Menopause Awareness and Coping with Loss with Brenda Pollack

Meet Brenda, a Londoner who, at 59, has dedicated most of her career to the charity sector, specifically working with Friends of the Earth, an environmental lobbying organization. Around four or five years ago, Brenda faced a challenging period at work, compounded by issues with her eye health and the onset of menopause. This stress took a toll on her physical health, leading to a month-long absence from work, during which she struggled to eat and experienced an undiagnosed illness.

Reflecting on this stressful time, Brenda and her husband now believe it was primarily stress-related. This experience served as a wake-up call, prompting Brenda to delve into self-development, counseling, and coaching sessions provided by her workplace. Finding coaching immensely helpful, she decided to retrain as a coach and well-being trainer, specializing in mental health awareness, menopause awareness, and stress management.

Transitioning into her mid-fifties, Brenda embraced a new career path, focusing on one-on-one coaching sessions and workshops that empower individuals to plan for their future and approach menopause positively. She also emphasizes the diversity of experiences during menopause, acknowledging that each person is unique.

Brenda discusses her experiences with grief, having faced the loss of her parents,  highlighting the different dynamics of grieving for a mother versus a brother. She emphasizes the importance of dealing with grief in a thoughtful and resilient manner, drawing on the tools she has developed through her own stress management and mental health awareness work.

Having navigated grief personally, Brenda values open conversations about the universal human experience of loss. She recognizes the privilege of having had a strong relationship with her parents and aims to instill gratitude in her own children for the positive experiences they share as a family.

As Brenda approaches her 60th birthday, she reflects on the changing perspectives that come with age. Her newfound sense of purpose and the skills she has acquired allow her to view life with optimism and the belief that doors can open even in later stages. Brenda acknowledges the importance of discussing topics like grief openly and appreciates platforms like podcasts for providing valuable insights into the diverse ways people cope with life's challenges.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Brenda: I feel very lucky that I am so upset about my mom and my death passing away because it shows what a good relationship I had with them and for some people they've not had that. 

[00:00:10] Jill: Welcome back to Seeing Death Clearly. I'm your host Jill McClennen, a death doula and end-of-life coach here on my show. I have conversations with guests that explore the topics of death, dying, grief, and life itself.

[00:00:24] My goal is to create a space where you can challenge the ideas you might already have about these subjects. I want to encourage you to open your mind and consider perspectives beyond what you may currently believe to be true. In this week's episode, I talk with Brenda Polak. We talk about her transition from a challenging period in her career at a nonprofit to becoming an advocate for mental health, menopause awareness, and grief resilience. She shares her insights on grief from her own experiences with the loss of her parents, one of her brothers, and the anticipatory grief for her other brother who has now died since we recorded our episode.

[00:01:03] As Brenda approaches her 60th birthday, she reflects on changing perspectives, optimism, and the value of open conversations about life's challenges. Thank you for joining us in this conversation. Welcome, Brenda, to the podcast. Thank you for coming on today. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from originally, where you live now, anything that you want to share with the listeners to just give us an idea of who you are.

[00:01:29] Brenda: Hi. Hi, Jill. Thank you for having me. I'm Brenda. I grew up in London from a Jewish family, but not a super religious family, as it were. And I went to university at Boston Union Sussex, which is in Brighton on the south coast of England. And I fell in love with it and stayed here. So I'm in Brighton at the moment.

[00:01:47] And that's where I live and I've raised my family. I'm 59 at the moment, got quite a bit of visa, and I, most of my career, I've worked in the charity sector and in non governmental organizations. We have one here called Friends of the Earth. It's an environmental campaigning organization. So I've worked there most of my life, but about four or five years ago, I had a really stressful period at work.

[00:02:11] I had various things going on, like creating an issue with my eye health, and I was going through the metaphors and everything. Led to me being physically, I was off work for a few months, but it felt like a longer time and I couldn't eat. I was very unwell and the doctors just could not diagnose what was wrong with me.

[00:02:28] Looking back on it afterwards, my husband and myself both thinking that it was just completely unstressed and I was just, I'm done like this and it just had to come out somewhere. And it was kind of my wake up call. And you know how they say out of bad things can go out of that. doing a lot of self development work, a lot of thinking, had a little bit of counselling, and then received some coaching through my workplace that led me to book on some coaching sessions.

[00:02:54] And by the second session, I found it so useful and helpful. I thought, I was in the right place ready to be coached because I dealt a lot with the stress and everything else before that point. I decided to retrain as a coach in my mid fifties and a wellbeing trainer. And I do mental health awareness, menopause awareness and stress management now.

[00:03:15] I love what I do. 

[00:03:16] Jill: That's amazing. And I'm hitting perimenopause now. And there is definitely. An interesting thing that I feel happens as a woman where we go through those hormonal changes, right? When we hit puberty, and then we're at the age of having babies, even if you don't have babies and then coming around.

[00:03:35] So you're going through it internally, but then externally, the world is also telling you all of these things about yourself as a woman, as you're going through these different phases. And I wouldn't say it's bothering me that I'm like getting into the phase of life, but it is noticeable. And it does make me think more about my mortality where I'm like, again, those stories that society tells us, you know, once a woman hits menopause, according to a lot of society, we're worthless.

[00:04:05] We're useless. Like we're basically in the grave at that point. It's really interesting mentally still feeling like I'm in my twenties. There's still times when I go out and interacting with the world and I don't feel that I'm at this stage of life, but my body is definitely starting to tell me differently and it's okay.

[00:04:26] I'm okay with it, but it is an interesting phase. So I love that you're doing this work with women. What do you do when you work with people around menopause?

[00:04:34] Brenda: In terms of the training and speaking that I do, that's raising awareness in workplaces, making it less of a tipping subject, making sure workplaces have policies in place that are encouraging women to come forward and say, this is happening.

[00:04:50] This is what I need the workplace to do to adjust things for me. A bit like with mental health, making sure that people can speak up and to managers about it and that there's a culture there. But also with women themselves, I do a workshop which is called What I Wish I'd Known About Menopause because even though I knew I was in it and I thought I was quite an educated person about health and nutrition and things like that, I just hadn't realized the mental, the mood swings, emotional impact that, that not, not just hot flashes, but all the other stuff that comes with menopause.

[00:05:23] I hadn't put two and two together because I was going through the stress at work. My husband sort of said to me one day, you don't think this is the way you're reacting and being super emotional about things, which yes, they're bad, but you seem to be like really extra reacting to everything. You know, it has to do with those hot flushes I've been having.

[00:05:42] And I was like, well, Oh, maybe. So he helped me sort of spot it really. And I think it's the whole thing about not just talking to women, but to all people because we'd all know someone that is going through it or will go through it. I'd love to educate more younger women and men to sort of be aware before they get to that point.

[00:06:00] So that it's not that they say, Oh, and I might get a few hot flushes and that'll be it. And some people obviously sail through it and don't have any symptoms. And one of my messages is about it being. Like a positive how to thrive through menopause because for many women stopping having periods is a great thing is they've had bad experiences of that for many women.

[00:06:18] It's not like you say your mortality and to be your child bearing opportunities. One on one mantras with everything I do in my once world coaching my trainings, we're all so different. So when I do my. Menopause training. I share what I've learned and know. I give that sort of information about what it is for me.

[00:06:35] What does perimenopause mean? What does menopause mean? Just some of the basics. Even people think that they know stuff, find that they didn't really know it. So do some information sharing, but also talk about what can you do? What's in your control? What can you change? And what can you do with your mindset to sort of approach this in a positive way?

[00:06:53] What's affecting you most if you're in it and what can you do about it? So I do like one to one sessions. Helping people think about, like, sort of a plan, what's one wants to, how's one wants to be, and so forth. 

[00:07:04] Jill: I feel like there's so many times in our life where we're moving through phases in life, and we're really going through a period of grief, but we're not acknowledging that that's what it is.

[00:07:17] And like you said, we're moving out of the childbearing years, and whether that means that some of us that had children There's the grief of just leaving that time period behind for people that maybe had wanted to have children and weren't able to. There's a whole lot of grief that comes along with that.

[00:07:34] And we don't talk about grief in a way that allows people to feel okay to grieve those things because yes, there is the hot flashes and there is all the bodily changes, but there is a lot of emotional changes. And even. Thinking back to when I went from being, I don't know, in my childbearing years, but not having children, I was a little bit older.

[00:07:58] I was 32 when I had my first, which isn't old, but I had a full life going already. And then I had to change to being a mother. And there was this grief that I had to go through of leaving that other part of me behind. It doesn't mean that I didn't want to be a mother. It doesn't mean that I didn't want or love my children, but there was also a lot of things that I had to leave behind.

[00:08:22] And we don't talk about that. We don't give people space to feel those feelings of. grief as we go through the cycles of leaving one thing behind and moving into the next. Is that something that you find with a lot of women with menopause that they're grieving? 

[00:08:38] Brenda: Something only last week I was talking to somebody who's a grief coach and end of life coach, and it hadn't really sort of clicked that that's sort of a thing, like the grievings of a phase of life that you are moving towards.

[00:08:54] One of the things I reflected was when I turned 50, I didn't want any fuss made, I just wanted to head down and ignore it because I wasn't very happy about achieving that landmark age. And my husband just ignored that and arranged a little party for me. Anyway, now I'm in a really different space approaching my sixth year later this year.

[00:09:13] I have been breathing, I think, for all that I was losing, but now I'm more in a space where, because I've got this new bit of life where I'm learning new skills and I can help other people, I've got this new sense of purpose, which is very different to what I was working in my career before. It just feels like doors can open.

[00:09:33] I've gotten a new lease of life. And so I'm much more, I've gone through that, that phase, but it is very much something a lot of women will experience. So it's not only all the bodily stuff and the emotional stuff, but it is this transition of phase. And in England, we used to call it the change, the menopause.

[00:09:51] It doesn't seem to be so popularly used now. Any change, you know, certain sets of emotions and feelings and 

[00:09:59] Jill: I feel like I have heard that called the change. People in America calling it the change. I don't really remember it being talked about much. Even I think back to when my mother was, I remember hot flashes.

[00:10:14] That's kind of all I really remember. I don't. Remember her talking about it. I don't remember anything about her experience. And thinking back to when I was younger and we had our sex ed classes in school, they talked a little bit about menstruation, but I don't remember there ever being any conversation about what happens after that, like, okay, so your period starts.

[00:10:35] And then that's kind of where the conversation ended. There was never anything afterwards about The health of your body afterwards as you age, as you go through the different phases. And I am one of those women that have had, I mean, brutal is probably a good word for some of the pain. Just my periods were really, really bad, especially when I was younger.

[00:10:57] And so I am kind of actually looking forward to that part being done, like that I am ready to let go of. At least I thought so. And now every time it starts to get near it, I'm like, Oh, is this going to be the one that's not going to happen? Which I didn't expect because again, you know, I have really had a hard time with them now that there's like the reality that they're going to go away.

[00:11:23] But I think it's that holding onto the youthfulness. There's part of me that still, whether I Believe it or not on a conscious level, there's that subconscious that, well, as long as I still have that, it means I'm young and it's weird. It's weird to be there and to not really understand even why I'm there because logically I know that that doesn't have anything really to do with my youthfulness and my ability to do things in life.

[00:11:54] I'm a career changer myself at 44 and I can see myself being in this career way longer than the 26 years I was in food service. I could do this for 40 years. I could be 84 and still work with people at the end of life. But yet, there's still that little part of me that's like, Oh man, you are done. I feel like my grandma used to say, put you out to pasture.

[00:12:14] Brenda: The shocking thing is that doctors in the UK, they don't get. in the hours training in menopause, they can elect to do a small amount, I think, and that is starting to change. There's a lot of menopause ambassadors around the globe that are trying to sort of fight for more education for doctors. You know, there are better websites now that are with reference resources because the thing about the internet is you can google for hours and you need to find the right information that is scientifically backed and more than any profession.

[00:12:46] So that's what I use.  

[00:12:49] Jill: I don't think there's much resources here in the United States either, because when I started looking into it fairly recently, there was not a whole lot of information to be found. A lot of it was based off of old science, which I thought was interesting. And in some ways, it made me think of how you said doctors aren't really taught about it.

[00:13:10] Surprisingly, in the U. S., doctors aren't taught about death and dying either. Which I was really, when I learned that, I was like, wait, what? So I don't know. I don't understand that the medical community avoids the topics. I guess that makes sense in some ways that the medical community avoids the same topics that society avoids.

[00:13:31] We don't talk about menopause. We don't talk about death and dying. We don't talk about grief. We don't talk about all of these things. And the medical community goes right along with that. As a woman, I am trying to Talk a little bit about hitting perimenopause because I feel like it's important. Like you said, for younger women, I had a friend of mine on my podcast recently where she talked about letting her hair grow totally gray.

[00:13:55] My hair is growing out gray as well and not hiding it and not being ashamed of it and just embracing it and being like, no, this is what it is. I still remember my grandma probably in her late eighties, leaching, like dying her hair blonde. And then once she let it grow out, it was totally white and it was beautiful.

[00:14:13] But now my mother in her seventies has gone all white and it's beautiful. She gets compliments on her hair all the time. So it is changing. Like I can see that shift happening, but like a lot of changes, they don't always happen super quickly. Hopefully with more people like you educating and talking about what we can expect to.

[00:14:38] Brenda: We could do actually a whole podcast series all about some of the things that can happen. And one of my missions is to sort of, in my sessions, I do try to alert people to one or two like health issues that are preventable as you go through menopause, which again is not talked about much and it's likely to be not information that's out there.

[00:14:59] You need to go looking for it until something's happened. you're halfway through having certain illnesses, you might not know that it's related to menopause and preventable. There's 

[00:15:08] Jill: so much that I find interesting about this process of the phases that we go through in life. And obviously being in a female body and being at that point where I'm starting to move into that phase, it is very interesting for me.

[00:15:23] And I remember my grandma too saying when she was She died at 94, but she was like 90 years old when we moved back in with her. And I remember her saying, nobody should live to be this old. At that point, a lot of her friends had already died. Her husband had been long dead. He died when she was like 60.

[00:15:42] She got to that point where I think life had just changed enough where she was like, I just don't want to be here anymore. But I said to her, but. What is your alternative? You could have died at 40 or 50 or 60. None of those times would have been good. Think of all the things that you would have missed. I think about that as I go through the phases in life.

[00:16:02] When I do start to feel some of that, like, grief and sadness about leaving a phase behind, then I really think to myself, But what I want to still be in my twenties, what I want to still be in my thirties, there's different things about each phase in life. And leaving one phase behind, yes, it can feel sad, but there's other things that come with the phases of life.

[00:16:25] And so, grieving what you need to grieve, but then finding the things to kind of look forward to in each phase of life is important. I actually usually start off with asking about your experiences around death and dying, but then I got so interested in that we kind of just went off on there. That's fine.

[00:16:46] I mean, that's why I love this podcast. I get to talk about all kinds of stuff. But when you were growing up, Did you experience a lot of death and grief or even as you age? Like, what was your experiences with those things? 

[00:17:00] Brenda: I thought about this because I've listened to a few of your episodes, so it's made me think about it and I hadn't really thought much about it probably before.

[00:17:07] I must say I'm probably quite privileged that I hadn't faced death much before, but not before my own parents died. So I say privileged, but then it really whacked me for six years because I hadn't had much experience of it before. So when I was eight, my grandmother, my mom's mom, lived with us in our house and she passed away when I was It was all really hush hush and not really spoken about.

[00:17:35] And in the Jewish faith, children generally don't go to funerals and never went to the funeral, and they have very vague memories about it and talked about much. You know, that's the case where we refer back to Grandma did this. So it was funny when grandma did that, the rituals that you, that you do through, through phase, whatever the processes are, I wasn't involved in that, but.

[00:17:57] I don't think it affected me hugely, but in retrospect, I did have that death in the house at that young age. And it wasn't really until my mom passed away when my daughter was nearly two, so we're talking like 19 years ago. So I was like in my thirties that my mom got ill and passed away. And that just really affects me and it still does.

[00:18:19] And then my dad passed away about a year and a half after her, which is a common thing, isn't it, just to go around And it was strange because my dad had always been in a mental hospital with various illnesses. He'd been a big smoker during his life. So he had emphysema, heart problems, angina. So he'd been in the mental hospital quite a lot.

[00:18:39] And then suddenly my mom got very ill, very quick to pass away in quite a matter of months. Like that whole shock was really hard to deal with. And I had young children at the time and I didn't process it very well, dealing with it. Parts of the facts, my emotion, I'm a very kind of. Emotional person. I did cry quite easily.

[00:18:59] I cried a lot at that time. And at that time I hadn't done any personal development work or anything like that. Never had , never had counseling or anything, so I just sort of dealt with it and I'm very lucky 'cause I do have a very solid rock of a husband who's always there for me. I can talk to him about anything.

[00:19:16] Just went up and down with the grief of that. So a few years probably. But I got on with life. And when you have young children, that's, you know, and a job, you kind of sort of have that thing where you've got to get on and I'd have moments of extreme grief and then just have to pick myself up and get back on with life.

[00:19:34] That was my main experience. I found it really hard because I don't have a religious faith now. And I probably never really did. And I sort of feel like that's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, because I do feel like if you are a spiritual person or you have a religion, it kind of feels it might be not that anything's ever easy.

[00:19:54] It might be easier to sort of have that. Well, you know, mom's in the sky and she's gone to this place or whatsoever. And I don't have that. And I found that really hard. And with my mom. The big moment it, I mean, obviously was for a lot of the time, but going to the funeral, and as I said, I've been to maybe one or two funerals in my life before my mom passed away, and it was a Jewish funeral, and they have the coffin in a room at the cemetery where the prayers are said by the coffin in this sort of big room, and it's not like a wake, it's not I don't know what you're saying.

[00:20:29] But like I was in this room and people were chatting and coming up giving condolences and then they wheeled the coffin in and like this whole thing just hit me that mum was in there. I think it was quite shocking because I'd never done it before. So you know, that happened the first time when it's your mum.

[00:20:45] Quite tough because my mum and I were quite tough. She used to say, No, of course, though. Yeah, that was really tough time. And then my dad, you know, it was later. I got through it, but it wasn't something you talk to other people about. Outside of my husband, I'm not someone to bottle stuff up, so I think that helped me.

[00:21:04] I'm not somebody to castigate myself, so I'm feeling the grease. So that happened then, and then I've got three brothers and a sister, and they're all quite a bit older than me. problems were in their 70s and both my older brother is my middle and my old brother got diagnosed with terminal cancer about a year and a half ago and one of them passed away in January and that's when I got in touch with you after that because I was looking to sort of deal better so with my grief this much better what's better but so In a more thoughtful way, I suppose, in a way where now with the sort of tools and skills and resilience that I've built up through doing my stress management, my mental health awareness, and a brother is different to a mother, but it's still painful.

[00:21:47] And I know I'm going to be going through it again with my other brother. So it's like. I was looking online for things to help me with dealing and processing it better because I'll say better in quotes. And I've listened to your podcast and I've been doing some reading and I feel like I am in a better place and I'm more understanding that it is just part of the human process.

[00:22:08] It is going to happen to all of us. I absolutely love what you're doing because I'm talking about it in a more, I think when people have access to hearing what other people go through and how they deal with stuff is really helpful. And yeah, so that's my sort of experience really. 

[00:22:25] Jill: Yeah. And it is interesting that if we don't experience a lot of death.

[00:22:31] There's some things that it's like, that's wonderful. We've lived most of our lives, but then when it does happen, it can make it even harder, especially because most of us haven’t talked about it. We are sheltered from it and we can make it easier. By talking with friends and family and everybody really that death is a natural part of life.

[00:22:54] And it is sad, especially because you're right that I think if you have spiritual beliefs where you're like, well, no, I know my mom's going to be in heaven and I know that we're going to be reunited. I could see how that would bring a sense of peace and a sense of comfort. I also don't believe that.

[00:23:12] Don't always know what I believe. I'm really kind of in that place where I'm like, maybe it's possible, but I don't in my core believe that even if I am reunited in another realm with somebody that I love, yes, I guess there's still going to be part of us that's there, but it's not. going to be us. It's not going to be Jill.

[00:23:32] It's not going to be my mom's Paula. It's not going to be Paula. It's not going to be those parts of us. So I could see how for some people that could bring a lot of comfort really believing that their loved ones are going to be there on the other side. And it's wonderful that you're able to cry and.

[00:23:48] not hold it all in. That's really important in the grieving process is allowing yourself, really giving yourself permission. A lot of that is giving permission to feel what you're feeling and allowing it to flow through your body. and move it out, not hold it all in. Crying is a great way to do it.

[00:24:11] Crying doesn't work for everybody. For some people, it could be writing, it could be exercising, moving, walking, doing something, but whatever it is that works, allowing yourself to move through it. And with your brothers, especially if you knew ahead of time, like. With your mom, it's hard too because there was no real warning.

[00:24:34] It's not like you can prepare yourself, but there's still anticipatory grief. So like you said, it's coming with your other brother. So you're already starting to grieve that on top of the other grief, right? So there's still the grief from the brother who just passed away. And then there's the anticipatory grief, knowing that you're going to have to go through it again with your other brother.

[00:24:56] So there's just different. types of grief and the way that we feel it and the way that we need to process it is going to be different. And also depending on where we're at in life, what else is going on around us, you know, there's the world that we can't control. So it also affects. It's how we grieve and there's no way of getting around this, the fact that death is sad, right?

[00:25:23] When you have somebody who dies, it is sad, but it doesn't have to be as painful as we make it out to be. Have you had conversations with, I know you're one brother, you can't, but your brother that's still here, have you had any conversations with him about anything that either you feel like you wanted to have a conversation about or a conversation about death and dying, any of those things?

[00:25:53] Brenda: My brothers are quite, let's say, you know, it's very traditional. Also, Um, you know, I don't live really nearby, don't see them that regularly. I think they have been talking about that with their children and partner, you know, wives, but it hasn't been with me. I haven't been in that situation. It was more about talking about how they were.

[00:26:15] No, I did with one brother. I spent a couple of nights away with him and his wife. And then my husband's just on a trip before he got weird. We talked, he was talking about getting insurance and all this for their wives to be able to manage on the practical front as much as possible, but Niall hadn't really had those conversations because I don't know, I would say it hasn't felt like I've needed to, 

[00:26:39] Jill: And that's okay too. I mean, there's not always conversations that need to happen. Sometimes people feel like they want to have them and they don't because they're in some ways, almost like that afraid of opening the can of worms that once we go there, what else is going to come up. But if there's no reason to feel that you need to have the conversation with your brother, then there's certainly no right or wrong way to navigate through this.

[00:27:08] As long as it feels okay for you. And if you feel. I don't want to say closure is not even really the right word, but you know, as long as you feel like you're as prepared as possible, that it's going to happen at some point, then that's really all you can do, but it is hard. And then how about with your children?

[00:27:31] Are there any conversations that you've had with them about death and dying or what you want, what your husband wants, like any of those  conversations.

[00:27:40] Brenda: I mean, we haven't really talked about it in that way. My kids think I'm funny because for probably about the last 10 years, I've been saying things like, Oh, I want to do this before I die.

[00:27:51] You know, because I've been quite aware of my mortality since mine. is I'd say my husband had somebody he knew through work who died of a sudden heart attack in his 49, 50. It was kind of a bit of a thing for him and knowing people lost away who aren't old. So I've been very aware of that. And they think it's funny because I'm sort of saying, Oh, before I pop my clogs, I want to do a hot air balloon ride or something like that.

[00:28:16] They're like, mom, you're always saying about you're going to die tomorrow. And so I'm doing that partly to prepare myself, but we haven't actually talked about well, when I'm done, I won't. you to do this or that or the other. So we haven't talked about it in those terms, but yeah, it's not something we have conversations about, but also 21 and 24, sort of that age, but when they were younger, I probably didn't talk about this kind of thing.

[00:28:40] They probably should have done more. Yeah. 

[00:28:43] Jill: Yeah. It's important to have the conversations. I feel like for a lot of reasons it's important. There's like the obvious reasons of you want to make sure that you have everything prepared, right? Literally having your paperwork in order, writing down what you want, but also I think it's a really good way to connect with our loved ones.

[00:29:06] It's in a very intimate way. It's not those shallow conversations that we tend to have on a daily basis to really get into the conversation and say, Hey, you know, I'm aging. It's going to happen at some point. These are some of the things that I've been thinking about. These are some of the things that I want to happen.

[00:29:24] What do you think? Is that something that you feel like you can support me through? Is that something you feel like you'd be able to be a part of? and just have the conversations. But I'm curious too, all of the things that you've been saying that you wanted, like you said, go on a hot air balloon ride.

[00:29:40] Have you done any of the things that you've said you want to do before you die?

[00:29:42] Brenda: But the hot air balloon is on my list at the moment and we've had four attempts in the last two months and every time it gets cancelled last minute because of the weather being unpredictable. So I've got it booked again next week.

[00:29:56] So it will happen. We're all tuned on. I want to go to Sicily and I haven't done that yet. So that's on my list. Then I want to go snorkeling again. 'cause when I was in my in a previous life, pre my children tree, what helped? I did some snorkeling of the Cook Islands and the thick I think it was. And it was just the most joyous thing as I want to experience that again, and I wanna take the kids as well, them to experience it.

[00:30:21] And we were going to do that just. before the pandemic. And we keep having to put it off because now my daughter had been at university so we had times when we could do it. So still there. I probably should talk to you. I'm doing more about really myself at the moment, coping and working out my approach, and things like that.

[00:30:38] I recently read a really good book called Grief, how to Get to Grips of Grief. Um, 40 ways to manage the unmanageable and it's a really good book for somebody in England and I found that really helpful. It's a sort of book you could dip in and out from his own experience from somebody who's done a lot of grieving in his life, who's had some mental health issues around it.

[00:31:01] Partly because his dad died young, or when he was young, that's been really helpful. So I think reading and listening to other people is really good. And that could be something I could encourage my kids to do. Usually, whenever I talk to my kids about anything, yours are preteen, aren't they? As soon as they get to teens and beyond, it's like, you don't know what you're talking about, mum, or don't talk to me about that.

[00:31:21] Oh, that's embarrassing. Don't. So like, it's quite, it's better to do it when they're younger. That's what I'd say. 

[00:31:28] Jill: I do talk to my kids about death. I mean, you know, it's my job. So there's some of that where it just comes up more regularly. But I have noticed that even now, my daughter is nine and she and I, you know, we, like a lot of mothers and daughters, I think sometimes.

[00:31:48] We butt heads about a lot of things. We're sometimes just, yeah, right? I don't know the mother-daughter thing. I don't know what it is, but I love her dearly. And sometimes she can get very frustrated with me. And I've noticed now. That when I go to leave, or if she has to leave, or if we're going to bed even, even when she's really angry at me, she will make sure to say that she loves me.

[00:32:16] And I think some of that comes with this idea that she understands as best as she can at nine. That one day I'm not going to be here, and that we don't know when that day is going to be. And I try to do the same thing with her. I do the same thing with my husband. Even some friends that I have, now I'm very conscious of saying before I leave, or when I talk to them, like, you know, I love you.

[00:32:43] Because we don't know the last time that we're going to talk to somebody. And it's good to have the conversations with kids. But then of course, my kids, they want to talk about it with everybody, including their friends, where I think some of their friends are like, Oh no, I don't want to talk about that.

[00:33:00] But there's a lot of things in life that we don't talk about that we really should. And death is really. One of them. It's not gonna make it happen. Not talking about it is going to not make it not happen, right? Did I say that right? Not talking about it will make it not happen. You know what I mean. So we need to talk about it.

[00:33:20] It is hard with our children because it can bring up so much emotion. And even the thought for me of my husband one day dying, I don't like to think about it. It makes me feel really sad knowing that. One day, one of us is going to have to exist without the other, and I always joke and say he's going to die before me because men statistically die before women, even though I'm older than him so he says that balances it out so we're going to die around the same age, but that does make me sad, but also having the conversations with him and knowing what he wants, and it really gives me a different appreciation for our time together.

[00:34:04] That I really didn't have before. Not that I didn't appreciate him before, but he's traveling now a lot for work and there is part of me that every time he gets in a car, I think this could be the last time I see him. So I'm going to make the effort to make sure that I really say. Goodbye. And I love you.

[00:34:22] And all the things that I want to say. It's so important.

[00:34:26] Brenda: I do that kind of thing as well. And I'm very conscious of doing that because you don't know what's going to happen next and you don't want to have any regrets. And I suppose the thing that's made me think of is I feel very lucky that I am so upset about seeing my mom and my dad passed away because it shows what a good relationship I had with them in a way.

[00:34:50] And for some people, they've not had that, they've either not known parents or their parents have died when they were little or left home or whatever. Or there, some parents aren't the best parents. I come across people who have had childhood trauma from whatever reason from their parents. So I've been incredibly, incredibly lucky to have had what I did have with my parents and my family growing up.

[00:35:21] Jill: It's important to have that gratitude and acknowledge that and I hope my kids have that with kids as well. Yeah, that's a nice way of thinking about it. My relationship with my parents has not always been that it's ever been bad, but there's definitely, you know, there's some of that feeling that my father and I are not very close and I don't know, it's not going to change my life.

[00:35:42] Much when he dies. It's not and that's the reality and it's okay I'm at a point now where I'm okay with that But I can't imagine myself being really sad over it because it's not gonna really change much My mother and I, it's different my mother and I, we have been very close for many years. But my daughter, she will sometimes already say like, well, I want to die before you or I want to die at the same time as you because she just, she loves me that much that she really just does not want to exist without me.

[00:36:16] And I'm sure again, that'll change as she ages, but I can tell that it's because she loves me that much. And. Yeah, I think you're right that if our loved ones die and we do feel that grief and we do feel that sadness in some ways, that's a gift because that means that we really loved them and they loved us that much that there is a space in our life that will never be filled again now that they're gone.

[00:36:43] Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. I hadn't actually really thought about it that way. And that's why I love these conversations because I get to talk to all kinds of people and think about things differently. Is there any last things you want to leave us with? Thoughts about death, dying, grief, or anything about online programs or websites or whatever, whatever you want to talk about?

[00:37:05] Brenda: I suppose the thing for me is that to live your life to the fullest and be as happy as you can be given what you've got in your life is really my mission now and that's why I feel like people who are getting burnt out or stressed from work or family relationships or whatever. Life's too short to be in that constant state of stress or anxiety.

[00:37:27] And I called myself The Stress Less Coach, partly because stress was the thing that suddenly reared its head and got all consuming and made me ill. And that's what I feel like people do in this day and age, you know, in our society. On the edge is there a lot of the time and we're in fight or flight mode.

[00:37:45] I do a monthly newsletter where I give people a gentle tip or a nudge to do some kind of mindfulness or stress-busting technique, or I share a little meditation they can try out at home. So, it's not just mental, but physical things, because movement and exercise is your brain as well as your body.

[00:38:03] So I do tips once a month in my wellbeing newsletter. People can sign up for that from my website. I'm trying to get a few more people signed up, which would be lovely. I do online one-to-one coaching with people and people can find out about that through my website. People can connect with me, message me as soon as they discuss anything on any of the platforms, or email me from the website.

[00:38:24] There's a contact page and I wish people that are listening do think about what they can do to maximize and fulfill their own potential or what they want in their own lives because we are all mortal. We didn't have a finite period here. We don't know how long that will be. And I feel like the work I'm doing now, I've once one or three, my online webinars and training can be.

[00:38:46] Helping people to live happier lives, more fulfilled, content lives. It's really important to me to share some of what I've done, but I'm not expecting people to do the same as me, to share that positive as well, that things can turn around.

[00:38:57] Jill: Yes. And I will put links to all of that in the show notes. So it'll be easy for people to find them and just be able to click the link and head right to your website and your Instagram and all your stuff.

[00:39:10] As I'm thinking about the idea of. The stress and the anxiety and all the stuff that we pile on in our lives. One of the biggest regrets of the dying is that they spent too much time during their life worrying about the things that didn't matter. And that's why we're here today to talk about the fact that a lot of this stuff doesn't matter.

[00:39:33] All it does is stress us out and make us. Physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually sick. If we could focus on the things that mean a lot to us so that when we die, we can feel like we spent time with the people that we love doing the things that we love. So thank you so much for being here with me today.

[00:39:53] I appreciate you coming on. 

[00:39:56] Brenda: Thank you for having me.

[00:39:56] Jill: Thank you for listening to this episode of Seeing Death Clearly. In next week's episode, my guest is Deborah Grassman, a hospice nurse practitioner with 30 years of experience at the Department of Veterans Affairs and founder of the non-profit Opus Peace.

[00:40:14] She shares with us what she has learned from her patients about how trauma affects the end of life and about veterans’ unique challenges during their final days. Through her work, she identifies a concept termed soul injury, a wound that disconnects individuals from their true selves. 

[00:40:54] Support the show. Your contribution will help keep the podcast advertisement free. Whether your donation is large or small, every amount is valuable. I sincerely appreciate all of you for listening to the show and supporting me in any way you can. You can find a link in the show notes to subscribe to the paid monthly subscription, as well as a link to my Venmo if you prefer to make a one-time contribution.

[00:41:15] Thank you and I look forward to seeing you in next week's episode of Seeing Death Clearly.