Spiritual Matter with Martine Bachelart

“The attempt to escape from pain, is what creates more pain.” ~ Gabor Maté

Guest Introduction: 

Welcome to Exploring the Seasons of Life podcast. I’m your host Cindy MacMillan and I am thrilled you’re here.

Exploring the Seasons of Life is a metaphor for understanding the complexities of being alive. It is a reminder that life is filled with ups and downs, joys and sorrows, and moments of both growth and stagnation. Life is a journey, and each season brings its own unique lessons and experiences. As we move through the different “seasons” of life, we learn, we grow, and we become better versions of ourselves.

Each week I interview spiritual explorers, amazing coaches, and authors 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. 

Prepare yourself for another episode of Exploring the Seasons of Life Podcast with my guest Martine Bachelart. Martine and I first met over a decade ago and our conversation today is a heartfelt journey.

Martine Bachelart is a trained architect, painter, and sculptor. She moved to the United States in 1996 with her husband Eric, a racecar driver, and their two beloved children, Eliott and Emilie.

Here’s a glimpse of our conversation:

2:51 When I met my husband and we created our family and we had Eliott and Emilie, I felt extremely happy for tons of reasons. We came to the US, my husband created his team, I created a company where I organized parties for children, which I loved. With my background as an architect, I began to rehabilitate an old chicken farm, it was exhilarating because we were manifesting our dreams and passion. And I really believed at that point that happiness was granted. It was just normal; it was part of life. And of course, when Eliott my son began to suffer from addiction, everything changed because suddenly I discovered what fears were, I discovered shame, guilt. I was so sad. I realized that nothing was granted, not even life.

7:22 I wrote this book after my son passed away; I began to write this book one year after. And what happened is that when my son passed away, I was filled with immense love. Something that is almost impossible to describe.

11:30 Eliott, we will meet you where you are. We love you. And we love you always.

13:38 The answer that I found was, my grief didn't begin when Elliot passed away. My grief began 10 years before when addiction began. And this is such important information for the people who are facing and the mothers who are facing this incredible illness which is addiction. It's such a terrible illness. You live in fear, you know, it's it's excruciating. It's so painful.

21:48 Eliott was a beautiful young man in and out. Anyone that will talk about him will remember his smile, will remember his kindness.

27:22 It means that being conscious of our body, our mental process, our emotions, our habits, allow us to change, to evolve, to see out of the box, to have another perception, a bigger angle, and completely change our story and the grief, then what can I say, we change our life, by changing what we see how we see how we function, how we operate, by expanding what we allow us to see.

43:31 I want to say three things that I learned. The first thing is that when you have addiction and dependency, you usually have codependency. I was codependent, I became codependent, I showed that I could fix by controlling.

45:23 The second thing is that we not only forget ourselves. But sometimes we forget the siblings. My daughter has been so courageous. She was also, you know, powerless in the face of her brother's addiction, she tried so much to help him.

46:32 The third and final thing I want to say is that behind the behavior of the addiction, the lying the stealing, the ugly things, there is love. And I mentioned that before, love your child. Love him, don't only look at his behavior, and the addictive behavior, love him from soul to soul, because you know what you suffer, but he's probably the one who suffers the most.

You can find Martine Bachelart at:

 Website Contact Martine

IF YOU LOVED THIS EPISODE WITH MARTINE BACHELART 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