207. Connecting Clutter and Grief with Guest Melissa Harris

In this episode I first talk about the connection between clutter and grief and the various life events that can cause us to be grieving, since that is not only when we lose loved ones. Often these challenging times can lead to a buildup of belongings that serve as a shield against the pain of loss that we don't want to process.
That is also the reason why decluttering is often more than tidying up; it's an emotional confrontation but more importantly a step towards healing.

In the second part I talk with my special guest Melissa Harris and we unearth the emotional baggage of clutter tied to grief and life's transitions.  Losing a loved one or going through a major life upheaval can leave us grappling with grief that society often tells us to quickly move past. Melissa shares her experiences with loss, reflecting on the limited time we're given by society to grieve and the profound need to create spaces where our emotions are valued and heard. Together we bring to light the importance of support systems, may it be therapy or a grief groups, hiring a grief coach or a clutter clearing coach, this kind of support is helping us process these emotions rather than letting them manifest in harmful ways (or clutter in your home)

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From Chaos to Peace Consulting Inc - https://connygraf.com

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Transcript

Conny Graf: 0:00

Welcome to my podcast from Chaos to Peace with Conny. I am Conny Graf and your host, and I will explore with you how a few minutes a day can keep the chaos away, and with chaos we're talking about the physical, digital, social, financial, mental, emotional and spiritual clutter that can accumulate in our life and business. In every episode, I want to make you aware how clutter is so much more than you think, how it affects your finances and how clearing your clutter leads to more time, more money and more peace. Let's go Well. Hello, my friend. Welcome to the podcast. I am Conny Graf, your host. Thank you so much for allowing me back into your ears.

Conny Graf: 0:50

So today we're talking about grief and clutter and the connection between it. When I went through my training to become a clutter clearing coach back in 2016, I learned and was trained on that clutter is actually connected to grief and for a lot of people surrounding themselves with stuff helps them cover up the pain they don't want to feel. And while grief is normal and natural and clearly the most powerful of all emotions, in my opinion it is also the most neglected and misunderstood experience, often by everyone the person who's grieving and everyone around that person as well. We don't learn it anywhere. We learn all kinds of stuff in school, even what happened 500 or a thousand years ago who cares, right? But we don't learn how to deal with something so normal and so common as grief or other challenging emotions. For that fact, chances are that your parents didn't know how to move through grief either, so they couldn't teach you either. We are all taught how to acquire things, how to buy things, but we're not taught what to do when we lose something, lose a loved one or lose something that was dear to us. Buying things to cover up emotions we don't want to face or feel. We try to create a sense of stability on the outside, since we feel so ungrounded and lost on the inside. But the longer we're not dealing with the grief or the other challenging emotions, the more we fill our house instead. This is often referred to as retail therapy, and we try to make ourselves feel better by buying things. This is also the reason why decluttering can be so very hard, because you have to face that pain. The pain you didn't want to face when buying the things actually will show up. When you have to declutter the things Now, you might be surrounded by chaos and stuff and say but Conny, I had no loss in my life and all my loved ones are still alive, but I'm still surrounded by clutter and chaos. So what's that all about? To that I say, of course, not all clutter is related to grief. Sometimes it's more that you don't know how to be organized or have never learned what systems and what habits work for you to stay or become organized. On the other hand, we are not just grieving the loss of a loved one.

Conny Graf: 3:36

Grief comes from various situations in our life, and it can even come from happy, positive ones. Basically, anytime we undergo a big transition or a pivotal life shift in life, there can be grief, sometimes more, sometimes less. It also depends on the person and, of course, on the circumstances. Here are a few examples. You could experience grief getting married yes, we might grieve not being young, wild and single anymore. Of course you experience grief at a divorce, we grieve the loss of a marriage, the lost status of being married, and so on. Grief the loss of a pet, the death of a pet. Pets are part of our family, often for years and years, so it's normal we grieve their loss, right. But we can also experience grief when moving, as excited we might be for our new house or home and the new location. We still grieve our old house, our old life, not being in our familiar neighborhood anymore, not seeing the same neighbors anymore and not shopping the same stores anymore. Even sometimes we can grieve starting or finishing school. We can grieve graduating. We grieve end of addictions even yes, because it's also part of our life that is gone and now we're starting a new life.

Conny Graf: 5:04

There is grief in that Major health challenges and changes can also be a source of grief, and they don't always have to be terminal. Becoming an empty nest is another reason for some people to experience a lot of grief and clutter up their house. Retirement the one big transition in life that we all face when we get older right and financial challenges and changes positive or negative ones. So the list goes on, as you can see, and again, the connection to grief is often the reason why decluttering can be so very hard, because you have to face that pain. It comes bubbling up when you're dealing with clutter. That's what happens and this is why support is very important, to have someone to talk this through with, and often friends and family are not the right people as they deal with their own pain and their own grief, and they're also not trained in holding space for you and your feelings around clutter. They may not understand why you hang on to certain things and then maybe don't say the right things or are not the right support system for you. When you approach decluttering through the lens of a healing method, you can create the opportunity for real transformation for yourself on your home and you're learning how to deal with challenging emotions instead of spending hard earned money on stuff you don't need or don't want later anymore, and you learn how to create a nurturing environment that supports you rather than stressing, stresses you out like clutter would. So with the right professional support for example, a clutter clearing coach like me the cluttering can be a very important part of your healing process, often turning mental, emotional and physical chaos into inner and outer order and peace. And in addition to working with, for example, me or another clutter clearing coach, it's also recommended that you work with a grief therapist or a grief coach. And this brings me to today's guest.

Conny Graf: 7:15

I welcome Melissa Harris to the podcast today.

Conny Graf: 7:18

Melissa is a certified professional co-active coach and her specialty is working with individuals who have experienced a major life event like, for example, a job loss, a divorce, death of a loved one, etc.

Conny Graf: 7:34

Her company wishbone, wellness, was born out of a passion to help others thrive after such a major life event. Melissa and I, we talk about how loss in any form can be devastating and how it can make us question everything how to be with someone who is grieving, what to say and do and what not to say or do. What happens if we don't address the grief that bottles up and how it's. For some people, it might not be buying stuff, but maybe drinking too much alcohol or eating too much food, taking drugs those all help us avoid the challenging feelings, but eventually we will have to deal with them, and Melissa, too, believes that when we are ready and with the appropriate support, we can all turn the loss into a thoughtful transition that can serve us in ways we may not even have imagined. Okay, let's jump into this conversation with Melissa Harris. Welcome, melissa. I'm excited to have you as a guest on a podcast. How are you today?

Melissa Harris: 8:48

Hi, good, Conny, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. I've had a few conversations with you and they've been really a lot of fun and so insightful.

Conny Graf: 8:59

Yeah, we love chit chatting with each other, that's for sure. So I have an international audience, so always ask first, where in the world are you located, and then, as a little warm-up question, I always ask what is the thing about you? That might be surprising for people and that has nothing to do with what we're talking about afterwards.

Melissa Harris: 9:24

I'm located. I'm in Los Angeles, California, and this is Okay, so I guess it's definitely not to do with what we're going to talk about today. I don't think, but I grew up my entire adult life in Wisconsin and in farmland Wisconsin and if anybody knows anything about that part of the world, it is Dairyland USA and it is just full of cows and dairy and cheese and milk. I recently found out that I am not supposed to have dairy and it has been the worst news I could ever have.

Melissa Harris: 10:06

So I'm sorry, I mean that's a little like goofy, off topic, but I think it's like, given where I came from, it's just kind of one of those like, really, this is what I have to avoid now.

Conny Graf: 10:17

Yeah, yeah it's hilarious. In a way, it's just like it's like the universal joke, right. Yeah, just want to say cosmic joke.

Melissa Harris: 10:26

Like okay anyway, but maybe it's more that, like I grew up in farmland and now I've been sought all cities since I had left that part of my life, and so I think we were talking about duality earlier and I think there's that. It's like what we grow up in and then what we seek out. I find it really interesting in people too. But there's a part of D too that is like that seeks that quiet again, that peace again, that kind of exists. And speaking of peace, you work in peace all the time. Yeah, people, you know how we come back to ourselves sometimes and what kind of peace we seek. Yeah, very fascinating to me.

Conny Graf: 11:11

Yeah, and just thinking about it coming from the countryside with cows and that that sounds like more peaceful to me than where you live now. Los Angeles sounds to me like very much the opposite of a peaceful environment.

Melissa Harris: 11:26

Yeah, you couldn't say it any better than that it is. I mean, los Angeles has its beauty too, but it is definitely not peaceful. I mean it's peaceful in comparison, maybe, to other cities, in that it's like there's beach and there's mountains and there's a lot of nature you can access. But yeah, the city in and of itself is a big city.

Conny Graf: 11:47

Yeah. Yeah, I'm in a big city too Well, on the outskirts of Vancouver, so I think cities always have both, and I'm sure we would find the chaos in the countryside too if we wanted to look.

Melissa Harris: 12:00

Right, right, yeah. What's their daily chaos? What is their? You know what comes into their world on a daily basis? I mean, I'm so envious of Vancouver. I have yet to be there and I'm very eager to sink myself into Vancouver for beautiful things about it.

Conny Graf: 12:22

Yeah, well, same for me for Los Angeles. I still on my list, but maybe not yet. Well you've got to get to a house swap.

Melissa Harris: 12:32

There you go. Oh my gosh, I would actually do that. That's something to keep in mind, for sure.

Conny Graf: 12:40

Yeah. So you reached out and said you would love to be a guest on my podcast to talk about big changes in life and maybe also losses and grief and wake up calls, and to find ourselves in this if we're doing it right. So, moving from Wisconsin to Los Angeles, I would think that's a big change. That has yeah, did this come like? No, let's ask different. What was your wake up call, and did it come before or after you moved away from Wisconsin?

Melissa Harris: 13:18

Yeah, it came after. I have a definitely a very distinct mark or line in the sand of what mine was. But when you kind of ask it like that, it does make me think about like wow, those were big transitions but they were just, I guess, different. It's like you know, sometimes life just calls you in an exciting way and you sort of just follow it, or follow your heart, as we say, and I think I was very career minded at that stage of my life and so I was just like what is it? I mean not people pleasing, but like approval, seeking, success seeking, seeking all of the things that kind of society and family told me. So that was those.

Melissa Harris: 14:05

So I didn't, it wasn't, it didn't feel trauma based in that transition, but with the wake up call that I consider mine anyway was the moment that my parents passed and they, when they passed, they passed 10 months apart and and up until that point my experience with death was very limited and and my experience with grief was like almost, you know, it was just. It was just an emotion and a process in life that I hadn't been taught and so many of us aren't taught. It's not like really one of those things that it's like you go, you don't get taught this. It's like you got to limit and you've got to you know and, and so I just found myself completely lost out of my you know, and when I sorry, let me finish that sentence you know, out of my body, out of myself and confused and and just kind of all of that and and I, just, I, just, I, just, I, just, I, just I, just I just like I was later in feeling that I could remain and kind of feel that I could be a great person. All of the times that I was experienced by my parents, what it did to me I believe this is like sort of my belief system is it was such a shocking moment in life and this is that's just one example.

Melissa Harris: 15:20

I think wake up calls come in so many different forms for people, but it was it like. I mean I'm trying to use, like I like to use, almost you know, I don't know for the listener, you can't if you can't see, but like where it grabs you by the shoulders and it just jolts you you know, it.

Melissa Harris: 15:36

Just it woke up my inner self to a wall, and so I think that's what caused like this confusion and this stuckness. And I looked around and I was like what am I doing for a living and where, who am I spending time with and how am I spending my own time? And it just started. So it was a very unsettling time. And then that was, and from there I just I thought out support, because I didn't really know what to do and I had been in therapy for years.

Melissa Harris: 16:12

I'm such a huge advocate of therapy and so so I had had that support system in, but like that was serving its one purpose and that was therapy and like I was working on a lot of things leading up to the death of my parents. And so you know that I was kind of, but I was like I need something different. I don't know what it is. And so I sought out a friend of mine who has her own coaching company that really serves leadership, executives, creatives, and she she's like you know what I'm gonna, and I want to give you some time with one of my coaches. He's a little bit more like holistic, you know, worked with the whole body.

Melissa Harris: 16:55

Her name is Melinda Roth house, just to give a shout out, and my friend company is creative executive Dot com, just to give, you know, some honor to to some influential in my life and they, they was through that process that I was able to work very intentionally, very focused on this, this confusion and peace, you know, and I guess for me it was. It was like I was getting the support for my, you know my psychology, my, my, my childhood stuff, my, all the things from my therapist, but I needed help to plot out a path. I didn't know what, because everything seemed wrong, you know, and so, yeah, so I heard, I heard once a good sentence.

Conny Graf: 17:45

Somebody once said therapy is more cleaning up the past and looking into the past and with you, why, your coach? It's more going forward. How do we move forward? And and I think this is kind of what I'm hearing from you- For sure.

Conny Graf: 18:01

Exactly, yeah, so, yeah. So you, you, you are specialized now in life transitions and grief and all these things that you are struggling with back then. So hard question for you why do you think we're so taught so little about loss and grief and these big wake up calls in our society? Why? Why are we also taken off guard when it happens and don't know how to handle it? Why don't we talk anything?

Melissa Harris: 18:32

Yeah, why? The why is a big question. Why aren't we? I mean, I think there's like so many factors into play. It's like where you know, where you grew up, who your parents were, who your family systems were. You know how you are as a person, like some of us are just sort of designed to. I don't focus on things. I kind of just moved through, I get through, I don't, you know, and some of us are a lot more inquisitive and really like to examine. You know, if you put all those things together, every single one of us is so incredibly unique, as we all know, that, like how how you deal with something is not how. I deal with something is not how my mom dealt with something is not how, and so you know, as a child, we don't know to ask for this like you know, we're a little bit kind of.

Melissa Harris: 19:20

You know, we're looking for our mentors, or our, you know, to guide us, and if you have, um, what is it? Ancestral? You know that ancestral cycle of like. If you had, you know, if you had people in your life that were also taught these things on them, they may pass them on, but if they weren't, then they don't, and I also this is one thing, too, that I've learned a lot with just my own, my own grief and also others that I've worked with is that, oh my gosh, the way that we deal with it is so vastly different, and I just I get so like, almost like it's unbelievable the way that some people need to retract and some people need to be out and talking about it, and some people need to be quiet and go inward and some people need to, you know, really seek out support and they want, like everybody come together, let's all be together, and and some people want to be asked about it all the time and some people don't.

Melissa Harris: 20:20

You know, and I think that's what makes it difficult as people who are trying to support gravers.

Melissa Harris: 20:26

You know we always say, like nobody knows how to handle me, and it is because it's like sometimes you just you don't know what people need. But I think the thing that we all need is just that, like just ask me, just be, just be there, and then, and then it's almost like let the griever come to you know that it's like they'll, it's like they'll come a little closer, they'll, they'll be a little bit safer to say like. I think what I need is this you know, sometimes it's just, but it feels like.

Melissa Harris: 20:57

It's like it is like a coaching, almost as all of us in our lives, with our grievers, and when we grieve, we are taking responsibility. For what is it that I need right now? I need to say what I need or ask for it. Or, you know, ask me for support, and you know how stigmatized asking for support is and that is the thing right.

Conny Graf: 21:17

So that's kind of what I was thinking is like if it wouldn't be so stigmatized, maybe it would be easier to, or if if there would be more talk about that it is okay to grieve differently, or that it grief looks different for anybody. Another thing is to is like grief is not just going away, right, like I mean you, I don't know how old you were when you lost your parents, but I was 20 when I lost my dad and I remember me that was back in the 80s and it was basically by law. You were given, I think, two days off and then you were expected back to work into function like normal again, right, and nobody was talking about it and you were just supposed to move on and live on and like don't bother anybody with what you're doing through kind of thing, and I think this is good.

Conny Graf: 22:10

It changed already a bit, but we're still. I think it's still not enough talk. It's still like a lot of people who go through transitions or grief are still hiding because they think they're too much for people and the other people maybe are even glad because they wouldn't know how to handle it right. And I'm just thinking about discussion, about I don't know how to help somebody who grieves and the griever doesn't know how to go and ask for help. This could be what this needs to be more out in the open, with people like you or with discussions like this, so that it becomes less, less unusual because it's part of life.

Melissa Harris: 22:55

I mean, it's a yeah, one thing none of us are escaping ever. It's like the one, it's not the one emotion, but it's even just the one event. There's no way around it. This is happening. Some at some point in your life, someone you will lose, someone you love, and and I think the correlation of what happens to us when we lose somebody is that it just it's like this journey. It can be sometimes like you're not really back to yourself, or it can be just the discovery of, like, how you handle it, like you might even be surprised you might handle it even better or differently, I mean, I hate to say better. It's such a like that gives such a judgment around it, because I don't think there's a better way or whatever. But certainly even you just saying, like, how you were given two days, like what message does that send? You know in this, in society, that you're given two days to get back to work.

Conny Graf: 23:56

It's just even that, and those two days are meant actually by law. It says it that in the law. It are meant to do all the administrative work that you have to do when somebody dies, right? So it's not about you grieving, it's about getting all this paperwork sorted.

Melissa Harris: 24:13

So, yeah, we're going to give you two days so that you can like get a service and get on Exactly, and it's so sterile.

Melissa Harris: 24:19

I mean it's so sterile and I think. But I think, as we are talking more and more about the various types of support and making it less stigmatized, I think hopefully it's also making our feelings less stigmatized. Therefore, like, maybe if I'm with you and I'm grieving and I'm having a day where I'm crying, it is like people start to like understand the messaging, because I mean, there's so much beautiful content out there talking about these topics that it's like it's okay. It's not only okay for us to feel our feelings, but hey, everybody, it's okay to be on the opposite, but we're at the receiving end of that with your colleagues, community loved ones, their emotions. Don't be scared of their emotion. Don't be like it's a repellent. It's like it's natural and it's okay. It's like it's a safe space kind of. You know what I mean it's like. So I think it's important that we create safe spaces for all of us, and sometimes the safe space is therapy, you know, coaching group, grief groups.

Melissa Harris: 25:30

I've done a lot of reading grief groups. That's a tremendously powerful space for people. They get to kind of come into a small group where everybody's in the same situation as them and it's really supportive. It can be a slow moving like okay, everybody's getting comfortable at first, but then it's like I feel like everyone's like breathing sigh of relief and like their shoulders come down and they just kind of settle in and it's a nice supportive environment.

Conny Graf: 26:01

Yeah, do you have any insight, or maybe not personal experience, but experience nevertheless? What happens if somebody doesn't deal with their grief or just tries to push it away, doesn't it? I would think it bubbles up eventually, but I don't know. You're a more expert. What happens if we leave it just like we try to ignore it?

Melissa Harris: 26:28

Yeah, it can manifest all sorts of ways. It can. You know, there's, you know, how the body and the mind are connected. When we are not processing trauma, things can manifest in our bodies. So you know whether it be injuries or illnesses. So that's like the physical, you know the physical side of and maybe that's something people are more familiar with. It's like, you know, it's like if you don't get things out, if you don't process things, it's like where do we hold that in our body, what it starts to create, you know, and sometimes, when we're, you know, we're so tied up with, like genetics, it's like, oh, I'm going to get this thing because my mother and my grandmother, you know, had this thing. And it's like breaking that cycle of thinking. It's like many of those illnesses and diseases are, you know, not just genetic. It's unprocessed traumas and greets and things like that.

Melissa Harris: 27:26

But on the psychological side of things, I think, when these things aren't dealt with, I think that they can manifest behaviorally. I definitely have my own experiences of this, but I also just have, like you know, in the work that I've done and the people that have come into session, I think there's, you know, you lash out all of a sudden. It's like why am I lashing out? Why am I so angry? You know and this isn't just bereavement you know, when you were grieving in any way, like you know, loss of a job, you know empty nesters, people who are retiring something that's drastically changing that was such an identity of who you are. So it could be loss of love, but it also could be loss of yourself in some way. These grieving processes, they, you know, you go through those emotions. You're frustrated, you're angry, you're sad, you're going through and there's no linear you know way to make sense of this.

Melissa Harris: 28:32

It could be like in any given day, and I mean I can speak for myself. I mean I'm not gonna talk, you know, about anybody else's business. But you know, I've lashed out, I've been angry, and sometimes that affects those closest to us, because that's kind of sometimes what we do. And in examination, you know, after I've kind of come out of a wave of something and I look back I'm like whoa, you know that was anger, that was not directed at anybody else but at myself. I hadn't forgiven myself for something. You know you can go down the whole. You know a journal and like it's like, and that gets into the intellectual stuff about it.

Melissa Harris: 29:16

You know, but at the end of the day, I needed to just go through it. So what people, I think, need to understand is that they have to just go through, like there's no way. I mean, there's certainly ways that we can medicate it. You know, we all hear about how we.

Melissa Harris: 29:30

you know, I'm gonna go work, I'm gonna go be a workaholic or an addict or a shopaholic or an amble, like we're humans we do whatever we can to get out of this feeling, like don't feel the feeling, and so the only way we can do, get through these things in life, these grievances in life, is to feel them, recognize that they're okay and that also we're gonna be okay, like being in this feeling isn't gonna crush us. And then, but it's really helpful to do that with support. And if you can do it alone, great. But like, if you can't ask for help, you know there's lots of inexpensive help, there's lots of free help, there's lots of. I mean it runs the gamut right, like you can.

Melissa Harris: 30:15

You know you can get the one-on-one if that's what you need. You can get the group. You can get community center help, you can. You know there's support, nonprofit support groups, there's so many things. I just I mean, I know I'm kind of on a little bit of a terrible rant, but you know people should seek out support because it exists and you know?

Conny Graf: 30:37

Yeah, I just remember when I went through my training to help people with their clutter, we were like we had to look into our own grief, right, and we were learning a lot about grief because, like you just said, a lot of people try to escape their feelings and then they use some coping mechanism like retail therapy, going and buying stuff that ends up being clutter.

Conny Graf: 31:00

Others become they may drink too much alcohol or take other drugs or eat too much. I remember my mother gained a lot of weight after my dad died. That was her kind of way of numbing, probably, the hard feelings which so there's nothing inherently, how do you say I don't want to make anybody wrong when they do this? It's more like being aware oh wait a second, maybe I'm trying to escape something with a band-aid of eating or drinking or shopping or whatever else it looks in your life, right Workaholic you mentioned too rather than trying to process it with or without help. I guess I think what my experience is and I unfortunately had a lot of loss and grief in my life my experience is you can't escape it. It will eventually catch up on you and you will have to deal with it to a degree.

Melissa Harris: 32:09

Yeah, I think you're right, Cause some people are like when you're not in this world all the time. I know how you help people and I know certainly how it becomes such like I guess I don't know. It's like, it's very, and I'm always reminded that a lot of people you know aren't thinking about this stuff at all.

Melissa Harris: 32:31

Like you know, they're not thinking about it at all until it happens to them. And then it's like they're inequipped, and then it's like, holy crap, what do I do now? And I think that there's that like they don't what's the word I'm trying to say. You know how we always hear those saying that like there's only one way, there's no way except for but through. And there's all the when you're in it and you hear that I don't know about you, but sometimes you're like, oh, I hear that.

Conny Graf: 33:03

It is so cliche, right, and, but it is so cliche because it's the truth. But sometimes you have days you don't want to hear this, right, you just like, okay, just leave me alone with this, and in the end it is that way. And getting through it sometimes means also to give yourself some grace and actually really try to forget the grief for a moment and tamper yourself and everything. That is totally part of the process. It just can't be only that, right. I mean, it's need, it needs to be kind of like a combination.

Conny Graf: 33:34

What I'm wondering is, too like, why do you think that when you said it, it it when your parents died? That's kind of when you realized too that you were lost to yourself and then you questioned everything? Why do you think a loss of any kind, like job loss, or even a voluntary loss, like moving, or or you wanted to get divorced, for example why does this put us in this place where we question everything Like it? I'm sometimes wondering and thinking like I make my life even harder when I start questioning everything and not just trying to deal with the grief, but it comes up every time, right, it's like, yeah, I think.

Melissa Harris: 34:19

I think that the misalignment in general, like if, if you are misaligned in your life and luckily, I think some people aren't, you know the same thing can happen to somebody and they're like totally aligned in their life. Therefore, this wouldn't, you know, kind of affect them in that way. I think it would just be like, oh, I am just like sad because of this loss and, you know, there might be some emotions that get questioned more of like, because we go through sometimes that like anger and that guilt and that like what if, what, you know what, what, what if should have. We should have done that. You know all of that.

Melissa Harris: 34:56

When it pertains to the person or something, or even in a breakup or divorce, it's like I should have. You know, you do the shitting on yourself thing that people do, but but I think when it comes to people who have a wake up call and they realize that there's some misalignments in their life, it is such a feeling of unrest and if you're, if you're a person that's like I want to get curious about this, I'm ready to work on this then it is a time to really make some changes that are going to. I mean, there's nothing like being aligned with yourself.

Melissa Harris: 35:35

I mean, and there's nothing more, like it's a physical sensation at least it was in my case like where I it's like I couldn't go to work any. I can't get up for work anymore.

Conny Graf: 35:46

Like.

Melissa Harris: 35:46

I can't, I just can't do this anymore. Like I don't know. You know, and I think maybe, yeah, the easy, the easy answer would have been like, just suck it up. Like you built this beautiful career. Like what are you thinking? Like you're not going to walk, you know you're going to switch gears so drastically, or or or. I think you know this is a this is a real personal part of my story, but I personally it wasn't just like I don't want to do this career or job anymore, per say, or I really want to get into this like part of helping people. That feels more aligned. I had a very significant or I consider it pretty significant like relationship with alcohol that really needed to be examined. I mean, it really needed to be examined because it was no longer like a fun, it wasn't, it was not serving anymore you know, and and so in in examining that I I pulled it out of my life.

Melissa Harris: 36:45

I quit that part of that, that substance in my life and and it's been for me. It's been about three years and and seeing that grieving process has been very interesting.

Conny Graf: 36:57

And so it.

Melissa Harris: 36:59

It's like I guess I bring that story up more in a. It's incredible how the misalignments can come up in your life, like I realized why I was using that substance it made and now and I'm like, oh my gosh, it makes so much sense. I used it for years and I now know why I took this career path, and now I know why. And I did this and now I know what. And it just, and so I, it allowed me to, I, I, I, I, I wanted me and I also had the desire to get realigned. And, like you said earlier, it's like I don't want to create judgment around people who are like I'm just fine, like you know this, things happen and but I think if people are interested in examining what a a lined and resident life feels like, it's just that opportunity. It just sometimes I think that's why they call it a wake up call, it's like. I think it's like why people have midlife prices.

Melissa Harris: 37:55

It's like sometimes things don't have to happen to them Massive, they just are. Like what am I doing? Like I something is off yeah.

Conny Graf: 38:05

And oftentimes to the outside world it looks like your, your, your life or their life is looking just fine or even very successful, and they still don't. They don't feel it or they feel misaligned. It's just. I find it really interesting how then this whole system works, that if we're already in a weak or vulnerable let's say vulnerable, not weak, vulnerable spot, because we're grieving something, and then this whole other wave hits us. That really questions everything. But you say to that if we're, if we're, if we're addressing it and if we're willing to address it, then we can end up thriving even better in the end, or afterwards. Right, because we're aligned. So what would you think? Like I, I I heard it too, and I would maybe think right now too Well, where do I even start? So, like, do I start with journaling? Do I start with talking to a coach? Where would you say that inquisition should start?

Melissa Harris: 39:08

Yeah, Oftentimes let's let's take it from the standpoint of someone who doesn't really know about what works for them really well, like talking to someone else versus journaling, versus getting quiet and going into you know nature, you know. Sometimes it's like that can be a very healing. But if you don't know, let's say you just don't know. It's like I would first offer you know, because, especially if you're like I just want to dip a toe, I don't know, I just know. It's like there are some incredible podcasts out there. If you like to listen to things and just you know how you do search grief Lost, like just search something and like start listening to something.

Melissa Harris: 39:54

Or, if you're a reader, find a couple books that resonate you know, like that and just depending on what your loss is, you know, target that you know, go in the direction, because usually people have a little bit of a sense Like they know something's off, you know. And then there are people who are a little bit more in tune with themselves and they might know, Like I absolutely know, I don't like one-on-one work, I like group work. You know, I actually really love the one-on-one work. It's so powerful and some people are also. I'd like to offer that. Some people are like I am ready to get to work.

Melissa Harris: 40:34

I want an experience that is like a couple weeks to a couple months long you know, which is difficult in this subject matter because it's not a it's not a fast process, but there are ways it's like okay, it seems like you're a type of personality that's like let's go, let's go. I want to really dive into this hard. And then there are others who are like I need to take my time with this, and then you know you kind of you can offer options that are a little bit more tailored to you, know their heart, their soul, what they need.

Conny Graf: 41:11

But, it's.

Melissa Harris: 41:12

I mean okay, I guess that was a long answer, it's fine, it's fine, it's yet curious. The short answer is yet curious because that's it, I mean, and there are just like so many free ways that we can get curious, and I think that can sometimes direct you to like, okay, I want support and how it could look for me. And then yeah, you know yeah.

Conny Graf: 41:36

And then so, if they then find out that they would maybe make once important you, you have a business called wishbone wellness, right? So they could like first tell us how the name came about about can't speak, right? How do name came about? Because I read it on your website, I thought it was beautiful. And then then like, how would it look when they would come and get support from?

Melissa Harris: 42:02

Okay, yeah, that's great, Well, wishbone, and you know it's spelt with a why? Because it is a wishbone. So I think that's like. You know, if people are thinking with or looking up wishbone wellness, it's wishbone W? Y as H B O N E, wellnesscom, and you know it's with a Y intentionally because it looks like a wishbone. You know, and that to me, it was like and the reason I came up with that as a it spoke to me is just kind of the magic of childhood to be, perfectly honest, it was I was thinking about.

Melissa Harris: 42:37

You know, as children I grew up having a wishbone, letting it, you know we would have, whether it was Thanksgiving time or whatever you know you have, my mom would set aside that wishbone and it would dry, and then my siblings and I would, you know. You know, rip it apart, see who got the big side and see who got the wish side, and that magicness of childhood, of like. In that moment, you know, you're like anything was possible. You're like I want a pony or I want to.

Melissa Harris: 43:08

There was kind of just and and then, you know, but to like life and as we grow up in society and life and all the things that kind of get into creating who we are today and sort of you know, establishing our belief system and in our influences I guess in general our influences, you know, we wake up and we've lost that magic of a wish. You know, what do you wish? And to me wishbone is that very beautiful Mary Mary meant of like, like your being and your doing, and that's all about what coaching is, is like as coaches and in coaching the whole objective is like let's get into your, your beingness, like what do you want? So what do you wish?

Melissa Harris: 43:57

you know what do you wish, what do you want and then we're going to get into action to get you there, because anything is possible. But you know, when we're in our pain, we think we lose our creativity. We don't know what's possible, we just don't know.

Conny Graf: 44:12

Yeah, yeah, I thought it was beautiful and I wanted you to to say it, because if I would just say it, it wouldn't have come out that beautiful. So before we wrap up, do you have any last words? Did I not ask something that you feel like that needs to be said still, or any other last words that just intrinsically come?

Melissa Harris: 44:33

Well, I mean, I just I feel so in alignment, if we're going to use that, it's such a word that was talked about just speaking with you, you know, pony, because it's like the work you do too. It's like this is it's there?

Melissa Harris: 44:47

there's such parallels, you know there's parallels to how we are trying to assist people to be better in their lives, and I think that it's really, it's really important. I just I wanted to give you some like thank you for what you do, you know bringing messages out, but also just the way you work with people and the way you, you know you're dedicated to bringing peace into people's lives. It's like, like as a meta view, what would, what would? The whole that's the goal is a meta view of like how could we, one person at a time, raise that vibration in all of us? You know?

Conny Graf: 45:23

Raise the vibration and get more peace into our life and while we are still in a in a maybe chaotic world, how we can we create a peace in our own life? Yeah, but thanks so much for your time, Melissa. I was a joy to speak with you. Thanks so much. Hey, I'm Conny, your host, and I wanted to thank you for listening to the podcast today. Did you know you can bring your chaos to me? If you struggle with chaos in your office, on your desk, in your files and finances, use the link in the show notes and sign up for a complimentary 30 minutes. Chaos to Peace Jumpstart call.