04. The Courage to Grieve: How Personal Loss Shapes Your Business

In this poignant episode, I delve into the profound loss of my mother and the complex journey of managing grief alongside running a business. It’s a raw and intimate exploration of life’s ultimate challenges and how they can dramatically shift our understanding of what really matters. Here are some key insights you can expect:

1. Embracing the Duality of Grief: Experience the spectrum of emotions, from the deep sorrow of loss to the cherished memories that bring unexpected joy.
2. Redefining Priorities: Learn practical strategies for adjusting business commitments during personal turmoil while ensuring integrity remains intact.
3. The Gift of Presence: Discover the power of being fully present in moments of overwhelming difficulty and the strength that comes from vulnerability.
4. Life's Profound Teachings: Reflect on the enduring wisdom imparted by facing mortality, re-evaluating priorities, and realigning your life with your deepest values.
5. Cultivating Courage: Gain inspiration to confront life’s most challenging moments with resilience and grace, drawing from personal and professional support.

Join me as I share the personal reflections and hard-earned wisdom from navigating the tumultuous waters of grief while maintaining business continuity. This episode is a heartfelt invitation to anyone feeling the weight of personal loss while juggling professional responsibilities—it promises to be a profound companion on your journey, illuminating the path toward growth and a renewed appreciation for each precious moment.

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Transcript

Welcome to the Courage to Success podcast.  Today is a very personal episode  for me and the theme  it's about balancing personal loss and grief and business responsibilities. This episode today is about a special  dear person that's close to my heart.  Her birthday was a couple of days ago. On the 12th of June  and it was the first birthday that we celebrated without her and that special person is my mother. 

It took me a lot of courage to record  this episode.  My mother passed away in the beginning of February and  what's the reason for this episode?  I'm asking myself, why did I want to do this?  On one side, I want to celebrate her.  And on another side, I want to talk about life. And this is part of life. Often, we want to ignore it. 

To not share it.  To pretend  that everything is fine.  What is loss?  What is grief?  There are experts on it.  Am I an expert?  No.  I haven't studied grief. I didn't went to university.  I'm not a counselor.  But I'm a human.  But I have a human experience.  My mother was a strong person. She had a strong spirit.  Really, unbeatable. 

Such a brave woman.  My mother had some serious health problems.  She had Multiple Sclerosis.  It's a long lasting chronic disease of the central nervous system.  It's an autoimmune disorder.  A condition in which the body attacks itself by mistake.  They say MS is a disease with a thousand faces And it can cause some serious disability  And it did  Throughout the years Her condition  Got worse And the last couple of days have been really hard For her and for us  Seeing a person that you care about Is really important Practically falling apart, where you ask yourself, what else? 

What else is there?  Throughout this journey,  my mother was brave. She kept going. She kept looking for solutions.  And we did find different solutions.  Some of them helped the disease, to slow down the progression of it.  Some of them helped managing the MS symptoms,  but then it progressed.  And the last year  was difficult, because I don't know how I could explain this, but there are moments where I couldn't watch her being in that state.

I don't know where she found the braveness, and the calmness to endure it. She wouldn't complain.  She had her ways of dealing with it  and we had our ways of supporting her, of caretaking of what she needed or what she wanted.  And some of the fun things  that  we used to do,  I was my mother's personal hairdresser  for many, many years. 

But up until the last days,  so helped her,  was cutting her hair, coloring her hair.  My mother loved fashion.  She loved life.  She loved living life.  And it was difficult for us to see her in this condition,  that would  bit by bit,  slowly  but surely. Reduce her mobility.  And from one health condition,  it turned into several more. 

The last year was an intense one.  There were a lot of hospital visits, procedures,  ERs,  where you didn't knew what was happening, what was going on.  She's going to make it or not.  And when she was in a good state,  we talked about life and death  and the willingness to live.  And there are moments when she said, you know, when I tell you  that I don't want this anymore.

You're going to bring me to the country.  To a different country. 

And I know what she was meaning. We had conversations around it.  And on my way back home,  I was thinking about it.  Like, is she serious?  And I know she is.  And I can not blame her. It's her moments.  I felt sad, and I felt angry,  sad that I agree  with her,  that if I was in her shoes,  I don't know that I would be able to keep going  like she did, I would've given up  much earlier. 

And the balance,  we strive for balance. There is no balance.  And when life hits you, it hits you.  Deep and hard.  Not when you want it. Not when you have time. Not when you are available. Not when you have the capacity to deal with it. When it's the right time, it's never the right time.  I wanted her to be  Here with my life journey  for many more years  but  shit on the plants and Strangely enough so when I look at the last year  I'll give you two different Perspectives when I look at the last year  and my business  my business grew  Strangely it grew  But that came down  to the processes and the things that I have done prior.

So I was reaping the rewards of that.  The last year was intense on many levels.  And I was then looking also, I knew that it's going to be hard. There was a moment  where it turned and turned in the way of we were all managing things, we were all dealing with things.  Helping, supporting, going to the doctors, the different procedures, changing medication, doing for all the different ways of how  we can support her. 

But there was a moment last year where I was  afraid,  and I felt this is serious. Right now this is serious.  And what was difficult?  about that moment is the way I'll say hospitals or doctors treat patients  when they have multiple health conditions.  It's like nothing.  I don't know how to explain this but it's like  there isn't much to do  or there is no willingness to do it. 

So, in certain instances.  I had to fight for my mother  that in those serious moments she couldn't speak.  I did not know what she had. I did not know what happened.  They were asking me, 

they were asking me, what does she have? 

How should I know? And those moments were difficult.  When you see all the care systems.  is broken.  And for me personally, there was also that one moment where it hit me.  I have good systems in my business. I have good systems of taking care of myself, of looking at things and how I can make things easier for me, how to take breaks. 

Luckily, my business allows me to structure things around it, not always, but most of the time. So I could take my work  to my sister's place and work from home,  not only work from home,  at my sister's place and I didn't need to be here in Frankfurt.  So that was,  I, later on I realized that  as a luxury.  that I had the possibility to do it. 

And I took as much time as I could  from work and worked around it  so that I could be of support to her.  Last year, late summer,  I had a car accident.  And there was the moment when I realized that I was riding high and commitments. on work,  on taking care, making sure  how I can support us all through all of this. 

And strangely enough, on that day, that afternoon, I was on my way to a lake  to meet some friends, to relax, because I needed it.  Luckily nothing happened. Nobody was injured, just the cars.  And this is where I started to look for things to take off my plate. I've started taking new clients  and new work commitments. 

I was still eager to do the things that I wanted to do.  But there was the first sign.  And the other sign was end of June,  I signed up to deliver a teaching  in, in Germany for a program. But on that week I was in the US Nashville for Mastermind. It was.  And the time difference, I wasn't even thinking, I don't know what I was thinking, but the time difference was huge. 

And the teaching that I needed to deliver was early, early in the morning. And I could get myself to bring into a certain state, but I didn't notice it. And I didn't notice it. And I didn't notice it. afterwards.  So, I did deliver the training.  I didn't like how I delivered it. They didn't like how I delivered it. 

So, what have I learned about this?  Learning to say no,  although we have said yes before, because things have changed.  And I was trying to be reliable, no matter what.  But what was the cause of it?  It wasn't worth it.  The last couple of days with my mother, I had a last meal with her.  So the meal that we had, when I was little we would go out usually  and she would bring us  to go out for shopping.

So we would, me and my sister, we would look for things, then we will go to something to eat, and then we'll decide if we wanted to buy something or not.  And there was a period of time where I would eat chicken nuggets and fries. That was everything that I ate when I was a child, when we would go to shopping.

So our last meal, we were driving, we were going somewhere, and this is what she wanted to,  to eat. And we shared that  last meal together. And my mother  is a lover of life.  She loves life. She loves fashion.  She likes to enjoy herself, to eat something  when she was in good health.  Even when she wasn't, those moments were the moments that she would cherish. 

and really enjoy.  So every time we will go out, we will go somewhere to eat.  She'll have a coffee or a beer and she will light a cigarette.  She's the type of person that, you know, smokes  every day, but it was the occasional moments that she did. And she Reminded me so many times of my grandmother, her mother,  and there was a saying or phrase that she always used to say.

So she would light up a cigarette.  She would just, you know, light it up. She wouldn't really smoke it.  And yeah.  My grandfather would ask like why are you smoking? You're not even smoking and she said that she would  respond to him  better  That the cigarette is burning than I am. So she had those Lines and one liners and phrases that would make you think, you know, what does the poet want to say?

She knew what she wanted to say.  And my mother kept sort of that tradition, like drinking coffee in my family is spending time with each other and talking. I'm not a coffee drinker per se, I don't need coffee to wake up, but I love to drink coffee.  when I talk to someone, when we go to have a deep conversation. 

So how do you live, cope, experience the process of loss and grief?  What is the impact that it has on your business?  So for me,  the work that I do,  I work with humans.  And I've learned the way how to not drain myself by other people's energies, but to focus on the things that bring me joy, fulfillment, and accomplishment. 

So anything that I could get out of my way,  I did.  With people that would help me sometimes when I couldn't do the work of how I wanted to do the work.  Colleagues  have stepped in and I'm truly grateful for them.  So,  I want you to think about the support system that you need  and that your business  can give you  when you are in a situation like this. 

It can be a challenging situation in your personal life.  And think about what are the processes that I can create that can help me  to sustain my business,  to keep the work, or to deliver the work, or what other ways I could deliver  the work.  Because when I tell you the balancing, or the challenge of balancing it,  That is a failed attempt.

There is no way to balance it out,  because that state, you never prepared for that state.  It will consume you.  It will have impact on your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health.  Sometimes you won't sleep.  Sometimes your mind will be in a state. When you ask yourself, like, where are you,  what is going on,  and what is the way and how you can listen to yourself  and the needs that you have to go through it,  to endure it. 

And in certain moments, you need a lot of courage to not quit, to not run away, to not hide.  Look for ways and how you can support yourself.  For some of you is,  there's a conversation with somebody else.  For some of you, it's a conversation with the person. 

You know how they ask you, or when somebody passes away,  and they ask you, you know, is there something that you wish  You have said them.  And I can say,  I don't.  Because I said everything  that I needed to say.  We had an open dialogue about all the things.  Was it easy, no it wasn't.  Talking about, you know, life,  death, with your mother, no it wasn't. 

But what I can say is that I'm truly happy that I decided to be part of her life  as much as I could  in the last phases. I don't have any remorse,  I don't have any doubts,  and the cocktail of emotions. It just comes in waves, sometimes there are waves of happiness and joy  when I think about what am I taking with me, and what has she taught me, or what has her life experience taught me,  what is the sadness about, and the other piece of it. 

When you are sad.  That the person is not there anymore.  That you wished it was.  And finding,  hm,  comfort  in that.  When I think about my mother's condition,  it was a horrible condition for any human being to be in.  And I am happy that she isn't suffering anymore.  But am I sad? Yes I am.  Because I wished and hoped that she would be  For many more years  To stay with us  And in those challenging moments we seek control We'll look at certainty  What can we control? 

What can we not control  So the only control that I had  was about my business  How much am I willing to spend time in my business? How much time am I going to give to caretaking of my mother and supporting her? And what are the things that I cannot control? I cannot control her condition.  Sometimes I wanted to be of help, we wanted to be of help,  but  we couldn't. 

As they say, That MS is a disease with thousand different phases.  I've seen many. I've seen many. And it's astonishing how much pain and suffering a person can endure through all of it.  And to give you an example how I made decisions on what to prioritize, I was looking at things when  I would be most useful to her. 

and to my sister  and to be in those moments there  and sometimes just being there was enough  sometimes being there wasn't enough  and you're trying you're trying to make the right decision  but the right decision is not always available  so the journey of losing someone that you love  and grieving that person. 

And not only grieving what was, but you're also grieving  what could be, what should be, what you wanted it to be.  At a moment you catch yourself, you catch yourself  with thinking as a person who was still there.  And how do you let go  of it? I think you don't let go.  Like, for me, what I can say is, whether she is physically here or not,  I still talk to her. 

I still have access to her.  I feel her spirit,  and I know that I can reach out. But the ego, for the ego, that isn't enough. It always looks for proof. It looks for ways.  And it wants, it wants something  that it cannot get.  So what helped me coming to terms  with this whole situation was slowly  by slowly allowing it to reach me.

Allowing me to realize what truly is and what isn't  and what I have learned  in all of it is to look even closer into my  own life  into my own business  And really examine How do I wanna lead my business? How do I want to live?  And am I Really living the way that I want to  And if not, what would that look like? 

And that process is not linear.  I invite you to be gentle,  and to be curious with yourself.  You are the expert  on your life, on  your life experience.  There isn't a specific way how to deal with it,  but there is yours.  And I invite you to think about  How do you want to navigate it?  I'll share some strategies with you  that are helping me  when I think about  what would my mother  want me to be?

What does she want from me?  And what is the life lesson that she has taught me? And what is the life lesson that her life is teaching me about my own life and being curious? around those moments and fragments that come up to the surface to be seen, to be heard,  to be understood, loved, cared, be gentle with yourself, create a support system, support system with people around you that can help you  with finding your process, finding your way. 

And in regards to your business,  what are the things that you have control over?  Are certain things temporarily? What things can be shifted,  can be changed, modified?  What is the system that you can create and who can help you create it? Because sometimes  we want to do it all by ourselves, but that's not what life is about. 

That's not what the journey is about.  So before how, who can help you  with the how?  Wish you a beautiful rest of the day.  And one last thought before I let you go.  Ask yourself, who do you want to be  now because of this?  What is the impact that it has on you?  Your life  and your business,  what truly matters now,  sit with it,  be compassionate,  gentle,  curious,  listen to your thoughts,  your sensation,  your body,  your voice,  your demeanor, 

it will start showing itself.  I'm showing you the way.  I'm sending you strength,  support,  and above all, courage.  Courage is calling.  Do you hear it?