Your Childhood Subconsciously Programmed Your Adult Failures | Victoria Volk on Alison Answers Pt.1

Victoria Volk went from being the ultimate "strong friend" and a functional binge drinker to realizing she was trapped by a low-level frequency of unresolved childhood grief.

In this episode, you’ll see how losing her father at age eight, experiencing early trauma, and stepping into an adult emotional caretaker role at a young age shaped her life and how excavating her past, breaking generational patterns, and mastering sound healing helped her finally break free.

You’ll learn how to stop confusing a busy life with a healed life, why being the shoulder everyone cries on often hides your own deep pain, and how unprocessed emotional wounds act like a silent background hum, sabotaging your health, habits, and relationships until you look them in the face.

Watch this if:
👉 You are always the "strong one" everyone leans on, but you secretly feel empty or unsupported.
👉 You use alcohol, work, or busywork to numb a constant, low-level anxiety in the background.
👉 You’ve noticed that your friends or family get uncomfortable or distance themselves when you start changing.
👉 You want to understand how childhood losses (beyond just death) silently dictate your adult choices.

You’ll walk away with:
✅ A radical new definition of grief that explains why you might be mourning lost dreams or expectations.
✅ The chilling reason why 75% of your adult emotional responses were already hardwired by the time you turned three.
✅ Insight into how emotional trauma physically stores itself in the body, and how sound frequencies can clear it.
✅ A raw, honest framework for becoming a generational chain-breaker so your children don't inherit your wounds.

Connect with Alison:

• Instagram: @alisonanswers | @lagercounseling
• Website: LagerCounseling.com
• YouTube: Alison Answers
• Facebook: Alison Lager Lcsw Casac
• Purchase Alison’s book: “The Wake Up Call”
• Alison Answers Facebook Group: Join HERE
• Women of Excellence FB group: Join HERE

⚠️ Crisis Resources:
Lager Counseling Services
Call: 516-221-2123
Text: (914) 363-0381
Wantagh: 3408 Park Ave. Wantagh, NY 11793

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (24/7, free, confidential)
Call or text 988 | Visit 988lifeline.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Peer pressure does not quit in childhood. It's very, very present in adulthood as well. Regardless if you think you addressed it or you think you stuffed it down, whatever you think you did, locked it away. It's affecting you. I guarantee it 1,000%.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

My guest today is Victoria Bulk. She's the owner of the Unleashed Heart and is an advanced certified grief recovery specialist, a self-published author, a Reiki master, certified UMath coach. Victoria offers holistic support for those who want to go from surviving to thriving.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Like 35, having this existential crisis, close my business, my youngest doesn't need me anymore. It's so hard to let go of something we've poured so much into, right? I needed to let go in order to let something else come. I was get to get hard. I'm always looking for the truth, and I wanted to discover my own truth. The unhealed people will revere back to you what's unhealed in them. What I know about grief now and going through in my own journey and unpacking my own life.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Hello there, everyone. My name is Allison from Allison Answers and Logger Counseling Services. I am your hostess of The Mostist. And my guest today is Victoria Volk. She is the owner of the Unleashed Heart and is an advanced certified grief recovery specialist, a self-published author, a Reiki master, certified UMap coach, certified bio field tuning practitioner, and end-of-life doula. Through evidence-based grief programs, life path coaching, her podcast, Grieving Voices, and distance healing sessions, Victoria offers holistic support for those who want to go from surviving to thriving. So anyone who is having issues with grief, complicated grief, or something you feel like it's just really difficult for you to get over, even if you don't see it as you need to get over it, but you're in the thick of it, or even if you believe you've gotten over it, but have not found that you have transitioned well internally, but you're just living your life and have ignored parts of your grief. Uh, this is a show for you. So put on your seat belts, take out a pad and pen, and listen to it more than once. And I would really appreciate it if you would do me a favor, if you would like subscribe, um, particularly on YouTube, because we have a wider array, we have a global audience, but for whatever reason, we do not have a lot of subscribers on YouTube because we're also visually seen. So if you do that for me, I'd really appreciate it. It really gives me an opportunity to get um really a lot of great guests for you guys. And it also gives me opportunity to do different things on the podcast that I can't do without that um um a larger audience space, particularly on YouTube. So thanks so much, guys. Um, without any further ado, we're gonna hear from Victoria. Hey guys, how are you today? It is Allison from Allison Answers and Lager Counseling Services. I have, as I mentioned before, this wonderful woman, Victoria. And she, I just I introduced you by the way, prior to you coming in about all the wonderful things you're doing to help people. So uh I want to give you a nice, really warm welcome. I want to thank you for being here. It is such an honor to have you, and I'm really looking forward to learning. And I just want to put everybody on alert that what you are going to experience by the end of this podcast is a deeper understanding of grief and looking at it in a different manner, and also understanding, even if you're not grieving, if you know someone who is, and if you also, if you know someone who has lost someone, we will also talk about a good way to interact with them because there's a lot of confusion about that. So without any further ado, here she is. Hello, Victoria. Thank you so much. The honor is all mine. Yes. So I told the audience all the different things that you're doing in regard to um really helping people move through their grief. And the I would love to start with what has drawn you into this work?

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Well, I think all helpers have their own story, right? We all find or like Reiki found me. Um I think grief recovery found me. I just had to be open to the breadcrumbs, right? And and be open to the healing that I was about to receive when I found it. But my father passed away when I was eight of cancer. He had been sick for about 16 months. So I was the youngest of four kids, shuffled around. My mom was busy with him. But the year before that, she had lost her mother. So by the time my father was diagnosed, and both of them were both had stage four cancer at the same time. So she was emotionally checked out, right? She didn't have the capacity to get a mother. Um, and following his passing, my grandmother's passing, his passing, um, I ended up being molested by a family member, or excuse me, a friend of the family. And um I didn't tell my mom until I was uh 14. And nothing really came of that. Um my mom was not a safe person for me, an emotionally safe person, and I quickly realized that. Uh she had remarried and that relationship was rocky, it was unhealthy, it was toxic. Um, he was a long haul trucker, so he wasn't home a whole lot anyway. But um, I I I ended up carrying the role of emotional caretaker, taking care of the home, doing grocery shopping, taking care of myself, raising myself. Like I I became my own hero at a very young age.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

And um, and like I said, the emotional caretaker of the people around me. Um, if the people around me were okay, I could feel okay. Um, and so as you can imagine, I was the shoulder everybody cried on and leaned on. Um and sounds like me.

unknown 6:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Set me up for today, right? Except I didn't have the emotional and energetic boundaries until about five years ago, uh, until I discovered grief recovery, which changed my life. And then after that came energy healing, um, which really helped me understand energy and emotions and energy and the impact of trauma and the impact of uh grief on our bodies and all of that. So that's in the nutshell how I got to where I am today. And there was a lot of chaos and ups and downs and roller coasters in between, um, abusing alcohol in my early. Once I discovered the bar boy, all bets were off. I knew every drink special every night of the week. Um, I wouldn't have considered myself an alcoholic at that time, um, more of a binge drinker. And that I I got somewhat control of that when my husband and I got together and ended up getting married and started our family. But then when they started to get a little older and I started to make more friends, because we had ended up moving. And um I but you know, it's like children bring up every insecurity possible. And not to blame them, but it was like everything that I from it's everything from my childhood was just it was humming in the background, right? It was just it continues to hum in the background, regardless if you think you addressed it or you think you stuffed it down or you put it in the past and you whatever you think you did, locked it away, it's affecting you. I guarantee it 1000%. And um, so alcohol came back into the picture. I was, you know, drinking when I was cooking their meals. My daughter, actually, she's 19 now. Um, my middle, she just said to me the other day, we were talking about it, had a very candid conversation with her. And and I, you know, my relationship with alcohol, and she she reminded me, she said, I remember when you would be going out to the bar on the weekends and you would come home plastered. And Sunday, we couldn't even, you you were like not around, like you were hungover, sick all day. Like I was a pile the next day. She remembers that. And um 20 was it 2019? I think it was the year that I um did grief recovery. I decided I had like another moment where it was just like, what am I doing? Like, why am I doing this? Why can't why is alcohol have this affix or control of me? Like I and I just gave it up cold turkey for an entire year and just wanted to see what that it was kind of an experiment and a challenge for myself. And I it really opened my eyes to what was possible, but also like the environment in which I live, it's very I've lived very rural. There isn't a lot to do, right? The bar is like the central place where people meet and gather. Um, drinking is very much a part of our culture, it's um rich in German history around here. Um, and so it uh it is very much the norm. And so when you're coming to an environment where it's the norm, and you know, just one, just have one. You know, it's it's it's like adults pressuring you. Peer pressure does not quit in childhood, okay, or teen years. It's very, very present in adulthood as well. Um, and so I learned a lot from that experience. Fast forward, I can now go out and have a drink or two, um, and or not at all. Um, and it I very much transformed my relationship with alcohol, but I had to do a lot of work to get there and really look at my relationship with alcohol because it is a relationship. Just like we have a relationship with people in our lives, we have a relationship with money, with our inner child, with um those intangible things. Yeah, we have relationships with those, our bodies, right? Uh food, um, all these substitutes substances that we turn to as a crutch or uh a means to feel better for a short period of time. But what we're left with is the shame and the guilt and the all the that's what perpetuates the cycle from continuing. So unless you um, like Dr. Phil says, you can't change what you don't acknowledge. That's right. Um, unless you don't have that self-awareness or or develop that self-awareness, you're not gonna know. Like I really had to look at how did I get to where I am today? And I had to look in the past, I had to connect those dots for myself. Why do these patterns keep continuing? Why do I resort to these things that are unhealthy and hurtful? Why, why, why, why, right? Um, and it was years of peeling back all those layers and really excavating my childhood and trying to understand um myself because really I thought I was, I just needed to fix myself. I 2014, my youngest was starting kindergarten. I have three kids. My youngest was starting kindergarten. She's gonna be today, it's her last day of school. She informed me this morning, Mom, I'm officially a senior after today. Uh, but she started kindergarten and at the time I had a business, I had an uh photography studio. And I was like questioning to close this business or not because I really felt like I'd started blogging and writing about my spiritual journey and what I was going through and experiencing. And um, you know, I thought I had things figured out, I thought I was good, right? So I was writing about stuff like that, and and um then she started kindergarten, and then I was like, I need to, it's so hard to let go of something we've poured so much into, right? And it took me two years officially of hemming and hawing to just cut the cut the umbilical cord and just I needed to let go in order to let something else come in. Yes, and that was huge, but then it also was like, oh my god, who am I and why am I here? It's like this midlife unraveling. Yeah, I'm like 35, having this existential crisis, close my business, my youngest doesn't need me anymore. I said to my husband, I need a dog. Can I I need to get a dog? And he like absolutely did not like animals in the house. We had tried like rescue dogs before, did not work out very well for us. But I convinced him, I said, I'll do the research, I'll find the perfect dog, I'll train this dog, he'll be potty trained or she'll be. I knew I wanted a male, but I you know, I I did the research. Trust me, I like I we have the perfect dog. Thank I mean, I will take credit. They're all perfect. I I research breeds, right? Like I wanted to make sure that this was going to be successful. So I did everything I could to set this up for success. So I wouldn't have to like fall in love and then give it away as I did when I was a child. Like I had a couple dogs, I couldn't have them in the house, but and I would try and bring in stray cats and everything. Like so, as a kid, I'd always wanted a dog, like something to be mine. And I just I never worked out. So this was like, you know, like that PTSD coming back around. So I'm like, I am gonna prevent that. So train the dog, he's he's perfect, like he's he's 12 years old now. And anyway, got this dog that was a fantastic distraction for my daughter going to kindergarten and my existential crisis, and ended up working just two jobs to make ends meet, um, to help out, you know, with the house and all that and the bills. And and then I landed a job that um could get me back on my feet and um and just and then I was gonna start a business uh working with creatives, like strategic branding, like not strategic branding, but like I love brainstorming and I love just like bouncing ideas, like I'm never short of ideas. And I I had a call with a gal that I was gonna work with my branding on my website, and she was like, You wrote a book about grief, didn't you? And I said, Yeah. And she's like, Why aren't you helping grievers? I'm like, so I sat with that question totally flipped my I completely abandoned that original business idea, completely developed I the name the unleashed heart came to me. My first website and book, um, The Guided Heart. This was now the unleashed heart. And um yeah, kind of the rest is history. But I did so then I had a loss in 20. Actually, I was in the editing phase of my book and my uncle, my mom told me that my uncle had been diagnosed with brain cancer. Well, he was the closest person to my to my dad, like the closest sibling. And um and but when my dad died, that entire family was no longer in my life. So I had I didn't have grandparents, uncles, aunts, like they were no part of my life. So one fell swooped, I w lost an entire side of my family. Um and I was told this story that my uncle had said, you know what, I'm going to um uh watch over you, I'm gonna make sure that you're all taken care of, and and he broke his promise. And this is the story that was perpetuated for decades. And when I was told this about him having cancer, I hadn't seen her or talked to him since the funeral. I went to go see him. It's like this visceral pull to go see him. And I feel like spiritually, it was my dad, like just pushing me, because I not only was it very healing for me, but I do feel in my heart of hearts that it was very healing for him as well. He received something that um he that I could only give him, right? Because no one else in my family was going to. And I I just wanted to lay down whatever stories, I wanted to shift that story. I wanted to feel for myself. Um, I I am a skeptic at heart, but it's like, do I believe this to be true? Um, I'm always looking for the truth, and I wanted to discover my own truth. And um, I'm so glad I did that. It shifted everything for me. But then it was like, whoo, can of worms. My wounds opened all up again. And what did you do with him?

SPEAKER_00 17:15

What did you do with him? How did he shift?

SPEAKER_01 17:18

We had six months of reconnecting before he passed. Um, and I just talked. We just got together and just talked and uh shared a pap's blue ribbon together because that was his beer. And yeah, it wasn't even like a rehashing of old times. It was honestly just getting to know each other, who we were then and there, not who we were back when, you know. Um yeah. So anyway, it was very healing. And that's when I realized uh grief is my issue. Grief is what's holding me back in my life, that's keeping me from meeting my potential, from um doing the things that I I want to do, um, helping people. I can't I you know, one of the things I've learned is that you can only sit in the depths with other people that you've sat at with your own person. And um, I knew I needed to heal myself and also not just for myself, but for my kids.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Um, I knew that they were not getting the best at me. And um I I really wanted to shift that. I really wanted to change that. And I really wanted to be the generational um chainbreaker in my family because you know, like I said, the story, the generational patterns continue unless you're someone in the family, unless you have a brave soul in the family who's willing to look in, look the ugly in the face and and break those patterns, learn new tools, learn new information, all of that. So that's a long-winded way to get around to how I got to where I am.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

But um, yeah, it's a really beautiful I just want to say it's a really beautiful story, and you had me at every moment. It wasn't it was um really a moving story, I just want you to know. So it wasn't long-winded.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

Um it wasn't yeah, and I I yeah, in the meantime, there too. I had a five-year relationship. I completely axed and um ended up joining the military. And my husband was also in the military.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

We didn't join the that time you joined the military.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Early, I was 19. No, I was 20. I was 20 years old when I joined. So before your kids, all that, yeah. Yeah, before my kids, yeah. Um, but yeah, so a lot of life, a lot of life lived.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Yeah, you know, there's two things that you uh mentioned during your story that I just wanted to. We don't even have to go fully into it now, but I would love for you to address it at some point in our conversation. One is because I think a lot of people experience this when they have a loss, that they lose um a couple, they lose a lot of people as well, because like they can lose, like you described, losing that whole side of the family. Or one of the things that really stood out to me, and I it's some, it's a decision that I had to make when I lost my husband, was that um my son's fiancé's mother was there, and I was like, you know, it was like two days after my husband died, and I was like, I'm and it was like American Idol was coming on, and we always watched it together, and I was like, Oh, I can't, I I can never watch American Idol again. And a couple of minutes passed, and she said, you know, when I lost my dad, she just told a beautiful little mini story. She said, When I lost my dad, I lost my mom too. And I just knew what she meant. And I said, You know what, guys, turn on American Idol. And from then I was let on, I was like, you know what? Like, I'm not gonna let my kids lose me because I'm lost to grief. I can't let that happen, right? So, and I also noticed how it's very painful because it happens. People lose their mom when their dad dies. And then they they're an orphan. So I had to make a conscious effort to so, and but I think what can happen to a mom in that situation, which I also love for you to address, and I think this did happen to me because I was like, you know what, we're gonna gain more than we lost. And every day I'm gonna write down in this journal, which I did, like, what did I gain today that I wouldn't have had, which is a very hard thing. Like it's gonna take the whole, our whole life to gain more than we lost. But I was like, I'm gonna be dedicated to that. But I think part of it is that I cared more about their loss. I mean, I felt my mine was freaking horrible, but it was more like I think that I have a leashed heart in some ways. Those tabs still open, you know, even though I'm not like, I think like that, it's Like blocking my heart from other beautiful things, you know? So, anyhow, I'm telling you about my me now, but I just would love to speak for you to speak to. Then also I I had a whole we had a whole huge network of friends and family and people, not people. And basically, like we always had people over for the holidays and everything. Now it's like we're alone. I don't mind it. It was okay, but we weren't invited. So it's just this weird thing that happens. I think that people don't know how to handle grief. So they kind of just they don't do, they just leave. Just just but I know I I knew that coming into this situation, and I was not, I'm not insulted, I'm not mad at any of them. I get it. It's like no one knows what to do with you, they can't handle your pain, right? So I would love for you to talk about you know that stuff as well. Cause and I saw you tear up about the thing.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Oh, it's yeah, because well, thank you for sharing. I that's why we have these conversations, right? It's it's the the collaborative experiences that help other people. Yes. It's the shared experiences. And for me, what came up for me, and this might be the opposite for you know, some people it could like I had so much anger. Yeah, my my teenage mind, growing up mind could not comprehend why she was non-existent in my life, why she was and but yet at the same time, she pushed so hard to be in my life. She like she tried, like could try to be controlling. And uh, well, yeah, she was controlling, like tried, you know, tried to be anyway. Um would make plans for me to suit her needs. Um just I had so much anger and resentment towards her. By the time I was 18, I could not wait to pack my bags and get the hell out of the house. And and I did, I left right away. And um I like a boomerang though, I ended up coming back because while I was at basic training and my training, AIT training, um, I I had a long training because I was a medic. And um, so I was gone for five months, and during that time is when she I had called home, and during that time is when she decided to get a divorce, or she was getting divorced, and decided to sell the house that I grew up in.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

While I was gone.

unknown 24:27

No.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

So and then moved three and a half hours away.

unknown 24:31

No.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

So coming home was an apartment in a town I never lived in before and knew nobody except her one friend. And so it was always like about her. And so that was just another tally, right, of anger and resentment. And it just what I had to learn, what I learned through grief recovery was how to forgive and how it was for me and it wasn't for her, and how to look at her with deep compassion because I know what she's been through in her life. She has been through the ringer. And what I know about grief now and going through in my own journey and in unpacking my own life was that we again, we we can only be there for others to the point we we're there for ourselves, right? Like she just did not have the capacity and didn't know how, she didn't have the tools. Right. And and so that's why I'm very passionate about parents sweeping their own doorstep. I speak a lot to that, and it's not to criticize, analyze, or judge parents, but to speak to the importance of caring for you and and uh addressing your grief has exponential uh impact in your life. Yes, and particularly as a parent, that's how you keep these patterns from continuing, is you stop it with you. Yes, your kids don't continue that.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

And so I don't know if I answered your question. Oh, you did, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

I mean, you saw like a whole fan. That's what I was wondering when you went to your, you know, see your uncle. Um, and also, you know, that you well, we'll talk about that in a minute, but that you're a, you know, you're by people's bedside as a doula when they pass, you know, like, but that's interesting that you spent time with him. But I'm just wondering, like you were so young and how you negotiated understanding where everyone went. Because I felt like they were two, I had a really major, major loss in my 20s too. But I felt like two things happened. I learned a lot from the loss, which helped me later. So, like I learned that people go away. And originally I was offended by it, but now I'm not, right? And then secondary was that I had a rage inside of me, like, you know, after all the crying and all that, like that was like like visceral, like primal, like I wanna crash into a I wanna, you not even that I wanted to necessarily die, but I wanted to break the things like so, and I was so concerned about feeling that again. Like I was like, I am not gonna let that take over my life. Because it was like it was very hard to be angry like that. So, you know, I'm so interested in what you have to say. I want to know about how what you did in your recovery too. Because how did you handle the people going away? And then you're describing this the anger. I understand it's at your mom, because I had that too, but like the anger just of grief, the grief anger, you know, that like you can't even under you don't even what what you're mad at. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Well, when my dad died, I was eight, right? Yeah, and I've been underestimated, I've felt underestimated my entire life because the one thing that was ingrained in me when I was eight, and I was at the funeral, and I see my dad in the casket, adults are saying around me, and I it's it's ingrained in me. Someone said, and I don't know who, but someone said she doesn't understand what's happening anyway. Like, just completely like I was just you know, it's like you're watching these adults walking around, and you know, everybody like nobody was talking to me about what's happening, right? And children are so easily dismissed. I think it's getting a lot better. I really do. I think that tide is is changing, but kids are underestimated to what they understand. By the age of three, we've already understood 75% of how to respond to life. Yes, all you need to be is the child in a car seat and your your parent is stuck in a traffic jam and how you respond to that. Exactly. How you respond to someone doing something hurtful. Uh kids are sponges, they take it all in. Yeah, but the re the remaining 25% is by the time we're 15. So I mean, uh so for me, the anger it was at God, it was at and here's let me give you a definition of grief, first of all. I think I should have started there. Yeah, maybe no one's ever heard, but yeah, grief is the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations. It's anything that you wish that would be or could have been different, better, or more.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

So when you write that down and you contemplate and and reflect on that, it is far more than just about death. And with every incident and every experience, I don't know, you've you've heard of ACES at the ACES study.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

New research just came out. Actually, I just heard listened to a podcast episode uh where the woman, it was a she was actually a physician and she was trying to understand why her cut her uh patients kept showing up with stress and anxiety, and stress and anxiety, and she referenced the ACES study and was kind of correlating and connecting dots. Interestingly, I haven't finished the entire episode, so I'll be curious if she actually uses the word grief at all or ever. Um, but she mentions trauma and how it's we hold it in our bodies and things like that, but she never talked about grief. She's she's speaking about stress and anxiety, but yet never never connecting it with grief. She's talking about adverse childhood experiences, and that the new research now shows that one in four adults, I believe, or one in six, one in six adults has four or more aces. So aces meaning, you know, uh a parent dying, a parent that was incarcerated, uh, a parent that's in an abusive relationship, a parent that is struggling with mental illness. So all these different things. I had a brother, I I have a brother, half-brother, that struggles with mental illness, or he did actually. Um, I don't know what the scenario is now, but so there was just so much in my yeah childhood that I was exposed to and experiencing. But um, I have a lot of aces. And um one of the things that I've been curious about too, and not to go on a side topic, but um particularly with people that go into the military, veterans, uh, people that go into high-risk occupations or like firefighters, kind of like that adrenaline junky type of uh occupation. But particularly the military, one thing I wish that the military did was evaluate someone's aces before they even enter the military. Wow. Because if they were to look at that, yes, um, we may have fewer people actually going.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

We may not even have the military, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Right. But so many people go into the military because they have to get right, yes, to escape something, to get the discipline or the the commodity that they didn't experience, right? But the support then needs to be there, the container needs to be there to give these individuals, these soldiers, the tools and all of those things before they get into a situation that creates PTSD and traumatic experiences that obviously have uh an emotional long-term toll.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Yes, yes. And you know, I'm and I'm speaking to you who who knows this, that when you're taught not to, because you can't, because it'll be dangerous for you to feel the feels while you're, you know, fighting or whatever, that then when you come out and you're a civilian, and now you you don't have the the camaraderie or the structure in place that makes it okay for you not to feel your feelings. Like it, it's and then then you start to feel your feelings. And it's you it's such, I feel like it's such um, I know that it was from my husband, like it just it's very confusing, like to be someone lifetime in the military and then come out and have and like not understand civilian life, like the way people and the work ethic for God's sakes. But anyhow, it's just not this podcast. But uh anyhow, um, you know what's what come came to my mind as you're talking? You said the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations. It's like so true. Like the the future, like anything that could have been or would have been, right? And I think about like one of the things that stands out to me is like the silence. It says this in the Bible, but the silence screams. Like the silence is so loud. Like the hole in your life is so big. Like that could just it just breaks me when I even think about it, you know. And also like any, like I think of it also as love stuck. Like there's nowhere for that love to go. I mean, I you can talk to them and I do and write letters, but it's like it just feels like this ache because you have it and it can't go anywhere. Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

So that's yeah, and that I was gonna speak to that too. Like, you know, growing up, not knowing, you know, believing that you just die and you go on the ground and that's it, right? There was no talk that you can continue to have conversations, that the relationship continues, like it or not, right? But we all have these undelivered communications. That's what that's what's stuck in our bodies. It's like all the things that we wish we would have said, could have said, want to say, want to share with that person. Because when's especially with marriage, right? Like I've been married 23 years, we're very much an integral part of our daily lives. Yes. Like every little thing, like we used to do this together. Like I can imagine, right? Like what that the weight of that would be. Like it's a complete shift in a chat, it's a change in a familiar pattern of behavior, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Yeah. I would um, because it was all these things to your point. There were we did everything, like when we were best friends. So, like all the things at first I was saying that, you know, that we did, like we would ride our bikes on the beach like at six in the morning on the and like I remember like almost like discipline, like you're gonna get up and you're gonna work out. Like, okay, it's Sunday. This is what we did. But the beach did not die. It didn't die. The waves, the ocean, the smell, it didn't die. The ions in the air didn't die. It's on it's unbelievably tragic that the person I love died that was with me, but that didn't die and I didn't die. So I'm gonna go. Because if I don't take the beach back now, it'll never be my beach again. It'll always be like the the meaning attached to the beach was complete and utter pain. So, like there'd be things like that I attached so much pain to, and I was like, I have to find a way to repeatedly experience this until it's not wired in my brain as pain. So I just kept going, you know, and um still like I get triggered, you know, even if I hear a certain, like of course, a song or a certain meditation I'm doing, it it this one part of a meditation, which was my joy, ended up being like I would be like in guttural pain when I would, and I was like, this is to meditate, like I need to meditate. But I would just say, you know what? And I would say, you know what, CJ, I'm just gonna we'll we'll do this later. I'm just gonna do this song now. Like I would try to find ways, you know, to not stuff it, but also be able to live. But I I'm certain that I have stuff stored in my body that I haven't released. I'm certain of it. Like there's parts of my heart that are shut tight, you know.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Well, the beautiful thing about what I with biofield tuning in particular, which is energy healing, we use tuning forks, weighted and unweighted forks, um, sound frequency, right? Um, the beautiful thing about biofield tuning is that we actually don't even need to have a conversation about what happened. We can work on your timeline of because your biofield extends six feet out, five to six feet out, right? Like if you think of yourself like an like when you cut an apple, it's that tortillal, you know, we have a an energy center up top, an energy center below. Like that's our positive and negative terminals, right? Think of yourselves like a battery because we are energy. We are made up of what 80% water. Like we are energetic beans. And when I'm doing a session with someone, um I don't presume what you need or what what what's going to happen. Um, I let your you, your energy will dictate the the flow of the session. I don't even choose the tool I use. I let my pendulum and your energy decide and determine that. I connect with my higher power, my God, and I am simply a conduit for whatever you are open to receiving that day. And so the the fascinating thing about it is like I said, we don't even need to have a conversation.

SPEAKER_02 38:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

It the the static just we it it it's like I'm a kid in a candy store. It's like how do cell phones work? It's like to explain how this works, right? It's like I understand it's it's really difficult to explain it because I even my own I don't even think that we can even comprehend energy yet. Like I don't even I I'm not even sure we're there yet. But what I feel happens is and what's happened for me is like it's raised my consciousness. Yes, it's raised my sense of self-awareness and um just all the work that I'm doing. It's like compound interest, right? Yes. You know, we can we can do behaviors and resort to things that make us feel good for a period, but then make us feel like complete shit after. And that's compound interest too. But it's to the negative, it's to the it's to the hurtful side, right? It's to the shadow side to get to the lighter side, we need to do practices and things that get us to the light, even just if it's one percent better than yesterday, and to have the hope that that's possible, because I didn't have that for a long time, over 30 years. It took me 30 years.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

If I could shout from the rooftops about what you're talking about, because I feel like everyone needs to know this. It's not taught in school, and like most of what we see is not even what's really happening, like the and all of the wisdom, everything like is unseen, like the all the frequencies around us, the quantum field, like everything. And like, so what you're describing is the is the only thing that has really like helped me. So it's like, so can you explain to like what would you do with someone like me with the tuning forks with the biofield? Um I want to say it the way you said it, the biofield feedback. What is it? What is it called? Biofield tuning. Tuning. So this is like with sound waves, right? Sound frequency. Sound I love it. I love it. Yeah, I'm all in.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

Schumann resonance. So, like Schumann resonance is the frequency of the earth. That's in our weighted forks. You don't hear a sound, actually. It's we're using this, we're we're it's we're inputting this frequency into your energetic field. Okay. So unweighted forks, you hear a tone, you hear the frequency, you hear the sound. Those are used mostly in the in the field. Uh, weighted forks, generally speaking, I use on the body. Yeah. So you touch the body? Your hologram. If it's oh yeah, I got it. Distance, right?

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

This can work in distance. Yes, it can work. Yes, it works in distance.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

You're not, she's in the only Dakota, and I'm in New York, and it works in distance. Like, because we're yeah. I'm only I only do remote sessions now.

SPEAKER_01 41:35

Yeah, and actually the clients that all came to me in person, they are a-okay doing it remote. Actually, I have one client that doesn't even meet with me live under a follow-up email.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

I got it. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 41:49

Yeah, we don't have to have a long, yeah, long-winded conversation about whatever. It's yeah, it does what it does.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

You know what's weird because yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I'm listening.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Well, I would if someone didn't know what they needed or what how they want it, if if grief recovery, because this is always going to be like my yeah, want to know about that too. My banner program. Like this is you wanna you wanna up-level your life. I should be reading that, yes. That's the tool. Yes, I remember recommend it to everybody. The grief recovery handbook.

SPEAKER_00 42:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

If you want an education on grief, here it is. Okay. Um, the tools that we that I use in facilitating the program, because I'm I'm certified to do this method online remotely too. Um, so there is different levels of training. One, you can only do it in person, another level advanced, you can do it online. So I can do it online. Um, but yeah, how grief recovery addresses trauma and PTSD. Look at that. Yes, yes. Um, so you learn new tools. Like I said, this uh before we start a recording, I just want to share that this was developed by a Vietnam veteran. So I just wanted to say that um who has since passed. Um, but it is the gift that keeps on giving. But for someone who's not ready to really dig deep, right? That doesn't want to excavate a relationship in the deepest way, you know, addressing all of those emotional communications that have not been delivered. Maybe the person's passed or maybe they're living and it's a it's a fractured relationship. That doesn't matter. We can still work through that and it'll transform your relationship with that person because you will have deeper compassion for them and yourself. Yeah, it changes how you show up. It changes how you show up for your friends. Um it's like I can see people, and it's like I I just had an incident not that long ago, and this is one thing I shared on a podcast uh recorded with someone recently is if you see somebody who just doesn't seem like themselves, yeah, they look sick or they their energy just like you can feel we all have this antenna, energetic antenna. And if and that's the thing too like if ours is bogged. Down. Like my antenna was completely static and bogged down. I couldn't pick up, I mean, I would pick up on things, but I didn't have, I didn't wasn't managing my own energy. So it was like just more static, right? So I was having physical manifestations, not only because of my grief, but unaddressed grief, right? It was manifesting as physical symptoms. Like around 20 when my youngest started kindergarten, I started having physical symptoms. That's what I didn't say too. I got the dog, but I started having physical symptoms. And I started to look, I was like, I just need to fix myself. I just, I'm so screwed up. I just need if I can just fix myself. So I took every personality test known to man. I started reading every self-help book I could get my hands on. Yeah. Started taking programs and doing all these things because I was going, I was on mission one, fix myself. That was the wrong mission. I needed to understand myself. I needed to develop self-awareness. Yes. That's what I've been, that's that was my work up until 2019 when I discovered grief recovery. And then this was like, whoo, I'm a totally new person. Like the person that went down to Texas to certify in this and went through the method myself. I tell you what, I had a purge before the purge. I was having vomiting and diarrhea the morning that I was supposed to start this. Like my body knew this purge was coming. I truly trust that because the night before I went on a tour bus and I met a woman and she was there for life coaching certification conference, and we ate at the same place. We had the exact same meal. She did not get sick, and I was sick.

SPEAKER_02 45:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

And that's the only thing I can think of is that wow, it was the purge before the purge. But I was there, I did the training, I'd read the book. This was me actually trying to read the book and cure myself. And yes, yes. So I could help people, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:52

What did you what did you purge in your second purge? How did you was it were you just like um crying, wailing? Like what was the purge? Was it like that?

SPEAKER_01 46:03

Emotional. Yeah, it was like the all the anger just flooded out in an avalanche of tears. It was like I could not cry another tear. I'd cried. I probably actually really cried really hard for the first time in my life. That was five years ago. Um It was so transformative that I there's no there's no going back to who I was before. In my kids.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

Were you in a group of people? Were you in a group of people? Like what was it?

SPEAKER_01 46:43

You know what's interesting about that too? The the original training I had scheduled to do got canceled. It would have been a five-hour drive. It's like God and the universe was like, hmm, how bad do you want this?

SPEAKER_02 46:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:56

So I invested even more than I needed to to go to Austin, Texas to still certify in it. I get there, the trainer's like, you know what? I really I'm sorry. I I hope you have a good experience. Um, but you know, two of the people here are here because the school is paying for them to be here.

unknown 47:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

And the other two that are here are here for an advanced training. So they're already specialists, they've already done a lot of work. So you essentially are the only one that paid to be here to be here.

SPEAKER_02 47:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:27

And but I ended up having um I had a beautiful partner because you work one-on-one with someone when you work in a group. And she ended up coming, uh overcoming so much in her life. Um, she had been a math addict. Um, she she's an amazing mentor to me now. She's actually um affiliated with the Grief Recovery Institute. Um, just she was the perfect partner for me. And um, I was able to go through even being sick and everything. My trainer ended up going to get drama mean for me so I could lay on the chair and be present and be there. Um, but I had read the book, right? Because my training had been canceled, and my husband's like, you know what, you've taught yourself so many things. You can do this. You just you want to help people, you you just read the book, you can help people. But it's like I knew I needed it for me. Yes. And that was my driver, and that was my motivation. And I'm so glad, like the weight, the weight that I let go of. Coming back, I was just like, and and it really impacted my relationships for a time. Um it was interesting how my change impacted those around me and how they reflected back to me.