Episode 60: Grief, Sonic Booms, & Golden Yachts: Meet Gretchen Hernandez
|
"If we try to go with the Nike slogan of 'just do it,' and just, you know, keep pushing through and thinking we're being warriors, we are damaging our mental health, damaging our physical health."
Just do it? Sound familiar? Do you just keep "doing it," pushing forward, moving ahead no matter what it's doing to you? We know that learning a skill takes practice, and we're willing to recognize the need to learn in some places in our lives, and in other people. But when it comes to some Pretty Big Stuff in our lives and work, suddenly perfection is the only option and the first draft better also be the final or we've "failed." Navigating life and business In this episode, Grief Coach Wendy Sloneker talks with Business Process and Mindset Coach Gretchen Hernandez about how to navigate resentment, grief — and life — in a healthy way. Learn more about Gretchen Hernandez at her website, https://www.myfreedomgrove.com. |
Wendy discusses navigating resentment, grief and life with Gretchen Hernandez.
|
You are Invited
And if you're ready for help navigating strong emotions around loss, grief, and change, be sure to set up a confidential, complimentary call with Wendy at https://www.wendysloneker.com/.
And if you're ready for help navigating strong emotions around loss, grief, and change, be sure to set up a confidential, complimentary call with Wendy at https://www.wendysloneker.com/.
As seen on: |
|
Full Episode Transcript
Wendy Sloneker
You're listening to the Heart Healing from Loss podcast with Wendy Sloneker. This is episode 60. Hi, welcome. I'd like to introduce you to the excellent and beautiful Gretchen Hernandez. She has a business called My Freedom Grove and she does business process and mindset coaching. So you can design a business in harmony with your mental health. Gretchen, welcome.
Gretchen Hernandez
Oh, hi, Wendy, thank you so much for having me.
Wendy
I'm thrilled and a half that we are talking.
Gretchen
Oh, me too. You are one of my favorite people on the whole planet.
Wendy
Thank you. I feel the same like we're starting with like the biggest squish Fest and low Yes. Never. Nobody would ever know that we are two states away from each other.
Gretchen
Oh, I know. You think that we're in the same room just like hugging on each other.
Wendy
That's right, emotionally and mentally all day long. That's exactly right. Gretchen I'm so glad you're here. Part of the reason that I love that you're here is that we had worked together previously. But also you as a business owner, you know, firsthand what, what it is to sort of navigate through life changes that may impact a business that yeah, oh, yeah.
Gretchen
I call it Life coming in sideways. Oh, wow. Yeah.
Wendy
Yeah, say more, please say more. Yeah. So
Gretchen
I have a special way of achieving any kind of goals. And so could be business goals could be life goals. And so one of the things is identifying obstacles that come up. And so life coming in sideways can be an obstacle. And all obstacles can get resolved through experimenting. Every obstacle is either a process obstacle or mindset obstacle. And if we can resolve all of those through experimentation, then our goal we can reach and it's inevitable, it's gonna happen. And so, yeah, comes in sideways. Because we're not just business people, or just life, people like we are whole people, all of it has to work together.
Wendy
With all of our, like, soft tissue, nerve endings, meat suits, as some would say, and life coming in sideways just indicates pain to me, like, Oh, that's pretty visceral and palpable, when you say that,
Gretchen
Absolutely, yeah. And if we try to go with Nike slogan of just do it, and just, you know, keep pushing through and thinking we're being warriors, we are damaging our mental health, damaging our physical health. And we're gonna get to a point where we can't even run our businesses anymore. So I like to always remind people, if we don't take care of our mental health, our business won't matter. And our mental health can correlate directly to our physical health. And I am one of those I had a mini stroke. I have IBS from like, work, stress kind of stuff. So this has been definitely on the forefront of my priorities to make sure mental health is always good. Body's always good. And then business is always good. It just automatically happens that way.
Wendy
It just sort of falls into play. Tetris is right down when you're well, and we forget as business owners and people who have lots of responsibilities and lots of different hats inside of lots of different roles, not just the business, but we forget that we are the asset. I wonder what the assets thinking. Oh, that's me. Wait.
Gretchen
Oh, that is too funny. I would just have to remember to pronounce the X at the end.
Right.
Gretchen
Yeah, here. What is the acid thinking? Yeah, that's all said of course, in a lot of self love, non judgement, no shaming.
Wendy
Thank you. Exactly. This is not we're not here to weaponize anything like that. We can do plenty of that on our own. It's time to learn something new. Yeah. Yeah. I love what you share about experimentation that invites curiosity in and also kind of a sleuth detective II vibe. Oh, yeah. as well. Maybe a sciency vibe.
Gretchen
Absolutely. sciency vibe. I have a background as a scientist. I started off my career as a microbiologist. So I was in research and development and specifically product development around microbiology products, software heart were integrating the whole thing together. And in order to do any kind of sciency stuff, especially science products, there's a lot of experimentation that goes on, it's like, we come up with that hypothesis of what we want to create. And we don't always know exactly how to create it. So we have to experiment multiple times to make that happen.
Wendy
You mean first draft is not the final draft,
Gretchen
Never. In fact, I worked in biotech for 25 years. And the last 13 of it, I spent working at a company that makes cancer drugs. And it would take typically eight years of experimenting until they came up with the final solution for any one given medicine. Eight years of experimenting and failed experiments left and right. But they had to fail. So they could find out what the answers were for what would work. So we never know what's going to work, otherwise it already be existing. So we have to experiment.
Wendy
Right? That's such a positive way of looking at that too, rather than like, it means I really just shouldn't be in business.
Gretchen
Right? Yeah, exactly. No, doom and gloom like nobody was, nobody was born, knowing all the answers to anything, right.
Wendy
Even if you like, we're just one of those people who were able to like submit your first draft book reports. And pass them like that's different than science things for, like public health. That's definitely, yeah. Oh, my gosh, thank you for sharing a little bit about, it's such a fun thing that you are able to share stories of how you got here, and also how it relates to the business that you have now. Now, I would also love to hear, tell me about when life came in sideways for you. Because we had met several months before we started working together. And actually,
Gretchen
I think it was about nine months before we started working together. Because I was going back looking through my calendar, and I saw a connection call for us from September of 2021. Oh, wow. Wow. And I reached out to you like May or June of 2022. Oh, you made that much of an impression on me that I knew exactly who I wanted to get help with. So what happened is, so as I'm going about doing my business, if my emotional flare gun goes off, then I know that I've discovered an obstacle. If it goes off lots of times, or it lasts for a really long time, that helps me to know that it's a higher priority, especially if it starts to make me shut down at all in my business.
If I am slowing down and I can't focus on my business, or worse yet, I find myself curled up in bed for three days crying, like no business is happening on those days. And so I had actually been struggling for about three years on stuff with my mom unresolved grief with my mom that I had been trying on my own to do. And I was kind of making it through. But it was always there lingering. And I got to a place where it was okay enough that I could still be functional. But then, it was like a series of events where all of a sudden, it was like no, I absolutely need help to resolve this grief.
So one of the things in my business that started happening was grieving my clients when they would finish. And I want to celebrate when my clients finished because often they're launching brand new products, they have all of their business pieces figured out like things are working, that's a time for celebration. Instead, my poor little heart is breaking. And I'm crying. And I remember with one of them. It knocked me out of commission for four days. He doesn't even know this. He's he's back. He's one of my clients again, which I'm going to share part of the work that we did together made that happen. So yeah, four or five of them actually, because of the work we did together. I know this part yet. I can't wait to tell you this part.
So but let me go back to the beginning. So I was having all this heartbreak every time that a client would finish up with me. Well, that sucks because the nature of our business is that we don't want dependent relationships that go on for like everybody's lifetime. Although I would I would. I really do want to have everybody with me for my lifetime. But I don't want them to be dependent on me like I'm developing their skills and then setting them free like go off and do the amazing things because they're super capable, very brilliant, and now competent people now that we've worked together, so I needed to resolve that, because otherwise it's like, oh, I don't know if I want to take on any more clients and have to cry again when they leave.
And then in May of 2022, I saw on the news that Naomi Judd had committed suicide, or excuse me, died by suicide. I didn't realize how much that would shake me to the core. And I knew who she was like, I'm very familiar. I've got a crush on her daughter, Ashley. She wasn't like one of the people that I like, fan over. But all I could think was, her two daughters are going to get blamed for this. They're going to look at these two daughters and think, why didn't you do more so that that wouldn't happen? And it made me reflect on what was going on with me and my mom, and my mom is got some serious mental health challenges. And I won't go into all of the details. But yes, she was having some serious mental health challenges. And I really feared this was going to be where her journey was taking her, and so forth. So you days suicidal, so to see me inside? Yeah, yeah.
And so I went spiraling down for three days, like, I have worked through my depression a lot over the last five years, where I pretty much the result it like, it's gone. It's amazing. But this came up and boom, like, major depression for three days. And I was like, okay, the severity of that, like, how deep I fell, how long it lasted. And the fact that now I couldn't even function in my business, let alone in my life. That's a pretty major significant obstacle. Like that is a priority number one, if you can't function and you can't make revenue, because you can't function that hits both criteria for number one. So I was like, Okay, I gotta scoot myself up. I need I need some help. But I still was like, kind of stumbling along. Yeah. And
Wendy
I just like, put it, put it together stuff. Yeah. And just a tiny step forward.
Gretchen
Exactly. And like, kind of figured out in my head, like, I think I probably need some help on this. And then I got news that my dad was dying of stage four cancer, and he only had a couple of days to live. Now, the interesting thing here is that I just met my dad 15 years ago, and I'm 50 now. So 35 When I met him, and as much as I had romanticized what I thought my dad would be like, that wasn't really what he was when I met him. And so we, well, I chose not to pursue a relationship with him for a variety of reasons. But I got to meet my siblings, and we have a really great relationship, and I couldn't be happier. So when he was dying, my siblings were really having a rough time, because we've all had a different type of relationship. And none of it was like, you know, the beautiful beaver kind of like Leave It to Beaver kind of
Wendy
Thinking the word Cleaver moments.
Gretchen
There you go. Yeah. And so none of us had that. And so they everybody was going through their own kind of grief. We did like a group chat, like trying to support each other. And like my siblings went, saw him in the hospital and stuff. And that's when I was like, I'm gonna need some help. Like, it wasn't like I was trying to understand how I process grief about someone that I chose not to have a relationship with, after I had been searching for this person for over 20 years.
So it was like, it was just kind of weird. It's like, didn't necessarily had a huge amount of grief, but then kind of had a little bit of regret and was kind of questioning things. But I knew I had a whole lot of pain about my mom and Naomi Judds, suicide and about my clients. And I was like, it was just there. It was a priority one obstacle with my mom and probably like a priority to with my dad and with my clients, but combined, it was like whoa, there is nothing more important than this right now in my business.
So as much as people like to invest money in business coaches and like the next marketing thing and stuff, I knew my most important investment was in me and processing my grief. That it my mental health is most important because if I don't take care of that my business isn't going to matter. I knew exactly who to turn to. And that was you. I was so grateful you were there. Warm, warm hug. Lots of love. And I knew I was in good hands. For sure.
Wendy
I was delighted when you call me honestly, I was like, not I was like, I was thrilled it was you. And I was like, because people don't call me because like, their lives are amazing. Yeah, yeah. Oh, man, I love I would love to just like touch back on this phrase that you shared. That is 100% Gold. And that is? Tell me more about the emotional flare gun? Because I feel like that's like the tip off. That's your like, big hint. Yeah, what's coming? Like the like, what does that look like? What how do you identify that? Because oftentimes, people don't know how they feel. We aren't schooled in how to feel. So I would love to hear more about your emotional flair gun, if you would like to share.
Gretchen
Yeah, yeah, sure. So one of the things that I find is that when we ask people, How are they feeling? A lot of times, like mind goes blank, and you don't realize that there's like 700 Different words out there to describe feelings. So it's either I feel good, or I feel bad. And we can say I feel really, really bad, or really, really good. So I just decided, you know, what, instead of in the beginning, trying to figure out exactly what that feeling is to just acknowledge that the emotional flare gun has gone off.
So it's like, you know, if you imagine that you're out on a boat, in the middle of a lake, and maybe the lake is nice and calm and stuff. But you know that something is wrong, you don't know what's wrong, you just know that something's wrong. And so you're just going to send up your flare, just to say, something's going on here, in a little bit of help is needed. And so when I look at mindset coaching, because that's part of what I do, and what you do, too, is mindset coaching. We've basically hit on a thought or a belief that is unhelpful, and causing us distress. And so that emotional flare gun is my way of saying, Okay, right here, right here in this mindset, right now, with this circumstance, something isn't working. So that gives us like that location to go in the mindset and go, Okay, here it is, amongst the millions and millions of thoughts that are in there. This is the one. So that's what the emotional flare gun is.
Wendy
Thank you. That's so genius, because you don't have the pressure of having to have the words or know what it is. It's a general proximity, and a signal that Hey, little help. Yep. Or hey, something's off. Yep. Exactly. Amazing. Thank you. Oh, my gosh. Ah, so I recall working around one of my favorite things, and that was resentment melting. Oh, yeah.
Gretchen
When you told me, I do resentment melting, I wet you what, what is this? I must no more.
Wendy
Okay, it was a treat. What was your experience? How did? What was it what you thought it would be? What were the surprises? Or the takeaways?
Gretchen
Okay, so like, best exercise ever to start with, because I never really took the time to pay attention to what I was resentful for. Because I felt it. Oh, yeah. And there were times when nobody was around, that I would be around. I remember expressing my resentment. But I never want to make other people feel bad. I want to rock the boat and always like choosing like, Okay, I want to have a constructive conversation with someone, instead of just like, I'm resentful at you because I remember, right, all the states. So with the resentment melting, I didn't know what it was, but you're like, we're gonna write out every single thing that you're resentful for. And you said, you can even get petty like everything. And I was like, whoo, this is almost like a sponge full of resentment. And if I get to melt it, like if everything if I can squeeze everything out of this sponge out on a piece of paper, and that I can melt that I'm going to put a lot of effort into this because I want to get out every last little piece of resentment because, boy, resentment feels awful in my body.
So I set aside time in my schedule, because I'm like, I still have to work. What am I going to do? And I knew that writing these things out and you know, cuz like now I'm finally getting to acknowledge that the success that I would be kind of emotional and it would be hard for me to go back and support my clients in that state. So I purposely set aside Fridays, and like Friday afternoon, it was all Wendy time and homework time. And I would go out to the beach because I'm lucky enough that I live right next to the beach. And I went there because my family couldn't go there with me. Like, I'd leave them at home. And I go sit out on the beach, and I'd write out all of my resentment, and Wendy 37 pages of resentment, such as, whoa, whoa. And I was like, oh, so of course, I start judging myself like, Whoa, I am one reasonable human being like, what is up.
But what was really cool is that it kind of partnered together with another piece of your process, which was coming up with like your belief systems around loss. And as I said, it's like, I started off with a resentment melting, but I wasn't done with my list, because I'm gonna squeeze all those little suckers out, get them out. But I was able to jump to that next exercise. And so as I was writing all of those out, all of a sudden, like, those connections were being made of wait a minute, this thing that I believe it's showing up, like in seven different spots on this. And as I kept going, it was like, oh, all of this resentment is coming from these belief systems. And I know that my thoughts and beliefs are all optional.
So shoot, if I can go and decide not to believe those things anymore, or not to believe the thoughts anymore. Maybe I don't have to have resentment anymore. It was a mind blowing. And to even realize that, those different things about how to process grief had been offered to me as thought offers like throughout my life, and yeah, back then I just agreed to it. Because I was younger, I didn't know that I had the option to agree or to pass on it. But boy, it sure did hurt that I adopted all those suckers. So it's time to get rid of them.
Wendy
Oh, my gosh, so amazing. I love that. I love that so much. And I love that we like that you gave yourself the afternoons and the time away so that you know you weren't disrupted or distracted by like, what about the dishes? Or what what did they want now the kids or the dogs or the whatever? Like, you really gave yourself alone time to do this? Did it take as long as you thought it would?
Gretchen
It took longer? But it's because yeah, it was because I was so thorough it was because I decided I wanted to squeeze every last resentment out. I've never really been a surface level person. Like usually when people hand out workbooks will be shocked that like other people at my table might write down like one sentence or just a couple of words. And I'm like, Okay, here's this one question I need, I need like three more pages. So I may not be the typical person that does the exercises. But for me, it's what works.
Wendy
I love it all. And to know that about yourself, like you're here to get the most out of it, you're here to get where you came for as well. When you think about like the prospect of like, as you cast your mind back, one of the questions that comes up is, or one of the statements or beliefs is my program has recently shifted from a three month program to a year long program. And so one of the questions or statements is, I don't have a year to feel my feelings and run my business.
Gretchen
Wow, wow. For me, I felt three months was rushing through it. Like there was so much more that I wanted to do with it. It was definitely a gift for me and, and I really did want to continue because there was so much more. But that was that was what we had agreed with. And that's what I had set aside on my calendar. Right. But I think now that I've gone through it that it would have been like, yeah, sign me up for a year, I'd recommend it for a year because you never know what else is going to come up.
And so I'm going to share a little bit of the update with with me is that part of the processing for me was because I had this anticipatory grief that my mom was going to make a suicide attempt and I thought that like she succeed. So we had our sessions June through September, and I got to a very peaceful place by the end I oh my gosh, I'm so grateful for it. Because unfortunately the weekend before Thanksgiving she did attempt suicide twice. And she wasn't successful. But it was because of the work that we had done together that I was able to get through it in a healthy way.
Like, I definitely did cry, like, you know, when I found out, but I had already prepared for it, I had already processed a lot of that grief ahead of time. And so I was able to, to function, I was still able to function in my business, I was able to already make arrangements for what I would do and how I would respond. And so I was able to go and see her and be with her in service instead of resentment, which was huge. And, and so more things have unfolded, and she will be moving in with me temporarily, this weekend. But I already have like other things set for her. But none of that would have been possible if I still had all of that resentment that I had been carrying.
Wendy
Phenomenal. Yeah. So that sounds like more presents more capacity, more focus ability on like, what's coming on at hand? Is that still true in your business as well, with all of life sort of still happening?
Gretchen
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So one of the great things that you've helped me with was you connected with me on things that really helped me to learn and so I'm a big, big Disney fan. And so Disney movies teach me a lot of stuff. And so, you talked about Peter Pan and Neverland, and how, like, you know, Peter didn't want any of his friends to leave Neverland. And that's kind of how I felt I didn't want any of my clients to ever leave, like we have a really good time together.
But then you mentioned the golden ship that he has, and how he flies them back, but not with the intention that they're leaving him for good. That it's like, oh, no, they just have to go back where they came to for a while, but they always come back. And so that golden ship was to give them an excellent ride home, and let them know how they can come back. And so that imagery, it helped me so much, because being a business process, Coach, I realized I was missing a process. Step four, how would I give that golden ship to them when they left? But I couldn't have even come to that. Because before it was just my heart was breaking that they were leaving. It's like, oh, no, no, they always come back. And it's like, oh, yeah, they always come back. Because you know, different things come up at different times in business. And I can help people all the way from like their first idea, like, Hey, I think I might want to start a business, all the way up to optimizing it. And I've worked with billion dollar companies optimizing across like 17 different plans.
So it's like, I'm ready to help at any stage. So yeah, they can always come back. And since I had never really considered that part before, I didn't have a golden ship process step. So I created a golden ship process step, showing them how much I loved and appreciated them, and then how they could come back. And so like I said, at the beginning of the interview, I've had like four or five people come back since then. Because remember, yeah, since last summer, yeah. Because I put this golden ship process step in place now, and have that thought they always come back and they always do.
Wendy
They're coming back. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, yeah. Wait a pull, like you totally like, that was that was something that was sort of in passing? Like, we talked about that for maybe two minutes, and you totally went with it and used your total imagination. And what a joy.
Gretchen
Oh, yeah. And then other developments, just because it's like one of those mind blowing things that you don't see coming. So we talked about golden ships quite a lot. And one of the things that I was interpreting how I was being treated, but really, it's my own thoughts and beliefs about things, not necessarily what someone else is believing was that I was like a golden yacht, but that other people were treating me like I was this dirty dinghy boat that would never leave the harbor because I'm always trying to get them on there because I don't want them to go on their journey, because I see that their journey is not gonna give them success. And it may actually end up having a really bad outcome like what I was worried about for my mom, so I didn't want to take off because I was like, please come on, get on board. I can help you. But they're like No, no if I want to get on that, but Oh, or they get on and you know, maybe not treat it like it was a golden yacht.
So you helped me get to a point where it's like, no, I can allow them to have their journey and whatever results they were gonna have, because that's for them. I can just focus on my results. And that's okay. It doesn't make me a bad person. Because I was like, Hey, over here golden yacht getting ready to take off want to jump on board? And that if they were like, No, it's like, okay, well, you know where I'll be, I'm going to be way out there, zoom and fast, having a great time living a great life. If you want to come like, go grab a little, you know, lifeboat and zip on out there. Like, you can always come back aboard. But I gotta go. I'm not going to just wait.
And so that weekend, right before Thanksgiving, I went to this event, and was presented with an offer that would put me on a yacht. And I was like, what a literal yacht, a literal, luxury yacht. And there, it's a business trip, where there's a lot of working and learning in the morning. And then in the evening, there's either a beach party or the yacht party, because it's two different days. And so when I was shown this big yacht up there, I was like, this is part of my healing journey. Because you helped me to see that, that it's like, no, I am the captain of my own golden yacht. In fact, you had sent me a captain's hat, which I was so excited to get in the mail. And I went down to the beach, and I took a picture of me with this hat on. And so when I saw this, I was like, well, that's a yes. And it's like, I already knew that I wanted that training and stuff. But the yacht, I was like, that's part of my healing journey.
And so I might not have said yes to the training with the price tag that they had, because I can learn a lot of that stuff. But that healing, because the mental health is the most important for me. And I needed to actually experienced it, because it's like, I could already visualize that I was there. You've been doing that for almost a year. Yeah. But to actually be on the boat to be on this yacht. And I was like, what, like,
Okay, I may not be the captain this time. But I'm on the yacht, like, this is Gretchen version 2.0, which is also one of the things that you helped me to do. We did some closure letters. And so I had a closure letter with my mom. But I also decided to do a closure letter with Gretchen version 1.0. And so this is part of me really stepping into and fully becoming Gretchen version 2.0. So, oh, yeah, the all of the work that we did together, so much more keeps popping up. It's like the universe is aligning it and all of it comes back to the work that you and I did together. So I think about you like every day.
Wendy
I'm thrilled. I'm like, I couldn't be happier that I have someone so awesome. As you thinking about me. What? Oh, like, are you feeling more available for your life more available for your business?
Gretchen
Oh absolutely, yeah, the, the amount that I have been able to take on like, I'm, I took a little pause to finish up some stuff for a membership that I was opening, but part of that, like, I needed to let go of some of the scope of what I was going to put into the membership. So I had to grieve some of that, like who thinks that grieving content is like a thing, but for me, it was I took a little pause like in September where I was like, You know what, I'm not gonna take any one on one so that I can finish this up because now I can because I finally had that freedom. And because I was feeling so responsible for other people's results, but now that I had that separation between well note some people will just stay on the dock and they're okay with that. And they can go and learn in other ways. It doesn't mean I have to like bog down my golden yacht with tons of stuff.
So I had a little grieving but also the Okay, yeah, everybody gets to choose how they're going to get to their results. It doesn't always have to be my way. So I was able to take that pause which was scary financially so that I could finish all this up. But what happened is that by January, I was fully booked on one on ones again, and I have the membership with like plenty of people in it and it's it's going really great and people are getting results. So unlike all of it comes around and on top of that I was asked to be COO and another person's business and just got through doing a two day intensive where I was flown out to facilitate this workshop. And it was so good that I'm probably going to be offering those to other business owners. And I'm going to be doing a retreat at the end of April. So creating one of those. So it's like, I have more capacity to do all this stuff, because all that reason that that was weighing me down, gone.
Wendy
Down. Yeah. Yeah, good. Yeah.
Gretchen
So did I invest in my business? Heck, yeah. By investing in my mental health first.
Wendy
Yes, phenomenal. Phenomenal. Wow. What? Oftentimes, I'm wondering like what other business owners like what are they afraid of? If they're deciding that? Hey, if you feel like you're going, like, did you feel like you were grieving or feeling your feelings or feeling desperately sad? The entire three months of our program time together?
Gretchen
Oh, ha, no, I, like I said, I set aside Fridays. So Fridays, from noon on, I plan, no business activities. This was just my coaching time, this was the time that I was giving myself the space to process all of my feelings. Because I had been shoving them down and trying to make them go away for so long. That's like, No, I'm actually going to create this space. Excuse me. And so if for some reason, I didn't get to a closure for the day. I still had the weekend. Yeah.
And so I what I found, though, was that the weekends wasn't grieving, I actually felt lighter on Saturdays, and I was able to actually enjoy my life and have fun. And it was like, like, have a workout. It's amazing how heavy tears can be. Right? So it's like, once you cry them out, it's like, I lost 10 pounds. So Saturday, you wake up, you're like, I'm 10 pounds lighter, I'm walking on air. And then by the time that Monday rolls around, I'm fresh and ready to like, focus on my business again. And then it's like, if anything starts coming up, like any of the little emotional circuits and like, it's okay, I've got time right there on Friday, and I'm going to handle all of it then. Amazing that space to myself. So yeah, I think I function better in my business because of it. During that three months. Like it didn't, it didn't slow me down, it made things better.
Wendy
This is something that people are afraid of, I think is that there'll be slow down or there'll be incapacitated, or they like. So often they don't know how they're going to feel that like which is true. But it's often like the anticipation is far worse than what the actual going through it is
Gretchen
and thinking it could because they're thinking, you know, I'm going to open a can of worms. And I can't put those worms back in that can once I open it, you know, or Pandora's box. But the thing is, is that you have this process that you take people through. And so yes, there's a lot of it, where it's feeling and processing, feeling and tears and stuff. But also there's like logical process steps and data and stuff. And when things are out of your head out on paper, it's logical, it's data, you can see trends and stuff, all of a sudden, it's like, oh, it takes on a different feel.
So it's like it's not those worms going all over the place or Pandora's box. It's just data. Data doesn't hurt. It's like, oh, in fact, sometimes the data shows you that things weren't really as bad as you thought they were. And that's exactly what I encountered is that even thinking about my relationship with my mom, there was this whole relationship mapping exercise that you had me go through. And you're not allowed to just talk about all the bad stuff. It's like, no, no, this is it. We want to just look for, like the facts, the representation of the truth. But it's like sometimes we forget what the truth is, because we're like getting wrapped up in all of the resentments. So because of all of it, it was like, Oh, wait, and there was this good time. And there was this good time and this good time. And so then once you start putting it all in there, it's like, you've got the data points for the good stuff and the bad stuff. And you look at it, and you can see data trends, where it's like, whoa, everything was really good. And then poof, all of a sudden right here, things shifted. What was it about that date? And then you get curious, curious, doesn't hurt curious is just curious. So yeah, no, it it actually helped, because it's just data.
Wendy
Wow, that's kind of a neutralizing agent. If Yeah. I put hey, the neutralizing agent. Let me ask you a question about Thursday nights since you were taking Friday afternoon sometimes. There's a for me when I was in school, it was like, Sunday or if I had a Monday through Friday, JOB, I was like, Huh. To go. Did you have that or feel that around Thursday nights?
Gretchen
Oh my gosh, mine was the opposite response. It was. Oh, thank goodness. Tomorrow's Friday. I can't wait to see Wendy. I can't wait to start working on more of this because I want to get complete on all of this. Yeah. So no, I it was all good thoughts. I was probably happiest on Thursday nights knowing what was coming the next day. It's like, who gets excited about crying me? Let's get this out gets resolved.
Wendy
And sometimes there was crying and sometimes there was not. Right. Yeah. Like,
Gretchen
did you get our laughs too? Well, we shouldn't good time.
Wendy
Yeah. One other question was something that you just sparked on. And that was? Oh, how soon do you think you started feeling results?
Gretchen
Oh, gosh.
Wendy
Because this is another curiosity point of like, okay, am I gonna have to be through like, 10 sessions before? I start to feel anything move. Oh, what was your experience?
Gretchen
There was a sonic boom.
Okay, so our very first session, we're talking and you're allowing me lots of space to just get a bunch of stuff out. And I remember at the end, I'm crying, I got snot running out of my nose and everything. And I look at you. And I'm like, and I said, Thank you for allowing me to matter. And all of a sudden, I felt this huge sonic boom in my chest. Because it wasn't just that you had allowed me to matter. I had made me I had allowed myself to matter. I had decided that I was worth the investment. Because I matter. And I had always put everybody else's needs before mine. And like de prioritized myself. I had finally allowed myself to matter. And so it was like that Sonic Boom, just bouncing back and forth between our virtual chests. That it was like, Oh, my gosh, you're saying I matter? I am saying I matter. Oh, my gosh, back and forth. I must matter. Whoa, whoa, talk about a shift. That was huge. That was the very first session.
Wendy
Phenomenal. Yeah. Phenomenal. Oh, thank you so much. What have I just asked for coming in for a close? What am I what have I forgotten to ask or what have I not gotten to that you would love to share about or that you just think other listeners, other business owners could really use that information weren't? What am I leaving out?
Gretchen
I think there were some other aha moments about the different kinds of losses that we have in our life that we don't even think about yet we're experiencing. And so some of it can be a loss of mental faculties or physical abilities. And so as we started going through and talking about the different types of losses, all of a sudden, I could recognize things that I had gone through that I didn't even realize that that was the source of where my struggle was coming from, but also other people and how they may have acted at certain points. All of a sudden, I was like, oh, yeah, they had a major change in their physical ability, or Oh, yeah, they had a major change in their job or their living situation where Yeah, loss, loss, loss, loss loss.
And I also recognize how they had tried to process or not process the loss, and also how I had tried to comfort during the loss. And that was really eye opening that it's like, Ah, this could have happened a lot differently. But also, now that I'm aware that oh, all these people are going through losses and like that hurts. Okay, so now I can have a lot more love and compassion for people. But also, it gives me the ability to share with them, hey, you know, you're going through a loss. I don't know if you've processed that loss all the way through yet. And they're like, Oh, I hadn't thought about that either. So all Have a sudden, not only is it healing for me, but it's healing for those that I love my friends, my family.
And I can also bring some of that into my coaching too. And so there's multiple people that I coach that they've had loss. And so I can just point that out. But I go, go see Wendy, because this is definitely a specialized skill set that I don't have, I do something different. And I'm like, No, go to the master. And that's Wendy.
Wendy
Thank you. And like, it's also a big deal that you were seeing and hearing, like, so much of grief processing, and just allowing it to be there without making a big deal or diminishing it. But you being able to be there and witness that or point out that like, Hey, by the way, it's kind of a lot. Yeah. I really just want to acknowledge and witness that. And maybe it's like, maybe it's too late, let's shorten the step or take a different, like, load sort of thing. Like, yeah, you could sort of manage the scope differently. Yeah, exactly. Well, phenomenal.
Gretchen
Also like the acknowledging kind of gives permission to them. Because a lot of times we think that we're not allowed to, like do anything like we have to, you know, suck it up, be warriors push through, because that's what gets celebrated, as opposed to someone saying, Hey, I see you, you've gone through some loss, you know, would you like some time or you don't want to talk about that? Or go see Wendy, she's like, amazing. And they're like, Oh, you mean, I matter? Yeah. Yeah. You matter too.
Wendy
Way to like, just pay forward the sonic booms. Oh, yeah. That's so rad. Oh, I'm so glad and grateful. You, Kate, thank you for taking the time.
Gretchen
Oh, my gosh, I am so grateful for you. I'd probably do just about anything you asked me to do. Because I am so incredibly grateful to you.
Wendy
I love working with you. I love you. It's easy.
Gretchen
Oh my gosh, wait, one more. Thank you. So you have this part of your package that I didn't know about. And I hope it's okay, if I share. That is the PS. So, afterwards, sometimes you need a little bit of something extra, just you know, here or there, just little things. And so the day that I found out that my mom had made the attempt, you were right there for me. I was like, Hey, Wendy, I just got her suicide. No, I just found this out. She's in the hospital and you're like, you want to call and I was like, Yeah. And you were there for me. And that's it's such a sacred position to be in because there's not anybody else in the world that I would have trusted with me and my raw emotions because I went through all of them anger, all of it. And you know, the sad all of it. And you were there for me because you have this PS on there, and I am eternally grateful. You're an amazing human being. I love you.
Wendy
Thank you. I love you too. You totally matter.
Yeah, you matter to you. We matter. You matter and you love you too.
Wendy
Like this is like the squishy love fest again.
Gretchen
We're Oh yeah, we're
Wendy
Thank you for coming and sharing. Gretchen I so appreciate your time and care and your generosity and sharing. That's a big deal.
Gretchen
Big deal. The way we all heal together
Wendy
In community, okay, I'm going to hook up your show notes because your membership is indeed incredible.
If you're lucky enough to sign up for Gretchen's one on one coaching while she's having it. Great. And like get a while you can. Gretchen is getting busy.
Gretchen
Oh yeah. Unshakable business co-lab membership includes a social component. So everybody gets to get together because I love collaboration and helping each other rise.
Wendy Sloneker
Amazing. Thank you. We're gonna talk again really soon. Appreciate you and love you.
Gretchen
Oh, I appreciate Love you too. Thank you so much for having me on.
Wendy
My pleasure. Okay, everybody. That's it. That's a wrap and come back next week. There's going to be more. Let's keep going.
Hi, this is Wendy, thank you so much for being here and spending time with me for you. Yeah, the whole purpose of walking through grief and loss is to find out how to feel better. Did you know there are tools and skills to be learned about how to do this Yeah, for real, and I do it.
Let's get on a connection call. It's a 45 minute Free call. We'd love to offer to you when you're ready. And we'll just see if we'd be a good fit to work together. If you're ready for a little more support, and not less, and if you're ready to feel a little bit better, and to find out how to learn these tools and skills I'm ready for you.
Reach out through my website. Connect with me directly through [email protected] and we'll set it up. Heck yeah, we will. Alright, till then. take really good care. Bye bye
You're listening to the Heart Healing from Loss podcast with Wendy Sloneker. This is episode 60. Hi, welcome. I'd like to introduce you to the excellent and beautiful Gretchen Hernandez. She has a business called My Freedom Grove and she does business process and mindset coaching. So you can design a business in harmony with your mental health. Gretchen, welcome.
Gretchen Hernandez
Oh, hi, Wendy, thank you so much for having me.
Wendy
I'm thrilled and a half that we are talking.
Gretchen
Oh, me too. You are one of my favorite people on the whole planet.
Wendy
Thank you. I feel the same like we're starting with like the biggest squish Fest and low Yes. Never. Nobody would ever know that we are two states away from each other.
Gretchen
Oh, I know. You think that we're in the same room just like hugging on each other.
Wendy
That's right, emotionally and mentally all day long. That's exactly right. Gretchen I'm so glad you're here. Part of the reason that I love that you're here is that we had worked together previously. But also you as a business owner, you know, firsthand what, what it is to sort of navigate through life changes that may impact a business that yeah, oh, yeah.
Gretchen
I call it Life coming in sideways. Oh, wow. Yeah.
Wendy
Yeah, say more, please say more. Yeah. So
Gretchen
I have a special way of achieving any kind of goals. And so could be business goals could be life goals. And so one of the things is identifying obstacles that come up. And so life coming in sideways can be an obstacle. And all obstacles can get resolved through experimenting. Every obstacle is either a process obstacle or mindset obstacle. And if we can resolve all of those through experimentation, then our goal we can reach and it's inevitable, it's gonna happen. And so, yeah, comes in sideways. Because we're not just business people, or just life, people like we are whole people, all of it has to work together.
Wendy
With all of our, like, soft tissue, nerve endings, meat suits, as some would say, and life coming in sideways just indicates pain to me, like, Oh, that's pretty visceral and palpable, when you say that,
Gretchen
Absolutely, yeah. And if we try to go with Nike slogan of just do it, and just, you know, keep pushing through and thinking we're being warriors, we are damaging our mental health, damaging our physical health. And we're gonna get to a point where we can't even run our businesses anymore. So I like to always remind people, if we don't take care of our mental health, our business won't matter. And our mental health can correlate directly to our physical health. And I am one of those I had a mini stroke. I have IBS from like, work, stress kind of stuff. So this has been definitely on the forefront of my priorities to make sure mental health is always good. Body's always good. And then business is always good. It just automatically happens that way.
Wendy
It just sort of falls into play. Tetris is right down when you're well, and we forget as business owners and people who have lots of responsibilities and lots of different hats inside of lots of different roles, not just the business, but we forget that we are the asset. I wonder what the assets thinking. Oh, that's me. Wait.
Gretchen
Oh, that is too funny. I would just have to remember to pronounce the X at the end.
Right.
Gretchen
Yeah, here. What is the acid thinking? Yeah, that's all said of course, in a lot of self love, non judgement, no shaming.
Wendy
Thank you. Exactly. This is not we're not here to weaponize anything like that. We can do plenty of that on our own. It's time to learn something new. Yeah. Yeah. I love what you share about experimentation that invites curiosity in and also kind of a sleuth detective II vibe. Oh, yeah. as well. Maybe a sciency vibe.
Gretchen
Absolutely. sciency vibe. I have a background as a scientist. I started off my career as a microbiologist. So I was in research and development and specifically product development around microbiology products, software heart were integrating the whole thing together. And in order to do any kind of sciency stuff, especially science products, there's a lot of experimentation that goes on, it's like, we come up with that hypothesis of what we want to create. And we don't always know exactly how to create it. So we have to experiment multiple times to make that happen.
Wendy
You mean first draft is not the final draft,
Gretchen
Never. In fact, I worked in biotech for 25 years. And the last 13 of it, I spent working at a company that makes cancer drugs. And it would take typically eight years of experimenting until they came up with the final solution for any one given medicine. Eight years of experimenting and failed experiments left and right. But they had to fail. So they could find out what the answers were for what would work. So we never know what's going to work, otherwise it already be existing. So we have to experiment.
Wendy
Right? That's such a positive way of looking at that too, rather than like, it means I really just shouldn't be in business.
Gretchen
Right? Yeah, exactly. No, doom and gloom like nobody was, nobody was born, knowing all the answers to anything, right.
Wendy
Even if you like, we're just one of those people who were able to like submit your first draft book reports. And pass them like that's different than science things for, like public health. That's definitely, yeah. Oh, my gosh, thank you for sharing a little bit about, it's such a fun thing that you are able to share stories of how you got here, and also how it relates to the business that you have now. Now, I would also love to hear, tell me about when life came in sideways for you. Because we had met several months before we started working together. And actually,
Gretchen
I think it was about nine months before we started working together. Because I was going back looking through my calendar, and I saw a connection call for us from September of 2021. Oh, wow. Wow. And I reached out to you like May or June of 2022. Oh, you made that much of an impression on me that I knew exactly who I wanted to get help with. So what happened is, so as I'm going about doing my business, if my emotional flare gun goes off, then I know that I've discovered an obstacle. If it goes off lots of times, or it lasts for a really long time, that helps me to know that it's a higher priority, especially if it starts to make me shut down at all in my business.
If I am slowing down and I can't focus on my business, or worse yet, I find myself curled up in bed for three days crying, like no business is happening on those days. And so I had actually been struggling for about three years on stuff with my mom unresolved grief with my mom that I had been trying on my own to do. And I was kind of making it through. But it was always there lingering. And I got to a place where it was okay enough that I could still be functional. But then, it was like a series of events where all of a sudden, it was like no, I absolutely need help to resolve this grief.
So one of the things in my business that started happening was grieving my clients when they would finish. And I want to celebrate when my clients finished because often they're launching brand new products, they have all of their business pieces figured out like things are working, that's a time for celebration. Instead, my poor little heart is breaking. And I'm crying. And I remember with one of them. It knocked me out of commission for four days. He doesn't even know this. He's he's back. He's one of my clients again, which I'm going to share part of the work that we did together made that happen. So yeah, four or five of them actually, because of the work we did together. I know this part yet. I can't wait to tell you this part.
So but let me go back to the beginning. So I was having all this heartbreak every time that a client would finish up with me. Well, that sucks because the nature of our business is that we don't want dependent relationships that go on for like everybody's lifetime. Although I would I would. I really do want to have everybody with me for my lifetime. But I don't want them to be dependent on me like I'm developing their skills and then setting them free like go off and do the amazing things because they're super capable, very brilliant, and now competent people now that we've worked together, so I needed to resolve that, because otherwise it's like, oh, I don't know if I want to take on any more clients and have to cry again when they leave.
And then in May of 2022, I saw on the news that Naomi Judd had committed suicide, or excuse me, died by suicide. I didn't realize how much that would shake me to the core. And I knew who she was like, I'm very familiar. I've got a crush on her daughter, Ashley. She wasn't like one of the people that I like, fan over. But all I could think was, her two daughters are going to get blamed for this. They're going to look at these two daughters and think, why didn't you do more so that that wouldn't happen? And it made me reflect on what was going on with me and my mom, and my mom is got some serious mental health challenges. And I won't go into all of the details. But yes, she was having some serious mental health challenges. And I really feared this was going to be where her journey was taking her, and so forth. So you days suicidal, so to see me inside? Yeah, yeah.
And so I went spiraling down for three days, like, I have worked through my depression a lot over the last five years, where I pretty much the result it like, it's gone. It's amazing. But this came up and boom, like, major depression for three days. And I was like, okay, the severity of that, like, how deep I fell, how long it lasted. And the fact that now I couldn't even function in my business, let alone in my life. That's a pretty major significant obstacle. Like that is a priority number one, if you can't function and you can't make revenue, because you can't function that hits both criteria for number one. So I was like, Okay, I gotta scoot myself up. I need I need some help. But I still was like, kind of stumbling along. Yeah. And
Wendy
I just like, put it, put it together stuff. Yeah. And just a tiny step forward.
Gretchen
Exactly. And like, kind of figured out in my head, like, I think I probably need some help on this. And then I got news that my dad was dying of stage four cancer, and he only had a couple of days to live. Now, the interesting thing here is that I just met my dad 15 years ago, and I'm 50 now. So 35 When I met him, and as much as I had romanticized what I thought my dad would be like, that wasn't really what he was when I met him. And so we, well, I chose not to pursue a relationship with him for a variety of reasons. But I got to meet my siblings, and we have a really great relationship, and I couldn't be happier. So when he was dying, my siblings were really having a rough time, because we've all had a different type of relationship. And none of it was like, you know, the beautiful beaver kind of like Leave It to Beaver kind of
Wendy
Thinking the word Cleaver moments.
Gretchen
There you go. Yeah. And so none of us had that. And so they everybody was going through their own kind of grief. We did like a group chat, like trying to support each other. And like my siblings went, saw him in the hospital and stuff. And that's when I was like, I'm gonna need some help. Like, it wasn't like I was trying to understand how I process grief about someone that I chose not to have a relationship with, after I had been searching for this person for over 20 years.
So it was like, it was just kind of weird. It's like, didn't necessarily had a huge amount of grief, but then kind of had a little bit of regret and was kind of questioning things. But I knew I had a whole lot of pain about my mom and Naomi Judds, suicide and about my clients. And I was like, it was just there. It was a priority one obstacle with my mom and probably like a priority to with my dad and with my clients, but combined, it was like whoa, there is nothing more important than this right now in my business.
So as much as people like to invest money in business coaches and like the next marketing thing and stuff, I knew my most important investment was in me and processing my grief. That it my mental health is most important because if I don't take care of that my business isn't going to matter. I knew exactly who to turn to. And that was you. I was so grateful you were there. Warm, warm hug. Lots of love. And I knew I was in good hands. For sure.
Wendy
I was delighted when you call me honestly, I was like, not I was like, I was thrilled it was you. And I was like, because people don't call me because like, their lives are amazing. Yeah, yeah. Oh, man, I love I would love to just like touch back on this phrase that you shared. That is 100% Gold. And that is? Tell me more about the emotional flare gun? Because I feel like that's like the tip off. That's your like, big hint. Yeah, what's coming? Like the like, what does that look like? What how do you identify that? Because oftentimes, people don't know how they feel. We aren't schooled in how to feel. So I would love to hear more about your emotional flair gun, if you would like to share.
Gretchen
Yeah, yeah, sure. So one of the things that I find is that when we ask people, How are they feeling? A lot of times, like mind goes blank, and you don't realize that there's like 700 Different words out there to describe feelings. So it's either I feel good, or I feel bad. And we can say I feel really, really bad, or really, really good. So I just decided, you know, what, instead of in the beginning, trying to figure out exactly what that feeling is to just acknowledge that the emotional flare gun has gone off.
So it's like, you know, if you imagine that you're out on a boat, in the middle of a lake, and maybe the lake is nice and calm and stuff. But you know that something is wrong, you don't know what's wrong, you just know that something's wrong. And so you're just going to send up your flare, just to say, something's going on here, in a little bit of help is needed. And so when I look at mindset coaching, because that's part of what I do, and what you do, too, is mindset coaching. We've basically hit on a thought or a belief that is unhelpful, and causing us distress. And so that emotional flare gun is my way of saying, Okay, right here, right here in this mindset, right now, with this circumstance, something isn't working. So that gives us like that location to go in the mindset and go, Okay, here it is, amongst the millions and millions of thoughts that are in there. This is the one. So that's what the emotional flare gun is.
Wendy
Thank you. That's so genius, because you don't have the pressure of having to have the words or know what it is. It's a general proximity, and a signal that Hey, little help. Yep. Or hey, something's off. Yep. Exactly. Amazing. Thank you. Oh, my gosh. Ah, so I recall working around one of my favorite things, and that was resentment melting. Oh, yeah.
Gretchen
When you told me, I do resentment melting, I wet you what, what is this? I must no more.
Wendy
Okay, it was a treat. What was your experience? How did? What was it what you thought it would be? What were the surprises? Or the takeaways?
Gretchen
Okay, so like, best exercise ever to start with, because I never really took the time to pay attention to what I was resentful for. Because I felt it. Oh, yeah. And there were times when nobody was around, that I would be around. I remember expressing my resentment. But I never want to make other people feel bad. I want to rock the boat and always like choosing like, Okay, I want to have a constructive conversation with someone, instead of just like, I'm resentful at you because I remember, right, all the states. So with the resentment melting, I didn't know what it was, but you're like, we're gonna write out every single thing that you're resentful for. And you said, you can even get petty like everything. And I was like, whoo, this is almost like a sponge full of resentment. And if I get to melt it, like if everything if I can squeeze everything out of this sponge out on a piece of paper, and that I can melt that I'm going to put a lot of effort into this because I want to get out every last little piece of resentment because, boy, resentment feels awful in my body.
So I set aside time in my schedule, because I'm like, I still have to work. What am I going to do? And I knew that writing these things out and you know, cuz like now I'm finally getting to acknowledge that the success that I would be kind of emotional and it would be hard for me to go back and support my clients in that state. So I purposely set aside Fridays, and like Friday afternoon, it was all Wendy time and homework time. And I would go out to the beach because I'm lucky enough that I live right next to the beach. And I went there because my family couldn't go there with me. Like, I'd leave them at home. And I go sit out on the beach, and I'd write out all of my resentment, and Wendy 37 pages of resentment, such as, whoa, whoa. And I was like, oh, so of course, I start judging myself like, Whoa, I am one reasonable human being like, what is up.
But what was really cool is that it kind of partnered together with another piece of your process, which was coming up with like your belief systems around loss. And as I said, it's like, I started off with a resentment melting, but I wasn't done with my list, because I'm gonna squeeze all those little suckers out, get them out. But I was able to jump to that next exercise. And so as I was writing all of those out, all of a sudden, like, those connections were being made of wait a minute, this thing that I believe it's showing up, like in seven different spots on this. And as I kept going, it was like, oh, all of this resentment is coming from these belief systems. And I know that my thoughts and beliefs are all optional.
So shoot, if I can go and decide not to believe those things anymore, or not to believe the thoughts anymore. Maybe I don't have to have resentment anymore. It was a mind blowing. And to even realize that, those different things about how to process grief had been offered to me as thought offers like throughout my life, and yeah, back then I just agreed to it. Because I was younger, I didn't know that I had the option to agree or to pass on it. But boy, it sure did hurt that I adopted all those suckers. So it's time to get rid of them.
Wendy
Oh, my gosh, so amazing. I love that. I love that so much. And I love that we like that you gave yourself the afternoons and the time away so that you know you weren't disrupted or distracted by like, what about the dishes? Or what what did they want now the kids or the dogs or the whatever? Like, you really gave yourself alone time to do this? Did it take as long as you thought it would?
Gretchen
It took longer? But it's because yeah, it was because I was so thorough it was because I decided I wanted to squeeze every last resentment out. I've never really been a surface level person. Like usually when people hand out workbooks will be shocked that like other people at my table might write down like one sentence or just a couple of words. And I'm like, Okay, here's this one question I need, I need like three more pages. So I may not be the typical person that does the exercises. But for me, it's what works.
Wendy
I love it all. And to know that about yourself, like you're here to get the most out of it, you're here to get where you came for as well. When you think about like the prospect of like, as you cast your mind back, one of the questions that comes up is, or one of the statements or beliefs is my program has recently shifted from a three month program to a year long program. And so one of the questions or statements is, I don't have a year to feel my feelings and run my business.
Gretchen
Wow, wow. For me, I felt three months was rushing through it. Like there was so much more that I wanted to do with it. It was definitely a gift for me and, and I really did want to continue because there was so much more. But that was that was what we had agreed with. And that's what I had set aside on my calendar. Right. But I think now that I've gone through it that it would have been like, yeah, sign me up for a year, I'd recommend it for a year because you never know what else is going to come up.
And so I'm going to share a little bit of the update with with me is that part of the processing for me was because I had this anticipatory grief that my mom was going to make a suicide attempt and I thought that like she succeed. So we had our sessions June through September, and I got to a very peaceful place by the end I oh my gosh, I'm so grateful for it. Because unfortunately the weekend before Thanksgiving she did attempt suicide twice. And she wasn't successful. But it was because of the work that we had done together that I was able to get through it in a healthy way.
Like, I definitely did cry, like, you know, when I found out, but I had already prepared for it, I had already processed a lot of that grief ahead of time. And so I was able to, to function, I was still able to function in my business, I was able to already make arrangements for what I would do and how I would respond. And so I was able to go and see her and be with her in service instead of resentment, which was huge. And, and so more things have unfolded, and she will be moving in with me temporarily, this weekend. But I already have like other things set for her. But none of that would have been possible if I still had all of that resentment that I had been carrying.
Wendy
Phenomenal. Yeah. So that sounds like more presents more capacity, more focus ability on like, what's coming on at hand? Is that still true in your business as well, with all of life sort of still happening?
Gretchen
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So one of the great things that you've helped me with was you connected with me on things that really helped me to learn and so I'm a big, big Disney fan. And so Disney movies teach me a lot of stuff. And so, you talked about Peter Pan and Neverland, and how, like, you know, Peter didn't want any of his friends to leave Neverland. And that's kind of how I felt I didn't want any of my clients to ever leave, like we have a really good time together.
But then you mentioned the golden ship that he has, and how he flies them back, but not with the intention that they're leaving him for good. That it's like, oh, no, they just have to go back where they came to for a while, but they always come back. And so that golden ship was to give them an excellent ride home, and let them know how they can come back. And so that imagery, it helped me so much, because being a business process, Coach, I realized I was missing a process. Step four, how would I give that golden ship to them when they left? But I couldn't have even come to that. Because before it was just my heart was breaking that they were leaving. It's like, oh, no, no, they always come back. And it's like, oh, yeah, they always come back. Because you know, different things come up at different times in business. And I can help people all the way from like their first idea, like, Hey, I think I might want to start a business, all the way up to optimizing it. And I've worked with billion dollar companies optimizing across like 17 different plans.
So it's like, I'm ready to help at any stage. So yeah, they can always come back. And since I had never really considered that part before, I didn't have a golden ship process step. So I created a golden ship process step, showing them how much I loved and appreciated them, and then how they could come back. And so like I said, at the beginning of the interview, I've had like four or five people come back since then. Because remember, yeah, since last summer, yeah. Because I put this golden ship process step in place now, and have that thought they always come back and they always do.
Wendy
They're coming back. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, yeah. Wait a pull, like you totally like, that was that was something that was sort of in passing? Like, we talked about that for maybe two minutes, and you totally went with it and used your total imagination. And what a joy.
Gretchen
Oh, yeah. And then other developments, just because it's like one of those mind blowing things that you don't see coming. So we talked about golden ships quite a lot. And one of the things that I was interpreting how I was being treated, but really, it's my own thoughts and beliefs about things, not necessarily what someone else is believing was that I was like a golden yacht, but that other people were treating me like I was this dirty dinghy boat that would never leave the harbor because I'm always trying to get them on there because I don't want them to go on their journey, because I see that their journey is not gonna give them success. And it may actually end up having a really bad outcome like what I was worried about for my mom, so I didn't want to take off because I was like, please come on, get on board. I can help you. But they're like No, no if I want to get on that, but Oh, or they get on and you know, maybe not treat it like it was a golden yacht.
So you helped me get to a point where it's like, no, I can allow them to have their journey and whatever results they were gonna have, because that's for them. I can just focus on my results. And that's okay. It doesn't make me a bad person. Because I was like, Hey, over here golden yacht getting ready to take off want to jump on board? And that if they were like, No, it's like, okay, well, you know where I'll be, I'm going to be way out there, zoom and fast, having a great time living a great life. If you want to come like, go grab a little, you know, lifeboat and zip on out there. Like, you can always come back aboard. But I gotta go. I'm not going to just wait.
And so that weekend, right before Thanksgiving, I went to this event, and was presented with an offer that would put me on a yacht. And I was like, what a literal yacht, a literal, luxury yacht. And there, it's a business trip, where there's a lot of working and learning in the morning. And then in the evening, there's either a beach party or the yacht party, because it's two different days. And so when I was shown this big yacht up there, I was like, this is part of my healing journey. Because you helped me to see that, that it's like, no, I am the captain of my own golden yacht. In fact, you had sent me a captain's hat, which I was so excited to get in the mail. And I went down to the beach, and I took a picture of me with this hat on. And so when I saw this, I was like, well, that's a yes. And it's like, I already knew that I wanted that training and stuff. But the yacht, I was like, that's part of my healing journey.
And so I might not have said yes to the training with the price tag that they had, because I can learn a lot of that stuff. But that healing, because the mental health is the most important for me. And I needed to actually experienced it, because it's like, I could already visualize that I was there. You've been doing that for almost a year. Yeah. But to actually be on the boat to be on this yacht. And I was like, what, like,
Okay, I may not be the captain this time. But I'm on the yacht, like, this is Gretchen version 2.0, which is also one of the things that you helped me to do. We did some closure letters. And so I had a closure letter with my mom. But I also decided to do a closure letter with Gretchen version 1.0. And so this is part of me really stepping into and fully becoming Gretchen version 2.0. So, oh, yeah, the all of the work that we did together, so much more keeps popping up. It's like the universe is aligning it and all of it comes back to the work that you and I did together. So I think about you like every day.
Wendy
I'm thrilled. I'm like, I couldn't be happier that I have someone so awesome. As you thinking about me. What? Oh, like, are you feeling more available for your life more available for your business?
Gretchen
Oh absolutely, yeah, the, the amount that I have been able to take on like, I'm, I took a little pause to finish up some stuff for a membership that I was opening, but part of that, like, I needed to let go of some of the scope of what I was going to put into the membership. So I had to grieve some of that, like who thinks that grieving content is like a thing, but for me, it was I took a little pause like in September where I was like, You know what, I'm not gonna take any one on one so that I can finish this up because now I can because I finally had that freedom. And because I was feeling so responsible for other people's results, but now that I had that separation between well note some people will just stay on the dock and they're okay with that. And they can go and learn in other ways. It doesn't mean I have to like bog down my golden yacht with tons of stuff.
So I had a little grieving but also the Okay, yeah, everybody gets to choose how they're going to get to their results. It doesn't always have to be my way. So I was able to take that pause which was scary financially so that I could finish all this up. But what happened is that by January, I was fully booked on one on ones again, and I have the membership with like plenty of people in it and it's it's going really great and people are getting results. So unlike all of it comes around and on top of that I was asked to be COO and another person's business and just got through doing a two day intensive where I was flown out to facilitate this workshop. And it was so good that I'm probably going to be offering those to other business owners. And I'm going to be doing a retreat at the end of April. So creating one of those. So it's like, I have more capacity to do all this stuff, because all that reason that that was weighing me down, gone.
Wendy
Down. Yeah. Yeah, good. Yeah.
Gretchen
So did I invest in my business? Heck, yeah. By investing in my mental health first.
Wendy
Yes, phenomenal. Phenomenal. Wow. What? Oftentimes, I'm wondering like what other business owners like what are they afraid of? If they're deciding that? Hey, if you feel like you're going, like, did you feel like you were grieving or feeling your feelings or feeling desperately sad? The entire three months of our program time together?
Gretchen
Oh, ha, no, I, like I said, I set aside Fridays. So Fridays, from noon on, I plan, no business activities. This was just my coaching time, this was the time that I was giving myself the space to process all of my feelings. Because I had been shoving them down and trying to make them go away for so long. That's like, No, I'm actually going to create this space. Excuse me. And so if for some reason, I didn't get to a closure for the day. I still had the weekend. Yeah.
And so I what I found, though, was that the weekends wasn't grieving, I actually felt lighter on Saturdays, and I was able to actually enjoy my life and have fun. And it was like, like, have a workout. It's amazing how heavy tears can be. Right? So it's like, once you cry them out, it's like, I lost 10 pounds. So Saturday, you wake up, you're like, I'm 10 pounds lighter, I'm walking on air. And then by the time that Monday rolls around, I'm fresh and ready to like, focus on my business again. And then it's like, if anything starts coming up, like any of the little emotional circuits and like, it's okay, I've got time right there on Friday, and I'm going to handle all of it then. Amazing that space to myself. So yeah, I think I function better in my business because of it. During that three months. Like it didn't, it didn't slow me down, it made things better.
Wendy
This is something that people are afraid of, I think is that there'll be slow down or there'll be incapacitated, or they like. So often they don't know how they're going to feel that like which is true. But it's often like the anticipation is far worse than what the actual going through it is
Gretchen
and thinking it could because they're thinking, you know, I'm going to open a can of worms. And I can't put those worms back in that can once I open it, you know, or Pandora's box. But the thing is, is that you have this process that you take people through. And so yes, there's a lot of it, where it's feeling and processing, feeling and tears and stuff. But also there's like logical process steps and data and stuff. And when things are out of your head out on paper, it's logical, it's data, you can see trends and stuff, all of a sudden, it's like, oh, it takes on a different feel.
So it's like it's not those worms going all over the place or Pandora's box. It's just data. Data doesn't hurt. It's like, oh, in fact, sometimes the data shows you that things weren't really as bad as you thought they were. And that's exactly what I encountered is that even thinking about my relationship with my mom, there was this whole relationship mapping exercise that you had me go through. And you're not allowed to just talk about all the bad stuff. It's like, no, no, this is it. We want to just look for, like the facts, the representation of the truth. But it's like sometimes we forget what the truth is, because we're like getting wrapped up in all of the resentments. So because of all of it, it was like, Oh, wait, and there was this good time. And there was this good time and this good time. And so then once you start putting it all in there, it's like, you've got the data points for the good stuff and the bad stuff. And you look at it, and you can see data trends, where it's like, whoa, everything was really good. And then poof, all of a sudden right here, things shifted. What was it about that date? And then you get curious, curious, doesn't hurt curious is just curious. So yeah, no, it it actually helped, because it's just data.
Wendy
Wow, that's kind of a neutralizing agent. If Yeah. I put hey, the neutralizing agent. Let me ask you a question about Thursday nights since you were taking Friday afternoon sometimes. There's a for me when I was in school, it was like, Sunday or if I had a Monday through Friday, JOB, I was like, Huh. To go. Did you have that or feel that around Thursday nights?
Gretchen
Oh my gosh, mine was the opposite response. It was. Oh, thank goodness. Tomorrow's Friday. I can't wait to see Wendy. I can't wait to start working on more of this because I want to get complete on all of this. Yeah. So no, I it was all good thoughts. I was probably happiest on Thursday nights knowing what was coming the next day. It's like, who gets excited about crying me? Let's get this out gets resolved.
Wendy
And sometimes there was crying and sometimes there was not. Right. Yeah. Like,
Gretchen
did you get our laughs too? Well, we shouldn't good time.
Wendy
Yeah. One other question was something that you just sparked on. And that was? Oh, how soon do you think you started feeling results?
Gretchen
Oh, gosh.
Wendy
Because this is another curiosity point of like, okay, am I gonna have to be through like, 10 sessions before? I start to feel anything move. Oh, what was your experience?
Gretchen
There was a sonic boom.
Okay, so our very first session, we're talking and you're allowing me lots of space to just get a bunch of stuff out. And I remember at the end, I'm crying, I got snot running out of my nose and everything. And I look at you. And I'm like, and I said, Thank you for allowing me to matter. And all of a sudden, I felt this huge sonic boom in my chest. Because it wasn't just that you had allowed me to matter. I had made me I had allowed myself to matter. I had decided that I was worth the investment. Because I matter. And I had always put everybody else's needs before mine. And like de prioritized myself. I had finally allowed myself to matter. And so it was like that Sonic Boom, just bouncing back and forth between our virtual chests. That it was like, Oh, my gosh, you're saying I matter? I am saying I matter. Oh, my gosh, back and forth. I must matter. Whoa, whoa, talk about a shift. That was huge. That was the very first session.
Wendy
Phenomenal. Yeah. Phenomenal. Oh, thank you so much. What have I just asked for coming in for a close? What am I what have I forgotten to ask or what have I not gotten to that you would love to share about or that you just think other listeners, other business owners could really use that information weren't? What am I leaving out?
Gretchen
I think there were some other aha moments about the different kinds of losses that we have in our life that we don't even think about yet we're experiencing. And so some of it can be a loss of mental faculties or physical abilities. And so as we started going through and talking about the different types of losses, all of a sudden, I could recognize things that I had gone through that I didn't even realize that that was the source of where my struggle was coming from, but also other people and how they may have acted at certain points. All of a sudden, I was like, oh, yeah, they had a major change in their physical ability, or Oh, yeah, they had a major change in their job or their living situation where Yeah, loss, loss, loss, loss loss.
And I also recognize how they had tried to process or not process the loss, and also how I had tried to comfort during the loss. And that was really eye opening that it's like, Ah, this could have happened a lot differently. But also, now that I'm aware that oh, all these people are going through losses and like that hurts. Okay, so now I can have a lot more love and compassion for people. But also, it gives me the ability to share with them, hey, you know, you're going through a loss. I don't know if you've processed that loss all the way through yet. And they're like, Oh, I hadn't thought about that either. So all Have a sudden, not only is it healing for me, but it's healing for those that I love my friends, my family.
And I can also bring some of that into my coaching too. And so there's multiple people that I coach that they've had loss. And so I can just point that out. But I go, go see Wendy, because this is definitely a specialized skill set that I don't have, I do something different. And I'm like, No, go to the master. And that's Wendy.
Wendy
Thank you. And like, it's also a big deal that you were seeing and hearing, like, so much of grief processing, and just allowing it to be there without making a big deal or diminishing it. But you being able to be there and witness that or point out that like, Hey, by the way, it's kind of a lot. Yeah. I really just want to acknowledge and witness that. And maybe it's like, maybe it's too late, let's shorten the step or take a different, like, load sort of thing. Like, yeah, you could sort of manage the scope differently. Yeah, exactly. Well, phenomenal.
Gretchen
Also like the acknowledging kind of gives permission to them. Because a lot of times we think that we're not allowed to, like do anything like we have to, you know, suck it up, be warriors push through, because that's what gets celebrated, as opposed to someone saying, Hey, I see you, you've gone through some loss, you know, would you like some time or you don't want to talk about that? Or go see Wendy, she's like, amazing. And they're like, Oh, you mean, I matter? Yeah. Yeah. You matter too.
Wendy
Way to like, just pay forward the sonic booms. Oh, yeah. That's so rad. Oh, I'm so glad and grateful. You, Kate, thank you for taking the time.
Gretchen
Oh, my gosh, I am so grateful for you. I'd probably do just about anything you asked me to do. Because I am so incredibly grateful to you.
Wendy
I love working with you. I love you. It's easy.
Gretchen
Oh my gosh, wait, one more. Thank you. So you have this part of your package that I didn't know about. And I hope it's okay, if I share. That is the PS. So, afterwards, sometimes you need a little bit of something extra, just you know, here or there, just little things. And so the day that I found out that my mom had made the attempt, you were right there for me. I was like, Hey, Wendy, I just got her suicide. No, I just found this out. She's in the hospital and you're like, you want to call and I was like, Yeah. And you were there for me. And that's it's such a sacred position to be in because there's not anybody else in the world that I would have trusted with me and my raw emotions because I went through all of them anger, all of it. And you know, the sad all of it. And you were there for me because you have this PS on there, and I am eternally grateful. You're an amazing human being. I love you.
Wendy
Thank you. I love you too. You totally matter.
Yeah, you matter to you. We matter. You matter and you love you too.
Wendy
Like this is like the squishy love fest again.
Gretchen
We're Oh yeah, we're
Wendy
Thank you for coming and sharing. Gretchen I so appreciate your time and care and your generosity and sharing. That's a big deal.
Gretchen
Big deal. The way we all heal together
Wendy
In community, okay, I'm going to hook up your show notes because your membership is indeed incredible.
If you're lucky enough to sign up for Gretchen's one on one coaching while she's having it. Great. And like get a while you can. Gretchen is getting busy.
Gretchen
Oh yeah. Unshakable business co-lab membership includes a social component. So everybody gets to get together because I love collaboration and helping each other rise.
Wendy Sloneker
Amazing. Thank you. We're gonna talk again really soon. Appreciate you and love you.
Gretchen
Oh, I appreciate Love you too. Thank you so much for having me on.
Wendy
My pleasure. Okay, everybody. That's it. That's a wrap and come back next week. There's going to be more. Let's keep going.
Hi, this is Wendy, thank you so much for being here and spending time with me for you. Yeah, the whole purpose of walking through grief and loss is to find out how to feel better. Did you know there are tools and skills to be learned about how to do this Yeah, for real, and I do it.
Let's get on a connection call. It's a 45 minute Free call. We'd love to offer to you when you're ready. And we'll just see if we'd be a good fit to work together. If you're ready for a little more support, and not less, and if you're ready to feel a little bit better, and to find out how to learn these tools and skills I'm ready for you.
Reach out through my website. Connect with me directly through [email protected] and we'll set it up. Heck yeah, we will. Alright, till then. take really good care. Bye bye
