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How Grief Can Help You Grow with Tonje Wyn-Jones

Katie Rössler Season 4 Episode 6

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Is grief holding you captive? Loss is an inevitable part of life, but the pain and confusion that often accompany it can feel overwhelming. What if there was a way to reframe your grief, not as something to be overcome, but as a catalyst for growth and empowerment?

In this episode, I'm joined by Tonje Wyn-Jones, a resilience coach and grief expert, who shares her personal journey of navigating the loss of her daughter and how it led her to a life of purpose and empowerment. Tonje offers a unique perspective on grief, challenging conventional wisdom and offering tools to help you heal and thrive.

In this heartfelt conversation, Tonje highlights the importance of acknowledging and honoring your grief, while also allowing yourself to experience joy and happiness and the power of self-empowerment in navigating grief and creating a fulfilling life after loss.

We explore the challenges of coping with grief in a society that often misunderstands or dismisses it, the importance of creating a vision for the future that integrates your grief experience and the transformative power of vulnerability and authentic connection in healing from grief.

In this episode: 

  • How to reframe grief as a source of strength and empowerment
  • Why it's crucial to acknowledge and honor your grief, while also allowing yourself to experience joy and happiness.
  • How to find meaning and purpose in your grief experience, even when it feels overwhelming.
  • What are the practical strategies for processing grief and finding meaning in loss.


Connect with Tonje:

Website: https://www.tonjewynjones.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonjewynjones/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EliteCoachConsultant

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Welcome back to the podcast! If you've been in my space for a while, then you know the topic of grief is near and dear to my heart. I have brought on another specialist to help us better understand how we can start talking about grief, understanding what grief really is about, and maybe normalize the experience that we all go through.

Welcome to the Balance Code Podcast, a place for high achievers to step outside the hamster wheel of day-to-day life and start learning tools for more balance. I'm your host, Katie Rustler, and I will be guiding you on this journey of discovering your balance code.

So, Tonje, thank you so much for being here on the podcast. Will you share a little bit about yourself, where you are, and what you do?

Tonje: Yeah, thank you for having me. It's a real pleasure to be here. Um, yeah, so I actually live in Norway. I am Norwegian, born and raised, although I would say that um, it's more natural for me to speak English. I have lived in America for a few years. I have an amazing Welsh husband. Um, but yeah, I've moved back to Norway, so I live here with three of my four amazing children. It's a distinction that a lot of people don't pick up on, but I did lose my second child, my daughter, when she was one and a half, almost six years ago. And although I've always had an extreme need and passion for serving and helping people, it wasn't really until she passed away that I truly embarked on my full life, which has led me to where I am today, finding my true guidance, my true purpose, which really is to empower others to find and own their own self-empowerment.

Katie: Thank you for sharing so openly from the get-go about your own loss. And though I have not lost a child, I've had miscarriages, I've lost my mom. I know that loss doesn't look very different for all of us who had a shock loss, you know, an unexpected loss. And it's not always easy to talk about, so the fact that you stepped up to the plate and immediately shared that, I think, is a great way for us to start the discussion about grief. So you shared that loss was a pivotal, switching change for you in going, "Okay, I'm here to talk about this, I'm here to help others." What was that journey like though, going from the experience of the loss to "Okay, here's now a purpose I have"?

Tonje: Hmm, yeah, yeah, and it was a journey, to be honest. When I hear you reflecting that back to me, about how I openly share, it actually gave me, gave me a bit of chills because it gives me a bit of, ah, really, to see how far I've come. Because it wasn't always like this. I wasn't always this strong, outspoken person that people see. There was a time, really, after my daughter died, my whole world just fell apart, it completely crumbled. And there was a time where just going to the grocery store took all my strength. I would, I would have to collect all my courage. I would schedule and plan it so that I would go when nobody else was around. And then it would still take all my mental capacity because I'd have to go through all the thoughts in my head, like, "What if I run into someone? What am I gonna say? What am I gonna do? How am I gonna handle that? What if they say something and it triggers me? I know they mean it well, it comes from a place of love and ignorance combined, but it still triggers me and hurts. Like, how, what am I gonna do?" And by the time I would get home from the shop, where at times I had to actually grab onto the aisles just to keep standing, by the time I got home, I was done for, and I would have a tremendous headache the rest of the day, and I would, I would be so spent.

Tonje: And it did take a journey. The thing is, because I had my other daughter, I looked to her and I knew I had to keep going. But I thought that I could take on the martyr role. I didn't say that at the time. I didn't own it at the time. But as a mom, it's natural, right? I, I just decided that as long as I can be a mom for her, that's all I need to do. My happiness doesn't matter anymore. I can just, I can just be here for her, and that's all that matters. But she woke me up from that. It doesn't work that way. And I realized I actually had to start living again. And it just, it hit me like an epiphany, actually, while I was out on a walk with my dogs just one day. The sun hit my face and it was like it just lit up something inside me. And I didn't know how, but I realized that it felt true that I could grieve and be happy. And that, that sparked that transition into, to discover what that could be. And it's been a journey from there as well, but now I live in and on it.

Katie: That's so beautiful. And, and you're, that moment of realization that, "I can feel grief and happiness." How did that transform the way that you understood grief and maybe even defined it?

Tonje: Yeah, so, well, as soon as I had that feeling in me, that I can grieve and be happy, that was the, the, the triggering moment where, like, for the first time, I actually allowed the thought in at all. Like before that, you know, I, I was going by the normal definition. The normal definition of grief is that grief is equal to pain. It's synonymous with suffering, right? You look up the definitions of grief, and it's, it's either that or it's, it's so personal, it's unexplainable. And you know, and I, I was living that. I thought that was true. And like most people, and I'm sure you can relate, you know, with your own loss, you don't want to give up the grief because that's the tie you have left to that person, to your person that's no longer there. You're not going to give up anything that can connect you, right? And I was feeling that, and then I couldn't let myself be happy. I was stopping myself because I had to own the grief. I thought I had to own the grief by, by being sad and being unhappy.

Tonje: So when this came to me, I had to reframe it, and I had to start thinking, "How, how is this possible?" And for a long time, I actually didn't know. I just felt it was true, and I started to live it. And as soon as I started to live it, I started to, to share it. And people would ask me, and I would say that it's kind of hard to explain. You just get to a point where it's doable. But then I've continued to, to work on it. I continue to explore it, and I've come to my own definition of grief, the one I believe to be true. Haha. What I discovered is that my challenge of accepting the definitions that I find are that they relate to grief as an emotion. And emotions are restrictive. They're also a direct result of your thought pattern, your thinking, right? And you're doing, grief is so much more than that. But at the same time, I wasn't willing to accept that it's this elusive thing either, that nobody can, can say anything about, because that's very disempowering to me.

Tonje: So I started thinking about how, what, what is similar? And really, it's love, right? And I think everybody can relate and say that they've been in love and they've been happy and joyous, and they've been in love and they've been so mad and pissed off, or you know, or heartbroken. But it's still all love. And that's because love is a feeling. It's not an emotion. And it's the same with grief. The only difference is that grief is love for someone or something that's no longer available to you. And that's what transforms it into grief. That's why it's called grief. But it's the same feeling, like, it is still a feeling, just like love. Which means that you can have that feeling, you can live with that feeling, just like you do with love, and you can experience all the emotions at the same time.

Katie: So it's, it's our... And what I want to point out first is that the beauty of you creating your own definition helped you then in coping with it. It's also our realization that it's important for us to break outside the box of what grief has been defined for us or role-modeled for us growing up, right? So many of us, exactly like you said, grief is synonymous with suffering, struggle, pain. And on my own grief journey, it was such a spectrum of emotions. And I learned so much of how grief is actually just, itself, is a process. It isn't an emotion, like you said, it is a process. And we have been wrongly educated about grief because people weren't able to really put it into words, as it isn't just one emotion, one thought, you know? It is a whole series of experiences. Um, so your, your way of explaining it, how for you it has this connection to love, and we can experience love and have a variety of emotions, we can experience grief and have a variety of emotions, I think will touch so many, to help them feel a little more free and not going, "Well, I have to experience grief this way, it has to be part of my identity. The only way I can hold onto that person I've lost, or that thing that I've lost, is by staying in the grief," in the negative sense of it, versus the fullness of it.

Katie: What are ways that you help your, your clients, or those around you when you speak, talk more openly about their grief and start to break outside of the boxes that they've maybe put themselves in, or have been put in around this topic?

Tonje: Hmm, yeah, that's a great question. And, and, um, before I answer it, I just want to acknowledge what you said, because I think it's so important as well, when you were saying how grief is a process, because I completely agree with that as well. I actually divide it into three phases, the phases of grief, you know, um, but, and I use that as a tool to help people, support those in, in grief specifically, but also as a way to know yourself, where you're at. Um, but, um, but yeah, and I do agree that it's, it is the biggest help, the biggest reason, the reason why I found it so important to, to define it and redefine it, and I want people to start redefining it, is because it does, like you said, free them up. It takes away those shackles, right? That we don't need to sit in the pain. And I think so many people live in pain, in suffering unnecessarily, because I think they have to in order to honor their loved ones. Um, so, so yeah.

Tonje: And when it comes to how I, I help my, my clients, um, break out of that, it's, it's, it's really quite similar to any kind of coaching that you would do, you know, when you take the basics, but it just has to be adjusted to the, the person, you know, like it always should be, in my opinion. But really, you need to look at, "Okay, where are you now? Let's just confront that. Let's just accept that, accept where you're at. Emotions aren't dangerous. They're not going to kill you. Feelings aren't dangerous. They're not going to kill you. You need to acknowledge them. You need to own them, be in them." But then we can start to question, "Okay, where do you want to be? And what's in the way? What do you want to take with you? What do you want to leave behind? How do you want to transform?" Because, and that's where also this, this definition about grief comes in, because, you know, they probably have a lot of limiting beliefs holding them in this, you know, old paradigm. Because, like you were saying before as well, so eloquently, you know, we haven't been taught how to grieve, you know? That's, that's the reason why I'm so passionate about talking to, talking to, um, parents about kids as well, getting them to talk openly to their kids, because we need to start teaching them this from a young age.

Tonje: We weren't. I wasn't. I definitely wasn't. I experienced a lot of, um, a lot of loss as a kid, a lot of grief, and I had no clue how to deal with it. So by just acknowledging that it's not, it's not bad, you know, wrong, you're not, you know, but just acknowledge it, let it be. And then we can look at, "Okay, well, what do you want to be the truth now? What do you want to be? That your, your purpose, your living? What do you want to embrace?" Right? And I just show the possibilities and show that you're not locked in this box, and that no matter what challenge you're put through, no matter what you experience, you always have the choice to transform that challenge into a strength.

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Katie: Definitely. It sounds like you're giving them permission every step of the way to explore grief in totality.

Katie: Along with a vision for the future, right? Because we tend to stay stuck in the past with grief, and in the present, because we're like, "It will always be like how it is right now." But you're having them create a vision of like, "What would you like life to look like?" In a sense, integrating grief into it, knowing, you know, there'll be times where, even years later, at the grocery store, you run into somebody and they ask how you are, and it hits you in a different way, right? You're like, "Cool, there it is, there's that grief," that they can say hi to. I know those moments will still occur, and I must welcome them because it's a reminder of that love, right? And that connection. Um, but that I can also have a hopeful future. And it sounds like in your own journey, you, you got there, that you were able to say, "I can actually start to serve people with this loss while I'm experiencing this loss," right? Like, continual. Um, and, and that lived experience helps, I truly believe, it helps other people integrate their own, because it's like I can see, in the sense of a role model, right? I can see this person has gone through things, and she or he has figured out how to walk through that.

Katie: And I always say it's, um, I really loved a quote when I was going through the heaviest parts of my grief, where it's, um, you know, we are walking through the fire with buckets of cool water in our hands to pass to the next person. And I always say, "My friend, I can't walk the grief for you, but I got some buckets of water. I got some tools, I have some perspectives, I have permission I can give you," right? "But you can give yourself. I have some things, but I can't walk it, you have to." So...

Katie: I love that you're helping your clients in the integration process. And I'm just wondering, are you noticing that they're more comfortable then talking to their family and their friends about their losses, about the grief that they're experiencing? Or do they keep it still in toward themselves?

Tonje: Oh, absolutely! It's, um, and, and this is something that, that keeps coming up actually, um, with, I think every person I've talked to regarding grief is that it's almost like there's this immediate unspoken bond between people who have experienced loss. And I don't know if you've experienced this yourself, but as soon as you talk to someone who, it's not that you know what they're going through, like, I would never say to you that I understand your pain because I've had mine, you know? Because they're not relatable, and they're not comparable. But there is a shared understanding. There's like a shared understanding of things that should be understandable for everyone, but it's not. Because we have this veil of secrecy over it, you know? Because it's like almost taboo to talk about, you know? And, and that's why also one of the big things that I do is to give actionable tools that they can use to, because, as, as wrong as it might sound, it is actually the one in grief that needs to have the tools on how to deal with the world.

Tonje: Because even though people want to help and want to support, they just don't have the skills. Most people don't. And they, they're so caught up in thinking about, "Oh, I, I don't know what to say, I don't know what to do, I'm afraid I'm going to do something wrong or say something wrong," and then maybe they just avoid you altogether. All things that just make the situation even worse. And as a person in grief, you know this, and still, you're the one that has to adapt to it, even though you're the one that's being hurt. So just having, getting like a tool bag to set you up and prepare you, so that you can, like you, like we were saying, you know, plan for the future, see what you want and do this work on yourself. But also, just while you're doing that work, have this toolkit that you know, it's like an armor that you can, and also you know, learning to talk about it, learning to

Tonje: to share, you know. I'm very, um, like you noticed in the beginning, I'm, I'm very used to, and I've gotten myself used to being very open and sharing straight away, because otherwise it's like a big elephant in the room, right? It's, you know, actually, I love, I love the metaphor that you share in, um, in your first episode about the umbrella. That's beautifully, beautifully put, and it's really, really apt here as well. Because like you're saying, with the, with the all the different parts of us as the different sections of the umbrella, when we struggle with any challenge, no matter what it is, doesn't have to be grief, but any personal challenge, we think they're like, "Oh, just not talk about it, and I'll just put it down, keep it in my private life," right? "I'll show up to work." Meanwhile, everybody sees you showing up with a broken umbrella, but nobody knows why. They can't understand why it is the way it is. But you're there holding onto a broken umbrella instead of, you know, "Okay, let's just, let's just stop. Let's just acknowledge that is broken and fix it," right?

Katie: Yeah, no, you brought that up, I'm like, I'm imagining, as I shared, someone with the floppy umbrella for their grief, is it, "Okay, do you want me to, do you need help?" And you're like, "No, it's fine, I got it," you know, this rain spraying on me. "Okay." But that's a great analogy of, people do see it on us. Hmm, they see the grief, they feel the grief, and they just don't know, you're right, they don't always know what to say or do. And it's important for us to learn how to deal with the reality of that too, and to get the support that feels comfortable and safe. I think safe is such a big part of grief processing. It's feeling safe, because if you're talking and opening up to a person, I experienced this after the death of my mom, where people don't always know what to say, totally understandable, but if they say things that hurt more than help, then that doesn't feel safe. And then you're scared to open up to the next person, right? And then you're like, "Man, that's just, I'm going to flop with my umbrella around, who cares?" instead of "Let me really seek out those safe people to talk to." Um, so I love that you brought up the analogy. I hope people are going like, "Yep, okay, I see how that's, that could be my reality right now."

Tonje: Yeah, and, and I love to share a story I just, that I just thought of now, um, from, um, a recent meeting I had not long ago. And she came, and she was saying that, "Wow, you know, she had grief, but of course she didn't have grief that was as bad as mine." I said, "Okay." "Yeah, yeah, I haven't like lost a child, you know, I've just lost my dog." Said, "Okay." "All right, well, your grief is yours, it's not comparable." So, and we continued to talk. And then she was sharing with me quite quickly that she had extreme death anxiety. I said, "Okay, tell me, tell me more about this. Where does this come from?" "Oh, I have no clue. I've no clue. I've had it all my life. Nobody's ever figured out where it comes from. Um, it's my entire life it's been a struggle to sleep. I just, I can't sleep because I'm terrified that I won't wake up. And it's been like this my whole life, as long as I can remember."

Tonje: And we kept talking. I kept trying to get her to go deeper. And by towards the end of the conversation, she goes, "Ah!" Because she realized that she hadn't lost somebody she thought, but her mom's dad passed away when her mom was a kid. And her mom's mom, so her grandma, wouldn't talk about it, she wouldn't say anything. So they developed this unhealthy way of dealing with it, where the mom would pretend almost like the dad had never been there, like he, you know, he hadn't died, it was just, "Let's try to continue." But she was very strained, obviously dealing with her own grief, you know, trying to manage, thinking she's managing, and probably thinking that she's shielding her child. At the same time, the child is there not understanding it and experiencing the loss and not having any guidance or any help.

Tonje: And, and my client was saying that, you know, "I can actually, I can actually see my poor mom, like everything that, what she struggles with when she's going through, that's probably from that." And then she realized, "Oh, it's been passed on to me."

Tonje: So I asked her, I said, "Yeah, so what do you think would have been different if you, if your mom had spoken to you when you were a kid about the loss of her dad, about the grief?" "Because, oh, my whole life would be different. My mom's life would be different. It'd be okay."

Katie: That's a powerful realization. Not only, you know, we look at nature versus nurture, right? In our childhood, which is it? That story speaks to both. Because not only was she parented, "We don't talk about this," but in her epigenetics, in her genetic line is death. Death can happen to us all, but death can happen, and it can happen in a shocking way, and you can fear it and be scared. And so she already has a genetic marker to have that fear around anything related to death. That is powerful to uncover that in one, one talk with you, to go, "Oh my god, my whole life would have been different had I been able to talk about it, so that when this genetic marker got triggered, I would know what to deal with, how to deal with it, what it was about." So hush! Holy cow, that, that's life-changing. There's no, you're on, what to do with it, right?

Tonje: You know what to do with it, exactly. And, and again, going back to your umbrella story, you know, refrain, you know, she basically just, she inherited the broken umbrella from her mom, and she saw, "This is what an umbrella is supposed to be like," and it doesn't work, but it's what it's supposed to be like, not knowing anything else.

Katie: Yeah, the power of going and talking to someone. And you know, if you're listening, listener, and you're like, "Hey, I don't, I'm not comfortable talking to a specialist, it makes me feel like I can't figure myself out," or things like that, you know, that is why there's podcasts like this, then there's books and things to start to open our eyes to what may be going on in our grief process. Since I really encourage you, if you're in the grief process, and please understand, and, and you know, we didn't open with this, but really what you talked about with grief is a lot of, like the death of someone, or a major loss like that, but grief can happen when you move, it can be happening right now as we're in times of war, grief can be happening because of loss of identity and shifts and changes. So it doesn't have to be an actual physical death, but that feeling of, "Something's not right, and I have a loss that I need to grieve." You can find support in different ways to help you understand, not what's normal and not normal, but understand your own process. This is why I think about, in personal growth and self-help books, there's so many different perspectives on one topic, right? Because you have to find the perspective that helps you heal. Just like when you're client came in, like, "Nobody's been able to, like nobody's figured it out. We don't know why I'm like this. I just can't sleep, I'm afraid of death." And you're like, asking questions to just guide to a realization. It doesn't mean that if one person can't support and help you, that you should stop seeking that support. No, it's, "Go and find who that right person is."

Katie: So to wrap us up, Tonje, if someone wants to reach out to you and is like, "Uh, no, Tonje is the one, I know I need to talk to her, or I need to just be in her space more," how do they connect with you?

Tonje: Yeah, so, um, this, this multiple ways of doing it. The, the most direct is to go on my website, www.tonjewynjones.com. Um, and just, you know, reach out to me there. You'll find, um, information about, you know, everything I do and all my contact info. If you're in the, um, more the, "I just need the quiet support," I am active on Instagram. It's @tonjewynjones, straightforward. And, um, I do share, because I do recognize, like you so, so brilliantly put it, that you know, especially in the initial phases, and I really want to echo you just said that grief is not, not just about death. Grief is anything. And it's, and also challenges, is not about all grief. It's, it's anything. And what we are struggling with is not something that needs to be relative to others, or needs to be compared to anyone else. It's true to you, and that's the only thing that matters. So it's finding the empowerment. So Instagram, you can follow me there, and you can DM me. Um, you know, and also my website, you can book a free call if you want to just, you know, jump in a call with me to see either it be, be no commitment, whether you want to, it ends up we work together, or I can just point you in the right direction, that works as well. I just want to, I'm here to serve.

Katie: I love that. I'll make sure all those links are in the show notes. And I want to share that listening to you, you at no point said, "We got to fix you out of the grief. We got to change that grief for you." It was more about exploring, understanding, and integrating. And if you were looking for a specialist specific to grief, that's, that's what you want to be listening for. And, Tonje, yeah, you're the real deal when it comes to that, because it isn't, "Put a Band-Aid on it," it's actually, "Let's heal." So thank you for sharing your story, sharing your experience that has guided you, basically, to where you are now, and will continue to guide you, and giving us perspectives on how we can start talking about grief more in safe spaces, in ways that make more sense. And I love the little moments of permission you gave us, because I think sometimes we, again, being in the box, we don't see we can creatively step outside of it. So I really appreciate the time you gave us today.

Tonje: Oh, thank you for that. Thank you for that. And it's been a real privilege and pleasure to be here.

Katie: Dear listener, here's to finding our balance code. Thank you for listening to today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Take a moment to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast platform. That helps other listeners just like you to find this podcast too. Want to connect and learn how we can work together? Check out the links in the show notes below. Discovering your balance code doesn't have to be a one-person journey. You can have a team, and I'd love to support you. So here's to finding our balance code.



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