my mother died, a few months later, it was exactly the same and she said it was only after that, after winding up their estates and doing that, that I actually realized that, wow, what I learned was Denise in the Flow Method, in the Flow Program all those years ago, is still with me today.

Speaker 1: 32:52

That is a beautiful testimony, it really is. So, ms Denise, tell me where I can make sure everybody finds you.

Speaker 2: 33:02

But, Ms Denise, tell me where I can make sure everybody finds you. So I've got my website, which is flowgriefacademycom. On there I've got all the links to my programs. I've also got I've had a big request from a lot of people to teach what I do. So I have now launched the academy of transformational grief coaching as well.

Speaker 2: 33:27

Good, for you so those that want to help others heal and and move on and move forward. And I hate saying move on, but it is really. You know, there's this cliche oh, you don't ever move on, but we have to move forward, we have to move on, it just is you have to continue.

Speaker 2: 33:46

Yeah, you have to continue. You know, as tough as what it sounds, we we just have to right for the and it's living our loved one's legacy. So, with the academy, with the academy, um, you first have to heal. That's the first phase. There's three phases. There's actually three phases. There's the first phase, which is the flow method of healing. I only work and help people to help others that have have suffered a loss. So if you haven't suffered a loss of a loved one, I can't, you can't, help others. You don't have the same compassion, you don't have the knowledge, you don't have the emotions. I'm sorry, but it's just. It just is. It just is you don't have the anchors, you don't know what it's like.

Speaker 1: 34:31

Denise, I can tell you as many women and families and I've helped, you know, I don't want to take away from a moment of anybody who's gone through the education part, and you know, you know that's one thing, but to read it in a book, study it and obtain those degrees, my hat's off.

Speaker 1: 34:47

I've done the same thing, I've gone through all the schooling.

Speaker 1: 34:49

But if you said to me hey, victoria, would you rather go to someone who's gone through the university or would you rather go to somebody who has gone through life and has, you know, the doctorate of life and has gone through this, there's no question for me, because they understand a million percent, exactly what you've gone through and they get it, which makes it a totally different process in healing, because you really genuinely understand and I hate that, you know, like the women I work with, I meet these beautiful souls because of abuse, but they're beautiful people who have lost themselves. And when I tell them it's never a competition, you know, and they're like oh, I've gone to a therapist and they're like, you know, and I absolutely recommend therapy. But if you can find somebody who's gone through it, because they're always like why did you stay? Why'd you let him hit you. You don't let him hit you. So I agree a million percent with what you're saying about you need to have gone through it, unfortunately, in order to really connect with the people you're working with.

Speaker 2: 35:49

That's right. That's right. So that's a prerequisite for the academy. And I've got this beautiful Deb that I've mentioned, that she lost her daughter. She's just certified as a flow transformational grief coach and she's now helping other parents that have lost a child move forward and that's the next phase. That's the next phase is that, you know, I'm still helping people. I'm still there with the flow method, with the flow. I'll never leave that. But to pass the baton on and teach others how to do that as well, that is that's magic it is magic.

Speaker 1: 36:29

Yeah, denise, I'm going to make sure we have every link that everybody can find you at. I would love to ask if you will come back on and talk with us again, because you're amazing and your story is amazing, and I love what you've done with your calling, and so I want to make sure everybody can find you and get to you and utilize this amazing program. So can I ask you to come back on with us again?

Speaker 2: 36:53

I would love to, absolutely love to be my absolute pleasure thank you.

Speaker 1: 36:57

You are amazing and I know your husband is so proud of you and thank you Amazing job. Thank you for being with us today. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 37:07

Thank you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share, share my passion, share my mission and share my love. Absolutely Thanks, so much.