The New Face of Grief with Katie Rössler

“We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.” ~ Katherine May

Guest Introduction: 

Today’s guest is Katie Rössler and I know that you are going to love our heartfelt conversation today. 

Katie Rössler is a transformative grief guide, licensed counselor, and author of the book The New Face of Grief. She is on a mission to change how people understand the hidden grief in their lives and transform their pain into empowerment.

Hello friend, Welcome to another episode of Exploring the Seasons of Life podcast.

I’m your host Cindy MacMillan, Integrative Life Coach and self-care advocate for women with a big heart on a spiritual journey who are ready to lead healthier and happier lives and improve their emotional well-being.

I interview coaches, spiritual explorers and thought leaders from all walks of life about beginnings, endings, and the messy bits in-between. Self-love, well-being, and mindset are at the heart of our conversations because once you change the inside, the outside will begin to change as well. 

In this season of the podcast, I’m inviting you to lean into well-being. Well-being takes into account the entire person, body, mind and spirit. It’s feeling good and functioning well; it’s experiencing positive emotions such as contentment and gratitude; it’s developing your potential, having a sense of purpose, and experiencing close relationships.

 Here’s a glimpse of our conversation:

Welcome Katie. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast. I’ve been really looking forward to our conversation.

6:48 My mom went to law school when I was in high school. So, I got to see her go on a different career route, like later in life. And it just reminds me regularly that even if you pick something at one point in your life, it doesn't mean you're stuck with it. And I think that needs to change in our culture is the realization that we can grow, and we can adapt and change to new careers and try out new hobbies and see if that's what we want to do.

8:02 So grief we traditionally know is related to death. But when we do a lot of self-reflection, we realize we actually grieve throughout our lives for a variety of reasons. You know, its changing identities, its health conditions, it's related to separation and the relationship divorce boundaries with family members, is letting go of who we thought we would be or where we thought we'd be in our lives.

10:43 I find that the holidays bring up a lot of hidden grief, and it comes out as being irritable, easily crying, reactive, kind of just like on edge. And you'll notice it'll start to happen even before the holiday like you know, even weeks before the holidays, you start to already get in that space, because you know, subconsciously we know it's coming, that the hidden grief is going to rise up.

13:40 The definition of grief I like to use and it's in my book, The New Face of Grief, is letting go of the way we thought life would or should go and learning how to accept how it is. And then the hope is from that acceptance, you start to allow life to happen as it's going to without the kind of strangling it, it must go this way, or it must look this way.

17:39 I highly encourage people to check in after they've written it? Is there something in there I want to share with someone? Do I need to burn this? Do I need to get rid of the evidence? Do I need to rip it up?

30:08 If you don't even have that amount of time, then it's the two-minute check in, closing your eyes turning everything off around you, I usually put my hand on my chest and sort of just rub because often we need to kind of love on ourselves too and going, you know, what do I need right now? And, listening to that voice rather than hearing it and being like, I don't have time. I don't want that.

You can find Katie Rössler at:

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IF YOU LOVED THIS EPISODE WITH Katie Rössler YOU’LL ALSO LOVE THE CONVERSATIONS I HAD WITH:

Conversation with End-of-Life Doula, Sue Phillips

Lean Into the Seasons with Barbara Friesen

Grief Comes in Many Forms with Bobbie Rae Boyer

Grief and Secondary Losses with Nesreen Ahmed

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